So, Zuckerbaby announced the end of the web we know today and the coming Facbookification of everything on the Web. Well okay maybe not the whole web – yet; but damn near close to it.
So just what got announced this morning in Zuckerberg’s keynote speech?
Well besides the fact that the overall tone was one of open this and open that there was lots of talk about how Facebook believes that the Web is at a turning point and that everything is going towards some form of a social web; which of course will be driven (and collected) by Facebook.
The major policy change that he announced was that Facebook would be doing away with their 24 hour caching restriction of user data by developers interacting with Facebook which there was a resounding chorus of cheers for.
Next up was the beginning of the sales pitch with talk about the hot buzzword – Open Graph. Yes people Facebook believes strongly in the Open Graph – well as long as they have an incredible number of hooks into it.
Those hooks of course have a really nice name of Social Plugins but the interesting thing is that those plugins are being delivered via Facebook controlled hooks. Of course this is all being couched in the warm and fuzzy idea that rather than the information being pulled into Facebook it is being pulled out.
Sounds really nice doesn’t it, except that the information is being transferred both ways. Yes you might like the idea of being able to display all the likes from the friends of those people currently viewing your site but at the same time you are sending information back to Facebook about those people reading your site’s posts.
As much as today’s announcements are all being phrased around the idea of the social web the real purpose is to extend the reach of Facebook beyond just people who are registered Facebook users. This is about inserting Facebook throughout the web under the auspices of socializing the web. This is all about creating the world’s largest database of profile information that is constantly being updated which could end up making Google’s massive index look small in comparison.
It’s all about the money and to increase the pressure on us to change our perception of what privacy is.
