Comments on: Facebook: How open should they be?

By: Chris Ward

Chris Ward — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 21:39:26 +0000

I think it won’t be long before we get a ‘Facebook Virus’ or ‘OpenSocial Virus’, rather like the runaway self-replicating rings which affected SecondLife a while back (or the runaway electronic Christmas Cards which jammed up the IBM internal network in about 1983).

It will probably have the effect of mashing up everybody’s profiles, and contact lists; and manufacturing the odd few million extra fictitious people. It’s likely that the APIs will be open enough to allow that to be done; and it will be done, most likely by someone playing, probably with no malicious intent. Like a learner-driver accidentally causing a highway pile-up.

So, keep a backup of whatever you submit; be ready to reload from backup; and don’t submit anything you’d like to stay private. With those ground rules, people should be OK.

Business model ? Well, people sell all sorts of things for all sorts of prices.

By: Business Nazgul

Business Nazgul — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 17:58:27 +0000

Be more creative about business models.

A business model idea, a small subscription fee paid by the user/customer instead of using ads.

By: Bob Sutor

Bob Sutor — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 17:52:19 +0000

Nathan, right you are, and I should have mentioned that. That said, I usually go to LinkedIn to accept invitations and then move on to something else, somewhere else.

By: Nathan T. Freeman

Nathan T. Freeman — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 17:42:45 +0000

Bob, you would find a LOT of people you know on LinkedIn. IBM has a sizable population there. And it’s more professionally-oriented than Facebook. (There’s no definition to say you know someone because “we hooked up,” for instance.)