Elsewhere on the web you can see fancy two-dollar words like “lifestreaming” and “the social graph”, but there will be none of that here — this is the story about how Facebook almost hijacked the internet, and how the internet fought back.
I got my first invitation to Facebook from one of my students in early 2006. I was already a reluctant member of that visual disaster otherwise known as MYSPAYZ!!1! and didn’t think much of Facebook, either. But as more of the people I knew hopped onboard I began to see some value, and soon I was busily posting cat videos, RSVP-ing to events and, of course, poking people.
And lo, did the great migration to Facebook continue… Youngsters who had never had an online voice of their own suddenly became prolific content creators through their uploaded media. I had one friend proudly proclaim to me that Facebook was “so much better than a blog” — in fact, I would argue that for many of my online friends their entire internet experience takes place within the confines of Facebook.
And that’s bad.
First of all, it’s next to impossible to get stuff out of Facebook onto the public internet. There’s obviously a lot of material I see on Facebook that’s never meant to be seen by strangers, but there’s also a lot of good content — promotional photos from live shows and uploaded short films, for example –– that would have a lot of value beyond the creators’ immediate circle of friends. And this internet is supposed to be about sharing, right?
The second issue comes with the fact that Facebook arbitrarily deletes content as it sees fit. Here’s a snippet from their own terms of service:
You understand and agree that the Company may, but is not obligated to, review the Site and may delete or remove (without notice) any Site Content or User Content in its sole discretion, for any reason or no reason…
Not exactly an encouraging environment for contribution, is it?
Fortunately, the real internet for grown-ups has struck back with free services which, on their own, might not be Facebook-killers, but together can duplicate the Facebook experience outside of Facebook.
And that’s good!
Status Updates, 0wn3d by Microblogging
The first unique feature I saw in Facebook was the status update. Entering a short blurb about what you were up to in a particular moment gave you an immediate and recurring presence on the network, reminding your friends that you were still alive.
Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce and the like do the exact same thing, with the additional benefit of giving each short message its own page on the web, available to be found by a Google search!
Posted Items and Media, 0wn3d by Digg, Flickr & YouTube
The links you can share via Facebook’s Posted Items is actually pre-dated by Digg, the world’s first social network for sharing links. Other services like Reddit and StumbleUpon have since joined the fray.
For uploading media Facebook has one advantage in that you can tag your pics and vids with your friends’ names, alerting them in the process. But let’s face facts: Anybody who’s serious about photography has an account with Flickr, and the overwhelming majority of internet video is uploaded to YouTube. End of discussion.
Events, (almost) 0wn3d by Upcoming
As an active member of the local comedy community this is probably Facebook’s most valuable feature to me. Not only am I informed of upcoming shows, but I can see who else is going so I’ll have someone to sit with.
But what happens when I’m travelling to another city, or country even? Upcoming.org picks up where Facebook falters, offering a global directory of events organized by people I know, and perhaps as important, people I don’t.
I’ll have to concede that for now Facebook still holds the upper hand, but all it will take to shift the balance of power to Upcoming is to get more people using it.
The Wall, (soon to be) 0wn3d by Disqus (?)
Facebook’s wall is akin to the comments on this here blog — it’s really nothing more than a public conversation, except that on Facebook it ain’t public.
The promise of Disqus is a centralized source for all your comments posted across the web, and will be huge if more blog services join in… Are you listening, WordPress?
Newsfeed, 0wn3d by FriendFeed, MyBlogLog et al
The Newsfeed is widely regarded as Facebook’s killer feature. Everything you put into Facebook shows up in your friends’ feeds, without them ever having to leave their own page. But the feed is also Facebook’s most closely-guarded property. It’s almost impossible to get things out of there into the internet proper.
Fortunately, aggregators like FriendFeed and MyBlogLog (and others) can duplicate a Facebook-type feed of all the other previously-mentioned services out onto the public internet. This has transformed my own domain from a fugly static splash page of links into a dynamically-updated centralized source for everything I’m doing on the internet at any particular moment.
I’ve chosen to deploy both simultaneously for two reasons: (1) Redundancy – if one goes down the other will hopefully still be up, and (2) Whereas FriendFeed is primarily an aggregator of online activity, MyBlogLog’s primary mission is to build a community around your blog… That’s why that big green badge is there in my rightmost sidebar — feel free to sign up!
Another advantage of using an aggregator is that I can spread my feed out to other blogging platforms, like Blogger, Vox and Yahoo! 360°. This may seem pointless duplication, but you never know how people will find you!
So if, after reading this, you still want to keep to the walled garden that is Facebook by all means do so — just remember, Facebook is not the internet!
