The Social Impacts of Facebook going public
Today Facebook announced that it will allow Google and other search engines to crawl it’s index pages. Previously, Facebook was a private network.
What’s the big impact to society?
For most folks (non-bloggers), when someone searches on their name (perhaps at the next job screening) their Facebook profile could come up higher than their business LinkedIn profile.
Brace yourself, personal and business lives are colliding.
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Or, you can opt out on Facebook, thereby keeping your LinkedIn profile primary in the search engines. In my case, I’ll always be second fiddle to the actor in Google. Right now, my blog is #9 for my name. 18 of the top 20 in Google are links related to the actor.
You probably don’t have that problem
It’s not like the Facebook public profile provides any useful info. If they are searching for you, they already know your name, and probably know what you look like. The LinkIn public profile can provide a lot more info about you if you so choose. I imagine Facebook will eventually have a way to customize the public profile view.
COD makes a good point. Facebook has gradually been adding more customisation to profiles and what they show, but what will be visible to the search engines must be a matter of concern to some users - its just that they might not realise until somebody (boss? mum?) sees something in google that they shouldn’t have. And the default will be visible to search engines. I wonder how many users logging in today have just dismissed the message without really reading it?
Worlds colliding, indeed. Facebook seems to be opening in a very “strategic” way. First get the college audience, then open it up to more (early adopters) and then to everyone. Then open up the platform to developers. We’re starting to see the real beginnings of monetization at month 3 (Videoegg being a great example) and the feeds started to stream. Now comes the public profiles made public (search engines). I think profile customization is just around the corner.
Did you see Danny Sullivan’s post (http://searchengineland.com/070905-095657.php)? He writes that this isn’t new anyway, that people weren’t aware (ie. Jeremy’s point - they just weren’t looking). And that profiles were already indexed. Great read. I’m indexed under my name and my persona (jquig99) - but no Facebook listing that I can see. Guess I’ll see what happens in a couple of weeks.
I’m waiting to hear the story in the New York times of some recent college grad who forgot to edit and update his profile –removing him from a potential or current job.
Those profile pics in Tijuana just don’t do well in corporate.
This was from a couple of months ago -
http://urltea.com/1erp
“I’m waiting to hear the story in the New York times of some recent college grad who forgot to edit and update his profile”
did you not see this video I sent you? about College athletes/students + wild behavior + Facebook
http://tinyurl.com/33y3zq
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With the stringent privacy options the Fbook team has put on the public profile, most people will only see my picture and where I go to school, so anyone looking for the ‘juicy stuff’ has to add me as a friend anyway…and as long as people keep from putting their drunken madness pictures up for profile shots, I think it will all turn out fine (plus, didn’t you hear? The new secret is that Facebook is the new LinkeIn!)
Interestingly, this post made me realize I haven’t Googled myself in quite some time…it is always so interesting to see what is out there! My top 5 results were my personal blog followed by my profiles on Ziki.com, LinkedIn, Mashable, Twitter
(my facebook profile come sin at number 11)
Just to echo the sentiments of the other commenters on this post — this latest development will force people to take a longer, harder look at their FB privacy settings. For those that set up their profile 1-2 years ago with a list of everyone that they “randomly hooked up with”, start editing that newsfeed!
I agree Andrew and others with the sentiment that Facebook’s existing privacy rules make this a non-issue. Furthermore, the backlash Facebook received around activity feeds taught many a lesson that any actions taken on the internet should be treated as public.
That being said, while Facebook does a better job with persona management (via finite privacy controls) than most sites, I believe the means by which other members can associate your profile to their uploaded media (via tags) is dangerous.
Julio, thanks for this. I guess privacy controls don’t really matter when the press is snooping around.
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Business collides with personal
Reminds me of that Senator over there tapping his left foot ( or was it his right )
Whatever goes up on your PC is surely potentially open to the whole world, regardless of what one is told. Employees might collude at a bank to release your details ; criminals might target a data handler ; the red army might come after your facebook profile while also attemting Germany, UK and the Pentagon.
Is it really a big deal ?