Week 14 - Facebook & More

Assignments from this week focused a lot more on Facebook specifically, and how it functions beyond that of just a website where people can share thoughts and ideas, keep up with old friends and family, etc.  This week we learned about the Open Graphs initiative, event though the original idea was introduced in 2010.

This concept of open graphs is an idea that interconnects websites, software, advertisements, music and people on a sub web created by tracking and analytics.  Facebook specifically wants to create a Facebook Open Graph by linking itself with other sites outside of Facebook.  Allowing people Facebook functions on other web pages allows the website operators the benefits of full Facebook analytics while also, however, allowing Facebook information about every site visitor in great detail.

This works by websites adding Facebook log-ins to their sites - apps do it too.  A lot of people are reluctant to sign up on new sites with new usernames and passwords they may forget, on sites they know nothing about.  Many people feel safer using their Facebook log-in information in lieu of creating these new accounts.  This works to everyone's advantage in the plan for the open graph.  Sites may be more likely to get new users, including the consumer demographics, and Facebook gains consumer insights.  The pattern continues on multiple websites across multiple genres and boom! The open graph is formed.

Though Facebook isn't the only large analytics company on the Internet gathering mass amounts of data, it is doing the best job of seamless, seemingly nonintrusive collection.  Google gets amazing amounts of information, but doesn't have access to every consumer's demographic information - because that requires a log-in.  Hence the reason Google+ was formed.  Google+ is basically a version of Facebook that was created as a social platform but collected demographic information about users for their profiles (which is the main advantage Facebook has over its competition).

All in all, Facebook does  a lot more than act as a landing group for sharing thoughts and pictures while staying connected with friends.  The larger it gets, the more trusted it becomes, and the better it gets at collecting data that can be recorded and expressed in ways that deliver customized web experiences to consumers.  The footprint is growing, like it or not, and some believe it could be problematic.

In a nutshell, anything that alters the presentation if data to appeal to on person specifically is changing regularly programmed content and censoring it by narrowing it.  Any alteration that limits information is censorship, and censorship holds extreme powers of control.  That's not excellent.  While a customized web experience sounds like a good idea, I'm interested to see what parameters are created and enforced in the near future as a result of these processes that will limit the power of large web conglomerates.