Amusing how wrong my Facebook post was - I actually hadn't taken a look at the new features extensively before posting that - that post was more in response to the way they had rolled out photos a year ago, their developer's API, their "status notes," and other features like that.

This whole new "news feed" uproar IS very amusing though. Matt pointed out that people are discovering "protest" groups *through* their news feed and then joining them.

Dave Winer gets it (partially) wrong though:

Then the city changes the way traffic flows, you still put out the bowl of fruit and your gate is still open, but now instead of 20 people passing your property, 2000 people pass. And you only know 20 of them! Now your yard is filled with strangers, people with odd habits. The same rules apply, your gate is open, all passers-by are welcome, but the result is very different. Someone should have given you a heads-up letting you know this change was coming. Maybe you would have put a lock on the gate and given keys to your friends.

Facebook's new features doesn't make it any easier to see strangers, or to expose your Facebook to more strangers - it makes it easier for people you explicitly list as friends to visit your Facebook. The reason this is a problem is because Facebook offers no granularity to "friends." A person is either your "friend" or he/she is not. This poses a problem as people add hundreds of aquantainces - but again, they chose to add these people as "friends".

Let's just get this fact out of the way: College students have no concept of privacy online. That's why students post retarded pictures of them being drunk (underage, too, good god) on these public websites - they have some notion that because not everybody can see it, it's somehow "private".

The reason why Facebook's news feed has been deemed "stalkerish" is overloads you with senseless details about your friends. For example, if I were to remove "Grey's Anatomy" from my "Favorite Shows" list, it would show up my 200 friends' "news feed." That is senseless, and it just adds to the whole "stalkerish" feeling. Here's another example from my news feed right now:

Facebook offers a feature called "Wall-to-Wall," where YOU can leave a message on somebody else's wall for THEM.

So why does it show up on a news feed? Why would all my friends want to be notified that I left a message for somebody else? These are the types of features that are showing up on "news feed."

Another reason this feature sucks is because it has too many negative features. It tells you when people break up (when they change their status from "in a relationship with ____" to "single"). It also tells you when you leave groups, and what items you remove from your profile. It's like when you're at your friend's party and you want to slip out - it used to be the case that you could just leave quietly without anybody noticing. Now there's a megaphone at the door saying "ROY KIM IS LEAVING THIS PARTY." A total bummer, and it makes me feel out of control.

The whole "Sharing of Information" and "Information Aggregation" is great, but people don't want to seem like they're updating their Facebook's all the time (which they really are). My suggestion for Mark and the Facebook crew:

Don't track any profile changes in your news feed. Track as people join groups, as people add friends, and as photos are tagged to people. Remember that these are all social networking features; highlight those networking features. And it's astounding that you still don't get it. The point isn't that the proper "privacy control" features weren't built in - now everytime somebody updates their profile, they have to delete the notification. That is extra work. That is a bad system. The fact that by default, it tells everybody everything you did is BAD. Leave the features off, by DEFAULT.

An interesting related note: Xanga was fined one million for violation of the COPPA: I didn't know anybody actually took that seriously. So now 13-year olds have to take the extra step of hitting the "I'm older than 13 checkbox" AND providing a birthdate that is older than 13 ... wow, that's really protecting them.