I love Facebook. Check it several times a day.
Wherever I travel, most laptops and netbooks are opened to Facebook.
Women, in particular, can’t resist.
But the company is evil. Facebook watchers pretty much all agree on this:
… “the act of creating deliberately confusing jargon and user-interfaces which trick your users into sharing more info about themselves than they really want to?” …
MSNBC – Facebook: The ‘Evil Interface?’
10. Facebook’s Terms Of Service are completely one-sided
9. Facebook’s CEO has a documented history of unethical behavior
8. Facebook has flat out declared war on privacy
7. Facebook is pulling a classic bait-and-swit
6. Facebook is a bully
5. Even your private data is shared with applications
4. Facebook is not technically competent enough to be trusted
3. Facebook makes it incredibly difficult to truly delete your account
2. Facebook doesn’t (really) support the Open Web
1. The Facebook application itself sucksGizmodo – Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook
EFF – Facebook’s Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline
Matt McKeon – The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook
The Consumerist – Facebook’s Privacy Settings Are Actually “Evil Interfaces”
NYT – Facebook Exodus
CNET News – Understanding Facebook’s privacy aftershocks
If you are as tech savvy as Luke Appleby, and tweak your privacy settings every time Facebook rolls out a change, then it’s no problem. He’s one of the very few defenders.
If you don’t like Facebook, wait. It will be as popular as MySpace in 5 years. My feed is already so bloated I’m tempted to start over with a new account.
Something will replace Facebook.
But what?
I want a service:
• open source
• non-profit
• privacy ON by default (only “friends” can see anything)
• no ads
That service would operate something like Wikipedia.
The business model, on a very small budget, would be to charge companies a tiny fee when users voluntarily friend them. For example, I would “friend” MEC, REI, and International Gymnast magazine … Each time one of those companies posts to my feed, they would have to pay a tiny fee.
The closest we’ve yet seen to what I want is Friendfeed. Here’s my feed, as a sample. (I only have 30 friends there, so don’t use the service.)
Unfortunately Facebook bought Friendfeed, and stopped adding new features.
Google is the company you’d think could quickly lure 50 million or so Facebook users over to a better competitor. They recently tried with Buzz, but that’s been a big FAIL, so far.
If I was to join a start-up tech company, it would be to launch a Facebook competitor. Optimized for smart phone / iPod updates.
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Update: The brilliant Jeff Jarvis linked to a Facebook alternative called Diaspora.
It’s only a proposal at this stage, but it’s certain I’d stop posting to Facebook. And switch to the Anti-Facebook, Diaspora, should it come to be.
Rick McCharles 
Pingback: Facebook is EVIL … alternatives? — Gymnastics Coaching.com
Rick, didn’t know you had another blog besides your hiking site!
I will support strongly a viable alternative to Facebook.
That said, I’ll likely stay on Facebook because it is useful for publicity for my various writing projects and for connecting with people.
I’m fairly comfortable with being public on the Internet, and I never post anything on the Net (including Facebook) that I don’t want others to see.
The problem is that not everyone on Facebook understands how public their activities there are, and some are going to get burned.
Facebook and Twitter are increasingly marketing services. At least that’s the case looking at my feed.
But I really would like a “social networking” site, just for my friends. In addition to FB and TW.
There’s a lot of support for a new social networking site called Diaspora, still in the planning stages.
I agree about Facebook, especially #9 and #1. Have you ever tried Google’s Buzz? If you have an existing gmail account then Buzz is very easy to open up and start sharing.
I’ve looked at Buzz.
But none of my friends are posting there, sharing photos, videos, or events.
I wish they would.
What do you mean Facebook will be as popular as myspace in 5 years? It already is… its WAY more popular in terms of users and visits … Myspace is dieing a slow and painful death with its outdated system and clunky website.
I mean, PaulK, that Facebook will exist, but will be dying in 5 years. As MySpace is dying now.