Future Web

This Wired article about the Facebook/Google war makes for fascinating reading. It boils down to one major difference.

"Today, the Google-Facebook rivalry isn't just going strong, it has evolved into a full-blown battle over the future of the Internet—its structure, design, and utility. For the last decade or so, the Web has been defined by Google's algorithms—rigorous and efficient equations that parse practically every byte of online activity to build a dispassionate atlas of the online world. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions a more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline. In Zuckerberg's vision, users will query this "social graph" to find a doctor, the best camera, or someone to hire—rather than tapping the cold mathematics of a Google search."

And that ties into some thoughts I've recently had about why I like Facebook.

I don't see why both aren't and can't remain relevant, although that might just be my middle-aged perspective and the younger generations might see it much differently. I have two online personas: the mostly anonymous one you see here who also hangs out on message boards, blogs on LiveJournal as well as on Blogger, who uploads pics and joins in on discussions on flickr, tweets updates on Twitter, catalogs her books on Library Thing, and generally roams the web at my leisure & the real me who has a Facebook account that she protects behind restrictions and filters. And while there are people who know me on real life who also read my more anonymous blogs and look at my online pics, I keep ShellyS and the real me as separate as possible. My Twitter tweets show up in sidebar widgets on my blog, but not on Facebook, letting me be a bit more open as ShellyS where certain people aren't likely to find me.

Sure, I have friends on Facebook I really don't know, and I've created friend filters to keep them out of the loop for most of my updates there. I'm friends with them online only. But I've discovered I enjoy the ease of use of Facebook to keep up with real life friends I rarely if ever see in real life. Email is tedious. That sounds so strange, given it takes almost no time at all to go from my gmail account to the recipient, and yet, it requires me to actually write emails to individuals, many of whom I don't have that sort of friendship with. Mass emails are so impersonal and might be interpreted as spam by some email spam filters. Just sending more than a couple of photos at a time to an Earthlink account can cause it to bounce back. And once I do email, I have to wait for a reply. It's just like snail mail, especially if one or both parties aren't the swiftest when it comes to replying.

But on Facebook, I can put pics in albums, tag 'em for my friends on FB who appear in the pics, and they'll get alerts that there are pics to see. I can even leave a status message announcing new pics are available. )I do have my flickr account notify my FB account of new uploads, so there is some overlap, but nothing from FB to other sites.) And I've found I'm more in touch with the few real life friends on FB than I ever was before, provided they, too, use it. I can play word games with them, compare quiz results, indicate I like something they posted, leave comments on their posts and uploaded pics, and generally "be in touch." And they can do the same with me.

Unlike my Twitter page, which rapidly fills up with updates from over a hundred tweets I follow (not unlike all the blog feeds I read over on Bloglines and my LiveJournal friends), I keep my FB newsfeed restricted to the friends I really want to keep up with and the graphic design makes it easy to see not only who's updating (w/avatars, same as on Twitter's site), but with graphics for the various apps, groups, fan pages, etc. Both Twitter and FB have mobile means of updating and reading updates, as well. But I use Twitter to keep up with online friends, real life friends who use it (not many), and actors and other "celebrities" I enjoy knowing about. With Facebook, it's real life friends, plus some groups and fan pages that interest me. There is some overlap as I compare the services and learn how they work best, but mostly, Twitter is for ShellyS and FB is for the real me, if that makes any sense.

FB is fast and easy and people don't have to respond to what I post, but it's nice when they do. But I'm as apt to Google for information, or use trusted, authoritative sites, or more so, than I am to ask a friend on Facebook. So it might be a generational thing and maybe someday, FB's way will be the only way that matters. But for now, I think there are enough of us who enjoy the anonymity we can have online that lets us reach far beyond our sphere of influence while retaining our privacy for Google's way to stay relevant. At least, I hope so, for the next few decades at least. After that, I might just be too old to care.

~~~o0o~~~