Sunday, December 26, 2010
What Facebook Can Give Back To The Web
In Time's Person of the Year 2010 article on Mark Zuckerberg, one fact shouts out to me above all others: 1 in 4 Web pages in the United States is now viewed behind the walls of Facebook. I enjoy Facebook and would be happy spending a quarter of my Web life there, if I could leave Facebook for the other 75%. But even if I log out completely, most of the Web's most popular sites are tied to Facebook, through Share or Like or Connect buttons. Facebook is not just another Web site: it is a service that "Facebookizes" every Web site it touches, making me bring all of my friends with me, like luggage. It's disconcerting being on a Web site that I'm used to browsing anonymously, and seeing my friends' faces there. And so I have a holiday wish: Facebook, let me dance if I want to, let me leave my friends behind. For the last twenty years, we've enjoyed One Web that is united through the common policy of letting us be whoever we want to be, wherever we go. One Web allows us at times to be cooler than we are in real life, aspirational, anonymous, and/or fanatical about a particular subject. And that is why the Web is wonderful.
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