A long-time Facebook user is pledging allegiance to the social networking site even though it's open to everyone in the world -- for now.
Yesterday, I caught up with college student Kiyoshi Martinez, the author of the TPS Report and one of the founders of SaveFacebook.com, a site that he and a friend launched last month in response to Facebook's bungled launch of the News Feed and Mini-feed features. You can read my Wired News story about that whole episode.
I wanted to get Kiyoshi's response to Tuesday's announcement that social networking site Facebook had ditched its students-and-non-profits-only rule in favor of an open-door policy. It wasn't a shock to him. After all, a Facebook representative let word slip a couple of weeks ago that the site would be offering open access to all.
So, now that Facebook is as open as MySpace, will Kiyoshi stay with Facebook?
"At first, I was rather bummed at the prospect of Facebook going further into a MySpace-ification, where anyone could join," Martinez says. "However, the more I think about the philosophical differences and visual differences between the two social networks, I'm still convinced I'll be sticking with Facebook."
Kiyoshi attests that anyone who fears that Facebook is compromising its exclusivity by opening its doors to all users hasn't been paying attention. "Facebook has made the point that a third of its users aren't in college anymore," he says, "and that number is only going to grow, whether or not they open up Facebook. The number of alums will increase and be a larger percentage as years go by."
There's also the fact that the move makes good business sense for Facebook, Martinez says. The company won't deny that it's in acquisition talks with big players like Yahoo and Viacom, and the last step in sealing the deal is gaining as many eyeballs as possible.
"They need to increase their userbase to appeal to advertisers," Martinez says. "After hearing about the rumors they were being prospected to be bought out by Yahoo! for $1 billion, it's almost obvious that they'll need to prove in raw numbers their network can be competitive with their free-for-all counterpart (MySpace) that News Corp. purchased for what looks like the bargain price of $580 million."
Looking back at how Facebook handled the infamous Feeds scandal, Kiyoshi thinks that it's apparent the company is learning from the mistakes of its past by trying to maintain high privacy-protection standards. "At the very least, there are signs Facebook is listening to users," he says. "If Facebook continues to make more options available to users in terms of privacy, they'll avoid the negative reputation MySpace developed about becoming a 'stalker network.'"
On the whole, Martinez is optimistic, but remains cautious. "Personally, I'll bite -- for now," he says. "Once I start getting spam, I'll probably use it a whole lot less."
Previously:
Facebook's Point of No Return
Facebook Drops Admissions Policy
