Another privacy furore or candid admission of defeat?
Places was always going to be a risky move for Facebook, for two reasons;
1. An incredibly chequered record on user privacy.
2. Incredibly focused, powerful competition from Foursquare and Gowalla, two location based social networks.
Still, they danced along the rim of the spinning wheel of chance and unfortunately have fallen flat on their collective faces. So why didn’t Places work for a network that has been so universally successful in almost every other respect?
1. Privacy
We all secretly, in the deep crevices of our minds know that Facebook is just one gargantuan marketing database, but we do not appreciate that fact rubbed in our faces when Facebook stretch the word ‘liberal’ to its very limit with a new privacy update.
This infographic (courtesy of Mashable / ) summarises the most salient issues beautifully
So we can now see how users responded almost a year down the line “No Facebook, no.â€
Don’t be fooled however, you have always been able to restrict who can tag you at a location, it was a feature when . I believe the real reason that Places is getting taken ‘out back’ is because of incredibly poor uptake, which leads me nicely on to…
2. Competition
Facebook massively underestimated the strength of the competition in this arena. Anecdotally I don’t think that the Facebook audience was ready for location based functionality, I don’t think they wanted it and personally I got little or no added value from it.
I’ve been a member and user of Foursquare for the last couple of years ( come see me if you are too ). If I want awesome location based fun, that’s where I go. I have had neither the desire nor interest in sharing my location on Facebook in any way other than in a status update.
Here is a little peek at the titanic growth that Foursquare drove through 2010
Check out the full amazing infographic here .
Where Facebook and Foursquare differ however is over our old friend privacy. Foursquare doesn’t leave every option as ‘Opt In’ or allow people to speak for me. It simply empowers me as a user to tell people where I am, what I’m doing and who else is nearby. It is the location based marketing tool, Facebook really, really wanted to have and just failed to launch.
While Foursquare has totally understood concerns about privacy and continue to flourish in location based social marketing, Facebook has sailed past the lighthouse and crashed on the jagged rocks of failure.
So why has it taken Facebook users so long to be concerned about the lack of control over location (as well as photo based) tagging?
The reason I believe it has taken so long for this basic privacy concern to come to light is that social networks simply didn’t feature in the public eye until recently. The increasing amount of interest social networking has received over the past two years has seen internet interaction grow from a furtive, socially unacceptable back room activity into a perfectly acceptable mode of communication, no more exciting than sending a text.
As social networking (and the Internet as a whole, let’s be honest) continues to spill into everyday life, it is becoming the subject of everyday concerns and particularly in the UK, privacy is a big one.
Inevitably during a paradigm shift in the way we interact, there will be some teething problems. This kind of openness takes some adjustment in the public conciousness and privacy always will be a concern. We have seen that for years with the Government , with Google Streetview , and recently with the phone hacking scandal .
As we become more data reliant, we must ensure that the people we give our information up to use it responsibly.
So Facebook; I applaud your diversification, I love your network, but please, please learn from the last six years of privacy misery – let me do the opting in.
Kthxby.