According to Tech Crunch:
There has been an overwhelmingly negative public response to Facebook’s launch of two new products yesterday. The products, called News Feed and Mini Feed, allow users to get a quick view of what their friends are up to, including relationship changes, groups joined, pictures uploaded, etc., in a streaming news format.
Many tens of thousands of Facebook users are not happy with the changes. Frank Gruber notes that a Facebook group has been formed called “Students Against Facebook News Feed�. A commenter in our previous post said the group was closing in on 100,000 members as of 9:33 PM PST, less than a day after the new features were launched.
Digging into the comments on various sites, it seems people are a) freaked out by change, b) not paying attention to how the Facebook privacy features worked, c) feel they are losing control over their data, which does not in fact appear to be the case.
Just wait until Myspace does something similar. A savvy politico could launch a political career my representing Facebook and Myspace users.
Reminds me of the uproar over the FriendFinder integration of SpringStreet a few short months ago. Blog and message boards rattled for days over the supposedly b0rked changeover to FF systems. I actually cancelled my account recently due to the fact that it appears the FastCupid (was SpringStreet) site has been left to slowly die off.
With Heyletsgo taking over the social aspects of Craigslist Boston, I’m basically off Myspace and Tribe, which have been rendered moot for me.
Fred Stutzman of ClaimID fame has more great insights into the situation. Fred is a total academic stud when it comes to covering Facebook.
As Scott McNealy said to the consternation of many: “You have no privacy. Get over it.”
