Wow, this is totally awesome news and really helps get over that 5k limit challenge... I've been sitting there for six months now and have about 1600 pending friend req's. By opening up my entire profile, 'non-friends' can almost get the same benefits of interaction! Gotta love that!!! @marismith
Reggie from RPR
· 8 months ago
For business users this will prove to be an interesting development. At first thought, a business owner may enjoy the openness. However the problem may arise that competitors can easily come in and see your network participation with you knowing.
CharlieFlowers
· 8 months ago
@Reggie: Agreed! I guess the next step for FaceBook is to add some sort of traffic analysis feature to users pages...they may as well, it seems like they're adding everything else these days! :D
Viralwordpress
· 8 months ago
It's great for SEO and Traffic generation. The search engines love my pages now.
I now have #1 spot on Google for "Facebook Income"
I'm tickled pink!
Matthew Loop
· 8 months ago
This is a step in the right direction, in my opinion. The search and connect functions still have a ways to go and have not been as friendly as some of the other social networks. Maybe this was because it used to be strictly a college network.
Proph
· 8 months ago
So if you can make your entire profile viewable to everyone, do you see the pages becoming viewable by everyone too? Or do you think it will stay like Twitter?
lemonkey
· 8 months ago
Ball is in your court Twitter...
SolShine7
· 8 months ago
I am beginning to lose all respect for Facebook. I liked it back when it had privacy and it was meant for keeping up with college buddies and old high school classmates. Oh well.
Dustin A Coates
· 8 months ago
Then don't open up your profile. Seems simple enough.
Or just continue to complain about it. It's up to you.
trendbreakr
· 8 months ago
If you don't change any settings, you won't experience a change. At all.
Stuart Foster
· 8 months ago
Huge step for Facebook. It really is trying to become the go to portal on the web. If they continue to make strides like this (with all of the scalability built in) it can only succeed on a greater level.
Mary
· 8 months ago
A lot of people are complaining that conversations are being seen by strangers, that is, friends of friends that they don't know. Not everybody likes this "sharing thing" and are opting to send only internal messages... : /
They should stop trying to copy Twitter... Twitter is twitter and Facebook should be Facebook!
Shankho Mukherjee
· 8 months ago
those silly people still have the option of writing messages to each other. any more questions?
Wade
· 8 months ago
I don't believe this is a "new" feature. I've always been able to set my profile to be visible to everyone — I had to set it with a custom setting of "Friends of Friends" or something like that.
Sophie
· 8 months ago
If any of you are US citizens between the ages of 18-29 would you mind filling in my questionnaire through the link below??
If for any reason you want to forward this message on to anyone who is also from the US (between those ages) it will be much appreciated!
Thanks soo much
Sophie x
Danny D
· 8 months ago
Facebook are always trying things to keep them progressing and becoming the social network! I think most users are now wise to the openess of facebook. Twitter is a business tool and ideal for spreading the word, whereas Facebook is more of a personal tool
Ranee
· 8 months ago
"It also makes the Facebook of yesteryear a distant memory. It’s hard to believe at one point the site was limited to just college students with .edu email addresses, at only a handful of universities."
Not so. I definitely remember, and sometimes miss, the days when Facebook was only a college student network. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love the new Facebook changes... but it would be nice to have that privacy, and more importantly, exclusivity once again.
RE: CharlieFlowers
Traffic analysis to user pages might not be a possibility as it has always been a policy of Facebook to not reveal whose pages, photos/videos, and information you have visited or viewed.
MonTemplar
· 8 months ago
I like the way that you can specify exact levels of disclosure for each aspect of your Facebook profile, including the contents of your Wall and what data will be shared with or viewable by people outside of Facebook. In that aspect, at least, Facebook deserve some praise. :)
I think that more people need to spend some time actually looking at the Privacy Settings pages, they'd probably find that a lot of their fears are unfounded, and that they too can limit their personal info to only those that they know and trust.
Adam Ostrow
· 8 months ago
Yea, I think a lot of the backlash is over-reaction from people that don't understand all the privacy options that are available to them.
MariSmith
· 8 months ago
Excellent point!!! A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. lol! There's SO much more to Facebook's granular privacy settings!
Leonid S. Knyshov
· 8 months ago
I have a public LinkedIn profile, but I am not so sure of the value of an open Facebook profile. This is really more of a play on LinkedIn than it is on Twitter.
Well, this just proves that the same concept about Internet communications applies - whatever you say within the walled garden will be exposed when the walls are made transparent.
I think I'll open my profile up and see what happens. One potential issue could be tagged photos as that can be potentially damaging. I am leaving that one locked up :) Another issue is exposing my friends who may write on my wall. That one could be a problem. I've actually restricted some settings while posting this.
Isn't this just bringing Facebook into a MySpace look alike? If I wanted no protection and privacy I would still be active with MySpace. My advice, Facebook, is come up with something new...don't keep repeating what can be and has been done elsewhere. What about a webcam feature? How about real time group chats? VOIP on facebook? Allow us to be more social with whom we want...not everyone.
Paul McLachlan
· 8 months ago
This probably spells the death of networks. But, there must be one further step Facebook is planning to take before this becomes a Twitter-killer. Suppose you find someone interesting (Pete Cashmore, say) who has opened up their Facebook profile to be partly visible publicly. What do you do then? Do you bookmark the page in your browser and remind yourself to visit every once in a while? Or do you friend him (and risk devaluing the concept of "friend" on Facebook even further)?
There needs to be a way to "follow" or "become a fan" of someone's public profile (just like a product/celebrity page) so you see their status updates in your news feed (and know that someone is following you or one of your fans), without having to become mutual friends and have access to their private profile. Without that feature, it is nowhere near ready to be a Twitter-killer.
Adam Ostrow
· 8 months ago
I think we might end up seeing this ... the option to convert your profile into a Page. FB hinted at it on that conf. call a few weeks ago ... at least that's the impression I got.
aanwar
· 8 months ago
While it sounds like a good move from Facebook's point of view, it isn't the same for its users. I don't remember using the site for anything but to stay in touch with friends and family. They are making it into something that the site isn't. For instance, from being a college only site, it became a site for anyone, then now opening up the profile, they are copying twitter's "openness." If this keeps continuing, I am sure users will start dropping. They are ignoring their average users.
Take a look at the comments, you'll know what i mean:
We've got to be getting to an era of profile standardization soon. Who will become the USB of social profiles?
Fail
· 8 months ago
If by public to everyone you mean only those logged into Facebook - hahaha
Clay Franklin
· 8 months ago
Wow! This is great news! I like the new look of Facebook and enjoy the control of who sees what. It will be interesting to see how it unfolds.
Chris Dowell
· 8 months ago
I wasn't aware this change happened. Thanks, I just changed my settings.
Rachel Burkot
· 8 months ago
I approve of this change. To those who would say that no one should have their personal information available to the entire Facebook community, well it's not like Facebook is FORCING you to divulge this information with millions of people. It's a privacy setting, meaning you can choose it if you wish or ignore it completely and keep your profile as secure as you'd like.
phyo paine
· 8 months ago
i want to get too much relations with peoples,world without stranger
jbond
· 8 months ago
Please note: "Everyone" actually means "Everyone logged into Facebook". On the rest of the web, like Twitter and so on, Everyone would actually mean Everyone.
mattmcb
· 8 months ago
I do love the thought of the SEO that can come out of this... something else that is cool is a new site that has popped up recently, sthrt.com, allows you to create public homepages of sites. That could be very interesting!
All Comments
@marismith
The search engines love my pages now.
I now have #1 spot on Google for "Facebook Income"
I'm tickled pink!
Or just continue to complain about it. It's up to you.
They should stop trying to copy Twitter... Twitter is twitter and Facebook should be Facebook!
http://www.esurveyspro.com/Survey.aspx?id=1d29d...
If for any reason you want to forward this message on to anyone who is also from the US (between those ages) it will be much appreciated!
Thanks soo much
Sophie x
I think most users are now wise to the openess of facebook.
Twitter is a business tool and ideal for spreading the word, whereas Facebook is more of a personal tool
Not so. I definitely remember, and sometimes miss, the days when Facebook was only a college student network. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love the new Facebook changes... but it would be nice to have that privacy, and more importantly, exclusivity once again.
RE: CharlieFlowers
Traffic analysis to user pages might not be a possibility as it has always been a policy of Facebook to not reveal whose pages, photos/videos, and information you have visited or viewed.
I think that more people need to spend some time actually looking at the Privacy Settings pages, they'd probably find that a lot of their fears are unfounded, and that they too can limit their personal info to only those that they know and trust.
Well, this just proves that the same concept about Internet communications applies - whatever you say within the walled garden will be exposed when the walls are made transparent.
I think I'll open my profile up and see what happens. One potential issue could be tagged photos as that can be potentially damaging. I am leaving that one locked up :) Another issue is exposing my friends who may write on my wall. That one could be a problem. I've actually restricted some settings while posting this.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=738492082
There needs to be a way to "follow" or "become a fan" of someone's public profile (just like a product/celebrity page) so you see their status updates in your news feed (and know that someone is following you or one of your fans), without having to become mutual friends and have access to their private profile. Without that feature, it is nowhere near ready to be a Twitter-killer.
Take a look at the comments, you'll know what i mean:
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=60186587130