FACEBOOK TEARING DOWN ITS WALLS?

Posted on June 26, 2009 at 4:41 am in

According to this report, Facebook is about to make a dramatic change — a far more dramatic decision than the two controversial user-interface changes of the past year. Updates will soon be public by default, and searchable ala Twitter. The user will have to specify through a drop-down mechanism if they want their actions to be private.

This is clearly another move (along this Spring’s change to the User Interface and the addition of Vanity URLs) towards the functionality of Twitter. Within Twitter, users can search across the medium for trending topics, terms, or people with ease; historically, Facebook is built with walls to protect networks of friends.

Facebook’s obsession with moving in on Twitter’s territory is puzzling. It’s true that the small (and profitless) start-up has gotten a lot of publicity lately, both for its celebrity users and its ability to quickly spread news from all parts of the globe (Iranian protests in June, Mumbai attack last year). But Facebook’s growth is predicated on different strengths: private networks, photo albums, “real” people (empasizing real names over user names, for instance). Twitter doesn’t threaten any of those strengths.

Because of its greater security, far more personal information is included on facebook pages than Twitter. As Facebook is nothing without this user-generated content, it’s an open question if breaking down those defensive walls (and infuriating its persnickety users) is a good idea. Concerns over privacy are the #1 cited concern about Facebook, and this move seems to be ignoring that issue entirely.

I wonder if Facebook is taking one step too far away from what made it work, and if this will create an opening for another social network to take its place, as Myspace supplanted Friendster and Facebook supplanted Myspace.

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PERSPECTIVE

Posted on June 18, 2009 at 12:10 am in

In an early post on The Pinakes I featured a photo I had taken of the Reading Room of the New York Public Library. This photo also serves as the desktop image on my home computer and the backdrop for The Pinakes twitter feed.

The NYPL recently featured a blog post featuring archival photos of its iconic reading room, and I was pleased to see a photo from almost the exact same perspective as the one from my picture taken a year ago.

The original blog post, entitled “The Historical Perspective” is well worth a read and can be found here.

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WELCOME, REDUX

Posted on June 12, 2009 at 12:20 am in

Welcome, again.

The Pinakes has found new life. Originally born as a class project, I have elected to migrate it to its own URL and server. Its purpose remains the same: The Pinakes will serve as a public forum for my thoughts on history, the library craft, and information management, and all the connections betwixt and between.

Over the course of the Spring 2009 semester, the topics tackled and tools used were guided by the class syllabus; from this point forward my posts will be guided only by my own inspiration. In addition to items relating directly to Library Science, I may also touch on other topics of interest to me: theater and dramaturgy, art and design, literature, music and more. I hope only to keep it interesting.

Please feel free to take a look through the material already posted, and bookmark The Pinakes here in its new home. You can also add it to your Reader by clicking on the “Subscribe: RSS Blog” button to the left!

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