I've said this before to whoever will listen (short of ranting on street corners) but the future of our personal engagements on the Internet is going to be more twitter-like and google-like than facebook-like. Don't get me wrong, it's not necessarily going to be the current corporate Twitter entity or the Google entity (although that's much more likely) but it's definitely not going to be the Facebook entity unless they steer their corporate battleship in an entirely new direction (and they could do that just as Microsoft did with the dawn of Internet Explorer). Or unless we cede control of the Internet to AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, etc. You can be sure that Facebook will fit in very comfortably with that group.

Facebook, like the AOL of the 90s, is trying to wall us in so our Total Internet Experience is The Facebook Experience. This is antithetical to the nature of the Internet where the next thing is a link away and where the ecology has grown by leaps and bounds with no help from Facebook. The Internet does not need to be a walled garden and that idea has no benefits for Internet denizens. There is lots to support that the walled garden idea benefits Facebook's corporate model which is to sell as much of your personal information as it can get away with to other corporate entities. Yes, if you scan my Twitter feed you will find personal info but this is the info that I choose to share. Facebook shares whatever it can get away with.

Bonus Link: Doc Searls talks about moving tweeting from Twitter which is an excellent idea.

Posted via email from Peter's posterous