There’s obviously a big opportunity for a start-up here – “PrivateBook”:
Setting up a decent system for controlling your privacy on a web service shouldn’t be hard. And if multiple blogs are writing posts explaining how to use your privacy system, you can take that as a sign you aren’t treating your users with respect, It means you are coercing them into choices they don’t want using design principles. That’s creepy.
Facebook could start with a very simple page of choices: I’m a private person, I like sharing some things, I like living my life in public. Each of those would have different settings for the myriad of choices, and all of those users could then later dive into the control panel to tweak their choices. That would be respectful design – but Facebook isn’t about respect — it’s about re-configuring the world’s notion of what’s public and private.
Epicenter: Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative
Previously: Facebook steps up lobbying, deepens ties with intelligence agencies, FTC
May 10, 2010 at 9:56 am
And how many are going to pay for server space when you say “this is like Facebook, but more secure”, and how many are just going to stick with Facebook?
May 10, 2010 at 9:32 pm
That’s the big question, but hopefully someone would be able to figure out how to offer it as a free service – so far most (all?) OpenID providers are free.