Creator of the Modern Day Party Line

The founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has been blasted across the internet – to the point there is now a mass exodus planned on May 31st.  Trying to cover all points of the internet you surf and corralling it into once place is part of the anger and upheaval.  Many feel Facebook has taken over their lives and Mashable is now conducting a poll to see if you will leave (when I took it, the results seemed mixed).

As lawsuits bubble under Facebook corporate headquarters, the founder is now accused of stealing the original idea from fellow Harvard students, selling out all users by sharing their data information to advertisers, basic privacy violations, consumer groups filing complaints with the FTC, and censorship in foreign countries.

Upgrades and changes without considering what the public thinks (who by the way can turn against them immediately) seem to be the obnoxious trait of this management team.  I imagine they are facing wars of their own inside their own organization right now as new concepts are rolled out without thought for what consumers will think.

Kids have called it “creepbook” because there are people always watching what they post – adults have called it a party line. The phenomenon has divided families, yet managed to reunite and connect friends and long lost relatives.  Does the good outweigh the bad?

Interesting that AOL was at the top of their game years ago with their instant messaging, then came hotmail and classmates.com.  All things we thought we could not live without.  My have times changed, yet we still have choices – especially when one application wants to have control and be the “end all be all”.

Perhaps it all revolves around numbers and statistics … with Facebook having a site ranking number 2 only to Google searches allows them to do what they want.  Marketers, including yours truly, will continue to chase the numbers as long as the people are there.  While this may be true for now, there are new applications on the horizon and the connectors will be testing and reporting.