Back in the Winter of 2005, right around when Facebook was just getting big with the American university crowd, I had the opportunity to meet Mark Zuckerburg at a random party he threw at the W Hotel near UCLA. At that point no one had any idea this 21 year old kid planned to change the internet as we know it.
As a designer, I was always have been an advocate of Facebook’s simplicity and great user interface. I can’t stand MySpace. But that was 5 years ago and now Facebook is a much different monster. With the creation of third party apps, Facebook has whore itself out to the masses. It has also become a horribly controlled monopoly.
All I would like to be able to do it interface my contacts in Facebook with my own address book and calendar. A feature that was once a breeze is no longer possible due to “terms of service”. Facebook wants to control the way we view the internet. All links are viewed through a “Facebook browser” so they can log every move your mouse makes. They want you to send messages through Facebook. They hold the details of your life from your personal photos, to your job history and education. This database, in the hands of one corporation, no matter how they guard our personal privacy, is a threat to out individual and collective identities. GOD SAVE THE INTERNET.