I’ve had about a week now to digest the new Facebook Graph APIs and play around with them a bit. As a developer, I’m excited, as a user, I’m “meh”.
Making the web more social is really exciting to me, and something that I’ve wanted for many years, but having one company control all our identities? I think that is a scary thought, and an unrealistic one.
To me, “one social graph to rule them all” is a silly concept. There are lots of things I do socially online that I don’t necessarily want to inform my Facebook friend’s about (mainly because they don’t care, not that I am hiding something). At one time I had my Twitter feed publishing to Facebook, but then I found out a lot of my friend’s muted my status! I need a professional graph, a hobby graph, maybe even a “good friends” graph.
Could Facebook create options for creating your own special graphs? I suppose so, but if they were, why haven’t they already? And even if they did, I’d be worried of my world’s accidentally colliding (A George, divided against itself, cannot stand).
Another thing I have noticed: no one is using the Likes externally. I know it’s early yet and I am just one account, but I have about 150 Facebook friends and… I haven’t seen 1 Like. I’ve been watching closely and… not a one. NHL.com was one of the early adopters of Facebook Likes. How many people have Liked Sydney Crosby? 1,682 people. That’s it? Maybe people just haven’t gotten used into it yet, but until they do let’s stop the hysteria.
I was going to include my opinions on the potential of iGoogle being a competitor, but I’ll save that for another post.
EDIT: I saw my first “Like” on an external site, The Globe and Mail. I liked the experience, but made me realize how polarizing it could be. This particular “Like” was about an anti-abortion stance the Canadian government is right now fighting. Could that start an unwanted argument back in Facebook world? Also, “Like” is not a good word to use, I like CNN’s use of “share” much better. I might not “Like” something, but want to share it. Hopefully people will understand the use of “Like” might not actually be liked.
