Homework for Facebook students: hack your own social network
Facebook's addition of "two cool features" has been met with a "student revolt" not seen since before Facebook's users were born (1960's demonstrations). In fact, the outrage of non-paying Facebook users is deemed to be an issue of Civil & Human Rights, with Facebook the "target."
At the turnkey online create-your-own-petiton service "Petition Spot," a petition has been created by a disgruntled Facebook user, free-of-charge, just like the user uses Facebook free-of-charge, titled:"The New Facebook Must Be Stopped!"
What is the crime against the Facebook humanity that is charged?:
We all know who has dumped who, who is doing what, and who doesn't like something anymore. This is invasive, and while it is displayed for others to see, it is not meant to bombard their homepage.
Facebook has reached out to its loyal, educated non-paying user base to ask that they actually consider the reality of what is changed, or not, at Facebook:
We didn’t take away any privacy options. [Your privacy options remain the same.] The privacy rules haven’t changed. None of your information is visible to anyone who couldn’t see it before the changes. If you turned off your wall to non-friends, no one who is not your friend will be able to see a post on your wall. Your friends can still see it; it hasn’t changed. Secret groups and secret events remain secret from other people. Pokes and messages remain as private interactions.
There seems to be a simple solution: the thousands of unhappy, non-paying users of Facebook can take Paul Graham, YCombinator, up on his Web 2.0 start-up advice and use their allowance pools to hack an online social networking cool app more to their liking!
Paul Graham says "not to sweat the business model" and angel finances teams of twenty something hackers with scant more than a three month “allowance," as I present in "Graham on Web 2.0 investing: VCs are no angels":
We usually invest $6000n in each company, where n is the number of participating founders… $6000 per person is not a lot, but it turns out to be enough. It will cover at least 3 months' living expenses, and 3 months is enough time to build something nontrivial
To get started, here is a handy slogan to rally the student troops:
FACEBOOK STUDENTS UNITE:
STOP YACKING AND START HACKING!
UPDATE: Web 2.0 'users in control': Of who, and to what means? and Facebook 'activism': how about a greater good?