Some recent changes that Facebook has announced make me want to share this quote by Osho on the importance of individuality:

You cannot be anybody other than who you are. If you try to be somebody other than who you are, you will never be somebody else, but you will miss being that which you were destined to become. It is almost as if a rose flower wants to become a lotus. His whole energy will be in how to become a lotus; he will forget all about the roses. All his energy will become misdirected. He will never become a lotus because he has no seeds, no potentiality to be a lotus. Only one thing is certain: now he will not become even a flowering bush of roses.

Like humans, if brands and entities try to become like someone else, they dilute their own being and end up pleasing no one. To me Facebook is heading in that direction. Here are my thoughts on why Facebook is killing the very reason it became such a hot social network:

1. Assumptions about user behaviour
   Zuckerberg announced at The Crunchies that the age of privacy is over (the video is here) and in that, he assumed he was speaking on behalf of Facebook’s 350 million user-base. The recent changes in privacy settings are difficult to wrap your head around. I know some not-so-tech-savvy people who have joined facebook, unaware of its public content policies. A quick search on Google shows their profiles, photos, wall posts, profile information – you name it. Are these users willingly making this information available? No. Will they immediately tighten the noose on their privacy settings when they find out the information that’s out there about them? Absolutely they will. I’d venture as far as to say they might even delete the accounts when they find out. Its the reason many people went off MySpace and Orkut
2. Facebook is best when its trying to be….Facebook!
   There is significant speculation that Facebook is going the Twitter way. The last design change incorporated the live-stream. There is a move towards making content public. A week or so ago, the RT equivalent went live. I’m not against change that helps an experience get deeper – the RT (via) feature being an example. But one that dilutes that experience? Hmmm. Twitter and Facebook serve different needs. One is a micro-blogging platform, the other is a social networking platform. Sure they mix around, but their essence is different. On Facebook, 90% of my contacts are friends or family. On Twitter 90% are contacts I have never met. And that’s exactly how I want things to be. Turns out I’m not the only one.

There are times when social media gets it right. From serious news like the earthquakes in Haiti (a story which Twitter broke) to the more fun viral ideas that help spread, say, cancer awareness by updating Facebook statuses with bra colors, one thing’s for certain in social media: if its hot, it spreads like wild fire.

But then there’s the flip side: when (seemingly hot) news spreads without verification.

Two cases in point:

Hoax 1:Facebook To Start Charging Users From July 2010

While glancing at your Facebook feed, did you discover a few friends joining  groups that protest these “monthly charges”? I did, here’s a screenshot.

I found two groups (I’m guessing there are many) that seem to have gained a significant  following: 300,000 Members Needed To Stop Facebook From Charging £/$14.99 a month has close to 900,000 members and No, I Will Not Pay£3.99 a Month To Use Facebook From July 9th 2010! has 457, 345 members. When I poked around, I couldn’t find any substantial meat to support this allegation. What I did find were veterans like Nick O’Neill claiming on the unofficial Facebook blog again and again that the rumours were baseless. I also found a post in the Telegraph wherein a  spokesperson  for the company has said:

We have no plans to charge users for Facebook’s basic services. Facebook is a free service for its 350 million users

I’m also left wondering why Facebook has not addressed this on their official blog. Its also an alarming indicator of how gullible consumers of social media can be.

Hoax 2: Twitter Trending Topic: RIP Johnny Depp

Did you know that Johnny Depp died in a car accident yesterday? Well on Twitter he did. Last night, a hoax began doing the rounds on the Internet, wherein a cleverly crafted fake CNN page announced the unfortunate news. Pretty soon the news spread to Twitter and RIP Johnny Depp became a trending topic.

In a little while though it became clear that the news was a hoax and that the sexiest man alive is indeed, alive and well. I looked up CNN to see if they there were any clarifications offered about the hoax. Nope.

Ok so we get it, rumours spread. Before the Internet existed, they would fly around from cafe to home to community center. Now they spread a million times faster unbridled by location or source. What can brands learn from such fiascoes? Should they be more pro-active and take more control of these conversations? Should Facebook/CNN have officially announced these rumours to be untrue? I would think so. Sure, things get out of hand, but its never too late to jump into the conversation and be the reliable, one-stop source of all information regarding an alleged rumour.

What would you do? I’m all ears…

Image courtesy: .S U B. Flickr