Open Graph

Have you heard about Facebook’s Open Graph?  It’s a tactic that Facebook is utilizing in their effort to become the standard in social personalization for everything you do online.  “For example, their new ‘Like’ button is already visible on over 50,000 websites, and they’re providing an API-based way to access what they’re calling a user’s  ‘Open Graph,’ which is a list of everything he or she has ‘liked’ across the entire web – music, books, restaurants, food and more,” (Mitchell, H., Mashable http://mashable.com/2010/05/07/facebook-open-graph-ecommerce/).  This Open Graph feature has the ability to integrate websites and web apps within a user’s existing social network.

It’s like a giant interconnected web of information about each user that is available to third party sources that the user may or may not realize.  I personally have always been a little reserved about offering too much information on Facebook.  But it’s easy to let your guard down when talking with “friends,” forgetting that anything that is posted is potentially viewed by others and may never leave the internet.  (It’s not like a note you pass to a friend that later gets thrown away.)  Things that you, as a Facebook user,  allow to be “public” is actually becoming more public than you know.

So will this open the door to a higher level of personalization; giving marketers greater opportunities to reach their specific target market?  Or, will this lead to higher concerns and regulations on privacy?

For a better understanding of this open graph check out this description by Zuckerberg.

I suppose it’s up to the users to decide what they want to publicize about themselves, just as it’s always been.  But it seems that the privacy settings are complex and things that you may think are private aren’t necessarily as private as you think.  You have to understand the privacy settings and read the fine lines because now more and more information can be linked across various sites; and someone else may know that you like Lady Gaga, or Dunkin Donuts, or even that you frequently post on a religious profile site. 

I think this digital technology is fascinating, but I’m I think it can get too personal and almost intrusive….if you let it.