[aloneinkyoto]

But that is exactly what is counterproductive about it. Because it forces you to make assumptions about the people you interact with. Have you asked all of your friends wether or not they might find your family photos interesting or not? Do you think there is no value in being exposed to things that is beyond your comfort zone? I might be a 25 year old party animal that doesn't care shit about family life. But seeing the odd family photo or two in my feed now and then might perhaps be good for me? And I might even enjoy it, even if I don't want to readily admit it to my self. There is also the dimension of making the social realm more "democratic". In the sense that it is a good thing if people are not intentionally excluded from social contexts. It helps create a more tolerant society and more robust and flexible social networks if the interaction in the networks are less clustered (something a hacker, with knowledge about how the internet works should be able to appreciate).

The somewhat technical explanation is that what Google is doing is implementing something very similar to "Social role theory" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_Theory), which emphasizes social roles as the defining characteristic used to understand social interaction. While Facebook rather is implementing something more akin to "Symbolic interaction theory" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_interaction).

[torkins]

how about just making it so people can share what they want with who they want, without difficulty? I don't want my software to preach to me about how to democratize my social whatsit, I just want to find a replacement for emailing pictures out to a list of people (notice how GMail wouldn't force me to email the pictures to everyone I know).

[aloneinkyoto]

But you are profoundly fooling yourself if you believe that that is what Facebook is. If all you want to do is CC a list of people some photos, there are way better tools out there.

I think it's pretty obvious that Facebook has been, from the start, something very different. It is so ingrained in every little design decision and how they promote and talk about the service that it is a tool for managing your public persona. Not a simple communication tool, or replacement for email. Though they obviously offer that kind of functionality as well through Messages and Chat.

Facebook wants to enhance or maybe even change the way you interact socially. It's not a political agenda, but it is definitly a very conscious mission to change a large part of western culture.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about this. So let me state it again to make it clear:

FACEBOOK IS A TOOL FOR MANAGING YOUR PUBLIC PERSONA.

[Goronmon]

But you are profoundly fooling yourself if you believe that that is what Facebook is. If all you want to do is CC a list of people some photos, there are way better tools out there.

You are profoundly fooling yourself if you think that most Facebook users aren't using it as a way to CC a list of people some photos. I don't know anyone outside of the tech/blog scene who uses Facebook to manage a public persona. It's just a different way to communicate with people.

[beagle3]

You are profoundly naive if you believe that is what Facebook is for.

FACEBOOK IS A TOOL TO MAKE YOU (the user, their product) MORE MARKETABLE TO ADVERTISERS (the customers).

By knowing everything about you, they can get better rates from advertisers. Everything else, like photo sharing, and the ability to send messages to other people, or check into place, is designed to get more info about you, and to make sure you don't wander off Facebook to their competitors (if you didn't have picture sharing, you'd be using Picasa or Flicker more -- and that might threaten facebook).

[aloneinkyoto]

I was talking about Facebook the tool, i.e. how it is actually being used by people. Not Facebook the business model, which I agree with you is exactly as you describe, but is something completely different and separate from how it is perceived and used by ordinary people.

[trafficlight]

But it's about you, not about everyone else. You can choose what to share and whom to share it with. Any of your "friends" won't know the difference, or care for that matter.