Facebook Talk

That’s right folks! Melanie Deitch, Facebook’s director of marketing, let it be known that, “probably in the next month” Facebook would allow it’s users to see the profile of anybody they wanted, not just the profiles of those who go to their schools or who are in their geographic networks.

Well, let me back up. What Facebook is about to do is allow anybody to join any geographic network they want. Up until now, users were limited to joining only one geographical network in addition to their school. This means that if I went to school in Columbia, South Carolina, then moved to New York for a year and then moved to Chicago, I had to pick between staying in my New York network and being able to see the profiles of everybody else in the NY network, or switching to my Chicago network. But now, I will be able to have both, as well as sign up for countless others.

This might not seem like much at first glance, but think about it. Anybody will be able to join your network now and in turn, check out your profile, pictures, contact info, etc. This won’t get nearly as much attention as the news feeds did, but it certaintly warrants the amount the news feeds got, if not more. People’s main qualms with the news feeds was that it could create stalkers, but this arguement was limited because the only people who could see the news feed was your friends and I highly doubt your own friends would want to stalk you. But these new features will allow anybody to see your profile, friend or not, and thus the risk of stalkers is ten times more likely.

We here at FBT, however, see this as a positive change. I for one am sick and tired of seeing somebody comment on my friend’s wall, clicking their picture, and being told I can’t see their profile. But now if I’m really interested in talking to them on their wall or finding out their interests, all I’ll have to do is join their network and VIOLA! I’m in.

Melanie Deitch did point out that users won’t be allowed to frequently change geographic networks. Once they’ve chosen one, they are stuck there for a while, although she failed to mention how long “a while” will be for. A day? A week? A month?

It’s also worth noting that Ms. Deitch made it clear that Facebook wishes to fully educate it’s users on the new changes before launching them, so as more news is forthcoming, we’ll report on it here.

[via TechCrunch]