Be careful what you like.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b017ywty/Mark_Zuckerberg_Inside_Facebook/

Perfect timing for the BBC  to show this access all areas documentary about the growth of Facebook since its creation by Mark Zuckerberg in 2003. The most interesting part of this one hour special is the focus on the change Zuckerberg decided to make to Facebook in order to make it a company for profit by including advertising as one of its major functions. This links back to my earlier blog post about the internet becoming a 'frcition less' place. The documentary explains the new function facebook now has that when a user clicks the 'like' button on a compan's page, for example coca-cola they can be used in a 'sponsored story', basically a way of using there name to promote the product to their Facebook friends. When questioned about this Elliott Schrage, Vice president of Public policy at Facebook is shown to struggle to answer the question, even he finds it difficult to defend a function which seems to be using Facebook users as a pawn for the advertising industry without them even knowing it. Zuckerberg himself gives a much more convincing argument when he states that privacy is an important thing and that 'its advertising model does not depend on users agreeing to be less private'but he believes that 'over time people are going to want to share more things' when they realise it opens up more possibilities for them.

 One critic of Facebook featured in the documentary Professor B.J Fogg has a warning for Facebook: "You've got to retain the trust of your users, that's the number one asset, if you lose that you're vulnerable to Google and others winning this game" At the moment Facebook seems to be clinging onto just about the right balance between trying to get their users to be more and more open on the site and retaining their trust by allowing them to be private if they wish to be. How long will it be until they go one advertising scheme to far?