The Facebook “Situation” and Your Enterprise

You may not have heard, but it was publicly revealed over the weekend that Facebook had laid claim to any and all content uploaded to it, even when a user deletes his or her account. To say that a firestorm ensued would be an insult to the word “firestorm.” It’s been awhile since so many people were united against one company when it comes to … well … anything.

The last time was, well, maybe … New Coke? I don’t remember a time when so many people banded together and collectively said, “WTF?”

After a few days of firestorm, Facebook backed off of its latest assertion. Although it’s easy to see how they can bring all of this back if they really want. Then this morning, I logged into my Facebook account and saw this:

Wow, talk about a mea culpa! I didn’t think they’d back down.

I have to admit, it’s funny that a lot of the outrage and organization behind the eventual defeat of this ToS change came from the Facebook platform itself. At least, I’m assuming it did. I also saw a lot of talk about it on Twitter, too. Heck, I actually learned about it from the people I follow on Twitter.

What’s the take-away here for enterprises (businesses, government and non-profits/ associations)? Third-party providers aren’t looking out for you. They’re looking out for themselves. The only reason Facebook backed down is that they were scared of losing members. I have to admit that if I didn’t depend on Facebook for marketing, I would have probably canceled my membership over it (although they would have kept all of my stuff; wait, now they won’t … for now).

If you want a social network, create your own. Whether it’s with Portalfuze or one of the other providers, this is the only way you’ll retain control over your content, your users, etc. Upload it to Facebook, and you’ve lost control over it. This is especially key if you’re using Facebook as an “intranet” of sorts, or your own private network.

Like some older person in your family always said, “If you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.”

Besides, if you have a lot of people on Facebook, you can engage them into your own network via Facebook Connect. If you have a question on how to do that, please let me know.