The author is completely missing the point. Implicit sharing allows for everything to go into the graph in a structured way. This is the most important aspect of implicit sharing and the new Open Graph.
This doesn't mean that you're going to get inundated with meaningless shares. That would be a horrible user experience. In fact, Facebook put a lot of time and effort into making sure that is exactly what didn't happen. It's the very reason why timeline was built. It's why ticker was built. They did this because they want a place for the increased sharing to go, without degrading user experience.
But here's the really exciting part. Once all this data is in the graph, timeline and ticker will pale in comparison to what developers can do with all of this new, structured data. That is the really important thing here.
Implicit sharing is not so that you can get a notification every time someone listens to a song. It's so that a talented young developer can come along and create a beautiful application that visualizes all of your song listens, how it makes you similar or different from your friends.
Don't worry Farhad. Explicit sharing and taste isn't going away. I will still pay more attention to the link you posted of that song you love than the song that blips by in my ticker. I wouldn't criticize the new graph until its matured and we've seen the next generation of amazing apps that are going to be enabled.
No Hanibash, you're missing the main point... If FB and their partners want users to share, why not approach the users and ask for permission first? What's the harm? The user will either accept the term or decline it.
What we have here is blatant disregard for user security. Facebook is clearly saying that if you don't like it... you can dig around fb (or the partner site/s) and attempt to find the settings that control these new functions.
If facebook even had the slightest care in the universe about user experience they would at least ask the user to opt-in first to use the features. Since when does one company decide what I want to share, and who I want to share it with?...I do not want every one of my fb friends to see what movie I watched or what music I'm listening to. Nor, would I give permission.
You're quite right. This is why apps have a new permission dialog to show you exactly what gets shared, which you have to click accept prior to using it. As long as the app isn't facebook only, you can always use it without the facebook integration. and if it is, there will probably A facebook-free competitor you can use.
Well, the fiddly part so far seems to be that's set to a single level (announce/don't announce) and every different app needs its own mute button.
Spotify, for example, will happily announce to the world whatever you happen to be listening to, and there's no simple way to hit "mute". So you're going to need to build a separate "mute" button into every app, on every platform, and have enough trust that it will work ...
You can easily shut down any kind of activity. I clicked on the settings for an Rdio song I auto-posted and the option of "Don't show this kind of activity from Rdio" (paraphrasing) showed up.
I hate to single you out, but the amount of blatantly unresearched, inaccurate statements in this discussion is really disappointing. This is a powerful, well-implemented (easy to opt-in/opt-out of any broadcasting on an app by app basis) feature.
So what you are saying is maintenance! maintenance! and more maintenance.
This is no longer a great user experience and it's not longer a social network... No, this is without a doubt a media venture that will do anything to make their advertisers happy... at the expense of the users.
I wonder if you see your own contradiction? You had to go out of your way to make a point that users need to now attend the settings for every single product they use and maintain additional information. It seems that with every year things get more and more out of hand
Today, as an FB user I'm not happy. For one, I had to download a plug in for the new ticker (a news feed with in a news feed?) just to get rid of the annoyance. Tomorrow we will have to deal with a dozen more ticks.
No contradiction: I had to turn on Rdio'd FB app to broadcast my songs to begin with. Everything is opt in, not opt out. If you're not interested in that, you don't maintain anything.
You make a good point about the possibility of mining all this data, but I'm not sure I want to give it away. We (well, some of us), go to lengths to maintain separate online personas. Why do I care if Facebook knows what my most-played songs are? I can get that info from iTunes, etc.
They're going to need a strong pull (killer app, privacy controls, whatever) to get my data.
So instead of sharing data with your friends, family and a corporation you just want to share it with a corporation? Someone already has your online data the only difference is who that someone is. That someone can still choose to sell your data on to anyone who will buy it in most countries.
Yes, by having sites incentivized to include a Facebook Like iframe everywhere you visit, by example. If you're logged into Facebook, then you are already sharing your online habits with them.
That's cool if you need an app to help you figure out how you are like or different from your friends, I guess. For me, it's just confirmation that Facebook offers nothing I want, and I'm glad I never created an account there.
I don't think I want 'everything to go into the graph in a structured way'. Name, rank and serialnumber should be enough. Anything more and you should ask for permission first.
This doesn't mean that you're going to get inundated with meaningless shares. That would be a horrible user experience. In fact, Facebook put a lot of time and effort into making sure that is exactly what didn't happen. It's the very reason why timeline was built. It's why ticker was built. They did this because they want a place for the increased sharing to go, without degrading user experience.
But here's the really exciting part. Once all this data is in the graph, timeline and ticker will pale in comparison to what developers can do with all of this new, structured data. That is the really important thing here.
Implicit sharing is not so that you can get a notification every time someone listens to a song. It's so that a talented young developer can come along and create a beautiful application that visualizes all of your song listens, how it makes you similar or different from your friends.
Don't worry Farhad. Explicit sharing and taste isn't going away. I will still pay more attention to the link you posted of that song you love than the song that blips by in my ticker. I wouldn't criticize the new graph until its matured and we've seen the next generation of amazing apps that are going to be enabled.