Facebook introduces “Groups.”
Seeing Google looming larger and larger in its rear view, Facebook this week debuted tools designed to give its 500 million users more control over their personal information and more ways to manage their interactions with friends and “social circles.”
Showing his new gimmicks and gadgets to the press in Palo Alto Wednesday, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg showed the site’s new “Groups” feature—in some ways a throw-back to the selectivity of “the Facebook” in its early days as an Ivy League novelty. Using the new feature, users will have power and discretion to share pictures, places, and personal messages with select circles of friends instead of broadcasting them to everyone on their lists of friends. Zuckerberg suggested “Groups” would closely resemble the social circles people travel in their everyday lives, encouraging people to feel more comfortable capitalizing on Facebook’s capacity to create “living” documentary histories.
“If we can do this, then we can unlock a huge amount of sharing that people want to do, but today they just can’t do, because either it’s too annoying, or there just aren’t the right privacy settings to be able to do this at large scale,” Zuckerberg said.
“A pre-emptive strike against Google”
Ray Valdes, computer industry analyst at Gartner, observed “It’s a bit of a preemptive strike against Google. It’s addressing a real problem that had been a shortcoming in the Facebook service, But it also has the effect of covering (Facebook’s) flank.” The so-called “problem” first received serious attention in a widely circulated white paper by a Google staffer, who focused on Facebook’s inability to distinguish among multiple social groups to which people belong—their friends, colleagues, family members, classmates, romantic interests, and community networks.”
Earlier this year, Google’s own “Buzz” feature failed to seduce Facebookers and Tweeters, but Google has acquired Slide and several other high-tech start-ups with advanced social networking technology. CEO Eric Schmidt repeatedly has said, later this fall, Google will begin rolling-out “layers” of social networking features.
