Facebook is attempting to uninstall Google as the leading player on the web, by expanding its social media remit even further.
According to BBC news, the social networking and content marketing giant has revealed a new set of products at its F8 conference for developers. The ”social graph” products are intended to provide ease of use for Facebook users to find and take friends with them throughout their whole web experience.
Putting users at the heart of the web, one of the tools allows publishers to tag their content generation, adding features such as a ”like” button so that users can have an influence on what they want from a website – creating a more personalised browsing system.
Founder, Mark Zukerberg, commented on the new tools saying: ”We are building toward a web where the default is social. If you look back a few years ago and even as recently as today, in most cases the web isn’t designed to use your friends.”
Mr Zukerberg informed a BBC correspondent that Facebook ”wanted to be one of the things that empowers [users] and right now most users are using Facebook and we hope that can be a good force in driving that forward.”
However, some industry commentators have expressed concerns surrounding privacy, asking how Facebook will allow users to have more control over the things they see on the web. Reuters comments that Facebook has indeed suffered from privacy concerns in recent months, with the company changing its privacy settings to a more open format unless users specifically opted out. Other scandals include the panic button saga to empower users to have a direct link to the police, should they feel they are being bullied - something which Facebook failed to include.
Nevertheless, Facebook’s vice president of policy and communications, Elliot Schrage, was cited in the BBC as commenting, ”Nothing we have released changes any of the privacy protections we have. We’re providing new opportunities for people to have a social experience if they want it.”
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