After having a little time to digest Facebook’s far-reaching Open Graph initiative, blogger
Robert Scoble concludes that the top social net “has broken an invisible privacy contract with
its users.� Indeed, “Previously private data is showing up on Yelp, Pandora, and Spotify … That wasn’t expected by the
users.� Still, due to the fear of being left behind and/or the promise of more engaged users, publishers are falling over themselves to play Facebook’s game.
Scoble now says that his initial prediction that 30 of the top 100 Web sites would incorporate Facebook’s “Like� buttons in the first few
months might turn out to be very low. In turn, “Facebook is studying metadata from all these likes and other behavior of ours and I believe is preparing new kinds of search and
discovery services.� Baring the possibly of a massive user backlash, that spells big trouble for Google. In fact, Scoble’s knowledgeable sources all agree that
Google has become the new Microsoft.
