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The World Is Obsessed With Facebook from Alex Trimpe on Vimeo.

Today’s post on Fast Company has a pretty funny graphical guide to Facebook Portraits. Its strangely accurate too lol

Read the original post on Fast Company.

At the F8 Conference yesterday a game changer was introduced into the social media ecosystem. Facebook is positioning itself themselves to potentially become the center of the social web.

They introduced their new Open Graph API and protocol along with its abilities to integrate websites and applications within facebook.

Companies like Pandora, Microsoft, CNN and Yelp have already released these new ways to connect on their websites.

For example, visiting CNN you can see what your friends are reading and liking. This allows an understanding your circles of friends and colleagues viewing behavior.

They have also added a slew of new items to tackle three key features (or so they focus on)

• Registration + Login - Replace your Authentication / Login system with Facebooks. No longer will you need to maintain and track multiple registration and login data.
• Engagement - Adding Activity Feeds, like buttons and other social experiences with the dropping of a simple line of HTML. No more complex development just copy/paste a line of code.
• Growth – Publishing content, and hooking into users viewing activity are just a few things that this will offer. All your interests and likes will now be available providing a user has not chosen to opt out.

I have mixed feelings on this new technology. The geek inside me is grabbing and reading every API document I can get my hands on and thinking up cool new ways to incorporate it into the next awesome mashup but being someone who likes their privacy has me getting a little concerned.

Whats so new about all of it?

Previously applications required an elaborate “allow” process. Developers were allowed to store the information for 24 hours before having to purge it for privacy reasons. This meant we would have to download and export information every 24 hours in order to retain the user data. With the release of these new protocols the restriction is lifted so once a user has opted into your application you can continue to grab and store their information seemingly forever.

With the implementation of the new Open Graph facebook has replaced Facebook Connect with these new social widgets and drop-on capabilities.

Users now have to be weary of what they click  when “Liking” an article that can potentially show up in their friends activity streams or in their customized view as we see above on CNN.

Danger on the interwebz?

I’m sure it’s just a matter of moments before the phishing attacks and malware begins. I mean after all by clicking on a “like” if i am not logged into facebook throws open a new window.

All I have to do is login to facebook and then I can start sharing with my friends and taking advantage of this cool new feature.

But what if this is a malicious website? What if it were something other than CNN or a trusted source? The popup window doesn’t have the chrome so I cannot see that I am actually about to submit a form that goes to crazyhackerinnigeriawillstealyourinfo.zn

Without actually going into the source file of this site I have no clear indication that I am actually passing my information to a secure facebook form.

All a mean all a hacker would have to do is recreate this simple html/css and have the form post the information into their system and start a slew of worm-like activities infecting their facebook with malicious links and javascript snippets as well as anyone who also got the link.

Remember when people were doing that on PayPal Payment pages?

This might not be an issue in some peoples eyes but lets face it theres a lot of people that still click on the blinking red banner ads that say win 1 million dollars which lead to bogus information spam sites.

I should probably be writing some code to steal people’s facebook logins and sell them to some Russian or Chinese syndicate right now but I figured I’d rant about it to hopefully have someone who matters listen and respond to this.

One of the bigger potentials for phishing scams is centered around their announcement to utilize Facebook Credits to become a commerce center. At the F8 conference they presented “App2User” which is going to enable (cough cough FORCE cough cough) to convert their rewards into “Facebook Credits”

Financial Institutions and consumer brands might present “offers” that give users the ability to convert their credits into “facebook credits” so they can redeem and spend more on Facebook.

This doesn’t just stop at the cheesy virtual gifts anymore we are talking airline flights, flowers, and products.

Are you nodding your head yet and seeing how phishing scams can be a problem now?

It’s not just “check out my webcam” links going to your facebook wall; your wallet can now potentially be affected if you’re not a savvy user.

With the advancement of these “credits” and global adoption of facebook being a reality Facebook is getting closer to pulling in the power of a paypal and the mass appeal of an Appstore for purchasing both tangible and digital products.

In short what that means in short is they can potentially become a top player in the commerce sector similar to how paypal did back in the web 1.0 days. The larger their network gets the more connected and seamless online becomes the easier it will get.

Your Online Life all in a bubble?

This new Open Graph is one huge aggregation channel that will just collect my viewing activity along with my likes and interests for publishing and mining data. Sure I may want to show my friends that I am a big Star Wars Fan but I might not want to show my business colleagues some of the random things i’m reading and getting inspired by.

Obviously this is great information to be gathering because then Facebook can start delivering more relevant advertising as a result of all the information they have collected about me.

Now while I would love to get advertisements that are relevant to me there’s a lot of times that i will learn about something new or pursue new purchase behavior as a result of something I’ve never done before.

For example I was randomly served an advertisement the other day about Organic foods. Before seeing that ad I could give a care less about eating organic food but after clicking through and getting some valuable information about it made me head to the local whole foods and I’ve started to shop and really eat a great deal more of those types of products.

If I was only being served ads from my interests and my friends interest I might not ever see that ad.

But then again I suppose it’s all about relevance and further connecting us but where does the disconnection happen?