The first question that sprung to my mind was “why do we need it?”. But then I realised that, instead of simply wanting to innovate in the field of social networking, this is probably Google’s latest frantic attempt to not miss the boat, so to speak. Social networking is now many people’s single biggest online activity, and is almost default behaviour for some. It’s only natural that Google would want to be part of that.

Of course, they tried before with the ineffectual and remarkably average Google Buzz. But that wasn’t a serious attempt to challenge Facebook, it was more of an attempt to mimic Twitter whilst aggregating Facebook and other social media streams. I can see what they were trying to do, but it really didn’t work. Mainly because it was bollocks.

Of course, Google Me is still only a rumour. But I do like the idea of someone mounting a realistic challenge to Facebook’s monopoly, if only because it will help slow down their terrifying expansion and re-introduce the concept of choice into social networking. And I like choice.

I think my feelings can best summed up by Alan Maryon-Davis, the outgoing president of the Faculty of Public Health. He said:

“Personally, I mistrust the notion of seeing public health campaigns being sponsored by companies that clearly sell products which are not the healthy option”.

Yep.

Your Freedom’s remit is to collect public opinion on which laws we think restrict civil liberties or are just plain unnecessary. And as well as suggesting laws and regulations to send to a sort of legislative Room 101, you also get to rate other peoples suggestions and make comments too. It’s all very modern and progressive and, if heeded, will be one of the better Government initiatives that I can remember. In fact, it seems to be so popular that I’ve been unable to create an account for much of the afternoon due to high demand!

I’m making an account because one of the first submissions under the ‘Repealing Unnecessary Laws’ section is a call to scrap the controversial Digital Economy Act. Remember that? It included all that guff about kicking people off the Internet if they were caught infringing copyright too much. See, rather than accept that we simply wanted more debate about how to manage copyright in these digital times, the then Government assumed as all to be petulant downloaders who didn’t want to lose our free music. The bill was passed during the arse-end of Labours reign in Westminster, when no one was really looking.

So that’s my first choice for a ‘5 star’ rating on Your Freedom, and if you were one of those that also opposed the DEA – this is your chance to do the same.

Part of me is hoping for a damning interrogation into the alleged greed and betrayal that turned Mark Zuckerberg into a billionaire. Fincher’s involvement, coupled with posters emblazoned with the slogan “YOU DON’T GET TO 500 MILLION FRIENDS WITHOUT MAKING A FEW ENEMIES”, gives me great confidence. But comedy and exposé are strange bedfellows, and I’m simultaneously wondering whether this film will be what I think it is, and whether perhaps that comedy tag is spurious? (IMDB only list it as Drama)

As with most things, however, money is deeply entrenched in this utopian idea. And those with the money would rather we not stray too far from their revenue streams. One of the earliest examples was AOL. Remember them? They were the first proper, large ISP, whose main goal seemed to be covering the surface of the planet with their freely given-away start-up CDs.

AOL’s strategy was the idea of the ‘walled garden’ – an AOL controlled (and branded) environment that selectively managed your browsing, emailing and advertising exposure completely. You were free to explore the internet, for the most part…But you never really left the bosom of AOL either.

It was quite a good idea in the early days, a bit like riding a bike with stabilisers on. But as people became less afraid of an unsupervised internet, they tended to move away from AOL and towards standard ISP arrangements (where they simply just gave you a pipe and let you get on with it).

However, this idea of a ‘walled garden’ struggles to be overly worrying or effective these days. I think the average computer user is becoming savvy enough to pick the best tool for the job…Or at least the best tool that someone they trust recommends to them. Microsoft’s steady decline in browser dominance is one relatively simple example of this.

But something is happening to this new, modern and free internet. And it’s happening in small, worrying increments. And I sincerely don’t like it.

It’s Facebook.

Through it’s Open Graph API, Facebook is desperately trying to integrate itself into, well, everything. You may have seen the first results of this strategy already. The ability to ‘thumbs up’ something on a normal, external website is one example. Being able to use your Facebook login details – instead of the traditional registration process – for online services is another. You can even leave comments on some websites with your Facebook account details, leaving behind a thumbnail of your profile picture in the process.

Facebook is pursuing this strategy pretty damn aggressively too. Christian Hernandez, head of international business for Facebook, spoke at the first European Facebook ‘Hack Day’ (note the geek term ‘hack’, despite Facebook being a huge, privately owned company) on Monday, saying:

“I would like to see every single website in Europe have integration with Open Graph…”

Now, I don’t know about you but I thought Facebook was a social networking site. It’s where you go to find out what your friends and family have been up to (and your boss, and that guy from school you barely spoke to). I have no need for it to intrude on other parts of my online activity…And nor do I foresee a situation where I would. The idea that wherever I go on the internet, my Facebook profile is there with me too is deeply troubling. It is completely against the idea of an open and free internet, and betrays just how big and dominant Facebook would like itself to be.

We’re already in a situation where it is considered odd to not have a Facebook profile. And if we’re all destined to have a single, universal internet profile that signs us into anything and everything (and this seems to be where we’re heading, however much I don’t like it)…It will probably be very wise to ensure that a large, privately owned company like Facebook is not involved in any way whatsoever.

Of course, should I want to, I could delete my Facebook account tomorrow and never have to think about it again. But that’s the hook, isn’t it…As a simple social-networking tool, it’s quite good. So whilst I’m not as enamoured with it as some, I can’t claim that I don’t enjoy using it. But now that it’s surveying the rest of the internet and dreaming of little, blue Facebook logos everywhere, I’m getting sorely tempted to reach for the delete button.

The only positive to all this doom and gloom is that the internet can be a remarkably fickle creature. And if its relatively short history can teach us anything, it’s that the stench of big corporations can sour a website overnight. And when something becomes so popular that even your Gran is using it, it becomes very un-cool very quickly. The geeks will leave first, and we will doubtless be not far behind.

Well the good news is that it is not. But things have changed and I shall point out what’s going on in a series of mercifully small bullet points:

• I’ve finally settled on a new design
• I’ve deleted a fair amount of old posts
• I will be continuing with a narrower focus

If this were a grander site with a larger readership I’d call it a relaunch. If it were a film that successfully re-ignited a tired, old franchise, I’d call it a reboot (I’d also probably be Christopher Nolan). Luckily for everyone involved, I’m not any of these things, so I’ll just waffle something semi-interesting about the natural evolution of small, personal websites. Yes, that’ll do.

38 Degrees Newspaper Ads

When one party gains 57 seats off nearly seven million votes and the next gets a whopping 258 from eight and a half million, you know something isn’t right. And when this crazy voting system can’t even deliver a majority for the one party it benefits most, you begin to understand why change is so important.

Currently only voters in marginal seats can feel like they personally effected the outcome of an election, whilst the rest of us have to choose between tactical voting or endorsing a candidate we know stands no chance of being elected. As I type this, the powers-that-be are deciding the outcome of a muddled general election.

I just hope Nick Clegg read his morning papers today.

“iPhone can be addicting, says new survey”

And there it is, right in the middle…‘addicting’. I mean, sure, the sentence makes sense. But, and correct me if I’m wrong here, don’t we already have a word to use in this context? And is that word not ‘addictive’? Because I think we do, and I think that ‘addictive’ IS the word that should be used here. Let’s try it out…

“iPhone can be addictive, says new survey”

See, that’s better already. But because I’m not a complete idiot, here are a few things I’ve learnt after 15 minutes of half-arsed internet research.

• ‘Addicting’ doesn’t appear in either the Oxford or Cambridge dictionaries, and they’re big serious dictionaries made by people who probably frown a lot.
• ‘Addicting’ does appear in some online dictionaries, but not all of them.
• Of the instances I DID find online, none of them provided an example of how to actually use the word. Hmmm…
• Every single dictionary I looked at DID list the word ‘addictive’ though. They also gave usage examples that sounded suspiciously like my amended headline.

So that’s my rant. If anyone can furnish me with a compelling reason to forgive ‘addicting’, and acknowledge it as a real, proper word, I shall publish a full, public apology. Until then, you’ll find me stood in the corner. Holding my breath.

P.S. Here’s the link to the offending headline