I recently read Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook written by Dan Yoder, and as with all articles I read it thoroughly before passing judgement, though it did feel paranoid and biased even with the little disclaimer at the beginning.  So after taking some time to absorb his opinion I realised mine hadn’t changed, I didn’t disagree with all the points but did feel it certainly wasn’t a balanced view.

In this post I am not going to analyse each of the ten reasons individually or too closely, this will just be my opinion as a user, consumer and social being.  Just in case you haven’t read Dan’s full article (link above) I have listed the ten reasons here for easy reference.

1. The Facebook application itself sucks
2. Facebook doesn’t (really) support the Open Web
3. Facebook makes it incredibly difficult to truly delete your account
4. Facebook is not technically competent enough to be trusted
5. Even your private data is shared with applications
6. Facebook is a bully
7. Facebook is pulling a classic bait-and-switch
8. Facebook has flat out declared war on privacy
9. Facebook’s CEO has a documented history of unethical behavior
10. Facebook’s Terms Of Service are completely one-sided

Firstly, I am going to cover the repetition of reasons five, seven, eight, nine and ten.  Basically these five reasons are at the centre of the ‘paranoia’ I spoke of earlier; they state between them that Facebook is changing its terms of service so that it can share your data, making it publically available while at the hands of some unscrupulous overlord (when you say it like that you can see why I use the word ‘paranoid’!).  My issue with this perception is that Facebook is a business that offers a service for free, obviously they need to monitise this and as user data is a growing market I think they would be foolish not to focus on its potential.

So let’s take the supermarket Tesco for example, they have been collating shopper buying habits now with their ‘Clubcard’ points system for some years and I suspect they aren’t just collecting this data for the fun of it; surely it stands to reason that if they know what you are buying  they can target you more effectively and increase their profits.  My point is that either Tesco get our data and hit us or another company collects the same data and sells it to someone else, one way or another they will find the information they want.  In addition, if this data is being used for the hard sell of products then doesn’t the user simply need to become more aware and less gullible.  In addition to this, who is to say that collection of user data is a bad thing, companies selling you things you need so you don’t need to shop around may not sound that bad to some shoppers, or am I missing something?

We should also bear-in-mind that Facebook is a huge brand, like Microsoft if it steps out of line or tries to monopolise the market it is big enough to be noticed by all the authorities that matter, and they are not stupid.

Can Facebook be trusted technically and does it really support the open web?  These two views seem to me to be biased as I am pretty sure there are many other big brand names whose websites are like Swiss Cheese technically, and i don’t think it is alone in its fear of the open web, just look at the newspaper industry, the fear of not making enough money will always win unfortunately.

For balance, I do think the interface could be more intuative and stable, and if account deletion is as difficult as Dan states then this is a negative.  However, I do have a number of friends who have decided to leave Facebook for different reasons than Dan states but they didn’t seem to have any problems leaving at all!

In conclusion, Facebook has been a revolution for people in all walks of life.  It has helped millions communicate with family and friends from all around the globe, it has broken down barriers and given those who can’t get out a window into a social world; if it wasn’t Facebook offering this service and sharing the data it would be some other organisation and many already are.  Even in the last few days Facebook has announced a new simpler way of checking the privacy settings on all accounts, that certainly sounds like a company trying to do the right thing to me!

As 2008 finally came to a disappointing close, probably only to be remembered more for the global economic meltdown than the historic presidential win for Barack Obama, I express some of my hopes for 2009 both for the web and in general.

2008 was with out doubt a terrible year, but there were some personal highlights for me.  Firstly I discovered Wordpress; this amazing CMS sent me in a new direction with my online creativity both in my design life and my career, and then there was the iphone 3G, which for me is the best gadget any self respecting geek could wish to own.  With both of these being the only real highlights of 2008 for me, then surely 2009 would be a roaring success in comparison?

Well here are some of my hopes, whether or not they happen remains to be seen.

The web has started to move away from the 2.0 tag over the last twelve months, and my hope is that it will take on a more interactive, user generated form where users not only view your site but take part as well.  I’m not talking about social networking or even wikis, but closer exchange between users.  Twitter offers the ability to follow and communicate in a more immediate way than has previously been offered in blogs, youtube offers not only a great place to watch videos but has now become a rich resource in the exchange of knowledge, this instant communication and connection between people will only become more advanced over the next twelve months, and that can only be a good thing for the future of the web.

2007 and 2008 saw a massive increase in free open source web apps and script resources, hopefully 2009 will be no different as people become more comfortable with these advancements.  With google’s API offerings ever on the increase and scripts such as Jquery adding slick functionality to websites, maybe the days of static two dimensional web pages will finally draw to an end, and all sites will offer better more complete web experiences.

I don’t just hope the web improves in 2009, but also the technology that manages our computers improves along with it.  I don’t think anybody can deny that Window Vista was a complete disaster, from problems with speed to early versions being unstable this proved to be a particularly bad move for Microsoft.  During 2008 talk started about a new Windows version and only this week the beta version started being offered to certain individuals.  Windows 7 as it is currently known is suposed to be light weight, and at first glance looks like the OS that Vista should have been, this is another big hope for me in 2009, can Microsoft manage to release an OS that even comes close to Apples OSX and finally give PC users something to shout about,  i’ll be honest, I have my doubts but I have still got my fingers crossed.

In 2009 I will try to update nasarik.com more regularly, and still offer basic tutorials and opinion that help people at the early stages of web design improve and grow as the internet does the same.

As the array of applications every designer needs increases it is naturally becoming an expensive task to set yourself up ready for business or those home projects.  Fortunately in this day and age you don’t always have to pay, open source alternatives are poping up all over the place.

Below is my top five open source apps you may want to check out!

1. Gimp is an image manipulation program this is a good free alternative to the all powerful Adobe photoshop.
2. If you receive a large number of files from external sources you may find that the majority arrive in a Microsoft Office format, if you don’t want to fork out then try Open Office the power of Office for free.
3. FTP applications are everywhere but I am still waiting to find a free app to rival Filezilla, it’s lightweight and extremely simple to use.
4. Obviously with downloading, uploading and general filesharing the virus risk to your machine is a worry.  I have used a few recommended brand name apps in the past but none have performed as well as AVG free.
5. Finally, converting your video and audio files from those random filetypes is a pain but Super seems to tackle a wide variety of formats with few problems, the interface could be a little more pleasing but it does the job.

So that’s images, virus protection, file transfer, video/audio conversion and Office covered you may not like my suggested alternatives but just a few of these could dramatically reduce your software costs regardless of whether you are home or business PC user.