I’ve been reading a fair bit recently about privacy on Facebook. This has always been a hot topic, whether it’s because campus security at certain high-minded universities have used the service to keep tabs on student parties (and bust the rowdy-looking ones preemptively) or because employers are, more and more, checking out potential employee’s profiles before making job offers.

Some people find these kinds of things vaguely unsettling in a “Big Brother” sort of way. Local T.O blog Torontoist recently weighed in, after a pseudo-scandal where a university student was brought up on charges of cheating because he was running a study group through facebook:

As we’ve seen demonstrated, the whole frenzy isn’t about fairness. It’s that the rules have changed; Facebook is no longer the domain of the student alone, and students have good reason to be wary of newly watchful universities. With the medium’s shift away from “hot” or “cool” to a lukewarm blend of both, people like Chris Avenir [the student who got in trouble] or anyone else in the business of operating under the radar—for whatever reason—should probably think twice before all but advertising their activities.

“Be careful” seems to be the standard advice when it comes to social networking sites like Facebook and more ‘legitimate’ enterprises like getting a job. I’m not so sure it’s the right advice.

Being careful versus being smart

‘Be careful’ doesn’t quite make sense, especially if that advice comes with recommendations to use Facebook’s own privacy controls, because here’s the thing: privacy is dying. It implies that people have an expectation — maybe even a right — to not have people they don’t know check out their Facebook profile. But all the ideas behind social networking (communication, interaction, expansion of network, new friends, sharing) are contrary to any ideals of privacy. You cannot have both and, as a society, we’ve chosen: we like social networking.

It’s not about being careful. It’s about being smart. You should ABSOLUTELY have a Facebook account¹, and a LinkedIn account, and any sort of account that connects you with people in the industry you want to involve yourself in. These online platforms are rapidly becoming the online gateway to people and, in fact, for making introductions and strengthening connections they beat the snot out of old-fashioned conferences and trade show meet and greets.

With your accounts, you should operate under the assumption that everything you post is potentially viewable by anyone. Your boss, your parents, your teacher, and any and all deities you choose to associate yourself with — they can see it all: your party pictures, your favourite films, that quiz you filled out that told you that, out of all The Office characters, you’re most like Stanley — everything.

But that shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing, nor should you censor yourself significantly online. In fact, I’d urge people to be as honest as they can with their profiles: present your likes, dislikes, opinions, goals, your humour (hugely important). Use the online space to show the world who you are.

Concerns about privacy in the sense that maybe a potential employer will see it, and be offended and not hire you or whatever, are entirely outdated and almost insulting. You need to ask yourself if you’d ever really want to start a career with someone who just can’t handle the fact that you like to drink alcohol on weekends. Or if someone who can’t handle the fact that you occasionally use a certain f-word is really the kind of person you see yourself spending 40 hours a week with.

Selling You

It’s best to think of your online profiles as analogous to the clothes you wear everyday. Sure, you could wear a suit every day and look very presentable in the eyes of a bunch of stuffy older people, but you’ll get really uncomfortable before long (and the summers will be a chore). Or you could go all-out and wear a leather vest and 1993 grunge-era Levis, but people are going to judge you for that too. Best to split the difference, and wear something casual but presentable and at the same time uniquely you — something appropriate for both work and play.

A tortured analogy, maybe, but here we are, and the bottom line is this: your Facebook account is out there, and, just like with the clothes on your back, the only way to avoid being seen is to not show up at all. Generation Y should leverage social media as a way to find opportunities, welcome interactions from all people, but never censor their own true selves in the process.

Privacy is overrated anyway.

Photo by robleto. Licensed under Creative Commons.

1. I should say that, yes, I have some concerns about the long-term viability of Facebook. I like to ask people if they really think they’ll be using Facebook in five years. Odds are, we won’t be. But there will probably be something else that takes its place. [↩]

Via Chris Bird: a nifty map of social networking sites based on their popularity in countries around the world.

Some thoughts:

• I’d love to see some historical data. It’d be neat to see Facebook’s growth versus myspace in English-speaking countries
• Why has Facebook been so so slow to launch international (non-English) versions of the platform? It’s only now that they’re getting going on that. It seems to me that the time spent developing the application system would have been better spent shoring up mindshare in big markets like India and Latin America.
• Friendster? REALLY, Asian Pacific?

This stuff may seem trivial now, but consider the future of business as a peer to peer network of contacts and resources. Your chosen platform may end up meaning more than you think.

Ed Gottsman at ZDnet writes:

The workplace won’t change because of Gen-Y’s values. It’ll change because of their tools. In particular, social networking tools. Now, if you’re like me you are sick unto death of hearing about MySpace, FaceBook and LinkedIn. But part of the reason they keep coming up is that they’re important.

There’s a bit too much exasperated-old-foginess coming out of this article, but Gottsman makes a good point here:

So one of the most important assets Gen-Y will bring to the workplace is its Facebook account: an enormous “rolodex” of acquaintances–probably larger, more varied and better maintained than those of top management. Enterprises will be well-advised to encourage cultivation of this contact list–in other words, to let their employees “play” on FaceBook–since this activity will serve as a source of new customers and recruits.

While I have mixed feelings on Facebook and its long term prospects (more on that later), there’s definitely something to the idea that Gen Y employees will bring social networking clout to businesses. Already businesses have seen the kind of success a timely link from digg, slashdot and BoingBoing can bring them. My own digg experience has shown that a front page appearance on a weekday during business hours can net a web site some 30,000 pageviews. Considering posting to digg costs $0, it’s hard to think of more effective advertising.

I do think this is an area where Gen Y will have to be smart, though. No matter how much the corporate landscape shifts, no one’s ever going to get hired because they have over 1,000 MySpace or Facebook friends. Especially if your social networking activities are limited to superpokes and Scrabulous. On the other hand, if someone happens to have regular IM or twitter contact with Jason Kottke, waxy or the gang at 37 signals, that’s an immediately valuable thing for business. That’s an employee who has the connections to get you major exposure across the web.

This shouldn’t just be limited to so-called ‘web’ companies, either. This is something that all businesses would do well to keep in mind, especially as more people — and not just the sketchy ‘SEO’ market lurking about these days — come into business with extensive social networking experience and knowledge.

Photo by Aristocrat. Licensed under Creative Commons.

The headline at forbes.com is Mister Softee Buys Cool, referring to yesterday’s announcement that Microsoft is in the process of a hostile takeover of Yahoo! and all their properties.

So, why is this merger/buyout in the works? Simple: It is all about the Facebook Nation. This is apparently the main focus of the Microsoft plan, as they have been slowly moving toward a greater relationship with Facebook for some time. Have you taken notice of the sea change to the look and feel of Microsoft? As a company, it has finally realized that “square corners” is not selling. Microsoft wants desperately to be hip. It owns the desktop, but it doesn’t own the action/nightlife.

Think of a teenager living in his parent’s home. He uses it as a place to flop, eat and wash. He tolerates his parents yet keeps them at a social distance. Once he has his wings, he is out of there. Apple (nasdaq: AAPL – news – people ) has done a good job at capturing the early adoption of many of the Gen-Xers and now Gen-Y is up for grabs. This is the social generation with idealism.

It’s a good point and it throws the spotlight on something really interesting about this deal: Yahoo! wasn’t at the very top of Microsoft’s to-buy list when it comes to ‘hip’ web properties. What they really wanted, and have been angling for for months, is Facebook. But Mark Zuckerberg – worth billions and one year younger than me (dammit!) – wasn’t playing ball: Microsoft ended up only getting a small piece.

There’s no doubting that Microsoft desperately wants to foster a more youth-friendly image, but I’m not sure Yahoo! will do anything to help that. For the most part, Yahoo! is too big to really seem cool. Some of their properties have the right kind of cred: Flickr is definitely cool. Del.icio.us is pretty cool. Even the Fantasy Sports sites have potential. But Yahoo! Finance and News? The search engine itself? The mail program? These things are nowhere near as ‘cool’ as Google’s products. Plus, there’s not really any “Yahoo! Communities” on the level of Facebook, Myspace or even Digg.

Is it a bad deal? Probably not. If anything, it takes out a major third party in the Battle for the Web, leaving this as essentially a two-horse race. (With maybe Newscorp hanging out somewhere, far behind.) But any talk of the Yahoo! buy giving Microsoft more Gen Y appeal seems a little presumptuous.

Photo by Gnal. Licensed under Creative Commons