The Facebook pile-on is in full swing: Will they survive?

As a former Facebook user, I was sad to see the direction and risk that the company was taking on when it began partnering with web sites to integrate their tool. Of course, Facebook has a long history of setting its own course and has suffered minor setbacks in the past as a result.

With the media hype coming down from the iPad, it appears from my vantage point that Facebook will continue its death spiral at a more rapid pace. The questions will be coming from all angles in the media, but I think there is more to learn than "violating trust is bad" from the Facebook model. Social networking as we know it has some very real benefits and constraints, and there are certainly some ethical boundaries that need to be addressed so that the data that exists on these sites are used only for its intended purpose.

Essentially, Facebook is the worst example of our best social networking community. As is the case in research and scholarly writing, we must continue to evolve, let the market forces play themselves out, and not only question, but apply the lessons learned to advance the technology.

For now, the question is simply... will Facebook survive?