There’s been a lot of controversy over Facebook’s new mini-feed feature, which alerts all your friends of status updates.

I’ve already written that this feature is a step in the right direction, and Michael Arrington also agrees with me. The fact is that there simply isn’t any new information being leaked, just that the information is now being aggregated in one place.

Hundred of thousands of Facebook members have joined protest groups, some of which are “Facebook feeds…make them go away!!”, “Students against Facebook News Feed”, and “Mark Zuckerberg, Bring Back Our Old Facebook!” On the other hand, there are a few groups out there in favor of the feeds, one aptly named “Students against Students against Facebook News Feed.”

Personally, I am totally in support of the Facebook feeds. Facebook takes great pains to make sure privacy is enforced, only allowing certain groups of people tied to an educational or corporate account to view profiles. We all have to remember that Facebook is a free service, and you can elect to quit the service if you’re worried about privacy. The people who are worried about the feeds are probably the ones placing too personal of information on the service in the first place.

In essence, the mini-feeds will create a more vibrant social network, allowing people to see what others are doing in near real time. I just hope that all those privacy cry babies don’t ruin this feature for the rest of us.

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Categories - Social Networking, Privacy |