Dear "Quit Facebook Day": The Privacy Policy Won't Lead to World Domination

Similar to how Y2K didn't happen, 2012 isn't going to happen, and the Pittsburgh Pirates aren't going to win the World Series, Facebook will never take over the world. If it's alright with any fearful Facebookers out there, I'm going to put my money on Mark Zuckerberg not wanting to be the world's next supreme dictator.
With the recent uproar about Facebook's controversial privacy policy changes, people have started a "Quit Facebook Day" on May 31.
The group that started this movement has expressed concern over the "Open Graph" concept that Mark Zuckerberg has pioneered. Basically, this will allow Facebook, CNN, and 6 other sites to share the personal information of users, in order to adapt content, advertising, etc. to everyone's personal needs. Unless people think that Facebook wants to overthrow the government-- or for that matter, create a new super-awesome mind-control regime-- I don't see why this is problem. They're improving our user experience and showing the ads we would most likely click on and/or find useful.
Also, another concern is that more user information is being shared with the public, and not just your friends. My view on this is that if you're not OK with your profile picture and personal interests being shared with everyone, you shouldn't be posting them in the first place. If you feel that these pieces of information would embarass you if some people saw them, why would you post them?
All in all, unless you seriously think Facebook wants world domination, don't quit Facebook.

Why Facebook Will Never Turn a Profit

Facebook started out roughly five years ago as a social networking site for college kids. Then it expanded to high schools. Now, it's open for everyone, nearly everywhere to join. Today, it has well over 250 million users, using the network in 50 different languages for many different purposes.
Facebook is universally considered a good site, if not one of the best on the Internet. Still, after turning five years old a month ago, Facebook still has never turned a profit. Don't get me wrong, revenues are soaring; Mark Zuckerberg, the genius behind Facebook, projected that earnings would rise 70% this year. On the other hand, the cost of running a social network is not small either. The talent that Facebook must attract, the development it must constantly undergo and the fact that they have to store every photo, video, note and action from every user, even after they delete their account, all contribute to unyielding costs.
They've tried many different advertising models, each to no avail and the number of experiments going on right now is innumerable.
The general problem is that whenever they make an attempt to introduce new advertising, users revolt and create groups that run somewhere along the lines of "I Hate the New Facebook!" or "I Will Not Pay to Use Facebook". And if you don't have users on your side, advertisers sure as heck aren't going to want to give you their money either.
In addition, the developers of this site have made it so lovely and convenient and useful and awesome that barely anyone even focuses on the few ads on the side. And for good reason too; the ads that are normally scattered around the network include mostly the likes of, "I need a man: Install the Zoosk application and meet girls like me!", "Start a Mafia Family" and "Cariacature yourself!". Obviously, these don't cater to the great majority of the population in the world with an IQ over 1.24.
Oh, but what if they reduce costs? Then, there's the same problem, user dissatisfaction. Facebookers are very demanding people; they've been spoiled to an incurable extent. As soon as they even feel like something's worse off than it was before (which basically means any change to the site), the temper tantrums start flooding in. Of course, regular improvements are part of the appetites of the pickiest as well (so basically, you have to improve the site, without changing it...).
All in all, unless they start charging us to use the site, Facebook will collapse just like its rivals.

Vote For Your "Useful Crap Person of the Year" for 2008

Technology has always been a focus for me in this blog and I'm going to take it to the next level with the "Useful Crap Person of the Year". Vote for who, in the technology world, you think has been made the biggest difference or contribution this year. Is it Steve Jobs with the new wave of next-gen devices at Apple or Mark Zuckerberg with his advances in social networking at Facebook? Could it be somebody else?
You decide; you've got 'til December 31, 2008 to choose. Just leave a comment on who it is and possibly a little explanation when you've selected.