64 AGENDA thewest.com.au October 8-9, 2011

Featuring dynamic pianist and Dutch sensation Ronald Brautigam performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.4.

BEETHOVEN The Creatures of Prometheus: Overture

Piano Concerto No.4 Symphony No.3 Eroica

Roy Goodman, conductorRonald Brautigam, piano

14 & 15 Oct | 7.30pmPerth Concert Hall

Tickets from $40

BOOK NOWWASO 9326 0000Groups 8+ 9326 0075BOCS 9484 1133

waso.com.au

CHEVRON AUSTRALIA MASTERS SERIES

M MEET THE MUSICIAN Robert Gladstones, Saturday post-concert

Australian School of Business

Building Leadership Capabilities

INFORMATION SESSIONS

— Mackay 6.00pm, Tuesday 11 October Mackay Grand Suites, 9 Gregory Street

— Perth 6.00pm, Thursday 20 October Pan Pacific Hotel, 207 Adelaide Terrace

— Online Webinar 1.30pm (AEDT), Thursday 27 October

CRICOS Provider Code: 00098G

The Master of Business & Technology (MBT) is proud to be celebrating 20 years of providing managers with leadership skills.

The MBT is a part-time general management degree for experienced professionals offering:

— Interactive web-based distance learning or Sydney-based face-to-face classes

— Immediate application of theory to the workplace

— Flexibility to organise your study time to suit work, travel and family commitments

Register to attend an information evening by visiting:

www.asb.unsw.edu.au/mbt

or call +2 61 9385 6660.

TotalexposureG

raduation ceremony,falling in love,travel, new job,marriage,pregnancy, movinghouse, adultery,getting a dog,

serious illness, redecorating,divorce . . . abortion?

If you have shared news aboutany of these things on Facebook orTwitter, you are not alone.

You’re also not alone if you findyourself sharing things onlinewhich you would have shied awayfrom discussing in public threeyears ago.

In 2008, Facebook founder MarkZuckerberg made a boldprediction: that people would bewilling to double the amount ofinformation they put online every12 months.

“I would expect that next year,people will share twice as muchinformation as they share thisyear, and the next year, they willbe sharing twice as much as theyear before,” he said.

So far everything according toZuckerberg’s Law is playing out as

planned. Facebook’s 800 millionactive users “like” and commenton more than two billion posts andupload more than 250 millionphotos every day.

Facebook’s latest update,expected to start rolling out thismonth, replaces the traditionalprofile with a timeline. It will bethe biggest aesthetic overhaul ofthe site since its inception.

Compared with the previouslow-key Facebook profile, it is anexciting change, particularly theintroduction of a big cover imagestretching across the page andeasier navigation.

It is also an extremely cleverway for Facebook to extract a newtreasure trove of personal dataabout its users.

The timeline will beautomatically populated byinformation dredged up aboutthings users have “liked”, updatesthey have written and events they

have attended throughout theirFacebook history. DespiteFacebook’s short existence, thedepth of this history will likely beconfronting for some users, whenlong-forgotten items pop up in amuch more prominent, accessibleposition.

Facebook has previously askedusers “What are you doing rightnow?” or “What’s on your mind?”but it will now ask you to tell yourlife “story” by filling in the blanksin a personal history thatstretches right back to when youwere born.

In typical fashion, the bestexperience will be gleaned fromtweaking the timeline, addingimportant events such asgraduations and marriages and inturn feeding Facebook’s insatiableappetite for every detail aboutyour life.

One of the key features of thetimeline will be the increased

focus on “frictionlesssharing”, where users canallow applications to trackonline activities on certainwebsites, automaticallybroadcasting what they arereading, listening to,watching or even wherethey are running.

As with every significantFacebook update, users are takingit as a personal affront: “Shut theeff up and bring the old Facebookback”, read the top comment onFacebook’s official blog about thechanges, followed by a stream of

discontent and just a smatteringof optimism from other users.

On Twitter, people were equallyangry, swinging between simpleannoyance at having to cope withchange — “more Facebookchanges, Mark Zuckerberg?!

■ Louise BurkeSocial media editor

Imagine everything from birth to death you have ever done,photographed, attended, failed ator talked about being online andavailable to advertisers. Meet the new Facebook.

In your face: Mark Zuckerberg talks about the new profile. Picture: Reuters

M †

65AGENDA thewest.com.auOctober 8-9, 2011

Would you like me to go to yourhouse and move around all yourfurniture and see if you like it?!”— to concern about the increasingdemand for personal information— “the next Facebook change isjust going to be a button thatsends my thoughts, desires anddreams directly to MarkZuckerberg”.

Though complaints run hotevery time Facebook makes amajor change, few people followthrough with threats to use thenetwork less or abandon it.

“There was Leave Facebook Daylast time they changed all thesettings but really most peopledidn’t actually leave,” CurtinUniversity internet studieslecturer Tama Leaver said.

“If all your friends and familyare using it you can’t really go ‘I’mnot using that tool any more’.Then you miss out on thoseconversations.”

The sales pitch for the timelineis based on nostalgia. Facebook’sblog update on the changes asksusers to cast their minds back andremember good times they had.

“Imagine if there was an easyway to rediscover the things youshared, and collect all your bestmoments in a single place,” itreads.

“Now, you and your friends willfinally be able to tell all thedifferent parts of your story —from the small things you do eachday to your biggest moments.

What will you create? We can’twait to find out.” The end of thatsentence could have easily been“more information we can sell toour clients”.

Zuckerberg’s Law, a variation onIntel co-founder Gordon E.Moore’s “law”, which predictedthe number of transistors on acomputer chip would double everytwo years, has proved to be hugelyprofitable for Facebook.

Mr Moore’s law enabledincreasingly smaller and fastertechnology, eventually puttingtools for sharing information intoour pockets, in the form of smartphones.

Like Intel, Mr Zuckerberg hasreaped the rewards of his own prediction, with Facebook’srevenue also doubling every yearfrom $777 million in 2009 to $2 billion last year and anexpected figure of more than $4 billion this year.

The ability to mine historicalinformation about users will takeFacebook’s targeted advertisingcapabilities to a new level, DrLeaver said.

“The richer historicalinformation about you just makesa better profile you can sell toadvertisers,” he said.

“The more information youhave got, the better a story orpicture of that person you cansell.”

Dr Leaver argues that societyneeds to be looking beyond what

we are doing today when we thinkabout what we are sharing online.

He wants to draw attention towhat happens to the informationthat outlives us and what we aresharing about children too youngto decide for themselves whatinformation they want online.

“Identity fragments can becreated even before an individualis born, from Facebook updates,blogs and photos detailingattempts to get pregnant, throughto ultrasounds images and thelike,” Dr Leaver said.

“Early childhood, too, can oftenbe documented online by parentswho embrace every recordingtechnology possible, bothcapturing and often sharingonline every smile, every outfitand all those initial milestones ofdevelopment.”

People are busy panicking abouthow much informationadolescents are sharing on socialmedia, yet they aren’t asking thesame questions of parents.

Some children will inherit ahuge footprint of onlineinformation which they may nothave had any say in, laying thegroundwork for a newbattleground between parents andtheir young teens.

“Do you tag kids before theyhave a Facebook account with theexpectation they will have aFacebook account one day andinherit that tagged identity,” DrLeaver asked.

“Will they want that history, orwill the first event be to de-tageverything your parents havetagged of you for 13 years?”

At the other end of thespectrum, there is now thequestion of what happens to ouronline presence after death.

Facebook allows relatives ofdeceased people to delete ormemorialise pages, but there is nodefinite assurance of longevity ofsuch information in theever-changing, commercial, socialmedia environment.

There is also no assurance ofhow such sensitive informationmight be commoditised in future.

People who have married or hadbabies are accustomed to beingbombarded with advertisementsfor prams and lingerie. Will thenewly bereaved have to contendwith customisedadvertisements for funeraldirectors, florists andcatering services?

“We do have to rememberthat we are not Facebook’scustomers, we are theresources Facebook sells toadvertisers,” Dr Leaversaid.

“If people keep that inmind, it helps shape theapprehension we need tohave before we throw ourentire life history intoFacebook as the timelinegets released.”

The depth ofthis historywill likely beconfronting for some users, whenlong-forgottenitems pop up in a much moreprominent,accessibleposition.

Facebook introduced the timelineOctober 2011

More people visited Facebook than GoogleMarch 2010

Facebook fi rst allowed users to tag friends in status updates2009

Facebook started asking ‘What are you doing right now?’December 2007

Facebook released Chat, allowing users to communicate via instant messagesApril 2008

Facebook added the News Feed, highlighting new information about friends, and status updatesSeptember 2006

thefacebook changed its name to Facebook and purchased the domain facebook.comAugust 2005

Born in February 2004at Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Facebook combined Top Stories and Most Recent in the news feed. More than 2 billion posts are liked and commented on per daySeptember 2011

2010

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2009

2008

2007

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2005

2004

Facebook introduced the “Like” button for external websitesApril 2010

Status update

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