Since April 21st, the Web has been on fire with discussion about Facebook’s “Open Graph” that was recently unveiled at F8.  The majority of the conversation has focused on the privacy implications, and the best minds on the Web have writing extensively on what this new “personalized Web” really means – see Dana Boyd’s recent series of posts on Facebook as an example.  Some digerati have even gone so far as to Webcast the deleting of their personal Facebook Profiles – notice how hard this is to do.

Roughly a month later, Facebook remains relatively silent and the speculators have done their speculating. Now, what does this all mean?

What is open graph?

First ask yourself, “Do I understand Facebook’s Open Graph?“

Don’t worry, the average person doesn’t and probably won’t unless you walk them through it with specific examples.  If you’re still a little fuzzy on the whole Open Graph concept, I highly recommend you check out Neicole Crepeau’s recent post titled “5 Graphics that Explain Facebook’s Open Graph”.  It’s a great piece that does exactly what it’s title says, it explains the Open Graph with 5 simple graphics.

Now comes the fun part. Have you played around in this new environment?

I have, and some of it is really cool, while other instances make me want to run for the hills and give up on social media altogether.  Please Note: I was at FOWA Miami in 2008 when Open ID was the controversial subject; I could never understand until I played with Facebook’s new “Like” buttons.

Open graph examples?

Here are two examples that I’ll use to explain myself:

Example #1: “Diabolical Hot Dog” – While visiting the Threadless Facebook Page, I saw a cool T-shirt called “Diabolical Hot Dog” with a Like button right next to it – bear in mind they no longer have this shirt on their Facebook Page is the designs are consistently changed out.

I then clicked the Like button and following showed up on my Profile:

Notice it says “Mark likes ‘Diabolical Hot Dog’…“ which makes sense, but what happens when you click on it?

Pre-Open Graph conventional wisdom would say that it would link back to the Threadless Facebook Page, but it doesn’t. It actually links to the “Diabolical Hot Dog” Page on the Threadless Web site.  The marketing and sales person in me says “…wow, now that’s cool…“.

On to the next example.

Example #2: Levi’s “Friend’s Store” – One of my peers suggested I check out the “Friend’s Store” on Levi.com and I did.

Please note that I was using Google Chrome as my browser and was logged into Facebook in another Tab.

Now, having never bought jeans online, it was a neat first impression until I got below the fold.  It was here that I found two disturbing things:

• “Upcoming Birthdays” of my Facebook friendsin the right hand column and
• Under the jeans that were showcased, it revealed any of my friends who may have “liked” a pair.

That marketing and sales person in me no longer sees this as “pretty cool” – rather, I felt a little violated.

I left the site thinking, Levi’s seems to know a lot about me and I’m not really crazy about this.

After a couple more tests and some time to reflect on what the Facebook Open Graph is, I began to start asking questions like I would ask one of my peers such as:

• What does this mean to your business?  Do you embrace the “Like” button and seed it throughout your Web site, do you use it selectively, or do you sit back and wait to see how your competitors react?
• If you sit back and watch, are you losing opportunity to stay ahead in the game?
• If you embrace Facebook’s Open Graph with unbridled enthusiasm in terms of implementation, are you turning a blind eye on the hot button privacy issues?
• If you’re consulting a client, do you recommend that they use it regardless of your personal and professionals feelings on the matter?
• By embracing the Open Graph, what does this do about our customer’s privacy?  Are you comfortable with your answer?
• Is this a “personalization” of the Web?
• Is this really an open system or one system that controls a lot of information?
• Is it really smart to deactivate or delete a Facebook Profile based on all the recent hype?
• What are the long terms effects of Facebook’s Open Graph to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Do you have the answers to any of the above? If so, what are they and are you confident with them?

Do you have other questions I may have missed?

What do you think about this?