Facebook Axes Regional Networks

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced yesterday his company’s intent to axe the ‘regional networks’ that helped fan the rise of Facebook over five years ago.

Facebook's current privacy model revolves around "networks" — communities for your school, your company or your region. This worked well when Facebook was mostly used by students, since it made sense that a student might want to share content with their fellow students.

Over time people also asked us to add networks for companies and regions as well. Today we even have networks for some entire countries, like India and China.

However, as Facebook has grown, some of these regional networks now have millions of members and we've concluded that this is no longer the best way for you to control your privacy. Almost 50 percent of all Facebook users are members of regional networks, so this is an important issue for us. If we can build a better system, then more than 100 million people will have even more control of their information.

The plan we've come up with is to remove regional networks completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone.

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The move strikes me as one made by a company lacking clear vision.

Vision-oriented companies tend to craft a company plan apart from those pursued by competitors.  The goal is to develop a product that is inherently desirable, and sell it to consumers based upon its merits.

Given the constant layout changes, quarterly ‘new’ privacy settings, and now the removal of its networks, Facebook seems to hone its vision in reaction to its competition. The goal is not so much to set Facebook apart as it is to reach the lowest common denominator of Myspace.

Unfortunately, this time it seriously misjudges the desire of users.

Regional networks were one of the features that fundamentally set Facebook apart from the competition. People could connect, and reconnect through the shared life experience of a network, and this was a service that none of the competitors could provide. 

Sadly, removing this basic node of connectivity means that the only thing setting Facebook apart from Myspace is its lack of html editing.