New facebook..again?

As I logged on to Facebook this morning, I couldn't help but notice that the homepage had changed..yet again. Curious about these new features, I went to msnbc.com, and found this headline. 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33452642/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/ 

It seems that Facebook has not added anything new to its homepage, but just tweaked, or moved somethings around. These new features include a "Live News Feed" in addition to the standard News Feed we have all grown accustomed to. The Live News Feed is just more recently updated information on what your friends are doing, saying, liking, etc. If you ask me, there isn't much of a difference. As with more technological things these days, facebook has made these changes in hopes of making it easier for users. 

It seems like everytime I get used to the new features Facebook has to offer, they come in and changed something..again.

After our discussion in class today about the Labor and New Media article, I started thinking about wealth the trade off of facebook being free, but still making money off of users. The ideas of wealth of user created content, and the online community as a product made me consider this: what if facebook wasn't free. Imagine if it cost money to sign up and be a facebook user. Would it still be popular? Would it have grown into the giant empire it is today, if from the beginning, it wasn't free. All throughout class, and even throughout the day today, I wondered if people would really pay to socialize online. Facebook has been such a huge part of new media and captures the attention of so many diverse people. I can't even begin to think about how much time I spent on facebook, but would I still spend the same amount of time on there if I had to pay to be a constant user. I encourage you to think about the same thing, and to let me know your thoughts.

So after our discussion in class today, I started thinking about my facebook, and what it says about me. When I came home I immeditly signed on and started to check if I had participated in any of those quizzes or became fans of anything that would allow them to have access to my picture and page. The discussion we had about someone being able to take your picture and use it to represent or stand for something made me extremely nervous. I had no idea this was even a possibility. I already consider myself to be pretty careful on facebook but rejecting the unknown whether it be friends, causes, groups, etc, but after today I feel as if I need to start being even more careful.