How much innovation is too much?
Facebook sure is generating a lot of attention with it's latest privacy kerfuffle. Here's Henry Blodget's take on why:
Step back and think about what Facebook is doing here. It is pioneering an entirely new kind of service, one that most of its users have never seen before, one with no established practices or rules. It is innovating in an area--the fine line between public and private--that has always freaked people out. It is allowing people to communicate and share information in ways they never have before. It is making decisions that affect hundreds of millions of people. And it is trying to stay a step ahead of competitors that would like nothing better than to see it get scared and conservative and thus leave itself open to getting knocked off.
Now it's an open question as to whether's Facebooks incessant tweaking is about innovating new services for people rather than optimizing for advertisers' dollars. But let's assume for a second that it is truly all about pushing forward with new features for its users.
I've long thought that when it comes to innovation, you *can* have too much of a good thing. That is, you can innovate to a certain level, but if you're too far ahead of the curve, the world won't be ready for you, and won't accept what you are doing.
So to me, the key question with this latest round of privacy (or more accurately, users' control of what they make public) vs. Facebook is, have they crossed that invisible line where they get too far ahead of their users? Soo far, the answer appears to be no - as people continue flocking to the service.