Giving the 'Net a new 'face'

It figures that students don't worry about what information they share online until someone gets arrested. \nSince an alleged rape victim's friend used Thefacebook to identify her attacker, some of the site's members are a little worried about who else might be reading their Web-based profiles.\nWhy did we put all our personal information in a public place, anyway? Did we forget about when it's appropriate to let things out in the open and what is better kept private? Are we all just lemmings, going onto this Web site because our friends are doing it?\nHey, I could go online and "poke" someone! Whatever that means.\nOK, we may be guilty of being naive when it comes to our participation in Thefacebook, but the fault doesn't just rest with us. What we're experiencing now are the troubled years of the World Wide Web's adolescence.\nJust like an awkward teenager, Thefacebook just doesn't know what to do with itself. It can't decide whether it wants to be a site where friends can start up clubs to talk about their favorite movies, or look for study buddies, or search for a date for next Friday night. Instead, as some teenagers do, Thefacebook tries to be everything all at once.\nSome call it versatile, but I call it vague. For any tool to be useful, you have to know what to do with it the first time you look at it.\nFor example, Howard Rheingold reported in "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution," a nonfiction book, that a Japanese matching service gives its users a small device called a Lovegity to put on their key chains. Users register a profile with the service, and if they come within 15 feet of another Lovegity member of the opposite sex with a compatible profile, it alerts the user.\nEven though Lovegity's service is similar to Thefacebook, it is built around a more specific application. There is no question this is for matchmaking. It is not for making clubs or talking about movies or this mysterious thing Thefacebook called "random play." \nMany Americans just don't understand that less is more.\nThefacebook creates privacy concerns because it is too easy for its users to find different ways to use the site. Inevitably, cliques from the real world converge in Thefacebook world and develop their own subcultures.\nOne circle of friends might start a group named after an inside joke, and another circle may join a group devoted to playing "Half-Life 2." But if a girl decides to "poke" a guy from the inside joke group and starts a conversation with him, the guy might start to think the girl is a stalker. While she is on Thefacebook to meet people, he is on the site to goof around with people he's already met.\nWhen an individual tries to jump from one subculture to another person's subculture, the resulting cultural dissonance can make things awkward, defeating the purpose of a social networking service.\nAn important part of growing up is to stop trying to be everything and just be one thing. What Thefacebook needs to do is simplify its service. Putting members on plain digital terrain makes it easier for them to expand their social network together. As the Web "grows up," we can expect to see services more like Lovegity because they are simple, and they have a more immediate connection to the real world.\nOn the other hand, if police ever use Lovegity the way they can use Thefacebook, criminals should probably turn their Lovegities off: They might make the chase a little too easy.