The Facebook Backlash

Several high profile digirati have deleted their Facebook profiles, making this the latest cool kids move among the uber-geeks. Leo Leport of TWiT and Jason Calacanis of Mahalo recently "committed suicide" or "jumped" with their profile deletions.

Leport makes an interesting point on his recent podcast -- yes, he had 10s of thousands of followers but he essentially was helping Facebook populate its world by bringing his content and brand to them. Leo has begun to doubt the value of "Facebook's megaphone."

Calacanis is much more biting with his feelings. His weblog provides a detailed account of his issues with the privacy failures of Facebook, and his concerns about Mark Zuckerberg specifically.

It is an interesting pro-con read, as his commentators are making some hard points against the move.

Certainly, it would be counter intuitive for an athletic department to walk away from the chance to organize and communicate with their large fan bases -- over 51K for the Arkansas Razorbacks, for example.

Calacanis does raise some serious questions for individuals, however, that use the system.