I’m interested in seeing what Google does with Google Me.  I saw in the past few weeks that Facebook has decided to kill off the boxes and I guess a lot of people don’t seem to care since 55k people liked the post and just under 3k are in the biggest group opposing it, then again I think a lot of people on FB either just like things just to like them or they like anything FB says like little drones.  They have tons of crap that could be fixed and yet the focus on boxes as a removal?  They have some kind of plan but really didn’t say a lot on what it is or demonstrate it in the announcement.

Boxes, in my opinion, are the one thing that they offer that gives me a connection to me.  I have my Steam profile, my Live365 station info, a daily Bible verse, buttons of what I support or like, etc. that I look at when I go to my page.  It’s a “make shift” home page and something static that I, or anyone else, can look at when hitting that page.  I would actually like to see the profile page expanded to more static “boxes” that are dynamically updated like some of these are or others to show, as I said what I like/support/etc. that I update.  I can only assume that Facebook is out to snuff out anything that isn’t actively making them money like these kind of features.  It’s unfortunate that companies that get big with poor management forget what got them to that point.

As for Google  Me…. I hope they build it out with a similar interface to FB since it does have some organization unlike mySpace.  Don’t get me wrong, mySpace gives people full control of their profile so that it appears as somewhat of a home page but it’s a bit much in terms of clutter on most of them.  I’d like to see Google strike a nice balance of the two sites.  Rather than removing the items that I organize and place into a particular spot, I hope that Google combines the features of the aforementioned sites and adds Google.  I’d love to open my browser, see my iGoogle page  (as today), click a tab to see my social stream, search or click on a friend and see their static homepage of information or hop over to mine and see any my dynamic app “boxes” and personal streams (as FB does today).  All of this would be configurable in the interface so I can see what I want, like if I don’t want to use iGoogle as my start and rather see my friends stream (as FB does today), I can set that or if I want to go to my profile page by default, I’m there first and I can click on the friends stream, iGoogle, etc.

My point is that rather than making FB more broad and open to me and my tastes, it seems they’re making it more narrow and restrictive and just a Twitter clone with a reply button.  Some of the things they should be more focused on, in my opinion, is streams that are broken out and more manageable.  I stopped playing games there mostly because they take too much time but they’ll also fill your wall in no time and people can post any crap they want to my wall rather than conversations or feedback and there’s little control over it.  I’d rather see a tab broken out for games that I play and separate from my conversations.  I’d like to see something as FB uses for groups/pages where you can see just what I posted instead of everything.  Just simple things but they’re going in the absolute opposite direction and I assume trying to find ways to make even more money.  The stupid iPod/iPad/iPhone, etc. spam is so rampant that some groups/pages aren’t worth reading or getting invites to the ridiculous “add 10 friends to see what happens next” crap.  Or their worst mistake in allowing the “like” for 1,000,000 phrases with no discussion and only there to make money and probably harvest personal information that FB shares with them.  While mySpace was just poorly coded, FB has decided to open the doors to the world and at the same time to your personal information that you may share (and by default is available).

I know this is a rant and may jump around a bit but it would be nice if a social network focused on the user and not their, already, fat wallet.  As I said, it’s unfortunate that companies that get big with poor management forget how they made it to that point and made the shitload of cash in their account.  You build something that gives people what they want and the cash will come as it did for FB but when you screw with your ora, so to speak, for money you’re just opening yourself to being smacked down hard and I hope Google does it quick and hard.