FACEBOOK 2012.....

Living in a country with security problems like Mexico, people tend to get paranoid and some times will even loose all objectivity. There was a huge tragedy that I absolutely condemn and made me personally very sad, and impotent, and frustrated maybe because I have kids of my own, ant it was the case of a very well known person in Mexico called Fernando Martí, son of Alejandro Marti, owner of a huge Mexican Sporting Goods Chain Stores called "Deportes Marti" (if you like to see what really happened you can read the script of an interview they made him in Mexico)

http://observatoriomediosuia3.wordpress.com/2008/08/14/no-puedo-retirarme-a-lamerme-las-heridas-entrevista-alejandro-marti-%E2%80%93-empresario/

Well, as soon as this case went public, a lot of blogs, e-mails, manifestations, etc... started to happen. And one of them got my attention and actually made me realize that even though it was a tragedy, and I can understand that people are upset and frustrated, it is no excuse to get a target to direct all of your anger. Let me explain myself... I usually erase all spam and chain mails which in Latin America are huge, but one of them caught my eye that had the following subject:

"Stop using facebook if you want to protect your family"

When I went and read the rest of the mail, people where arguing that you have your personal information, you have photographs of yourself and of your families and you even disclosure personal information that Hackers might use to kidnap a member of your family". Not only was I surprised with what the e-mail said, because it had a lot of truth in it, but it was, in my opinion, manipulated in order to create panic into people using two key elements. A well known brand of a social network, "Facebook" and a recent tragedy as an example.

I made some self introspection and came to the conclusion that if anyone wanted to get information of Marti´s family or any other well known family in Mexico, you don´t need to go all the way to hack facebook and obtain personal information... everybody knew who they where and judging only for the number and size of the stores they own, you don´t have to be a mind reader to realize that they are targets of kidnapping and they would know that they could ask for a lot of money.

I even got into a discussion with my wife´s sister who got completely paranoid and was canceling her account and that of her husband and children because of security purposes. I just told Paloma (who I really like) listen, there are a couple of reasons there is no point in canceling your Facebook account:

1. You really are not a target for kidnappers.... they would probably would want more than 500usd and a big mac, and that´s all you´re worth.
2. They would just need to see what car are you driving, or stand outside of your kid´s school entrance and select a target based on a zillion other aspects.
3. You really are not a target for kidnappers.... they would probably would want more than 500usd and a big mac, and that´s all you´re worth.
4. It will be a lot easier to drive around a fancy neighborhood and start following the person of the biggest house, that comes out with the biggest and most expensive car, than go for all the trouble of hacking Facebook to find a worth target.
and finally
5. You really are not a target for kidnappers.... they would probably would want more than 500usd and a big mac, and that´s all you´re worth.

They where speaking that after this and other security related issues, people would simply stop using facebook, and guess what.... they are still connected, because the synergy and the need of social networking are so big, that eventually they will reconnect.

I believe Facebook will be a different, more secure, evolved tool in 2012... But it will definitely will still be there.... I don´t even think that they plan much of the stuff in terms of functionality and applications they will incorporate, but I imagine they just go with the flow and attend to the needs of their subscribers who are the really owners, censors, judges and end users of Facebook.

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