So whilst the UK was recovering from over-indulging in chocolate eggs; across the Atlantic, Facebook were splashing out $1 Billion on Instagram. And still the world continued to spin and orbit the Sun. So what does this mean to us all; there will be a lot of soul searching and discussion but ultimately this just continues to productise your life and your experience.
I watched the Google’s Project Glass video prior to the Facebook announcement and was thinking if Google were to buy someone like Instagram; the anonymity of the crowd has gone, the glasses could identify the person you were looking at immediately. Of course Facebook could do the same thing and create their own Project Social Glass. You will no longer be able to sit in coffee shop quietly unrecognised, you would be instantly identifiable. Would you be entirely comfortable with that? I know I won’t be.
There are times in our lives where we just want to want be alone and not identified; to remove that opportunity and to have that constant feeling that you are being watched will change our natures. In our allowing of our lives to productised, we may lose something which is essential to our well-being; Facebook is arguably already removing the right to make mistakes and the ability to forget.
Could it remove the right to be anonymous? Are we heading towards the perfect storm which shatters our illusions of privacy? For even if it is an illusion, it is an important one.
We have to be very careful as to where this road takes us.
Of course Facebook could have just spent $1 Billion on an app to make crap photos look like they were taken 40 years ago.