Constant Facebook changes for the better

Listen closely. Do you hear that? It’s the sound of five hundred million groans as Facebook tweaks itself again, changing the functionality of its inbox to become even more social and even less private.

Correction, make that 499,999,999 groans.

I’m in favor of Facebook’s changes, as long as there’s an opt-out for users who don’t share my enthusiasm.

Facebook announced this past week it was converting its messages system into a truly “social inbox.” Each Facebook user receives their own e-mail address, username @ facebook.com.

Messages will now be threaded and organized as interaction between two users, instead of on individual topics and subjects.

All of a sudden, Facebook’s “View Friendship,” a feature that led to confusion and frustration just a week ago, seems to make a lot more sense.

My friends think I’m nuts for supporting nearly all of Facebook’s revisions, revamps and changes.

I believe a constantly evolving product becomes a better one.

I like change, perhaps that burned me this past Election Day, but a constantly changing Facebook keeps me on my toes and doesn’t allow me to get comfortable with one revision or version of my favorite social networking site.

Facebook and the team behind it has genuinely good interests.

No, I didn’t get to see “The Social Network,” but I can sure guess at its overall intent. And that rendition of Radiohead’s “Creep” by Scala and Kolacny Brothers still haunts me every time I log in to Facebook.

Perhaps I’m naive, but I don’t think the man behind the curtain at Facebook is trying to steal my identity.

It’d be incredibly naive to say Facebook was never a major violator of privacy. Recent decisions, like Facebook’s social integration with Pandora and Yelp, fire up red flags.

I don’t think there’s a Dr. Evil at Facebook sitting in a big chair in a big room with millions of TV screens cackling sinisterly at these new features. I truly believe Facebook’s chief intention is to make the experience better for all its users, and I’ll believe that as long as an opt-out feature is always added.

One of Facebook’s greatest moves in the past year was the centralization and organization of privacy settings.

It wasn’t a pretty change, like the creation of a “social inbox” or the new groups system, but it took potentially one of Facebook’s most important settings — especially for underage college students who are often pictured with red cups, six packs or beer bongs — and made it easier to understand for most of the five hundred million people who are using the social network.

Facebook continues to evolve and change for the better, and this is most evident with the recent institution of its new social inbox. Right on, Mark Zuckerberg. Keep up the good work, Facebook, but make sure you’re letting users who want to keep their identities private have the ability to do so.

Sean Quinn is a first-year political science student. His column appears every Wednesday.