This Post is by Clint Watson,  founder of FineArtViews. Follow Clint on Twitter.

I started a little Twitter storm today about Facebook.

It started with me linking to an article titled Facebook's New Terms Of Service: We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever.

Admittedly, I was in a grumpy mood today and tweeted some kind of negative stuff.  Sorry if I offended anyone, but my thoughts were rooted in some real ideas and frustrations.

So here's my bottom line:

1.  Facebook appears to be claiming the rights to any content posted.  Theoretically that could mean artwork images, blog posts or any other content.  Whether they could actually use that content and win if challenged in court, I don't know.

2.  Facebook does present a networking opportunity.  I agree with Lisa Call on this one - do Facebook well or don't do it at all.

3.  I'm not telling anyone NOT to use Facebook, heck I already use it - I just want people to be aware of what's in their terms.  Personally, I'm only posting status updates and partial blog posts so that those interested can click through and read full articles and make comments directly on my blog. 

4.  I don't really think Facebook is going to do anything nefarious with artists' content - it's probably not a huge concern.  But in theory....they could.

5.  I did complain about the fact instead of being built on open standards that Facebook becomes yet another "walled garden."  That's my beef - if it doesn't bother you, then it's no problem.  It doesn't even mean I won't use Facebook, it just means I may grumble from time to time.

6.  I also complained that the conversations around my projects used to exist in one or two places....but now it is getting fractured all over the net.  Facebook is yet another place where conversations are happening.  That's a good thing as marketing is conversations.  However, it would be nice if these services let us have some degree of control of WHERE we had our conversations.  It would be really nice if all the comments about a particular blog post were all aggregated so that everyone could see what everyone else was saying.

The bottom line is if you want to use Facebook and it works for you, I encourage you to do it.  It doesn't work for me quite as well as some other online services....but hey, I'm hanging in there.  If you decide Facebook works for you, look me up.

And, for today at least, those are my thoughts about Facebook.

Now, go change the world.

Sincerely,

Clint Watson
Software Craftsman and Art Fanatic