Dave Winer father of RSS gives his thoughts about the new feeds for facebook.
"
Facebook 1-2-3 
Okay Facebook did good.
But Facebook also did bad.
Good: Bring innovative new feature to users at no charge, and not in response to competitive pressure.
Bad: The users had no control over the new feature.
Let me explain.
The feature they introduced tells users what’s new with their friends. It makes people more efficient at browsing the network of Facebook users they’re connected to. It’s a feature I understand because, as Rex Hammock points out, it’s very much like the River of News aggregators I’ve been developing since 1999.
Facebook is absolutely correct that no new information is available now that wasn’t available before, but only in a theoretic sense. An example might help explain how the users feel. Suppose you lived in a small city of 5000 people, on a small street that 20 people walked by every day. Because of the way the streets are aranged, most of the 20 people are neighbors, people you know well, the kind of people you trust to watch your kids if you have to run some errands. You leave the gate to your yard open because there’s a nice shade tree there, and you leave a bowl of fruit out because you want your neighbors to feel welcome as they walk by. Come sit a spell and visit, life is good. Maybe two or three of your neighbors come for a visit a day. They get to rest, and you get to catch up on the gossip of the day.
Then the city changes the way traffic flows, you still put out the bowl of fruit and your gate is still open, but now instead of 20 people passing your property, 2000 people pass. And you only know 20 of them! Now your yard is filled with strangers, people with odd habits. The same rules apply, your gate is open, all passers-by are welcome, but the result is very different. Someone should have given you a heads-up letting you know this change was coming. Maybe you would have put a lock on the gate and given keys to your friends.
Now, on a much larger scale, with Facebook’s user base, the heads-up has to be done by word of mouth, and opt-in. Instead of forcing all the users to make sense of this all at once, bootstrap a new network on your old one, call it Facebook Plus, or Facebook Big City Life, of Facebook Now, put some futuristic imagery out there, and require users to sign up for an upgrade to their account, which would work thusly.
Suppose I upgraded, and my friend Jane (in my network) also upgraded. Then Jane has a News page, and on that page all my changes show up, along with the changes of all members of her network that have also upgraded. I also have a News page and Jane’s updates show up there, as do all the changes of members of my network who have upgraded.
Now change comes gradually, and users drive the change. When I run into Joan at the bookstore and she tells me she broke up with her boyfriend, I realize I didn’t see that on my News page and ask if she’s upgraded. Now I, a user, her friend, explain how it works. She decides if she wants to participate or not. That’s what users are complaining about, and rightly so. They need to control how their network sees them. They’re entitled to. This was the implicit deal they had with you, and you broke it. You did good by moving the product forward in an innovative way. And you did bad by taking the users out of the loop.
Later: Facebook does an about-face."My thoughts
"
His thoughts
"JFravel, yes but, the term “friend” in a social network means something different from friend in the real world. That’s the shock that many Facebook users are experiencing, they linked up with a lot of people that they didn’t expect would be in the loop on everything they do.
When you’re running a service like this, and I have some experience with that (on a much smaller scale of course) you have to try to understand what the users are saying, even if their exact words don’t make sense, they may be confused. And sometimes I’ve found that the confusion was with me, so it’s best to assume the old adage — The customer is always right — operates. In this case some customers said ouch, and the vendor said “calm down.” That’s not the right thing to say! 
"
He makes a great point. The internet is a new society for most people. Friends on the internet aren't friends in real life for most of those on the internet. For some it's a new hobby, like collecting baseball cards, but with consequences. When you trade your rookie Bonds card for a Ken Griffey Jr. card everyone knows about it, and everyone will talk about that trade behind your back.
JFravel said,
September 8, 2006 at 8:15 am
The problem with that argument that now “strangers” that are grabbing your fruit off your porch, is that these strangers must actually be your friends on facebook. For people to read about you they must be your friend otherwise you are not included in their feed. Much the same way that if you were not someone’s friend initially they could not view your page. No stranger is able to grab news about a random college co-ed from accross the country if they have not agreed before hand that they are friends. It truly is an aggregrator of your friends’ news. In your example, from the beginning you never would have left your gate open. This open gate never existed. And now instead of going door to door checking on your neighbors and friends, you get a newspaper with that same information."