Facebook in Crisis Mode?

Company will hold meeting to address privacy controls, sources say

While no one can pin it down specifically, several online reports say Facebook will have an "all hands" meeting Thursday afternoon to talk strategy as the company comes under increasing fire for its privacy policy changes.

The concern was brought to a head by a New York Times article which points out there are 170 possible privacy settings involving 50 steps, and that the website's privacy policy has more words in it than the United States Constitution. Check out their excellent graphic demonstrating the confusion.

Keep in mind, Facebook has been changing privacy settings -- in many cases undoing what people THOUGHT they had already set.

The other side to this story is Facebook has "lost the narrative." That is, we in the media and the general public are talking about Facebook without Facebook's participation.

A number of Facebook alternatives are popping up, the one getting the most press is Diaspora. While these are probably not credible threats, any dotcom should be worried when the supercool urban hipsters start migrating to something else. Case in point, Digg.com.

It's hard to imagine Facebook falling from grace but keep in mind, MySpace and Friendster were once giants, and Yahoo once lead search.

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