Facebook's new newsfeed thing creeps me out. Yes, technically it is all information that was there before - which is why Facebook is the best stalking tool this side of MySpace - but you had to look for it before. You had to go to your friends page, look at who had recently updated their profiles, and then figure out what those updates were. Effort had to be made; now all you have to do is log in. If I even so much as glance at the newsfeed, I feel sketchy. And it's impossible to not look at it, since it's right there, smack dab in the middle, with no way to opt out or avoid it.

Here's what I don't really get. Facebook is free for users, therefore it must make money through advertisers. The advertisers get more bang for their buck the longer a user is on the site, since that way the user will see more ads. The newsfeed compiles all sorts of info you had to dig for before - i.e. it can drastically reduce the amount of time a user spends on the site. Which means it decreases the amount of exposure ads get. This seems like a bad business move on Facebook's part, and that's even before you factor in the number of users who are leaving the site because they're creeped out. So... Why? What's the rationale?