Last week we started our Friday Routine, where we discuss major news of the week that attracts our attention.

As we stated, last week was all about Facebook, and the impressions of their announcements continued to draw comments from different fields this week also. The main concerns revolve around two issues: privacy settings and the Open Graph.

Privacy issues

Journalists and bloggers have expressed their opinions about Facebook’s Instant Personalization, but the problem went beyond that when a group of Senators sent Mark Zuckerberg a letter asking him to better address this feature, concerned about what this could mean for users.

Although it’s hard to judge right now what the negative effects could be of the new information, shared with the implementation of the instant personalization, we do believe that Facebook could care more about explaining to average users what this system means for them. Core users of Facebook, and people involved in the social media field, already know how to disable the feature, and what this means regarding privacy issues, but we are not sure that the average user understands this issue very well or what these changes mean, or that they were even made.

Open Graph

Is a “Like” system going to replace Google’s search? We’ve read positive and negative opinions, but the consensus seems to that Facebook is heading in the direction of the answer “yes”. We are not sure whether the web will be about Facebook in the future, but it certainly won’t be so much focused on Google. We’ve read a pretty interesting argument about why Google’s search won’t be an option for users in the future. Time may be an issue, users want answers and solutions, not to spend time searching for them.

Foursquare

Foursquare, one of the hottest trends regarding social networks also got a few highlights this week. Arnold Schwarzenegger featured Fourquare on his official page, while VH1 made a partnership also with the social network and they were featured on TV. Jimmy Choo also launched a contest using Foursquare giving a whole new meaning to the term “shoehunting”.

Celebrities and other important names were the engine that drove Twitter to the success it sees now, and we are anxious to see if it will set the same path for Foursquare.

What do you think about the news you read this week? Did they make you reconsider your opinions about the future of the web?