Lots of Changes Bubbling Over at Facebook.com

The popular social networking site, Facebook, has stirred up two major security and privacy concerns amongst their existing 9 million members.

The first concern was regarding a change Facebook made a few days ago that revealed a new feature which allow other users to keep tabs on changes to their friends' profiles, photographs and other personal information " is the latest example of increasing privacy concerns among social networking sites' predominantly young adult audience.

"We really messed this one up," Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in statement to members on the site. "We did a bad job of explaining what the new features were and an even worse job of giving you control of them," he said.

The outcry began Tuesday when the site introduced "News Feed," a feature which instantly notified users of friends' activities on the network, including who they contacted and how they changed their profiles. A second change, called "Mini-Feed," highlights changes on each individual's profile.

In protest, 700,000 Facebook members signed an online petition opposing the changes this week. The outcry took on the trappings of a political movement on college campuses, among a generation not known for its social activism.

The second concern, dubbed Expanded Registration was regarding a change to allow anyone with a valid email address, not just a .edu address, to signup as a member of about 500 regional networks, connecting them with others in their geographic area, but not to school networks. Their members are fumed because that was what the members liked about Facebook. They were fond of the intimate network that only allowed college students, with a valid college email address, to signup.

Facebook denies speculation that the expansion is designed to help the site keep pace with rival, less restrictive social networking sites like MySpace. But come on, with the popularity of MySpace lately, what else could Facebook be thinking. I was watching CNBC, On The Money, last night and they said that Facebook is already being valued between $700 million and $2 billion. Will their recent changes hurt them or will Facebook become the next MySpace? Only time will tell.