Calling all stalkers

Though the tools have been around for awhile, Facebook has made yet another jump in technology.

Since opening its back-end to other web apps earlier this year, the social site now offers RSS feeds that allow users to embed real-time updates of Facebook changes onto other sites.

According to the Father of RSS, Dave Winer, there will be two new Facebook feeds available to the public: one that tracks friends' Status Updates, and another that tracks friends' Posted Items.

This functionality, dubbed the "news feed," already exists within the Facebook community. It launched in late 2006 and generated a significant backlash within the userbase, which felt it was "stalkerish." The newsfeed has since become a regular characteristic of the site and a fast means for people to glean at-a-glance information on other users' activities.
Now the feature is accessible anywhere. Up until this point, Facebook was a "virtual sandbox" - one had to be a member to see what was going on inside. Now, users could in theory embed the RSS feed onto Twitter or their blog to give the public an inside view of Facebook updates.