I’m making my daily web rounds. I visit the usuals – Reddit, Tech Crunch, Gmail and, of course, Facebook.

This time on my favorite social network, however, I notice a few folks posting a status something along the lines of “Here’s my Facebook movie…” accompanied by a video image of thumbnails of their photos. I click play. What follows is a photo montage of the last 10 years of the person’s life–on Facebook.

The touchingly composed, soft notes on a piano shepherd the montage. The video highlights 15 or so of the person’s most-liked photos, events and status updates. The stitching of images, music, and video effects is evocative of productions from the likes of Coke and Google, which draw so much empathy for the subjects and their families, that you barely notice you’re still being fed a product.

Through efforts such as these, Facebook has done a great job creating feature after feature to drive more user engagement. The personal movie is a fun little tool that takes advantage of the troves of content and data it has accumulated over the years. But, it begs the question: What is it really promoting?
As much of a promotion as it might be for its 10 year anniversary, it is a stark reminder of how much time and energy we’ve dedicated to the site and the misconceived reasons behind them.

This is a site that we and countless others have used to create a public image of ourselves; a string of one-dimensional moments that in turn begin to skew how our perception of our true selves. We start to rely on it for approval and eventually comfort. And this is where the problem lies: can vanity and social networking sustainably co-exist?

The ultimate test for the company going forward will be in how it will, not only retain but also, empower the people using the social site. Creating tools that promote in-person communities, social equality, and personal growth could morph Facebook from a vain social network to a medium of true social entrepreneurship. With the pace at which the internet is progressing, people will eventually find alternative solutions to keeping in touch with their friends and family. Taking this next step towards bettering the individual at a grand scale that it holds is powerful and can help guarantee Facebook’s legacy as a centerpiece in people’s lives.

Update: A humoros jab by Tripp and Tyler (guys who made the conference call video)