Rise of the Machines: The Cloud strikes back, Facebook edition
As more and more internet users use online services to store their information, pass time, and do whatever they do online, time has come for them to decide what information they store online, including social networking sites such as Facebook. Time also for some strict laws and regulation for the internet cloud, especially about
ownership of data -
who owns what and why?Consumerist has written about Facebook's New Terms of Service, where they have done with the
old one, which said that when you closed an account on Facebook, any rights Facebook claimed to the original content you uploaded would expire.
The New
Facebook Terms of Use says,
The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other.
What does that mean?Basically, the TOS gives Facebook a
'perpetual, unlimited, do-whatever-they-want', rights to your data.
What can Facebook can do with your information once you are out?
Here are some ideas:
1. Sell your information to marketers, market researchers, basically outsourcing the spamming job.
2. Mine and re-purpose your data - pictures, quotes, links...or, sell them to startups who want to seed their website. BTW, this will be the last thing they will do before switching off the lights.
3.
Pore over your relationships - your boss, your company, your friends, your family and spam them as well.
4. Provide your contact data to snoops, recovery agents, government agencies for a fee.
5. Sue you for publishing your own article, pictures elsewhere.
This area sure needs some urgent regulation from the technologically savvy Obama administration, which in turn will set a trend for companies around the globe.
Related on Mediavidea:Web 2.0: also known as Big Brother, aka HAl, aka MatrixWhat a web 2.0 user said to the machineLabels: facebook, social networking
How Twitter will (not) make money
1. Twitter cannot make money because there are not enough scoops on
plane crashes and terror attacks happening on a daily basis around this 'pale blue dot' called Earth. A Twitter from a plane passenger do not a Citizen Journalism make.
2. Twitter cannot make money because try one might, the world cannot be on one single page.
3. Twitter cannot make money because friends cannot be bought. Twitter Users would not will
'sell friend connections between users and companies wanting to communicate with them'. Those of us who would, are not quite the demographic advertisers are looking for. Remember when out of work people clicked on ads for money? Remember Facebook beacon? It was going to '
change the world'.
Twitter will make money when someone like Google buys it, integrating Twitter with Gmail.
Labels: facebook, social networking, twitter, web2.0
Digital Sharecropping (and why Nicholas Carr is one of the real voices of web 2.0)
Nick Carr One of the few people who have written
in support of British folk-punk musician Billy Bragg's
op-ed piece in the New York Times, Mr. Bragg writes about how the owners of social networking site Bebo stand to pocket more than $600 million (out of $850 million sale value) after Bebo's sale to AOL goes through - without having to pay any royalty or other forms of incentive to the artists who helped make Bebo popular.
Some so-called web 2.0 experts of this world have rallied against Mr. Bragg's assertion, saying social networking like Bebo, Myspace, Facebook and others provide a huge platform to these artists, which is bigger and more engaging than Radio or TV - but, both Radio and TV pay musicians royalties for playing their music.
Come to think of it, I have a hunch that owners of social networking sites consider artists who post their music no different than how Google considers the new blogger - provider of free, long-tail content. Just like new blogger can't straightaway become a Seth Godin or a Nick Carr, the site owners do not think much about the artists because noone becomes Nine Inch Nails or Radiohead straightaway. Much is being made about how Radiohead changed the music distribution model, but would they been able to do that if they were new on the scene and not some 14 year old rock band?
For owners of social networking sites, creative people are fodder for growth, these owners are the new band promoters, someone who lets the creative- types do their promotion while the band promoters make money by selling the whole site itself.
The so-called web 2.0 experts point out that
the artists had the option of posting their music and videos on other sites as well.How convenient - in many cases, it is because of the artists that sites like Bebo and Myspace became famous, attracting other users and other artists - it is not a coincidence that Bebo is considered the TV channel version of social networking sites.
Comparing musicians who join social networking sites when these sites are still new and traffic is non-existent, to investors, Mr. Bragg says these artists should get a dividend when the site makes money.
If people think Mr. Bragg is wrong in saying what many have been saying private, then I think time has come to put an end to this entire web 2.0 charade. If people think Mr. Bragg is wrong to call for a share in web 2.0 sale profits, the participatory web is all about how smart people in the Silicon Valley are taking everyone for a ride.
When some so-called web 2.0 experts get righteous and respond to Mr. Bragg’s assertion by invoking the non-existent web 2.0 ethos, it is pukeworthy - you can be sure these web 2.0 experts are playing to their gallery of 250 other experts, sounding noble and all.
The reality is Web 2.0 experts have a stake in the continuance of the status quo in the web 2.0 field and if you want for an objective view on the topic, read stuff from people like Nick Carr.
However, if you want to start a me-too web 2.0 startup, read Techcrunch from A-to-Z, suck up to the site's owner, comment as many times as you can, and you are in the business.
Sites like Techcrunch cover web 2.0 startups - it is in their interest not to write about "digital sharecropping" - they would not want to annoy the cash rich founders and those 125 pixel ads, do they?
When Digg sells, I would like to hope that the Kevin Rose shares the money with his band of avid early Diggers, who are both the cause for the rise (and detirioration) of the social news sites.
In the words of Nick Carr,
"Digital sharecroppers of the world, unite!"Labels: bebo, controversey, Digg, facebook, social networking, web 2.0
9 solid reasons why E-mail still beats social networking
1. Because all the updates on social networking sites including Facebook still reach our Inboxes - email from social networking sites is the new SPAM.
2. Because we are getting tired of browsing profiles. Most of the people are like us anyway - bored, blank and uninteresting.
3. Because, unlike teens, school kids and college co-eds, we got to work.
4. Because, unlike social networking sites, it is not rude to send an e-mail to the SPAM folder - it is easy, and acceptable to ignore people using email.
5. Because email is the working person's most important social network - we can have all our important contacts in the address list, available in the chat section during our email sessions - Facebook is pretty late to the IM scene.
6. Because the next generation of email will have integrated RSS.
7. Because the next generation of email will sections for our favorite profiles.
8. Because a major part of social networking activity is SPAM - it is everywhere - on twitter, too. If they are not selling something, the people on these social networking are selling themseleves all the time. Everyone is shouting out aloud "Look at me! Look at my blog post. Look at my pic. " - it is all noise, and pathetic. A man can only take in so much in a lifetime.
9.
Because like social networking, e-mail does not make the service providers any money - how long before they start shutting down the social networking sites for lack of revenue?
Labels: e-mail, facebook, social networking
The glut of social network activity aggregators/lifestreamers
Friendfeed, the Valley's (ok, the 250's) favorite social network activity aggregator/lifestreaming application is
not alone. We are going around in circle, and so far it is fun.
:-)
Labels: friendfeed, funny, lifestreaming, social networking, social networking aggregator
How to make social networking sites give a return on investment
From a great article at
Gigaom, comparing buyouts of social networking/web application sites; Bebo’s $850 sale to AOL -
$21.25 per user, News Corp buying out Myspace for $580 million in 2005 -
$27.60 per user, Ebay buying out Skype for $4.1 billion (and subsequently eating away its innovation mojo) -
$52 per user.
Finally, Microsoft’s investment in Facebook propelled its valuation to $15 billion – valuing 50 million users at that time @ $300 each.
Bebo managed to create a TV channel of sorts on its site.
Surely, buyout is not the only business model for social networking sites? Labels: bebo, facebook, social networking
Deal Briefing: Bebo, attractive, middle level social network site bought by AOL
AOL has offered to buy middle-level, attractive social networking site Bebo
for $850 million, in cash.
Founders: Michael and Xochi Birch, may leave the company after the sale
Users: 1.4m unique users in the UK; 40 million worldwide.
Minus Points: Bebeo has a small presence in the U.S.; strongest in New Zealand and U.K.In comparison, In contrast, Facebook is strongest in U.S. and ahead of Bebo even in U.K.
Plus Points: Bebo tries to combine the best of Facebook and Myspace - has Facebook'like clean look and engaging content like Myspace, including original content offerings such as Katemodern series.
Focus on user engagement: Users spend more time on Bebo. For example, UK users spend 33 minutes on the site per user day.
Potential of Social Network advertising: Results not encouraging so far but eMarketer says that by 2011, $4.1 billion will be spent worldwide on social network advertising.
Preparing AOl for a sale? Om Malik says maybe Time Warner is sprucing AOL up
before a potential sale off.
Labels: bebo, buy out, facebook, social networking
Facebook applications loosing their Viral mojo?
Andrew Chen reports that response rates for notifications, newsfeed items and other novelties on Facebook are falling, indicating perhaps that users are getting tired under a never-ending avalanche of application.
Is this for real?
If yes, how long before the bubble of Facebook apps bursts?
Labels: facebook, social networking, trends
When Newspapers and magazines try to become social networks
Fastcompany, the smart business and technology magazine has decided to get into social networking by offering the usual set of social tools including blogs, contact lists, bookmarks, media storage etc.
Jeremiah asks:
'Can a business publication blend journalism and online community to create something better than either by itself?'A charge for Radical change of business focus can be made.First and foremost, Fastcompany is in the business of reporting and analyzing.
Did the magazine took the dictat
'getting closer to your readers' a bit too seriously?
Will the target audience bite? Do they have time to blog? Most of the Silicon Valley types already have their own blogs. In many cases, if FastCompany 'members' (gulp, what a change from 'readers'!) choose to repost from their existing blogs, it becomes an issue of duplicate content, which Google won't like.
Is it something new? No.Tony Perkins'
Always On Network is active for more than 4 years now.
Will it hurt the usability?100% Yes. Displaying content from your reporters is top priority.
How to display User Generated content best?SEOMOZ's
YOUMOZ initiative is the best I can of at the moment. Readers can easily distinguish between content from Seomoz writers and Users.
The UI gets messed up.Doing a brief analysis, Jeremiah writes about too much data on the home page - new tools and buttons pushing writers' content back. Or, in some cases, disorienting regular readers with a confusing new layout.
Content always comes first.
Why do you have to get into social tools development and hosting business?Especially when many publications encourage reader groups, circle of friends on popular social networking sites including Facebook?
Are we seeing a case of
social networking fatigue coinciding with the trend of brands getting into launching their own social networks?
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook says,”
We are here to serve communities, not create one."Will users bite and join publishers' social networks?If each publication starts doing it, logging in and out of each, considering privacy issues, will be a headache.
Think other ways if getting more news.
That article about the
Tipping Point being toast was great. We need more of those.
Depending upon readers to provide free/cheap content does not seem FastCompany's style.
Think other ways of branding.
Labels: facebook, fastcompany, news 2.0, social networking, trends
Why Facebook Ads don’t work
This is a solid case of
Intention vs. Interruption.
I wasn’t surprised when Google reported meager earnings from advertising on Social Networking web sites.
I wouldn’t be surprised either when Facebook’s “
Once in a 100 years” ad system flops.
Joshua Porter
explains why:
Social ads don’t work as well because people are being social, not searching for something.
Rough translation: People go to Google to find something, people go to Social Networking sites to see friends and meet new people – what are ads doing standing in their way?
Labels: facebook, google, social ads, social networking, trends
What a Web 2.0 user said to the machine: I own the data (you don't)
Given below, is an outline of a letter sent by a disgusted user of web 2.0 of sites like Facebook to the service:
"Look, mister, first you got me in, promising lost of fun things to do.
And Fun I have had, having poked 10,000 people so far.
But the fun ends now. To start, by default, the power to pull off my data should rest with me.
The power to make friends, allow spam... stays with me.
If you don't allow me to remove all of data whenever I please, then you are the giant
machine/matrix/whatever they have been talking about in the movies.
What insults me more is that you go behind my back,
making deals with others services that hold users data, and God knows what surgery you are going to do with my data.
If you want me to connect with users of other services, at least first ask me how I want to go about it.
And while we are at sharing data, why don't you create a simple jabber-like open protocol letting web 2.0 users connect each other, without us worrying who see what?
Bottom-line: I don't care on whose server farm my data is, the control stays with me. I will decide whom should I allow to scrape, import or mash my data.
This is my life's details we are talking about here.
You just focus on the advertising side and how to make your service better.
I like your service. But don't be evil.
Peace.
Labels: facebook, google, social networking, web 2.0
What will happen next: Rounding up the 30 best predictions for New Media 2008
These are 30 of the best predictions about the internet business in 2008 that I have had the opportunity to read this week. As I mentioned in January 2007,
a phase of consolidation is on in the web 2.0 field, this BBC story makes some
interesting points about it, and I see no reasons to think otherwise.
I only wish that more people get a chance to make a better living through online publishing.
So far the internet is dominated by a few of the so-called
Plantations (thank you Nick Carr).
1. Giant Blog Publishing House Takes Birth:
TechCrunch + GigaOm + VentureBeat + Read/Write Web2. Cash Rich Media buys more into
successful blogs.
3.
Clicks & Bricks back in vogue, in true web 2.0 style, of course.
4. Books are very much
in (Lulu.com self publishing, print on, small magazines, rss subscriptions, and Kindle?).
As Bill Murray once said about computers,
"we are reading more on the screen", or something to that effect.
5.
"Friendiligence" will be hot: we will conduct due diligence on friend requests on Facebook, Myspace and all other me-too social networks.
6.
"MicroTubing" zindabaad: More and more small publishers (mostly single person startups) using innovative video content to prosper.
7. Google
Buys an Ad Agency: WPP?
8. The Wall Street Journal will follow NYT and
go free online.
10.
Large magazines, part of large publishing conglomerates will fold at a higher rate than 2007 and Niche, targeted titles will flourish.
11.
Internationalized Domains Names become more and more popular (as sensible .com names become more scarce, expensive and crazy)
12. Someone from among the troika of News Corp, Microsoft or EBay
buys Yahoo.
13. Another Twitter-like success, coded by a
20-year genius kid (no hope for us 30-somethings) will rule users' hearts, with a similarly simple interface (and hopefully better productivity and healthy monetization prospects)
14. Ajax will get serious or people will
dismiss it for a time-waster.
15. Social Networking (along with gaming environment and virtual worlds) will cause serious
security incidents as Malware gets another mode of distribution -
"social networks +social engineering" 16. One of the trio among probable Google killers, Mobile search will finally t
ake off by the end of 2008 (other hyped Google killers include Classifieds and Local)
17. A massive
datacenter meltdown will happen when one of these energy guzzlers finally gives in to the constant barrage of worm infections.
18.
Users of web 2.0 sites will revolt, demanding a better privacy deal and moving on if things don't change.
19. More
Blog-led publishing media startups (including Blog Networks) take root and flourish (with hopefully less rewriting and spam)
20. Big Brands get into Web 2.0 in a big way, opting to
create their own content.
21. Search Engines use more user data (user preferences, search history, etc) and
customized search results become common.
22.
Casual games will be the social networking of 2008.
23.
"WEB TO WEDDING" will gather force. Did you know that almost 3 million adults have converted online dates into a long-term relationship including marriage?
24. In this age of blogs, twitters, Forums, Facebook, and Youtube Videos, companies become
more careful with Online Branding, and hope that they are well equipped to deal with irate citizen journalists (read: customers, competitors) of the world.
25. C
rowdsourcing, aka Crowdmining will continue to prosper and will have more
innovative uses from some of the best companies in the world.
26.
Demographical targeting becomes more difficult as age, gender, marital status are but only a few things that determine consumer behavior in the internet age.
27. While Group Lending got a leg up in 2007 via sites like prosper.com,
Group Buying will be hot in 2008.
28.
The Internet will slow down considerably as data centers and service providers reel under the increasing demand for multimedia content.
29. Some Asian startups
get a hold in the tough U.S. market, despite the inward-looking, arrogant Silicon Valley types.
30.
No one (except perhaps the Blackberry and the Google Phone/Android when it is a reality) will challenge the iPhone in 2008.
31. The
opening up of the U.S. cell phone setup will create an exciting variety of new applications and cheaper service offerings, more in line with that in Asia, the leader in cellphones.
32. Google gets into the
Cable Operators' Set Top Box business.
More Google predictions, all the usual ones are
here.
While we are with predictions, indulge me for some predictions from the offline world:Green IT takes a big foot forward in 2007
China and India will finally begin to emerge as
strong domestic markets for solar.
Reverse knowledge migration will gather force: bright and well-educated workers (not exclusively returning prodigal sons will move from developed countries to developing courtiers creating a new class of "cyber-gypsies".
The Rich will get richer and lead more outlandish lifestyles.
The Fed will continue to cut rates and the
U.S. economy will begin to pick up steam in the later half of the year.
Labels: 2008, Blog networks, blogging, google, new media, news 2.0, predictions, social networking
Blogging vs. Social Networking
The Karmic Cycle seems to have turned a bend. Earlier into 2007, bloggers pitching Facebook, no need to glorify them by names, used to tell us that we should turn from blogging and use social networking sites to further our careers by meeting and influencing (read: poking) new people on the social network sites.
For a while, we took to it gladly - substituting commenting below other blog posts with poking, scrapbooking, subscribing to useless applications, among other things.
We used to find at least some solitary meaning with writing a blog post that few read, and giving thoughtful responses (ok, sometimes, plain silly) to fellow bloggers’ posts.
We understood the time and effort fellow bloggers took to pen their thought.
I can’t say, I have had the same understanding feel take over me when I am browsing my social networking profiles – some sort of a weird email meets spam meets needless feel takes over and I have had enough of having to log in to 15 different social networking sites every time I get a message.
Blogging was never that much of a nuisance.
I don’t make my living off blogging – as things stand, my annual earnings from blogging will barely pay a one ticket to see my parents in Bihar. But I like the power of blogging, the new voice that it has provided me with.
I may get few or no comments for my posts but that is better than what I get on social networking sites.
I don’t get the importance of knowing friends from past who have ceased to matter at this point of my life.
I have tried but I still see no dignity in barging into other guys’ profiles and spam them with links and putting tons of links in my profile.
Truman Capote was sometimes known to pay people to praise his writing when Truman was in the company of influential people. What Capote did was more elegant than what we do today to make a statement for who we are.
Maybe,
Danah Boyd or some other equally intelligent person will do a study on
“Links and Dignity”.
Coming back to blogs, I can show this post to a prospective recruiter, venture capitalist, etc. to show my web 2.0 chops, if you can pardon my arrogance even for a brief while.
That bit about my liking Ritwik Ghatak films, which I have mentioned on my social networking profile means nothing to the recruiter guy.
Moreover, unlike a social networking site, you blog is really your own, and this is true for hosted applications like blogger.com, wordpress.com among others.
All you get for your social networking activity is SPAM and much, much less control over your data.
Someday, some bright kid might
turn blogs into social networking tools.
Till then, my dear friends, don’t loose heart, plug your posts on your social networking profiles and blog on!
Labels: blogging, facebook, social networking, trends, web 2.0
How Blogging is not the modern Diary
For long, we have read about blog being online diaries. This might be true if all the evidence pointed to people to putting their private thoughts onto their blogs, not afraid to be
fearless exhibitionists.Some people do reveal their inner selves on their blogs.
The occasional sex worker, frustrated entrepreneur, the odd perturbed youngster, the wannabe writer, and some other types.
We might put out everything online, however
'unpretty' that might be, were we savvy to put 'nofollow' notices to search engines and were able to create password-protected blogs, but that is not the case.
Many blogs are notebooks in nature - professionals use this route to share what they are thinking about issues.
Blog Posts like mine are notebooks guised under the garb of newspaper-type, albeit more free-form, columns.
Others are like pamphlets - used by activists, self-promoters, PR people, so-called consultants/advisors and are often advertised as special research reports.
The Online Diary is a advertising medium. A megaphone.
The Online Diary is a conversation.
Wikipedia describes a
diary as
"a book for writing discrete entries arranged by date" and goes on to say that
"some diarists think of their diaries as a special friend".
Even I can't say my blog is my best friend.
A tool, yes.
The Real Diary is often a conversation with yourself. Or with a very close friend.
So, there is a difference.
You, the reader, is not my close friend.
That takes us to the most prized community of all - youngsters.
You might say they have a lot to learn about privacy as they get used to Social Networking sites, which are Instant Messaging services on Speed.
But, youngsters are savvy enough to know that blogs and other online publishing services are not diaries, merely almost free communication tool.
Labels: blogging, blogs, social networking
How Mark Zuckerberg went from Cool to Uncool in a Day
When Mark Zuckerberg got up to announce Facebook's
'User spams User' aka the
Beacon Social Ads System, he did two things he wouldn't normally have done, but I guess the flush of easy Microsoft money was too rich to blow off quickly.
He starts with saying an idiotic pronouncement:
"Once every hundred years, media changes".
Yeah right, next thing, the bright one will say is that he invented the
"pamphlet".But more importantly, Mark forgot to wear his talismanic sandals.
If success is a show then Mark's Sandal ethic was the thing that may have attracted all those things into that giant ad system.
As technology started playing an increasingly important role in our lifestyle, Charisma has become a popular term during the two decades of 90s and 2001-till date.
This also corresponded with an unprecedented rise in business and technology journalism, blogging being the latest extension, coupled with growing hype of business schools, business book writers, motivational spekaers and so-called gurus and pundits.
More than any other industry, it comes to pass that it is in the technology industry, that the
'Charisma/Founder/Visonary' drama is played out most often.
Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs, Microsoft vs. Google (and everything else that came before), Google vs. everyone else...the technology industry is full of drama, and why not?
Nothing beats the promise of quick riches and the resultant Hero Worship.
Maybe, the newly-minted paper billionaire Mark Zuckerberg should have stuck with the Sandals that brought him all the luck in the first place.
For long Mark Zuckerberg has aped Steve Jobs.
So, it may be the case that, like Jobs, Zuckerberg will bounce back again.
Labels: advertising. online advertising, facebook, social networking
How Facebook's Social Ads system is evil and what you can do about it
The Social Ads-Social Graph-Facebook nonsense rolls on and on. At the Facebook Social Advertising
Event in New York City, Steve Jobs-wannabe Mark Zuckerberg again tried to justify absurdity with some rather suave statements.
We heard some real gems from the new Pied Piper of Social Media:
"Nothing influences a person more than the recommendation of a trusted friend,"
"Once every hundred years media changes."
Even the New York Times, which has become a Facebook Fan of late, has given objectivity a boot, and now parrots the
“Any social innovation that only Facebook is fit to bring” party line.
The Times
says this about the new Social Ads system:
"Facebook now will give advertisers the ability to create their own profile pages on its system that will let users identify themselves as fans of a product.
But, the User as Brand Fan is not new.
Google introduced a similar (and patented) user-led Ad Recommending system/user-to-user advertising system some time back.
In Mark Zuckerbeg’s world, and Nick Carr has noted this brilliantly,
'Media and advertising are synonymous.'
Nick explains,
‘Editorial is advertorial. The medium is the message from our sponsor.’In Mark Zuckerbeg’s world, ‘
Marketing is conversational... and advertising is social.’ But alas, Mark is not new to jump to this sort of idiotic phraseology.
Some months back, if you remember the Spokesbloggers scandal, John Battelle tried to pass the
‘Marketing is Conversation’ shtick
when Microsoft paid many top bloggers to carry puff pieces about Microsoft product.So, it comes to pass that Facebook the Pied Piper and the social rats have decided that today’s generation of 18 year old, who don’t know who Bob Dole was and who use the mobile like Engineers use drawing pencils are the stupidest ones around.
They know for sure that the kids are totally okay with trusting Facebbok with all their data, which Facebook will duly sell to advertisers, who in turn will bombard them with ads.
It sure is a swell deal, and instantly joins the ranks of 500 channels, customization, personalization, portals and assorted other fantasies of these 15-odd years of the web.
Some note on the Social Ads nonsense:
1. Stop adding the ‘social’ prefix to every other word (and while we are that, I hope we also stopped adding “Open” before every other word, Google, take note)
2. Social Ads System is just another name for a Behavioral Targeting System and Tacoda.com is doing it for a while now.
3. Segmentation of audiences based on profile data can bring a too narrow data for advertisers and may not be worth all that trouble. Google Adsense does a better job with the long tail and will have a wider reach.
4. Is there such a beast called Brand Enthusiast?When I could afford, I started wearing Levi’s because I wanted to be cool among my friends, none of whom wore Levi’s.
It may sound cussed but I did not want to be the same as everyone else and I am sure you would be thinking the same.
Maybe, a brand enthusiast is another name for
‘paid blogger/paid focus group member/give- me- money- to- watch- type -unemployed guy/PR intern’ and other variants.
5. Social Ads system will be the new spam:
it will clutter users’ profile pages and inboxes with ads - banners, buttons, advertiser communities, homepage takeovers, brand wraps, TV shows in form of advertorials and assorted other hoohahs.
6. Facebook’s Hotmail problem: Also known as Ad Blindness Problem.
Seth Godin writes,
“When someone goes to FaceBook, they're not looking for stuff. They're looking for people. But people don't buy ads, stuff does.”
If you didn't know Seth wrote the book on Permission Marketing, and Facebook's Social Ads system blows the whole idea to bits.
7. There is no more Privacy on Facebook:And by association on all sites that Facebook partners for its Social ads system.
For example, Facebook will monitor what you buy on Amazon and then spam you to death.
By the way, take it for granted that Facebook employees, right from the janitor up to Mark Zuckerberg is looking at your profile and your activity.
Unlike Google, Facebook is not heavy with faceless bots so far.
8. You can’t opt out of all the ensuing spam: A least, Hotmail and all other free service providers had this facility. Is this a coding problem with an outfit that has its own developer platform?
So, What can the user do?Early signs are that the new Social Ads system will make the same mistakes Google’s Adsense does, and mistargeted advertising will be a common excuse from advertisers caught spamming.
However the social networking addicts can use the Adblock plugin to block all ads coming from whatever domain Facebook uses.
If ads still filter through, the ‘new college generation’ of today can do what generations have done before with intrusive advertising: Ignore them.
Update: Umair has written a brilliant strategy note on Facebook's Social ads and has this ti say about Facebook's partner brands:on the whole, not exactly brands consumers luv
Labels: advertising. online advertising, ethics, facebook, social networking
Facebook comments of the week
1. Doc Searls on Facebook's Big ChallengeThe big challenge for Facebook, as it has been for AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple and everybody else who ever ran a walled garden, is to make their “platform” something that sits on the Net and the Web, not something that substitutes for it. Facebook’s mail, for example, is a substitute. If there’s a way I could get Facebook mail with my IMAP or POP client, I’d rather do that.
2. Valleywag on
Facebook's traffic surgeWe're just curious what percentage of U.S. text-message traffic is carrying "pokes.
Labels: facebook, social networking
Facebook: revisiting the young vs. old debate
Regular readers of MediaVidea know what I think of the social networking site, Facebook, and will have noted the young vs. old/ students vs. businessman theme I keep visiting often.
Alice Mathias, a 2007 graduate of Dartmouth who used Facebook when it was a new site and can safely be called as one of the
‘original Facebookers’, has written about her observations in the New York Times as Facebook struggles to morph into a catch-all site, Myspace+Google+ AOL+iTunes+.....for all varieties of ages, fetishes and fancies.
Her points:
1.
For young people, Facebook is just another ‘form of escapism’ (that the business types are hoping to harness in the fashion of entertainment people)
2.
On Facebook’s feature creep
According to Alice, most of her friends use only one privacy settings –
choosing to prevent people to see that they are currently logged in.
Not wanting to be ‘disturbed’ while they browse the ‘circus’, Alice writes that young people think that doing otherwise would make others think that they are
‘currently Bored, Lustful, Socially Unfulfilled or Generally Avoiding Real Life. ‘Something that the older set is not worried about at all.
3.
Facebook as tool to pass time over anything else
Many of my friends are prone to having ‘puffed up’ profile pages on social networking for laughs, ego-trips and assorted pleasures.
One enterprising person has even put a link to a non-existing Wikipedia writeup about himself on his profile.
Describing Facebook as a
‘backstage makeup room’, Alice says:
…entirely phony profiles were all the rage before the grown-ups signed in
Is Facebook really
meant for business?
I am
not sure.
Final word on Young vs. Old debate:According to a story in the
Ad Age,
'twice as many young women use Social Networking sites to keep in touch with friends, share pictures and communicate compared to young men and there are more adult men, reportedly networking, on social networking sites than adult women.'So, What do we have here?
Lots of Older men and lots of young women.
(thanks to
Valleywag for this one)
Labels: facebook, social networking
On Older people and Facebook
"...Older people being on Facebook is kind of weird."
- Tess Lippincott, 16, when asked
what she thinks about her mother and other adults joining the currently IN social network.
Via
ValleywagRelated ReadingSocial Networking Quote of the weekWhen a professor joined FacebookThe two groups battling for the soul of FacebookLabels: facebook, social networking
Social Networking quote of this week
...’cause I never used LameSpace or Facebook in college, because they’re for teenagers. 20-somethings using social-networking sites is, contrary to popular belief, sad and pathetic.
- A commenter in an article about
20 innovations that changed college lifeLabels: facebook, social networking
