Why Facebook is Wrong: Privacy Is Still Important

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/HNTt8ph3pV8/why_facebook_is_wrong_about_privacy.php

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told a live audience this weekend that the world has changed, that it's become more public and less private, and that the controversial new default and permanent settings reflect how the site would work if he were to create it today. Not everyone agrees with his move and its justification.

Has society become less private or is it Facebook that's pushing people in that direction? Is privacy online just an illusion anyway? Below are some thoughts, based primarily on the pro-privacy reactions to Zuckerberg's statements from many of our readers this weekend. Though there is a lot to be said for analysis of public data (more on that later), I believe that Facebook is making a big mistake by moving away from its origins based on privacy for user data.

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In Facebook's early days, and for the vast majority of the site's life, its primary differentiator was that your user data was only visible to other users that you approved friend requests from. As of mid-December, Facebook users were no longer allowed to hide from the web-at-large some information including their profile photos, list of friends and interests in the form of fan pages they followed. Text, photo and video updates shared on the site have always been by default private (friends only) but if you'd never changed your privacy settings before last month, then Facebook suggested you switch them to make those updates publicly visible to everyone. That became the new default.

Here are three reasons why making some of this data public by requirement and some public by default is the wrong thing to do and why society is not in fact changing the way that Zuckerberg claims it is.

Evolving Preferences Don't Justify Elimination of Choice

Mark Zuckerberg might be right, people probably are becoming more comfortable telling the world at large about more and different parts of their lives. Why does that mean it's ok to take away peoples' choices and force them to make public some of their information all the time? That just doesn't make sense.

Privacy is a fundamental human right and while that may seem less true when we're operating on corporate turf like Facebook, Facebook used to be based on privacy. Why give it up so easily? (Isn't it a cause for concern that so much of our civic interaction now goes on through this and other corporate channels?)

It's very hard to believe that the hundreds of millions of mainstream Facebook users are wanting to throw their privacy out the window - and if Facebook believes they are, why not just ask them clearly?

Privacy Doesn't Just Mean Secrecy

This Summer we wrote about the academic research of University of Massachusetts-Amherst Legal Studies student Chris Peterson, who argues that an accurate and contemporary understanding of privacy is based more on the integrity of context than on absolute secrecy. Peterson tackles the contemporary reality of privacy on Facebook in a very readable draft thesis paper titled Saving Face: The Privacy Architecture of Facebook (PDF).

Peterson argues that the idea that anything published ought to be understood as intended for public distribution is an antiquated understanding from the era when publishing was expensive and required a lot of effort. The opposite is true today, it's free and easy to publish - so information at different levels of appropriateness for public eyes is being published. Why not support that?

"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment... It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.

But at any rate they could plug into your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live - did live, from habit that became instinct - in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and except in darkness, every movement scrutinized." - George Orwell, 1984

Instead of what Facebook is doing, Peterson says that a more appropriate understanding of privacy today is based on context. We expect our communication to go on in an appropriate context (no drinking in church or praying in the bar) and we expect to understand how our communication will be distributed.

If a college friend took photos of you drinking in a bar and showed them off to people in church, you might feel your privacy has been violated in both appropriateness and distribution. The bar is a public place, though, and not completely secret. Thus the need for a more sophisticated understanding of privacy that is more than mere secrecy.

By pushing your personal information and conversation through activity updates fully into the public, Facebook is eliminating any integrity of context that these conversations would naturally have. Posted updates can be directed only to limited lists of Facebook contacts, like college buddies or work friends, but that option is buried under more public default options and much of a user's activity on the site is not subject to that kind of option.

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." - Google CEO Eric Schmidt
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg used to say that people would share more information if they felt comfortable knowing that it would only be visible to people they trusted. He told me in an interview two years ago that users who wanted to do so couldn't take their data off of the site because privacy control "is the vector around which Facebook operates." Now apparently, he's changed his mind. This weekend I argued that his justification for the new stance is not credible.

Many People Need Control Over Personal Information

Do people no longer need to keep access to some of their personal information online limited just to trusted friends? Facebook seems to be arguing that they don't.

There is a long list of people who clearly do, though, including: people who've escaped abusive relationships, people with marginalized religious or sexual preferences, people who fear losing their jobs or who've been pushed around by bullies throughout their lives. That list adds up to a very large portion of the world, in fact. The group of Ivy League elites who run Facebook might think there's no reason to be able to control access to their personal information, but many of them are less socially vulnerable and have less need to control their personal information.

Consider this comment left by one of our readers in response to Zuckerberg's statement this weekend.

"As a person who is being stalked for being an innocent bystander in a child custody case, I can tell you that losing my choices over what is searchable or not is huge. I have nothing to hide nor be ashamed of but the loss of choice for my privacy has hit home in a poignant manner."

Stories like that are far more common than you might think and removing user control over what's public removes the ability for millions of people to safely participate on Facebook.

More than millions, tens or hundreds of millions of people around the world have reason to limit visibility of their personal information from the web but still want to be able to share that information with trusted contacts. Facebook became a huge success on that premise and ought to be able to continue to thrive without doing a 180 degree turn on privacy.

Coming soon: The positive side of Facebook data made public. Hint.

Discuss

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Google Brings Friend Connect, Social Features to Drupal & Joomla

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/QSUG9pxp1jw/google_brings_friend_connect_social_features_to_dr.php

Google has just announced that its powerfully social Friend Connect features are now available for open-source content management systems Drupal and Joomla.

Google Friend Connect (GFC) allows sites with these CMSes to integrate many social features without having to write any code. The impact of the integration has the potential to be significant, as Drupal in particular is one of the most widely-used content management systems in use on the Web today, powering sites from WhiteHouse.gov and NASA.gov to TheOnion.com and websites for celebrities and musicians like Britney Spears and Eric Clapton. Joomla is used by such institutions as Harvard, MTV and Citibank.

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Friend Connect essentially allows site visitors to become site members by using profile information from services such as Google, Yahoo!, Twitter and more. With user accounts authenticated via OpenID, site administrators can add Friend Connect's social bar, a site members gadget, the Friend Connect comments gadget or recommendations in any part of the site they choose.

In addition to adding social gadgets, Friend Connect also allows site admins to conduct polls, monitor community growth, create and distribute email newsletters, run ads through AdSense, export user data for a site's entire community (as XML or JSON) or create their own apps using the GFC APIs.

"Even site owners without programming experience can add these plugins," writes developer and open-source aficionado Mauro González in Google's Social Web blog post. "Now that Friend Connect is integrated with these popular open source CMS platforms, site owners can make registration easier for users and offer them a set of social features - all without writing a single line of code."

GFC represents an interesting - and perhaps underused - suite of tools in an increasingly competitive space. Many site owners are adding social features to blogs and sites through systems such as JS-Kit's Echo or Disqus, and Joomla and Drupal both have many extensions and plugins to allow for the same kinds of features and functions. Still, making GFC available for the CMSes that power many highly visible sites around the Web might do a lot of good for that product.

Overall, we see this announcement as indicative of a set of trends: Portable user identities, highly interactive content, portable communities and open-source software.

What do you think: Will more site users be integrating Friend Connect to allow for more social website experiences? Let us know your opinions in the comments.

Discuss

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Google Plans to Upgrade Old Billboards in Street View

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/IjzBcmQEayQ/google_could_soon_augment_old_billboards_in_street.php

google_dec_08.jpgAccording to a new patent that was just granted to Google, the company could soon extend the reach of its advertising program in Google Maps to Street View. This patent, which was originally filed on July 7, 2008, describes a new system for promoting ads in online mapping applications. In this patent, Google describes how it plans to identify buildings, posters, signs and billboards in these images and give advertisers the ability to replace these images with more up-to-date ads. In addition, Google also seems to plan an advertising auction for unclaimed properties.

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In Google's example, the software could identify the marquis and individual window posters on a theater property and replace them with new information. Through this, a theater could promote a new play in Street View, even if the actual Street View image is completely out of date.

google_augmented_ads.jpg

The patent describes a two-step process for identifying potential advertising real estate in these images. Google's software first identifies interest points in the image (e.g. the edges or corners of an object) and then generates features around these interest points. Google can then augment this region of the image with a link or replace a part of the current Street View image with a new image.

google_augmented_ads_placement.jpg

What Happens When Somebody Wants to Put a Virtual Ad on Your Real-Life Billboard?

One of the most interesting aspects of the patent can be found in the following paragraph:

The link can be associated with a property owner, for example the property owner which owns the physical property portrayed. The link can alternatively be associated with an advertiser who placed the highest bid on the image recognized within the region of interest (e.g., poster, billboard, banner, etc.). Any portion of the geographic display image in which the region of interest is located can be selectable (e.g., hot-linked). For example, the image of the coffee shop can be hot-linked to an advertisement for the coffee shop.

This does open up some interesting questions. It makes perfect sense for the owner of a local coffee shop to advertise through this system, but in this patent, Google also describes an advertising auction. Does that mean that a rival coffee shop could also bid for ad space on the virtual image of a competitor's store in Street View? Chances are this isn't quite what Google has in mind, though it could definitely be a possibility. Instead, it looks like Google could potentially identify some billboards and banners in Street View images and then replace these real-life billboards with virtual ads from the highest bidders. Discuss

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Promotion: Playstation Videoservice

http://www.bright.nl/promotion-playstation-videoservice

Filmpje kijken op hoge kwaliteit? Dat kan met de nieuwe Playstation Network videodownloadservice.

Download en bekijk de beste films in je eigen woonkamer met de nieuwe PlayStation®Network videodownloadservice. Met de PlayStation®Network videoservice kun je films rechtstreeks downloaden naar je PlayStation®3 (PS3TM) en PSPTM (PlayStation®Portable). Bekijk de nieuwste releases in standaard of HD-kwaliteit. Je kunt ervoor kiezen om een film voor een bepaalde tijd te huren, of om hem te kopen zodat je hem zo vaak kunt kijken als je wilt.

De nieuwe dienst was al vanaf november 2009 beschikbaar in Frankrijk, Duitsland, Spanje en het Verenigd Koninkrijk, en is vanaf 2010 ook beschikbaar in andere landen.

 

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Digitale lezers kopen meer boeken

http://www.bright.nl/digitale-lezers-kopen-meer-boeken

Mensen met readers kopen meer boeken dan andere lezers. Dat meldt Bol.com, dat in vier maanden 63 duizend ebooks verkocht.

Nederlanders maakten vorig jaar voor het eerst op grote schaal kennis met het digitaal lezen van boeken. Boekhandelketens als Selexyz en Bruna startten in de zomer met de verkoop van ebooks op hun sites en legden readers, die apparaten waarop ze zijn te lezen, in de schappen. Ook Bol.com verkoopt sinds augustus readers en ebooks. Het animo is boven verwachting, meldt Bol.com-directeur Daniel Ropers.

In ruim vier maanden tijd verkocht Bol.com 63 duizend digitale boeken en 14 duizend readers. Gemiddeld kochten klanten in de eerste twee maanden na aanschaf van een reader 4,5 digitale boeken. Ropers: 'Dat heeft ons verrast. Als je kijkt naar de vijf tot zes boeken die een gemiddelde klant jaarlijks bij ons aanschaft, is 4,5 digitale boeken in twee maanden tijd enorm veel. Lezers kopen duidelijk meer boeken na hun overstap van traditioneel naar digitaal lezen.'

Er zijn nu ongeveer 2500 Nederlandstalige titels als ebook beschikbaar. Maar ebooks zijn nog vrij prijzig. Ze kosten niet veel minder dan de papieren exemplaren. Dat komt mede doordat voor digitale boeken het hoge btw-tarief geldt en voor papieren werken niet. Ropers van Bol.com vindt dat 'belachelijk'. 'Een groot deel van het prijsvoordeel van digitale boeken verdwijnt in de zakken van de overheid.' Hij hoopt dat Nederland het voorbeeld van België volgt en de btw voor fysieke en digitale boeken gelijktrekt. Dan worden ebooks volgens Ropers tot 15 procent goedkoper.

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Water dat naar Facebook smaakt

http://www.bright.nl/water-dat-naar-facebook-smaakt

Vitamin Water startte vorig jaar een crowdsourcing project via Facebook. De nieuwe smaak heet Connect.

Crowdsourcing wordt wisselend succesvol ingezet door bedrijven voor productontwikkeling en voor het ontwikkelen van communicatie (dan weer vaker user generated content genoemd). Coca-Cola pakte het voor haar Vitamin Water anders aan en zette een applicatie in Facebook om mensen mee te laten ontwikkelen.

Naast eeuwige roem bij de Facebook community, kon je ook 5 duizend dollar winnen. In de applicatie die in Facebook draaide kon je verschillende smaken kiezen. Om te kijken wat the crowd populair zou vinden, werd informatie gegeven over hoe vaak het woord op internet werd gebruikt. Daarmee kon je als bedenker dus meteen al een soort marktonderzoek doen.

Met meer dan 1 miljoen fans op hun Facebook pagina is uiteindelijk gekozen voor het ontwerp van Sarah uit Illionois. De zwarte-bessen-limoen smaak met acht vitamines heet, hoe kan het ook anders: 'Connect'. De verpakking is zelfs voorzien van het logo van Facebook. Juist die toevoeging kan dit nieuwe product nog wel eens heel succesvol maken. Bij elke aankoop word je herinnerd aan de wedstrijd en straalt de merkidentiteit van Facebook ook af op Vitamin Water. Uiteindelijk is dus naast het gebruik van crowdsourcing, nu ook nog sprake van co-branding tussen Facebook en Vitamin Water.

vitamin water

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Kranten moeten het papier loslaten

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rethinkingmedia/rss/nieuws/~3/mVvqR9o6y30/

Experimenteren is prima, maar soms moet je iets niet willen proberen. Een krant die ontworpen is als broadsheet of tabloid op het schermpje van een e-reader of iPhone proberen te proppen bijvoorbeeld.

Aanvankelijk werd ik enthousiast van de nieuwe iPhone apps van de Volkskrant en het NRC. Na betaling van 79 cent voor de app, kun je de laatste editie van de krant, de papieren krant, lezen. Iedere volgende dag kun je via een in-app purchase van 79 cent de nieuwste editie kopen. Per krantenpagina zijn de artikelen als afzonderlijke teksten leesbaar. Een ideale manier dus om mobiel de krant los te kopen en te lezen. Maar waarom zou je dat willen?
  • Je zit niet vast aan een abonnement
  • De krant is nooit uitverkocht
  • De iPhone krant is goedkoop
  • Ideaal formaat om onderweg te lezen

En de krantenmakers krijgen de mogelijkheid om te experimenteren met een nieuw verdienmodel.  Maar de lezer krijgt per definitie oud nieuws. En de verpakking van de content is niet afgestemd op de publicatievorm.

Daar hebben de PCM-krantenmakers over nagedacht: de laatste berichten van de website kun je ook opvragen. Maar dan krijg je een webpagina te zien van de website die ontworpen is voor een computer met een groot scherm. Waarom hebben de app-bouwers de actuele nieuwspagina’s niet geïntegreerd in de applicatie? Het lijkt wel alsof men bewust de papieren krantenwereld scheidt van de online wereld.

Dagblad The Guardian pakt het anders aan; in de iPhone-applicatie herken je de papieren krant niet terug. Maar deze nieuwsmakers en -brengers benutten de functionaliteit van een altijd online apparaat als de iPhone ook veel beter. Voorbeelden daarvan zijn:
  • secties als Top Stories, meest gelezen in de afgelopen 24 uur en Trending Stories
  • het markereren van favoriete artikelen met een bookmark
  • integratie van audio-materiaal (podcasts)
  • foto-galleries
  • het nieuws is verdeeld in secties en sub-secties
  • je stelt zelf je eigen ‘voorpagina’ samen uit de beschikbare secties
  • via trefwoorden bij artikelen vind je andere artikelen met dezelfde trefwoorden
  • je kunt artikelen downloaden om off-line te lezen (bijvoorbeeld in het vliegtuig)
  • je kunt links naar artikelen versturen per e-mail of Facebook
  • auteurs hebben een eigen pagina met een overzicht van geschreven artikelen
  • de vormgeving van de app is fraai en de app gebruikt fraaie userinterface oplossingen; de app levert een goede ‘experience’ op
  • De app van The Guardian kost 4 euro (duur volgens iPhone-begrippen ;-) , maar de nieuwsupdates daarna zijn gratis.
Nu is het vrij gemakkelijk om aan de zijlijn te vertellen hoe het moet; mijn intentie is om aan te geven hoe het ook kan. Het is prima om te experimenteren met iPhone-apps, met nieuwe verdienmodellen (‘online losse verkoop’), maar waarom zo vasthouden aan de publicatievorm krant? De kranten zijn immers sterke merken, merken met verschillende publicatievormen. Het is aan de consument of lezer om te bepalen welke publicatievormen hij prefereert en op welk tijdstip.

Dit artikel verscheen eerder op HetNieuweUitgeven.nl.

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Former NBC President Signs Online Video Deal With Yahoo

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mashable/~3/m7xZsFnNCGk/

The former president of NBC, Ben Silverman, has found a home for his new television projects: Yahoo.

Variety reports that Silverman will announce the deal today at CES 2010. From now on, Silverman’s online entertainment studio, Electus, will be creating original programming for Yahoo’s websites.

This is going to be a first-look deal (meaning Yahoo gets first dibs on any projects that Electus creates). These projects should also offer advertisers opportunities to integrate their products into the content that Electus produces.

As Variety notes, Silverman is a big proponent of branded entertainment. Before taking over the programming reins for NBC, Silverman’s last production company, Reveille, had a slew of hits including The Office and Ugly Betty. These shows often had integrated placement deals that are notable for being subtle but also effective. At NBC, Silverman expanded on these efforts.

Despite having an uneven tenure as a network president, Silverman’s production track record is extremely solid. It’s pretty bold that he’s signing a first-look deal with Yahoo rather than with a traditional network. This unconventional move is just another indicator of how entertainment is shifting and changing.

Tags: ben silverman, television, tv, Yahoo

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How Blogging and Tweeting Leaders Build Better Teams

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/byxkPUejOh4/how-blogging-and-tweeting-lead.php

blogging_leadership_jan10.jpgIn 2007, Wired Magazine published an article entitled the See-Through CEO where Redfin founder Glenn Kelman gained the public's sympathy and a slew of new members by blogging his corporate woes. Lately we've been looking inward at how companies can improve their employee recruitment strategy through social media. Great candidates research you before accepting an offer, and here is what your social media profile reveals to them.

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LEARNING: A few months ago Bessemer Associate Sarah Tavel wrote an article entitled Venture Capital's Freemium Model. Tavel explains that her firm gives away free advice via blogs, tweets and white papers. The point of all this is to display their knowledge to potential portfolio companies and make startups understand the value of Bessemer's advice. By this same reasoning we can assume that CEOs who blog establish themselves as thought leaders and attract better employees.

twits_beer_jan10.jpgTRANSPARENCY: Flybridge Capital Partners' Jeff Bussgang gives transparency and accessibility as reasons for his blogging. Says Bussgang, "The VC business can be an intimidating business to many.  I am an iconoclast at heart.  As a former entrepreneur, I particularly enjoy breaking down barriers and making the VC business more accessible and transparent for others." Make your business accessible to both employees and potential hires. Rather than waiting for scheduled meetings to celebrate your successes or public partnerships, give others the option of reading about developments as they happen. You might even get some useful feedback in the comments.

HAPPINESS: Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh once wrote that Twitter made him "a better and happier person." He asks, "What would you do differently if there were a permanent public record of what you do or say?" Hsieh argues that Twitter adds a public broadcast element that reminds him to be more positive, thankful and empathetic. He writes that those same values trickle down to the corporate culture of Zappos. As a company voted one of Fortune Magazine's Top 100 Companies to Work for in 2009, Hsieh makes a great case for using social media as a recruitment tool.

Discuss

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Social Media vs. SEO

http://socialnomics.net/2010/01/11/social-media-vs-seo/


By Erik Qualman

Niall over at SimplyZesty asked Alastair McDermott of WebDoctor and I to write-up some thoughts on SEO versus Social Media in 2010.   Here’s the take I supplied:

SEO vs. Social MediaThere will be a blending of search and social. We are already seeing this with Twitter being incorporated into the Google organic results. Consumers we will be privy to a) sponsored listings b) organic listings c) social graph listings. During a purchase decision we will utilize all three of these data points – however I would strongly argue that item c – what our friends and peers think – will be “weighted” the most. We are seeing “word of mouth” transforming into “world of mouth.”

If I have my first baby and need to purchase a child seat for the car and I can see via social/search tools that 30 of my friends have purchased a child seat in the past 18 months. And, of those 30, 23 have purchased the exact same model and all have had a great experience, well then I’m going to be fairly confident in that purchase decision and I may not even look at the sponsored or organic listings.

SEO is still a vital part of any product/companies health (especially in the here and now), but as we look down the road, the simple fact is that I trust more what my friends and peers think than an algorithm. So good companies are starting to listen to what is being said in the “social sphere” and adjusting their products/services accordingly.

The full article at SimpleZesty is here:  “The Looming Battle Between SEO and Search”

A big thanks to Niall for reaching out to me as this stuff is fun!

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