2007 November

From the monthly archives: November 2007

built-in self-destruction

on November 30, 2007 · No Comments

I promised myself that today would be a “get a jump on Christmas shopping, clean the apartment and study for my accounting final” kind of day. Therefore hours at my computer and blogging was not necessarily intended to be in the picture. However, I simply couldn’t resist sharing this interesting (and entertainingly written) article. Enjoy. [...]

How Your Creepy Ex-Co-Workers Will Kill Facebook

Columnist Cory Doctorow describes how Facebook and other social networks have built-in self-destructs: They make it easy for you to be found by the people you’re looking to avoid (courtesy of Information Week).

If there was any doubt about Facebook’s lack of qualification to displace the Internet with a benevolent dictatorship/walled garden, it was removed when Facebook unveiled its new advertising campaign. Now, Facebook will allow its advertisers use the profile pictures of Facebook users to advertise their products, without permission or compensation. Even if you’re the kind of person who likes the sound of a benevolent dictatorship this clearly isn’t one.

Many of my colleagues wonder if Facebook can be redeemed by opening up the platform, letting anyone write any app for the service, easily exporting and importing their data, and so on (this is the kind of thing Google is doing with its OpenSocial Alliance). Perhaps if Facebook takes on some of the characteristics that made the Web work — openness, decentralization, standardization — it will become like the Web itself, but with the added pixie dust of “social,” the indefinable characteristic that makes Facebook into pure crack for a significant proportion of Internet users.

world aids day :: restaurant campaign

on November 29, 2007 · No Comments

Who doesn’t love a reason to grab a meal out – especially after a long week? Dine at one of the participating restaurants below in observance of World AIDS Day (this Saturday) and to support the work of the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts. Avila (Saturday, December 1) prix fixe menu Bambara Cambridge (throughout December) [...]

Avila (Saturday, December 1) prix fixe menu
Bambara Cambridge (throughout December)
dante (Saturday, December 1)
KO Prime (throughout December)
Myers+Chang (Friday, Nov. 30 & Sat. December 1)
No. 9 Park (Saturday, December 1)
The Fireplace (Saturday, December 1)
The Ruby Room (throughout December)
Silvertone (Saturday, December 1)

…fears not the chimerical precipice

on November 27, 2007 · No Comments

Check out Aubree’s new blog. Most recent post is Smoke and Mirrors: EULAw and stay tuned as she seeks “to understand what virtual worlds can offer the world around her.” Up Next: Free-market freedom of speech, and a revolution for Avatar Civil Rights in our future.

Check out Aubree’s new blog. Most recent post is Smoke and Mirrors: EULAw and stay tuned as she seeks “to understand what virtual worlds can offer the world around her.”

Up Next: Free-market freedom of speech, and a revolution for Avatar Civil Rights in our future.

the facebook bridge

on November 27, 2007 · No Comments

I’ve been trying to put a finger on my perpetual gravitation towards Facebook. It’s starting to feel a bit like a “bug drawn to light” route – and my intent is not to continue bullying this particular tool. But I think I’ve finally figured it out. Facebook provides context for a multitude of issues that’s far greater than Facebook itself and therefore enables conversations about privacy, digital literacy and responsibility with folks who may not have a connection point otherwise.

For example I have been able to tackle discussions regarding online issues with my family, friends and/or classmates (who have varying levels of technical knowledge, awareness and interest – or lack thereof), but do have an understanding of the basic concepts and controversies surrounding Facebook. Thus the perfect bridge is constructed for venturing into the larger conversation, and that conversation takes on a shape of its own based on the individual with whom I am engaging.

Part of what sparked such a self discovery was Doc Searls post entitled, Making Rules, II, it’s an entertaining and meticulously presented post that I encourage you to read.

That’s why yelling doesn’t work. What we need instead is to make tools that work for us, and not just for them. We need to invent tools that give each of us independence from vendor control, and better ways of telling vendors what we want, when we want it, and how we want to relate — on our terms and not just on theirs. As Neo said to the Architect, “The problem is choice”. That problem will be with us as long as that axe is in our heads.

Doc’s post fostered me to grasp what’s truly at play in regards to consumerism, the web and the rights we endlessly seem to surrender – and with that openned my mind to the greater contextual connections at play. So thank you!

digital privacy and facebook

on November 27, 2007 · No Comments

Courtesy of the Digital Natives blog: Building Walls in Facebook There are, of course, still millions of college students who post anything and everything to their profile, with no qualms about who sees it. Call it negligence, call it expression, it doesn’t matter. What does matter, and what interests me, is the growing group of [...]

Courtesy of the Digital Natives blog:

Building Walls in Facebook

There are, of course, still millions of college students who post anything and everything to their profile, with no qualms about who sees it. Call it negligence, call it expression, it doesn’t matter. What does matter, and what interests me, is the growing group of students who have taken control of their digital identity by using granular security settings; ones that allow you to control who sees what, on a per-person and per-item basis. Potential employers have been prowling Facebook for at least a couple years, so why the change now? It’s simple: they’re out of the shadows.

Do You Trust Your Facebook Friends?

As any Digital Native can tell you, the term “Facebook friend” has a meaning distinct from simply “friend,” and where you may care about the purchases of a real friend, it’s not the same with a Facebook friend. The second piece is about privacy, from both a legal perspective and in principle. Is there something uneasy about how Social Ads puts your face and name to advertise a product, even one you legitimately bought or proclaimed to be a fan of?

More about the Digital Natives Project:

The Digital Natives project is a collaboration between the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. Digital natives, a term made popular by Marc Prensky, are young people whose use of technology is completely ingrained in their lives -they have grown up always-on and constantly-connected. Unlike those even a little bit older, these Digital Natives didn’t have to learn to “be digital,” they learned in digital the first time around.

privacy, literacy and responsibility

on November 26, 2007 · No Comments

The privacy debate isn’t new and spans well beyond the realm of social networking, but with the advent of increasing online participation the conversation takes on greater urgency. I’ve been mulling over this issue more and more – especially since reading Anna Papadopoulos’s article, “There’s a Reason it’s Called “Social” Media” via the Huffington Post. [...]

The privacy debate isn’t new and spans well beyond the realm of social networking, but with the advent of increasing online participation the conversation takes on greater urgency.

I’ve been mulling over this issue more and more – especially since reading Anna Papadopoulos’s article, “There’s a Reason it’s Called “Social” Media” via the Huffington Post.

Privacy groups are at it again. This time they are going after social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, filing complaints about the network’s new social-targeting advertising platform. Essentially, Facebook’s Social Ads allows consumers to endorse a brand and then have their names and photos displayed along with an accompanying advertisement on their friend’s profile page. A friend is classified as someone who belongs to his or her network. Consent is done through the terms and conditions consumers agree to when registering for the site under the TRUSTe privacy regulations, which include the passage below and can also be found here.

There is a general apathy for such privacy agreements – especially as they pertain to online involvement. I agree that as users we need to be more mindful of where we are participating and what level of information we’re providing. But it would be refreshing to have an application available that offers a safe space to interact and communicate without fear of how our content could potentially be exploited. And maybe it’s not an issue of privacy at all, but rather of awareness and an increasing need for digital literacy across a very broad spectrum.

Ironically, I noticed this morning that Facebook has posted a short note regarding updates to its Terms of Use (only after excessively promoting it’s new “fan of” widget).

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing (read full Terms of Use).

It’s a challenging read to say the least. While the responsibility may be on the participant to take the time to read such a document there should be a halfway point. A point where the application owner makes such a critical document digestible to the greater public. Maybe even an abridged version that outlines the recent changes and summarizes the items of importance. But then again, an informed participant could be a dangerous one – with the onset of awareness, active disagreement and a call for change may not be far behind.

what’s next for social networks

on November 25, 2007 · 1 Comment

One of the questions being asked about social networking is simply – what’s next. The conversation has been hovering around the idea of mobile social networking and the role of email as the next incarnations of social networks. The New York Times published an interesting article entitled, Inbox 2.0: Yahoo and Google to Turn E-Mail [...]

The New York Times published an interesting article entitled, Inbox 2.0: Yahoo and Google to Turn E-Mail Into a Social Network.

Ignore Orkut, OpenSocial, Yahoo Mash and Yahoo 360. Google and Yahoo have come up with new and very similar plans to respond to the challenge from MySpace and Facebook: They hope to turn their e-mail systems and personalized home page services (iGoogle and MyYahoo) into social networks.

Web-based e-mail systems already contain much of what Facebook calls the social graph — the connections between people. That’s why the social networks offer to import the e-mail address books of new users to jump-start their list of friends. Yahoo and Google realize that they have this information and can use it to build their own services that connect people to their contacts.

PC Magazine looks at the same question in its article, A Social Networking River Runs Through Web Mail.

Were either Google or Yahoo to roll its vast network of Web mail users into a social network, allowing users to display personal profiles and connect with others, either could challenge Facebook and MySpace nearly overnight.

Either or both would instantly have a user base more significant than the social networking giants have, and would also, like IBM Lotus Connections, have the advantage of an e-mail platform base.

What does this mean for social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace or what is the commercial impact on organizations only now getting up to speed on how to use such spaces? The pace at which society and technology is changing stresses a new level of urgency for proactive openness in order to fully understand, appreciate and adopt such shifts as they occur.

rumor has it

on November 20, 2007 · No Comments

Who doesn’t love a good rumor? There’s quite a bit of buzz this morning about the supposed acquisition of Chinese social networking site, Zhanzuo.com, by Facebook. The rumor was featured in an article by The Times entitled, “Facebook’s hopes to enter the tangled web of China gain momentum“. Facebook appears to have decided on acquisition [...]

Facebook appears to have decided on acquisition as its preferred method of entering the booming Chinese market, after months of speculation about how the social networking website would tap the country’s rapid growth and avoid the pitfalls that have slowed earlier overseas venturers.

Facebook is reported to have offered $85 million (£41 million) to buy Zhanzuo.com, its largest Chinese counterpart, which has an estimated seven million active users and a popular base among students.

It would give Facebook a ready-made entry point to the largest internet market outside the United States.

Facebook has dismissed this assumption, but just for fun, here are a few articles spreading (and dismissing) the rumored deal:

Y “Facebook Offers $85 Million To Acquire Chinese Social Networking Site Zhanzuo.com (courtesy of TechCrunch)”
Y “Rumor: Facebook to Acquire Chinese Social Networking Site for $85 Million (courtesy of Wired)”
N “Facebook denies desires to buy Chinese social network (courtesy of Webware)”