Bebo snubbing Open Social? Or just being shrewd?

December 13, 2007

So Bebo have announced an application development platform with support for Facebook apps. Their using Facebooks platform standards so this should allow for interoperability.

Now Bebo were listed as one of the first OpenSocial partners, everyone else is reporting that this latest news is a snub to OpenSocial but I actually think it’s a very shrewd move from Bebo.

Not only will their apps be compatible with Facebook making it much easier for developers but if they are still going to work with OpenSocial as well they will cover all the bases very easily. It is possible they go the Facebook route alone but I doubt it as that will restrict their coverage.

The killer thing for me is if these apps can share data between networks. It’s all great making standards so development is easy but allowing a Bebo app to talk to a Facebook app, share data and the social graph will open up a world of possibilities and allow for true portability of data (and functionality).

Posted by Steve E
Filed in bebo, facebook, opensocial, social network
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Come on ladies, show a little restraint…

December 11, 2007

I’ve written previously abut a concept I’ve termed Self PR Online (here and here) but it seems my posts aren’t getting to the right people.

Now CNN have jumped on the bandwagon and written a piece about a Facebook group called ’30 Reasons Girls Should Call it a Night’. It’s basically a Facebook group with over 170,000 members (mostly women) devoted to tales of drunken debauchery and lurid times (all good clean fun in my opinion).

However, it seems the women who are members of this group could really do with taking note of my blog posts as they’re (apparently) posting all kinds of imagery that may not go down so well with employers or colleges.

Personally I find this quite amusing, as in my opinion any employer worth working for wouldn’t care about a few drunken photos and any person who posts really bad photos is probably unemployable anyway ;-)

The advice I gave in previous posts still stands, don’t post anything you wouldn’t want an employer to see, these things have a habit of getting out and becoming public!

Posted by Steve E
Filed in facebook, privacy, self pr
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Woohoo! An even better Netvibes coming soon!

December 8, 2007

I love Netvibes. It’s my starting point, feed reader and information consumption tool of choice. They’ve just announced a new version called Ginger which is coming very soon.

New features include…

Easier access to content:

New social and sharing features (including being able to import friends lists from social networks):

Activity notification (so you know what your friends like and do, a kind of news feed for Netvibes):
There’s also going to be an easier way to create Universes and load up social presence widgets, content for your friends etc. It’s really heading towards giving you similar functionality to your Facebook homepage but without being tied in and being more open in that you can add any email, messaging or other tool you like.

Sounds great! Looking forward to trying it soon!

Posted by Steve E
Filed in content, facebook, ginger, netvibes, social network
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Facebook tracking everyone!

December 4, 2007

Even if you’re not a member…

Beacon is raising privacy concerns left right and centre! It’s becoming a bit of a thorn in the side of Facebook and could help increase the backlash that they will face through their continued advertisation (is that a word? Maybe it should be!). There are already reports of some advertisers pulling out of using the system, worries about how Beacon tracks users without them opting in and now it seems they may be receiving data on anyone whether a member of Facebook or not.

PC World is carrying a story about the results of investigations into the Beacon system by some security researchers. They’ve found that even if you don’t have a Facebook account or your account is deactivated you will still be tracked on any Beacon third-party sites and your data sent back to Facebook. Quite what happens to that data we don’t know, but one would imagine that it sits on their servers hoping you will sign up so they can identify your cookie and serve ads to you.

It’s all getting a bit big brother. Facebook appear to have monetisation as their mantra now, where as they started off being useful they are gradually becoming surplus to requirements!

Posted by Steve E
Filed in advertising, banner, facebook, privacy, social media, social network
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Social networking study released

December 3, 2007

Thanks to Read/WriteWeb for posting this interesting study in a nice easy to view Slideshare way.

There’s some interesting thoughts about structure, how identity is managed, the types of networks available to users, followed by case studies of some of the major players.

Posted by Steve E
Filed in facebook, MySpace, social media, social network
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Facebook caves to Beacon criticism

November 30, 2007

The NY Times is reporting that Facebook has retreated on it’s Beacon advertising idea. Instead of auto populating your news feed with information about your purchases on participating sites (unless you opt out on that retail site), they’re providing a one-click way to opt out of Beacon altogether.

This is what the users have been looking for and should appease them. 50,000 people signed a petition against this.

Posted by Steve E
Filed in facebook, privacy, social media, social network
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More on self-PR and exposing yourself on social networks

November 27, 2007

Further to my recent post on how young people are overexposing themselves on social networks and my earlier post on self-PR online there are a couple of issues being discussed on this topic in the news today.

First up, the Guardian has a piece on the legality of using the internet to investigate job candidates. They’re saying that it could actually prove to be illegal and an infringement of a candidates privacy if potential employers use the internet to look into their background. Academic institutions could also be at risk of infringement here as they too are apparently using the web and social networks to look into applicants backgrounds. Personally I cannot see how this could be the case. The information is freely available and has been posted with that knowledge (or at least the poster should be aware). It can’t contravene data protection laws in that case. Of course, turning down a candidate because of their Facebook profile would be against HR laws but I’m sure no company would use that as the reason for not hiring someone, they’ll come up with another reason the profile will just have made their minds up.

Secondly, there’s an article on the Inquirer which suggests that the UK’s Revenue and Customs department (yes the one’s who loast all that personal data) are now using social networks such as Facebook and MySpace to catch criminals who have gone missing. An unnamed customs official claims that social networks are proving to be a useful source of information for tracking wanted persons down. The official suggests that it has led to a number of successful arrests.

So all this goes to show that your trail of data left behind on these sites is highly useful to anyone wanting to trace or assess you. Self PR is hugely important now, and this will get more and more important as the information connectivity provided by the web gets more pervasive into society.

Posted by Steve E
Filed in facebook, legal, MySpace, online, privacy, self pr, social network
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EU to look into targeted web advertising

November 26, 2007

Reuters reports that the EU is planning to look into targeted web advertising with increased scrutiny. They’re concerned about the increasing risk to privacy and protection of data that some of the new advertising developments bring with them. The Article 29 working party will be looking into the issues, that’s the same working party who got Google to limit the amount of time it stores web searches to 18 months.

This potentially doesn’t bode very well for companies like Facebook. Their new beacon advertising system is getting enough scrutiny from users, the last thing they need is someone official looking into it too. This also doesn’t bode too well for the Google-DoubleClick acquisition.

Posted by Steve E
Filed in advertising, facebook, Google, marketing, privacy
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The young are being exposed by social networks

November 23, 2007

I posted ages ago about the risks of posting too much info on social networks. It’s all too common now for potential employers, universities and parents to use Facebook etc to find out what people are doing in their personal lives.

Now the Information Commissioner’s Office has launched a website aimed at helping to protect young people in the way they use social networks.

The ICO have found that more than half of young people asked divulged far too much information and failed to keep it private. More telling still, 71% of 2,000 14 to 21-year-olds said they would not want colleges or employers to do a web search on them before they had removed some of the material. Two thirds of those questioned accepted as friends on such websites people they did not even know. Some 60% posted their date of birth, a quarter put their job title and almost one in 10 gave their home address.

So the ICO have launched this site to help inform young people about how to protect themselves on Facebbok and MySpace (amongst other social networks).

Posted by Steve E
Filed in facebook, MySpace, privacy, social network
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Facebook facing data protection questions

November 20, 2007

Very interesting story on the Channel 4 website today.

Apparently, a Facebook user has logged an official complaint with the UK Privacy Watchdog after it transpired that trying to leave Facebook didn’t actually mean that your data was all deleted and removed from their servers. Actually, when you try to leave Facebook all it does is deactivate your account and keep the data on their servers so anyone who changes their mind can easily sign back up again.

Now that’s all well and good, but storage of personal data and photos of someone who doesn’t actually want to use your service is blatantly against the UK Data Protection Act (I believe). The act is designed to protect people like you and me from having their personal data misused in any way. Facebook definitely have the resources and technical know how to offer a way to delete the data for those who really want to delete an account. By not doing so they are making it very difficult for users to clean up their trail of data, it could take hours to go round the site deleting everything you’ve ever posted or uploaded.

Will be interesting to see how this pans out! I do wonder whether MySpace and Bebo etc offer this full deletion service or whether they are also possibly infringing on ex-users privacy.

Posted by Steve E
Filed in bebo, facebook, MySpace, privacy, social media, social network
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