12.05.07

Online Protests force Social Network Facebook to change

Posted in Internet Users, Opinions / Rants at 8:59 pm by Administrator

Protests force Facebook to change
From the BBC News - UK

Facebook members have forced the social networking site to change the way a controversial ad system worked.

More than 50,000 Facebook users signed a petition calling on the company to alter or abandon its Beacon advertising technology.

When Facebook users shopped online, Beacon told friends and businesses what they looked at or bought.

Many considered the data sharing to be an intrusion that exposed them to more scrutiny than was comfortable.

Privacy please

In response to the demands, Facebook’s 55 million members will have more control over whether data about what they do online is used for Beacon.

Before the changes, Beacon was an “opt out” system and many complained that they missed the chance to avoid using it when it was introduced in early November.

Now Beacon will be an “opt in” system that only tracks data if explicit permission is granted to Facebook to do so.

More than 40 websites, including Fandango.com, Overstock.com and Blockbuster, signed up to use Beacon software on their webpages and report what Facebook users did when they visited.

Snoozing child, AP
Beacon embarrassed many doing Christmas shopping online
Activist site MoveOn was at the forefront of protests against Beacon and set up the petition to gather signatures on 20 November.

“It also says a lot about the ability of internet users to band together to make a difference,” said Adam Green, a spokesman for MoveOn.

Facebook apologised for its actions via a letter on its website.

“We’re sorry if we spoiled some of your holiday gift-giving plans,” read the letter. “We are really trying to provide you with new meaningful ways, like Beacon, to help you connect and share information with your friends.”

Industry commentator Om Malik said Facebook users had to be certain to opt out completely from Beacon otherwise Facebook would still collect data from partner sites - even if that data was not shared more widely.

The changes to Beacon may not be the last that Facebook has to make to the technology.

Two rights groups, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy, are believed to be compiling a complaint to the US Federal Trade Commission about it.

People sure are funny. I wonder how long it took to get those 50,000 facebook users signatures for a petition. Now consider how long it takes to get a petition for other important things like local law changes, or political issues. Perhaps people will see the power here and we can look forward to faster changes in other aeaof life with social network technology helping to lead the charge. Perhaps Digg will begin to incorporate on site petitions for things.

12.03.07

Store adds new dimension to online shopping

Posted in Internet Business, Marketing at 4:56 pm by Administrator

From Retuers

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Consumers looking to avoid crowded malls and the tedium of online shopping can now shop in a virtual 3-dimensional store.

Specialty retailer Brookstone Inc. opened the virtual doors to its 3-dimensional store, which combines a Second Life-like visual experience with real merchandise customers can buy.

“The 3-D brings that fun part of shopping back. When you go into a physical store, there is that sort of energy around ‘what am I going to find?’ and there’s always that discovery process,” Greg Sweeney, a vice-president at Brookstone, said in an interview.

The virtual store replicates the look and layout of a real store. Customers can move through the aisles and browse and zoom on products using a mouse and keyboard. Detailed information is available by stopping in front of an item.

“We think it really appeals to a younger audience for us, a demographic probably 25 to 40… because of the almost gaming nature of it,” said Sweeney.

Certainly those adept at navigating through a virtual world will find the environment familiar. For new users, it will take some getting used to, Sweeney added.

Brookstone.com will still offer its wares in the conventional way, but offers the 3-D store as an alternative.

“It really helps the evolution of the internet shopping experience,” said Sweeney.

(Reporting by Naomi Kim; editing by Patricia Reaney)

11.14.07

Moveable Type adds social network features

Posted in Software and Web Apps at 8:08 am by Administrator

Maybe it’s a beta, I have not yet had time to look through all the information about the new features that Moveable Type is adding, but I like where they are going with it, and I love the language skills of the people interviewed and quoted on Tech Crunch from the MT team. I’d love to have a version of this to play with, and I should have figured it’s only a matter of time; there are several similar features and a few social network type sites that have been rolled with with the wordpress mu platform already. Hopefully both will learn from each other and the flexibility of these great apps will be improved and internet discussions will become better and better.

An excerpt from the article at tech crunch:

 Dash emphasized that MTCS is a “serious commercial product.”

It’ll likely cost a few thousand dollars to start, and the target audience is serious, large-scale communities like media companies, major brands, educational institutions, and intranet/enterprise deployments. I suspect that smaller independent sites will mostly grab a small number of free plugins that reproduce some of this functionality on a smaller scale and use that with the free version of MT if they are price-sensitive.

Read the whole article at tech crunch and see what I mean about the excellent language used to describe the move by the MT team.

Link to demo of the features from MT.

The blog here at Global Advanced Media was originally started with the movable type platform, we have since moved to the wordpress software, but we have always had an affinity for the MT features, ever Leo Laporte mentioned it on Tech TV years ago. We’re glad to see that MT is moving forward.

11.07.07

Ad dollars flood Web, but will they go far enough?

Posted in Internet Business, Marketing at 12:58 am by Administrator

An article from yahoo news / Reuters

Ad dollars flood Web, but will they go far enough?

By Paul Thomasch Fri Oct 12, 12:42 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Companies will spend a record $31 billion this year to advertise everything from toothpaste to home loans on the Internet, supporting countless news sites, social networks, video exchanges and blogs.
ADVERTISEMENT

But some media veterans worry that expectations for online advertising may be getting out-sized.

Increasingly, they say, too much media depends on advertising as the only source of revenue. With new players from software makers to cable operators also trying to cash in, the dollars simply may not stretch far enough.

“I’m getting to the point where I feel like every answer to every business development pitch is ‘We’re going to be advertiser supported’,” said Beth Comstock, president of Integrated Media at NBC Universal, which this year set up a fund to invest in media and digital companies.

“It’s just not going to be possible,” she said at a recent advertising conference. “There are not going to be enough advertising dollars in the marketplace. No matter how clever we are, no matter what the format is.”

NBC Universal’s television networks, cable channels and Web sites compete for advertising dollars with everything from niche blogs to big media peers like Time Warner Inc and Walt Disney Co. In addition fast-growing Internet companies like Google Inc are snatching up advertising budgets.

But new rivals are entering the market. Comcast Corp., the largest U.S. cable operator, expects at least $1 billion in online advertising in the next five to six years.

Verizon Communications and AT&T are looking at advertising opportunities on their video and wireless services, while startups like social network Facebook are seen as a new frontier for Web marketing.

Even Microsoft Corp has made a bold move into advertising with its purchase of Web marketing firm aQuantive.

THE MONEY FLOW

Until recently, the focus was squarely on how much money is moving into online advertising, rather than whether too many companies are making a grab for it.

There is little doubt today that a hefty portion of advertising dollars will shift to the Internet from TV, radio, print and elsewhere in the coming years. ZenithOptimedia forecasts that online ads worldwide will rise 28 percent in 2007, while the rest of the market grows at 3.7 percent.

Next year, ZenithOptimedia forecasts it to rise by 21 percent, and climb another 13 percent to $43 billion in 2009.

At that point, Web advertising would represent almost 10 percent of the $495 billion spent on advertising worldwide — yet would trail spending on newspapers, magazines, and TV.

“There are billion of dollars that can still move,” said Craig Lambert, Chief Digital Director of Colangelo, an integrated marketing agency based in Darien, Connecticut.

“Is there enough money flowing to support the businesses out there? I’d guess there is, just because there’s so much money that has always been spent on TV and print,” he added.

BIG SITES GET BIG DOLLARS

Others also take the position that there should be sufficient advertising money to spread around.

Jeff Brooks, Chief Executive of digital and direct marketing agency Euro RSCG 4D, sees a “huge gap” between the amount of time people spend on digital media and the amount of advertising money it attracts.

“The thrust of ad spending online, while dramatic in its growth quarter over quarter, still represents a disproportionately small percentage of total advertising dollars,” he said.

The catch, according to some, is that much of the money flowing toward the Internet is concentrated on a few dozen of the most popular sites. That has left smaller, less well-known sites at a severe disadvantage when it comes to attracting advertising money and surviving.

In the United States, the top 50 Web sites accounted for more than 90 percent of the revenue from online ads in the first half of 2007, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The top 10 sites accounted for 70 percent of the revenue.

All the while, the number of Web sites continues to grow, creating more competition for audiences — and advertisers — who can also choose among video games, movies, TV, portable music and every other type of media entertainment.

“It’s not like the old days, when it was ‘if you build it, they will come,”‘ said Jonathan Sackett, Chief Digital Officer at Arnold Worldwide, a Boston-based advertising agency. “Now if you build it, they probably won’t.”

One alternative for Web sites would be to bank on subscriptions rather than advertising revenue, but few existing outlets have been successful with that model.

The reason is that unless the site offers extraordinary content, people simply refuse to pay for it, said Mark Miller, president of RMG Connect, an advertising and marketing agency.

“If Warren Buffett wanted to put out his own subscription newsletter online, well, I’m sure he’d get a bucketful of people to subscribe to it,” Miller said.

WE actually believe that the numbers will be much higher for internet ad dollars. Many small companies will see the light with google adwords and similar programs, and advances in technology will bring more viewing time to the internet as well. With cell phones and cheaper laptops getting more and more internet time, people habits will shift more to the web and so will more advertising for the companies who want to get their message out!

10.22.07

Myspace and skype team up for internet calls through popular social network

Posted in Internet Business at 9:22 pm by Administrator

From Reuters / Yahoo news…

Tue Oct 16, 6:25 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - News Corp’s (NWSa.N) MySpace social network site and eBay Inc’s (EBAY.O) Skype will offer MySpace members free Internet calling services, executives from the companies said, in a bid by both to expand their base of users and revenue.

The two were due to announce the deal on Wednesday.

Skype’s voice service will be folded into MySpace’s existing instant messaging technology, allowing MySpace members to place free calls to other people on the MySpace and Skype networks.

(Reporting by Michele Gershberg)

Maybe this move will get skype back on track to make money rather than losing millions and giving ebay big write offs to worry about. Perhaps skype will continue to tack hold and get in everyone’s head as a service that is common like At&t. Some myspace social network popularity would certainly help!

10.04.07

Online Videos Could Become Conduits for Viruses

Posted in General at 7:05 pm by Administrator

Hopefully there will be more attention to this from spyware and antivirus companies, along with Microsoft and google and others. It is a sad state of affairs when we have Virus writers exploiting people who just want to enjoy the internet. We need to stop all this malware BS and get more and more people using computers to communicate and share, not waste time fixing hard drives and operating systems.
From Newsvine / AP

ATLANTA — Online videos aren’t just for bloopers and rants — some might also be conduits for malicious code that can infect your computer.As anti-spam technology improves, hackers are finding new vehicles to deliver their malicious code. And some could be embedded in online video players, according to a report on Internet threats released Tuesday by the Georgia Tech Information Security Center as it holds its annual summit.

The summit is gathering more than 300 scholars and security experts to discuss emerging threats for 2008 — and their countermeasures.

Among their biggest foes are the ever-changing vehicles that hackers use to deliver “malware,” which can silently install viruses, probe for confidential info or even hijack a computer.

“Just as we see an evolution in messaging, we also see an evolution in threats,” said Chris Rouland, the chief technology officer for IBM Corp.’s Internet Security Systems unit and a member of the group that helped draft the report. “As companies have gotten better blocking e-mails, we see people move to more creative techniques.”

With computer users getting wiser to e-mail scams, malicious hackers are looking for sneakier ways to spread the codes. Over the past few years, hackers have moved from sending their spam in text-based messages to more devious means, embedding them in images or disguised as Portable Document Format, or PDF, files.

“The next logical step seems to be the media players,” Rouland said.

There have only been a few cases of video-related hacking so far.

One worm discovered in November 2006 launches a corrupt Web site without prompting after a user opens a media file in a player. Another program silently installs spyware when a video file is opened. Attackers have also tried to spread fake video links via postings on YouTube.

That reflects the lowered guard many computer users would have on such popular forums.

“People are accustomed to not clicking on messages from banks, but they all want to see videos from YouTube,” Rouland said.

Another soft spot involves social networking sites, blogs and wikis. These community-focused sites, which are driving the next generation of Web applications, are also becoming one of the juiciest targets for malicious hackers.

Computers surfing the sites silently communicate with a Web application in the background, but hackers sometimes secretly embed malicious code when they edit the open sites, and a Web browser will unknowingly execute the code. These chinks in the armor could let hackers steal private data, hijack Web transactions or spy on users.

Tuesday’s forum gathers experts from around the globe to “try to get ahead of emerging threats rather than having to chase them,” said Mustaque Ahamad, director of the Georgia Tech center.

They are expected to discuss new countermeasures, including tighter validation standards and programs that analyze malicious code. Ahamad also hopes the summit will be a launching pad of sorts for an informal network of security-minded programmers.

___

On the Net:

Georgia Tech Information Security Center: http://www.gtisc.gatech.edu

09.27.07

Social networks eye the myspace phenomenon - targeted ads and privacy issues move to forefront

Posted in Internet Business, Marketing, Opinions / Rants at 4:11 pm by Administrator

Social networks seems to be all buzz this year, and for good reason. There have been many social network startups, and many social network software platforms (and even more) arriving for would be myspace clones. Boing Boing has added commenting to their posts, and digg has recently added profile pages to their already social posting site. Yahoo recently launched it’s mash social network (wonder what is going to happen to the 360 social network they had started?). Google has added some kind of google dating search to their dating search results. Social, personal, user generated data, it’s all exploding everywhere, and many people do not know the privacy consequences of their postings.
Myspace recently announced that they will be better targeting ads to the individual based upon profile information. I for one am still interested to see stories coming out about further data mining things like bulletins and chain posts that often contain a lot of personal information, and some of those questionares appear to have a few questions of interest to insurance companies, more disclosure would be prudent I believe.

A recent article found via yahoo / AP:

By GARY GENTILE, AP Business Writer Tue Sep 18, 7:06 PM ET

LOS ANGELES - News Corp.’s MySpace social networking site is using personal details contained on users’ profile pages and blogs to sell highly targeted advertising, the company said Tuesday.

The Web site started the first phase of its “interest targeting” experiment in July, culling likes and dislikes from its users’ pages to sell ads in 10 broad categories such as finance, autos, fashion and music.

MySpace advertisers can now get much more than the basic demographic data contained in site registration forms, Peter Levinsohn, who heads Fox Interactive Media, told an investor conference.

The site has more than 3 million users in each category and can place ads based on responses to questions about users’ likes and dislikes, favorite movies and music. Data is even extracted from blog entries, where users write at length about their lives.

Targeting ads well can be lucrative for MySpace and its corporate parent, but it can also backfire if users believe their personal expressions are being misused.

When MySpace rival Facebook last year introduced a feature that allows users to more easily track changes their friends make to profiles, many users denounced it as stalking and threatened protests and boycotts. Facebook had to quickly apologize and agree to let users turn off the feature so that others can’t easily see what they do.

Levinsohn said MySpace would only use information users have freely expressed on their pages.

MySpace should inform users it is using their profile information to sell more targeted ads, Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a California-based nonprofit, said.

“Many young people don’t seem to have privacy protection instincts,” Givens said.

Levinsohn used the example of a user named “Jill” who identifies herself as a fashionista and wrote in her blog about the new fashion lineup.

“She even goes so far as telling us she needs new boots for the fall,” Levinsohn said. “How would you like to be an advertiser selling boots to her?”

Next, MySpace plans to broaden its categories so it can market ads for a movie such as “Fantastic Four,” for instance, to people who said they have an interest in comics, action films and even the film’s star, Jessica Alba.

“This is really just the beginning for us,” he said. “No one else in the marketplace can offer this kind of concentrated reach.”

At a conference in New York, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch remarked on the importance of creating categories for advertisers to buy on MySpace and vowed “to build it better than anybody.”

Sales of targeted ads could help Web sites earn more per ad sold. Earlier this year, Yahoo Inc. launched SmartAds, a platform for delivering customized display ads, while Time Warner Inc.’s AOL bought the behavioral-targeting company Tacoda.

The research company eMarketer projects that spending on behavioral targeting will nearly double to $1 billion next year and hit $3.8 billion by 2011.

Advertising is getting more targeted, but I have already seen some backlash in the form of people swearing to put all fake information in their profiles, and more use of adblock software. Sometimes too personal is just too personal. More people are blogging about the info that advertisers are using from web surfing habits, and google recently announced that serious privacy decisions need to be made within 5 years, although I think that is a realistic timeline, really, much should be decided and publicly presented much sooner in our over connected world.
google privacy article from Reuters: * Links added by co-author of this post, not original author!

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) - National regulators need to agree on a basic set of global privacy protections for the Internet within the next five years, a senior official with web searcher Google said on Monday.

Peter Fleischer, the firm’s global privacy counsel, said three quarters of countries had no Internet privacy standards at a time when the amount of sensitive personal and financial data on the Web was soaring.

Google — itself criticized for the threat it poses to personal privacy — says the firm’s business agenda, the world economy and the Internet could suffer unless more is done to ensure basic privacy on the Web.

“What we’re saying is that the Internet is making this particularly urgent and that the Internet develops at a different speed than the speed at which traditional lawmaking and policy-making discussions take place,” Fleischer said.

“I think this is something that needs to happen within five years. That’s just us saying what we think is realistic as an urgent action,” he told Reuters in an interview.

Google, unhappy with what it calls a patchwork of conflicting privacy rules in some countries and a complete lack in many others, is pressing for action amid criticism about the enormous access to personal information on the Web.

“I think everyone has acknowledged that the status quo is not good enough any more,” said Fleischer.

Google wants countries to adopt privacy principles agreed by several Asia-Pacific countries. Fleischer said some backed this idea while others wanted to focus on what the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is doing.

“That’s fine. The important thing from Google’s perspective is that there is a focus and debate around moving forward on global privacy standards,” he said.

“If we can … improve the standards in three quarters of the countries in the world, regardless of which model they follow, that is a huge step forward.”

He said perfect harmonization was unlikely, but the basic model could combine laws, codes of conduct and best practices.

Even if nations did not agree on standards within five years, Google would consider it progress if some countries without Internet privacy rules took action, said Fleischer.

“We’re playing a very long game here. We believe we’re working for the success of Google services over a very long period of time … and one of the things that everybody needs to improve is an understanding of privacy,” he said.

There have been some articles about people who are shocked that employers, and police are using myspace, facebook and similar social networks to look into your life, but I do not think there has been enough in the media about it, nor easy to use options to stop info you want to share with friends from being put out into the public. Ex lovers and future love interests of course may also be stalking your myspace page, as well as your friend’s kids I come to find out.
from the college recruiter blog:

Facebook and MySpace Used by Employers, Schools, and Police

If you’re like most college and even high school students, you have posted your profile to Facebook, MySpace, or another social networking site. But did you realize that your profile can easily be accessed by potential employers, schools, law enforcement agencies, and others? As much as that revelation may be a shock for students, it also came as a shock to those who set up the sites because they never intended outsiders to use the information for purposes other than benign social networking.

The terms of service of these sites typically prohibit their use for commercial purposes. Facebook’s terms of service page, for example, states that users understand that the service is available for “personal, non-commercial use only.” No reasonable person could argue with a straight face that recruitment is a non-commercial use, but just because such use is prohibited doesn’t mean that it isn’t happening.

Let me be clear that I love Facebook, MySpace, and the other social networking sites. They’re wonderful tools to help students and others connect with people who share their interests. But they also must be used carefully. You should assume that anything that you post on-line is going to be read by your old-fashioned grandmother. If you’re fine with her reading your profile, then its contents should be fine. Few would talk with their grandmothers about getting drunk, sexual experiences, breaking laws, etc. so why would they post such information on-line for anyone and everyone to read? Perhaps it is our exhibitionist culture. Today’s college students have grown up in an era where the most celebrated stars are on reality TV shows, so how can we blame them for believing that such behavior is to be celebrated rather than pitied?

09.25.07

web 2.0 boot camp from the electronic frontier foundation - EFF

Posted in Internet Business at 5:44 pm by Administrator

From the EFF a seminar I am hoping will be recorded, edited and available on the web, for I can not afford the travel to make it out to Cali right now. It’s a great price for those who can make it, and the topics are important, with experts offering advice worth more than the price of travel and admission. If you are thinking about starting a social network or already have a site that harnesses user generated content check it out:

What

One-Day bootcamp. EFF’s staff attorneys will be teamed with private attorneys specializing in the various legal issues. We’ll give you the basics on the key topics and you’ll leave better able to protect your customers, your company and your job.

Topic areas

  • Defamation, harassment, and other accusations of bad behavior.
  • Fair use, free culture, and the right to remix.
  • Copyright take-downs and put-backs: Understanding the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
  • How to respond to cops, crooks, and courts who want your customers’ communications and other private information.
  • How to avoid becoming the next Napster and stay on the safe side of the Copyright Wars.
  • The rights of anonymous speakers.
  • Porn, predators, and the pressure to police.
  • Lightning rounds on Creative Commons licenses, webcasting and what to do when you’ve been hacked.

Who should attend

People who do front-line or mid-level work for companies and projects that rely on user-generated content and communications. This includes compliance, customer service and community management workers.

Info orignally found via boing boing

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