Facebook About to Change Privacy Policy. Again...

It took me a bit to understand and figure out all the privacy options on Facebook... And now it may be time to start all over again.
I concede that some changes were REALLY necessary.  However, updating the policies and modifying the control interface so frequently is also affecting users' ability to understand what is going on.
Perhaps FB will send a notice to inform of the changes and proactively explain...

Brief History of Online Feedback / Rating... Some Thoughts

Stage 1. Men were created with the ability to have opinions of their own.  Opinions can be complex, simple, logical, contradictory, expressed verbally, non-verbally, etc.

Stage 2. Then men became Internet users and were allowed to give feedback on a 5-star basis.  Internet users still have opinions and share them in form of "Comments".

Stage 3. Following, users had the possibility to give a thumb up OR a thumb down.  Users can reply to comments or even re-post them in their own opinion-stream.

Stage 4. More recently, users can "Like" stuff.  No complexity whatsoever is necessary nor allowed.  Similarly, any negative feedback is unpractical (or curtailed) since it would be bad form with respect to "business partners" of the site in use.   Yes, it is possible to write something if you really, really care (which happens when you are upset about a service you paid for). However, other than in such case, who bothers about typing if they can just click.

But wait, there is more.  The evolution of feedback and rating systems is not limited to the progressive simplification of the tools and the user interface.  It rather (and more importantly) concerns what data are collected and associated with the users' ratings.

The person who is rating content or items (the "rater") has become the center of the action.  This is somehow counterintuitive, yet the most valuable information for the website has nothing to do with the items rated thereby.  In fact, the most valuable information is that one concerning the "rater":  its tastes, preferences, behavior, etc.

Therefore, it is key that such information is made as standard and accessible as possible.  For this reason rating on one dimension ("Like" button) may work better and eliminates certain "noise" in users' behavior analysis.  Hence, simplification is functional to enhance user-profiling and, eventually,  to better target those users with relevant ads.

On the other hand, all kinds of feedback regarding content/items have become a very effective "bait" to incentivize interaction and attract traffic. This happens despite being common knowledge that on-line feedback and ratings are easily manipulated and often unreliable.

I believe we can start looking at feedback and ratings from a different perspective.  In fact, I have the impression that their social significance has changed as they do not represent anymore a vehicle to convey opinions but rather a form of basic interaction to show an acknowledgment that something does exist.  To the contrary, if there is no "Like" button underneath it, such thing cannot be part of the user's profile for advertising purposes.  And, that somehow makes that piece of content invisible on the Internet.

Facebook Settles Beacon Privacy Class Action

Past December 2009, Facebook contacted its user to inform them of the existence of this class action.
If you were wondering what happened, a $9.5 million settlement has been approved.
Here you find more details.

Facebook Publishing Settings

Facebook keeps asking me if I intend to change my privacy settings or stick with the old ones.  Well, I tried to choose the latter but it looks like my decision was not convincing for Facebook... In fact, when today it prompted me again with the same question (and I replied in the same way) I found that my "old" settings were not the old ones whatsoever.  So, I patiently had to go back, review and re-uncheck everything... because, in case you had any doubts, the default settings are such that you share everything.
So, why don't they just come clean and start asking whether you want to manage your publishing settings?

Privacy Means User's Education

A couple of years ago Sophos made an interesting research showing that 41% of Facebook users were happy to disclose information to strangers.

Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, commenting the new privacy settings on Facebook, argues (among the other things) that despite the new settings allow improved privacy it is not at all easy to understand the best protective configuration.

Again, the problem ends up being that users often aren't aware of what they need to do to protect their privacy.  Probably because not everybody is entirely aware of the risks of data mishandling or identity theft.

Facebook Offers to Settle Privacy Class Action

Yesterday I received an interesting message from Facebook (not my friends on Facebook...):

Facebook is sending you this notice of a proposed class action settlement that may affect your legal rights as a Facebook member who may have used the Beacon program.  [...]

Under the proposed settlement, Facebook will terminate the Beacon program.  In addition, Facebook will provide $9.5 million to establish an independent non-profit foundation that will identify and fund projects and initiatives that promote the cause of online privacy, safety, and security. [...]

This was already on the media some weeks ago.  Now, you can also read all the details and documents regarding this case  HERE.  Facebook admitted no liability for the Beacon case.  It is very generous that Facebook offered to pay $9.5 to establish a non-profit...

SNS Traffic and Privacy in UK

I'd like just to feature this piece of news I found on Cnet.  Apparently keeping users' communication data for one year is not enough.  In future, be mindful of what you send and share with your British contacts on Facebook...  it might be relevant in a very distant future, still TBD.

KIDS Act Passed Into Law

The Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act of 2008 is now law.  The KIDS Act provides for an information exchange between the Attorney General and the social networking sites, in order to prevent known sexual predators from accessing such websites.  In particular, Attorney General shall establish and maintain a secure system that permits social networking websites to compare the information contained in the National Sex Offender Registry with the Internet identifiers of users of the social networking websites.  The new law has been promptly embraced by Facebook.     

The Strange Case of Dr. User and Mr. Ads

MySpace just came up with a brilliant idea (IMHO):  a new advertising platform to "Promote You". Check it here.
Given the quasi-monopolistic situation of the web-advertisement market, it was key to establish direct relationships with advertisers, to get better returns for the huge inventory held with MySpace.
In fact, this is quite common for most of the big Internet services, which have an in-house department of ads sales, in order to fight Google position as main ads broker.
The original strategy undertaken by MySpace is to sign-up its own users as advertisers.  In this way, MySpace is creating new ads demand, while granting very targeted service to its users/advertisers.
Although in theory everybody, including businesses, could place his ads on MySpace, because of the demographic of MySpace's users, it is more likely that the most active advertisers will be just the most engaged users.  After all, we know that these users are artists, musicians who are already promoting themselves on MySpace.  Now they might enjoy a more powerful tool to do so, and guess what, they will be paying for that.
I think this strategy may represent a partial solution to the shrinking of ads revenue coming from traditional advertisers, namely off-line business.  Not to mention that having a relevant presence in the ads brokering market can surely be beneficial for such a concentrated market.

Yahoo! (s)Mash(ed)

Yahoo! announced they are going to shut down Mash, the social networking site started less than one year ago.  Yesterday, Yahoo! sent a message to Mash’s users warning them to save all profile information somewhere else, since after September 29 Mash won’t be there anymore:  “we hope you had fun with it” and sayonara to everybody!

Mash is (or was…) a nicely designed SNS, it just got out there too late.  In fact, there is no more room for general/all-purposes SNSs.  Market’s needs have been saturated by Facebook (which is BTW celebrating its 100 Million users).

On Facebook, you can search and find most of the people you are in touch with… and eventually you keep more easily in touch with people who use it…

If you are wondering when was last time you e-mailed your old friend who is not on FB, the answer is: longer than others who are on FB: this just is one of the indirect effects of the Network Effect).

However, more and more professionals, teenagers and families keep in touch with Facebook.  A law firm is also recruiting on Facebook.
General SNSs (i.e. Facebook) have recently turned into an enriched version of a phonebook, and people use them just like one.

The value of a phonebook is inherently related to its completeness and distribution (AKA the Network Effect).  In the SNSs case, both completeness and distribution rely on users activity, which is costly.  O.k., filling user’s profile, adding friends and uploading pictures may be fun too, but doing it multiple times may become an hassle.  Anyway, swinging from a SNS to another is time consuming and there isn’t really reason to do it.

On the other hand, some SNSs are pursuing another strategy to gain a spot in the market, namely specialization.  Facebook’s internal networks or groups are not specific enough to satisfy users' needs.  Sometimes, the features of a SNS just don’t match a specific purpose or taste of its users. 

Thus, people who share a common interest, or come from a certain location tend to aggregate around a specialized SNS.  There are plenty of examples.

MySpace (which is still growing) is gradually specializing in music.  Its users share an interest in famous as well as emergent bands’ productions.  Thus, the features available for users’ profile customization match this purpose.  Flickr is another good example: it is more than a photo sharing, is an active community of photographers.  Thus, the quality/dimension of the pictures you can up/download is way superior to other SNSs.  Orkut, of the Google family, is well established in a few countries (e.g. Brazil), where it is much bigger than Facebook.  In fact, Orkut benefited of FB’s initial language deficiency and enjoyed a first comer advantage.

Therefore, SNSs new trends will be driven by the ability to interpret the concept of a hub, where people may find features and design able to satisfy an unexploited aggregating element.  And of course, a huge amount of luck…