On Photographs.

Writing on his blog Nicholas Carr reminds us of what he calls the "expansiveness of today's web"

Facebook engineers have announced what they describe as "a really cool milestone"

Facebook users (and that's probably you and me) have uploaded 10 billion digital photographs to the site!
Furthermore it appears that Facebook stores four images sizes for each photograph so they must be storing 40 billion files.


Some users of Facebook might wonder about whom those photographs belong.

The answer to that question will be found in the Facebook Terms of Use.

I have to confess that I don't understand the terms ....... which say

"You are solely responsible for the photos, profiles (including your
name, image, and likeness), messages, notes, text, information, music,
video, advertisements, listings, and other content that you upload,
publish or display (hereinafter, "post") on or through the Service or
the Site, or transmit to or share with other users (collectively the
"User Content"). You may not post, transmit, or share User Content on
the Site or Service that you did not create or that you do not have
permission to post. You understand and agree that the Company may, but
is not obligated to, review the Site and may delete or remove (without
notice) any Site Content or User Content in its sole discretion, for
any reason or no reason, including User Content that in the sole
judgment of the Company violates this Agreement or the Facebook Code of Conduct,
or which might be offensive, illegal, or that might violate the rights,
harm, or threaten the safety of users or others. You are solely
responsible at your sole cost and expense for creating backup copies
and replacing any User Content you post or store on the Site or provide
to the Company.

When you post User Content to the Site, you authorise and direct us
to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate
the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. 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 licence (with the right to sublicence) 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 authorise sublicences
of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any
time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the licence granted
above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the
Company may retain archived copies of your User Content. Facebook does
not assert any ownership over your User Content; rather, as between us
and you, subject to the rights granted to us in these Terms, you retain
full ownership of all of your User Content and any intellectual
property rights or other proprietary rights associated with your User
Content."


Understand?

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Storm in a Teacup.

Change is always uncomfortable and often difficult to manage.
 

Facebook has changed.
 
We knew it was coming, had a chance to become used to it, a chance to make comments, a chance to be involved.
Facebook have approached their facelift sensibly.

I'm not that keen on some of it, I can't find things, I forget to click through the tabs. but I'll learn.


And all those vampires, and questionnaires and the lolcats will be somewhere else......

It's a good move, well done Facebook.

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On Facebook libel.

Interesting story.

A reminder to take care before creating false maicious profiles.

This story reminded me of the Fake Steve Jobs who alas is no longer with us.

On Bras!

Forgive me but I have noticed that bras have been in the news this week!

First I read of Abbie Hawkins who discovered a bat in her bra, after wearing it for five hours!

Then I read of a facebook group called Busts 4 Justice!

I think I should join.

It seems that in Marks and Spencer DD bras are more expensive than bras for smaller busts.
An unfair tax on large busts says the founder of Busts for Justice.

M and S say larger bras require more material so are more expensive, maybe so, but why doesn't that logic apply to all articles of clothing?

Those of you interested in bras, might find this place of use.
It's a shop with virtual models to help the male of the species buy underwear for his loved one!

It's what the internet was invented for!

Facebook and Privacy

Like toothache some doubts just never go away.

The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Group based at the University of Ottawa has filed a complaint against Facebook citing 22 separate breaches of privacy law in Canada.

As is ever the case Facebook refutes the charges suggesting that

"We pride ourselves on the industry leading controls we offer users
over their private information. We believe that this is an important
reason that nearly 40% of Canadians on the internet use our service.

"We've reviewed the complaint and found it has serious factual
errors, most notably its neglect of the fact that almost all Facebook
data is willingly shared by users."

Notice the phrase "almost all Facebook data is willingly shared by users".

I think that is just not the case.
Many , many Facebook users have no idea how their personal data is used, manipulated and exploited for Facebook's commercial advantage.

The concept of social networking and privacy seem incompatable.

Perhaps it's time for us all to become hermits.

On Firefox and iGoogle

For some time now I've been researching personalised start pages including iGoogle. The problem with such pages is that you can't view the content and be elsewhere on the Internet at the same time without opening a new tab, a new window or by moving away from the start page.

Today while reading Digital Inspiration I was pointed in the direction of a Firefox extension that places iGoogle in the sidebar. How clever is that?

This provides us with the best of both worlds, full firefox capability plus continuous visible access to everything on my personalised home page. Access to all the tabs in iGoogle is provided in the sidebar, as is the ability to move widgets on the homepage and the iGoogle themes show in the sidebar!

With a careful choice of widgets, I think most of the features of Flock can be replicated using this extension.

The screen capture at the top of this post shows Firefox running with two sidebars open, one carrying sage (my feed reader) and the other running the iGoogle extension with the Facebook widget open displaying my status and my own widget showing news feeds from the faculty.

I think it's called multitasking.

On Facebook and Lent.

What did you give up?

For Misanthropes

This just made me laugh.

(via kottke)

On Facebook Statistics

Here's an interesting web site / company.

Adonomics an open analytics and advertising platform for Facebook
(Note, they state that their site is in no way affiliated with Facebook)

It's well worth going to explore this site which contains a weath of statistics and information about applications in Facebook.

Their leaderboard shows the total (world wide) numbers of users of particular facebook apps. The board shows the total number of installs per application, the number of active users of an application and the percentage of active users.

Their charts page shows a top 25 list of facebook application companies, clicking on the company name provides a list of applications and a to show daily active users graphed over time.
A superficial examination of random graphs reveals that many of these apps have declining user numbers.
Go see for yourself.

Adonomics offer their services to application developers, and provide a Marketplace for application sellers.

Those of us who are curious about Facebook, its users and its applications can find much to explore here.

On "Bill Gates Quits Facebook"

Back in October 2007, with a little help from Lyn Bader the New York times noted that Bill Gates' Microsoft had acquired a stake in Facebook.

Four months later The Wall Street Journal tells us "Bill Gates Quits Facebook"

In an article written before Facebook dealt with the issue of deactivation or deletion, and drawing on reporting in The Sun we learn that Bill can't use the book because of his "excessive celebrity"

Now the question remains is his account deactivated, deleted or abandoned?

Blogged with Flock

On Deleting Facebook (2)

Mashable reports that Facebook has responded to an article in the New York Times.

The instructions on how to deactivate / delete your Facebook account have been changed. Facebook has responded to disquiet about their deactivated yet not deleted accounts policy.

There's a new paragraph which quite clearly explains that Facebook has now made it possible to have your account deleted for you. No more deleting all of your posts, messages, interests one by one.

"If you deactivate your account, your profile and all information associated with it are immediately made inaccessible to other Facebook users. What this means is that you effectively disappear from the Facebook service. However, we do save your profile information (friends, photos, interests, etc.), so if you want to reactivate at some point, your account will look just the way it did when you deactivated. Many users deactivate their accounts for temporary reasons and expect their information to be there when they return to the service.

If you do not think you will use Facebook again and would like your account deleted, we can take care of this for you. Keep in mind that you will not be able to reactivate your account or retrieve any of the content or information you have added. If you would like your account deleted, please contact us using the form at the bottom of the page and confirm your request in the text box."

So now we have a choice, deactivate or delete.

Why did it take them so long to offer this facility?
Will users rush to delete their accounts?

Somehow I doubt it.

(Another question.
Why do online newspapers insist on having articles that are spread over several pages?)

On Social Network Fatigue

Anyone who is interested in the world of social networking reads Mashable the social networking news blog. They point at new applications, highlight industry news and provide gossip.

This recent article caught my eye and reminded me that it is time for me to check out the Welsh Facebook stats.

Writing for The Register, Chris Wiliams suggests that people are bored of social networks. Here is the heart of his argument.

"it seems .... that a delayed Friends Reunited (remember that?) effect is kicking in.

When Friends Reunited enjoyed its "phenomenal" growth period people would join, log in maybe a dozen times, catch up with those class mates they wanted to, then forget about it.

On Facebook behaviour seems much the same; join, accumulate dozens of semi-friends, spy on a few exes for a bit, play some Scrabulous, get bored, then get on with your life, occasionally dropping in to respond to a message or see some photos that have been posted.

Similarly, once the novelty of MySpace wears off, most people only stop by to check out bands or watch videos."

While these observations reflect what many of us think, it appears that the facts are beginning to confirm what we know.
(The raw figures can be found at Creative Capital)

I wonder if these figures are reflected by users of social networks in Wales?
Can I find out?

On Searching in Facebook

I'm not certain that Facebook is coping.

How often have you seen this image?

On Facebook Privacy (again)

Now it appears that the Information Commisioners Office (who?) are interested in Facebook's data protection policies.

Someone has complained that they couldn't delete their profile after terminating their account.
We knew that here On a Hill didn't we?

In the world of Facebook the word terminate does not exist, the word according to Facebook is "deactivate" and when you realise that life without Facebook is impossible, all your data is there ready for you to reactivate.

As we noted here if you wish to delete your information from the Facebook servers you must delete every entry by hand, item by item, message by message, wall entry by wall entry, group membership by group membership; which must be such a pain for real Facebook addicts.

I'm not sure you can see a "delete all" button anywhere in Facebook.

Of course one of the issues might just be that the data on Facebook pages is held .....

Tell me, where are the Facebook servers?

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Platform Wars

Although it might seem to be of interest only to technical geeks, something important happened in cyberspace this week.
The news slipped out in a press release and in the Facebook Developers Blog.

"Bebo, the global Social Media Network, today (12.12.07) announced that it has launched its Open Application Platform, opening its API to third party developers to integrate their applications with the Bebo site."

Furthermore

"The Bebo Open Application Platform will be the first in the industry to implement the standards defined by the Facebook Platform, an open development system that enables companies and engineers to extend Facebook's more than 7,000 applications to other social websites."

In plain English, this means that Bebo has opened up its platform to third party developers and at the same time has made it the same as the Facebook platform; which could lead to the Facebook platform becoming the dominant platform while hindering Google's plans for Opensocial.

At a time when Facebook has been struggling to overcome a few problems related to advertising issues this is a clever move.
Facebook are sharing, but by sharing have moved into a position of control.

Here's Facebook's explanation

"Now we also want to share the benefits of our work by enabling other social sites to use our platform architecture as a model. In fact, we’ll even license the Facebook Platform methods and tags to other platforms. Of course, Facebook Platform will continue to evolve, but by enabling other social sites to use what we’ve learned, everyone wins -- users get a better experience around the web, developers get access to new audiences, and social sites get more applications."

Hmm.
How many users does Facebook have?
How many users does Bebo have?

In the developing battle of platforms, there are two contenders, Facebook and Google but Facebook is taking charge.

They both want a share of the action.
They both want to share.
I wonder will they share with one another?

Remember betamax?

On Facebook Beacon, Zuckerberg and the Panopticon

It won't be long before anyone interested in Facebook reads or hears of this post from Mark Zuckerberg on the Facebook blog.

He has come to see the damage sustained by Facebook through the introduction of Beacon and reflects on the uneasiness felt by current and prospective Facebook users.

And bites the bullet,

"About a month ago, we released a new feature called Beacon to try to help people share information with their friends about things they do on the web. We've made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we've made even more with how we've handled them. We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it."

I know little about the workings of business, but I do know that when something goes wrong it needs to be fixed quickly. When Zuckerberg and Facebook realised that Beacon was flawed they found themselves unable to react. In the panoptic glare of the world's social and media networks they responded far too slowly to the ever increasing criticism.
He knows that now.

"Instead of acting quickly, we took too long to decide on the right solution. I'm not proud of the way we've handled this situation and I know we can do better."

As a result Beacon has changed, last week it became an opt-in system; this week users can turn it off completely.

"If you select that you don't want to share some Beacon actions or if you turn off Beacon, then Facebook won't store those actions even when partners send them to Facebook"

Hmmm.

In Bentham's Panopticon, the warders looked outwards, at inmates who never knew whether or not they were observed. Control came from the centre.

In Zuckerberg's Facebook, the users have realised they are being observed and have started looking inwards.

Who has control now?

Facebook, it's users or it's partners?

On Facebook Fridays

Through reading Tony Karrer's blog eLearning Technology, I've come across this article about the use of Facebook within a company.

It describes how a company called Serena Software has "Facebook Fridays"

The paragraphs highlighted by Tony are worth noting.

"Each Friday, employees are granted one hour of personal time to spend on their Facebook profiles and connect with co-workers, customers, family and friends."

“Social networking tools like Facebook can bring us back together, help us get to know each other as people, help us understand our business and our products, and help us better serve our customers-on demand. A corporate culture that fosters a sense of community and fun will ultimately help us get more done. Companies that do not embrace social networking are making a huge mistake.”

Despite my enthusiasm for Web 2.0 I'm really not sure about this use of social networking.

It's Friday, so you will network, you will use Facebook, you will connect with one another and our customers.

• What happens for the rest of the week?
• What if I don't want to mix home and work?
• What if I don't want to update my Facebook profile?
• What if I don't want a Facebook profile?
• What if I want a private life?

This initiative just doesn't seem right.
You will be "friends" because the CEO says so seems doomed to failure.
It's not team building, it's not creating a sense of community, it's not embracing social networking it's imposing it.

That's not how the world works

On Competition for Facebook?

I came across a post on the Allen Stern's CenterNetwork, in which he points to Matthew Buckland in South Africa, where earlier in the week Jimmy Wales made an interesting presentation.

This presentation has added fuel to blogosphere speculation that Jimmy Wales and his "wikia" organisation just might be preparing to take on Facebook and Google.

We shall have to wait and see.

Here are some facts about Wikipedia, highlighted by Wales in his talk.

• "Wales said that by the end of 2007 there were now more than 2-million Wikipedia articles in english, but that this is less than 1/3 of the wikipedia content.
• German and French are two big growing languages with more than 500,000 articles each.
• Wikipedia spent around US$1-millon last year, and will spend about $2,3-million this year. Most of this comes from small donations and is a tiny amount of money if you think of the influence Wikipedia has on the world.
• Wales says that according to Alexa, Wikipedia is now the 8th most popular website in the world.
• Even in countries like Iran, Wikipedia is the 14th most popular site.
• Despite Wikipedia being one of the world’s top ten biggest websites, it only has 10 fulltime positions, with most of the work done by volunteers all around the world."

As you think about those facts, watch anonymous editors at work at Wikipedia on this interesting mashup / visualisation.

The wisdom of the crowd in action!

Facebook Pages

I've been exploring Facebook and have come across an interesting development.
The search bar has acquired a new box, (which appears for some searches but not all).

Let me demonstrate; a search for Cardiff produces the following results :-

a box for people,
a box for groups,
a box for events,
a box for applications

and a new box for pages!

Explore the pages and you will find an interesting link to the Cardiff University Facebook page.
This page invites visitors to add Cardiff Uni to their organisations, and offers quick links to all of the major pages at the University Web site, including the research pages.

A quick scan of the help files explains that Facebook Pages are special.
(Curious readers should explore the help files at Facebook, where a mass of information about the new Facebook features may be found)

A musical artist, business, or brand can create Facebook Pages to share information, interact with their fans, and create a highly engaging presence plugged into Facebook’s social graph. These Pages are distinct presences, separate from users’ profiles, and optimized for these entities’ needs to communicate, distribute information/content, engage their fans, and capture new audiences virally through their fans’ recommendations to their friends. Facebook Pages are designed to be a media rich, valuable presence solution for any artist, business, or brand that can be integrated seamlessly into the user experience with socially-relevant applications.

Right now at the time of writing Cardiff University has eight fans!

I think that Cardiff University is the first Welsh University to utilise the world of Facebook pages, kudos to the Cardiff Marketing or Web Development team for being quick off the mark.

Disclaimer,
As an ex student of Cardiff University, I'm going to become its ninth fan, (in the interests of research).

On the Facebook News Network!

Enjoy. !!

via fimoculous