On Life after death?

A fascinating article on Mashable caught my eye.
 
It's title seems surreal but it's a question that deserves some serious thought.

"What Happens to Our Social Profiles After We Die?"


I've all sorts of questions in my mind ........

 

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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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A Social Beat Box

Boom Diggy Diggy Diggy Boom.

:)


(via Robot Wisdom)

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Ivory Towers

I came across this earlier.

"Sometimes, it’s worth flashing a bit of a public reminder that even
though it seems like lots of us are deeply passionate about this space,
most folks don’t exactly understand what we’re talking about. That’s
because technically, they don’t need what we do to make money and go on
with their lives. They’re happy. Take a cab ride and ask them about
Twitter. Ask the folks at the grocery store if they’re on LinkedIn.
Check and see whether anyone at the local pizza place has a blog."

We should all remember it

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On American Politics, the Internet and Twitter.

You will remember some months ago I commented upon the way in which Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama were using Twitter to pursue their political objectives. I followed them they followed me.

Hilary is no longer as involved but Barack continues to lead the way in his use of technology.
Take a look at his web site.

Here is a politician who is really making every effort to connect and stay connected with his electorate in the United States, and with admirers world wide.

Looking at his web site we see a complete mastery of the internet as a medium for mass communication. This election campaign and his digital presence has raised the bar for politicians everywhere. He has achieved a world wide ambient presence.

On his web site, the home page is easily navigable, neat and clearly laid out. The navigation bar guides or leads visitors to information quickly and elegantly.

Casual and determined browsers are invited via rollovers to learn about Barack and his team and to discover what he thinks about the major issues. Users are offered a rich choice of Barack media sources (wallpapers, music and the like) and direct links to all the different types of people who have chosen to support Barrack. Additionally the site provides a Blog, a store for Barack merchandising and links to local Barack websites in each American state. And as you might expect there are opportunities for the faithful to contribute financially.

There is a list of things to do, including a reminder to register to vote (lets face it Americans need help in coming to terms with Democracy). There are videos, news articles, messages to Hilary's supporters and an astonishing list called Obama Everywhere.

Obama Everywhere provides links to sixteen yes sixteen places on the Internet where Barack can make his presence felt ..... worldwide.
So comprehensive is this list that I am copying it here.

Obama can be found on

Facebook, MySpace, You Tube, 

Flickr, Digg, Twitter, Eventful, 

Linkedin, BlackPlanet, Faithbase, 

Eons, Glee, MiGente, MyBatanga, AsiaAve 

and 

DNC Partybuilder.

This man is connected! (he even has his own app on the iPhone).

__________________________________________________

Knowing that Number Ten Downing Street can be found on Twitter I thought I'd have a little look round and explore the world of political tweets.

Consider the statistics (as of 6/10/08)

Plaid Cymru are on Twitter with 35 followers.
The Labour party are on Twitter with 133 followers.
The Liberal Democrats are on Twitter with 542 followers.
The Conservative Party is on Twitter with 606 followers.


Ten Downing Street is on Twitter, with 5,104 followers.
The White House is on Twitter with 1,174 followers

McCain is on Twitter with 2,451 followers.
Obama is on Twitter with 92,256 followers.

Note John McCain also has a web site, but in my opinion it's not a slick as the Obama offering.
Take a look and see what you think.

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Google Blog Search

You may not have noticed but Google has changed the look of it's Blog Search Homepage.

On the new page related stories are grouped together into groups, together with a numerical count of the number of blogs discussing the story. This creates a hierarchy of subjects, showing what's hot or not.

Additionally the page carries a list of links to "Top Stories" in a curious mix of topics.
Politics, US, World, Business, Technology, Video Games, Science, Entertainment, Movies, Television, Sports.

Once you undertake a search of your own, the blog search results look as they have always done.


Some commentators have noted that the Blog Search Homepage is not unlike early versions of sites like Digg.  I agree.


The change to the Blog Search Homepage to my mind makes the page more interesting, and more likely to encourage me to stray from my intended search area, a sort of of accidental Stumbleupon.

If it is designed to lead us further into the world of unknown bloggers, it works. 

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On Delicious Things.

Hi.

I'm back from walking on Bodmin Moor, struggling to catch up with my feed readers, emails, favourite reads etc. etc.

I've only been away a week and yet so much has happened.

I came across this Delicious post. Watch the movie to learn more.

Finally I know what to call it.

I love the new interface, now all I need to do is edit sort and finish bundling my tags ( as if I will!).

Two Google stories! Street View and YouTube

Yesterday while looking out of the bedroom window I saw a car drive past with what appeared to be a tripod on it's roof with camera's (?) pointing in all directions. In my head I thought ah a Google camera car. It has to be said that the car was travelling at speed, quite fast for the narrow quiet road on which I live, it's speed made me think that it couldn't have been a google surveyor but then today I read this.

"Google Street View" matches photographs to maps, providing a real 3D view of a location. If passers by or residents are in the street as the image is taken, they appear on the "Street View" display. In the States some individuals have complained about their presence and had their images removed or blurred, Google "has said it has begun to trial face blurring technology,
using an algorithm that detects human faces in photographs."

Here in the UK "Privacy International, a UK rights group, believes the technology breaks data protection laws."In our view they need a person's consent if they make use of a
person's face for commercial ends," said Simon Davis of the group.""

I wonder did they catch my face peering through the window?

The story makes my sighting of the strange camera car all the more interesting because the same news story includes this sentence. "Photographing of areas in the UK, including London, is believed to have started this week."


Coincidentally Google was in the news yesterday. A judge in the States has ruled that Google must divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched a video on YouTube to Viacom. That's 12 terabytes of data! Apparently the viewing log will contain the log in ID of users, the computer IP address and details of the video clps watched.

Scarey stuff. Once Viacom have the data what will they do with it.

This court case raises once again all sorts of questions about the vast amounts of personal data held by social networking sites, ISPs, Google, etc.etc.

Big Brother has not gone away!

PowerPoint to YouTube

I've not used this yet but can see that it's a powerful tool.

authorSTREAM is an online sharing site that allows the free uploading of PowerPoint presentations but facilitates their sharing with friends, students, or co-workers.

It seems authorSTREAM allows registered users (and it's free) to embed presentations in blogs and networks, or share them via YouTube, which means that they become viewable almost anywhere and on nearly any platform including iPods.

YouTube rules the world in terms of video sharing, this could be another nail in the coffin of VLE's

Wow!

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On Twitter, Hillary, Barack and Paul.

When I first heard of Twitter I was less than complementary in my judgement.
I think I was wrong.

When I noticed that Twitter was integrated within Flock, I was persuaded to try again.
At first I twittered from my Mac Book, yesterday I twittered using my mobile phone.

Wikipedia tells us that Twitter is is a

"free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send "updates" (or "tweets"; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service, instant messaging, or a third-party applications"

furthermore;

"Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone is the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an application."

I'm not certain I'll use it often, I don't need to be so connected; but there are people for whom such connectivity must be important.

I explored and searched for interesting tweets and on finding that Cardiff University was offering news tweets, I became a follower.

Encouraged and made curious by a note from Tweet, I observed that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are using Twitter. I don't suppose they do their own Twittering, their staff must do it for them; but I could be wrong.

Here are Barack's last three Twitters.

Feb. 21. Excited to learn about winning the Dems Abroad primary today. Getting ready for the Texas debate. It will be live tonight at 8pm ET on CNN.

Feb. 19. Is encouraging everyone to tell friends in Wisconsin to vote until 8pm tonight. And tell friends in Hawaii to get to their caucus by 6:30pm!

Feb. 12. Encouraging everyone in DC, MD and VA to vote today. Heading to Madison, WI for a Rally for Change event at the Kohl Center (6:15pm tonight)

and here are Hillary's

Feb. 28. I’m looking forward to the “Solutions for America” town hall in Hanging Rock, OH tomorrow in the Appalachian region.

Feb. 27. Want to help win in Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont? Visit www.hillaryclinton.com/twit... to start making calls!

Feb.27. Today I’m attending an Economic Solutions Summit in Zanesville, Ohio followed by rallies in Saint Clairsville and Belpre.

Is it me or is there a difference in style between these two twitterers?
Is it possible to notice a diffference of style in only 140 characters?

Hillary's stats reveal that today she has 1,436 followers and has made 51 updates.
She's following no one.
Barack's stats reveal that today he has 6,661 followers and has made 73 updates.
He's following 6,793 twitterers, of whom I am one!!

Presumably if I Twitter about him, one of his staff will notice.
It seems that Hillary doesn't care about what I might say.

Ron Paul can also be found in Twitter.
His stats reveal 1,011 followers and 85 updates.
Like Hillary he's following no one.

Might we be able to predict who will win this seemingly never ending selection process by counting twits?

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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?

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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 MyCBBC and Social Networking

A blog that is well worth worth reading is the BBCs Internet Blog, which has risen to the top of my must read regularly list.

The BBC works hard to provide it's users, readers, watchers, listeners, consumers of all ages and nationalities with access to a vast range of material of the highest quality.

iPlayer has transformed the way I watch television. I'm watching more, now that the unmissable is really unmissable.
Right now I'm glad that downloads aren't supported on my mac, for there are only so many hours in the day that one can access media. I know the iPlayer experience isn't perfect, sometimes it's a bit clunky but it's a new technology and can only get better.

Consider this post by Richard Deverell, in which he describes clearly the BBC's plans for MyCBBC and replies to recent press and political speculation.

Children will be assisted in the creation of "a personalised space on the CBBC web site."

How brilliant is that?
What are we in academia spending our time considering?
Finding ways of assisting our students, pupils, business partners and colleagues in the creation of useful personalised spaces.

Read on

"These pages will take the form of a child's den in which they can aggregate their favourite content from BBC sites and from approved external websites. They can choose posters, furniture and gadgets to personalise their den. Each gadget will provide a useful function: the PC stores their favourite website links; the plasma screen plays video clips; the calendar gives the dates and times of favourite shows and their own personal dates such as family and friends' birthdays.

There is also a "treasure chest" in which they can store any content they have created on the CBBC site - for example, a link to their Roar park or latest message board conversations. And Newsround feeds, based on topics such as sport or current affairs, are given an engaging wrapper using the metaphor of virtual magazines.

Children can further personalise their dens by displaying their interests and hobbies by selecting the relevant "stickers" from a pre-determined list of symbols. They can design virtual versions of themselves - avatars - with different looks and clothes. They can also choose from a range of moods each day, represented by a weather system around the avatar's head."

Compare the BBC's plans with this "angry" press report, read the observations of politicians, look at the comments at the bottom of the page; and then read the last paragraph of Deverell's post and note how he highlights the need for our young people to be educated in using the web safely. It is obvious that MyCBBC is not going to be a social networking site per se, but it has enormous potential to be the place where children will learn and acquire the new skills they will need when they join their older siblings and parents in real social networking sites.

Additionally MyCBBC might be the place for them to develop their media literacy skills which will help them to distinguish fact from fiction as they watch television, listen to the radio or read our national press.

You can read more here, here and here!

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 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

The Social Media Starfish

Robert Scoble created the Social Media starfish, Darren Barefoot improved on it.

It covers most of the social bases, but is already out of date.

By the time some of us adopt an application the rest of the world has moved on.
By the time established institutions adopt an application the rest of the world has moved on.

How are we to keep up?

On Facebook, Advertising and Digital Clutter

If you believe the hype (and I don't) the world changed on November 6th.
Mark Zucherberg founder of Facebook made the announcement that had been expected for a long long time.

Facebook is moving into advertising.
He said

“Once every hundred years media changes. the last hundred years have been defined by the mass media. The way to advertise was to get into the mass media and push out your content. That was the last hundred years. In the next hundred years information won’t be just pushed out to people, it will be shared among the millions of connections people have. Advertising will change. You will need to get into these connections."

and I still don't get it.

Facebook Ads will have three components.

Social Ads ie personalised ads informed by member profile data,
(I guess its time to play with my profile)

Beacon (Ads) which will allow members of Facebook to announce to their friends that they are fans of a particular brand via their feeds.
(Now we shall discover who our real friends are!)

Insight which will provide advertisers with marketing data from within Facebook, ie social demographic information.

Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch was there, live blogging the event.
Here are his immediate thoughts

"This could be huge if done right, but it could also backfire badly for Facebook. If I start to think that my friends are advertising to me, I may no longer trust them (and, in fact, try to avoid them . .. by not logging into Facebook anymore). So the the trick is to make these appear to be genuine recommendations, and not ads. I am not sure how many people will be fooled by this, though. It risks turning something useful—the feed of my friends’ activities—into something spammy."

How true is that?

Much as I like my Facebook friends, I'm honestly not sure that they would consider their feeds useful. I don't.
I certainly don't want to start receiving advertising recommendations from them. I have enough digital clutter already. It's bad enough that I know when my friends are cooking, thinking or breathing.

Everyone, yes everyone should visit Nicholas Carr and read his thoughts on the "Social Graft"

I guess that anyone who still believed that Facebook had a future as a PLE, a VLE or as the next platform might be having second thoughts.

I hope so.

:-)