Posts in category "Technology"
Fight_The_Power

The Social Web and Privacy. What a dumbass fight.

  • Category: Technology
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  • Posted 1106 days ago

Boy do we have some pretty strange concepts of what privacy is when it comes to the Web, or rather we seem to be misunderstanding exactly what privacy is.

No this is not a post in defense of Facebook and their anal attitude about controlling the flow of information. Nor is it a post extolling the virtues of new projects like Diaspora or other Facebook replacements (in their dreams maybe) who are selling themselves by tauting their belief in your right to privacy.

This post isn’t about either of those things because we’re talking about the wrong thing. This so-called uproar over what Facebook has been doing with its Open Graph and social plugins has nothing to do with privacy. It is all a case of verbal and ideological misdirection.

Look, privacy is a nice ideology and plays well in the headlines and courtrooms but when it comes to the Web and especially the Social Web using the word privacy is a misnomer. Privacy, or rather private are those things in our lives whether they be thoughts or conversations that exists within a certain set of parameters.

What happens in our bedrooms is considered to be private. What happens within the four walls of our homes is considered private. Conversations with our doctors, our lawyers is considered to be private. What is said in a confessional is considered to be private between you, the priest and God.

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wtfcat

Facebook and the imaginary “it’s complicated” crap

So. How many words does it take to totally confuse everyone?

2121 words, and one really screwed up movie analogy, is all it takes.

At least that is how many it took for MG Siegler today in a post today at TechCrunch where he tried to explain …. ….. well ….. I’nm not really sure what he was trying to explain.

I think he was trying in some long-winded fashion why he thinks that Facebook’s changing privacy settings are the right thing to do (oh boy another Scoble everything should be open adherent) it’s just that they went about doing it the wrong way.

He suggests that it is a complicated situation because Facebook is trying to become Twitter and Twitter is trying to become like Facebook.

Wha?

Hmmm … somehow I don’t think it is all that complicated. Let me put it in bullet form to make it easy for you.

  • Facebook is a growing company that needs to make a lot, and I mean A LOT, of money
  • Facebook needs to con convince as many suckers people as possible to share everything
  • Zuckerberg thinks that Facebook users are dumb fucks
  • Facebook will do whatever it has to in order to make as much money as possible
  • Facebook will rip off copy from other services anything that it thinks will bring in more suckers members and/or drive those services into the deadpool
  • Facebook will stab its users in the back at every opportunity if it means they can make more money
  • It’s all about the money.

Let’s see that’s 250 words and one less stupid ass movie analogy – not bad

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Sophia Loren

Google is no Sophia Loren – more like Ugly Betty

  • Category: Technology
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  • Posted 1108 days ago

There is no getting around it – Google sucks when it comes to the Social Web, or in marketing speak – Social Media.

Unlike the other leaders in the field Google’s efforts have either been complete flops or just disparate efforts scattered around the Web. Even in those efforts that have gained a modicum of success, if it can even be called that, there is always a feeling of blandness, of always just missing the target.

In a way this is understandable. One has to remember that Google was built around the whole concept of the power of the algorithm and built by engineers and developers with an extreme eye to minimalism in everything it did. There is nothing wrong with this approach if all you are going to be is a search engine and ad platform but being social needs more than being able to calculate page load times down to the millisecond, or debating which shade of blue right down the the hex number is better.

Everything Google does is bland, faceless and yes – boring. This is the perfect approach of course for the true geeks and early adopters but the exact opposite of what the masses who are becoming involved in Social Media want, or are expecting.

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identity

Putting the “Us” back in the Profile equation

  • Category: Technology
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  • Posted 1110 days ago

Simple question: Who owns “Us”?

In other words – who owns my profile, who owns your profile?

Does Twitter?

How about Facebook?

Or perhaps Google owns it.

Why is it we are being convinced that someone else, some other company, is best suited to look after our online profiles?

Why is it that we are so willing to hand over the keys to our lives to some company?

Another simple question: How much is your life history, your desires, your dreams, your failures, your travels (both online and offline) worth to you? Is there even a price you can put on them?

In other words – are you willing to sell your ever evolving life’s story to the lowest bidder?

We don’t think much about our profiles when it comes to living online but it is those profiles that are our life story. They are integral to who we are, what we do, and most importantly to our identity. Yet we treat this life story with the most cavalier of attitudes. We hand it over to companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Google without the slightest comprehension of what it is we are giving away.

We are letting companies dictate what can be done with those stories, with our identities. Do we really place such little value in our own worth that we believe that these companies know better?

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key-globe

We’re handing the keys to the Web over to Facebook

  • Category: Technology
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  • Posted 1111 days ago

It’s not happening overnight but it is happening. We are slowly handing the keys of our Web over to Facebook and other than a small vocal minority no-one seems to care.

It’s not something that is all that obvious but Facebook has all the pieces in place to hijack the Web from under us and we all seem to be willing to jack those pieces into the very fabric of the Web – our blogs and websites.

I am still ambivalent about the whole Like button thing even though I am using them over on WinExtra; and still debating their inclusion here and at Braincell Soup (my more artsy fartsy blog), I can see them quickly becoming the underpinnings of our socialized web. However they aren’t the real danger as are the other social plugins from Facebook.

The real danger I feel is the adoption of the Facebook Login connections that are springing up all over the place like some bad weed infestation. Ya there’s a smattering of OpenID type login options as well as Twitter but I have started to notice sites that use Facebook social login as the primary way for people to login to sites.

Prior to things like Twitter and Facebook site registration was always handled in-house which meant that people usually had to remember multiple login usernames and password which admittedly as a user is real pain in the ass. Now though services like Facebook through some slick salesmanship have convinced a growing number of bloggers and site owners to save their users from frustration by hooking into the Facebook way of doing things.

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listen

The most important difference between Google Buzz and Facebook

Facebook is the biggest monster in the room, there’s no denying that.

It is huge and regardless of how much of an uproar there might be over the way it decides it wants things done it isn’t going anywhere. We might whine and bitch about Facebook constantly changing the rules of the game in order to suit its own ends but unfortunately there is no other social network capable of challenging it.

But perhaps it doesn’t need to be challenged. Perhaps there are alternatives out there that while not as big or all encompassing as Facebook that are just as good in their own way. After all it isn’t a requirement that we need to join, or participate, Facebook – at least not yet.

I was thinking about that today when I read a post by Louis Gray where he was talking about why Google Buzz was a better alternative for him over Facebook.

The world of social networking is not a zero-sum game. For Buzz to succeed does not mean that either of the other networks have to fail. In fact, it doesn’t even mean that Buzz has to be the biggest network on the planet. But it does mean that it should have the potential to be the best. I need a powerful aggregation tool that watches my activity on Google Reader and native blogs, but also offers the option to share photos and videos in a public way. Buzz does that. I need a powerful tool that lets me find friends’ updates from around the Web and engage with them in a central location. Buzz does that.

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