Is Facebook Evil? Part 2
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 16th, 2008 3:29 PMBack in November I asked if Facebook is evil. At the time, the post was referencing Beacon which was eventually killed. For argument’s sake Facebook returned back to being good as it applies to Facebook Beacon. It appears now that the discussion has resurfaced as it applies to competition. Umair Haque states Facebook is “hell-bent not on changing the world, but on dominating it: on playing the cheesy, lame, thoroughly obsolete games of competitive strategy.”
First, I just want to say that a post complaining about competitive strategy on a Harvard blog is pretty ironic in itself. Second, I just want to say that Umair is horribly unfair for singling out Facebook. Facebook is in the process of opening up their platform. They were the first to open an internal platform and they will be the first to open up externally. There is no way in hell that Umair can expect any business to just completely open up overnight as it inherently goes against their own business practices.
Opening up businesses will not take place overnight. Right now the discussion about it is what’s valuable. Is Facebook evil for not opening up completely and letting you take your data with you (in theory completely removing it from their site)? I don’t think so. This is all part of the process, so suggesting that Facebook is evil for not playing under Google’s terms of engagement as Umair does is absolutely ridiculous. We are moving forward, not backward and singling out the one company that helped start this movement probably won’t help things progress.
Want $12 CPMs? Read More!
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 16th, 2008 11:26 AMLast week I had the opportunity to speak with Chris Cunningham of AppsSavvy. AppsSavvy is a company based out of New York which focuses on building monetization opportunities for social application developers and building custom branded experiences for companies. They do this by connecting brands with the application developers that have the proper demographics to match up with the client’s campaign.
Read more at the Social Times.
Facebook Beer Pong Tourney Gets Cancelled
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 16th, 2008 9:00 AMYesterday afternoon Valleywag got the scoop on a beer pong game that was supposed to go down between the Facebook and CollegeHumor companies. Unfortunately the game was called off at the last minute. Caroline McCarthy alluded to the idea that there are good odds that the ex-Googler Elliot Schrage may have been at fault since given that he leads the public-relations team which called off the event.
Typically I try to stray from gossip on this blog but this one was hard to resist (as was the Facebook prom post the other day). It was probably a good call by the P.R. team given that beer pong isn’t the best activity to promote a rapidly growing startup. It also appears as though the College Humor team was prepared to take full advantage of the game. Thanks to Valleywag who got the image below which is a shot of the ping pong balls that the CollegeHumor team has prepared for the big game.
Facebook is definitely growing up thanks to their upper management. Fun and games are fine but playing drinking games as a sponsored company event is probably not the best of ideas. Perhaps there will be an unofficial off the record version of the game that ends up going down. Caroline McCarthy makes a great statement pertaining the decision to call off the game:
Google and Amazon.com executives can get away with showing up at the Nevada counterculture fest Burning Man, but Facebook still has a “college kid” reputation to outgrow.
Then again, this is a beer pong game that is now rumored to be canceled. I’m going to give up on any further analysis: it’s beer pong.
Facebook Leaves Google Friend Connect
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 15th, 2008 5:34 PMWhile originally announced as a partner with Google Friend Conenct, Facebook has decided to leave the team. It appeared as though Google and Facebook were going to work together but it now appears that Facebook is smarter than that. Working together means playing by Google’s rules and Facebook isn’t really open to that. Charlie Cheever has posted about the change in decision:
We’re excited that our industry partners are taking greater steps toward openness and enabling users to share their information around the web. We hope, though, that we can collectively find a model that allows users to share data while protecting the privacy of our users’ data and ensuring that the user is always in control.
In the past, when we found applications passing user data to another party (for instance, to ad networks for the purpose of targeting), we suspended those applications and worked with those developers to ensure they respect user privacy. Now that Google has launched Friend Connect, we’ve had a chance to evaluate the technology. We’ve found that it redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge, which doesn’t respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect and is a violation of our Terms of Service.
It appears as though Facebook got cold feet and is blaming it on Google’s lack of respect for privacy. While they can be part of a broader movement, Facebook will not be part of Google’s Friend Connect as Google tried to initially imply in their press releases regarding their new service.
Users Get Banned for Creating Branded Fan Pages
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 15th, 2008 5:09 PMThis was bound to happen eventually. When Facebook launched fan pages, a lot of users jumped at the opportunity to create fan pages for large brands. Whether television shows or clothing brands, it was technically against the terms of service and now users are having their pages taken down and the brands are having the pages transferred to internal accounts. Two people have provided examples of their pages being taken down in the past day and one of those individuals had their account disabled by Facebook.
Sam Huleatt created a page for Ralph Lauren and then received the letter which I’ve included below. Since creating the page Sam obtained 589 new fans but didn’t send out any notification blasts to the user. Facebook was notified and terminated Sam’s account. Ralph Lauren on the other hand played it smart and decided to reward Sam with a $200 gift certificate. This is really smart of Ralph Lauren and something that I suggest other companies mimic. Don’t punish the users, simply contact them and they will most likely be happy to turn over the Facebook Page.
At a recent event in D.C., Andy Carvin of NPR told a similar story in which the people at NPR were trying to figure out how to go about having a Facebook page created by a random user transfered over to people internal to NPR. The result was that Andy simply contacted the user and the person gladly handed it over after people at NPR after failing to receive a response from a separate inquiry by the user on the official NPR website.
Peter Corbett created a page for Under Armour and wrote a post about it on his blog stating,
If you’re a brand manager for any of the above, just drop me a line and I’ll coordinate with Facebook to hand you over control of the page. This exercise was not built in order to squat on these pages permanently and it would be silly to delete them at the end of this as the fan base would be disbanded by that action doing more harm than good in my opinion.
The end result? Under Amour sent Peter a bag of free Under Armour gear. These are all examples of companies that get it. Unfortunately for Sam, his account has since been terminated. My guess is that Sam’s account will soon be reinstated but the people who are making an effort to set up branded pages for another company are typically fans and not squatters. Reach out to your fans and you will have a fan for life!
Facebook on the other hand may want to reconsider their policy of automatically banning users who created branded pages that are not their own brand. A simple warning would probably be sufficient. While this policy isn’t a best practice for repeat offenders, it definitely makes sense for somebody who only set up a couple of branded pages.
Letter from Ralph Lauren
Facebook Announces New Languages
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 15th, 2008 10:54 AMOver a week ago I wrote about Facebook launching their service in 3 new languages. Over the past 24 hours I have received countless emails notifying me of the news yet again. I’m not quite sure why Facebook waited so long to make a press announcement. Additionally, Facebook hasn’t even included all of the languages that they’ve added in their announcement.
Over the coming weeks Facebook will announce a number of new languages as they finish the translation process with the Facebook translations application. If you are in another country and use another language as your primary language then it’s time to get excited! Facebook is also in the process of launching a new profile design which makes it easier for users to communicate effectively no matter what language they are using.
As Facebook expands internationally, maintaining a clean interface while providing a multi-lingual platform is extremely challenging. Facebook has emphasized their dedication to building a highly efficient communication platform.
Myanmar Photos End Up On Facebook
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 15th, 2008 9:00 AMIf you hadn’t been paying attention to international news, Myanmar is bordering on a humanitarian crisis. This is the result of a cyclone which swept through the impoverished nation and the government’s decision to prevent aid workers from entering the country. Western journalists are also being prevented from entering the country. The result? Images are sneaking their way on to Facebook. According to ABC News, “Relief workers and survivors inside Myanmar, formerly Burma, are sending e-mail updates and photos to friends and contacts outside the country to be posted on Facebook.”
Fortunately for the people in the country some relief materials are being accepted from the UN and INGOs but much more is needed. I have previously written about the global impact of Facebook and social networks and their ability to connect people worldwide. The brunt of my prior post was that Facebook has focused on developing a platform which is effective for hosting political (and non-political) discussion.
The people that are currently sending out information via phone, email and instant messaging are risking 10 to 15 years in prison, torture and the well-being of their families. Myanmar is also well known for the protests led by monks against the Junta which resulted in a backlash of violence and the deaths of thousands of citizens. Facebook has been used as the platform for people to spread the message out about what is going on inside the territory.
One group you can currently view and join is called “Support the Relief Efforts for Burma (Myanmar) Cyclone Disaster Victims“. Our hopes and prayers are with the people of Myanmar. Unfortunately the pictures can only help tell the story of tragedy, but hopefully enough of a movement can be created to bring about change.
Kongregate Launches Platform on Facebook
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 14th, 2008 2:38 PMToday there is big news from Kongregate, the social gaming website. On Monday Kongregate will be launching the Facebook Challenge Platform. Kongregate is an indie gaming site with over 4,000 original user-uploaded Flash and Shockwave games. Kongregate has decided to launch a platform which enables users to challenge their friends to compete for Kongregate points in one-on-one, asynchronous challenges.
Players using the platform can compare their high scores with immediate friends, others in their network, or across the entire Facebook network. Individuals can also play alone if they’d like. I often times get sucked into playing Dolphin Olympics 2 for a couple hours. While I currently do not leverage all of the features of Kongregate.com, which includes personal accounts with points and achievements, the system synchronizes accounts on Facebook to accounts on the website for those that use it.
For developers there are new APIs that make it easy to port games to the Kongregate Challenge platform with little effort. While not all of the games will be launching initially, the platform will launch with Dolphin Olympics 2, Filler, Particles, Ragdoll, Avalance, MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 2 and others. This new platform is a direct competition to Zynga and SGN both of which already have plenty of active users. It will be interesting to see if Kongregate experiences the same explosive growth that many of the Zynga and SGN games did during launch.
Below are some screenshots of the games running on the Kongregate Facebook Challenge Platform from within Facebook.
Dolphin Olympics 2
Guitar Maniac
Jumpcat Challenge
The Developer Challenge
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 14th, 2008 1:30 PMThere is an interesting dynamic taking place in the social web space: developers are being pushed to their limits thanks to the countless platforms that have launched. Only a few large players have been able to adapt. Companies like Slide, RockYou and iLike have enough development power to extend across multiple social platforms and while even their limits are being tested, they continue to emerge victorious with the launch of each new platform.
It isn’t as “smooth sailing” for the majority though. Smaller development companies are opting out of beta programs with Facebook Connect, MySpace Data Availability and Google Friend Connect because they are already stretched thin.
Blackboard Launches Facebook Application
Posted by Nick O'Neill on May 14th, 2008 8:30 AM 
Last year I raved about the potential of a possible Blackboard application. If you don’t already know, Blackboard is the educational tool that is ubiquitous across college institutions within the United States. The company sells a platform which helps educational institutions build robust systems for teaching. Teachers and students share documents and can have course discussions within course-specific forums. Professors can also post grades for assignments and courses. I previously suggested that integration with Facebook would be ideal because it’s where students are spending a ton of their time.
October marked the launch of Coursefeed, which provided integration with Blackboard and a direct interface within Facebook. The application has since added over 13,000 users. 6 months later, Blackboard has launched their own application which is nowhere near as robust as the Coursefeed application. The purpose of the application is to notify students of changes within Blackboard via Facebook.
Have a new assignment posted to one of your courses? Now you can read about it within Facebook. You’ll receive a notification with a link to the corresponding page within Blackboard. You can also navigate through all the top level information pertaining to each course. This includes links to the profiles of other course mates. The application appears to be well built aside from a Java error that I received when entering false information into the fields.
The application also highlights Blackboard’s desire to keep the majority of the content within their platform. This is most likely for security purposes. Resistance to integration with Facebook is commonplace among other enterprise level applications due to the lack of security and exposure of data to Facebook. If you are a Blackboard user and want to get notifications of Blackboard info in Facebook, check out the Blackboard Sync application.
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
