Archives: March 2008

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a security lapse yesterday granted users access to photos that were set to private by their friends and other users. The loophole was uncovered by a security expert who was testing out weaknesses in the new Facebook system. Brandee Barker of Facebook immediately responded saying that the issue was resolved within an hour.

While the breach was not significant it did highlight the risk that Facebook faces when it comes to protecting user privacy. This is nothing new though and considering the substantial amount of data that Facebook holds on individuals, it comes as no surprise that the company takes privacy so seriously. As Facebook grows, the company will be forced to place more privacy protections in place at each level of development and deployment.

Then again, should Facebook hold the same standards for their photos team as they do for their credit card processing team? While I don’t know the answer to that question I would imagine that it ends up being a cost-benefit analysis which determines how much protection goes into each product. For today, Facebook is once secure again. Who knows where that will be a few days from now!

When the Facebook platform first launched, you wouldn’t believe how many people contacted me and said “I’m going to make a beer pong application.” It has been 10 months since the platform launched and finally a top notch beer pong application has been launched. As you would expect, it’s also very popular. In just a few days almost 15,000 people have added the application and the growth is steady.

Mike Lazerow of Buddy Media, the company that developed this game, sent me an email when it launched and I had to check it out. I ended up playing the game for a couple hours trying to get on the leader board. Interesting enough I came very close to reaching the top 10 but I didn’t make it. I had however perfected my game so if you want to test the master, I suggest you challenge me to a round of beer pong.

As has been predicted, social gaming applications have become the focus of Facebook for the most part. There are also utility applications but there is only so much value that you can easily add to Facebook profiles. I think games are the way to go and from an advertising perspective, custom games are highly valuable. You get targeted individuals engaged in a branded environment for an extended period of time. If you want to play a round of beer pong, go check out the Campus U Beer Pong application.

Last night I was perusing a number of articles about Facebook when I came upon an interesting article about a few college students and their Facebook photos. Apparently the photos that one girl posted of the Spring Break party could be used as grounds for suspending the students.

The real issue was that the students were participating in underage drinking, something I’m sure their coaches were never engaged in during their college career. The main difference is that when those photos were posted, it showed up in friends’ newsfeeds and suddenly the photos were available to all to see. Somehow those photos made into the Online Rocket which is a college targeted news source.

You can read the article and take a look at the pictures and decide for yourselves. In this case I think the students were held up as an example and are now going to be forced to have significant consequences. Then again you must be careful when posting your photos on Facebook!

The girl that uploaded the photos pleaded with the online news publication to not run the article. They went ahead with it. I wonder if this is justifiable and at what point the media crosses the line. Is it news if a random person gets kicked out of school? Getting kicked out for having photos of yourself doing stupid things on your dorm room door can be incriminating but chances are you won’t end up in the news the next day.

Do you think this publication should have published the photos? Where is the line when it comes to publishing photographs obtained via Facebook?

I often get in conversations with others about success and how to obtain it. For each of us success is different but I can always recommend a few key books that helped make me who I am today. I typically reference “Think and Grow Rich,” as well as “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and “Never Eat Alone.” Those three books create the Nick O’Neill book trifecta. There’s one other book I’ve recently added to my lineup and that’s “The Secret.”

While the video may initially come off as cheesy, there are a lot of valuable lessons. One of the key components of that book is the concept of “vision boards” that you use to place an image of your goal so you know what you are working toward. Another component is your personal list of goals that you constantly need to review. The closest thing I’ve seen to mimicking the tools necessary for success on Facebook is the On Track application.

The On Track application provides you with a way to list goals, create vision boards and manage projects. It’s a great tool and I highly recommend checking it out if you want somewhere to keep track of your goals. I think this is a great iteration and what would be a nice addition is some sort of internal community where members can ask each other about tricks for overcoming challenges and how to maintain goals.

Right now the application appears to be less focused on being social but I definitely see an opportunity for this to succeed. By leveraging a little more community and building out their features a little more, this could be an amazing application for those that are …. well, trying to stay on track! If you are one of those people that have high goals and want a place to manage them, check out the On Track application.

Over the past few weeks there has been substantial discussion between developers and the Facebook platform team about Facebook’s policy on application emails. One of the most significant points of this discussion surrounded the email unsubscribe link being placed at the top of all application emails. After a significant amount of feedback, Facebook has decided to move the link to the bottom for a large number of applications.

Additionally, there will be a new policy on email allocations which will be based on an automated algorithm. Tom Witnah explains in a blog post:

Since having the link at the top generally increases the rate that users click on it, clicks from the bottom of an email will be weighted differently than clicks at the top, so that scores will be based on the quality of the communication, not the location of the message. We will also take into account fluctuations in the amount of email sent, so your email limit will not decrease if you start sending less email overall.

This doesn’t come as much of a surprise given the developer uproar about the new email policy. I’m sure that there will remain to be a number of unsatisfied developers but then again you can’t be too disappointed with Facebook for a policy change if you are spamming users! Have you been getting too much Facebook email? Do you think these changes will improve your experience?

Today there is talk of doomsday for Facebook. Between the failure taking place with the CBS Sports March Madness application and Henry Blodget posting that Facebook may be the next AOL, today is not a good day in Facebook land. Henry Blodget points out a few reasons that Facebook could be doomed. The primary reasons are that the thrill is gone for many, geriatric users don’t like it, Facebook doesn’t have a business model and finally that Facebook is still a walled garden.

Ultimately, Facebook is still on a tear and the applications that used to spam users are slowly fading away. I don’t think geriatric users need to be huge fans of Facebook for the site to be successful. Then again without those users is Facebook the most efficient social tool? Henry Blodget also points to a recent Economist article that says Facebook needs to open up or face certain death.

I agree and I back in September I suggested that Facebook tear down their wall. I still feel the same way and Google’s new Contacts API makes it even more critical. Facebook is not an ignorant bunch of people though and you can pretty much guarantee that they know what’s coming. The real question is timing.

The longer that Facebook stays closed, the longer that they own the user. This is one reason I would argue that they haven’t torn down the wall just yet. So when will it happen? I’m guessing we’ll see it happen in the next 6 to 18 months. Until the average is educated about the problem with being walled in, it won’t happen. So for now Facebook isn’t doomed, they just need to make sure that they remain agile to keep up with the rapidly changing environment that was forever changed when they first opened up their platform less then one year ago.

Last night Facebook added a new wiki page about a new FBML tag: FB:rock-the-vote. The new tag displays a Rock the Vote widget in your application. Jesse Stay has pointed out the image below which shows the voter registration form that appears when you click the text highlighted within the FB:rock-the-vote tag.

The interesting part about this tag is how sponsors are displayed when you click the link. Would Facebook launch an fb:coca-cola tag? I’ve wondered about this previously and for political purposes this new tag makes a lot of sense. Promotional tags would be an interesting revenue stream for Facebook but it could also lead to more cluttered applications. Imagine if their were widget tags that easily displayed random interactive items.

Do you think this new tag is useful or is this a sell out by Facebook?

Over the past few weeks I have been seeing an increasing number of articles covering political controversy popping up on Facebook. Just the other day I touched on the topic of Facebook being involved in mideast drama as it pertained to Israel and Palestine. Yesterday I saw another article about how debate over the future of Pakistan is taking place on Facebook. During his keynote interview at South by Southwest a couple weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg touched on the issue of political debate on Facebook and how it is becoming a forum for political discussion.

The theory is that Facebook is simply trying to produce a platform that enables participants to communicate more effectively and more easily without taking a position on any issues. I agree that Facebook should stay away from making political stances and as I’ve been discussing more regularly with friends and family, the social web is transforming interpersonal communications worldwide. This transformation is ultimately the democratization and free flow of information.

I believe that providing a forum for this discussion is the best thing that could happen to the world. Ultimately, in countries where people are taught stereotypes and biases about cultures and races, individuals can log on to Facebook and learn more about these individuals for themselves. While it won’t always provide an immediate solution, providing a forum for discussion most definitely avoids people taking to arms and lets the battles get played out in words.

I was going to write about the news about Pakistan debate on Facebook but I think that the real story here is that people are connecting worldwide on an unprecedented scale. While this started years ago with the proliferation of the internet, we are only beginning to witness the power that it has. With powerful translation tools on the horizon I can only imagine how these new tools for communication will break down barriers like never before.

I for one am enthusiastic about the potential for the future as a result of these new technologies. I think it is inevitable that humans will find truth through exposure to other cultures and Facebook is one of the tools that are leading the way in helping us gain more exposure. It’s indeed an exciting time to be alive!

A few days ago I posted about users revolting against CBS Sports and their March Madness application. Well today the controversy hit the fan. A post to the Facebook developers forum brought up a interesting thing that took place today. Suddenly, the CBS Sports bracket was granted 100 invites per day. This is at least 5 times the volume typically granted to the average application.

While I’ve noticed an increase in the alotted invites over the past few weeks from 13 to 20, nobody has come close to being granted 100 invites per day until now. The platform developers are angry because these new applications have been granted an unfair advantage for their advertising campaign. Then again in the real world money talks and I’m sure CBS sports paid a hefty sum to build their partnership with Facebook.

So where does this leave developers? Out in the cold currently. Facebook has granted special permission to this one partner who has paid an undisclosed sum for distribution of their application. The primary complaint is that this is completely unfair and CBS was simply granted preferential treatment due to a “small” deposit in Facebook’s bank account. We now have developers that are fearful of expressing themselves because the Facebook platform managers could turn into an oppressive regime overnight.

So perhaps I am stretching this a little bit. Who receives priorities around Facebook? One developer accurately suggested that Facebook’s duties are in the following order: investors, advertisers, users, large app developers and finally small app developers. Want to bypass the bucket system enacted by Facebook? Pay a substantial fee. Do you think this is fair? Should advertisers be granted special distribution rights for paying a fee to Facebook?

So apparently I am completely clueless with these new privacy settings. I’m guessing a number of other people are screwing it up as well. as such, Teresa Valdez Klein over at Web Community Forum has posted a video tutorial explaining how to update the new settings. Take a look below, hopefully this helps you get things going.