So, Facebook friends, please give this a try. Comment on this post with your Facebook ID.
Category: social-networking
Signs of the Times
These two stories, noted over the weekend, I think are indicative of the times:
- From the “Pennsylvania 6-5000” Department: Remember the days when you c0uld rattle a telephone number off the top of your head? Your favorite aunt. Your girlfriend. Your doctor. Your home phone. But nowadays? As the New York Times has noted, people are lucky if they even remember their own numbers. It seems that cellphones have made remembering telephone numbers unnecessary, as some people (unfortunately) find out when their cell phone dies, they are stranded, and they don’t know the number to call.
- From the “Not Your Father’s Myspace” Department: Remember when Livejournal was populated by the teens. Then the adults came over, and the teens went to Myspace. Then adults discovered that, and the kids went to Facebook. Guess what, kids. Time to find a new home. Social media use has nearly doubled (up 42%) among people 50 and older. 47% of people 50–64 are using social media in some form.
Tuesday News Chum: Cursing on TV, Facebook Panic Buttons, Accepting Women as They Are, and Baseball
Some quick lunchtime news chum for your dining enjoyment:
- From the “Well, Shit!” Department: An appeals court has overturned the FCC Indecency Rule. Expect society to be totally warped as fleeting expletives and wardrobe malfunctions overtake violence on television in popularity.
- From the “There’s an App for That” Department: A Facebook app, that is. Worried about child predators? You can install a Facebook Panic Button that will tell you want to do.
- From the “Seeing Things As They Really Are” Department: Of course, recognizing that we curse in reality is just the first step. Here’s another thing that will warp society: It is now acceptable for older women to have grey hair, and for actors and actresses on TV to be large and not be the subject of jokes. By the way, is anyone watching “Huge”? I’ve been finding it quite good.
- From the “But Is It Real Food If It Comes With a Prize” Department: Given that today is the All-Star Game, the LA Times has a nice piece on Jack Norworth, the man who wrote “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”. He’s buried not far from Angel Stadium. Trivia: Norworth had never seen a baseball game when he wrote the song’s lyrics. He’s also the man that wrote “Shine On, Harvest Moon”.
Facebook Privacy / Interval International
1. The uproar is increasing on Facebook Privacy. I know a number of folks are recommending deleting your accounts. My position: I only make public on Facebook that which is public on Livejournal. Please, dear friends on Facebook, investigate your privacy settings, and be aware of what you are sharing and what applications know about you.
2. As a reminder, I’m looking for information on Interval International. Someone out there must have an experience to share.
Facebook and Privacy: A Critical Thought
Recently, I’ve seen a whole bunch of folks (via status messages and the like) indicate that they are deleting this information or that information from Facebook in order to protect their privacy. While I’ll agree that Facebook is horrible with respect to privacy settings (especially the defaults whenever they change an interface or introduce a new feature), a little critical thinking is in order…
Jobs. For those concerned about your employer being public, ask yourself: Is that information elsewere? Ever published a paper or contributed an article that listed your employer? Posted your resume? Been on a conference committee or program review committee? Had a profile up on LinkedIn or Plaxo? Odds are, if you have, your employment history is already out there.
Schools. As for schools: Most likely, you’ve already been sharing that stuff: finding schoolmates seems to be a purpose of Facebook. But it’s out there in other ways: such as the schools list on LiveJournal, or stuff up on Classmates.Com, or the numerous reunion websites.
Interests and Favorite Things. First, don’t ever list an interest if you don’t want it to be public. Yes, we probably all like sex, but there’s no reason to list it in your profile. That said, your interests are probably already well known. Have an LJ profile? Your interests are public. Write anything about anything? You’re probably talking about stuff that interests you. Communicating your likes and dislikes is a large part of internet discourse.
Is privacy important? Yes. But use common sense. Things like your name and address are already out in the public, as are many other facts about you. It used to be hard to pull them together, but then G-d invented G–gle. So do be cautions, yes. Don’t answer all those quizzes that go around (they are much more fearful, privacy-wise). Don’t post your SSN. Consider being cautious about talking about when you’re leaving your house empty. But have a critical mind as well, and be aware that much of what Facebook makes public you’ve probably already made public.
Please To Explain?
The State of California says, “Don’t use social media, it’s too dangerous”. The DoD says, “We changed our mind, Facebook and Social Media are safe, when used right.”
Social Networking and Privacy
In some filtered posts on LJ, I’ve written about a situation that happened with LAUSD. In talking with the Principal this morning, one thing we came to realize is that high school students don’t understand how privacy works on the Internet. They don’t understand how to adjust privacy settings, they don’t know how widely things can be seen, they don’t understand how this can haunt you. They don’t understand, for example, that something you say in confidence to a friend about a third party can reappear on the net, and even be visible to that party. Some of this comes from their belief that they are invicible, but some comes from simple lack of knowledge. Some of it is due to the applications themselves: witness the defaults on the recent Facebook privacy changes, or how much information goes to Facebook applications.
So I did a stupid. I volunteered to see if I could work up a talk for the high school students about Facebook and Privacy, and similar subjects.
So, here’s where I need your help, especially my colleagues in the Computer Security field. We would need to develop a half-hour entertaining program for these kids, to be presented sometime in June. If we do this right, it could be a program we could reuse at other LA Unified schools, and quite possibly pass around nationally. In short: do it right, and were doing (big deep echoey voice here) A Good Thing. I need to figure out the team to develop it; I need to figure out whether we just want to address Facebook, or add in Twitter (do they have privacy there?), You Tube, and perhaps even MySpace. I’d include LJ, but it’s so 2004 :-). Should we address cell phone privacy, such as the fact your GPS location is continually broadcast with the smartphones out there, and that malicious smartphone apps could easily snoop telephone calls or open cameras or microphones (and we won’t even go into laptop webcams).
So, what do you think? Willing to help?
Making Money off the Internet
Many of my Facebook friends play Farmville. I don’t, but others do. Ever wonder how much money they make off of you? This LA Times article gives an estimate. Here’s some data:
- Social games cost between $100,000 to $300,000 to make.
- Between 3% and 5% of people who play social games pay money for virtual goods in the game or sign up for advertising “offers” that generate cash for the developer.
- Farmville is played by about 31 million people every day.
So, do the math: Suppose that that each person who plays a social game generates, on average, a penny a day. Multiply that penny by the number of days in a year, 365, and then by the number of people who play the game daily… and voila: $113 million a year. So add some programmers, and there’s still a tidy profit. Think about that the next time you play.
Of course, you could be like me an just order from Amazon. Those of you, like me, in California: We may need to keep our eyes open. The California Legislature wants Amazon to pay sales tax.
[P.S.: To my Facebook friends who are also on LJ: I did a friend-only post earlier today regarding a situation I would like opinions on. You need to be on a particular filter to read it, but you most likely are (if you are on LJ), so I would welcome your opinion. If you are not on LiveJournal (LJ), create an account. It’s free, and after you create it you can friend me (cahwyguy) and see my occasional friends-only posts that don’t make it to FB. If you are not familiar with LiveJournal, it is a journaling/blogging platform with much better privacy controls than Facebook.]