The New Facebook. A Morning with my updated Privacy Settings.

Oktober 2nd, 2011 • 3 comments Allgemein
Tags: Facebook, People, Philosophy, privacy, Social Networks, World

One week after f8 – and I am still shocked of the general public acceptance of Facebook’s ‘frictionless sharing’ – and that as a marketing guy. I should actually be sitting on the bridge of Planet Death Star watching all you pathetic Earthlings getting data-sucked now. But as ususal – nobody cares how much ownership over our data we have just lost.

I started my own little exploration through my ‘new’ Facebook privacy settings (No 2 is only relevant for you if you have the new FB profile, No 1 is not).

Frictionless sharing – from ‘Public by default’ to ‘Private does not exist anymore’

So whoever talks about privacy – he usually belongs either to the school ‘Full Privacy by default’ or ‘Public by default’. Jeff Jarvis for example does not get tired to explain how crucial it is that we build our world by virtually defining, tagging, constructing objects and interactions. And that is why we need to be Public by default. In other words: We sign out if we do not want to transmit stuff instead of i.e. signing in to getting public with certain status updates.

But: Believing in a free web society in which everyone collaboratively constructs a virtual world is as realistic as believing in free globalized markets: it is a fiction that is constantly corrupted by the interest of a few. And Facebook has just presented some of their concepts for our brave new world – a world in which you can not sign out of being Public anymore. Simply because it is too complicated.

Unfortunately Facebook makes it almost impossible to sign out of the new ‘frictionless sharing‘. Example: I have 314 apps installed (Yes, 314 – as I said, I am an online marketing guy).

All of these apps do certain things. Maybe I have signed up to Nike+ on Facebook, or Slideshare, or twitter…there are many reasons why I may have installed one of them a while ago. And yes, I have approved most of them to pull certain data: my birthday, my profile pic, or other information from my profile.

But I did approve anything like ‘Yes, dear third party software – you can now post in my name’. But exactly this is a new setting in your Facebook profile since last week. And it is pre-approved by default.

Sharing the songs I listen to may be annoying to one or the other. But Facebook has just allowed 314 applications to post in my name whatever these pieces of software want to share.

There must be a button to turn this function off for all of them at once, right?

Nope.

Facebook allows to disapprove this propery. But you cannot disapprove this function for all 314 apps at once. Facebook forces you to click through all 314 apps individually to remove this.

eWeek claims that this is no problem. Because you can easily change the settings for what your friends see

Facebook pointed out that people who subscribe to its social applications will have complete control over whether they’re info is shared or not.

That is to say, the automatic sharing is on by default in the social apps, but Facebook allows users to control whether their app stories are seen by their friends at all times.

This is like walking around with a black box that constantly documents and transfers your data while its manufacturer asks you not to worry as it does not tell any of your friends.It is  not a proper response to the basic problem. The problem is not just what my friends see or what I actively share with the world. The problem is that currently 314 Facebook applications are allowed to document my life and per default are allowed to act in my name. What the F, Facebook?

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Facebook and I. Or: Doubt Creeps in.

September 27th, 2011 • 1 comment Social, Strategy
Tags: Facebook, Philosophy, Politics, Truth, World

Last week’s Facebook update has left me perplexed. I simply do not quite know what to make of what I see – what I perceive as the significance of their latest plans.

No longer do apps prompt you just to “like” something on Facebook. Instead, you’ll share that you “hiked a trail” or “rode your bike” or “kissed a girl” (and liked it). Any action can be shared via Facebook, and the only limit is the imagination of developers.

The second addition is the new permissions screen for giving apps access to your Facebook account. It’s more robust and explains exactly what an app will be sharing with it. The result is that the prompt will only appear once. Once you accept, the app can share exactly what you’re doing to your Facebook wall as you’re doing it. (Ben Parr on Mashable)

Oh…did we mention that Spotify for example forces all new users to login via Facebook? In other words, will there be any choice at all? And where will it stop? Are we accepting sensors in a year that share our location once we enter a club or shop? I am 100% sure you can turn such an application into a great CRM program.

From my perspective the key privacy problem does not lie in Facebook’s blurry analytics approach or the thesis that Facebook tries to track me even though I am offline. As my colleague Allan Chang pointed out, google is doing this for years while Intel has integrated unique Processor IDs in every PC since 1999.

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Funny Crap? How things go Nuclear on the Web.

November 10th, 2010 • People
Tags: Funny, People, Philosophy, Social, Social Networking, Truth, Viral, World

The mysterious code how things go ‘viral’ is not going to be discovered…ever still uncracked. Amplifiers such as 4Chan, Reddit or Boing Boing may not really have a marketing value when it comes to viral effects but they promote a lot of funny crap. Do follow the story of how one piece of funny crap becomes even bigger funny crap. Presented by Tom Scott as part of Ignite London‘s Pechakucha-style presentations. Or isn’t it funny at all? Isn’t it actually pretty insane? The lines are blurry.

Insights. The Difference Between Measurement and Strategy.

Oktober 20th, 2010 • Strategy, Tools
Tags: Cool, Creativity, Insights, Philosophy, Statistics, Strategy

We all know analytics and measurement is crucial to define whether we were successful or not. But it’s not the figures that we should focus, it’s what we pull out of it. This Wikipedia article about Austria-Hungarian mathematician Abraham Wald was one of the most striking examples of the difference between measurement and strategy. The article has changed a bit but you can find it here…

See the fullsize article by clicking the pic.

Roger Wilco. The Tenets of Digital Strategy.

Juni 10th, 2010 • 2 comments Strategy
Tags: Diagram, Ideas, Philosophy, Social Influence Marketing, Strategy, Truth, We like, World

After trying to define the difference between traditional and digital strategy (if there is any) I still have no perfect answer. This sketch by Mike takes us at least one step closer to a solution of the problem.

Thanks to Mike Arauz, Via We are Social.

Purpose. The stuff that drives Motivation.

Juni 7th, 2010 • 2 comments Work
Tags: Cool, Creativity, Motivation, Philosophy, Presentation, Truth, visual, Work, World

I have to admit I am not too much into motivation coaches. There simply are too many prophets out there. Dan Pink is one of them. But he has a clear vision of what motivation is all about. davaidavai.com definitely is no blog about motivation or working efficiency. But it revolves around a dynamic world whose companies have to find new ways to keep track of what happens outside. E.g. how people realize stuff. Pink’s presentation about the stuff that drives us is clear and intelligent (thanks to the toolblog). It takes 10 minutes to watch it. But simply do it. Eye candy is included.

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World Domination. We like.

April 24th, 2010 • 6 comments Business, Social, Tech, Tools, Trends
Tags: Business, Facebook, Future, I like, Open Graph, Philosophy, Social Graph, Social Networks, Strategy, Tech, Tools, Trends, World

With about 420 million active users (more than 50% of them logging in every day) Facebook really is a James Bond villain’s dream come true. And no, it is not just successful. Facebook is killing it’s competitors. It has simply buried Myspace, Orkut and others and won’t stop growing. I don’t know what is going to be the No 1 social network 2020. But currently I bet it still might be Facebook.

What was once google, is – in parts – about to become our favourite Evil Empire. google may still rule everything Pull but Zuckerberg works hard to turn its business into a Push Superpower. If you search for the Large Hadron Collider you choose google. But Facebook is your choice for the restaurant around the corner and your fave sneaker brand. And since wednesday things are on the move again…

One Graph to Rule them all

In case you haven’t heard the term Social Graph before – it will either become important or obsolete in the future – simply because Facebook wants to own or dominate it. In his 2007 article ‘Thoughts on the Social Graph‘ Brad Fitzpatrick talked about the Social Graph as ‘the global mapping of everybody and how they’re related‘. Basically it is the people you know, the stuff you listen to, read, tweet, and tag, and what you put on maps – and the question how you access and distribute the information to your friends. By now there wasn’t one but many disperse social graphs. But the more we are intertwined on Facebook as the one connector, the better the platform’s chances to become the knot of earth’s social graph. Now, after some technical adjustments last week Facebook is de facto trying to nothing less than that.

Well, world domination looks a little bit different, I have to admit. Mark Zuckerberg’s tools for world domination are so unobrusive that nobody understand them who is not part of the industry. What Facebook delivered on its F8 conference looked…well…small…but may have more than significant outcomes.

• Cornerstone of Facebook’s conquest is the Open Graph Protocol -  basically a techn0logical extension of the social network that treats the free web (the artist formerly known as Not Facebook) as Facebook entities.
• This can be studied through Facebook’s well known ‘I like’ button (plus many more new social plugins) which is now available for every web page (look up). Facebook will treat blog posts (which are part of the system) just like Facebook posts – and of course draws data from them.
• Facebook Fanpages and ‘Fans’ do not exist anymore, get replaced by ‘I like’
• Facebook Connect as a quasi-brand will be dumped
• And a couple of other revisions. Facebook did not go too much into details but it will soon finish off all other competitors in the economy by offering its own currency and geo-location solutions.

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Digital Creative. The Anatomy of Persuasiveness.

April 20th, 2010 • Display
Tags: Ads, Advertising, Agencies, Banner, Creativity, Display, Ideas, Philosophy, Presentation, Trends, Truth, visual

Even though I don’t agree with the premise of this deck by Soap (“display rocks”), it contains a couple of very true thoughts about digital. Or, to be more precise, six foundations of what turns digital superior to more than a challenger of traditional advertising.

Media. The Anatomy of Digital Platforms.

April 11th, 2010 • Allgemein
Tags: Brainfood, Cool, david armano, Diagram, edelman, Media, Microsoft, Philosophy, Presentation, Strategy, visual, World

David Armano seems to stay true to his roots as the social web’s best info visualizer. His endless stream of useful sketches about the web has explained the terms paid, owned and earned media earlier. But I really like this graphic from his new employer Edelman Digital…simply because it’s very easily understandable and I will now use it in my own decks.

Via Visual Loop

Big Ideal. Ogilvy’s Brand Platform Revisited.

März 30th, 2010 • Strategy
Tags: Agencies, Big Ideal, Cool, Ogilvy, Philosophy, Planning, Prediction, Presentation, Strategy, Tools, We like

On my way to explore the best of both worlds (traditional vs digital) I have – once again – come across Ogilvy’s ‘Big Ideals’ concept. And I think it’s a philosophy worth taking a look at, if you’re a (non-Ogilvy) Planner.

It is a planning platform defining an overarching aspirational thought. The objective is obvious – to provide consistency in brand positioning and tone by defining what a brand strives for. Basically in how it wants to make the world a better place. This is a meta objective which is pretty free for all concepts and ideas supporting the Big Ideal. And indeed it may be even a good planning platform to build upon in a more stressful, social, 24/7 marketing environment. Simply because it is free, even though it stages a clearly defined, hypothetical, final condition for a brand.

Thanks to Giles for the video link.