SocialTimes.com |
| Advertisers to Face Questions on Privacy Posted: 02 Jul 2008 04:31 PM CDT Targeted advertising has become a hot button topic in the social advertising industry. New advertising models have been introduced to target users based on their gender, age and interests as well as tools that target based on their online behavior. Caroline McCarthy posted today about a new eMarketer study released called “Behavioral Targeting Attitudes: The Privacy Issue.” The new report examines consumers’ attitudes toward targeted advertising and the data being collected about them online. The conclusion is that only 23 percent of users are comfortable with having their online behavior tracked for the purpose of serving more relevant advertisements online. I’m not quite sure whether or not this information is surprising or not but it definitely emphasizes that advertisers need to do a better job of educating consumers about their advertising programs. I cover privacy issues on this site on a regular basis but readers of this blog are more educated than the average consumer. Just the other day I ran into someone who had heard about the risk presented by Facebook applications through a Washington Post article. He said that he no longer installs the applications. Clearly mainstream media coverage will assist in educating consumers about privacy issues and advertising practices. For the time being we’ll have to expect many users to be uneducated on the issues leaving the discussion to industry professionals. Not exactly the type of discussion that I’d hope to see but I guess it will have to do for now! |
| Reunion.com Faces Privacy Problems Posted: 02 Jul 2008 01:59 PM CDT
This time around the company paid a third-party for a massive user database which ended up including the data of minors, one of which was only 4-years old. According to the article, “Reunion.com’s privacy policy says the site ‘prohibits registration by and will not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under 13.’ But that doesn’t address the site’s own data-gathering.” The data may not have come from their recent user database acquisition though. Instead a Reunion.com supervisor suggested that the information probable came from “state vaccination records or from the Centers for Disease Control.” Wherever the data came from it can be shocking to see the information of your family members who aren’t members of the site showing up within your profile thanks to the help of third-party data. Oregon State officials stated that this information is technically not public and that Reunion.com’s assertion was completely inaccurate. I think I smell a lawsuit coming. The company appears to be in the business of aggregating profiles of individuals created by third-party data providers whether or not those individuals are actually users. If there is one company that is good at building a bad reputation, I would say Reunion.com is. Have you had any bad experiences with the company? |
| Put Facebook Chat on Your Own Site Posted: 02 Jul 2008 11:15 AM CDT
While chat on your website is not really a new thing, the similarities between this design and the design of Facebook’s instant message client are striking. As Adam points out though, the functionality of this new client is a little more full featured than what Facebook currently provides. “Beyond simple text messaging, there's video chat, VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol calling, and games, for example.” For those looking to integrate this new chat on your website, you are going to need be running Converdge for it to work unfortunately. This new platform looks pretty slick and I’m guessing that we’ll see more of this type of chat interface in the near future. Have you found chats that are integrated into other websites to be of use? |
| iPhone Could Transform Social Gaming Posted: 02 Jul 2008 09:06 AM CDT This morning I was watching samples of a couple upcoming iPhone games, one of which I’ve included below. While the examples I watched were not multi-player games, I think the social aspect of many of these games are one step away. It its current form, many of the “social games” on Facebook are different versions of the games found on sites such as Miniclip.com and similar sites. Ultimately the “social” aspect of the games is really being able to see your friends high scores. Occasionally there are even turn based games but the social games so far are just the tip of the iceberg. It appears that there are much more serious developers invested in the iPhone platform which is sure to be a big hit. The games that have appeared so far for the new iPhone appear to be mostly single player but I could imagine turn based games and the addition of other social aspects built right into the platform. The social aspect of the Nintendo DS was one of the key selling points. After seeing how robust the games on the iPhone can be, I think we are only one step away from many of these games transforming social gaming. Do you agree? Rolando< Crash Bandicoot |
In the social networking industry, the single most important factor for building user trust is strict control over their privacy. It looks like Reunion.com continues to break their users’ trust. Back in May I wrote about 
Yesterday, Adam Ostrow | You are subscribed to email updates from The Social Times To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email Delivery powered by FeedBurner |
Inbox too full?  Subscribe to the feed version of The Social Times in a feed reader. | |
| If you prefer to unsubscribe via postal mail, write to: The Social Times, c/o FeedBurner, 20 W Kinzie, 9th Floor, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment