SocialTimes.com |
| Senate Begins Discussing Privacy Implications of Online Advertising Posted: 09 Jul 2008 10:41 AM CDT Privacy is increasingly becoming a topic of discussion in the world of online advertising. As new tools emerge to target advertising based on user behavior as well as provide social relevance, privacy is becoming a critical issue. Whether it’s the tracking of users via cookies or the monitoring of their activities throughout “the social graph”, we are in a new era in which the lines between personal and public lives have become blurred if not eliminated. Today, Chris Kelly, the Chief Privacy Officer of Facebook spoke to the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation about the “Privacy Implications of Online Advertising.” A full transcript of Chris Kelly’s testimony is available on the Senate’s website. On the topic of differentiating between personally identifiable information and non-personally identifiable information, Chris Kelley stated:
Chris Kelly also gave an overview of Facebook’s SocialAds and their Beacon program. From the initial glance at this hearing, there is not much significant revealed. What is clear is that the govenment is actively involved in discussing the privacy of internet users and this arrives at a critical time. Advertising networks are racing to develop systems that target users based on their friends and activities and in some cases it is pushing the limits of privacy standards. I frequently discuss the privacy of social network users on this site and the implications that these new advertising systems have in regards to their privacy. It is excellent to see that the govenment is quickly to discuss what it taking place. Personally, I hope that we see a global set of privacy standards and rights developed in the near future. I’d imagine that one day we will have an enforcement organization that monitors the activities of many of these companies. |
| Posted: 09 Jul 2008 10:16 AM CDT Over the past week I have been slowly moving all of my information to the cloud. For those unaware of what the cloud is, ultimately the cloud is a group of servers around the world that provide you with near limitless storage and processing capacity. In other words it is simply the concept of moving all of your data to an external storage device and accessing it remotely. On Monday I spent 12 hours backing up my computer aside from video files and MP3 files. Those will come next. I have now created a life in which my livelihood relies upon my ability to create content. Without being connected to my channels of distribution or my channels for content consumption I am worthless. Right now I am sitting on a bus to New York City that I chose because of its wireless access which of course no longer works as expected. Anxiety rapidly sets in and I can do nothing but wait. While I have not been rendered useless (thanks to my Blackberry), I feel powerless without the luxury of browser tabs. At one point I would have considered these thoughts part of being a “geek” but now it is simply the thoughts of a digital nomad. Digital nomads are slowly becoming more widespread and I’d imagine that we will only see this trend continue. Soon enough I will have access to living rooms in 3 cities and queen size air mattresses in each. What about my mail? Well I have now outsourced that as well and receive regular emails with scanned versions of messages whether they are solicitations from credit card companies or the much anticipated bills. The goal is to remove all restrictions on location so that I can maximize my interaction with people in the same field. Is it possible to run a large business as a digital nomad? Definitely but there are obvious downfalls of constantly being on the go. For one, you need to hire completely self-motivated individuals that can work without your oversight. Finding those individuals can be extremely challenging. Additionally, the life of a digital nomad doesn’t make much long-term sense as it applies to relationships. Ultimately family is what causes the death of the digital nomad. While the digital nomad can travel and stay connected to the “cloud”, being gone for months at a time probably isn’t the best idea for those looking to raise a family. For the time being though, I am trying to perfect the life of a digital nomad. Do you follow a similar lifestyle or is this idea completely foreign? If you are a digital nomad, what lessons have you learned that you can impart on others? |
| Xiaonei Launches Platform and Fund … Sound Familiar? Posted: 09 Jul 2008 08:00 AM CDT For Xiaonei, the Chinese Facebook copycat, following in Facebook’s footsteps appears to be a strategic decision. Xiaonei has over 22 million users in comparison to Facebook’s more than 80 million active users. All 22 million are in China though where Facebook currently has less than 300,000 users according to statistics provided by Facebook’s SocialAds system. Yesterday, Xiaonei announced the launch of their “Open Platform” initiative which mimics Facebook’s platform and an application fund, just as Facebook announced last year. Facebook’s fund hasn’t been the most successful though based on the lack of announcements coming out of Facebook about the fund. Other funds have also found it challenging to generate substantial returns on any of the platform applications. So how much money is Xiaonei and their partner venture fund providing developers with? No exact numbers have been mentioned aside from “several million RMB” (1 USD = 8 RMB). It will be interesting to see how the battle between Facebook and Xiaonei pans out in China. Facebook recently launched their Chinese version but rumors have surfaced that the site appears to be inaccessible to a large number of users in the country potentially limiting Facebook’s growth. Whatever happens to Facebook in China, it is clear that Xiaonei will be one of their primary competitors. |
| Google Attempts to Make Sites Social With A Virtual World Posted: 08 Jul 2008 11:00 PM CDT If you weren’t spending enough time on the website you are reading, Google is trying to provide a new reason to stay a little longer: Lively. Lively is a new virtual world system for websites. The system is currently only available for Windows users though so for all you Mac users, you are just going to have to wait. What’s so spectacular about these virtual worlds? Not much really aside from being able to interact with other avatars on any given website. I spent a good hour trying to get Lively working properly yesterday and finally pulled it off after a reboot of my computer. The software appears to work well if you are looking to build a virtual home on your site. I’m just not quite sure how this really helps improve user interaction though. Rather than actually talking with people via the GChat back-end chat system which users talk over, most people end up moving around and clicking on random items in the virtual world. In theory, each site has their own custom world that they build and different conversations can take place in them. I’m just not so sure that this is the best platform for encouraging dialog. Instead it’s a great way to look at some virtual eye candy. If you have a PC and want to be part of the Social Times virtual world, check out the embedded virtual world below. I can see this having larger implications in the long run but for now this is clearly an experiment which could end a number of small startups focused on people building their virtual homes. I don’t think this is going to attract many of the users from Secondlife though. We’ll have to wait and see. |
| 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