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Innocent Until Proven Guilty on Social Platforms? Not Completely Posted: 21 Aug 2008 11:37 PM CDT Yesterday afternoon both Bebo and MySpace announced updates and made clarifications surrounding their terms of service for developers. MySpace wanted to give developers an overview of what really amounts to a three strikes and your out policy. Applications will be temporarily suspended after 48 hours following a violation warning for the first time and the punishments increase incrementally from then on. Rather than state the punishments for violations, Bebo instead opted to give developers until September 4th to update their applications to be in compliance with Bebo’s Platform Policies and Guidelines for Developers. Bebo has also listed possible actions they will take. For more details check out the Bebo application guidelines page. It’s clear that both platforms are having challenges with terms of service violations. Is Reactive Protection Sufficient? One thing that has become increasingly clear to me is that on the web, policy changes are typically much more reactive than proactive. This tends to reflect a similar process that takes place within our own political system. The question that I’ve begun to wonder is: does this really protect the users? If your data is available or there are flaws in the system which increase the likelihood of abuse, who’s responsible? Ultimately we are in a nascent industry and as such it is the job of all parties to work together to develop the best practices. Unfortunately it is frequently user privacy which is at stake. Should users be more protected? Not necessarily given that it is ultimately their own decision to take actions which put their own privacy at risk. The only concern I have is that users don’t realize the implications of the digital decisions they make. Does Anybody Else Care? There’s definitely increasing digital privacy advocacy taking place on Capital Hill and I’m guessing that this will only continue. As Congress becomes more aware of what is taking place online they will begin deeper investigations which ultimately should result in a digital privacy bill of rights. Joseph Smarr has already outlined a basic level of these rights. Unfortunately none of the participants that discussed the creation of this bill of rights are based in D.C. While I seem to be continuously covering the privacy situation for users, it doesn’t appear that the users really care or are aware to what’s taking place. I’m not sure if that’s good or not but the real question is who are the representatives that are going to speak for user privacy rights when the discussion heats up on the hill? Does anybody really care about user privacy or have we given up?

Bebo Extends Media Emphasis With New Hire Posted: 21 Aug 2008 10:33 PM CDT This afternoon Bebo announced a new hire, Kelly Bratt as Head of Original Productions. According to the release, “Kelly previously worked on Bebo’s award-winning online series, KateModern, which achieved more than 67 million views nd two BAFTA nominations.” KateModern was at the time known as Lonelygirl15, one of the most popular YouTube series. This new hire emphasizes the company’s focus on original programming and highlights Bebo’s existence as a media company as I wrote yesterday. Yesterday Bebo announced yet another new program which is a strategy most other social networks are not yet entertaining. Can traditional media strategies work in a new media environment? Bebo seems to think so and I can’t blame them. When nothing else is working in the way of monetization, start using techniques that have worked before. While Bebo may not have the reach that Facebook does, it’s clear that they have decided to shift their strategy to generating quality content and more revenue. This contrasts Facebook’s strategy which is build a top tier platform which continues to attract users. Facebook’s strategy makes a lot of sense as well though. How valuable is your content if the users decide to stop viewing it 6 months from now? That’s only one type of question that Bebo needs to answer. It’s clear that there is a balance between technology and advertising among the top tier social platforms and each company has their own strategy. Bebo is going the media route and honestly, while they aren’t the biggest social network, their strategy appears to make a lot of sense. We’ll have to see if the company can continue to attract successful shows.

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