Facebook announced that, on October 3rd, our profiles will all turn into “Timelines” that describe our lives (as Facebook knows them) in a glossy, magazine like format. And, as of right now, you can enable magazine apps (for WaPo and Guardian, more to come) that will randomly post what you’re reading to your wall without asking your permission first.I have two thoughts on this:
This article was originally published on the Idealware Blog in July of 2011. Google unleashed their latest attempt to grab the focus from Facebook and Twitter with Google+, a Social Network that, at first glance, looks like a Facebook clone, but differentiates itself in at least one significant way: the people you communicate with on Google+, along with the way that you do it and the tools for inviting and connecting people are far superior to the social networking competition and they emulate the way we communicate in real life. This makes for a very engaging and, once you have a handle on it, comfortable… Read More »Is Google+ The Future Of Networking, Social And Otherwise?
Following is a guest post from Jon Loomer, offering a different perspective on Facebook’s privacy changes:
It took a few weeks, but internet rage over Facebook’s Like button and latest privacy ramifications is in full swing. Bloggers swinging at Facebook’s knee caps with aluminum bats seem to outnumber those who come to CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s defense 20:1. And if a blogger does post a defense, duck and cover as soon as you hit “publish” because the rage will bubble up from the comments section.
Big changes are happening at Facebook, and they mean that what you do and say, on and off of Facebook, is now being more heavily tracked and more broadly shared. If you think that your Facebook data is somewhat private — e.g., shared only with friends and people you specify — you are wrong.
Now, you might think that’s a crazy idea, but I think Buzz is about 80% of the way there. Last week, in my Google’s Creepy Profiles post, I made a suggestion (that someone at Google has hopefully already thought of) that it wouldn’t take much to turn a Profile into a full-fledged biography/lifestreaming site. Just add some user-configurable tabs, that can contain HTML or RSS-fed content, and add some capability to customize the style of the profile. Since I wrote that, I’ve been using Buzz quite a bit and I’ve really been appreciating the potential it has to deepen conversations around web-published materials.
Google unveiled a bold new product last week; one of critical and compelling import to anyone who believes that their online reputation is important. I’m not talking about Google Buzz. I’m talking about Google Profiles. This isn’t a new service — Google introduced the profile pages a few years ago. But the release of Google Buzz has illuminated how important they are in Google’s plans, and how important they can be for us. And if this profile is now a key pin in my personal branding strategy, I demand better tools to manage it than Google has provided.
Interesting things pop up on the web all of the time; here are a few things I think are worth sharing:
LinkedIn has Facebook envy, and Facebook has Twitter envy. Ignoring MySpace (my general recommendation), these are three big social networks that, sadly, seem to be trying to co-opt each others strengths rather than differentiate themselves. Per Readwriteweb, LinkedIn is jealous of Facebook’s page views, and is looking for ways (like applications) to keep users connected to the web site. More noticeably, Facebook’s recent failed attempt to buy Twitter was followed up by a redesign that makes Facebook much more like Twitter. Al of this inter-related activity has created some confusion as to what one should or shouldn’t do where, and a question as to whether… Read More »Feed Fight
A quick addendum to my last entry: First, my apologies if you’re trying to play. For some reason, the DNS change that will allow you to access openid.techcafeteria.com is taking a looonng time to propagate. I’ve asked my ISP about this. And it makes no sense to give you the ip or an alternate name – you need the actual name to get this working. Don’t trust me to maintain techcafeteria.com 24/7 for as long as you may live? Good thinking! I’m hosting this on my home box, because I can’t hack PHP sufficiently in order to get it going on my ISPs system. So… Read More »Update on OpenID server
Earlier this month, in the Q&A following my Managing Technology 2.0 presentation at the NTC, I was asked how OpenID would impact organizational data management issues. I was somewhat familiar with OpenID, in it that I knew that it was a proposed standard for single sign-on and identity management on the net, but I hadn’t paid a lot of attention and I think my answer, that it would make verifying user data easier for non-profits, might have been way off target. So, to clear it up, I did some research. The “I’m feeling lucky” response from a Google search for “Open ID” is the very… Read More »What does OpenID mean to Non-Profits?