Posts Tagged ‘privacy’

The less social networks and their challenge for marketers

Published on Apr 10th, 2011 by Chris

Based on the recent buzz at SXSW, the festival that young wannabe Zuckerbergs go to party, showcase their new social media app/ecosystem/way of life and receive billions from salivating venture capitalists, 2011 will be the rise of the less social network. Spurred-on by continuing discontent over Facebook’s desperate attempt to sell as many details of its members as possible, new services are offering a more intimate way to communicate with a select few recipients.

This clearly presents a problem for marketers as the holy grail of massive insight into consumer’s activities and social interactions slips further away. Previous Northstar research has shown less concern about privacy amongst current teenagers, however the rise of less social networks on the back of privacy concerns amongst older age groups means that the golden age of marketing could be further away than the industry hoped.

The industry has to act responsibly and carefully manage the use of social media based advertising. If managed correctly the idea of relevant adverts could be a benefit to consumers not a hindrance, location based adverts likewise.

Location based special offers (Foursquare, Facebook places) are a good way to introduce consumers to these ideas as the benefit is clear to them. The idea of using your Facebook friends’ images without their knowledge to promote a product might be a bit too far on the creepy side though.

How marketers use these new opportunities could have a big impact on the extent to which people look for alternatives to Facebook. These are the less advertising friendly competitors to watch out for in 2011.

GroupMe/ Beluga

Fed up with sharing everything that you do with everyone? These text message/ app based services allow you to setup groups and then send messages visible only to members. The addition of SMS means that you don’t need a smartphone and good data connection. If you are using a smartphone app you get the added features of location & photo sharing and conference calls. Sensing the potential threat Facebook snapped up Beluga shortly before SXSW.

Glympse:

Want to send you location to someone quickly, easily and without telling everyone else where you are? Glympse lets you send your location (for a limited period of time) out via a link in SMS or email. The recipient can then view your location and speed. Ideal if you’re running late, meeting someone in an unfamiliar place or just want peace of mind.

Path:

With the average Facebook ‘friends’ with 120 people the idea of sharing everything becomes a bit daunting given that your parents/ colleagues etc could well be watching. Path aims to offer a more intimate experience with the intention of a smaller network of friends around 50.

Some information sourced from: http://mashable.com/2011/03/09/startups-to-watch-sxsw/

Facebook: The new face of evil?

Published on May 20th, 2010 by Patrick

I always got a kick out of Google’s corporate motto, “Don’t be evil.”  To me, this ultra-altruistic philosophy was beautiful in its simplicity and intent.  But alas, when you’re in the business of making money it’s sometimes necessary to soften one’s ideals, hence Google’s revised slogan: You can make money without doing evil.

Despite its industry titan status and the realities of operating in a social media world where consumers have more control than ever, Google has done a pretty decent job of living up to its ideals and preserving its brand image.  Facebook, on the other hand, risks being handed a pitchfork and growing a set of horns should it not do more to safeguard its reputation and relationship with three key constituencies, government regulators, consumers and advertisers.  One must wonder if Facebook’s mind boggling success has led to a technological hubris that prevents the company from understanding that the Facebook brand is not invincible.  In the shadow of Myspace’s perilous decline, surely Facebook isn’t yet “too big to fail.”

Government regulators are making Facebook the poster child for privacy concerns

The privacy issues confronting Facebook have been well covered in the media.  Worldwide, government officials concerned with protecting the data of its citizens have expressed their grave concern with Facebook’s privacy policies.  In response, Facebook has made incremental changes to the site’s privacy settings, resulting in a confusing labyrinth of profile opt-outs that are unlikely to be altered or fully understood by the average user.

While the ongoing privacy concerns are causing some people (mostly tech insiders) to quit Facebook altogether, it has also led to applications like Reclaim Privacy, an open-source browser-based privacy scanner that automatically inspects your Facebook privacy settings and denotes settings that are risky privacy-wise.  While such tools are welcome, I honestly doubt the average person will use them, or be motivated enough to care.

The truth is that privacy has never been a top priority for Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook is about sharing information, and putting limitations on what gets shared runs counter to its interests. Sharing and capturing data is Facebook’s business.  Privacy will always be a casualty of Facebook’s success.  Or, as Pete Cashmore put more starkly, privacy is dead and social media holds the smoking gun.

But in an era characterized by government intervention in response to unregulated lending practices, inadequate safeguards for offshore oil drilling and overall corporate malfeasance, look for governments to remain on the offensive with this issue, and Facebook and others will have no choice but to cooperate.

Facebook dilutes the value of relationships amongst consumers.

Are people beginning to internalize how Facebook (the face of social media) debases the quality of our relationships?  Jarod Lanier, in his recent book You Are Not a Gadget writes extensively about how technology and social media in particular imposes an artificial layer between people – making it increasingly difficult for individuals to truly relate to one another.

If this is too ethereal of a concept for Joe Average to grasp, there still remains the steady stream of scams making news, such as the one reported by Bloomberglast week about an agency setting up fake personal profiles and “friending” people left right and centre, accumulating thousands of contacts, presumably to hit them up later with some kind of offer or deal.  It’s kind of ironic that a medium which markets itself on authenticity and transparency falls short on its ideals so emphatically.

It’s not always appropriate to “Like” something.

Then, there is the increasingly ubiquitous “Like” button.  “Like” used to be a feature found only on Facebook’s pages, serving as an invitation to show your appreciation or enthusiasm for a comment a friend had made, or content that she’d shared.  As a feature of Facebook’s new Open Graph policy, you’ll see “Like” embedded more and more places online – often times in the wrong context like this news story entitled “Thief lifts laptop with photos of deceased child’s battle with cancer.”  As this monolithic voting system permeates the web, Facebook is accumulating more data on the preferences and behaviour of consumers.   As Mitch Joel said, how about a “Don’t Like” button?  Or, Facebook could take a page out of The Huffington Post’s book, and give readers a chance to truly express themselves with a range of emotions /reactions.

Community pages risk alienating advertisers

Brands have always been uneasy about social media due to the lack of control and potential negative exposure.  Companies must develop rules of engagement for how to deal with online conversations involving their brand, including dealing with individual customer complaints or more organized brand jacking.   But just as brands are acclimatizing to this new environment, Facebook’s newly minted Community Pages changes the game again.

In case you missed it, Community Pages are the new home for topics of interest that aren’t brands, like cooking or basketball.  These pages automatically aggregate related content from the Facebook ecosystem and Wikipedia.  It’s inevitable that the aggregated information will include conversations about brands.  But unlike the traditional brand fan pages, there’s no means for brands to respond or redirect the conversation.  They might as well throw their newly scribed rules of engagement out the window.

This is an example of Facebook innovating at a pace that outstrips the market.  In stealing further control from their clients, Facebook is biting the hands that feed it.  I would fully expect Facebook to heed the feedback of its customers on this one.

There’s no question that managing an entirely new breed of company that’s growing as quickly as Facebook would be a challenge.  When you’ve got half a billion users, the slightest change to your product is sure to have unforeseen repercussions.  But in the age of Customer experience, Facebook should be more proactively thinking about how their moves impact the constituents vital to their being.

As Jeremiah Owyang tweeted just the other day:  “Like their founder, Facebook acts their age. Energetic, innovative, and fast, yet like most youth, they don’t think [things] through.” Too many more missteps and Facebook might just find itself wondering what went wrong.  Are we witnessing the beginning of the end to Facebook’s meteoric rise?