Ford bets big in Digital Marketing Departure

Reuters

 

Forget the Super Bowl: Ford's marketing chief Jim Farley says he can get more for less on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

If Farley is right, millions of hits for Ford Motor Company on social media websites will dwarf the impact of ads broadcast during the National Football League's February championship game -- high-profile space selling for $3 million for 30 seconds.

"Customers are spending as much time with the mobile smart phone or online as they are watching TV now, so our advertising dollars have to flow to where the people are," Farley told Reuters in an interview.

Under Farley, 48, who joined Ford from Toyota Motor Co in 2007, the No. 2 U.S. automaker has bet bigger on the emerging category of digital advertising including websites and social media than any of its rivals.

Farley has taken the approach credited with the early success of the youth-oriented Scion brand he launched at Toyota and applied it to the makeover of an established auto brand.

He is betting Ford can use Facebook and Twitter to accelerate the word-of-mouth recommendations long familiar to the auto industry and help the blue-oval brand connect with younger and richer people.

Farley said he learned at Scion that the only way to push past consumer skepticism is "to break into their world."

"You have to shove your way in there. The way we do that is to break down myths. The great thing about Americans is they are always hungry for something new," he said.

Ford's U.S. sales are up almost 22 percent so far this year, twice the growth rate of the industry overall.

Farley's term at Ford has coincided with a sharp turnaround in its image. ALG, a firm that tracks consumer perceptions, said in a report issued on Monday that Ford cars and trucks lead all brands in gains in perceived quality since 2008.

FORD SEEKS FACEBOOK FRIENDS

Farley, who is seen as a potential successor to Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally, called the Super Bowl, "a fantastic advertising opportunity" -- for unknown brands.

"If you are a company that wants to launch a new product that no one has ever seen before, it's a great venue."

Under Farley, Ford has spent 25 percent of its advertising budget on digital media in 2010, the same proportion as in 2009. That ratio is twice what J.D. Power and Associates says will be the average digital media spend in 2012.

Farley would not disclose the dollar amount of that spending.

One of the first experiments in Ford's new approach was its 2009 move to recruit Web-based "agents" who would help promote its launch of the Fiesta subcompact. In a follow-up, Ford used Facebook to reveal key aspects of the Explorer SUV rather than wait for an established auto show.

Now, Ford is seeking "bloggers, social media mavens and Facebook friends" to submit video applications to be one of 100 who will drive the 2012 Focus around southern France or Spain early next year, ahead of the car's launch.

The effort, called "Ford Focus Global Test Drive" seeks to create buzz ahead of the launch of a vehicle central to Mulally's vision for a streamlined product lineup.

Farley said that the Fiesta campaign had boosted consumer awareness of the Ford subcompact over direct competitors like the Honda Fit or the Toyota Yaris. At the same time, Ford only spent one tenth of what it would have through traditional media, including television, he said.

Farley's moves mark something of a contrast with the approach by cross-town rival General Motors Co.

Under its new marketing chief Joel Ewanick, GM is pushing back into advertising at the kinds of high-profile, high-cost events like the Super Bowl that it had abandoned in its slide toward bankruptcy.

In one example, last week GM rolled out a campaign for Chevrolet that plays to its base -- patriotic Americans with memories of the days when Chevy dominated.

By contrast, Ford is playing up the new elements in its product line-up, both new vehicles and new technology like the MyFord Touch system for navigation, entertainment and communications in campaigns that include videos for Google's YouTube.

Charlie Vogelheim, executive editor of Intellichoice, a consumer auto consultant, said Ford had pushed beyond its rivals in the way that it is building online buzz.

"Everyone is involved in digital marketing. The extent that Ford is doing it, wrapping it around events and utilizing the media with its launches, that is where Ford is taking leadership," he said.

UK Regulator to Expand Supervision Over Online Ads

PC World

The U.K.'s advertising regulator will increase its oversight of online marketing, scrutinizing how companies advertise on their own Web sites as well as social sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said on Wednesday that the new code, which will take effect starting next March, is in response to nearly 3,000 complaints in the last year over advertisements that were not within its purview to act on.

The ASA already oversees paid-for online advertisements and sales promotions, investigating complaints over misleading advertisements and other issues, such as social responsibility and child protection. In some cases, advertisements have been withdrawn or removed by search engines, said Matt Wilson, ASA press officer.

For advertisements that are not withdrawn, the ASA has worked with search engines to publish a notification next to the ad that there is a problem with it, Wilson said.

The new rules will cover companies or organizations running promotions in unpaid space, including their own Web sites and social-networking sites. Companies are increasingly using platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to draw people to their brands or causes.

The ASA said that assessing whether material constitutes advertising or marketing communication will require a "careful assessment."

User-generated content, for example, is created by private individuals, the ASA said in its guidance notes. But if a website owner solicited the content and used it in marketing material, it would be subject to the code. Even if a private individual provided unsolicited content that is incorporated into marketing material, that would also be subject.

The code will apply to companies and organizations that have a U.K. presence or a U.K. registered website, Wilson said.

Advertisements targeting the U.K but placed outside the country "are subject to the jurisdiction of the relevant authority in the country from which they originate if that authority operates a suitable cross-border complaint system," the ASA said.

The initiative will be funded by a 0.1 percent levy on paid-for advertisements appearing on Internet search engines through media and search agencies. The ASA, which has a £7 million (US$11 million) annual budget, will have to add 9 or 10 staffers to enforce compliance, Wilson said.

US FDA warns Pharma firm about Facebook Promotion

Bloomberg / Business Week

 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned a pharmaceutical company that its use of the Facebook Share button to promote a cancer-fighting medication violates FDA requirements for disclosing information about drugs.

The FDA, in a letter sent to drug-maker Novartis Pharmaceuticals July 29, tells the company that its use of Facebook Share to promote Tasigna is incomplete and misleading.

This is likely the first time the FDA has issued a warning to a pharmaceutical firm for using Facebook to promote its products, said Jeffrey Chester , a privacy advocate and executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.

The FDA, which posted the warning letter on its website this week, asks Novartis to stop using Facebook Share to promote the leukemia drug.

"The shared content is misleading because it makes representations about the efficacy of Tasigna but fails to communicate any risk information associated with the use of this drug," said the FDA letter, signed by Karen Rulli, acting group letter of the agency's Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising, and Communications. "In addition, the shared content inadequately communicates Tasigna's FDA-approved indication and implies superiority over other products."

FDA rules require that most medication promotional pieces contain information about risks associated with taking the drug, the letter said. In addition, promotional materials are misleading if they suggest a "drug is safer or more effective than another drug when this superiority has not been demonstrated by substantial evidence or substantial clinical experience," the letter said.

Novartis also failed to notify the FDA of the Tasigna promotion, as required by the agency, the letter said.

Novartis, in a statement, said it takes the FDA letter "very seriously."

"We have addressed its concerns by taking the direct and immediate action of taking down the widget referenced by the FDA," the company said. "Novartis will continue to have active discussions with the FDA to understand fully all of the concerns. We also will assess all of our Web assets and materials based on these concerns."

The warning letter highlights a problem with Facebook and other websites targeting advertising dollars from pharmaceutical and companies, said Chester, who asked the FDA in March to investigate the online marketing of drugs. Facebook should be responsible for creating safeguards for the marketing of medications and other health products on its site, he said.

Websites "see digital dollars in their bottom lines and are ignoring the health risks confronting consumers who are targeted using social-media marketing," Chester said. "This letter is a wake-up call -- for the pharma industry, Facebook, and social media application companies."

The FDA's letter is appropriate, Chester added. "Risk warnings must be prominently disclosed -- and not purposefully ... hidden by making a consumer click for more information," he said.

A representative of Facebook didn't have an immediate comment on the letter or Chester's perspective.

Social Media Sucks up 23% of Online Time

Computer World

 

Sorry, e-mail. You've just taken a back seat to both social networks and and online games.

Social networks had already surpassed e-mail use among American Internet users. But according to a Nielsen Co. survey released this week, online gaming is now also more popular that e-mail.

According to the Nielsen survey, Americans today are spending nearly a quarter of their online time posting comments, pictures and video on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, making it the most popular online activity among Americans.

Online gaming is the second most popular online activity, accounting for 10% of online use, while e-mail ranks third at 8.3%. In a survey completed in June, 2009, e-mail was the second most popular online activity, accounting for 11.5% of Inernet activity.

"Despite the almost unlimited nature of what you can do on the Web, 40% of U.S. online time is spent on just three activities -- social networking, playing games and e-mailing -- leaving a whole lot of other sectors fighting for a declining share of the online pie," said Nielsen analyst Dave Martin in a statement.

Social networking saw a 43% uptick in usage from June 2009 to this past June -- from 15.8% to 22.7%.

Late last month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the site had snagged its 500 millionth user, cresting another major corporate milestone. In May, Twitter hit a milestone of its own as its users posted nearly 2 billion tweets during the month.

Some recent studies found that some people acknowledge being addicted to sites like Facebook and Twitter.

A study released by Retrevo Inc. in March showed that 48% of online users say they update Facebook or Twitter during the night or as soon as they wake up. And the survey by the consumer electronics shopping and review site found that 32% of respondents see no problem with interrupting a meal to read or send an online message.

And The Oxygen Media Insights Group, a creator of television channels and Web sites for women, released a report last month showing that a growing number of women admit to being addicted to social media.

In the latest Nielsen study, users spend 4.4% of online time viewing portals, making it the fourth most popular destination category, and 4% instant messaging. The share of both portal and instant messaging use declined significantly from 2009, Nielsen said.

MySpace Said to Hold Ad Talks With Microsoft, Yahoo, Google

Bloomberg / Business Week

 

News Corp.’s MySpace, seeking to replace a search advertising contract with Google Inc. that expires in August, has held talks with Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., according to a person familiar with the company’s plans.

Any deal would carry a substantially lower price than the $900 million Google agreed to pay in 2006 to place search ads within the social-networking site, a person with knowledge of the discussions said. MySpace also remains in talks with Google about extending their partnership, the person said.

MySpace has struggled to maintain ad revenue during an exodus of users to Facebook Inc. and the departure of key executives. Bought in 2005 for $580 million in cash, MySpace lost its status as the world’s top social-networking site in 2008. News Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch said last year that the site would fall short of traffic commitments to Google, lowering income on that deal by $100 million in 2009.

“We’re currently talking to multiple providers across the many facets of search to bring our users the best possible search experience in a social environment,” said Tracy Akselrud, a spokeswoman for Beverly Hills, California-based MySpace, who declined to name specific companies.

Microsoft is looking to boost users and ad revenue for its 13-month-old Bing search engine, which claimed 12.1 percent of searches in the U.S., compared with Google’s 63.7 percent, according to data tracker ComScore Inc. Microsoft has forged a separate agreement to handle searches on Yahoo’s site -- a deal that’s scheduled to take effect by December.

Pete Wootton, a spokesman for Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, declined to comment on negotiations with News Corp. May Petry, a spokeswoman for Yahoo in Sunnyvale, California, and Jane Penner, a spokeswoman at Mountain View, California-based Google, also declined to comment.

MySpace Co-President Jason Hirschhorn left in June, becoming the most recent high-level executive to depart the business. He had taken the co-president role in February, after Owen Van Natta stepped down as CEO.

Pakistani Lawyer Petitions for the Death of Mark Zuckerberg

The Register

 

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is being investigated by Pakistani police under a section of the penal code that makes blasphemy against Muhammad punishable by death.

BBC Urdu reports — according to a Google Translation — that Pakistan's Deputy Attorney General has launched a criminal investigation against Zuckerberg and others in response to Facebook hosting a "Draw Muhammad" contest on its site late last month. On May 19, Pakistani authorities blocked access to Facebook over the contest, and this ban was lifted on May 31 after Facebook removed the page in Pakistan and other countries.

Asked to comment, a Facebook spokeswoman told us the company does not comment on legal matters.

Last month, according to English-language Pakistani newspaper The News International, a Pakistani High Court judge summoned the police after lawyer Muhammad Azhar Siddique filed an application for a First Information Report (FIR), claiming that the owners of Facebook had committed a heinous and serious crime under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code. In essence, an FIR launches a criminal investigation. But no charges have been filed.

According to the paper, Section 295-C of the penal code reads: "Use of derogatory remark etc, in respect of the Holy Prophet, whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable for fine."

So, peace be unto Muhammad. But not unto Mark Zuckerberg.

According to two reports — one at Boxcrack.net, a kind of citizen journalism site run by Privacy International, and another at Pro Pakistani, a Pakistani Telecom and IT news site that lifted the news from BBC Urdu — the Deputy Attorney General has indeed lodged an FIR against Zuckerberg, fellow co-founders Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, and "Andy", the German woman who initiated the Draw Muhammad contest under a pseudonym.

According to Pro Paskistani, petitioner Muhammad Azhar Sidiqque said he's waiting for the police to contact Interpol about making arrangements for the arrest of Facebook's owners and "Andy". The site also says that the Deputy Attorney General told the High Court that Pakistan’s United Nations representative has asked to escalate the issue in the UN General Assembly.

Facebook Privacy Woes = Free Publicity for Hollywood Movie

cNet

Recent changes to Facebook's privacy controls, as well as a litany of new products that share more user and demographic information with third-party partners, are ticking off a lot of users.

Weblogs and Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis recently joined GDGT founder Peter Rojas and prominent Googler Matt Cutts in the ranks of notable tech industry figures who have announced that they're deleting their profiles altogether. Rumors have been swirling about internal disputes at Facebook over whether the company really did cross the line and whether changes should be in store.

But I'm willing to guess that a few people very high up in Hollywood are watching the Facebook privacy hysteria unfold with glee, secretly or not-so-secretly hoping that the rabble-rousing headlines about CEO Mark Zuckerberg keep dominating tech news for a few more months.

That's because tumult at Facebook could very well amount to free press for "The Social Network," the upcoming film about the origins of the company. It is slated for an October 15 release.

Based on author Ben Mezrich's unauthorized Facebook tell-all "The Accidental Billionaires," the Columbia Pictures movie stars Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake as Zuckerberg and former Facebook exec Sean Parker, respectively.

In a blog post on Wednesday, TheWrap.com blogger Jeff Sneider speculates that the star power of the movie--director David Fincher, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, and producer Scott Rudin, not to mention the cast--may very well add up to Oscar nominations.

That's good news for Columbia Pictures and bad news for Facebook. The company did not approve of Mezrich's book or Sorkin's screenplay treatment, and its few comments in the press about the matter have painted the tale as fanciful gossip. Indeed, the storyline doesn't portray Zuckerberg as the good guy. He's depicted as ruthless, greedy, and more than willing to stab former collaborators in the back on his way up Silicon Valley's power ladder.

When I read the book and the screenplay, I theorized that Facebook was already so powerful and ubiquitous that it shouldn't have to care much about a movie revealing its (allegedly) shady early days. "The Pirates of Silicon Valley," a late '90s made-for-TV movie about the rivalry between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, for one, didn't do a thing to derail either Microsoft or Apple.

But Facebook right now is in a far more vulnerable position, image-wise, than it was a few months ago. The aftermath of the company's most recent privacy developments have thrown it out of many members' good graces, and seeing a slick, on-screen fulfillment of their concerns about the company could amount to even more malaise.

Trailers for "The Social Network" should be popping up in movie theaters soon, likely running ahead of Columbia Pictures releases that are coming out this summer. TheWrap's Sneider speculates that the first of these may be the upcoming Angelina Jolie flick "Salt." That comes out July 23. But knowing how these things work, a trailer may leak to the Web sooner rather than later.

Do I Need to Revisit Facebook Privacy Settings *Again* ?

The Washington Post

 

In Sunday's paper, I attempted to clarify advice I gave in the prior Sunday's paper. Now I'm afraid I might have to clarify it further, and for the same reasons as the first time around: Facebook's changing, confusing and sometimes outright cryptic privacy settings.

To recap, two Sundays ago I used my Help File Q&A to suggest ways to control who can see what things you recommended by clicking a Facebook "Like" button on other sites, this one included.

(Condensed disclaimers: Post Co. chairman/CEO Donald E. Graham on Facebook's board of directors, former Facebook chief privacy officer Chris Kelly a friend from college, many Posties market selves on Facebook.)

But when the Palo Alto, Calif., social network followed up its new sharing features by redoing its privacy-settings interface, I had to return to the topic a week later. This second Help File item included the following text:

    Now, if you want to ensure that only friends can see which items you've recommended with a click of a Facebook "Like" button at other sites (The Post's included), you're supposed to visit a "Friends, Tags and Connections" page in your privacy settings.

    On that page, set "Activities," "Interests" and "Things I Like" to "Only Friends" to avoid broadcasting those details to strangers at Facebook or any other site.

But one reader wrote in to say that he was still seeing the old privacy interface, without that "Friends, Tags and Connections" page. Another reported that when she used Facebook's helpful "preview-my-profile" option to see how her profile would appear to strangers, the public pages she'd Liked on Facebook were still visible, while things recommended through Like buttons elsewhere were not.

Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Kurt Opsahl noted other issues in an e-mail. Even if you keep your profile's "Connections" links to "Community Pages" about your home town/college/employer/etc. private, you can still show up by name on those pages. (Facebook once knew how to handle that issue: If you viewed a public page without logging into the site, you would only see the first names of most of its fans.) And a Facebook note says that if you use another site's "Like" button to endorse "a real world entity, such as a book, movie or athlete," that, too, becomes part of your profile's public information.

All this shows, in the most charitable reading, an appalling inattention to usability. Pay attention to this part, Facebook management: Interfaces should be clear, consistent and predictable. You can't use the same term, "Like," for functions with different levels of exposure and control. You can't suggest an option does one thing -- limit something's visibility to "Only Friends" -- when it does something else. You can't opt everybody into new sharing options and then take a week or so to deploy a new privacy interface.

If Facebook's executives are not clear about these principles, there are many excellent resources available. I would suggest they start by Liking computer scientist Donald Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things," a wonderful treatise that will ensure they'll never look at doorknobs in the same way again.

Meanwhile: Although I hate contemplating a correction on a 152-word piece meant to clarify a 115-word item (the rough journalistic equivalent of accidentally plunking the pitcher after walking the number-eight hitter), it's ultimately up to you all. Does the text quoted above answer the original query -- controlling the visibility of Likes at non-Facebook sites -- correctly or not? I'll await your comments while I mope in the dugout.

Pandora and Facebook: So Happy Together

WIRED

The leading online radio service and world’s biggest social network have forged a bond that will solidify both companies’ dominance, while offering music fans a way to share music with each other that appears to lack any significant downside. Pandora pays copyright holders, and integrating your Pandora and Facebook accounts won’t pollute your Facebook stream with endless notifications about what you’re listening to.

The upside for Pandora users is significant, due to the ways in which it broadcasts their taste, helps them discover and enjoy new music through their friends. There are countless ways to do these exact same things elsewhere on the web, and you’ve already been able to share Pandora stations with friends. But Pandora + Facebook = such easy math that even the busy or excessively lazy can integrate it into their lives.

This joint announcement is twofold. One part involves “Like” buttons that Facebook and others will embed on its own site and partner sites around the web using the Open Graph API Facebook announced yesterday. Whenever you click one of these buttons, that information gets added to your Facebook Graph, which Pandora can then tap in order to present you with stations based on what you’ve liked on Facebook and around the web.

It’s too early to call at this point, because the buttons haven’t shown up yet, but if this aspect of Facebook’s initiative takes off it will make the company the de facto storage point for our musical preferences, while boosting Pandora’s utility. Best of all, Pandora won’t blast all your Facebook friends with messages about what you’re listening to, should you integrate your accounts. (If you want Facebook to notify people about what you’re listening to on Pandora, you can still click the share button on the currently playing song, and choose the Facebook option.)

With that out of the way, let’s move on to the aspect of this announcement that you can start using right now. Here’s how to get your Pandora account to make friends with your Facebook account — you only have to do it once, and there doesn’t appear to be a downside unless you don’t want people knowing that you spend most of your Pandora time listening to Menudo. Integrating your accounts widens your listening options within Pandora considerably, and immediately.

To activate Pandora’s optional Facebook integration, go to Pandora then click the Friends’ Music link at the lower right.

If you’ve already used Pandora’s own social networking features to add friends, they will show up here. Click Add Friends to proceed to the part where you integrate Pandora with Facebook.

Then, click the Connect With Facebook button. Nothing appeared to happen, but when we reloaded Pandora, our Facebook friends appeared alongside their Facebook profile pictures, their most recently played station, and the songs they’ve liked most recently. I can now make my own stations from any of that music:

That’s it — you’re connected. We should note that all of these features can exist without using Facebook at all, because you can enter another Pandora user’s e-mail to friend them, although Facebook makes it far, far easier. With your accounts integrated, you can make stations from any song a friend has liked and can copy their artist stations over to your own profile, where they will be shaped by your own musical preferences (for instance, songs in friends’ stations that you’ve banned won’t play).

Making the Pandora listening experience even more social, whenever you encounter a song that one of your friends likes, a tag will appear to let you know. One side effect of this new feature will likely be to encourage Pandora users to add more tracks to their favorites, because now, other people have such an easy way to see them. And the more they sculpt their stations and preferences, the more reason they have to stick with Pandora for their online (and, increasingly, device-based) radio listening. And now that Pandora includes video ads (we saw our first one today), it’s even more prepared to monetize repeat visitors.

Pandora tried this strategy earlier with its own social network, but who wants to create a whole set of friends manually on Pandora? Facebook is the social networking king of the hill right now, so it makes more sense for Pandora to grab peoples’ friends from there.

Ultimately, Facebook’s bold attempt to become the central repository for peoples’ musical taste, among other socially identifying elements, could help the company avoid the fates of its ancestors, Friendster and MySpace.

Judging from the smoothness and power of this Pandora part of the equation, it just might work.

Bulgarian Councilman Booted for Tending his Imaginary Farm

AOL News

Anyone who plays FarmVille knows it is critical to harvest your crops on time. But maybe it's not as important as administrating the second-largest city in Bulgaria.

Dimitar Kerin was voted off a committee assignment by the Plovdiv City Council for his inability to stop tending his virtual crops on the Facebook game during meetings.

Kerin was not alone in his obsession among council members. Council chairman Ilko Iliev had previously warned several of them that the new wireless network and laptops provided to all 51 council members were not to be used for playing games on social media sites during budget meetings. Kerin was singled out for continuing to manage his farm and milk his cows despite Iliev's warnings.

Saying that Kerin "needs more time for his virtual farm," council member Todor Hristov made the proposal to oust Kerin, according to Novinite, a news agency out of the Bulgarian capital, Sofia. Kerin was voted off his committee 20-19.

FarmVille is the most popular app on Facebook and winner of "Best Social Game" at the 2010 Game Developer Choice Awards. Games like it can be particularly addictive because of its real-time game mechanics. Crops are going to mature and even die whether or not players are logged in. If they want to maximize their yield, they better be ready to bring in their crops the second they're ready to harvest. Even if it's during a city council meeting.

The blog "Gameolosophy" has some advice for people like Kerin about managing their FarmVille obsession without going cold turkey:

"Prefer crops whose maturity takes three to four days to ripen to those that take only hours," blogger Sheila Europa writes. "This way, you won't have to keep your game window open, thus eliminating the need to be glued to the screen the whole time."

Facebook Threatens Suit Against Daily Mail

Guardian UK

Social networking site fears reputation permanently damaged by false claim that it let older men pressure teenage girls for sex

Facebook has threatened to sue the Daily Mail for damages after the paper wrongly claimed in a piece published on Wednesday that 14-year-old girls who create a profile on the social networking site could be approached "within seconds" by older men who "wanted to perform a sex act" in front of them.

The paper apologised in print today and online yesterday for the error, which the author of the piece, Mark Williams-Thomas, insisted had been introduced by editors at the paper despite being told it was wrong. In fact, Williams-Thomas – a retired policeman who now works as a criminologist – had been using another, unspecified social network.

But the giant social networking site, which has 23 million users in the UK alone, said that although the Mail has changed the headline of the article online – so that it now reads "I posed as a girl of 14 online. What followed will sicken you" – it had not at first changed the page title of the article online, used by internet search engines to index content, nor the URL of the piece, which is also a factor in search-engine indexing.

At 10am today the title still read "I posed as a girl of 14 on Facebook. What followed will sicken you" while the URL contained the text "i-posed-girl-14-facebook-what-followed-sicken-you". The title and URL were, however, amended before noon.

A UK spokeswoman for Facebook said the company was still considering legal action and looking at the "brand damage that has been done".

Charles Garside, assistant editor of the Daily Mail, said that the apology had been produced in consultation with Facebook, and that representatives of the paper and Facebook would be meeting today. The changes to the URL and page title were "a technical matter", he said, adding: "We are removing elements of that".

The incorrect naming of Facebook is understood to be blamed on "a matter of miscommunication".

Facebook staff claimed that attempts to add a comment to the piece, as readers are able to do, were repeatedly blocked by the Daily Mail.

The company is concerned that the article may have done permanent harm to its reputation in the UK. "If you were a Middle England reader and your child was on Facebook, this sort of thing would have a very serious effect on what you thought of us," said the Facebook spokeswoman.

Tensions over Facebook's position in the UK as a popular site among people of all ages, allowing them to contact each other, have been magnified in the past week after Peter Chapman was convicted of murdering Ashleigh Hall, a 17-year-old girl who thought that Chapman, 33, was also a teenager. Chapman had got in touch with Hall via Facebook, leading to criticisms from some senior police officers over the measures that the site takes to protect susceptible individuals .

But the Daily Mail piece, which carried Williams-Thomas's byline, suggested that anyone who signed up as a 14-year-old girl would be approached "within minutes of the profile going up". The piece also said that "messages from men poured in" and that "the first three who approached me were aged between 20 and 40".

However, Williams-Thomas and his agent, Sylvia Tidy-Harris, both insisted on their Twitter feeds that he had not used Facebook for the Mail article.

It "was on another well-known SNS [social networking service], not Facebook", said Tidy-Harris, echoing Williams-Thomas.

Tidy-Harris said that yesterday had "Been a hellishly tough day trying to juggle @mwilliamsthomas misquote in daily mail along with meetings and literally 100ks of calls/emails".

At Facebook, the anger at the misrepresentation was magnified because, they say, they were initially unable to get any response from the paper to their appeals for corrections.

"The people at Facebook in the US were reading this and knew at once that it couldn't have been our platform," said the Facebook UK spokeswoman. "We have made Facebook much more favourable to the safety of minors – minors under 18 cannot receive messages from somebody over 18."

That means it would be impossible for the scenario described by Williams-Thomas to happen on Facebook.

Facebook's representatives said that they tried to get a response from the Mail throughout Wednesday without success, and that attempts by people at its PR agency to post comments on the piece with clarifying text failed. The Mail uses moderators who on that story approved comments before they could appear. By this morning the article had 380 comments.

Williams-Thomas has not responded to requests to specify which social networking service he was using by the time of publication.

Opinion: Will People Leave Facebook for Buzz? Fat Chance.

cNet

Let's say you'd constituted a drinking game for the aftermath of Tuesday's unveiling of Google Buzz, the odd new mishmash of status messages, geolocation, and social-media aggregation: Take a drink every time some pundit says Google is trying to "kill" Facebook, Twitter, or any number of the "geo" start-ups out there.

You'd have been totally blitzed.

The cries of "It's a Facebook killer!" and "It's going to kill Twitter!" are tedious, but completely understandable considering that this is one of the first big pushes from Google, which has never been able to get a good grip on social networking, to make inroads in the space. And Buzz is indeed a product that's reactionary as opposed to trailblazing. It's Google's biggest acknowledgment of the fact that people dig these short real-time messages and social-media sharing. It aims to take the reasons why people use Facebook, why people use Twitter, and why early adopters have started using "geo" services, and wrap them all up into a product intimately connected to its existing Gmail client.

But things are very different from the days just a few years ago when it seemed like any social-media site was in constant danger of being one-upped by another. The space has matured to a point where the rise of a new player means tens of millions of people voluntarily ditching the last one. Not easy. Facebook has surpassed 400 million active members around the world, and additionally announced Wednesday that it has 100 million of those members using its mobile Web site. That's a significantly deeper influence than Friendster or MySpace ever can claim to have had, and the rise of Twitter does not seem to have curbed its growth.

Facebook is a household name, and it takes a lot for a tech brand to reach that point. Google did it with search and iTunes has done it with music sales--which is why it takes massive companies like Microsoft and Amazon, respectively, to make a dent in that market share, and they've still had an uphill battle (to say the least).

So here's the positive news for Google: It's created a great way for people to actually start using Buzz, assuming they're Gmail users in the first place: The "Buzz" link is right below the "Inbox" link in Gmail, and when there are new messages on Buzz, it shows up just as though they were new e-mail messages. It's like we're already conditioned to check up on it.

But here's the thing. There's a whole lot else that people do on Facebook besides comment on one another's status messages--the biggest of which is the company's groundbreaking third-party app platform. The biggest social game on Facebook, Zynga's Farmville, attracts 75 million people per month. That's nearly a fifth of the social network playing a single game. Then there are the people who engage in other sorts of "games" on Facebook: the social capital that members feel they earn by getting tagged in a lot of photos and having a ton of wall posts from friends should not be sniffed at either, for example.

It's a different story for Twitter, a far smaller company with an active user base that arguably can't be considered fully mainstream. Twitter users with legitimate "social capital" are generally restricted to celebrities, media figures, and those who got on the bandwagon early, meaning that there are millions of casual and passive Twitter users whose allegiance to the service may not be anywhere as strong as their allegiance to Facebook. Buzz, even if it doesn't "kill" Twitter, has a chance to suck up some market share that Twitter's still striving to get.

Remember why Twitter really started to break into the mainstream in the first place? It had a lot less to do with social-networking than you'd think. Celeb-culture freaks wanted to see what funny links Ashton Kutcher was posting, or they'd heard it was the fastest way to get breaking news from across the world. Twitter's surprisingly high attrition rates, in turn, indicate that some of these passive users only experimented with it, and others might be reading the latest from Ellen DeGeneres and Perez Hilton without actually posting tweets themselves.

This is where I can see Google Buzz getting reach: in Twitter-like mass short-form communication, but for the audiences that haven't found the need or desire to dive into the jargon-filled, truncated culture of Twitter. If you use Twitter to read John Mayer's irreverent messages and get JetBlue deals, but don't actually update it yourself, Google Buzz might be a completely different product. For better or for worse, it's forced its way into your Gmail.

But it's a lot harder to force a ubiquitous social network out of people's lives. Importing a contact list is a pain in the butt regardless, and you can bet that Facebook won't make it any easier.

Nor has Google Buzz yet proven that it can offer something better than Facebook. The only thing it does that Facebook doesn't do is enable geotagged status messages; not only will those likely be coming to Facebook eventually, but geolocation is a feature that is far from mainstream acceptance and will likely go unnoticed by the average user. Early uncertainty about the exact privacy specifics of Google Buzz may quash any advantage it may have had in the public eye about being "safer" than Facebook.

There are reasons why people ditch Web services: the experience is bad, they're technologically stagnant, uptake wasn't enough to bring users back, or there are real financial incentives to go elsewhere. AOL's once-unstoppable dial-up service languished because its prices were undercut by faster cable and DSL providers, and its shiny software features were matched by cheaper, slicker technologies on the Web. Friendster's founder has blamed technical difficulties for the social-networking pioneer's plunge in U.S. popularity. MySpace's culture of "meet new people" and predominance of flashy, music-blaring profile pages was a turn-off for many adults.

Right now, Facebook is neither suffering from obsolescent technology nor facing an upstart alternative with some kind of financial perk. And Google Buzz, at least at launch, doesn't offer enough that's new.

Plus, there is absolutely no way to raise a barnyard of virtual pigs. That apparently means something to a lot of people.

Facebook Blocks Profile Removal Service

BBC News

Social network giant Facebook has blocked a website from accessing people's profiles in order to delete their online presence.

The site, Web 2.0 Suicide Machine, offers to remove users from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Myspace.

It does not delete their accounts but changes the passwords and removes "friend" connections.

Seppukoo.com, which offers a similar service, was issued with a "cease and desist" letter by Facebook in 2009.

Netherlands-based moddr, behind Web 2.0 Suicide Machine, says it believes that "everyone should have the right to disconnect".

However Facebook says that by collecting login credentials, the site violates its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (SRR).

"Facebook provides the ability for people who no longer want to use the site to either deactivate their account or delete it completely," the company said. "We're currently investigating and considering whether to take further action."

Web 2.0 Suicide Machine claims that it only stores the name, profile picture and "last words" of its clients, who can choose to watch their friend/follower connections disappear in real time as their profiles unlink from others.

"Seamless connectivity and rich social experience offered by web 2.0 companies are the very antithesis of human freedom," says a statement on its website.

The machine operates on an adjusted Linux server which runs open source software Apache 2.

Seppukoo.com, which offers to remove people from Facebook, received a letter from the social network site's lawyers in December 2009.

Once they have deleted their friends Seppukoo clients can choose an image instead of their profile picture to remain as a "memorial" .

The site is run by a group called Les Liens Invisibles, and describes itself as an artistic project. The name Seppukoo is taken from a Japanese ritual form of suicide known as Seppuku.

In November 2009 the group orchestrated the "virtual suicide" of a group of fictitious Facebook profiles set up in the names of deceased well-known figures including Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison and Virginia Woolf.

3 Facebook Privacy Mistakes

Channel Web

No organization is exempt from screwing up, but lately that holds especially true for Facebook. While perhaps well intentioned, Facebook has committed a series of blunders with recent changes to its privacy settings in an effort to simultaneously protect users' information and make it accessible to open Web searches. Needless to say, the social networking giant seems to be having trouble doing both well.

1: Everyone Means Everyone

When in doubt, go the transparent route. Following its privacy overhaul Wednesday, Facebook forced users to review their privacy settings with a series of prompts that ostensibly enabled them to have more control over what information they share and with whom. If they so chose, Facebook users could change their privacy settings from the default "everyone" to "friends" or "friends of friends" settings, which only allowed contacts on the user's network to view status updates and other information posted on a user's profile. However Facebook failed to make clear that the "everyone" setting didn't only mean the entirety of the user's Facebook network, it meant the entirety of the Web. The "everyone" setting puts users' Facebook status updates and profile information up for grabs by online search engines such as Google or Microsoft's Bing, as well as some third-party Facebook enhanced apps. Had that been made clearer, it's doubtful that more than 80 percent of users would retain the default "everyone" setting.

2: Another Manual Prompt

In response to a firestorm of complaints regarding privacy setting issues, Facebook improved the Friend List visibility option, making it slightly more challenging for members to view friends' personal and professional contacts, whether or not they're a member of the network. Facebook eliminated the link to a Friend List on user's profiles, while also including an option for members who wish to block everyone from viewing their contact lists, whether they're a member of the network or not. But once again, it's not clear who exactly will have access to Facebook users' Friend List. The information is still publicly available, and can also be accessed by third-party applications -- just not within Facebook itself. Meanwhile, Facebook users will be required to manually and deliberately uncheck the box marked 'show my friends on my profile" if they want to implement these restrictions.

3: What Facebook Isn't Telling You

First and foremost, Facebook has its own best interest at heart -- not yours or your privacy. Facebook's privacy redesign was intended to make the social networking site more competitive with micro-blogging site Twitter, which touts simplicity and ease of use, along with openness and availability to all. Meanwhile, in recent weeks, Microsoft publicly announced that it would be forming deals with both Twitter and Facebook to funnel tweets and other user content onto its search pages. Since then, both Microsoft and Facebook have been rather tight lipped about how exactly Facebook posts and updates were to be incorporated into Bing. In light of Twitter's explosive growth, it's likely that all of Facebook's content, including personal status updates, could be subjected to search engine searches.

Meanwhile, Facebook also said it responded to a firestorm of criticism regarding privacy settings by limiting visibility to users' Friend Lists. However Friend List restrictions, coupled with revamped privacy settings, also give Facebook a foot in the door in the professional networking arena, priming the site to compete toe to toe with LinkedIn, which is geared toward professional networking. By limiting access to Friend Lists, Facebook acknowledges that some users might be hesitant to post something online that might jeopardize their current or future job.

Facebook Shuts Down Beacon, Settles Lawsuit

PC World

Facebook has agreed to shut down a program that sparked a lawsuit alleging privacy violations, and set up a $9.5 million fund for a nonprofit foundation that will support online privacy, safety and security.

The lawsuit centers around Facebook's Beacon program, which let third-party Web sites distribute "stories" about users to Facebook. Beacon was launched in November 2007 and less than a year later plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit "alleging that Facebook and its affiliates did not give users adequate notice and choice about Beacon and the collection and use of users’ personal information."

In addition to Facebook, the lawsuit's defendants include Blockbuster, Fandango, Hotwire, STA Travel, Overstock.Com, Zappos.com, and Gamefly.

Facebook never admitted wrongdoing but as part of a proposed settlement the company began sending notices to Facebook users this week. The settlement provides no compensation directly to users who receive the notice. Facebook users can opt out of the settlement, and should do so if they wish to pursue further legal action against Facebook related to the Beacon program.

"If you choose to do nothing, and remain in the settlement class you will be legally bound by the settlement," an FAQ on the settlement Web site says. "By doing nothing, you will be giving up the right to sue Facebook and the other Defendants over claims related to or arising out of the Beacon program."

Facebook has terminated the Beacon program and agreed to pay $9.5 million into an interest-bearing account to create a nonprofit foundation that will "fund projects and initiatives that promote the cause of online privacy, safety, and security." Although users in general will not receive compensation, the settlement includes $41,500 for the 19 individuals who filed the lawsuit. Court approval of the settlement is expected as soon as Feb. 26, 2010.

Facebook has taken several actions to improve privacy in recent days, including the formation of a safety advisory board designed to improve user safety on the site. A new security section on Facebook will be more comprehensive and include content tailored for parents, teachers and teens, the IDG News Service reported. Facebook has also decided to eliminate regional networks, which let users share information with potentially millions of other members.

Facebook's privacy section already allows users to control which of their friends can see content such as status updates and tagged photos, but the site remains a lightning rod in online privacy debates because it is so widely used and offers such an easy way to share personal information.

People who want to learn more about the Beacon issue should check out the Beacon class settlement Web site, which provides access to court documents, important dates and deadlines and other information. For those of you wondering how the now-defunct Beacon program worked, the Web site offers a detailed explanation, which reads as follows:

"If you were logged in to Facebook and visited a Beacon Affiliate, an action you took (like writing a review or purchasing an item), may have triggered that website to want to publish a story to Facebook. Before that happened, the website would send some information to Facebook in order for Facebook to generate a notification that would display in the lower right corner of your screen. If you clicked 'No, Thanks', no stories or information would be published anywhere on Facebook. Any information that was sent to Facebook's servers would be deleted. If you clicked 'Close' or ignored the story, the story would be sent to Facebook, but not yet published.

"The next time you visited your home page, you'd see a message reminding you that this story was being sent. There are three things you could have done with this story: approve the story by clicking 'Okay,' remove the story by clicking 'Remove', or ignore the entire message by doing nothing. If you approved the story and clicked 'Okay,', the story would be published on your Wall and may have appeared in your friends' News Feeds. If you removed the story using the 'Remove' link next to it, the story would never appear in your Wall or a friend's News Feed. If you ignored the whole message, it would go away after a few days and nothing would have been published to Wall or News Feed. However, when you ignored a story, it remained queued, so that the next time you generated a Beacon story, this home page message would have two stories, instead of one."

For more information about enterprise networking, go to NetworkWorld. Story copyright 2008 Network World Inc. All rights reserved.

Facebook Adding More Privacy Settings For Individual Data

AP

Facebook is changing its privacy settings to give users control over who sees the information they post on their personal pages.

Beginning Wednesday, the networking Web site is taking the rare step of requiring its more than 350 million users to review and update their privacy settings.

The new controls are designed to simplify the cumbersome privacy controls that have confounded many users. Facebook said the changes are based on user feedback — though it remains to be seen whether the shift will mean fewer surprises for people who have unintentionally shared party photos with their bosses.

As part of the changes, Facebook users will be able to select a privacy setting for each piece of content, such as photos or updates, that they share on the site — as they share it. The choices are "friends" only, "friends of friends" or "everyone." There is also an option to customize groups of friends for certain kinds of updates — such as "college buddies."

Jules Polonetsky, co-chairman and director at the Future of Privacy Forum think tank in Washington, praised how the process resembles the way people decide what to share in their day-to-day lives. He said putting the controls "when you need it, right there, is far better than putting it in a `privacy' or `help' location" somewhere on the site.

Facebook will be asking users to review and alter their settings through a tool that explains the changes. People will be able to either keep their old settings or take recommendations from Facebook that are largely based on how they have configured their information.

As promised, Facebook is also getting rid of its geographic networks, because many of them — take "New York" or "Australia" — have gotten too big. If users were previously part of such a geographic network, this location will now be listed in their profiles under "current city."

Other networks, for schools and workplaces, are staying.

The changes have no effect on advertising on the site, said Elliot Schrage, vice president of global communications and public policy at Facebook.

But he added that by giving users such granular control over the content they share, Facebook is encouraging more sharing and a greater connection to the site.

"If users feel more confident with our service, they will use our service more," he said. "And the more they use our services the more benefits we derive."

Will Facebook Go Public?

Wall Street Journal

Facebook Inc. took steps to solidify the control of founder Mark Zuckerberg and other existing shareholders in the event the social-networking company goes public.

The closely held Silicon Valley firm, emulating one of Google Inc.'s well-known strategies, established a dual-class stock structure that would increase the voting power of Mr. Zuckerberg, who is the company's chief executive, and other existing shareholders if they hold onto their shares during an IPO.

Facebook said Tuesday the move shouldn't be construed as a signal that the company is planning to go public, saying it has "no plans" to do so "at this time."

It said it is introducing the structure "because existing shareholders wanted to maintain control over voting on certain issues" and "focus on the long-term."

As part of the plan, Facebook will convert existing holdings to Class B stock, which carry 10 times the voting power of Class A stock, according to a person who has seen documents outlining the plan.

Those shares will remain Class B shares unless the owner sells them following an initial public offering, at which time they will become Class A shares, this person said.

Mr. Zuckerberg, who is 25 years old, has said in recent interviews that the company plans to go public eventually. If that happens—and existing investors hold onto their shares—the dual-class structure would enhance their control and make it easier to fend off unwanted suitors.

Mr. Zuckerberg, already the company's largest shareholder, has a percentage stake measured in double digits, according to people familiar with the matter. He already wields the most power among investors through board seats he controls.

Others with sizeable stakes include co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and Sean Parker, the company's founding president, along with early investor Peter Thiel and Accel Partners, a venture capital firm.

Facebook declined to comment on the ownership stakes.

The fast-growing company, which operates one of the most popular sites on the Web, said earlier this year it is generating positive cash flow and that revenue in 2009 is expected to be up more than 70% from 2008.

Mr. Zuckerberg has taken a number of steps to buy the company more time before going public, most recently allowing some employees to sell up to a million dollars in stock through a private buyback program. Under that program, Digital Sky Technologies purchased shares from Facebook employees at a price that valued the company at $6.5 billion.

If Facebook chooses to raise more money it is unclear whether the company would issue Class A or Class B shares or which currency it would use for potential acquisitions.

Facebook Changes May Benefit Brands

from Online Media Daily

Facebook on Wednesday laid out a "roadmap" for developers, outlining upcoming changes aimed at making it easier for users to find and use applications and help app creators build their business on the social network.

Among the key updates in store, Facebook will enable developers to ask for users' primary email address within applications to facilitate direct contact. At the same time, developers will only be able to send notifications and invitations via email, a user's Facebook Inbox or the News Feed and other activity streams.

New application and games dashboards are slated for the home page, making it easier for people to see the latest apps they have used as well as discovering new ones based on what friends are engaging in.

To provide easier access, the applications bookmarks will be moved from the bottom left side of any page on Facebook to a more prominent location on the left side of the home page. An "Ad Bookmark" button will also be created for apps.

Among broader changes in the works, Facebook will end its verification program for apps, instead applying the initiative's more rigorous standards to all apps. Facebook is also launching an "Open Graph" API (application protocol interface) so any Web page can, in effect, become a Facebook brand page -- users can become a fan of the page, and it will show up on that user's profile and in search results.

"This means that Facebook could become a more important distribution channel for publishers even if they don't have a Facebook Page -- which could be very powerful for both Facebook and publishers in general," noted Inside Facebook editor Justin Smith in a blog post Wednesday.

Other social media experts said the changes planned in the next six months could have far-reaching implications for brands, especially the Open Graph initiative. "This is a big change because it means Facebook is no longer a destination and the experience is spread to all kinds of places," said Jeremiah Owyang, a partner at digital consulting firm Altimeter Group. In that sense, Open Graph is a developer focused follow-up to Facebook Connect, the service that lets users log onto third-party sites using their Facebook account information.

Social marketing specialists also noted that the new developer rules open the door to email marketing and branding via Facebook. The ability to collect email addresses "is enormous for our brands and agencies because we will be able to create strategies around giving Facebook users ways to opt-in to share their primary email addresses with the brands," said Mike Lazerow, CEO of Buddy Media, which helps companies manage their social media presence.

He added that the step will bridge the gap between the more established technique of email marketing and newer approaches via social media. In a blog post Thursday, Facebook's Austin Haugen said the email practices the company is developing will be similar to signing up for or creating accounts on other Web services. "When you do so, those services can email you directly to confirm a purchase, or provide newsletters or updates for which you signed up," he wrote.

But he also emphasized the voluntary aspect of the new email feature for users: "Keep in mind that applications will never be given your email address unless you explicitly grant them permission, and like other websites you can always choose to unsubscribe if the service is no longer of value."

Facebook has had a series of privacy stumbles from the Beacon program, informing friends about users' purchases on other sites, to its terms of service controversy, where it was forced to revise its rules after appearing to claim perpetual ownership of material posted to the site.

The company separately Thursday posted an updated privacy policy as part of the public comment process it adopted for all new Facebook governance policies it adopted in April following the TOS controversy. As with the revised terms, the latest version of Facebook's privacy rules are intended to do away with legalese in favor of plain language and greater clarity.

The Facebook Backlash Continues

From PC World

Facebook's latest interface tweaks make the default feed more like it was before the last major home page overhaul, but the changes aren't without some issues, and they have sparked some backlash among Facebook users.

Facebook gave its home page a makeover … again. On Oct. 23, the social networking site quietly rolled out some fairly significant changes to the way information is displayed on users' home page. The updates make the default feed more like it was before the last major home page overhaul, but the changes aren't without some issues, and they have sparked some backlash among Facebook users.

The Good

When Facebook changed the home page earlier this year, it went to a more Twitterlike feed of real-time status updates. Basically, every status update from your network of friends is displayed as it is entered, without any filtering.

I have bad news for those whose day gets ruined when Facebook doesn't look the same: It will continue to change. Everything does.

The new Facebook home page News Feed brings relevance back to the main feed. Rather than displaying everything from everyone, the News Feed uses an algorithm to display only the posts and status updates that your network is interested in. The more likes, comments or interactions a post within your network has, the more likely it will appear in your News Feed.

Robert Scoble, a technology evangelist and social networking guru, described the change on his blog: "This makes Facebook much more useful because you only see the items that your friends have found important enough to comment on or 'touch' in some way. Overnight my news feed went from something that looked pretty cold and lame to something that has tons of ‘warmth.'"

The changes, which merge the Highlights back into the News Feed, also allow for the Events box in the right panel to move higher on the page. That is great news to me because, frankly I never saw it with the previous design, so it has been months since I have known if it was someone's birthday today.

The Bad

The complete real-time stream still exists, but now it's called the Live Feed. While you are viewing the default News Feed, a bubble next to the Live Feed link keeps a running tally of the number of posts you're missing in the Live Feed.

You can click over and view the real-time stream. One problem, though, is that the Live Feed continues to refresh as new posts are entered. Each time that happens, the screen changes focus and you have to scroll to figure out where you were when your reading got interrupted. Facebook needs to figure out how to stream the updates without refreshing the screen or changing focus while you're reading.

The new News Feed also has created a problem. You have your network of friends on Facebook because those are the people you are interested in networking with. But, because Facebook displays the comments from your friends, as well as comments from their friends, you end up with comments from users you are not networked with and excess noise to read through.

Scoble points out: "Twitter, on the other hand, doesn't have comments. So you can't easily have a back-and-forth conversation about something like you can over on FriendFeed or Facebook. But it has a HUGE advantage: I only see items from people I invited to get on my home screen."

The Backlash

It seems inevitable that any change in the way Facebook displays information is met almost instantly with some sort of organized backlash. It is both ironic and apropos that users leverage the social network, using Fan Pages and Groups, to organize grassroots uprisings to complain about Facebook changes they don't like.

The backlash seems to boil down to users who simply don't like change. It doesn't matter if the change is good or bad, what matters is that it forces them to alter the way they use and interact with Facebook and they don't appreciate having a new learning curve. There are also some legitimate issues as well, though, like those I pointed out above.

The thing is, with more than 300 million users, you can't please everyone. Facebook says the changes were made based on feedback from users and possibly in response to the organized grassroots backlash from the last home page update. Many users like the new changes, but more than half a million have already joined the group CHANGE FACEBOOK BACK TO NORMAL!!

The changes made by Facebook make the default stream "cozier" and foster more interaction. The Live Feed is good, too, but displaying the posts that are getting the most attention within the network helps engage more users in the conversation or get more users to connect and participate rather than just reading the status updates as they stream (quickly) past.

I have bad news for those whose day gets ruined when Facebook doesn't look the same: It will continue to change. Everything does. Social networking in particular is a rapidly evolving medium, and entities like Facebook and Twitter are aggressively trying to stay ahead of the curve and define how people use social networking.

Facebook Makes New Changes, Controversy Erupts

PC Mag

Facebook on Friday again revamped its homepage, getting rid of its "Highlights" section and instead creating separate tabs for the news feed and real-time events.

When users sign into their accounts, they can select to view either the "News feed" tab or the "Live Feed" tab. The news feed will feature items Facebook believes are of most value to you, while the live feed will list everything that is going on with your friends.

"News Feed picks stories that we think you'll enjoy based on a variety of factors including how many friends have liked and commented on it and how likely you are to interact with that story," Facebook wrote in a blog post.

If you're on the news feed tab, the live feed tab will keep track of how many new posts have been added, much like how the most recent news feed notified you when new posts were added.

Facebook also re-added things to the news feed, like when friends are tagged in photos, when friends become fans of pages or join a group, when they RSVP to events, and when they add friends.

Facebook did away with the Highlights section "to be sure you don't miss other interesting content." The social networking site first introduced the feature during a March re-design that saw a lot of user backlash, though most redesigns have had their critics. The real-time news feed was added in May.

"Some of you may ask why we are changing the home page again. Like you, we know it can be disruptive when things are moved around, but we hope that these changes make Facebook a more valuable experience for you," Facebook said. "We put a lot of thought into all the changes we make to the site and do a lot of testing before releasing anything."