Tag Archives | social networking

MySpace User Data For Sale

Posted by David Worthington on March 16, 2010 at 10:07 pm

Social networking just became a little riskier to your privacy. Information from MySpace is now for sale to third parties ranging from academics and analysts to marketers.

The data will include any activity or information that is attached to an account. That includes blog posts, location, photos, reviews, and status updates–among others. InfoChimps, an Austin Texas company that collects and sells structured data, is selling the data.

Of course, MySpace is perfectly within its rights to work with Infochimps, because it legally owns the data and the server logs. Users wave their right to privacy in exchange for free Web hosting and access to its social features. “Free” comes at a cost. Here’s snippet of what “they” know about you.

This is exactly the type of scenario that Eben Moglen, a Columbia University law professor and founder of the Software Freedom Law Center warned of at a seminar about privacy in cloud computing last month. Except I wouldn’t have imagined that MySpace would be one of the really aggressive purveyors of personal data.

In his talk, Moglen advocated for the development of peer-to-peer social networks where users retain ownership of their data. His suggestion is looking more appealing (and prophetic) now that one of the biggest names in social networking has sold out its users’ privacy.

[NOTE: The original version of this story stated that MySpace was selling data; in fact, Infochimps is the seller, through a revenue-sharing agreement with MySpace. MySpace has released the following statement:

MySpace is not selling user data to Infochimps. MySpace provides developers, including companies such as Infochimps, with free access to publicly available real-time data (such as status updates, music, photos, videos) using our Real Time Stream feed. We have identified the need for third-party developers who can’t handle the size of our full feed to still have access to the data in a different format.  For this reason Infochimps is offering developers a pre-packaged version of our Real Time Stream, as a value-added service.

More information is available at Infochimps’ blog.]

4 comments

Twitter to be Available @Anywhere

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 16, 2010 at 5:46 am

Rumor had it that Twitter was going to unveil its advertising strategy and platform at cofounder Ev Williams’ keynote yesterday at the South by Southwest conference in Austin. Wrong! Instead, Williams announced something called @anywhere. The Twiter blog post on @anywhere isn’t terribly explicit about what it is, but it’s at least a rough equivalent of Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect–a way for third-party sites to hook themselves into Twitter so that folks’ Twitter identities follow them across the Web.

@anywhere disperses the Twitter experience via Hovercards–the mini user profiles that pop up on Twitter itself–and site proprietors will be able to add it easily via JavaScript rather than through a more complex API. Williams didn’t mention when it would debut, but the blog post says “soon” and lists some impressive launch partners: Amazon, AdAge, Bing, Citysearch, Digg, eBay, The Huffington Post, Meebo, MSNBC.com, The New York Times, Salesforce.com, Yahoo!, and YouTube.

More on this as Twitter discloses more details. I’m intrigued, at least–both as a Twitter user and as a publisher who might be interested in adding @anywhere to my site…

One comment

More Google Buzz Tweaks

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 12, 2010 at 11:42 am

One of Google Buzz’s major selling points is supposed to be its tight integration with Gmail. Over at Cnet, Stephen Shankland is reporting that Google is fiddling with the feature that ties them together. Users will have more control over when they get Buzz updates via e-mail, and it’ll be clearer why a particular Buzz item is showing up.

Google says it’s making the changes in response to feedback that Buzz is too noisy. Me, I don’t feel like I’m being inundated with Buzz–but I’m not sure why I’m getting the Buzzes I’m getting, and I wish it were easier to figure out what they are right from the inbox, without having to open them up…

3 comments

A Web Site is No Longer Enough

Posted by David Worthington on February 26, 2010 at 2:48 pm

The way in which we interact with technology has changed dramatically over the past few years. The era of light computing has begun, and social media is big enough that the average person can shape perceptions. A Web site is no longer the most meaningful way for us to interact to tell companies about their products or to use online services.

Smartphones are selling in droves, and people are using apps rather than visiting Web sites for everything from buying movie tickets to checking stocks. At any given time, it is likely that conversations about big businesses are happening on Facebook, Twitter and other social media, and those conversations can be initiated by anyone from anywhere.

Continue Reading →

9 comments

A Better Technologizer Presence on Facebook

Posted by Harry McCracken on February 24, 2010 at 6:07 pm

If you’ve ever hung out with me at Twitter (where I’m harrymccracken), you know that it’s a kind of extension of Technologizer–an ongoing conversation among 16,000 people that’s mostly about tech-related matters. And if you ever joined Technologizer’s Facebook Group, you may have noticed that it’s…kind of quiet. Very quiet, in fact. Aside from the occasional note from me or another member, there hasn’t been much going on there.

Which is why we’re retiring the Technologizer group on Facebook and launching something much better: a Facebook page at http://facebook.com/technologizer. (I don’t completely understand why Facebook maintains a distinction between groups and pages, but pages are much more flexible and powerful.) Our page will be a central clearinghouse for Technologizer-related stuff: It’ll have links to every story here, plus all of my tweets, and you can comment on them or share them right there if you feel like it, or post a new question or idea on our wall. It’s also got some photos from our live events, plus discussion boards. Basically, it’s the sort of presence we always wanted but couldn’t implement in the group, and we plan to add more features as time goes on.

Three hundred folks have already joined the page during our quiet beta period. I hope you’ll join them by visiting us on Facebook and clicking the Become a Fan button. See you there…

One comment

The Buzz on Google Buzz

Posted by Harry McCracken on February 21, 2010 at 9:46 pm

(Here’s another column I wrote for FoxNews.com. This one attempts to explain Google Buzz’s pros and cons to non-geeks.)

From Facebook to MySpace to Twitter to LinkedIn and beyond, the Web circa early 2010 is a surging sea of social networks. The last thing it needs is yet another one to discover, join, and use. Especially since any social network is only interesting if the people you care about are also active members.

But what if someone took the Internet’s original social network — the pals, family members, coworkers and acquaintances in your e-mail address book — and turned it into a Twitterlike way to quickly share your whereabouts, thoughts, links, photos, and more, either publicly or privately?

Enter Google Buzz, which the Web behemoth rolled out last week. Rather than starting out as an all-new service, Buzz is debuting as a feature inside Gmail, making it instantly available to tens of millions of people. Gmail users get a link right under their inbox, letting them post to Buzz and peruse others’ activity right from within Gmail’s familiar environs. Interacting with people you’re already in touch with via e-mail is especially easy.

Continue Reading →

6 comments

Outlook Gets LinkedIn (and I Get Frustrated)

Posted by Harry McCracken on February 18, 2010 at 12:39 am

Last November, Microsoft announced an add-on for Outlook called the Social Connector. At first, it only worked with new social networking features in the company’s SharePoint 2010 intranet platform. On Tuesday, it got interesting even for Outlook users who aren’t on SharePoint, as Microsoft and LinkedIn announced LinkedIn for Outlook, which uses the Social Connector to weave together the Outlook and LinkedIn experiences. (Microsoft says that similar features for Facebook and MySpace are on their way.)

Continue Reading →

2 comments