Oops, Facebook did it again. It’s a repeated mantra, but this time it seems like Zuckerberg is on to big things. It was a red letter day for the Facebook team as they unveiled development updates at the f8 conference in San Fran. Facebook has officially hit 800 million users. These users continue to become more and more business oriented so it should be interesting to see what Google‘s next move is in an effort to keep up. Here’s your crash course on what will change and be updated in the coming days and weeks:

1) Consider your timeline very similar to a scrapbook. You’ll have a real-time stream of information about you. Everything about you. Since day one. It encourages users to post baby pictures and information about their past. Timeline will eventually become the default profile page. You can customize content to show the most interesting aspects of your life.

2) Say bye to “like.” Say hello to verb-ing any noun you please. Facebook calls it “Gestures,” turning any verb into a button. Share what book you’re reading, what movie you’re watching, what tune you’re jamming to. Oversharing at its finest. I can’t wait.

3) Get ready to spend far more time on Facebook enjoying other forms of media. Thanks to some pretty prime partnerships, you now have the ability to watch shows, listen to songs or peruse the news. Your “Ticker” will keep track of what content your friends are enjoying in a list on the side of your screen.

4) You will no longer how to worry about how your friend’s farms are doing. Their Facebook ones anyway. All application related feed info has been banished to the “Ticker.”

Interactive marketers, get excited. Facebook’s share in the marketing mix continues to grow. Let the games begin as we figure out how to leverage the new changes.

Related articles

• Facebook F8 Wrapup: Timeline, Ticker, GraphRank for Users & Marketers (searchenginewatch.com)
• A Guide To Facebook’s New Changes: Timeline, Ticker & Social Apps (buzz103.radio.com)
• Facebook Open Graph Seeks to Deliver Real-Time Serendipity (mashable.com)
• F8: Live Blogging The Keynote (searchengineland.com)

I heart Facebook. This morning I awoke to Yet Another Facebook Innovation (YAFI). Facebook amazes me because they are driven to make things easier for me — or at least give it a go. Facebook is willing to suffer constant backlash in order to improve usability and efficiency. Case-in-point below:

In this particular case, the innovation is what I call a “Twitterish” innovation — stealing something directly from Twitter. A couple weeks ago, I stayed up until 12:01AM to secure another hype-drenched Twitterish innovation: vanity URLS: facebook.com/chrisabraham — I am such a sucker!

However, Facebook is an equal-opportunity thief and also quite creative as well. Next innovation inspired by Utterli, FriendFeed, or LinkedIn?  Who knows!

I hate to admit it but I am used to lazy web applications.  I am used to apps like Flickr, Delicious, Craigslist, Ebay, MySpace, Twitter, and YouTube — sites that are pretty much the same as they were when they were born. Facebook, on the other hand, innovates almost constantly. In fact, Facebook tends to innovate so aggressively that there are millions of members who constantly picket Facebook to revert itself to the way it was when it was a college-only service. The reason why most apps don’t innovate is because of this vocal minority — the change-averse.

Another thing I love about Facebook is that they’re not wed to their innovations.  When Facebook Beacon pissed off the world, they scaled it back. The developers at Facebook are smart — land grab with ten new innovations, throw them agains the Wall, and then see what people adopt and then, over time, remove the fails.

Facebook is willing to spitball, Facebook is willing to steal ideas shamelessly from other platforms, and Facebook is willing to fail fast and move on.  That’s what you’re supposed to do!  That’s why I love Facebook.

MySpace is running out of surveys that still place it as the #1 social network in the US. After yielding the position to Facebook earlier this month in stats released by Compete, today, the social network slips to second place in the latest numbers from Nielsen Online.

According to data from January, Facebook saw 62.4 million unique visitors, besting MySpace and its 60.6 million uniques for the first time in the survey. At the end of 2008, MySpace still held a narrow lead, with 58.4 million unique visitors in December compared to Facebook’s 55.2 million.

As for those engagement numbers that MySpace likes to cling to? It can no longer claim a lead there either – engagement fell to one hour, 35 minutes per user in January, down 32 percent from last year and barely more than half of Facebook’s two hours, 50 minutes per user.

We’ve been documenting the ascent of Facebook versus MySpace on a monthly (if not more frequent) basis, but for some longer-term perspective, check out this post from mid-2007 to see just how big a shift this represents. Back then, MySpace claimed 3x more traffic, 3x more engagement, and claimed to not only be America’s most popular social network, but its most popular website.

Via Chris Abraham

As I said yesterday, All Your Data is Belong to Us, Says Facebook, Facebook was bound to renig on its Terms of Service; however, I was wrong, believing that Facebook would take three hills and then return two — it looks like Facebook decided, rightfully, that when the New York Times and CNN jump all over you on MSM, you had better return all three of the hills:

Over the past few days, we have received a lot of feedback about the new terms we posted two weeks ago. Because of this response, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues that people have raised. For more information, visit the Facebook Blog.

If you want to share your thoughts on what should be in the new terms, check out our group Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.

(Via Chris Abraham)

I received a call from CNN news this morning asking for my sage insight into the issue that Facebook has changed its Terms of Service (ToS) to expand its ownership of data to include your first born.  Well, I didn’t have any time this morning to know much about it so I was no good to Amanda over at Turner.  Well, I am finally back to my desk and I did all of my reading.  If you want to learn more, read Mashable,  Consumerist and the New York Times for more information.  Here’s the evil excerpt of the new Facebook ToS for your appalled amusement — hurts so good!:

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

I know how Facebook works.  What Facebook does, historically, is make an assault on three privacy hills fully expecting to have to return one or two.  This was illustrated by the initially over-aggressive privacy invasion posed by Facebook Beacon, Here’s Why Facebook Beacon is Uncool for User Privacy, which ended up being mellowed in response to outrage (see, they took three hills and really only gave back one — this is their strategy).

This is what Facebook is doing again.  They’re demanding Copyright of all of your consumer-generated content and media through their new ToS; however, I bet you they’re going to do a little Mea Maxima Culpa “the lawyers made us do it” bullshit before loosening it all up.

Mark my words, this is how it is going to work from now on.  And, based on how addicted all of the student I met today at UMD are, I daresay that Facebook might very well be able to keep possession of all three hills this time.  We’re all addicted.  We’ll do anything for our Facebook!

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(Via Mashable,  Consumerist, New York Times & Chris Abraham)

Can a “Life Changing Box” change your life? In this case it can! I am currently working on a project for an unnamed client (soon to be revealed) called “Life Changing Box.”

Life Changing Box is a very interesting concept – there are two parts – the teaser site and the Facebook game/application.

The teaser site, http://www.lifechangingbox.com/ is set up to allow people to guess what is inside the box. My daughter is very impressed with the box and actually just came and asked me if we can play guess what’s in the box. If you guess correctly (and there are lots of keywords which will work), the box does a cool animation. Try TV, Solar, Baseball, Japan, air. The object of the teaser site is to intrigue you to figure out who the client is and what the prizes are for the Facebook game.

The Facebook portion of this campaign is believed to be a first of it’s kind game/application for Facebook with real prizes. So the basics of the game are you install the LCB application onto your FB profile.

Then everyday (it only lasts a month) you click the “touch to play” on your profile then it will take you to a page where 10 random people are “holding” a box. These people have already touched a box and it’s jumped to them. You get 24 touches in a day to touch the boxes that people are currently holding. The boxes only stay on a person for a random amount of time (30 minutes to hours) and you want the box to jump to you, because when it opens you win whatever prize is inside. It’s kind of like hot potato or musical chairs except you want the potato or music to stop on you. The boxes have some amazing prizes in them and your chances of winning are pretty darn good. The other cool thing is whoever you invite to play- if it opens for them – then you win the prize and they win the prize. So you really want to invite as many friends to play as you can to increase your chances of winning.

I wish I was eligible for some of these prizes :). I am allowed to play, however, if I or anyone working on the campaign wins the prize, money of the prize value will be donated to charity.

Last fall I was hit by the double whammy of hearing about the Facebook Beacon drama while at the same time having my Facebook experience being turned into getting bitten by Werewolves, being asked to join mundane groups, and then noticing absolutely no activity on those groups that I was actually eager to join. The allure of Facebook wore off as easily as it had captured me.

That’s because, at least in my opinion, the creators of Facebook, didn’t make the right adjustments in what would best be described as user experience as they perhaps should have. Perhaps that would have been to difficult to accomplish, but I do think it had an overall negative effect.

And the whole Beacon thing infuriated me. Who the hell was Facebook – and their retail partners – to jointly decide they would let my friends on Facebook know what I just purchased?

Now with MyDataIsMyData around, and with the fact I’m both using and meeting others for business purposes, Facebook is making a comeback. I’ll never trust it, and I’ll use it more judiciously, it’s finally back on my radar.

Last fall, when the calamities of Facebook’s Beacon program became public, I was pissed. The fact that Beacon partners would capture and then share with Facebook an individual’s personal, private purchases and make them public without the individual’s prior knowledge let alone consent was one of the most egregious forms of legal online privacy violations that I had ever heard of. While they have improved their privacy options, Facebook still pulled a fast one. Instead of asking for permission first, they went right ahead and committed a foul and then apologized…and only moved a quarter of the way back in the correct direction.

Well, with any luck, they’ve been moved back a little further. Thanks to MyDataIsMyData.org and our client Flugpo.com, and, frankly, the folks here at Abraham Harrison, a new plug is being developed – it’s in beta phase right now – to combat the intrusiveness of Beacon.

Here’s a link for more information.

The plug-in is free and it is essentially a “Beacon cookie deleter” that gives people all sorts of options (I love that word) as to what to delete. Facebook cookies, Facebook Beacon partner’s cookies, or any other type of cookie for that matter. It will also notify you when you make a visit to a Beacon partner. That’s important, because what we don’t know may come back to hurt us.

This free plug-in (found at MyDataIsMyData.org)is a toolbar that will allow users several different options to monitor and delete cookies, offline content, and track visits to Facebook Beacon collaborator companies. Once downloaded, the toolbar allows users to decide how often he or she would like certain cookies deleted. The user can choose to delete Facebook cookies and Facebook Beacon collaborator companies’ cookies. It also includes the option to delete all cookies at once or none at all.

Flugpo. an Abraham Harrison client, is an online social network in itself. It describes itself as a cross between MySpace and CraigsList. It features user profiles, yet it has a significant “classified” capability where people can buy and sell things or list jobs.

Mashable wrote up a piece about it yesterday.:

While there are already a number of privacy options inserted into Facebook, and even more services out there that will rid you of cookie problems all together, Facebook Beacon’s mainstream press presence in itself may help My Data is My Data gain a good amount of users based on principle alone.

As did TechCrunch:

The MyDataIsMyData plug-in notifies users via their browser toolbar when Facebook or one of Beacon’s participating affiliates creates or accesses these cookies. The plug-in can automatically delete these cookies at regular intervals, and also allows for users to individually select which (if any) sites will still function with Beacon. Finally, the toolbar will feature a constantly-updated list of sites that participate in Beacon, allowing users to boycott them, should they choose to do so. MyDataIsMyData will soon be available for Internet Exporer, and plans to expand to offer functionality for both Firefox and Macintosh-based browsers.

If you think this isn’t needed, I’ll come back and say that the MyDataisMyData plugin gives people more control…a very good thing. And if there are other options out there that may do some things similar, who is to say that another option is not needed? Let the virtual marketplace decide.

Suddenly, I’m not as pissed as I used to be about Facebook Beacon.

TechCrunch

Before we started working with Flugpo to develop the My Data Is My Data plug-in I didn’t give the Beacon controversy over at Facebook much thought. The more I looked into it though, the more disappointed I got with the way Facebook has begun to run their show. I don’t do much online shopping aside from tons and tons of books and horse supplies. So my friends didn’t get any swanky little Beacon-sponsored endorsement messages from me saying how much I love to use Blockbuster or Amazon.com but it seems enough people heard that their friends did get those messages, and were upset/outraged enough about it to get Facebook and Beacon to cut that crap out. So now the visible aspect of Facebook and its partners mining my personal information has disappeared but they’re still spying on my account and gathering up information to sell for profit. So that all those people who want to sell me things can target me that much better.

Sure the way of the world is that advertising is getting more and more tuned to the individuals wants, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that I have to accept every aspect of my SNS experience being monetized. This is why I’m pretty pumped about the new My Data plug-in we’ve just put the finishing touches on. It is going to allow me to track what is going on with Facebook Beacon, my cookies, my JavaScript, and Facebook’s advertising partners. Since it runs on IE I’ve basically designated IE as my Facebook and shopping browser (if I ever do have to go and buy something anywhere other than http://www.doversaddlery.com ) since I use Firefox for most everything else. That way when I sign on I know the My Data Is My Data toolbar can track what’s going, let me know when I’m using a Facebook partner website, and keep my cookies MY COOKIES. Just like those delicious chocolate chips I would bring to lunch in elementary school and everyone would want to grab. I don’t want to share!! I’m a little selfish when it comes to my private information.

We have been working with the gang over at Flugpo to put together a plug-in for Internet Explorer (IE) for Windows that will allow folks to be able to track what is going on with Facebook Beacon, your cookies, your JavaScript, and Facebook’s advertising partners. Thing is, it isn’t out of private alpha yet so if you’re interested, please join either the Flugpo MyDataisMyData group or the Facebook My Data is My Data group and we’ll let you know when it’s up! Via Memes.org and the Social Media News Room.

What is My Data is My Data?

• MyDataisMyData.org empowers users of social network sites by giving the user control over the personal information an SNS can surreptitiously collect and sell.
• Flugpo.com, an SNS that never has and never will collect or sell private information about its users, sponsored the development of a plug-in that will be available through MyDataIsMyData.org

Why Was My Data is My Data Created?

• MyDataIsMyData.org was created as a direct response to Facebook Beacon.
• Beacon is Facebook’s way of making a profit from your private information by selling it to online retailers (such as Amazon.com or Blockbuster)
• When Beacon was first introduced, whenever a Facebook user purchased something with one of the participating online retailers, a message would be sent to the users “friends” on Facebook notifying them of the his or her endorsement of the retailer

Facebook and its Advertisers are Spying on You Right Now

• Although Facebook has stopped publicizing their users personal information on purchases to their Facebook friends, it has not stopped spying on its users and selling their personal information for profit
• MyDataIsMyData.org wants to help the user be aware of which retailers are using this method of data collection so he or she can choose to avoid those retailers

Take Back Your Privacy with the My Data is My Data Plug-In

• The free plug-in is a toolbar that will allow users several different options to monitor and delete Cookies, offline content and track visits to Facebook Beacon collaborator companies.
• Once equipped with the plug-in, the user decides how often he or she would like certain Cookies deleted. The user can choose to delete Facebook cookies, Facebook Beacon collaborator companies’ cookies, both, all cookies, or none. The user may also choose to delete all or no offline content at various time intervals. The user can set up the toolbar to notify him or her of visits to Facebook Beacon collaborator website. It will also feature a drop-down list of these collaborators updated on a daily basis through the MyDataIsMyData.org website.

Protect your Own Privacy…and Help Other Victims Do the Same

• The features MyDataIsMyData.org is offering are meant to protect users privacy and allow them to be more conscious of the way their private information is being used. The plug-in is a work in progress and we need your feedback, bug reports and suggestions to make it better.
• Support for users of the toolbar will be provided though a forum on Flugpo.com.

About Flugpo

• Flugpo was developed to be a place where people can go to make friends, share photos, network professionally, share ideas, buy and sell items & list and locate jobs. As an online resource for eveyday people, Flugpo creates opportunities for businesses to promote their services. Aside from the professional aspect, Flugpo is a great community for people to make new friends, share common interests and reach out to like-minded individuals and discuss current topics, review top movies and share stories.
• Flugpo is often referred to as “Myspace meets Craigslist” by their staff and members. Created in the 2007, Flugpo takes an interesting approach to classified listings by eliminating the anonymity features found with Craigslist and allowing the members to connect with one another. “The classifeds, as the world knows them now has no community, said David Metz, founder of Flugpo. Each classified posting is linked to the profile of the member posting the ad. Given the current landscape of Internet safety, Flugpo is quick to address safety concerns by connecting all classified listings with a “face and name.”
• To learn more visit www.flugpo.com or email David Metz, CEO, at davidmetz@flugpo.com

Two articles caught my eye earlier this week.

One was an AdAge article entitled “So Much for Engagement; Buys Are Still Based on Eyes”. It talked about a recent study by Advertiser Perceptions. Marketers and media buyers are looking to spend more and more dollars online. That’s because their first and foremost metric is reach – and that’s were people are going today. Online. But they see it more as a results oriented medium and are not doing it for engagement purposes as they don’t perceive that the online is good for engagement. This study was based on a survey of 2047 marketers and their media buyers.

The second one was a press release of a report put out by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council. It described how measurable ROI is becoming an increasingly important factor for marketers as they transform dollars online. Accountabilty is of prime importance as marketers look to measure the value of the programs they’ve created and the investments they’ve made. A result of this trend in 2007 was the relative high turnover of the agencies used – ad, web design, and PR – to carry out these programs. The reasons for the severing of relationships was often tied into “lack of innovation” and “no value-added thinking”. Hmm…

ROI is often hard to prove in social media marketing. While most forms of marketing involve some sort of relationship building, social media marketing is almost completely based upon it. It’s effectiveness is not measured in short term or fixed period metrics – the heart of ROI, but long-term difficult-to-measure attributes related to brand affinity and customer lifetime value. It’s all qualitative analysis and not quantitative analysis.

If it’s true that companies are going to be spending more and more online with a greater focus on sustaining measurable ROI, then it doesn’t bode well for social media types if we have a recession that many are predicting.

Francois Gossieaux, in Emergence Marketing, makes an excellent point in refuting the heavy emphasis on ROI in marketing, period.

“by measuring ROI on discreet processes (i.e., a specific lead generation campaign), which most companies who measure ROI do, companies are reducing marketing to a collection of simple linear processes, when in reality it is a complex multi-variable and non-linear system. So by oversimplifying marketing to make it measurable, many companies will actually break marketing more so than it already is.”

Marketers have often complained – justifiably so in my opinion – of how marketing is often devalued within their organization. It can be viewed as a cost as opposed to an investment. The push for ROI to justify spend means that they could choose strategies and tactics that 1) they are most familiar with and 2) are the most measurable.

An amazing paragraph from the AdAge article reads:

So which medium is the most engaging? Survey respondents said it’s print — yet ranked print lowest for delivering results. Online was ranked lowest for engagement but highest for results, while TV was ranked in the middle for both results and engagement.

Let’s check this out…marketers are increasing their online spend because that’s where the people are. Online is the most interactive medium and by extension of that should be the best for engagement but marketers (and probably ad agencies) see it as the worst. Marketers now see it as being the best for results (the “R” in ROI) along with perhaps reach. This would seemingly say that they don’t yet value the various aspects of social media marketing.

And not only that, but print, the medium that’s both losing its share of ad spend and is considered to be the worst for results is considered to be the best for engagement by these very same marketers. WTF?

It’s no secret that many traditional marketers and media buyers see the online arena through their traditionalist eyes. We see evidence of that all the time. Facebook’s Beacon and Social Ads are recent examples of that. Fake attempts to tie into word of mouth. Facebook is hot. Lots of eyeballs lets do it. We’ll be hip and it’s “pushing the envelope”. It’s likely traditional types are trying to please whomever they answer to.

Mack Collier pointed out how in a conversation we had from his post “Companies Remain in the Shadow of the Blogosphere”:

“but I think many companies and their PR firms still see most blogs as having an audience of about 4 people, all family members of the author. I think that’s why you are seeing them treat the highly-trafficked blogs, the Tech Crunchs, as media sources. But for 99% of blogs, they don’t care and don’t understand why they should.”

He’s right. And that’s unfortunate. But the odd thing is that the key decision makers – marketing executives – are likely in their eternal search for ROI are hurting their efforsts for long term success by view the online arena as ineffective for engagement. And then by either choosing traditional minded ad agencies (and then complaining that they lack innovation) or by stifling the creativity of less traditional and more innovative agencies (by an unnecessary focus on immediate ROI) they are shooting themselves in BOTH feet.

Hi folks I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s in store for the future in all the things we talk about. Here are my thoughts. Oh, this is from Jonathan Trenn, not Chris Abraham.

Here we go in no particular order:

1) Businesses finally begin to make their marketing departments digital ready as they realize their customer are using media quite differently from what they were doing just five years ago.

But they’ll find that there’s no easy answers as that media usage is now completely dispersed. Many of these attempts will have traditional types run the outfit and they’ll try to implement old methods online. Others will be led by “new marketers” who’ve swallowed too much Kool Aid and they’ll forget that, yes, people still watch TV and read newspapers.

Business to business marketing (BtoB) will begin to adapt principles of social media that will be surprisingly successful as, lo and behold, personal relationships and the quality of them are important in business decision making.

2) Restricted invite only conferences begin to appear for senior traditional marketing types.

We can start to see this happening with the establishment of the Blog Council. Most of the conferences that go on when it comes to the online arena are attended by insiders – marketers, strategists, geeks, vendors. Traditional types will start to attend them but there soon will be conferences pop up that will be primarily for them. We’ll see restricted invitations…you can get in if you’re not a traditional type, but there has to be a pretty good reason. Why? Because the organizers and attendees don’t want to be hit on by a bunch of consultants and vendors.

3) There will be at least three major social media marketing mistakes that will get major attention. One of them will likely involve a major political candidate or a major advocacy group.

One of these will involve a company that overestimates the concept of ‘community’ and violates what Tangerine Toad calls “Your Brand Is Not My Friend”. (He’s spot on by the way). This means that the company will either try to “engage” a loosely connected group of people that the company will mistake as a community and they’ll treat them as if they are all enthusiasts of whatever product/service the company puts out. Or they’ll treat all of the people as if they’re of the same mentality.

A second will involve, just as we saw with Facebook Beacon, a company trying to monetize a community that they’ve put together too soon and/or too clumsily, causing a lot of heartburn. This will probably happen more than once. In fact, it could probably happen a lot. Especially with the lifespan of CMOs hovering about 19 months. CEOs and stockholders may not have the patience.

The political one will involve some moron who is too enthusiastic about his or her candidate or issue. They’ll use insulting language toward the other side. Happens every campaign cycle.

4) Facebook or LinkedIn or someone will create a more ‘adult’ social networking site.

There will be less thowing of sheep, less describing how you met someone by “hooking up”. The site will have more privacy and appear to be more professional, but it will still have fun features. More fun that LinkedIn.

5) A yet to be created social networking site will be created that will appeal to decision makers.

This may actually be divided into regional/industry categories as well. The platform could be white label or perhaps a business media outlet could be the one creating them. Trade and professional associations could partner with the host company. Trade associations themselves will begin building social networking sites for their members.

6) A company will create a suite of web-based social networking software that will include a blogging platform, photo editing, video producing and editing, podcasting, etc.

The different parts will be compatible from scratch. I’ll probably still have problems trying to figure it out but most of you will do just fine. (I may be contacting some of you for advice.) But it will mean no more downloading of several all of these cool things for social media rockstars. Our blogs will start to be more like Matt Dickman’s.

Group blogs will proliferate as well as, well, groups of (in our case) marketers/social media types work together to keep more continually updated content.

7) Jeremiah Owyang will get his 10,000,000th follower on Twitter. In 2010, he’ll be elected governor of California. On the Social Media ticket.

And in 2016, he’ll be elected president. He’ll be sworn in by Chief Justice NewMediaJim. The Speaker of the House will be a “Mr. Brogan from Massachusetts”. All members of the same party.

8 Speaking of elections, 2008 will be the (hopefully) last tradtional broadcast-TV focused presidential election

Despite some real breakthroughs, most political digital types have yet to be given a seat at the table. That’s because many campaign pros have are pompous asses with big egos who are in fact terrified of doing anything new and will always choose TV first. Mainly because that’s how they make money. They will primarily see the internets, those series of tubes, as a means to get cash from us from online fundraising. As I pointed out in a previous post, Mitt Romney’s team aired 5000 commercials in the first nine months of 2007. Mike Huckabee aired zero. Now Huckabee is ahead in the polls, thanks in large part to grassroots activists. Barack Obama should take note of that.

9) The 2008 election, barring a major event between now and next November, will be a lot closer than most people think.

The Democrats can’t afford to get too cocky. Presidential elections are often close. It could come down to the aforementioned activist groups taking the initiative to organize, educate,and get out the vote in certain swing states. Could be anti-war types on the left or conservative Christians on the right. And they may just pull it off for someone.

10) SEO and Defensive SEO becomes ingrained in the mind of the CEO

That’s because we get our information of products, services, company reputation, etc. from search. Or forums. Or social networks. A press release with the CEO saying “we screwed up” shouldn’t be enough anymore. This will become big business.

11) Conversion attribution becomes a big bone of contention.

What is conversion attribution? It sort of goes like this. When we buy something for the first time, it is often because we’ve been inluenced by several marketing messages from different channels. In the online arena, with often little measurable sense of exactly what made someone buy, but an (almost) exact sense of where someone came from (a search? a banner?) conversion attribution. It basically is the call for the revenue from an ecommerce transaction to be dispersed amongst the marketing channels according to some sort of formulaic attribution system of that tries to weigh the influence of each channel. It makes sense in theory but, to me, is mostly a crock in practice. It’s proponents argue that the ‘last click thru’ shouldn’t get all the credit for the sale.

But a lot of money is at stake and there’s gong to be a demand to share. You can be on it. There may be wars over this one.

12) Search engines develop deeper widget capabilities as Open Social blossoms

I don’t fully don’t understand all this, but if widgets make the search experience better and it can be transferred throughout the internet, then I bet it happens. Once it does, I’ll be able to explain it better. Anyone?

13) More and more broadcast and cable networks will look to develop miniseries that are only shown online. Most will fail.

As more and more of us move our media habits online, big media will follow. But overall, we’re a fickle bunch and despite some good efforts, many will fail initially. Lack of audience, ad models, viewer experience. All will pose some problems and big media will not have enough patience.

14) Women will be a major force in the success of social networking

More often than not, men are early adapters, while women are more cautious. But women seem to use the internet more for social reasons. We’ll see some significant success stories from social networks that are either specifically designed for or are primarily geared to women. And they won’t tolerate being overly marketed to or egregious violations of their privacy.

That’s it for now.

There’s a group out there that is ready to forgive Facebook. Online media buyers. This make sense. Mostly.

Mediaweek is reporting that a flurry of media buyers are satisfied with Facebook’s apology and response. That doesn’t surprise me. Media buyers aren’t, by their job requirements, the most concerned about personal privacy. They help companies sell stuff by buying advertising. They make money by buying advertising. I know. I’ve bought media.

Facebook still could very well be a viable place to advertise. The platform could bring excellent targeting capabilities.

Some things that bother me though. Namely a quote.

From Reuben Steiger, CEO of Millions of Us

“Facebook has to be applauded for pushing the envelope and then course-correcting,”

No, Reuben, Beacon didn’t push the envelope, it used technology to interfere with the traditional buy/retailer relationship, causing many to feel that their privacy was compromised. And, as an advertising vehicle, it did nothing for the recipient of the ‘story’ unless the thing that was purchased was something that the end reader had expressed an interest it.

Gee, there’s a missed point…Beacon wasn’t optimized for the receiver of the ad. And media buying is about targeting the right audience.

Nick Oneill, as usual, has a nice write up about this.

I’m pretty sure I just opted out of Beacon.

Wait a minute. Just exactly WHAT IS Beacon?

Is it that “service” that “allows” us to “let our friends know what we’re up to” outside of Facebook? You know, the one we involuntarily became part of by simply having a profile with friends on Facebook?

Or is it the other deeper – but less tangible – thing. The whole “following” thing. The following of me (and something like 50 million others along with supposedly with just about everyone else on the ‘net) when I happen upon a site that has partnered with Facebook. Where they, the partner sites, that send data to Facebook?

Anyway, I (think) I’ve opted out of the former. But they sure as hell make it unclear.

I clicked on “Privacy” – made sense – and came upon a series of choices. In the first section, I had to decide between “Newsfeed and Minifeed” (because that’s where the stories show up), “Applications” (because I guess that Beacon is an application – isn’t it?), and the last listing which was “External Websites”.

No large notice pointing people in the direction of their quest. No clear cut pathway to opting out. Why not add the word “Beacon “?

Speaking of words, I love the way they present them. Tiny print. There’s a white background, “External Websites” is in blue. And the color of the words used to describe the actions one will can take by clicking on: “You can edit your privacy settings for external websites sending stories to your profile” is a very light gray…on that white background. Specifically designed to blend in with the background, once again making it all that more difficult to get out of the damn thing.

By clicking on “Exteral Websites” you come to another page where they try to re-sell you on the concept of what they’re doing: “Show your friends what you like and what you’re up to outside of Facebook. When you take actions on the sites listed below, you can choose to have those actions sent to your profile.”

And they’re still following me around the net.

One of the things that was clarified for me with all of the coverage of this recent Facebook Beacon episode was both the effectiveness and limitations of both mainstream media and the blogosphere in covering major issues of the day.

When Facebook introduced Beacon amidst much fanfare, the advertising, business, and technology communities followed the story with great interest. It seemed to offer a lot: traditional display mixed with viral word of mouth. Major brands, both online and offline were partnering with Facebook on Beacon.

Soon things started to go haywire as people suddenly found out that things they bought were showing up in their ‘friends’ Facebook’s newsfeed without their knowledge or permission. It turned out that Beacon, which had led it partners and the media to believe that was to be opt-in, was, in fact, opt-out. And it was also clear that Facebook did not let its 50,000,000 users that they’d be playing roles as marketing agents from now on. Disasters began happening and the blogosphere was first to react.

Geeks examined the technology behind the program here, here, and here. Marketing bloggers wondered if it was good strategy here, here, and here. All excellent posts. All made sense. All contributed to the conversation.

The problem here is that we all can’t act as a cohesive investigative unit, uncovering the ‘truth’ all together. We go at it from the angle we are familiar with. We get info bit by bit, some of which can be misleading and simply untrue. That’s exactly what Stefan Berteau of Computer Associates ran into in his trying to get answers from Facebook. While Stefan was apparently finding out – and thankfully telling us – he was getting his answers from a customer service rep. A possibly uninformed on the exact details customer service rep.

Bloggers often have a limited amount of time to research, confirm, and blog about these things. We have jobs to do. So, unfortunately, while we can have great impact, it can be limited in its influence.

In the meantime, much of the mainstream media looked at this from afar, with only passing interest, waiting to see if the situation blew up in Facebook’s face. And when it did – or at least when it came time for Facebook to respond – they did it mostly with press releases and shut off communications channels. And most of their responses were to the mainstream business and technology press. The problem there is that their explanations were often covered in PR spinspeak and technobabble. The very points that key people in the blogosphere raised weren’t answered. The mainstream media simply reported how Facebook says it will now carry on their Beacon program.

This is a classic way of responding. Assure the media that you’ve heard the complaints and that changes are coming. A mea culpa with a smiley face. The mainstream media may not know all the details and therefore not ask the key questions. So we may never know as a whole what the real deal is. Unless we keep up on those blogs. But then again…we’ve all got jobs to do…and other things to blog about.

I recently got an email from Patty Smith, the Director of Corporate Communications for Amazon. She pointed out to me – in a very kind manner – that Amazon is not a partner with Facebook in their Beacon program. I had previously blogged about Beacon, mistakingly pointing out that if a customer of Amazon bought a book on an embarrassing subject, it could get forwarded to their friends and colleagues on Facebook. Again, that won’t be the case: Amazon is not a partner on that program.

So I want to apologize to Amazon for writing that. And to Chris Abraham and Mark Harrison of Abraham Harrison for putting that on this blog. If you came here from Twitter via Chris, he didn’t write it. I did.

In my defense, I didn’t create this out of thin air. I first read of Amazon being part of this on none other than Michael Arrington on TechCrunch:

An example may be a purchase of a book or DVD from Amazon. Under Beacon, the fact of that purchase will be sent to Facebook and automatically included in the user’s News Feed.

Then on AllFacebook: The Unofficial Facebook Blog:

The new service is going to integrate with external sites such as Amazon, gaming sites, movie sites and other external sites to notify your friends of what you are up to. If you thought Facebook already knew a lot about you, wait until they know everything you are involved with outside of Facebook.

And finally, Rev2.0:

Consider this: you buy your favorite fiction novel on Amazon.com and some-time later when you check your Facebook account to see latest activities happening in your profile, you find out that the purchase made by you on Amazon.com appears as a news feed.

Apparently, you can’t always believe what you read on the internet. And kudos for the way Patty pointed it out. Class act.

I dunno about the rest of you but Facebook certainly took a wrong turn, at the wrong time of year, and is pissing off a lot of people. There are several blog posts on this blog dealing with much of this issue, and there are many more floating around on the web.

I just read two articles: Speaking of Facebook as an underground intranet… and I’m Ready to Bail on Facebook – the New Face of Evil.

Both these articles deal with Beacon and the issues of privacy. You see, this is the funny paradox about the web, and the part that fascinates me on one level, about our reaction to the “loss” of privacy. The internet, by nature is an open system, it is how it thrives and is what makes it so powerful.

Personally, I have never been a fan of the Facebook, Myspace, Orkut. I never truly understood the point of hanging out in a “mini-web” with a bunch of people I know really well (who I could just as easily email, call or visit) and those that I barely know (and therefore rarely email, call or visit). What puzzeled me even more is it was closed – you could not interact directly with the broader web, with the community of the globe. It, in my opinion only truly benefits the owners of these networks because they have absolute control of the way information is shared, with who and when. In many cases that seems like the antipathy of the internet. It is this “closed” aspect of Facebook that made Beacon seem so appealing to corporate websites. They couldn’t get access to this data without Facebook setting a price. Why does Facebook get paid? Where’s my cut?

It is for this reason that I got so excited about the announcement of Open Social (http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial/). It opens these SNS’s to the web, to the world and returns the web users to the space that they belong. The democracy of the web. The open web. Ultimately I don’t like one group of people, Facebook who had told me (even if it was never true, or never could be true) that I was joining a private and safe network that only allowed people who I “friended” into my network, having control over who ultimately does get access to my information. They told me to join a private friends only network and then went and turned around and sold all of my information to the highest bidder. Pretty messed up if you ask me.

This angst needs to be held up against the other truth of the internet. In order to participate in the internet you have to give up a degree of your rights – mostly the right to privacy. You have to make your presence known, you have to express yourself, you have to tell people what you like and don’t like to participate in democracies. In order to gain the benefits of the web you have to openly and freely participate. It is what is scary about the web, but it is also what makes it truly remarkable and powerful – as this openness makes democracies truly remarkable and powerful. And, at times, this openness may be uncomfortable or more then you wanted to share. Yet, the value is built into the openness, the freedom to express, to say what you want and do what you want. Regardless of what others think (this of course always comes with the, “as long as you are not hurting anyone else” mantra).

The fact really is that the actions you take on the internet are never truly private. You have to go to great lengths to experience a trail free ride around the internet. People need to realize this.

My main point here is that we are right to be pissed off at Facebook because it has taken actions that are disingenuous, are using their members, and not being straight up and honest.

We at Abraham Harrison (www.abrahamharrison.com) know more then anything else that in order to play and participate in Social Media you need to be honest, transparent and straight-up or be prepared for major rebellion.

Where is the new SNS? Any suggestions? Me, I say lets all support Open Social!!

…and not just members of Facebook. They could actually be getting data on everyone who visit member sites. That’s according to Mark Orchant of BlogNation.

Facebook isn’t simply learning about every action taken by Facebook users on affiliate sites, it is learning about every action taken by every user of these affiliate sites regardless of whether they are Facebook users or not.

The affiliate sites are pretty much dumping their entire customer database into Facebook’s lap, FOR FREE and without their customers permission. What. The. F*ck.

I wonder what the tipping point will be for resignations or a total collapse.

This is getting beyond ridiculous. Facebook is a stupid company.

Now comes the report that the Coca Cola Company is putting their involvement in Facebook’s Beacon program on hold. With good reason. They thought, with justification, that the program was going to be opt-in. And this was reported on by a reporter for the New York Times who thought, with justification, that the program was going to be opt-in.

Louise Story tells us that she was the one who asked the very first question to Mark Zuckerberg after his major presentation to marketers and advertisers this past November 6th. She asked him as to why he felt that Facebook’s users would be willing to have notices about their online purchasers to their friends on Facebook. His response was that “he made it clear that users would be allowed to choose whether to participate, and he implied that the choice would be explicit, or opt-in.”

Two points. One is obvious. That’s the part that Zuckerberg pointed out that users would be allowed to choose to whether or not to participate. That doesn’t seem to be the case…if you’re on Facebook, you are participating. Period. You can choose to stop a certain ‘story’, but you are still participating in the program.

The second point is not as obvious, but is very telling. And it partially explains how Facebook can mislead us all – users, reporters, and corporations. It’s the line “and he IMPLIED that the choice would be explicit, or opt-in”. Notice, he did not DIRECTLY SAY that it would be opt-in. This is how many people in very important positions – from corporate executives to U.S. presidents position things.

But where it gets real interesting is not just that fact that she saw a discrepancy between what Facebook said the program entailed and how it was implemented. The folks at Coca Cola did too.

Said Carol Kruse, Coke’s vice president of global interactive marketing, “I, like you, certainly understood that it would be opt-in. That’s what I heard before as well as what I heard on the 6th.”

Holy crap.

This means that the person who was very likely the key decision maker in Coke’s agreement with Facebook’s was misled. Or, at the very least wasn’t told of this major change of this major marketing initiative. This is unbelievable and shows tremendous incompetence on the part of Facebook. Be it arrogance or ignorance, Facebook is flirting with becoming toast.

Coke has now decided to take a step back and “‘wait and see’ as far as what we are going to do with Beacon because we are not sure how consumers are going to respond.”

That’s what happens when you’re misled. And as Story reports “Coke had been one of Facebook’s ‘Landmark Partners’ because it had made an especially large commitment to use the site’s new features.”

Jaysus, so Facebook screws up its relationship with one of its major partners, a global brand recognizable worldwide. All in the first month.

If they are that incompetent and cavalier in managing their vital business relationships, how incompetent and cavalier will they be in handling our personal information and data?

The saga of at least the first controversial phase of Facebook Beacon seems to be coming to a close. Facebook announced that it is changing its Beacon program, giving the users of Facebook more control of how the system works in relation to their profiles. The initial system, which essentially forwarded people’s online purchases from Facebook’s retail partners to a member’s “friends”, was quite controversial. It, in many peoples’ minds (including mine), invaded a user’s privacy. It also forever changed the relationship a customer had with a retailer without the customer’s prior consent. And it put the burnden on the customer to stop publication. The customer, also, would never benefit from this arrangement.

Facebook came to change quickly…but grudgingly. That’s not a surprise because they had the gall to start the program in the first place. The concept of suddenly sending one’s online purchases to one’s newsfeed without letting one know that the program exists in the first place…and then make the task of opting out arduous shows that Facebook knew what they were doing.

If you think it’s no big deal, then take a look what happened to Sean Lane.

Some, in my opinion, naively, thought that this would blow over while others still praise the company in these efforts, perhaps their enthusiasm for Facebook itself will be shared again by those of use who taken aback by all these events.

Charlene Li just called the new system opt-in. It’s not. If you’re a member of Facebook, Beacon still applies to you. If you buy an item at one of their partner sites, it forwards the info to your Facebook page. Yes, now the default position is that the status is essentially “on hold pending your approval”. Even if you say NO, Facebook still has a record of your purchase. That’s for sure. Their partnership with their, well, partners, ensures that. And that is something that you can’t opt out of. So, again, the relationship that you had with those favorite retailers is no longer just with them.

This is all part of the new way of doing business via the Internet. For years, retailer sold customers’ purchase habits to interested parties who then, in turn potentially turn that info into gold. Yes, this goes a step further. It may not be enough for some. But Facebook is free, we can make connections on it, and it costs money to run.

Marketing companies should take note. We should step into this territory carefully but not hesitantly. That’s because this is now going to be the way fortunes are made. And I’m opting in for that.

You’ve heard of permission marketing. You’ve heard of pull marketing. Now we’ve got a whole new concept: Usurp Marketing.

Yes, I’m thinking that’s what we should be calling the new strategy put forward by Facebook and their partner vendor sites in the new Beacon program. The dictionary defines usurp as “To seize and hold by force without legal right or authority”. Sounds about right. I mean it’s diametrically opposed to the mantra that many online marketers have been using through the years. That would be Seth Godin’s permission marketing.

I have to say that for all the talk about “permission” and “pull” and “listening to your community” or “the customer is now in control”, the online marketing community seemed to be somewhat reluctant to criticize Facebook. Sort of a wait and see approach to gauge what other online marketers are saying. Now, the blog posts are coming as the criticism grows. But I’m left wondering if people are or were really dedicated to the principle at the beginning of this paragraph.

Oddly, I still have nothing against assertive marketing that’s pushed. It’s often necessary – more necessary than many have been willing to admit. It may not be as effective as it once was, but that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t play a role. But Beacon? No, that’s Usurp Marketing.

The thing we must remember is that there are indeed vendors that are participating in this. They are the ones sending the info and they are the ones that agreed to take part in this. The list includes AllPosters.com, Blockbuster, Bluefly.com, CBS Interactive, ExpoTV, Gamefly, Hotwire, Joost, Kiva, Kongregate, Live Nation, Mercantila, the NBA, NYTimes.com, Overstock.com, (RED), Redlight, SeamlessWeb, Sony Online Entertainment, Sony Pictures, STA Travel, The Knot, TripAdvisor, Travel Ticker, viagogo, Vox, Yelp, WeddingChannel.com, and Zappos.com.

Those are the companies that invited Facebook into your relationship with them – without your permission. That’s Usurp Marketing. What a concept.