FACEBOOK FUN: November 2008

November 30, 2008

FACEBOOK

Microsoft is bidding once again for Yahoo. I don't know anyone who uses MSN. I know plenty of people who use Yahoo. Not for search but for other things like finance. Yahoo has some great stuff, but Jerry never figured out how to best monetize it. If Microsoft buys it I suspect they'll just screw it up by forcing users to install apps they don't want (i.e., Silverlight) and by creating new and annoying password schemes. Microsoft does not understand the internet. They never have.

On a different subject, News Corp. made a big mistake buying MySpace. They should have put in a bid for Facebook instead. MySpace is so 2005. If you're 14 and have ADHD you're on MySpace.

Wildcard: Smartphones are replacing PCs and traditional laptops. In my house I am using my iPod Touch more than my PC. I don't have to wait for the computer to boot up so I can check my e-mail, weather, stocks, and favorite blogs instantly, anywhere in the house. Snowflake was on to something when he blogged about posting via his smartphone while dealing with the consequences of his latest wheat grass shot.

RIM is integrating Facebook as a distinct app, rather than a web page. I think a smartphone player will bid for Facebook, then license it out to the other vendors. I think it will be Apple.

Companies like Dell and Toshiba and Lenovo are toast. I would include HP on the toast list, but they do a lot more besides PCs. The internet appliance companies of the future are Apple, Nokia, LG, Acer and RIM. Within a few years you'll be connecting your smartphone to a docking station for monitor and keyboard and you won't have a PC.

Posted by Lou Minatti

Mysterious Facebook Page Loves New Hampshire

Concord – November 21, 2008 – The State of New Hampshire has a Facebook page that wasn’t created by the State of New Hampshire. More than 5,600 people have subscribed as fans to the online social-networking page. They have used it to opine on the ongoing relevance of the motto “Live Free or Die” and to trade stories about where they were when the Old Man of the Mountain fell.

One debate about the best community in the state had generated 93 entries by yesterday afternoon, with Portsmouth leading but places as small as Gilmanton and Holderness garnering defenders.

Although the site links to the state’s official tourism website - visitnh.gov - it’s not clear who made the page. Officials at the state’s Division of Travel and Tourism said the page isn’t their handiwork, although they may eventually get into the Facebooking business.

Tourism folks say they’ve started using other networking technologies. The state’s public relations firm has created a Twitter account, keeping subscribers instantly updated on the state of foliage or ski conditions. A typical Twitter entry, said Tai Freligh, a spokesman for the division, would be something like: “Today, if you want to see some good foliage go on Route 3 or Route 16.”

The Twitter account has more than 100 subscribers, said E.J. Powers of Montagne Communications, who runs the account. Subscribers, said Freligh, include national news outlets like the Travel Channel and USA Today, along with local residents. But neither man had any idea who was behind the Facebook page, whose author isn’t listed. The page itself, however, appears built for a wide constituency. New Hampshire on Facebook commits itself as a fan of three holidays: Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas.

The rapid growth of Facebook from a dorm room project in 2004 to one of the most used and popular websites in the world means the convergence of freewheeling college culture, marked by an ironic tone and user-generated spontaneity, with corporate and government officialdom. While a few years ago, all Facebook pages were owned and built by college students, these days many businesses have joined the act.

The state’s tourism branch might eventually get in the Facebook page, Freligh and Powers said.

“We haven’t activated a live Facebook page,” Powers said. “Eventually we could perhaps do a Facebook page, but we want to make sure it makes sense for the end user.”

By Loren R. Dorgan
http://ossipeelake.org/

Man Arrested for Creating a Facebook Group in Croatia

Do you remember the Facebook group “I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who dislike George Bush!“? The group easily attracted more than a million people with Facebook members joining willingly and spreading the group’s popularity virally to all their friends. It all looked like an innocent way to express one’s feelings about the president of the US but it looks like in some countries such activity can be viewed as far from innocent and can even result in arrest.

I have just heard that a man has been arrested in Croatia for creating a Facebook group with a very similar name and a much less ambitious goal. A couple of month ago a guy, Niksa Klecak, created a group called “I bet I can find 5,000 people that hate the Prime minister“.

The reason for this was in the financial policy of the current Croatia government along with its Prime minister. The thing is that in the recent months the Croatian government headed by the Prime minister Ivo Sanader has been encouraging people in the country to spend less money to better cope with the recession and the world financial crisis. The head of the country even said publicly that he would not allow the wages in the country to grow.

These ideas have not been popular among the people in the country, obviously, and they started protesting everywhere, including on Facebook which happens to be the most popular social network in Croatia. Basically people said that the ministers should spend less money themselves instead of making people earn (and spend) less. There has even been created a dedicated group on Facebook intended specifically to demonstrate the government that the ministers should learn to save money and spend less, not the people of the country.

One of such acts of protest was the group created by Niksa Klecak which currently has over 7,000 people instead of the 5 thousand he wanted to bring in. But the main problem with it was that the guy was not just some regular citizen unhappy with his Prime minister and the financial ideas of the government - he is actually the president of one of the local branches of the youth of SDP (social democratic party) which is in opposition to the government in Croatia. And as a member of the political opposition his actions are obviously more noticeable - especially when he chooses a platform like Facebook to make people hear what he wants to say and easily gets even more people to join him than he initially wanted.

But the result of this situation is simply outrageous as yesterday the guy was arrested by the police that claimed he kept some Nazi symbols and propaganda at home. When they could not find any evidence, they claimed he had links to child porn somewhere and that could be another reason for the arrest. Eventually Niksa Klecak was let go by the police for lack of evidence but the social networks and the local media outlets are all abuzz about these actions of the police.

To people in Croatia it seems obvious that the guy is persecuted for his loud protests against the government and the Prime minister. In fact, the situation even resulted in a new group created on Facebook with its name translated like “Break into my place, you Gestapo wannabes. Croatia isn’t a police state!” where Facebook users protest against the prosecution of people unhappy with the policy of the government and the recent measures.

But the most dangerous thing is that it already looks like a trend in Croatia with a similar situation from a year ago involving a guy who posted videos with the country’s politicians saying stupid things. And to me it obviously looks like the police in Croatia have already learned how to track protesters online, social networks like Facebook included, and how to arrest them for any number of dubious reasons only to make people stop complaining online. Honestly, I am not happy about watching freedom of speech violated in yet another European country at all.

by
Svetlana Gladkova,
http://profy.com

November 29, 2008

Facebook Page experiences

Until 2007, companies that had a presence on Facebook used Facebook Groups, to communicate with their “following”. To make a clear distinction between groups that we mostly for fun (like the “I have more foreign policy experience than Sarah Palin Group“) and groups by organizations and companies, Facebook started offering Facebook “Pages”, only available for real life companies or brands.

Facebook Pages offer basically the same functionality as Facebook Groups, with a few added benefits:

It’s possible to message all “fans” (that’s how group members are called);
Extensive statistics for amount of visitors, fans, and much more;
Seamless integration with Facebook Ads (I’ll talk about our experience with Ads in a blog posting coming up soon);
Non-Facebook group members can also see our Facebook Page.
Our Barcelona Spotter Sonia Martinez Arguelo took the initiative by starting the predecessing Spotted by Locals Group. After making the decision to start a Facebook Page, together with Sonia, we shut the Group down in September 2008 and open the Spotted by Locals Facebook Page.

Without much effort, we now have a following of 128 fans. Most of them are total strangers to me in real life; not Spotters or personal friends. We think with a bit more effort, we could do much more to benefit from our Facebook Page. Before we talk about our plans for the future, a list of positive and negative experiences.

The positive experiences:

Setting up a Facebook Page is 5 minutes work.
Facebook offers a great service to transfer you facebook Group members to your new Facebook Page (if you do that, shut down your group immediately);
It’s excellent that you can message all fans instantaneously. E.g. we asked all our fans to vote for us at the Open Web Awards;
A Facebook Page is an excellent way of “viral marketing”. Every time a fan interacts on our Facebook Page, this is mentioned on our fan’s Pagebook feed. Curious Facebook friends will visit our Facebook page, and may sign up as a fan too. One fan can achieve a very big snowball-effect. With 120 million users, the sky is the limit!
The negative experiences:

Many of the “Applications” that work for Facebook Groups and Profiles, don’t work for Facebook Pages. The applications that are available for Facebook Pages don’t offer the the options we’d like to engage our fans;
It would be nice if you could message a selection of your fans;
The URL bothers me. Why not facebook.com/spottedbylocals instead of http://www.facebook.com/pages/Spotted-by-Locals/63018535692?
Our plans for the future
Of course there’s much more to be done than just setting up a page. Our objective is to get a large following of fans, that we keep interested in our cityblogs and our company, by offering them relevant information and updates, the opportunity to discuss things, and some nice goodies.

So far, we haven’t done very well in engaging our fans. There is a lots of room for improvement. Soon, we’ll add a few new functionalities and interesting tools, just for our fans! Stay tuned, and join as as a fan to find out about the new features we’re going to offer!

By: Bart van Poll
http://www.spottedbylocals.com

QUICK POKER MONEY

November 28, 2008

U.S. government taps Facebook, Google, MTV to "Fight Terrorism"

The US State Department announced plans on Monday to promote online youth groups as a new and powerful way to fight crime, political oppression and terrorism.

Drawing inspiration from a movement against FARC rebels in Colombia, the State Department is joining forces with Facebook, Google, MTV, Howcast and others in New York City next week to get the "ball rolling."

It said 17 groups from South Africa, Britain and the Middle East which have an online presence like the "Million Voices Against the FARC" will attend a conference at Columbia University Law School from December 3-5.

Observers from seven organizations that do not have an online presence -- such as groups from Iraq and Afghanistan -- will attend. There will also be remote participants from Cuba.

They will forge an "Alliance of Youth Movement," said James Glassman, under secretary of state for public diplomacy.

"The idea is put all these people together, share best practices, produce a manual that will be accessible online and in print to any group that wants to build a youth empowerment organization to push back against violence and oppression around the world," he told reporters.

The conference will be streamed by MTV and Howcast, he said.

The list of organizations due to attend include the Burma Global Action Network, a human rights movement spurred into action by the ruling junta's crackdown on monks and other pro-democracy protesters last year.

There is also Shabab 6 of April, which has emerged as Egypt's largest pro-democracy youth group, and Invisible Children, which spotlights atrocities committed by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, Glassman said.

Others include Fight Back, which fights domestic violence in India, the Save Darfur Coalition, as well as One Million Voices Against Crime in South Africa, said Jared Cohen, from the secretary's policy planning staff.

Also attending will be People's March Against Knife Crime from Britain and Young Civilians from Turkey.

Cohen said Young Civilians is a human rights and pro-democracy organization which works online but has brought thousands of protesters into the streets of Turkey.

Glassman said the State Department is providing about 50,000 dollars in order to help bring delegates from the groups to the United States.

Among the speakers will be actress Whoopi Goldberg and a co-founder of Facebook.

Courtesy of http://www.globalresearch.ca/