Tag Archives: privacy

What for a year ago started with This Week In Startups, a live podcast by Jason Calacanis to embrace entrepreneurship and help out startups, has now turned into a web television network ThisWeekIn, covering a wide range of topics from tech to entertainment. Together with co-founders Kevin Pollak and Mark Jeffrey, Jason is now airing 12 weekly shows from their Santa Monica studio. Whether you want to catch up with funny YouTube moments, Twitter trends, coolest Android and iPad apps, or get the latest Internet industry deals and juicy insights, there’s a show for that.

The latest edition to the schedule is This Week In Social Media with the highs and lows of the social web, hosted by Alana Joy and Sean Percival. The very first guest on the show was none other than Brian Solis himself, who got to give his view on the all time trending topic Internet privacy, as to reflect on the impact social media and social networking have on our very own behaviour.

Catch up with the entire interview and social media blunders of the week.

Broadcasting 2.0 – turn your audience into fans and co-producers

The statistics on the two-screen experience keep showing an increasing trend, at the same time more devices are being connected to the Internet. As Justin Kan of Justin.tv already pointed out at the LeWeb conference last year, two-screen experience also counts for 15% of the revenues of the traditional TV.

So, now that services like Justin.tv, Ustream, Bambuser, Qik and soon YouTube (?) are democratizing live broadcasting, and together with social networks making it possible for almost anyone to reach an audience, what is it that makes ones audience to turn into fans?

Include and Engage. I talk based on my own experience: This Week In Startups has managed to keep me engaged since the very first episode, because it stays relevant to its audience by refusing to become an echo chamber and a megaphone for marketing messages. It’s a show built together with its audience using all the interactive tools and possibilities of social media, both before, during, and after a show. The audience becomes the co-producer in choosing guests, topics and participating in the show in a sincere way.

I think Scooter Braun, manager of Justin Bieber, summarized it well in his advice regarding Justin’s engagement with his fans across social media:

“The moment you think you’re too big for your fans, they’re gonna abandon you”.

Which leaves us with one thing that’s certain: The future of broadcast media is social. #EngageOrDie

Paula is online strategist and startup evangelist. She blogs at paulamarttila.com and here at Bub.blicio.us.
Follow her on Twitter: @paulamarttila
Drop her email at paula.marttila[at]gmail[dot]com

Google TV has been unveiled this week at the Google I/O Conference, and it’s a doozy. It looks to combine your web, mobile and television experience, bringing pieces of the web to you, on-demand. Not only is it a new way to consume and experience your media, but it’s a new way to receive your search information.

One of Google’s biggest changes with Google TV is the way in which it delivers search results, linking back to several of its own apps and third party apps that run on its platform. It’s quite convenient, and it’s a major perk for consumers that will consider hopping on the Google TV bandwagon once the product line is released this fall.

It’s also great for marketers, as it restructures the opportunities for reaching consumers, particularly as location and personalized data can be incorporated into apps that operate based on your needs. Google has effectively created a system that’s layered over the web, with a pretty Google skin on it. It’s attractive, it’s convenient, and it may be the only format to successfully bring us the media and web experience we’ve sought for the past decade or so.

But at what cost? In an era where Facebook is dealing with high scrutiny from the media and regulatory groups regarding its privacy methods, Google’s own attempt at re-structuring our experience with the web may have its own long-term issues. While Facebook added instant personalization options for website owners and users to better interact with each other, Google is gearing up to launch an interconnected system that is already personalized.

In Google’s ability to provide such a robust offering through Google TV, Android 2.2, Chrome and all its other associated portals, the company is able to deliver better search results that aim to provide instant and direct answers. It does so by linking many of the access points its created, around you and others. Though this is certainly the way of the future, it also encourages the system to revolve around Google’s platform.

In the long run, this could create some issues for Google as it looks to maintain consumer privacy. Google already experienced the wrath of consumers when it launched Buzz, immediately updating the Twitter-like app to include more privacy options. And Google’s process for collecting the data that’s re-purposed and delivered back to consumers according to their needs is also in question, with German officials demanding answers and control over such data and its use.

While we still have a few months to ponder at the ultimate significance of Google TV, it’s clear that Google has the ability to change media consumption and the advertising methods around it. Google changed the web once, and it’s looking to do it again. As long as it continues to win the battle of compromising a bit of user privacy for the greater good, Google will continue to be a powerful force in our lives.

I’m pretty obsessive about my Facebook settings. I’ve made sure everything is locked down tight, with my friends only able to “accidentally” share my web sites. I’ve certainly gotten rid of that “Everybody” setting. If you didn’t know by now, “Everybody” means the entire Internet.

I was reading today about how Facebook is realizing that their Privacy settings are actually pretty complex, which is probably why so few people in their late 20s or 30s bothers to set them. (Interestingly, it’s the millenials who are on top of the privacy settings.) According to an article on Wired.com, there’s a pretty good chance Facebook will be simplifying their privacy settings sometime soon.

Until then, you can use a transparency tool at ReclaimPrivacy.org to double-check your settings. Pop open the Reclaim site and drag the bookmarklet up to your browser toolbar.  Then log into Facebook and click Account > Privacy Settings. Click the bookmarklet and let the tool do the rest.

In my scan (shown above), it tried to fix the insecure bits. However, that insecure section was a checklist where I let friends share my web sites. I don’t know if it can auto-fix checklists.

Until Facebook gets their privacy settings so that everyone can understand them without first reading an instruction manual, ReclaimPrivacy.org is a free, easy way to make sure that you’re controlling exactly what information the world is learning about you.

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Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

Do you use an app like FourSquare or GoWalla to tweet out your location? I’m guilty of this – I’m Mayor of both my favorite bar and coffee shop. When I visit a new location, that information gets sent to Twitter. I’m a little different from most people – since I am twittering my location, I send it to my private and locked Twitter account. Since I approve all of my followers at that account, I’m minimizing the risk of unwanted stalking.

Do you list your home on FourSquare? I have to admit I’m always a little bit amazed by the people who list “Jones Home” and then their address. Really? I work out of my home, but my mailing address is a PO Box. I will occasionally use FourSquare to show I’m at my office, but the location that shows up is the PO Box, not my house. Again, I’m minimizing the unwanted stalking.

Today on Twitter, there’s been a lot of buzz (forgive the pun) about PleaseRobMe.com. The site wants you to be aware of what you’re doing when you tweet to the world that you’re not home.

According to the site creators,

The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the internet we’re not home. It gets even worse if you have “friends” who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address.. on the internet.. Now you know what to do when people reach for their phone as soon as they enter your home. That’s right, slap them across the face.

So the message here is think before you tweet. After all, do you really want to be featured in the stream on PleaseRobMe?

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Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

Google Buzz may have had a lot of expectations attached to it, as Google attempted yet again to make its existing apps more social. Unfortunately for Google, the company saw a great deal of immediate backlash from the sharing process around Google Buzz. Apparently the socialization around your email contacts isn’t something most people want automated. Fancy that.

Google was quick to respond to the backlash, changing the process for auto-follow and recommendations just days after launching Google Buzz to the public. Yet the level of backlash Google Buzz received only reminds us of consumer influence and the way in which companies need to consider consumer privacy and needs before releasing certain features and functionality.

Admittedly, I only used Google Buzz for a short while after its launch, primarily responding to comments others left on my Buzzed content. I like the concept, especially as I already use Gmail for work-related communication on a daily basis, bookmarking, scheduling, managing my Twitter, and just about everything else you can possibly think of. And I didn’t mind the auto-follow process, as I already used Google Reader and Gchat to such an extent that the people active in my Google Buzz were the people I already corresponded with on a regular enough basis.

Yet I can understand how the automated process would bother others, and even myself in the long run. Even with all the things about Google Buzz that I liked or didn’t mind, I still haven’t gone back to use it since its launch. And now that the auto-follow standards have changed, I see even less activity in my Google Buzz as it pertains to things and people I’m interested in.

I’m sure the whole “auto” thing was something Google was really banking on for the adopted use of Google Buzz, but things don’t work that easily when it comes to the social sharing of content. Many of your Gmail connections weren’t selected or approved of as “friends,” but as people you communicate with on a relatively regular basis. Perhaps it’s more difficult than we thought to create a social network around these kinds of contacts.

I expect the privacy backlash to become even more of a concern as we move forward with various social networking initiatives. Companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter are destined to push their boundaries, testing the consumer to see where the line is drawn. Consumers will, in turn, push back when they feel they’re being violated. We may never reach a happy medium, but instances such as the one we saw with Google Buzz indicates that consumers are beginning to pay attention once again to their social networking privacy standards.