Inside Facebook

From News.com:

By a 410-15 vote on Thursday, politicians approved a bill that would effectively require that “chat rooms” and “social networking sites” be rendered inaccessible to minors, an age group that includes some of the Internet’s most ardent users. Adults can ask for permission to access the sites.

“Social networking sites such as MySpace and chat rooms have allowed sexual predators to sneak into homes and solicit kids,” said Rep. Ted Poe, a Texas Republican and co-founder of the Congressional Victim’s Rights Caucus. “This bill requires schools and libraries to establish (important) protections.”

Even though politicians apparently meant to restrict access to MySpace, the definition of off-limits Web sites is so broad the bill would probably sweep in thousands of commercial Web sites that allow people to post profiles, include personal information and allow “communication among users.” Details will be left up to the Federal Communications Commission.

Few adults, much less most US Congressmen, understand the social networking landscape adequately enough to regulate it so broadly. This is clearly a reaction to media coverage of sexual predators on MySpace recently.

This law would eliminate access to communication tools for students that do not have a computer at home, potentially contributing to the digital divide. But of far more practical consequence, implementing it correctly (and not sweepingly/overbearingly) would be a nightmare.

Apple is running a promotion on Facebook where members of the Apple group (there are now 130,000) can download 25 pre-selected iTunes tracks per week for each of the next 10 weeks. This could mean up to 250 million downloads, but the fact that the music is pre-selected makes the promotion pretty lame, especially given all that is possible in social settings like Facebook.

AdWeek writes,

“Brands like Apple, Microsoft and Cingular have set up sponsored Facebook groups to build connections with their consumers. Advertisers have used MySpace profiles for similar purposes.”

(via Marketing Vox)

In an attempt to gather more advertising dollars, Facebook is marketing its youth demographic to local, state, and national political hopefuls. Not only will candidates get ad space targetting often politically-inactive youth, they’ll also get their own Facebook profile page.

I may be wrong, but I think this is the first time Facebook has pitched profile pages in ad packages. This is old hat to MySpace, who’s been making Wendy’s Hamburger profile pages for a while now.

(via The Collegian, the Penn State student newspaper)

Since opening its doors to work networks two and a half months ago, Facebook has now received over 15,000 company registrations (15,319 to be exact - full list here). This represents about 100% monthly growth over each of the last two months. While many of the world’s largest corporations are well represented, thousands of small local businesses have registered as well.

Social networking presents a security problem for large companies who don’t want any internal information disclosed or exchanged in highly trafficked web commons. Just as we’ve seen universities creating Facebook policies and guidelines for students recently, I expect to see companies doing the same for workers very soon - especially in the area of privacy settings and “limited profiles”. But since Facebook allows any member to search any network, simple company association could present a poaching problem if clever recruiters take to the site.

Does your company have a policy that limits what personal information you can store online? If so, please let me know.

What can you learn by searching Facebook’s corporate networks?

• Steve Rubel and 5 young coworkers comprise the Edelman group
• Michael Arrington at TechCrunch has yet to sign up
• About 2,000 Google employees have Facebook pages - happy recruiting!
• The White House has yet to create an official network for interns (the Bush twins apparently aren’t Facebooking either)

According to Bokardo,

So many students use chatting tools and social networking sites that MSU is even considering phasing out the #1 internet tool of the last 30 years: email accounts. Because students are online all the time and messaging through other means, there is little need for personal, school-based email accounts. Everybody simply uses the built-in tools in the virtual spaces they inhabit.

Now it is true that users of social software use social features like messaging often. However, I think one goes too far to assume that school-based email accounts are in danger of going unused now that Facebook is here. When I was in school (a whole two years ago) I used my .edu address for important academic and professional communication, and I can’t imagine that many students would want to use their Facebook identity for either of those purposes.

That being said, conversation happens where people are. People who hang out at bars talk at bars. Even though messaging at Facebook is asynchronous, people who hang out on Facebook talk on Facebook because the Facebook gives them context to communicate. I think that email is thus seen as a more intimate form of communication than Facebook messaging because you’re taking the conversation out of the Facebook context.

As was recently reported in the Washington Times, many schools are warning students about the pitfalls of Facebook in new student orientation programs.

“The main question asked to incoming students is: Would they want their family members, potential employers, school faculty or law enforcement to see their profiles?”

Interestingly, Cornell University has posted Facebook advice for students on its IT Policy website. It’s worth a quick read, but here are some highlights:

“Think about not only your marketability today as a cool guy or girl in your college social circle, but who you might want to be in five or ten years when posting an “identity” on the Internet. Remember, just because it is a new technology does not absolve you of the responsibility to use it in legal and appropriate ways — including taking into account your obligations regarding proper conduct as a citizen of the university.”

“Think about how much you would be willing to have to go through the bureaucracies of at least three to five search engine companies to remove cached material before you post something about yourself on-line.”

“With the freedom to post what you want comes the responsibility to do so in your interests not only for today, but also for who and what you want to be tomorrow. And also think of your personal safety. Cyberspace can have the effect of creating an illusion of intimacy that could prove dangerous for you in reality. Use the manners and mores of behavior in physical space both in how you present yourself and how you interpret other people on-line as a guide.”

“Think not only about what identity you create for yourself online, but also how you represent others. At the very least, be sure that you take their feelings into account. You would not want to find yourself as a defendant in a tort case that alleged you invaded their privacy.”

According to the Student Press Law Center,

“Kent State University has reversed an order that would have required all student athletes at the school to delete their Facebook.com profiles by Aug. 1.”

It looks like the ACLU raised 1st Amendment concerns and the university administration backed down.

Universities regard athletic scholarships not only as investments in students but also in the school’s marketing budget. They want to have their cake and eat it too–all the positive branding and press that college athletics brings without the lifestyles of athletes at the school being known. Administrators should realize that their problem lies not in technology–media sharing in the context of online social networks is here to stay–but rather in the judgment and values of the student athletes they choose to bring in.