…as Facebook attempts to play the same shell game with Wall Street as it does with its customers. I think this is very well stated.
Facebook shell game not the best idea
Here’s a more technical link, but it has information for laymen as well: reasons for Facebook’s market decline
And this is the ‘product’ which Facebook is currently hyping to Wall Street as a way to wring more money from its advertisers: if you read between the lines, it’s encouraging friends to send ‘sponsored stories’ to each other…somewhat like me quoting the articles above, but these would, one suspects, be Revlon articles touting some new lipstick or Ford’s with some new automobile.
And imho, this is why people don’t trust Facebook: it’s gimmick-du-jour, all of them with as many angles as a carnie pitchman, and all of them using people’s relationships with each other.
In this one, apparently companies are approached, probably via their pages, to be sure their ‘shared’ ‘stories’ get prime placement in people’s newsfeeds, ie, these articles are ‘special,’ in ways Facebook will end up revealing to companies, but apparently not to ordinary users. It’s simultaneously forcing Timeline on all users, promo’ing ‘sponsored articles’ to its shareholders as a big moneymaker, while ‘investigating’ claims of false clicks on its smallest business accounts, the little hundred dollar ads on the sidebars.
Here’s what they say about ‘sponsored stories.’
” What are Sponsored Stories?
Sponsored Stories are posts from your friends or Pages on Facebook that a business, organization or individual has paid to highlight so there’s a better chance you’ll see them. [My note: read: they’ll be stuck ahead of your grandmother’s post to you in your incoming post, the way certain merchants pay to have their products on eye-level shelves at the grocery.] They are regular stories that a friend or Page you’re connected to has shared with you. “
Given that 1) I’m a (curmudgeonly) old bachelor, 2) seen all the viruses and scams since getting into personal computers in ’76, 3) on slow dial-up and avoid rich media, what I can’t understand is a) why “users” ever thought it would be “monitized” any other way, and b) thought it was a good idea to be so revealing to anybody and everybody, friend or no.
Talking about Facebook playing shell games…
Just when you they couldn’t get any more sleazy, in the UK Facebook has now launched an app for gambling with real money.
Facebook’s first real-cash gambling app launched
People who gamble over the internet are even more stupid than those who gamble in casinos. Just think how easy it is to fix the results when everything is handled by a computer program.
And apparently Facebook usually takes a 30% cut of all income generated on their site.
I get the feeling they’re becoming more and more desperate. Facebook seems to be circling the drain.
I think the fantasy folk have it right on this one: don’t reveal your ‘true name’ to anyone. And we have a lot of people, sadly, particularly the young, who regard an exhortation to protect their private information as an attack on their personal freedom and especially on youth-run sites, etc…
…freedom to spread themselves vulnerably in cyberspace, open to whatever use anyone wishes to make of it. I think of a flock of spring lambs, gone wandering in wolf territory.
Extending the metaphor to Facebook as a principal… blithely following the Judas goat into various and sundry shearing sheds and slaughter houses.
until I updated my adblocker I could see these “sponsored stories” thankfully adblocker now hides them. of course I am defeating the object of facebook as a commercial site by doing this …
On a related note, I saw in yesterday’s paper that Microsoft was planning to man up on the next version of Internet Explorer by setting “Do not share information” as the installation default. My admiration is slightly muted considering the marked differences between Microsoft’s and Google’s revenue models, but even so.. Hurrah!
The one assumption that I question of Frum’s piece is that the users on Facebook are Facebook’s customers. As Frum notes, 90% of Facebook’s revenue comes from ads. The advertisers are the customers. And people who use Facebook need to always be aware of this when they set up an account.
er.. missed a sentence and can’t edit the prior post. Users are the product that Facebook sells to its customers.
jdhall is, in my opinion, exactly right. Users of FB are actually being used, and it’s a shame more of them don’t realize this, or don’t care. Like Purple Julian I have adblocker, so I don’t have to look at the targeted ads on FB, but it makes me furious that they have, and use, the ability to collect the data that results in the ads. I use the site to keep in touch with far-flung family members; there is one who does not use email or snailmail or even a telephone, but he does post on FB about once a month, and I can tell his mother that as of yesterday morning, say, he was alive and apparently well. Even he doesn’t post personal information.
Several years back, I tried to sign up for a Facebook account. Something went wrong, and I never got the activation confirmation. With recent publicity and scandals, I think I’m just as happy not to have my business plastered all over creation.
On a lighter note, the kitchen remodel approaches completion! I took most of last week off to supervise the cabinetmakers and work on tile. Cabinets: installed. Tile countertops and backsplashes: in place, waiting for grout and/or sealant. Half of my backsplash panels had gone AWOL, but I found them, yess, my preciousssss. Electrical work: done, stove outlet and dishwasher outlet. Plumbing: done, although I had to contend with a variant on the IELT when a valve didn’t seat right the first time and catapulted off the hot water line. Good thing I planned ahead and installed a waterproof dishwasher outlet! I still must rip up and replace the ugly old linoleum tile floor, but that can be done after the delivery guys scarify the old floor by dragging in my new stove and dishwasher. It’s not the caliber of CJ and Jane’s bathroom redo, but it makes me content.
Congrats on the hard work and nearly finished product! I bet it feels good to see it.
A phrase I came across re Facebook is: ‘if you are not buying the product, you ARE the product’. (Echoes JCHall, I realise.) I do have a FB account, but I keep it as minimal as possible.