The Register has an amusing account of a TechCrunch interview with Facebook creator, Mark Zuckerberg, claiming that he is a prophet.
Surprisingly, Zuckerberg is not referring to foreseeing the rise of social networking, but rather the lapse of concern over privacy.
Zuckerberg said that he saw the coming of an age where people would want to share everything, and he aimed his business at that market.
“That social norm is something that evolved over time and we followed.”
But is it really a social norm? Or is it something that people are beginning to accept because the companies driving social networking have finally found a way to make money?
Social networking sink-hole
John Norton of The Guardian posted an interesting article last month about how social networking can not make money.
“The truth is that investing in social networking represents the triumph of hope over experience. The optimism comes from a feeling that it’s impossible to gather, say, 350 million people in one place and not somehow make money.” he says.
The number is not random. It is in fact the user count of Facebook as of last week – a population greater than that of America. And yet Facebook is still running at a loss. Twitter, according to Norton, has not made a cent.
These networks can not charge membership – for then people will just not sign-up. Advertising, which has worked so well for Google, does not work so well in other cases – with click-through dropping as low as 8% according to Norton.
Is investing in social media, therefore a waste of time?
Fun and games
Facebook has come under fire recently for its privacy policy updates that, by default, share your information with everyone, including Google.
According to PrivCom.gc.ca, social networking is part of a revolution in marketing. It allows companies to openly harvest personal information about people and target products directly at them.
Dennis Yu, CEO of advertising/marketing firm BlitzLocal, came clean to TechCrunch recently, in an article about just that.
“People on Facebook won’t pay for anything. They don’t have credit cards, they don’t want credit cards, and they are not interested in shopping. But you can trick them”
He explained how applications developed for Facebook can go viral, and users are all too willing to give over their personal information. This data includes who they are, where they’re from, what they like and most importantly email and phone numbers, which can be sold to advertisers.
A number of court cases, including the recent class action suit against Zynga and Facebook, are attempting to defend users against such scams, but how much good will the suits do if people are so willing to give away their personal information?
The information age
As I mentioned in my previous post, we’re in an age now where people want to get to know each other online, and this requires sharing of information. On that much Zuckerberg and I agree. However, Zuckerberg implies that a willingness to share automatically means people are no longer concerned about privacy.
The dawn of social networking brought about the creation of a new ecosystem, where in order for the environment (the sites) to survive, the sharks (the scammers) have to survive too. The people who frequent these social networks may not be aware of the danger, they my make silly mistakes like offering a limb to a great white (Farmville springs to mind), but this doesn’t mean that they no longer care if they’re eaten.
When it comes to privacy I believe there’s a very fine line. People may be more willing to share what their favourite food is, but that doesn’t mean that they want to be harassed in their own homes by telesales people trying to sell it to them.



Surfing the Internet, you may stumble upon a site called Imaginary Girlfriends.com. It offers a unique service: the provision of girlfriends who are not real. These girlfriends will send gifts, chat online and exchange emails and photographs. To all appearances – and in the eyes of friends and family – they will be long distance girlfriends. In reality they are the virtual version of an escort service.
In the days before computers, before the Internet, before Facebook… we had these things called diaries (or journals if you’re in the US) where one recorded one’s most intimate thoughts and opinions. Often these diaries came with a lock and key, to keep intruders out. The diary was the very epitome of privacy, to invade that was a crime almost worthy of capital punishment.
Shakespeare said that “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players”. Never has this been more true than in blogosphere where one wants to be interesting, wants to have a narrative, wants to be a main character. And this means sharing of oneself, often more than one would be comfortable with face-to-face. It also means getting involved in the narrative beyond fear of consequence.
Mobile application developer Joey Hess discovered on Wednesday that the Palm Pre – one of the most popular smartphones – sends data back to Palm. Not surprising in and of itself, but the data in question happens to be your location and your application usage… and it sends this without your permission.
You may have the image of cellular providers as the jealous x-girlfriend trying to figure out exactly what you’re doing with your time, or the evil overlord who wants to monitor his minions, but in actual fact privacy in this sense became a thing of the past long ago. Every time you use a credit or debit card, every time you make a phone call, every time you run a search on Google, information is gathered about you.
“A significant part of Israel’s defence budget goes towards weapons that minimize the loss of human lives, both Israel’s and its enemies”,
“It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead” Kyle Reese tells Sarah Conner in The Terminator.

Firstly, would limiting of freedom of speech in that case be justified? Our South African constitution says “Yes”. It excludes hate speech from that freedom. However, if this is a rule that should be applied to the Internet, who is to apply it? The ISPs (such as AT&T)? Some places in the world are 

Nimnod, a member of
even more substantial. Not only do you receive companions who are there when you need them (but don’t demand anything of you when you don’t), but all the information about the symbolic universe you happen to inhabit is at your fingertips.
Message realises that in the digital age there is a need for a change of strategy “We believe file sharing by peer-to-peer should be legalised. The sharing of music where it is not for profit is a great thing for culture and music.”*
MySpace allows users to set up Band Profiles that can include videos, gig guides, links for ordering CDs and interaction with their fans. The pages automatically start playing audio from the bands as samples which can be made available for download (for free or at the request of some donation).
You use the fans, you give them creativity, you give them free music and allow them to use your content to make promos for you. You give them the opportunity to come and see you live. You sell them new and innovative merchandise – stuff they can see and touch and show their friends.
The best way of understanding Creative Commons is as a library book. You’re
In his book, Remix, he interviews Mark Shuttleworth, a South African businessman who advocates open source – part of the sharing economy. Shuttleworth points to wikis, particularly
hybrid economy where people create and share – for free – promotional material that Hollywood would have had to spend money on creating before.