• Gavin O'Malley, May 24, 2010, 2:16 PM
  • Facebook CEO Is Sorry He Violated Your Privacy And He Won't Do It Again (Promise) Scobleizer et al. Publicly addressing privacy issues for the first time since the launch of Facebook's Open Graph and Instant Personalization initiatives, founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg is admitting that mistakes were made.

    "I know we've made a bunch of mistakes, but my hope at the end of this is that the service ends up in a better place and that people understand that our intentions are in the right place, and we respond to the feedback from the people we serve," Zuckerberg wrote in a letter to tech blogger Robert Scoble on Sunday (which Scoble made public with Zuck's express permission).

    Now, in an op-ed published in today's Washington Post, Zuckerberg admits: "There needs to be a simpler way to control your information ... In the coming weeks, we will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use ... We will also give you an easy way to turn off all third-party services."

    Zuckerberg insists, however, that claims that Facebook was selling personal data to advertisers were all wrong. "We do not give advertisers access to your personal information ... We do not and never will sell any of your information to anyone."

    The question now is whether the young CEO was too slow to face mounting privacy concerns, and whether the coming changes will go far enough to quell those concerns.

    "They're hitting several problems that all point to trust, an eroding of trust that we have with Facebook the company and Facebook the service," Scoble tells CNNMoney.com.

    Likely to make any Facebook insider cringe, eWeek reminds us that "Zuckerberg made headlines earlier this year when he declared privacy was no longer a 'social norm.'"

    Despite the recent upheaval among users and industry insiders, however, Zuckerberg on Monday still "stopped short of offering users the choice of opting in to having all their information spread throughout the social network and the internet -- which may mean that the new settings will not satisfy users after all," The Guardian writes.

    Indeed, in what Fast Company calls the "usual Zuckerberg rot", Zuck say in WaPo: "If we give people control over what they share, they will want to share more." This, adds Fast Company, "is the important line, indicating that Facebook's goal is still to get its users to share lots more content with each other, and the Web in general -- this is Zuckerberg's old mantra that privacy doesn't exist or is irrelevant."

    Read the whole story...
  • Google AdSense Rev Shares Revealed Search Engine Land Google just released the exact revenue share that AdSense publishers are given for placing the ads on their Web sites. Publishers can expect a 68% revenue share for content ads, i.e., the ads one sees on Web sites. Therefore, as Search Engine Land clarified, "publishers keep 68% of the revenue earned, while Google takes the rest."

    Meanwhile, publishers get a 51% revenue share for search ads, i.e., the search ads one sees for using Google search on their web site. Why is Google opening up? "Earlier this month, it promised to do so in response to an investigation by the Italian anti-trust authority," Search Engine Land notes. At present, Google has no plans to disclose the revenue share for mobile applications, feeds, and or for games, but said it may eventually do so as those product areas mature. Read the whole story...
  • Twitter Clotheslines Third-Party Ad Nets Media Memo Twitter has up and decided to block any and all third-party ad networks from running ads on its service. "We will not allow any third party to inject paid tweets into a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API," the company clearly explained in a blog post. For its part, Media Memo said it "sort of" saw this coming. "When Twitter launched its own ad system last month, COO Dick Costolo made it clear that Twitter would be restricting the way that rival ad systems could use the service's data feed."

    It appeared to some at the time -- including Media Memo -- that Twitter wasn't shutting the door entirely on select ad networks like 140 Proof and Ad.ly. It has. Media Memo also suggests that Twitter's decision to block third-party ad providers could negatively affect the developers, too, and will likely clear the way for Twitter rivals to spread their wings. Read the whole story...
  • Third-Partly Twitter Ad Network Debuts TechCrunch TweetUp -- the Twitter-centric search and adverting network -- announced its official debut on Monday. According to TechCrunch, TweetUp's destination site ranks Twitter search results by time (and a proprietary algorithm) to determine if a result should be ranked higher than other more recent tweets containing queried keywords. Users will also receive targeted paid-advertiser results within that stream. According to TechCrunch, TweetUp's business model is based on a 50/50 revenue share system, which it considers to be "a pretty compelling offer for advertisers."

    TweetUp also offers publishers embeddable widgets, and other contextual layers filled with relevant live tweets based on given keywords. Meanwhile, advertisers can use the TweetUp system to track the specific Twitter clients running their ads, along with the number of impressions served, and aggregate of followers reached. TweetUp insists that it won't be affected by Twitter's plans to block third-party ad networks, because it doesn't run ads directly in Twitter's stream. Rather, it inserts them into Twitter search results, which TweetUp generates itself. Read the whole story...
  • Twitter Blocks Third-Party Ad Nets Media Memo Twitter has up and decided to block any and all third-party ad networks from running ads on its service. "We will not allow any third party to inject paid tweets into a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API," the company clearly explained in a blog post. For its part, Media Memo said it "sort of" saw this coming.

    "When Twitter launched its own ad system last month, COO Dick Costolo made it clear that Twitter would be restricting the way that rival ad systems could use the service's data feed." It appeared to some at the time -- including Media Memo -- that Twitter wasn't shutting the door entirely on select ad networks like 140 Proof and Ad.ly. It has. Media Memo also suggests that Twitter's decision to block third-party ad providers could negatively affect the developers, too, and will likely clear the way for Twitter rivals to spread their wings. Read the whole story...
  • Google Reveals AdSense Rev Shares Search Engine Land Google just released the exact revenue share that AdSense publishers are given for placing the ads on their Web sites. Publishers can expect a 68% revenue share for content ads, i.e., the ads one sees on Web sites. Therefore, as Search Engine Land clarified, "publishers keep 68% of the revenue earned, while Google takes the rest." Meanwhile, publishers get a 51% revenue share for search ads, i.e., the search ads one sees for using Google search on their Web site.

    Why is Google opening up? "Earlier this month, it promised to do so in response to an investigation by the Italian anti-trust authority," Search Engine Land notes. At present, Google has no plans to disclose the revenue share for mobile applications, feeds, and or for games, but said it may eventually do so as those product areas mature. Read the whole story...
  • TweetUp Out To Monetize Twitter TechCrunch TweetUp -- the Twitter-centric search and adverting network - announced its official debut on Monday. According to TechCrunch, TweetUp's destination site ranks Twitter search results by time (and a proprietary algorithm) to determine if a result should be ranked higher than other more recent tweets containing queried keywords. Users will also receive targeted paid-advertiser results within that stream.

    According to TechCrunch, TweetUp's business model is based on a 50/50 revenue share system, which it considers to be "a pretty compelling offer for advertisers." TweetUp also offers publishers embeddable widgets, and other contextual layers filled with relevant live tweets based on given keywords. Meanwhile, advertisers can use the TweetUp system to track the specific Twitter clients running their ads, along with the number of impressions served, and aggregate of followers reached. TweetUp insists that it won't be affected by Twitter's plans to block third-party ad networks, because it doesn't run ads directly in Twitter's stream. Rather, it inserts them into Twitter search results, which TweetUp generates itself. Read the whole story...
  • Survey: Verizon Subscribers Hungry For iPhone All Things D So, what happens when AT&T's iPhone-exclusivity expires, and Apple starts selling the device through a second U.S. carrier (Verizon)? First of all, nearly 17% of that carrier's customers would upgrade to an iPhone, according to a research note from Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, citing an Alphawise U.S. consumer iPhone survey.

    "There is substantial pent up iPhone demand within the Verizon installed base as 16.8 percent of Verizon subscribers said they are 'very likely' to purchase an iPhone if offered on the Verizon Network," writes Huberty. "This 16.8 percent is higher than AT&T subscriber's 14.6 percent extreme interest in the current AT&T iPhone ... and well above the overall iPhone extreme interest of 7.5 percent," Huberty adds. If survey takers stick to their word, Verizon would stand to sell between seven million to eight million iPhones annually. Read the whole story...
  • Can Teeny Pip.io Disrupt Facebook? The New York Times Meet Pip.io -- the latest startup to be positioned by The New York Times as a potential alternative to disgruntled Facebook users. (Earlier this month, the paper profiled Diaspora*, which let users set up their own personal servers, create their own hubs, and more securely control the personal information they share.)

    Portraying itself as a social operating system, "Pip.io is similar to Facebook and Twitter in that it allows its members to post status updates, send messages and connect with friends," writes The Times. "But unlike its counterparts, the service allows its users to keep more of the information private." Having recently completed a test phase, Pip.io now has 20,000 registered members -- compared to Facebook's more than 400 million. Still, Gartner research analyst Ray Valdes suggests that Facebook has made itself vulnerable to attacks from opponents that can successfully position themselves as more protective of user privacy. "Facebook is pushing to the edge of users' comfort zone," he tells The Times. "It has certainly planted a seed in some users' minds to look for an exit door." Read the whole story...
  • Verizon Subscribers Craving IPhone All Things D So, what happens when AT&T's iPhone-exclusivity expires, and Apple starts selling the device through a second U.S. carrier (Verizon)? First of all, nearly 17% of that carrier's customers would upgrade to an iPhone, according to a research note from Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, citing an Alphawise U.S. consumer iPhone survey.

    "There is substantial pent up iPhone demand within the Verizon installed base as 16.8 percent of Verizon subscribers said they are 'very likely' to purchase an iPhone if offered on the Verizon Network," writes Huberty. "This 16.8 percent is higher than AT&T subscriber's 14.6 percent extreme interest in the current AT&T iPhone ... and well above the overall iPhone extreme interest of 7.5 percent," Huberty adds. If survey takers stick to their word, Verizon would stand to sell between seven million to eight million iPhones annually. Read the whole story...
  • More Startups Bet On Facebook Backlash New York Times Meet Pip.io -- the latest startup to be positioned by The New York Times as a potential alternative to disgruntled Facebook users. (Earlier this month, the paper profiled Diaspora*, which let users set up their own personal servers, create their own hubs, and more securely control the personal information they share.) Portraying itself as a social operating system, "Pip.io is similar to Facebook and Twitter in that it allows its members to post status updates, send messages and connect with friends," writes The Times. "But unlike its counterparts, the service allows its users to keep more of the information private."

    Having recently completed a test phase, Pip.io now has 20,000 registered members -- compared to Facebook's more than 400 million. Still, Gartner research analyst Ray Valdes suggests that Facebook has made itself vulnerable to attacks from opponents that can successfully position themselves as more protective of user privacy. "Facebook is pushing to the edge of users' comfort zone," he tells The Times. "It has certainly planted a seed in some users' minds to look for an exit door." Read the whole story...