A Rhode Island man has sued Facebook for allegedly violating his privacy with the four-week-old "instant personalization" feature, which automatically shares information about users with outside companies. In papers filed in federal court late last week, East Providence resident Derrick Rose alleges that the launch of instant personalization "violated users' reasonable expectations of privacy." "Users' private lists of all the persons they want to share information with may be very different from what they may want to share for purposes of social networking through Facebook," Rose alleges. "Nevertheless, Facebook, without user authorization, accessed and made public the users' profile information." Rose's lawsuit is just the latest headache for Facebook, which has drawn widespread criticism from lawmakers like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), privacy advocates and tech journalists for recent revisions to its privacy policy. While Facebook has changed several key privacy settings since December, the launch of instant personalization is especially troubling. That feature automatically shares users' names, photos and other data with three outside companies -- Microsoft Docs, Pandora and Yelp. Facebook allows users to opt out of the feature, but advocates say it should only operate on an opt-in basis. In addition, even if users opt out of instant personalization, their information can still be shared by their friends unless the users specifically block the three outside companies from accessing the data. Facebook reportedly intends to simply its privacy settings starting on Wednesday. The lawsuit by Rose appears to be the first to stem from Facebook's instant personalization, but not the first related to the company's privacy settings. Earlier this year, Facebook was hit with two class-actions alleging that it violated users' privacy with revisions to the site last December. Those cases, now consolidated, are proceeding in federal district court in the northern district of California. In general, it's hard for plaintiffs to prevail in privacy lawsuits because there usually aren't any monetary damages. But Facebook still could have an incentive to settle the lawsuit to avoid an expensive and potentially embarrassing litigation. Recently, Facebook agreed to a $10 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit stemming from its 2007 Beacon program, which told members about their friends' purchases. The bulk of that settlement will go toward funding a new privacy think tank. Facebook did not respond to Online Media Daily's request for comment for this article.
Forbes on Tuesday announced the acquisition of social-driven news site True/Slant. Effective June 1, True/Slant founder and CEO Lewis Dvorkin is expected to join Forbes to lead all editorial areas at Forbes as chief product officer. "Forbes is stepping ahead of everyone on this one," Dvorkin said of the acquisition. But, couldn't the media company's resources be described as antiquated? Hardly, Dvorkin insisted. "With all of Forbes' great experts, the wealth of Forbes data, and its real-time Web features, we have a unique ability to stimulate the social media conversation," he said. "Our journalists, producers, audiences, marketers and all variety of entrepreneurs will be engaged as they never have been before with one another." From December 1996 to April 2000, Dvorkin served as executive editor of Forbes magazine. More recently, he started consulting for Forbes in April of this year. In his new role, Dvorkin will be expected to create and implement new editorial initiatives, as well as re-imagine Forbes.com and the magazine itself. He will also assume responsibility for all editorial products across Forbes. Since its founding last summer, True/Slant has relied on independent journalists -- known as "knowledge experts" -- who are assigned to specific topics, including politics, culture, sports, business, health, science and food. Each contributor gets a dedicated page to feature their work with the goal of attracting a network of highly engaged followers. Pages also feature headlines from around the Web, which contributors select themselves. Presently, True/Slant has more than 300 contributors whose work is divided into 18 topic areas, Dvorkin said in a open letter on Tuesday. Dvorkin also projects that "a record" 1.5 million unique users "will have visited our site," this month. Going forward, "The small True/Slant team ... will now be working side-by-side with talented and dedicated journalists at Forbes Media," Dvorkin said. For the last six months, meanwhile, True/Slant had been engaged in second-round fund-raising, according to Dvorkin. He also said Forbes Media was an original investor in True/Slant. True/Slant is just the latest "new media" acquisition for Forbes, which has undergone painful transitions in the face of rapidly changing market demands. Last November, one month after it was forced to cut 100 jobs -- from both the editorial and business side -- Forbes acquired FlipGloss Media. Santa Monica, CA-based FlipGloss helps publishers -- including Variety and Scripps Networks -- and advertisers create and distribute interactive, magazine-style content packages, which are designed to increase user engagement and ad performance. After leaving Forbes, Dvorkin joined AOL as senior vice president of programming, where he was responsible for news, sports and network programming. At AOL, he is also credited with helping to launch top gossip site TMZ.com. During his career, Dvorkin has also served as Page One editor of The Wall Street Journal, a senior editor at Newsweek, and an editor at The New York Times.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski's plan to impose net neutrality rules by reclassifying broadband as a telecommunications service is meeting with resistance from some lawmakers. This week, 74 Democrats in the House sent a letter to Genachowski warning against reclassification. "The uncertainty this proposal creates will jeopardize jobs and deter needed investment for years to come," they write. The Congress members also say that controversy caused by an FCC assertion of authority over broadband "will likely serve as a distraction" from expanding the availability and adoption of broadband. Thirty-seven Republican senators this week also asked Genachowski to rethink his plan to impose neutrality rules on broadband providers. "Turning 21st Century broadband networks into "dumb pipes" is not what will draw investment to grow jobs in the communications sector and bring high-speed broadband to every home in America," the senators wrote. "You have previously indicated that you would rely on fact-based analysis for future rulemakings," they added. "However, in your effort to reclassify broadband services as telecommunications services, you appear to be solely relying on the unsubstantiated fear that broadband service providers may harm consumers at some future date." Last year, Genachowski officially proposed enacting neutrality rules that would ban providers from discriminating against particular sites or applications by either degrading or prioritizing traffic. Since then, however, a federal appellate court has said that the FCC doesn't have the authority to impose neutrality rules because broadband is classified as an "information" service. That decision spurred Genachowski to propose reclassifying broadband transmission as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, but forbearing from terms "that are unnecessary and inappropriate for broadband access service." The move would largely require broadband providers to follow the same common carrier rules that govern telephone companies.
Since Apple announced the iPad in January there has been widespread speculation about what impact it would have on the netbook market. A Morgan Stanley report released earlier this month suggested the Apple tablet has indeed cannibalized netbook sales, plummeting in January and again in April, when the iPad was launched. The study showed netbook sales growth tumbling from a high of 641% in July to just 5% in April. Other analysts weren't so sure about the link between the iPad and netbook sales. Ross Rubin of NPD Group pointed out that netbooks had a strong holiday season, so the fall-off at the start of the year was chiefly seasonal. Year-over-year growth for netbooks in 2009 was also very high because sales were starting from such a small base in 2008, said Rubin. Duplicating those gaudy figures in 2010 would be difficult. So factors other than the iPad may have played a bigger role in declining netbook growth. But new findings from a survey by electronics shopping site Retrevo tend to favor those in the iPad-is-killing netbooks camp. The company found that the 30% of people who said they held off buying a netbook when the iPad was announced in January have since bought the Apple device. (Forty percent who held off eventually bought a netbook anyway. Another 30% had not delayed getting a netbook.) And of people now looking to buy an iPad or netbook, 78% are leaning toward the former. Worse, netbooks are now getting squeezed from the other side by falling laptop prices, according to Retrevo. Of people who bought a laptop or netbook last year, 65% got a laptop and 35% a netbook. And among those looking to get either type of device this year, people are leaning toward laptops by the same proportion. The iPad may not be singlehandedly slaying the netbook, but "it's definitely taking market share away," said Manish Rathi, co-founder and vice president of marketing for Retrevo, citing the nearly one-third of people who switched from getting a netbook to an iPad. Retrevo says the data in its Pulse reports is based on a survey of more than 1,000 people in the U.S. with representation across gender, age, income and location. Rathi maintained, however, there's still a "use case" for the netbook as a portable, lightweight alternative to a laptop or PC, although future sales growth will probably come in international markets rather than domestically. He pointed out that Intel recently said netbooks are going to sell well in countries like Mexico and India where they are more likely to serve as primary computers. In the U.S., "this is the year of the tablet," said Rathi. In addition to the iPad, which Apple said had sold 1 million units in its first month, he pointed to rival devices expected to come from HP, through its acquisition of Palm, and from the pairing of Google and Verizon Wireless. In that vein, Retrevo has another survey underway asking about the potential of a Google tablet. It was rumored that the company might unveil its tablet initiative at the Google I/O developer conference last week, but nothing was announced. But the results from the Retrevo survey on a Google tablet should be out early next week, said Rathi. With the iPad selling for a minimum of $500, he suggested there is room for competitors to try to undercut Apple on price. "A lot of people want to buy an iPad, but they don't have a reason to," he said. "Five hundred dollars is a very expensive price point for entertainment."
SCVNGR wants to build a game layer on top of the world. The company's Chief Executive Officer Seth Priebatsch -- who founded the concept 18 months ago while a freshman at Princeton -- recently got one step closer after securing deals with Tesla, the Patriots, the Celtics, Warner Bros., and The New York Times. Pronounced "scavenger," but spelled without the vowels, the location- and mobile-based social gaming platform goes beyond the check-in process like Foursquare to provide challenges that put the mobile phone owner in the game. It's about participating in challenges, going places, earning points and unlocking badges. People who play the games scan QR codes, take photos, and solve riddles. The business model had been for enterprises, but now Priebatsch has unleashed it to consumers. About 600 clients so far, from universities to cities, have built games with challenges to destinations through SCVNGR Builder. They paid up to thousands per year to initiate up to 25 challenges that people can access on the SCVNGR network. Now the tool is being offered to retail stores, small businesses and consumers. SCVNGR Builder lets those who build the challenges find their favorite locations and create fun games from the Web. The platform comes with a guide and analytics to monitor the chase and the game. Buying credits gives people game design support to make fun challenges around the 20 million locations loaded in the application. The games, similar to the one from Tesla, are tied to QR codes. The 45-employee company, funded by Google Ventures and Highland Capital Partners, has been cash-flow-positive for six months. Priebatsch attributes the positive revenue stream to giving brands an open game platform that sits on top of the world and integrates with the Web to engage consumers with their brand. The mobile games aim to pull in foot traffic to physical locations. "We call it scriptable location-based media," he says. Similar to Android and other Google products, SCVNGR's product roadmap will take it down a path to open the game layer, allowing more people to build on the platform. Today, the company supports 20 million places and 80 million challenges in North America, but the company wants to double that within the next few months and expand into the "big wide world." Today, people can play primarily from iPhone and Android running mobile devices, so the plan will also move the platform to the BlackBerry within months. As the company adds locations, the biggest technical challenge becomes geospatial search. Scaling data as the number of locations grow becomes very difficult, but engineers at Google have been generous, investing their time to help build-out the system. "I asked Rich who cofounded Android if I could borrow the guy who designed Gmail to help us with some UI improvements, and I thought I was being really funny," Priebatsch says. "I figured he would say 'not a chance,' but instead he took someone from the Google Ventures team who had been involved in the architecture and flew him out to Boston to help us design it." The brand benefits as more people sign on to play because the community becomes larger and the ability to reach more people grows. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, the scriptable platform brings together multiple types of audiences from social platforms and the brand's site.
No matter where vacationers migrate this summer, chances are slim that they will completely disconnect from digital media and communications. Indeed, 72.2% travelers in 2010 say they accessed the Internet, email or social media sites while on their last vacation, according to a new study from ad network Burst Media. That represents a significant jump from 2009, when three out of five -- 63.3% -- travelers admitted to using the Internet while on vacation. Men are more likely to go online while away -- 76.2% -- than women -- 67.7%. Men or women, why do vacationers go online? Keeping in touch with family and friends was the reason cited by 42.8% of men, and 52.7% of women used that excuse. Meanwhile, 27.3% of men -- and 31.6% of women -- said they went online to check out local destinations and entertainment. Among men, 33.1% said they used the Web to check news and sports sites, as compared to 23.7% of women. Finally, 22.3% of men and 17.6% of women said they needed to virtually check in at the office. Administered earlier this month to over 2,400 adults 18 years and older, the Burst survey found that one-quarter -- 27.2% -- of respondents plan to take more vacations this summer compared to last year, and 44% plan to take about the same number. The Internet remains invaluable for travelers, with the vast majority -- 88% -- going online as a resource when making vacation plans. "The Internet is the primary source for many consumers to both research and make purchases, particularly with their travel plans," said Mark Kaefer, marketing director at Burst Media. The most popular Web site content areas demanded by travelers are airline flight and hotel room availability/rate information -- 54.4%; travel promotions, specials and bargains --53.3%; and travel bulletins/alerts --24.5%. Overall, Web users gave page personalization and opt-in newsletters low "must have" rankings at 11.0% and 10.8%, respectively. The study also found that only one-in-ten respondents -- 12.6% -- said they plan to reduce their number of summer trips compared to 2009. By contrast, last June, a third of respondents -- 34.6% -- said they planned to travel less during the summer 2009 season. Consumers who plan to take more trips this summer cite various reasons for increased travel volume: 28.8% said they have more available time to take off; 19.4% say their personal or family finances are back on track and 13.2% said greater job security is a factor.
Evidently, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive officer, has had enough. Maybe that's why Microsoft in February appointed David Webster chief strategy officer, and Gayle Troberman chief creative officer, -- both new roles -- after somewhat of a reorganization earlier this year. Webster was previously general manager, brand and marketing strategy. Troberman serves as general manager of advertising. Both report to Mich Mathews, senior vice president of corporate marketing. The new appointments and strategy will allow marketing team to work across campaigns to unify the message for the Microsoft brand. With any new appointments high in the organizational structure, typically new blood is brought in -- people who have the same concept and leadership strategy to carry out their vision. Global Equities Research Managing Director Trip Chowdhry says Microsoft should have started the reorganization in 2009 to fix internal problems and improve profitability in 2010. "They are one year late, but better late than never," he says. Chowdhry points to Ballmer's distaste for several "marketing blunders." They begin with late product launches, inadequate online marketing strategies, inflated prices, and incorrect names chosen for Windows Server and SQL Server. Sources tell Chowdhry that Ballmer believes the latest products should have been named Windows Server 2010 and SQL Server 2010, as initially decided, rather than Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008 R2. Some say marketing for the Windows and server division interfere with the Entertainment division, which many expect will get a makeover as well. Perhaps a Microsoft spokesperson did not return inquiries to confirm the shakeup because they had to deal with the resignation of Robbie Bach on Tuesday. The president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division will step down from the company this fall. The executive launched and drove innovation for products such as Xbox and Windows Phone. Don Mattrick, senior vice president for Microsoft's interactive entertainment business, and Andy Lees, senior vice president for the company's mobile communications business, will report to Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer beginning July 1, the company said.
Data is at the heart of any successful marketing strategy. Decades of research have produced scores of theories and best practices on how advertisers can best reach their target audiences. Marketers have seen an array of targeting techniques, most focused on context, demographics and psychographics. With the explosion of the social Web, a whole new approach to building brand audiences that is based on the connections among people and between people and brands has been discovered. This new approach is called social targeting. Social targeting is taking the old model of audience targeting and turning it on its head. The old model associated a brand with personal attributes -- age, gender, income level, various cultural attitudes -- and then targeted media that best matched those attributes. The new model, enabled by both social media and audience bidding technologies (ad exchanges and real-time bidding), uses social graph data to assemble custom audiences and reach them where they are most receptive to a marketer's message. Theories about targeting based on connections among consumers have been around for several years. In research published in 2006, AT&T Research and New York University's Stern School of Business showed that the best way to find new customers for a given telecommunications service was through connections between prospects and existing customers. Evaluating a wealth of data to define cohorts based on personal profile and purchasing patterns, the research team found the best way to identify future customers was to target the people who called existing customers and were called by them most recently and frequently. Social targeting has adapted this concept and delivered it at scale on the social Web. By analyzing anonymous social graph data derived from visits to micro-content, social targeting technology constructs custom audiences made up of a brand's current customers (brand loyalists) and their closest connections. And it does that without any reference to personally identifiable information, or any specific recognition of site content. From profile pages to photo-sharing sites to personal blogs, micro-content visits define connections that are predictive of shared brand affinity. How are those connections evaluated? That's where the real pioneering work is being done. A complex and evolving set of algorithms measures the efficacy of the various classes of micro-content to iteratively optimize the social graph, uniquely for each brand and each advertising campaign. Social targeting is all about performance and scale. It has the potential to work for any brand, providing superior ROI for marketers that consistently exceeds results from other targeting methods. The early executions have proven particularly effective for marketers whose goals are online conversion events, such as retail, travel and financial services. In time, expect pure brand marketers to adopt social targeting as their preferred means of constructing audiences most receptive to their brand messages.
My life as a focus group. No, not mine. The woman sitting next to me on a New York-bound commuter train. At least that's what it says on the header of the Blogger account she is feverishly pecking into on her Mac. "Most people think the left brain is the random, emotional and creative side of the brain," she writes, engaging one of the sides of my brain -- or perhaps both -- as I peek over her shoulder at what she is writing. "In fact," she continues, "it's the right brain that's the emotional and irrational and the left brain that focuses on the rational, logical and analytical. I've spent years questioning what is the right mix of the two sides of the brain to get to the most disruptive creative solution and without alienating our audience and our clients." With an opening like that, and given what I do for a living, I couldn't resist asking: "Excuse me, are you in the advertising business?" Pausing just long enough to shift her neural activity from one side to the other, she turns to me quizzically, and nods: "Why, yes, I am." "My Life As A Focus Group? That's a great name for a blog," I observe. "I've trademarked it," she responds with a hint of pride, and an ample dose of intellectual propriety. "As well you should have," I continue, prompting one of the sides of her brain to respond in kind: "Are you in the business too?" "Well, sort of," I reply, explaining that I am a journalist who covers the business for MediaPost, and at Advertising Age, Adweek and other places before that. What's the point of this encounter, and why should you care? Well, fundamentally, because it is a story about people in our business. People who observe the stories of others -- whether they are being unfolded in focus groups, on commuter train rides, or in the ones they tell or post on blogs. I've been telling stories about people -- mainly people in our business -- for more than 30 years. So I figured I might as well tell you one more about Elizabeth Elfenbein, her new blog, and why she began writing it. But before I do, let me go back to the question I posed earlier -- "why should you care?" Fair enough, and for those people who have already heard what I'm about to say, you can just skip the next paragraph. For those of you who are still with me, please pay careful attention to this sentence, because by the time you finish reading it, a new media outlet will have been created that, in principle, can compete with the biggest and most established media outlets in the world. A new blog, social media page, Twitter account -- you name it -- is created by someone just about every second now. So why should you care about Elizabeth Elfenbein's blog? Some of you clearly will not. Others will. The difference comes down to a few things, not the least of which is how well she writes, how insightful her posts truly are, and perhaps most importantly of all, how relevant they are to you. One thing I can tell she is she is incredibly energized about it, and if you could see the look in her eyes when I asked her about it, you'd check it out if only to see what could motivate someone to spend her morning commutes nakedly broadcasting her thoughts to the world. Raw and unexpurgated, as we like to say at MediaPost. Typing at the speed of thought into her Mac, and pumping it straight into the cloud via her Verizon aircard, typos, and multi-sided brain insights and all. Or as Elfenbein wrote in a prior post: "A smile is a wonderful thing. It's like a spark that invites people to get to know you. A smile sends a message to other people that you are warm and approachable." If you want to get to know Elfenbein, you can find more of her observations at her aptly named Blogger account, People Observations. It's aptly named, not because I as a person observed her posting to it, but because that's what she does for a living. She observes people. Gleans insights from those observations. And then applies it on behalf of her clients' brands. As a partner and head of the creative group at CementBloc, and at some big Madison Avenue agencies before that, Elfenbein has spent much of her professional life observing what makes people tick, and how that influences how they relate to brands. She started as a "creative person" -- art director by trade -- but says she is most inspired by consumer behavior, and lives her life as, well, a focus group. It doesn't matter whether she's learning from people in conference room settings, or a chance encounter with a young boy on her Metro North commute. It's all about focusing on people. She says she began her blog as a way to put her long commute to good use, and to begin sharing her thoughts with anyone who cares to listen. Those are two things I can relate to. I don't blog, because I already have a platform for sharing my thoughts with a community -- MediaPost. And my chance encounter with Elfenbein makes me wonder how many people in our business have become bloggers? I know a few, mainly friends and former Madison Avenue media gurus like Rob Frydlewicz at History As You Experienced It and Steve Sternberg at The Sternberg Report. If you're publishing a blog about the business, let me know (you can reach me at joe@mediapost.com) and I'll check it out, and maybe even write about it. Because, as Elfenbein points out in a fresh post, "a human truth regarding sharing is that it results in fortunate things." There, I've shared something. Now it's your turn.