A small little pop up got my attention today:

In the last months (well make that the last year in the US, but there is a rest of the world) we have been seeing a rise of Facebook with what I like to call “normal people”. Not only the moms and dads or the kids, but everyone. (You can call it mainstream, but as I never consider myself to be an earlier adopter, I prefer “normal people” as the ones which for most of my live have called me and my interests “weird”.)

And if you would ask them “do you use Social Media?” like surveys often do, they would deny categorically – because they don’t know what our name for this it. But they do use it. I recently was in a restaurant / café which has been open for 4 days and it already have 300 likes and 50 check-ins.

But the problem with such places is that a) users have to find them from the phone and b) there has to be some additional information like a photo etc. to make it ‘nice’. Now, this will be done by the users. Have a look at Berlin Central Station:

If you click on edit – a principle know kinda from that Wikipedia – you get this:

When sombody enters the geo information, next time I visit a place my mobile phone knows where to place me on the map. You would wish that the owners of the place would fill in the needed information, but they are slow to do so. Users on the other hand will. Maybe not always, but once in a while – more than enough if you have that kind of user base. By enriching the data, combined with the access of demographic data, likes, interests and more it is possible to build a profile of users which should be a privacy nightmare to everyone if you think about it.

For the platform it is a win. No need to buy these data to make the service more useful and the chance to sell more services around this? Awesome. Now Facebook not only has the information where you are but due to the Social Graph can connect the information with your friends and so much more.

Great! But is Facebook responsible enough?

Getting users to add data points like this, using any content the users upload for their own purposes for free and being able to sell it, a user base in the hundreds of millions and people willing to add all their personal information to allow targeted advertisement? No wonder this company is valued so high. Sadly, it is also the Glass Pearl Principle in action, currently on the negative side.

With power comes responsibility and so far there is a bit of a problem. From my – as friends like to say ‘schizophrenic – European point of view on privacy Facebook is on a very slippery slope of how to use data, especially when they come to countries outside the US which actually have data protection laws.

• There is already a lawsuit against Facebook because of the implication of the like button and privacy, , see for example “Facebook’s Top Lawsuits Target User Privacy“.
• Or for example giving away information like phone number and home address to third party’s for free just because a user somewhere clicked yes?
  see f.e.: Facebook Grants Developers Access To Home Addresses … Trouble Waiting To Happen? and Facebook Phone app shares all your phone numbers
• The evil friend finder, aggressively promoted especially to new users, uploads all your contact information into their systemo. Every time a normal person connects with their mail data, chances are other information are in there as well (phone number, address of work and home, birthday etc.) without friends knowing about the upload or even consenting to it.  See “Guardian: Is your private phone number on Facebook? Probably. And so are your friends’” and “Facebook Agrees to Change Friend Finder in Response to German Privacy Complaint” for more.If you used the friend finder in the past, you can use the remover here.

I believe Facebook needs to be very careful in the future how to handle it well enough. The mantra of Google to do no evil has a reason: it is good business.

Could somebody get Facebook a decent targeting team?

With power does not only comes responsibility to use data well, but also a responsibility it is common sense to behave professionally – and so far the advertisement on Facebook sucks.

I have been watching advertisement for some time now, talked to other users and advertisers. Users complained to me not only about irrelevant advertisement but also that feedback is not used, as I can confirm by personal experience. It may be that somebody pays a lot to have this add here, but most people hate irrelevant advertisement and are open to interesting advertisement.

Personal example: While I may be *cough* over the magic 4, I would like a button “no baby stuff please nor ‘trying to get a kid??’” and also no wrinkles and such ads. I clicked repeatedly on “uninteresting” as well as “misleading” and saw no change. I would happily click on advertisement if it was more targeted. Login in once in Denmark served me for two weeks with danish advertisement, though I never chose anything else than German or English as my user interface. That is unprofessional for any modern advertisement system. Back to the topic: They know so much about your movements, your interests etc, that companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon would have a field day and target me with useful advertisement.

Facebook on the other hand is the talented kid in the room which does not know yet how to use their talents. It is kinda okay but by no stretch of imagination at the point where it could be. Now imagine a professional partner like say Microsoft to make use of that data. Btw did you know that Microsoft does allow targeting based on demographics like Facebook does, in certain markets? Their problem is simple: Through MSN Messenger and a like they have a lot of data but in no way comparable to the riches Facebook has at their fingertips. And Google is like most other networks far far behind in getting those data, another reason why it made sense for Microsoft to invest in Facebook, just to hold off Google a bit.

How the social graph changes search

When I say the advertisement sucks, I am more referring to the fact it could be way better. What really is unusable is Facebook search. In all cases it is better to go to a real search engine, look for what you want and just add Facebook to it – the results are so superior it is not even funny. Better put: The Facebook results are so bad – I have constantly the question from fan page owners “It is gone!!” – no it is just not findable anymore for you.

But imagine, somebody who actually understands search would work with the riches Facebook has to offer … and use the social graph and the way advertisement can be done on their engine? For example the German market is strongly in Google’s hand, search wise. But what if Microsoft suddenly can use the Social Graph to enhance these results?

In case you’ve never seen the options when creating an advertisement:

You can basically say things like “only display ads to people from 20-25, female, living 80 miles from New York and are not yet connected to this” or – and that is even the worse one – only display ads to friends of users already connected with me the advertiser. So next time you do say “I like” on a brand, imagine your name being beneath any advertisement this person thinks of saying “(your name) likes this.”

Imagine this in combination with search results.

Positive or negative? We decide

As consumers and customers, even just as people we need to learn more about what companies are doing with our data and how they are using it, and we do need more control over it. Not to be negative on all, I am rather thrilled by the options even I as a blogger can get out of this, but there needs to be check and balance. For example, why not allow me a setting “this page can only use your name as endorsement for the page itself / third party / etc.”. If you educate well and you do no evil, most customers probably will help you. And you need to provide more for me than just glass pearls.  :)

It probably has to do with this “Has CityVille reached its peak? Falling numbers say yes” and this one “Zynga’s Reported $7-$10 Billion Valuation Surpasses That Of EA“

Even if you don’t usually play, it is worth looking at this kind of company and behavior in combination on how Facebook works to see a glimpse of the real power of social networks and what I call “normal people” as well as the dangers which successful games bring for Facebook’s power of the friends network.

Me playing or I love to finally see brand advertisement

As some will know, I have recently taken up playing Cityville. I never got into games like this, but it seems with the combination of your real friends, online and casual gaming this is working for me. And if you tell me “but it is just a waste of time!” let me disagree with you: Since starting to play CV I finally get the advertisement experience on Facebook others probably have had for a while. Up until now I would see nearly nothing, but as a women in my age bracket who started playing a game like that?

*Boom* I now got all the advertisement I need for my slides on how to work with Facebook and Social Media in general. Which is not what they bargained for, but that is another story.

How they usually try to get you to invite friends

Cityville, like most of the games, relies on you having a plot of land where you can work and play. It only is fun if you have neighbors and if you share everything onto your feed. Which is considered by many as spamming (I agree) but the game is not just playable and even more important not as fun as if you can use your friends and the news feed.

Having looked into some of the other games, at least Zynga offers me some choice in how to deal with these invites for quests and gifts etc.: mail all friends or just game friends.

There used to be the option (probably for quicker getting friends in) active Zynga players (assuming they are more likely to try this out which is true) and Farmville friends. That kinda works out okay. Most people learn very quickly that you do not spam your non playing friends and Facebook has banned all the gaming stuff into a separate tab from the news feed.

How Facebook got rid of most of the postings but probably fears the “add me threads”

If you play these games, you want to use all the sharing options for advancement in the game and game fun. Which is exactly why most non players have blocked those apps: it is annoying as hell. Even I as the player don’t want to spam my profile with it but at the same time want to use the game as it is meant to be. In essence, we need a gaming tab for our Facebook profile to deal with that. I for example have to force myself not to post these because I do want my profile to be ‘nice’ to read.

It also poses threats for Facebook in a way that complete strangers accept friend request not because they know them – but just because they need them in the game. Suddenly active friends (the ones with a lot of likes because of our behavior) are not at all friends.  For example it is absolutely common to click like on one of those game entries to say “thank you” or comment on it if the rewards are out. Take into account how Facebook tries to calculate the Edge Rank and News Feed Optimization and you might see where the challenge for Facebook is.

How Zynga is trying now

Being banned out of the news feed, they try to get your more to send your friends invites. I think around Christmas they tried a “adopt a puppy” trick, where you could invite your friends for a bonus, but that was just something you could dismiss because it has no relevant in game value.

The latest in this is the so called Visitor Center which requires you to invite 4 not playing friends. Inviting neighbors has been seen before: if you do not have x neighbors to invite as staff of your community building then you cannot finish it. The hard difference now is: it has to be a ‘fresh player’ and this time it is something people would want to have.

Difference to the invite above at least is stated clearly that you are sending to non playing friends:

To be fair, you do not need to spam your friends – it is not a necessary quest or you could spend 7 dollars. Probably Zynga will be happy about that too. Just …

People are really unhappy

People are really not happy about as you can see here in the official forum. Within hours of posting the “what do you think of it” I pretty much see 70 pages of people not liking it and that is just the one single forum. If you look closer, it is not really so much about having to invite 4 friends (and make that work) but the way it is pushed onto the players.

Over 70 pages is btw the amount of allowed posting because as it seems I am not the only one who ran into their ‘house rules’

Amazing: Within nearly a minute my first posting got deleted by the moderators, as well as my second posting. I can agree on them having house rules on what they accept there and what not but I have to ask myself, if they delete so quickly and there are already over 70 pages in unhappy comments, how much more did they delete?

Even with only being online for probably 2-3 minutes I get friend request from somebody who said they got deleted too and several other comments indicate similar treatment.

I loved the reason for the second delete, number 5 from the list of forum rules

“You may NOT start a thread or post complaining that your post was removed.”

(the rest is also worth a look). As in “don’t let anybody know that we actually work the forums to have them the way we want”.

The beauty of the Net

As I said, I understand where these kind of TOS etc. come from and why they are in place. And of course why they want to ‘encourage’ users to get others into the game. But there are different ways to do so – and one thing companies should have learned: If you push, people will just find another way to deal with it, even the non savy ones.

And here is always more than one place to voice the opinion.

Btw anyone not playing CV and in need for a non playing gamer in their game? Friend me. Happy to barter.  ;o)

Step 1: Plan your page

Since today Facebook Fan pages can have vanity urls too. Meaning instead of the ugly

http://www.facebook.com/pages/the-long-name-you-chose/the-id-facebook-gave-you

you could have:

http://www.facebook.com/yourchoiceofname

In order to set the Facebook vanity url for your fan page, there are several things which need to be in place first.

• You need to be admin of the page in question
• It seems you also may need a verified account
• You need to know which name you want for that page. Because once you have set it, you can never change it.

Facebook lists the following restrictions:

• • Create a username that is as close as possible to your public figure or business name (e.g. AshtonKutcher, PizzaHut).
  • If you own the rights to a given name, make it your username so that others cannot obtain it.
  • Usernames can only contain alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9) or a period (“.”).
  • Choose a username you will be happy with for the long term. Usernames are not transferable.
  • Your username must adhere to Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

Step 2: Choose your vanity url

For choosing your pages url, visit http://www.facebook.com/username/. You will see something similar to this:

This means, that I have set my personal username and in the bottom you do find the “Set username for your pages”. Click on this and you will see a new selection: 

Now, if my page for the Global Business Women had enough fans, I could now choose to enter a name for them and show you the rest. ;)

Step 3: Setting the URL

I will follow with more information once I have a page over 100 fans to check how this goes ;)

Further information from the help entry from Facebook:

• Infringement:
  If you wish to report that someone’s username infringes your rights, please fill out our username infringement form. The form is located here.
• I am an authorized representative for a public figure, brand or business and/or hold the rights to a trademark name. My username was claimed by another user. What can I do?
  If you wish to report that someone’s username infringes your rights, please fill out our username IP infringement form.
• What is the process to request removal of an unauthorized Page of a public figure, brand or business?
  If you wish to report that someone’s username infringes your rights, all you need to do is fill out our username IP infringement form here.
• Will usernames such as “flowers” or “pizza” ever be available for Facebook Pages? Can I sign up on a waiting list?
  At this time, generic words are not available as usernames. Facebook encourages all users and Page administrators to create a username that closely matches the true identity of their name or business.

Note: For a vanity URL, you now only need 25 fans. Please note that all entries into the database with more than 25 fans will be removed.

Starting today, you can have a vanity Facebook URL for your Facebook Fan page. At least that was the idea when I went to bed yesterday – only to find out this morning, that you actually need 100 25 fans to do that.

Many pages have enough fans, but others don’t. Instead of trying to ‘suggest’ them to your friends I thought it might be easier to start a small “help a friend” project. Goal: Get over 100 25 fans to be able to claim your username.

How to add your own pages

Adding yourself is simple. Use this form and enter your information. After some minutes, this list will automatically display your entry. Be fair and not only add yourself but follow others as well. ;)

As noted on the form, the listing here will be at my discretion, anything looking suspicious or too spammy will be removed by me.

How to help others

Go take a look at the facebook fan pages listed at the bottom of this entry and choose the ones you find good and add yourself as a fan. Once the goal of 100 25 is reached, the owner should be able to claim the username and you can remove yourself again.

In search of enough fans …

Moved Permanently

The document has moved here.