Posts Tagged Social media

The Creep of Social Media Raises Big Questions – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Opinion, Perspective, Social Media on December 31, 2012


The Creep of Social Media Raises Big Questions

Sherry Turkle

Sherry Turkle 

 

Social media won’t get less attractive the longer they exist. But we will learn how to use them more wisely. Right now, we’re smitten and look away from problems; we behave like young lovers who are afraid that too much talking will spoil the romance. As we grow into a more mature relationship, we’ll find time to talk. I see at least three necessary conversations.

We grew up with social media and tend to think of them as all grown up. But in fact, we are in early days.

First, both in our personal and work lives, social media make it easy for us to hide from each other, even as we are constantly connected to each other. We’d rather text than talk, we’d rather post online than meet face-to-face. But online, we end up performing for each other, putting forth the self we want to be. With friends, we share what is easy to share. At work, we don’t like to archive false starts and missteps. So in many cases, we make it harder to learn from each other and mentor each other.

Hiding from each other has some costs for grownups. For children, those costs multiply. Recently, we have been presented with the suggestion that Facebook may be offered to children under 13. But on social media, children don’t learn negotiation skills, how to read a face, how to put themselves in the place of another, how to apologize and, most striking, the difference between an apology and saying you’re sorry. As more mature consumers of social media, we’ll want to talk about all of this.

Second, social media increase the volume and velocity of connections to a point where communicating in anything but online postings seems almost impossible. We demand immediate answers and are willing to ask simple questions to get them. We come to measure success by e-mails answered, connections made, posts responded to. We become transactional and reactive. This is not good for productivity or creativity. We’ll want to talk about this.

And finally, we will ask two other questions of social media, now becoming increasingly urgent: What is democracy without privacy? What is intimacy without privacy? We grew up with social media and so we tend to think of them as all grown up. But in fact, we are in early days. There is plenty of time to change how we build and use these media. We are not going to turn away from them. But we will better align social media to our human purposes, and they will have helped us clarify what these are.

 The Creep of Social Media Raises Big Questions – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com.

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Social Media Is a Romance Contraceptive – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Opinion, Perspective, Social Media on December 31, 2012


Put the Smartphone Down. Now.

David Wygant

David Wygant is a dating and relationship coach. He is also the author of “Naked!: How to Find the Perfect Partner by Revealing Your True Self.”

UPDATED DECEMBER 30, 2012, 7:01 PM

 

Social media is what I’d call a romance contraceptive. It prevents romance from happening every single day.

Every day when I’m out and about, I’ll see people in elevators, I’ll see people in grocery stores, coffee shops, and at restaurants. And they’re all checking Facebook! Or they’re tweeting something to their 3.7 followers. We’ve become a society of people who are obsessed with what’s happening in the imaginary world.

Save the social media checking for when you’re at home. When you’re out and about, drop it, and be uncomfortable again.

Facebook is an imaginary world.

Checking in on what your friends are doing at noon when you can be flirting with a handsome stranger or the cute girl next to you in line at Starbucks is a complete social block.

Just the other day, I was in a supermarket in Los Angeles and I saw this guy checking out this girl. He was standing next to her in line at the juice bar. He kept looking at her, and she kept looking down … at the Facebook app on her iPhone.

Now, I know some of you right now are thinking, maybe she wasn’t interested. That wasn’t the issue. Because what I’m about to share with you is something most of you have probably done.

He gave up and disappeared. But I was crazy curious so I stood next to her in line and got real close and peeked at what she was typing into her phone.

Her status update: When am I going to meet a nice guy? It seems like all the good men are taken.

Think about what just happened.

She complained about not finding good men, but here was an interested man, standing next to her. Now, granted, nobody knows if the romance would have worked, but think about this: for every moment that you’re checking your Twitter feed, or your so-called friends’ updates on Facebook, you’re missing another opportunity to connect with somebody in real life … which could be another opportunity to fall in love.

Wake up, and walk away from the social media every once in a while. Drop the smartphone. It’s not making you smart; it’s actually making you pretty dumb. Save the social media checking for when you’re home. When you’re out and about, drop it, and be uncomfortable again. Sit in a restaurant, and look around, but don’t read Facebook: be present, and smile at the people that are around you. We don’t need to be constantly doing things on our phones.

So, my advice to all of you who would like to find romance this holiday season: Leave the phone at home. Sit with the discomfort of being without your contraceptive coping aid — the smartphone — and start looking at all the available people that have been there the whole time wanting to meet you. Then, maybe you will return home and type a status update like this:

You wouldn’t believe what happened today in Starbucks, I met the most amazing person; I can’t wait to see him tonight.

 Social Media Is a Romance Contraceptive – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com.

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Opinion: In age of social media, national political conventions still have vital role – The Hill – covering Congress, Politics, Political Campaigns and Capitol Hill | TheHill.com

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Politics on August 27, 2012


 

The Hill Newspaper

 

Opinion: In age of social media, national political conventions still have vital role

By Judd Gregg - 08/27/12 05:00 AM ET

  

In a time of social media, iPads, FaceTime and constant communication, it is often difficult to understand the purpose and need for national political conventions. 

The question that is increasingly being asked — and which is becoming more relevant — is why we need to have these quadrennial gatherings at all. 

No convention in 70 years has played a significant role in picking the nominee of the party. 

The platforms developed as statements of party policy at these events are often ignored — and the nominee of the party in some cases campaigns against them.  The folks who attend the conventions used to take comfort in the assurance, at least, of enjoying a continuous good time. 

But the actual convention partying has been scaled back considerably, as events were most often underwritten by those unsavory “special interests.” 

Thus the event’s fun has taken a significant hit in the last decade or so. 

This all creates the feeling conventions are anachronisms — developed in an era when people needed to physically gather to set the course of their parties and the nation — that hold only a marginal purpose in today’s digital times.

But are they really outdated and unnecessary?

If you look at what is developing in our political system today, one of the most significant events is the rise of the independent voters — currently the nation’s largest identified voting bloc. 

Certainly, in almost every swing state — places critical to determining the outcome of the Electoral College and the presidential race — it is the independent voter who decides the winner. 

This creates an atmosphere where party affiliation seems less and less important. 

We hear constantly about how candidates, after they have obtained the nomination of their party, try to move “back to the center” so that they can win over the “critical” independent vote in the fall. 

In light of this, one might be tempted to conclude the national conventions actually hurt the chosen candidates. 

Conventions are, after all, naturally populated by “base” voters and activists, and end up highlighting positions that are most often not going to assist in attracting independent voters.

All this being said, there is a more important and significant role that conventions play that makes them not only relevant in today’s political world, but critical to the maintenance of our form of constitutional government. 

The convention system and, more importantly, the primary process that leads up to the conventions give the parties a chance to reinvigorate themselves every four years. 

Even though the outcomes are a foregone conclusion long before the conventions occur, they mark a clear decision point and chance for the identities of the two parties to be confirmed. 

They also give the nominee his or her best opportunity to speak to the American people about his or her plans, in a way that is not filtered by the press. 

If we look around at other democracies, especially Western nations, there are two essential differences with our approach. 

First, most of them are parliamentary governments — so they do not have our system of checks and balances. 

Second, they have multiple parties and thus the various interest and issue groups are diffused. 

This second point is a critical difference. 

The effect of multiple parties, even in a parliamentary form of government, is to make it extremely challenging to reach consensus on action, because the power becomes so splintered. 

Our system, which has been a two-party system for most of our nation’s modern history, has given us the unique advantage of having two central organizations that bring people together under the broad umbrellas of either Democrats or Republicans. 

This leads to a system that is able to better focus issues and push toward consensus and thus action. 

It may not look like it works that well, but compared to multi-party democracies, the two-party system gives us a huge advantage. This two-party system is confronting many centrifugal forces in today’s world. 

It is facing great pressure both from the independent vote and the rise of digital information, which naturally undermines the need for parties.

Without the forum of the political convention, the two-party system would be under even greater stress. 

The rise of a fragmented system would gain greater momentum. 

Those who believe that being unaffiliated with a party leads to better governance would find out rather quickly, with the further deterioration of the two-party system, that multi-party rule leads to a less effective and more strident form of government. 

The physical event of the conventions might seem irrelevant to most Americans in our cyberworld, but the reassertion of the two-party system that they represent is critical to maintain a government that delivers a uniquely American democracy.

 Opinion: In age of social media, national political conventions still have vital role – The Hill – covering Congress, Politics, Political Campaigns and Capitol Hill | TheHill.com.

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Facebook facial recognition: How to opt out

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Facebook on June 24, 2012


Facebook Has Automatically Signed You Up for Facial Recognition. Here’s How to Opt Out.

By Will Oremus

 | Posted Thursday, June 21, 2012

101625079

Gail Sredanovic of the activist group Raging Grannies protests outside of Facebook’s former Palo Alto headquarters in 2010.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Now that we know Facebook is about to get a lot better at recognizing our faces, what can we do about it?

If you’re the sort of person who wants your friendly social media company to get to know you as well as possible, I have good news: You don’t have to do anything at all. Facebook signs you up for facial recognition by default, so all you have to do is sit back and let your friends teach the company’s algorithms exactly how to identify your face in their photos. In fact, there’s a good chance this is already happening, since Facebook was using some of Face.com’s technology even before the acquisition.

If, on the other hand, you still cling to quaint notions about privacy and anonymity, the news is mixed. There’s no way to stop Facebook from learning what you look like based on the photos in which you’re tagged, and if you haven’t already opted out, it may know your mug pretty well already. But you can easily opt out of the feature in which Facebook uses that information to make your name pop up whenever your friends upload a photo of you.

In his Naked Security blog, Graham Cluley of the computer security firm Sophos explains how. His handy guide comes with pictures, but here are the three basic steps:

1.     Open your Facebook privacy settings
2.     Next to “Timeline and Tagging,” select “Edit Settings.”
3.     Next to “Who sees tag suggestions when photos that look like you are uploaded?”, select “No One,” then click “OK.”

You’ll notice that the only choices are “Friends” and “No One.” Surely mindful of the potential blowback, Facebook doesn’t even give you the option to let random strangers identify you based solely on your face—for the time being, anyway. And outside of a fewJeff Jarvis types, it’s hard to imagine a lot of people clamoring for it to be added. (That doesn’t mean Facebook will never do it, of course.)

In his post, Cluley wonders, “If Facebook’s facial database is such a great concept, why doesn’t the company present its arguments to users as to why they should want to participate in it, and invite them to ‘opt-in’ to being included in the huge collection of faces?”

I assume the question is rhetorical. As I’ve argued before, Facebook has already done the hard work of making itself valuable to its users. Its big challenge now is to make its users valuable to its investors. We don’t know yet exactly how Facebook will monetize facial recognition—no doubt it will have to tread carefully. Regardless, it’s clear that making the feature “opt-out” will result in a much better and more extensive database than the company would get if it asked people to opt in, as Google+ does.

 Facebook facial recognition: How to opt out.

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The Creep of Social Media Raises Big Questions – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Social Media on June 20, 2012


The Creep of Social Media Raises Big Questions

Sherry Turkle

 JUNE 20, 2012

 

Sherry Turkle is the author of “Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other.” She is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé professor of the social studies of science and technology at M.I.T.

 

Social media won’t get less attractive the longer they exist. But we will learn how to use them more wisely. Right now, we’re smitten and look away from problems; we behave like young lovers who are afraid that too much talking will spoil the romance. As we grow into a more mature relationship, we’ll find time to talk. I see at least three necessary conversations.

We grew up with social media and tend to think of them as all grown up. But in fact, we are in early days.

First, both in our personal and work lives, social media make it easy for us to hide from each other, even as we are constantly connected to each other. We’d rather text than talk, we’d rather post online than meet face-to-face. But online, we end up performing for each other, putting forth the self we want to be. With friends, we share what is easy to share. At work, we don’t like to archive false starts and missteps. So in many cases, we make it harder to learn from each other and mentor each other.

Hiding from each other has some costs for grownups. For children, those costs multiply. Recently, we have been presented with the suggestion that Facebook may be offered to children under 13. But on social media, children don’t learn negotiation skills, how to read a face, how to put themselves in the place of another, how to apologize and, most striking, the difference between an apology and saying you’re sorry. As more mature consumers of social media, we’ll want to talk about all of this.

Second, social media increase the volume and velocity of connections to a point where communicating in anything but online postings seems almost impossible. We demand immediate answers and are willing to ask simple questions to get them. We come to measure success by e-mails answered, connections made, posts responded to. We become transactional and reactive. This is not good for productivity or creativity. We’ll want to talk about this.

And finally, we will ask two other questions of social media, now becoming increasingly urgent: What is democracy without privacy? What is intimacy without privacy? We grew up with social media and so we tend to think of them as all grown up. But in fact, we are in early days. There is plenty of time to change how we build and use these media. We are not going to turn away from them. But we will better align social media to our human purposes, and they will have helped us clarify what these are.

 The Creep of Social Media Raises Big Questions – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com.

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Is it time to leave Facebook? | Comment is free | The Observer

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Facebook on June 16, 2012


Is it time to leave Facebook?

 

Amid plans for a $10bn share offering, the social networking giant has come under fire for its controversial ‘Timeline’ feature. Two Observer writers discuss the merits of logging off for good

 

 

Mark Zuckerberg speaking at a conference in in San Francisco, September 2011.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: ‘evil, cat-caressing genius’? Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

James Silver, writer and journalist I could blame it on the launch of Timeline (Facebook’s now mandatory reboot of users’ profile pages) or the forthcoming mega-IPO. Or even claim I was taking some high-minded stance (a social suffragette perhaps?) on how social media gnaws away at our privacy/sense of self-worth/ability to enjoy simple pleasures such as reading a book.

But in the end it was the soul-crushing ennui that led me to deactiviate my Facebook account last week. The sheer bloody listlessness logging on to the site produced in me in those final, dreary visits. “Steve listened to ‘Death of an Interior Decorator’ by Death Cab for Cutie on Spotify for Facebook.” “Bob and Sophia commented on Mark’s photo album University of Loughborough Reunion 04.” Not forgetting that other classic: “Nigel likes Cordelia’s post Me and My Cat Archie Eat a Tuna Flan.”

It’s not that I dislike social media. I know at their best these platforms can help spark the overthrow of despots, raise cash for medical research and share brilliant links. I’m a big fan of Twitter, which has become a primary news source for me. LinkdIn is a bit of an odd duck, but I can see what it’s for. But Facebook? It’s just white noise. A time sink. If you want to tell your life story, as the Timeline tagline has it, then go and write your autobiography. No one would read it. But that’s kind of my point.

Elizabeth Day, Observer writer and author For me, the key to social media is that it’s, well, social. What I value most about Facebook is the ability to keep in touch with friends, wherever in the world they find themselves. Although James is bored by the endless videos of cats eating tuna flan, I actively like being able to see the latest photo of my goddaughter in Hong Kong or having an instant messenging chat about the best way to eat panettone with my friend in Milan (thinly sliced, with a cup of tea is his take).

Perhaps it’s because I have a strange form of phone-phobia. I hate the faux cheerfulness I have to assume when I call someone; the awkward pauses; the way you can never hang up until you’ve put the next social rendezvous firmly in the diary; the anxiety that you might be boring them. The thought of Skyping, where you can actually see someone’s face, is enough to bring me out in a rash. I prefer communicating through Facebook – I like the jokes, the bonhomie and the sense that you’re part of something (especially because, as a writer, I often work from home). And if the whole tuna-flan-feline thing gets too much, the true joy of Facebook is, of course, that you can always log out.

JS Is Facebook really the best platform with which to browse photos of your goddaughter or discuss how to eat Italian fruit bread, Elizabeth? Photo and video messaging on your phone would do just as well for the first (or one of the picture sharing sites) and if you could summon up the nerve to use Skype for video calls, you could even watch each other eat a whole variety of southern European cakes. In real time. Hell, you could even live tweet it.

I take your point that you can always log off, but what about your privacy when you’re logged on? Unless you have a PhD in machine learning, you are unlikely to be able to operate Facebook’s privacy settings, which means a disgruntled ex is just a couple of clicks away from checking out his former girlfriend’s new man, and people who are “friends” – but only in a Facebook sense (ie they met once on holiday in Magaluf in 1997) – have an access-all-areas pass to each other’s Facebook back-story.

But my problem with Facebook is not so much utility as ubiquity. From the IPO filed on Wednesday, we know the platform had 845 million monthly users, and 443 million daily, by the end of 2011. The next target is one billion. In fact, from its filing statement we learn that Mark Zuckerberg has plans for global domination: “There are more than two billion global internet users… we aim to connect with them all.” (Don’t you love that insidious word, “connect”?)

When will they be satisfied? When there are only six people in Africa who haven’t connected with Facebook? When they’ve hardwired the Facebook “like” button into toddlers’ teeth?

ED I know it’s tempting to view Zuckerberg as an evil genius (especially after he wore pyjamas to a board meeting in The Social Network), but I don’t personally feel his goal to “connect” people is all that sinister.

Of course, if you choose to leave your Facebook privacy settings wide open, if you choose to befriend someone you only met once on holiday to Magaluf, and if you then compound the error by posting (or failing to detag) a photograph of yourself in a compromised state with a vodka luge, then there might be certain drawbacks.

But I don’t understand why everyone has got in such a tizz about the Timeline. It only organises the data that is already on your profile. If you want something to remain private then – here’s a handy little tip – don’t put it on the internet. On Facebook – unlike Twitter, which allows anyone to follow you – I am friends only with people I know and like. I have customised my privacy settings (truly not that difficult) so only certain of them can view my posts. Because of this, I find it a brilliant way of sharing photos, keeping in touch with lots of people in a time-effective way and using status updates for shameless self-promotion when I have a book out (Scissors Paper Stone, out now in paperback if you want to buy a copy, James).

JS Actually, I don’t buy into the “Zuckerberg equals evil, cat-caressing genius” theory. I’m merely arguing that Facebook’s plans smack of hubris. Yes, Google, Microsoft and Apple have flourished, but the evidence suggests that social networks come and go, as fashions change. Between 2005 and 2007, MySpace was the dominant player. Bebo, too, showed early promise. Friends Reunited once had 15 million users.

Facebook faces many bumps in the road, not least competition and regulatory issues, particularly over privacy. To those I would add the likelihood of new rivals appearing, seemingly from nowhere. Just a couple of years ago, few of us had heard of (games developer) Zynga or (deals site) Groupon – both titans now. As everything goes social, we can expect new, niche networking sites to emerge.

Leaving Facebook is a bit like quitting a cult: you can leave, but you’re never truly free. Yes, my account is deactivated, but my details, friends, “likes” and even those dreaded status updates are merely mothballed in some underground server farm, waiting for that moment of weakness, where I log on once more… For now my resolve is strong. But you never know when the urge to “like” pictures of household pets eating savoury snacks may strike once again.

ED I’m sure all of this is true (not least the likelihood of James logging back on for those cat videos) but the fact that Facebook might face future challenges doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of the site as a user at the moment. I’m on Twitter as well but for different reasons – as you say, it’s a great way of getting the latest news developments. But Facebook performs a different role. It is more sociable – there is less pressure for constant 140-character updates and less competition over the number of followers/friends you have. Interestingly, whenever I speak to teenagers, they generally tell me they use Facebook but don’t see the point of Twitter, which suggests Zuckerberg and his henchmen will be around for a while yet. So James, if you are ever lured back to the light-blue land of “likes” and Scrabulous, I’ll be the first to request a friendship add.

 Is it time to leave Facebook? | Comment is free | The Observer.

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New Restrictions Create Uncertainty For Chinese Social-Media Users – International Business Times

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in China, Internet, Politics, Social, Society on June 2, 2012


New Restrictions Create Uncertainty For Chinese Social-Media Users

June 1, 2012

 

Sina Weibo, the popular Chinese social-media network and innovative microblogging service, has been running on new rules to restrict unlawful and disruptive discourse since May 28.

The new rules are widely seen by Western media and online experts as a means to exercise more control over a fast-growing community that has been given a comparatively large amount of freedom in terms of discourse in general and sociopolitical criticism in particular over the past half-decade.

 As is the case with Twitter in the U.S., most Sina Weibo users spend their time updating and chatting with friends about common day-to-day events. Again as is the case with Twitter in the U.S., a significant part of the community thrives on political and social commentary.

Sina — or “New Wave” — has more than 300 million users, about three-fifths of the Chinese Internet user population.

On May 28, the company released its “Community Management Rules (Trial),” guiding what will be considered inappropriate commentary and how the service will deal with such incidents.

Earlier, the Chinese government asked all microblogging services to request users to re-register using their real names. Few followed through with the requirement.

The new restrictions are a means to tamp down fast-spreading rumors on social-media networks and to limit anti-government or incendiary speech.

The speed with which accounts of sensitive sociopolitical incidents have spread across social-media networks in China in recent years — and especially in recent months, as exemplified by the rumors surrounding the purged former chief of the Communist Party in Chongqing, Bo Xilai — has led to a national media campaign to combat the dissemination of so-called false information.

Whether those stories have any basis in truth is another matter, but the government is deeply concerned that primary channels for the flow of information used by the online community are gradually slipping out of their sphere of control.

Sina Weibo users each will now receive 80 points to begin with, and this can be boosted to a full 100 points by those who provide their official government-issued identification numbers (like Social Security numbers in the U.S.) and link to a cellphone account.

Spreading falsehoods will lead to deductions in points, among other penalties. Spreading an untruth to 100 other users will result in a deduction of two points. Spreading it to 100-1,000 other users will result in a deduction of five points, as well as a week’s suspension of the account. Spreading it to more than 1,000 other users will result in a deduction of 10 points, as well as a 15-day suspension of the account.

Once the point total falls below 60, the user is flagged as “low-credit.” A loss of all points will result in an account’s closure.

But what counts as a “falsehood”? Sina stipulated this includes information that is “wholly false” or encompasses “falsified details.” It also includes using “nonconforming” or false images to mislead. Exaggerating events, presenting already resovled events as ongoing, giving incomplete or hidden information, and misquoting others will also lead to point deductions.

Some comments are considered outright unlawful. These include statements that conflict with the basic tenets of the constitution; statements that harm national unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity; revealing state secrets and damage national security and national interests; efforts to incite ethnic tensions and violence and hurt ethnic unity; efforts to spread cultist or superstitious thinking; spreading rumors to disrupt social harmony; obscenities; promoting illegal protests, assembly and demonstrations; and other activities stipulated by authorities.

If all that sounds pretty vague, don’t worry: Chinese Netizens are themselves also still trying to wrap their heads around what the new restrictions will mean for their online activities.

 New Restrictions Create Uncertainty For Chinese Social-Media Users – International Business Times.

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The Limits of the Facebook Economy – Technology – The Atlantic Wire

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Facebook on May 30, 2012


The Limits of the Facebook Economy

flickr/ransomtech

REBECCA GREENFIELD

MAY 29, 2012

In this post Facebook IPO world, the only positive financial impact the social network has had comes from buying up other companies. For example, while Facebook can’t get its own stock price up, as it hit a new low today trading below the $30 mark now, speculation that the social media company might buy up Operahas the browser maker’s shares up almost 20 percent. At first, that dissonance doesn’t make sense: Why would investors get excited about Opera joining a falling social network? But, in this social media bubble, getting bought out by a company with a lot of cash is a certain way to make money, as we saw with Instagram, which Facebook purchased using $1 billion of its $4 billion cash pile. 

That economic impact doesn’t do much for the greater economy, but for a single company and its investors, it’s the big ticket. Instagram wasn’t making any money before Facebook’s buy. It doesn’t make Facebook any money now. But it made Instagram’s creators and investors rich. Plus, after the buy, Facebook’s own financial failure has pushed the value of Instagram down to $977 million, according to The Wall Street Journal‘s David Benoit. The speculators say Opera will cost Facebook in the billion dollar range, too. If that big buy does go through, Facebook will have this same happy effect on some Opera investors and execs. After that, though, then what? 

Other than using its wad of cash to buy companies, Facebook hasn’t made much of a positive financial dent in the economy, if you can even call that a dent — it’s more of a ding. Take the stocks that might benefit from Facebook, for example. There’s Facebook’s own stock, as we noted. And then there’s the rest of the social media world. Zynga, for example, as a company that gets a lot of users through Facebook, saw a dive on Facebook IPO day and has since declined. As Dee Gill points out on Forbes, other social media stocks like Groupon and Yelp have seen a steady downward trajectory over the last few months, in the lead up to Facebook’s flop of an IPO. We’ll add LinkedIn and Pandora, which saw little dips on the day of Facebook’s market debut. Plus for other social media companies with IPO dreams, Facebook’s bust will make it much harder for them to succeed.

Facebook’s economic impact extends beyond the stock market, as it does in fact sell a product: You. But, as we’ve noted on this site a bunch of times, Facebook isn’t very good at that. If we’re defining “good” in terms of “financially astute.” It won’t sell out to an advertiser, as we saw with General Motors. The advertising it does offer hasn’t proven it drives users to purchase things. And it has no plan at all in the mobile space. Advertisers haven’t given up completely. But, so far, Facebook hasn’t proven it can or will effectively sell its users, which drives all that negativity happening on the market. This should delight Facebook users wary of advertisers. But, it doesn’t do much for the economy.

Then, there’s all the insular movement of money in this selfish social media bubble. Facebook discourageslavish spending. Much of the millions made of late goes to other social networks, which with Facebook’s failure will have a harder time exciting investors. The company hasn’t created that many jobs. The San Francisco housing market has soared, but other cities have not benefited. Facebook money, unless its a billion dollar buy of another tech company, doesn’t go far. But Facebook’s a public company now, so we should hope it stimulates some sort of growth somewhere, right?

 The Limits of the Facebook Economy – Technology – The Atlantic Wire.

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Column: I put my family business on Facebook. Here’s what happened. · TheJournal.ie

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Facebook on May 21, 2012


Column: I put my family business on Facebook. Here’s what happened.

Image: Paul Sakuma/AP/Press Association Images

WE ARE A long-established business, founded in 1860, in a pretty boring business-to-business industrial sector: packaging. It was obvious to us that as our traditional customer base is being eroded by the recession, we had to find ways to win new business from new customers, especially those involved in selling online. I want to deal with our attempts to understand and engage with social media, and Facebook in particular.

After a huge amount of work by all involved in setting up our websites (described previously on TheJournal.ie), we got to the stage where we were pretty happy that we had the basics in place. The next task was to respond to the challenge and opportunities offered by the whole social media thing.

Now, as an older chap of nearly 60, I am no spring chicken and readily admit that I have great difficulty in ‘getting it’. But everything I read about maximising your web presence and impact told me that SMEs must integrate and embrace social media, especially Facebook. Back to the dummies’ books for me: I set up a personal Facebook page to learn how to do the basics and get comfortable with the format. It was not at all difficult, much to my surprise.

Flushed with this success, I decided to go Facebook commercial. I picked two of our product ranges and set up the two pages, again not at all difficult.

I could not secure the Facebook page with the brand name until I had secured 30 likes. I sent around emails with links to the pages to my children, younger staff members and anyone else I could think of, asking them to ‘like’ my new pages. I got my likes for both and was able to secure the Facebook addresses.

Once my helpers stopped liking, I had expected the viral phenomenon of Facebook to generate more and more likes as the contagion of their likes spread to their friends and colleagues via their own Facebook pages.

Nothing. Stone dead. Zip.

OK, I reasoned, why would these people have any interest in my marketing products or the pages? They were just ‘liking’ them as a favour. On to my next step: Facebook advertising.

‘After a few hours my ads are approved’

I draw up two ads on their (again very easy-to-use) templates. I give it a decent budget of €40 a day (€1,200 per month), select the UK market as sole target, 24-60 as the age range and appropriate Target Interest Listings – in this case direct marketing and a couple of other similar titles. The template tells me I have targeted 178,000 people who within my interest range and selected demographics. I fill out the payment box and click GO.

After a few hours my ads are approved and the likes on the pages take off. Happy days! The 40 quid is getting used up each day. I consider increasing the budget – and in the end decide to pause one ad and give the other the full budget.

The page with the ad running continues apace and the other one stops stone dead again. What about the viral effect this time? These guys are supposed to be mad about all things marketing.

So far I have spent €160. Time to look at the number of our own website visits clicked through from the Facebook pages. Result? Two! €160 quid for two clicks, each of whom looked at two site pages.

Clearly something is not right, so I decide to view the profiles of all those who clicked the ads. They hit one common spot – they were all in the UK. But they were aged from 13 to about 70, many were unemployed or in education, we even had a Muslim fundamentalist who is very concerned about things in Pakistan. Lots and lots of doting mothers with FB pages full of cutesy little life mottoes. It may well suit some types of businesses but I can say we are not among that number.

I switched off the ads, a slightly poorer but wiser chap. Time to check my likes again. Nothing, rien, zero new likes. Ads off, ‘likes’ gonzo. I’m an Irish male. I will not pay to be liked!

I did some stuff on Twitter too, with equal success! I prefer the dawn chorus.

‘I can only see lots of tears down the road’

We have our Facebook buttons on our websites and will keep the Facebook pages updated. It takes a bit of work and costs next to nothing and we are present in that space. If something comes out of it, great. But I will not be spending precious marketing euro on their advertising offering, their only form of income.

I recently spurned an offer to get in on a slice of the Facebook initial share sale. To my mind it is a bit like the product, overhyped. Bebo 1 was sold for $850 Million and within a few years sold on for under $10. Bebo 2 is down to float at a valuation of around $100billion. I can only see lots of tears down the road, but they wont be shed by Zuck or the earlier investors – who have already made vast returns even before the IPO.

I read an article some time back entitled something like ‘Google is the Internet’. We have been spending money with them every day since about 2002 with various AdWord campaigns. This week, I decided to examine the source of all hits on all our sites since last January.

Google in its various domain formats accounts for 92 per cent of all our visitors. I am but a simple engineer, but if you hold 92 per cent of the space, you own it. I am going to do my business with the top banana: the owner!

Peter Faulkner is chairman and owner of Faulkner Packaging, founded 1860. He lives in Dalkey and has three adult children. He is a non-executive director of a number of other private companies. He is a  former chairman of the SFA and was one of the founders of ISME. He was a member of the government Taskforce on Small Business. 

 Column: I put my family business on Facebook. Here’s what happened. · TheJournal.ie.

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‘The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We’re Dancing on its Grave’ – Derek Thompson – Business – The Atlantic

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Facebook, Innovation, Technology on May 19, 2012


‘The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We’re Dancing on its Grave’

MAY 18 2012

To help make sense of the Facebook IPO, we caught up with Steve Blank, a professor at Berkeley and Stanford and serial entrepreneur from Silicon Valley. This conversation has been edited and condensed.

THOMPSON: What does the Facebook IPO mean for Silicon Valley?

BLANK: I think it’s the beginning of the end of the valley as we know it. Silicon Valley historically would invest in science, and technology, and, you know, actual silicon. If you were a good VC you could make $100 million. Now there’s a new pattern created by two big ideas. First, for the first time ever, you have computer devices, mobile and tablet especially, in the hands of billions of people. Second is that we are moving all the social needs that we used to do face-to-face, and we’re doing them on a computer.

And this trend has just begun. If you think Facebook is the end, ask MySpace. Art, entertainment, everything you can imagine in life is moving to computers. Companies like Facebook for the first time can get total markets approaching the entire population.

THOMPSON: That all sounds pretty good for Facebook, actually.

BLANK: For Facebook, it’s spectacular. But Silicon Valley is screwed as we know it. 

If I have a choice of investing in a blockbuster cancer drug that will pay me nothing for ten years,  at best, whereas social media will go big in two years, what do you think I’m going to pick? If you’re a VC firm, you’re tossing out your life science division. All of that stuff is hard and the returns take forever. Look at social media. It’s not hard, because of the two forces I just described, and the returns are quick.

THOMPSON: Half the tech and innovation world seems to think this is just evidence that we’re in the middle of a dot-com remix. You disagree?

BLANK: In the last bubble, venture capitalists went into a frenzy if anything had an ear and eye. I don’t think this a bubble. I think the valuations are a bit of a bubble, but social media is real.

THOMPSON: Is Facebook worth $100 billion?

BLANK: In the last bubble there were no customers. Facebook makes $4 per user. The users are customers. They produce real revenue. Nobody’s debating whether Facebook can make money. They’re debating how much more valuable Facebook’s hundreds of millions of users can be, and how fast can they can grow that value. That’s an execution problem.

THOMPSON: But you think Silicon Valley is screwed, whether Facebook lives up to that valuation or not. Why?

BLANK: I teach science and engineering. I see my students trying to commercialize really hard stuff. But the VCs are only going to be interested in chasing the billions on their smart phones. Thank God we have small business research grants from the federal government, otherwise the Chinese would just grab them.

THOMPSON: But there are some people doing interesting, daring things, like Vinod Khosla.

BLANK: He is. But think about this. The four most interesting projects in the last five years are Tesla, SpaceX, Google Driving, and Google Goggles. That is one individual, Elon Musk, and one company, Google, doing all four things that are truly Silicon Valley-class disruptive.

THOMPSON: Does this represent a large-scale failure among venture capitalists in the Valley?

BLANK: It’s not like anybody is doing evil or bad. It’s like what Willie Sutton said: Social media is just “where the money is.”

THOMPSON: What’s the fix?

BLANK: I don’t know what the fix is. Thank God for federal government grants, and the NIH, and Musk, and Google.

THOMPSON: So is American innovation simply doomed, or is it more complicated than that?

BLANK: The headline for me here is that Facebook’s success has the unintended consequence of leading to the demise of Silicon Valley as a place where investors take big risks on advanced science and tech that helps the world. The golden age of Silicon valley is over and we’re dancing on its grave. On the other hand, Facebook is a great company. I feel bittersweet.

 ‘The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We’re Dancing on its Grave’ – Derek Thompson – Business – The Atlantic.

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