Here's a pot-pourri of what's making us happy at the moment. In no particular order (except alphabetical) ...
Conversocial - a moderation tool for Facebook UGC from iPlatform. We use it very happily, and it's a tool we would recommend to all clients.
Crisp Netmoderator- NetModerator chat analysis engine and filtering tool provides online communities and services with the opportunity to optimise the effectiveness, efficiency and accuracy of their moderation teams
Google Apps - Google Docs, Google Video and Google Sites complement traditional office software to make teamwork easier.
QuickBase - QuickBase can be used for some or all of your information-driven software needs. It officially rocks.
Quora - because we like to know the answer to everything. Or know someone who does.
Reality Digital - Social networking solutions, user generated content platform, video sharing software for social media marketing and interactive advertising campaigns.
Snapbird - does the impossible. Searches thru anyone's tweets, favourites, direct messages you sent or received to find that elusive one you've lost. Superb.
Tweetriver- Aggregate and curate tweets with custom searches on the micro-blogging site Twitter. Then show them live on your site or at your event. But you've got to get it moderated, ahem!
Yammer – a useful little micro-microblogging service. We use it as our virtual water-cooler area ...
Hyperwords - Select webpage text to query - including references, translations and conversions.
For the last few weeks, there’s been a strange tang in the air. The hacking ‘community’ has emerged from their darkened collective bedroom into the world of the Rest Of Us (don't panic, I’m doing a metaphor). The consequent oxygen of publicity has reacted with years of stale sebum and pizza-crusts to produce the distinctive aroma of ‘the End of Days’.
In the last couple of months, a group called LulzSec - thought to be a six-man off-shoot of the notorious Anonymous collective - have carried out a series of audacious attacks on major online landmarks, including Sony and other games companies, the FBI, the CIA, the US Senate, and the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency.
Some of these attacks appear to have been motivated by hubris - but recently the group have been pimping their ethicals, targeting, for-ee-gee, the Arizona Department of Public Safety: Arizona's SB 1070 law, which requires immigrants to carry registration documents at all times, is deeply controversial.
All in all, then, they’re on a bit of a hacker roll. Which is why the announcement yesterday that LulzSec plan on hanging up their antlers has puzzled commentators.
LulzSec claims they have simply reached the end of a pre-ordained period of engagement, which was always scheduled to last 50 "oh, that’s quite biblical" days - but few give this credence. Only days ago, after all, the group was promo-ing further actions today (Monday) and on consecutive Fridays thereafter.
Two alternative theories circulate. Firstly, that the Lulz-chaps have had an attack of the willies, prompted by the arrest last week of Ryan Cleary, a 19-year-old from Essex. Cleary appears to have been closely associated with the group - though not a member of its inner circle – and is said to be cooperating closely with the authorities. Other reports suggest that at least two former LulzSec members have also been chit-chatting with the FBI.
But it’s equally possible that LulzSec have been made rather jumpy by successful infiltrations by rival hacksters. This, after all, is a murky culture of braggadocio and p0wning, in which rival groups habitually attempt to expose and ridicule each other. For example, both Anonymous and LulzSec have a bitter enemy in the shape of ex-US Military hacker The Jester, an online ‘patriot’ vigilante who has taken umbrage against both - for their Wikileaks associations, and their attacks on US govt websites.
The Jester - apart from the special-snowflakeness of spelling his name like ‘th3j35t3r (say it out loud – I know, YOU CANT!) - seems to be pretty serious about bringing LulzSec down; and he’s not the only late-20th century pop-cultural icon who’s got a similar beef. Step forward the A-team, who this week posted what they claim are transcripts from the Lulz’ secure IRC channel, as well as the social media profiles and emails of key members. The A-Team sign off with an offer to share the raw IRC logs with any law enforcement chaps who’d care to peruse them – enough perhaps to afright LulzSec into a retreat.
Should we care - you know, 4 real? Tough one - their portentous declamatory style and unrelenting self-promotion would suggest not. Because, if you were about to ruin the whole world for everyone in pursuit of personal gain, you’d maybe zip the lip and keep your head down till World-Domination-By-You-Day, right?
But it’s certainly been an uncomfortable fifty days. Time was, hackers just sat in a warm bath of their own broad-spectrum solipsism, and felt no need to get all up in our faces with their skillz. It’s disconcerting to now be forced, because of LulzSec’s constant presence in the news, to confront the ultimate insecurity of the web. That ‘la-la-la, can't hear you, ooh look, kitteyz!’ strategy that most of us employ to avoid doing just that has been considerably less effective these last few weeks.
Utimately, LulzSec and friends make me anxious in the same way that the sight of a baby spider inside my premises does. Not for what they are in and of themselves – irritating, bit creepy, ultimately harmless – but because they prove that any big daddy spider can get in between my bed-sheets and snuggle right up, whenever the jeff he chooses.
I attended the UKCCIS 2011 Summit last Tuesday 14th June to learn about how the current UK government coalition is supporting and advocating children’s and young people rights to internet safety. Whilst there, I had the pleasure of meeting face-to-face with Katie Bacon for the first time. Katie's consultancy Online Youth Outreach provides training and consultancy to those working with youth and social media, and I've followed her tweets on internet safety for some time (@katie_bacon).
I was even more pleased when she sent me through her coverage of the event, as I don't believe in duplicating effort and Katie has said all that I wanted to anyway. She has kindly allowed me to reproduced her blog post here - many thanks.
Katie Bacon
Review of UKCCIS 2011 Summit by guestblogger Katie Bacon
You may have heard of UKCCIS or possibly have not, here’s some background information to help frame the 2011 summit.
History of UKCCIS
Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister at the time, commissioned Dr Tanya Byron to lead an independent review into the impact of exposing children to potentially harmful material on the Internet and in gaming environments. The concluding report ‘Safer Children in a Digital World’ included an array of comments and recommendations and was published to much acclaim in March 2008.
The UK government at the time entirely accepted the recommendations and subsequently created UKCCIS (the UK Council for Child Internet Safety) in September 2008 to implement all these recommendations. UKCCIS brings together over 160 stakeholders from across the internet safety spectrum, from all sectors including public, private and voluntary sectors, who come together to work in collaboration with government for the good of children and families; including Google, Microsoft, Bebo the NSPCC and CEOP.
The first ever internet safety strategy, ‘Click Clever Click Safe’ , was drawn up by UKCCIS and was launched by Gordon Brown (the former Prime Minister) at the first UKCCIS Summit.
Following a change in government, the new coalition administration adopted UKCCIS and continues to prioritise its work and objectives, and is co-chaired by two government ministers (Tim Loughton and James Brokenshire). Above information from INSAFE website
UKCCIS Summit 2011
Chairing the UKCCIS 2011 Summit NSPCC Director of Child Protection Consultancy and UKCCIS Summit Chair John Grounds. He shared: “This is a unique opportunity for key organisations to give children the tools and information they need to stay safe online. Child safety is everyone’s responsibility and everyone can play a part in making a difference to children’s experiences of the online environment”
Ministerial Perspective:
Tim Loughton for Children and Families
Ed Vaizey for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries
James Brokenshire for Crime and Security
Each of them presented and advocated the work of UKCCIS and the continued need to invest time, funds and support. They shared how the UK is leading the work in internet safety and child protection in this new era of new media. Please view the film clip of Tim Loughton MP for Children & Families (1:14 min into the film). During his speech he shared how new media is developing at phenomenal speed that even technology experts struggle to keep up to date. That is was unfair for parents to be expected to understand and know how to modify security settings for each new digital media trend.
“That is why I welcome Reg Bailey’s recommendations, to make it easier for parents to block adult material on the internet, in his review into the Commercialisation and Sexualisation of Childhood. This review is a real opportunity for the IT industry to act decisively to develop effective parental controls, so that they are simple enough for the average busy parent to use.”
He also shared that Dixons Retail Plc, parent company of Currys, PC World, Dixons.co.uk and PIXmania.com, will announce their commitment to support the UK Council for Child Internet Safety ‘Click Clever, Click Safe’ campaign through in-store rolling demos, flyers, and on receipt wallets.
Presentations from:
Bill Thompson @billt Bill Thompson, an internet veteran and longstanding commentator and Technology Journalist for the Guardian and the BBC Click here to view Bill discussing privacy. He shared the power of storytelling and the writtern word. The demise of analogue and the prevalence of digital, however in his view there will be an equlibum in the future. He raised his concerns of the emotional literacy of vulnerable young people and shared the excellent research just released by Stephen Carrick Davies @StephenCarrickD – Safe guarding vulnerable young people onlinehttp://www.carrick-davies.com/research/vulnerable-young-people. (Post from Stephen and film interview next week.)
Christopher Woodlard @Ofcom, International and Regulatory Development Group, OFCOM. Christopher shared a report that aimed to gain an overview of media literacy among children and young people aged 5-15 and their parents/carers, and is based on two waves of research, conducted in spring and autumn 2010
Deidre Sanders,The SUN Agony Aunt Deidre has worked at the Sun paper for over 30 years and has received over 6 million letters. Her and team deal with over 1,000 enquires a week. She shared he concern about the impact of pornography on young people on their perceptions of intimate relationships. In her view, pornography is having a detrimental impact both on young men and woman’s perceptions of sexual expectation and creates anxiety and stress. She advocated for more research, funding and intervention on this particular issue. I agree with her viewpoint, please click here to review a previous blog: Online pornography and young people. http://www.katiebacon.co.uk/online-pornography-and-young-people/
Tweets during Deidre’s presentation
@alexbirtles Some heartbreaking letters read by Deidre Sanders of The Sun from teens who are distraught by effects/addicted to internet porn
@racheloconnell #ukccis2011 Deidre Sanders – think about developing tools designed 2 help children manage their online experiences, esp addiction to porn
@kcorish #ukccis2011 Deidre Sanders CYP addictive behaviours to pornography; evidence from correspondence, sex therapists etc
Sonia Livingstone from London School of Economics and UKCCIS Evidence Champion: Sonia shared ‘highlights’ from research which is due to be presented at the EU Kids Online Conference 22-23rd Sep’11. The Evidence Group is interested in all high quality and reliable research relevant to UKCCIS’s remit. In its first year (2010-11), it has focussed on identifying recent, UK based research regarding children’s, parents’ and offenders’ actions and experiences in relation to the internet. In coming months, it will cover evidence on technological change, safety tools and practices, and relevant research from other countries, as available.
@Katie_bacon UKCCIS_Summit UKCCIS Child internet safety research highlights from the UKCCIS evidence group http://t.co/QDrZ2IB #ukccis2011 #nfpsm
@kcorish #ukccis2011 Sonia Livingstone mentions SWGfL 360 degree safe research http://bit.ly/bOmQAC
#ukccis2011 Richard Allen from FB: one of the roles of UKCCIS is to get the escalation channels right
@UKCCIS Richard Allan of Facebook – service providers have a responsibility to provide comprehensive, service-specific safety info #ukccis2011
Social media is now part of the woven fabric of everyday life, particularly for young people wether it be texting, facebook, twitter or catching the latest clip on youtube. Social media offers practitioners a cost effective & powerful tool to engage with a vast & diverse audience from their desk tops. Online Youth Outreach is a specialist company focused on delivering the solutions to remove these barriers and optimize social media as a key tool in youth provision services. There are a variety of courses & solutions we can offer depending on where your organisation is in the journey to adopting social media and realising the potential. The aim of Online Youth Outreach social media training courses provide proven digital skills and techniques participants can use immediately to engage and support children’s and young people online engagement. For more information please do not hesitate to Katie Bacon at info@katiebacon.co.uk
Youtube channel - onlineyouthoutreach This Youtube has a collection of interviews and presentation relating social media and online engagement with young people.
Is it me, or have these been a coupla weeks of weird in social media?
Senator Weiner Deflated
Weinergate limped towards its not entirely unexpected conclusion, with the resignation of Democratic senator Anthony Weiner on Thursday.
The congressman, you’ll recall, accidentally sent a picture of his tented undergarments to le tout Twitter, in the mistaken belief that he was private-messaging a young female supporter. He finally ‘fessed up at a tearful press conference last week, after further ill-advised photos emerged, and it became clear that he’d had a string of online relationships with various women who shared the common characteristic of not being his pregnant wife.
Nevertheless, the congressman had till now appeared to be pathologically determined to cling to the remnants of his career, despite calls from the Actual President Himself to stand down. Mr Weiner has now checked into a 'facility', where he will, with luck, be supported to address both his predatory behaviour, and his stupidity issues.
Wife Hires Hitman on Facebook
If relations are somewhat strained chez Weiner, they must be as an ocean becalmed when contextualised against the case of London Eley, who posted "I will pay somebody a stack to kill my baby father" on her Facebook wall.
Infelicitously, she had neglected to unfriend the babyfather in question, who quite naturally alerted the police - but not before keen jobseeker Timothy Bynum had responded enthusiastically to her offer. Police have now charged Eley and Bynum with conspiracy to murder, and attempted murder respectively Husband Doesn’t Hire Hitman on Facebook
Next up, the case of David Voelkert, whose estranged wife created a fake Facebook profile for a nubile young woman named Jessica. She then friended her husband, in the hope that he would betray what she suspected might be nefarious plans.
Volkert responded with predictable enthusiasm to the approach, and told the teen that he was going to hire a hitman to ‘take care’ of his wife - thus placing himself comfortably within the Venn of “middle-aged guys with a misplaced confidence in the extent of their allure to young women” (big circle, see Weiner), and “people who share their murder plans via Facebook” (smaller, but growing).
The story took a sharp turn to the noir after Voelkert was arrested, then revealed that he had known all along that the teen was his wife in a burnt-cork moustache – and had gone to the Chandleresque lengths of getting a sworn affadivit noting his suspicions. He had played along, according to the affidavit, in order to “gain positive proof that it is indeed my ex-wife trying to again tamper in my life”. The police have since dropped all charges - though not before Voelkert had spent four nights in gaol. Facebook 3: Juror Contacts Accused
Sticking broadly with the social media/criminal justice system overlap: the juror who felt sorry for one of the defendants in a drugs trial, and contacted her via Facebook to tell her as much. Although the defendant in question had already been acquitted, the jury was still out on her co-defendants; the judge was consequently forced to rule a mistrial, at a cost of some £6 million to the taxpayer. Both parties were found in contempt of court, with juror Joanne Fraill receiving an 8-month jail sentence.
It was a legal first, and, following the recent Twitter/superinjunction rumpus, was hailed in some quarters as further proof that Social Media Changes Everything. One could equally, of course, argue that it proves precisely the opposite; as any fule know, you can’t legislate for dimwittery, and unwise people will do their unwise thing on every platform available to them (see Weinergate, and Facebook-hitman-lady, above).
Feel Free to Post Intimate and Identifying Details of Your Personal Betrayals
Onwards and upwards, to the case of plumber Ian Puddick, who was today cleared of 'internet harrassment' for tweeting and blogging the details of his wife's 10-year affair with her millionaire boss. Puddick decided to expose the affair when he discovered that Timothy Haynes had used his expense account to entertain his wife in a manner to which she had not previously been accustomed. He described the verdict, rather literally, as "a victory for free speech and the small man. I'm a plumber and drive a Transit."
Gay Girl in Damascus: Hairy Trucker Redux
Last week, the author of the Gay Girl In Damascus blog – whose apparent kidnap by Syrian secret service goons sparked horror on Twitter and elsewhere - was revealed to be a 40-year-old Scottish dude named Tom.
This week, the author of the lesbian blog which had originally drawn attention to her plight was revealed to be a 58-year-old dude from Ohio, named Bill. Now I suspect that it takes more than two dudes-masquerading-as-gay-women-bloggers to define a social trend, but still: something’s afoot. Internet Shame Insurance
Many, if not all, of the protagonists in the above stories could totally do with Internet Shame Insurance (with the possible exception of Senator Weiner or the Facebook-hitman-hiring lady, both of whose premiums, we can assume, would now be prohibitively expensive).
But there’s surely a healthy market out there: a survey by Retrevo revealed this week that 35% of Americans have experienced stomach-churning regret at something they’ve posted online: 3% of respondents had wrecked a relationship or marriage, and 6% had faced an ‘awkward’ work conversation, following online injudiciousnesses.
Shame - it turns out that this isn’t actual, useful insurance, in that it won’t pay out for your alimony, unemployment support or bail if you choose to come the dumbkopf online. It is, however, a neat little Google Chrome extension which sends amusing alerts (along ‘Not so fast, Weiner’ lines) whenever you hit reply-all on email, or update your social networks - and that's got to be a good thing.
A bientôt, mes amis!
For more social media snippets, follow @emodkate - or for general twittery, @KateVWilliams
I think many of you know that Mark Zuckerberg and I have been drifting apart for some time now, and so a few months ago we decided, quite mutually, that it might be time to take a break.
I know – it’s sad when a relationship shatters into a hundred thousand hemlock-tipped shards of glass, each of which pierces a ventricle each time you open your laptop. But we’re adults, and it’s been entirely empowering to finally to have some time for non-Facebook-related activities.
Have I had a great time speed-dating other networks? You bet I have - some of those guys are super fun! Oh, and big shout going out to the folks on Etsy who have spoken so kindly of my hand-crocheted “broken heart” range, embellished with a chain-stitch ‘F’ motif – you guys are so supportive.
Some of you have noted that I’ve written about Mark once or twice, or maybe seven times, in recent months - the implication being that I might not yet be ‘over it’. I can assure you this is far from the truth. Very, very far indeed. I consider it a great testament to our unspoken mutual bond that Mark’s been able to move on with his life without getting in touch once.
With all this in mind, it goes without saying that I take no satisfaction whatsoever in the completely-overhyped privacy scandal over an entirely-non-invasive Facebook tagging feature, in which Facebook is currently embroiled.
I’m as appalled as the rest of you that facial recognition on photos - which only recognises people you’re already friends with, and which you can easily turn off by visiting your settings (see our guide, if in doubt) - has led to overwrought calls from European privacy authorities for further investigation. And I couldn’t be more horrified that the backwash is now creating a media storm in the States, despite the fact that it’s been live on US accounts for six months, without a murmur from users.
The Grand Rapids LipDub
Feeling a bit liverish and curmudgeonly this overcast Tuesday? You need an instant tonic, and I have just the thing in my big doctor’s bag. The people of Grand Rapids, Michigan - understandably peeved that Newsweek had described it as ‘a dying town’ - got together to make this moving and ingenious community rejoinder. Go on, warm your cockles (if you’ve seen it already, I can confirm that it bears a second viewing).
A bientôt, mes amis!
For more social media snippets, follow @emodkate - or for general twittery, @KateVWilliams
Electronic Arts announced at E3 in Los Angeles on June 6 that The Sims are coming to Facebook. Under the umbrella of Playfish, the social gaming company EA purchased in 2009 for instant entry into social gaming, The Sims Social will be released both in Facebook application and with a companion mobile gaming application to directly compete within the soft social gaming sector dominated in the US by Zynga with CityVille, FarmVille, etc.
For The Sims Social, EA will be releasing versions in multiple languages, apparently intending to reach every single player who purchased one of the 140 million console or PC versions of the franchise released in the past 11 years since the Sims inception in 2000. With no release date yet published, we will have to see how EA intends to monetize within the app to reach the goal of generating more than $1 billion in online revenue in the current fiscal year. The current expectation is that monetization will hinge on customization of characters and locales, with possibly the addition of quest or task enhancements available for purchase via Facebook credits for simoleons, the traditional Sims in-game currency.
For those of us that were fans of the failed MMO virtual world experiment of The Sims Online, the news of a Sims for the age of social gaming has been eagerly anticipated. Inside Social Games interviewed Jeff Karp, the Executive Vice President of the EA Play Label at EA, on the differences between the properties:
“We learned a lot [from The Sims Online],” Karp says. He explains that the PC gaming audience is much larger than what it was when The Sims Online launched in 2002, and now almost everybody has at least heard of Facebook. Therefore, he says, The Sims Social should enjoy a completely different experience from The Sims Online. “It’s like comparing apples to oranges.”
One very noticeable difference in the positioning of The Sims Online versus The Sims Social is in the taglines. TSO used "Be Someone... Else." The Sims Social's tagline currently reads: "Play With Friends, Play With Life." While TSO was an immersive virtual fantasy world, Sims Social seems to understand that on Facebook, your personal identity and your network of relationships is the heart of the game. From EA's press release:
"The Sims Social is a great addition to the Facebook Platform, as it provides another fun way for people to connect with their friends through an inherently social app," said Katie Mitic, Director of Platform and Mobile Marketing, Facebook. "What's social offline should be social online, and The Sims Social brings some of the everyday interactions we have in the real world onto Facebook in a Sims setting."
In terms of moderation, we are very curious to see how EA/Playfish uses game design to combat or thwart misuse, especially since with the platform being Facebook, The Sims Social cannot be described as a "closed world." A problem that has plagued both the offline Sims franchise and "The Sims Online" version in years past is that players are intensely curious about their Sims. The convention of the game is to display a blur over "romantic" moments, while providing the players interactable objects like "love tubs" and "love beds" for romantic interludes. People being who they are, numerous patches and mods have been created for the PC versions of Sims to display the naughty bits in all their glory. These "nude" or "clothing" patches have been around for years (unsanctioned, of course, by EA.) For "The Sims Online," these third-party programs turned a fairly innocent virtual world into something much creepier, as some players were viewing the world as a bacchanalia while others were still trying to play in an authorized way. Virtual worlds released after "The Sims Online" (mostly defunct There, still thriving Second Life) capitalized on allowing adult material within an unscripted, sandbox environment.
Facebook social games have a built-in protection against end-user modification by their very nature. (The game design and feature set change so often, Zynga games regularly keep their "beta" status long after official release.) What hasn't changed in the leap to Facebook in terms of comparing apples and oranges is that the Sims in all of their incarnations represent a dollhouse game. The simulated people eat, sleep, work, date, etc. with real people at the controls. In the single player games, that one person is the God of the game. In "The Sims Online," the one person was encouraged to "be someone else" while interacting in real time with other people. Sometimes this lead to collaborative play. Sometimes it lead to real-life marriages falling apart due to Sim boyfriends or girlfriends who became all too real. For the Facebook version of the Sims, a hybrid of sorts seems to be the positioning, where a single player is controlling the fates of avatars and also Non-Human Player Characters while nteracting through the game mechanics with characters representing friends. The part that could be a moderation nightmare is the very part that makes it interesting - the Facebook platform.
As any "hardcore" player of CityVille or FarmVille can tell you, to get ahead, you are going to need friends. Lots of friends. Most social games force the user to engage their social network in order to best advance. Up to the Facebook max setting of 5000 isn't too many friends for some dedicated players. They find each other via Facebook application pages, through friend to friend suggestions, on message boards and even YouTube. Facebook social games themselves encourage and reward large friend playing networks, as the games rely on the viral spread and network ties to attract and retain new players, increase their DAU and MAU, and enhance their "sticky factor." Once a friend is in place, unless a user limits what the "friend" can access, then the situation is set for all of Facebook's communication tools to be used in tandem with the application. The Sims games aren't designed to be an online dating arena, but the game premise itself lead to that in The Sims Online. The thought of a 13 year old (or under!) and an adult "getting to know each other" through romantic game play coupled with Facebook messaging or chat in The Sims Social is at the very least unsettling.
Presumably, The Sims Social will have some sort of built-in Parental Control toggles. The video shows no in-game chat, so perhaps that is a feature that has not made the transition from The Sims Online to The Sims Social. But with the Facebook communication devices being at-the-ready, in terms of moderation, there is little a gamemaster could do to to intervene in a situation where online courting was being acted out in a sinister way via Sims on Facebook. While a GM could address inappropriate language within character names, messaging and objects manipulated in-game, and a moderator could address the endless call for "Add Me"s and ill-advised posting of Personal Information on the app's Facebook wall, the public/private world of Facebook and Facebook gaming for now seems to mean that if you allow your children to play a game, you have to also trust that they will show good judgment in the friends with whom they play ... or invest in a program that will exchange their privacy for your peace of mind.
With no release date currently scheduled, the only way to know what will happen next is to go ahead and press Like on The Sims Social Facebook page, follow The Sims Social on Twitter, and wait to see what exactly The Sims Social turns out to be once the players get ahold of it.
(You betcha, I tithed my Like before even viewing the trailer. Keep a sharp eye out for the bull testicles reference :)Read more...
Having set up your Facebook Brand Page, you may have noticed that there are one or several unofficial Fan Pages related to your brand already in existence.
There are a number of reasons you may want to attempt to take over these unofficial pages:
to reduce confusion for potential fans over which might be the official page
to limit potential damage in statements being put out on this unofficial page in a manner which may look official due to the brand association
Legally, your brand has the right to request that Facebook close these pages down using the Username Infringement Form if you feel your intellectual property rights are being contravened.
However, this will lose any community built up; there are no guarantees that Facebook will fulfill your request and - importantly - this carries the potential for a social media backlash. In general we would recommend another, gentler, approach.
1. Identify who the main Administrator is for the unofficial page (I posted a handy guide last week on how to contact the Administrator of a Facebook Page), and reach out to them publicly or privately. Make sure to praise and thank them for their efforts so far.
2. Explain what you want to achieve, whether that's taking over the unofficial page wholesale, asking the Admin to badge it as unofficial and not connected with your brand, or asking the Admin to promote your new official Brand Page.
3. If you decide to take over the unofficial page, or offer to be a joint Admin, and use it as your new official Brand Page, it’s kind to make some sort of acknowledgement to the previous Administrator thanking them for helping to build a community around your brand.
4. If you are merely asking them to indicate they are an unofficial page but continue what they are doing, you could offer them some privileged information packs or promotional material to further tighten their bond with your brand.
OK, so you’d rather simply take the fans of the unofficial page and merge them into your new Brand Page? As long as you are prepared for potential backlash, then experience has taught us that this is the most effective way to get Facebook's cooperation:
1. Put down some money in a Facebook Pay-Per-Click account and spend some of it on a small campaign.
2. You will be assigned a Facebook contact. Contact them to discuss marketing options, and mention that there is an unofficial page about your brand, and that you represent the brand officially.
3. They will then transfer the fans of the unofficial page to your own Brand Page.
Just expect some kind of reaction to this act of attrition. It’s always better to contact the Admin for unofficial pages and ask if they’d mind – in almost all cases the likelihood is that they would be thrilled to see their efforts recognized.
Update 3 Aug 2011: (see article in InsiderFacebook). Note that this applies to community Pages only and not unofficial Pages ...
Facebook has added a new “Merge” option to the Resources tab of the Page editor. It allows Page admins to apply to roll duplicate community Pages into an identically named official Page they control, adding the fans and check-ins of the community Pages to the official Page. Facebook has privately done this kind of merger in the past for prominent celebrities and businesses, but the option has never before been publicly available.
The merge tool will allow official Page admins to gain the ability to publish content to and target with ads users who’ve accidentally Liked an unofficial version of their Page, helping some Pages instantly grow to their rightful size.
As you're probably aware - or possibly not - Facebook is rolling out its auto-tagging feature, using facial recognition software to suggest phototagging. Your Facebook friends - who previously had to go through the arduous task of manually tagging photos of you without your express permission - can now save time and effort thanks to Facebook's nifty piece of image recognition software, and violate your privacy robo-style.
According to Facebook, this facial recognition feature uses a comparison of photos you're tagged in to suggest that friends tag you in new photos. The site says that this feature is intended to save you time: instead of tagging the same friends in 25 photos you just uploaded, you can now apply one label to multiple photos in one step.
The problem is that the default on your privacy settings is to 'allow' this. Even those of us who have our photo tagging settings set tight (mine are friends only except Facebook Friends lists I've created) get to have photos of us suggested to friends for tagging. And don't think you will told that it's been applied to your account either: in typical stealth-mode, Facebook have ensured you have to dig a little to find out.
All of which has raised some hackles in Brussels. According to the New York Times, a group of privacy watchdogs drawn from the European bloc’s 27 nations will study the measure for possible rule violations. Data Protection Working Party Authorities in Britain and Ireland said they are also looking into the photo-tagging function on the world’s most popular social networking service.
In the meantime, here's how to set your privacy controls to stop it:
To turn off this feature, go to "Account ," then "Privacy Settings" and select "Customize settings."
In the second section, "Things others share," click "Edit Settings" next to "Suggest photos of me to friends."
Then, change the setting from Enabled to Disabled. Do note that friends can still manually tag you in photos.
To find out how to deal with other privacy issues on Facebook, check out our list of recent posts:
As you no doubt know, the government yesterday published a review, authored by Mother’s Union boss Reg Bailey, on the sexualisation and commercialisation of children. The Letting Children Be Children report contains a slew of recommendations about what, and how, brands market to children.
Launching his report, Bailey said: “Regulators, businesses and broadcasters should do more to connect with parents – it’s not enough for them to work out what is acceptable from what people complain about afterwards.
"I want all businesses to play fair when selling to children and not take advantage of gaps in the regulation, especially regarding new media."
As well as calling for an end to inappropriate clothing and products for children, a ratings system for music promos and a beefed-up TV watershed, the report calls on ISPs to up their game in assisting parents to control what their children see online.
The Bailey Review also recommends that companies ‘providing content which is age-restricted, whether by law or company policy, should seek robust means of age verification’, and urges an end to the practice of using under-16s as ‘brand ambassadors’ in social media.
In an open letter to Bailey, Prime Minister David Cameron praised the report, specifically endorsing a ban on the use of children in peer-to-peer marketing. He also backed the reports proposals for "making it easier for parents to block adult and age-restricted material" across all media.
According to his letter, the Prime Minister will call a meeting with industry representatives in October, when he will assess how well the industries concerned have complied with Bailey’s proposals. But it’s still unclear whether the government will back the report’s call for legislation, should industry fail to respond effectively within 18 months.
Cameron’s letter hints strongly that his government will stop short of new legislation. He writes that “many of the actions you suggest are for business and regulators to follow rather than for government. I support this emphasis, as it consistent with this government’s overall approach and my long held belief that the leading force for progress should be social responsibility, not state control.”
In the meantime, here’s a quick rundown of the proposals which are most likely to impact on children’s experience online.
Brand Ambassadors, and Peer-to-Peer Marketing
Under the new proposals, brands will no longer be allowed to ‘pay’ children to promote their products on social networking websites. It’s this proposal which was specifically endorsed by David Cameron in his response to the report yesterday - so it’s very likely to be adopted by government.
Previously, and perfectly legally, brands have been able to recruit under-16s to test out their products, and feed back to the company. As part of this process, children have been encouraged to spread positive social-media word-of-mouth, via a reward system which allows them to trade points for prizes.
The approach was notably applied by Mattel when promoting their Barbie-branded MP3 player. 50 girls aged 11 and under were recruited to promote the product, and were able to win branded merchandise by creating their own fan website, and asking their friends to sign up to Barbiegirls.com.
In a similar vein, the report calls for concerted attempts to improve parents’ awareness of advertising and marketing techniques used to promote products to children.
ISP filters and parental controls
“… As a matter of urgency, the internet industry should ensure that customers must make an active choice over what sort of content they want to allow their children to access.”
The Bailey Review calls for ISPs to "act decisively to develop and produce effective parental controls" and for adult-content filters to automatically be offered, either as software or via home-network filter like that recently launched by TalkTalk, on all internet-enabled devices, including smartphones. Consumers should be asked, at the point of sale or during the initial start-up process, whether they wish to receive adult content.
"We believe that this will substantially increase the take-up and awareness of these tools and, consequently, reduce the amount of online adult material accessed by children".
Bailey stops short of recommending a mandatory ISP filter for online content, but proposes that “if voluntary action is not forthcoming quickly then Government should consider regulation (for example, as part of the planned Communications Bill), however problematic that might be."
The government has previously indicated its determination to make ISPs more responsible for protecting children from pornographic content - but, as we noted earlier, it’s clear that they favour self-regulation over legislation. Age Verification
The report dismisses the effectiveness of internet companies age-verification systems, and calls for them to be upgraded.
Those providing content which is age-restricted, whether by law or company policy, should seek robust means of age verification as well as making it easy for parents to block underage access.
Bailey notes that the absence of a UK national identity card scheme is often cited as a bar to effectively enforcing age-verification online. But it also points out that:
“age verification has to be in place in non-internet environments by law (for example, the sale of pornography on DVD) and if we as a society are saying that the supply of adult material needs control, then that control should operate across all outlets, irrespective of the ease of checking the buyer’s age."
The proposal wasn’t one of those highlighted by the Prime Minister in his letter, so it remains to be seen whether the government will endorse it.
Read more...
Oh, Facebook. Just when we think we’ve reached an understanding, everything changes again.
Once upon a time, Facebook allowed brands and other official entities to claim Pages that should be affiliated with the authorized Page, but weren’t. Some of these pages were created by users, but many were generated with the introduction of the Community Page feature that took data entered by users in Interests and then filled it out with data from Wikipedia. (A new feature in 2010, it caused a bit of brand uproar.) Until January 2011, there was an actual link to submit a claim and while the process was convoluted and the actual number that could be claimed limited, it was certainly better than nothing.
Somewhere along the way and with no fanfare, we’ve lost the link to claiming a page. Rumor has it that if you are a big enough fish in your advertising with Facebook and have a dedicated Facebook Advertising Account Manager, something can still be done through back channels to scoop up those renegade pages and affiliate them with the Authorized Page. But if you don’t have that influencer on the inside, then those renegade pages will keep floating up in the Facebook Search Results. They might have your brand’s logo, if the information that moved over from Wikipedia included it. They might even take a lead spot in the search ranking, depending on what the search algorithm EdgeRank is calculating that day.
If the rumor about needing an Inside Man to consolidate or squash a renegade Community Page is true, then for Brands this means there is no way to proactively address the issue without also advertising through Facebook.
When you travel to Palo Alto to meet with the gang at Facebook and discuss why your minimum spend should be at least $1M per brand/product this year, make sure to blurt out at a critical moment, "Hey, what's up with those community pages?"John Bell of Ogilvy, 2010Apparently, this is still the way to go about getting a little attention.
B. L. Ochman warns that these unclaimed Community Pages are “nightmares waiting to happen”, stating that over a third of the Fortune 50 have unclaimed Community Pages that could be easily be swamped with complaints, online activists, and misinformation that the brand itself would have no way to moderate or direct. (Her prime example is an O&G, but any company, large or small, is in danger of having a doppelganger page become the main platform for dissidents and madvocates. As companies like Nestle know to their cost, Facebook can quickly become the focus of a social media crisis. )
According to this study by EisnerAmper, an accountancy and advisory firm, “Reputational Risk” is the number one concern of Boards of Directors. In this world of instant-access, 24-7 social media, where a pin drop on Twitter can be heard around the world before a journalist even begins sourcing a story, online reputation management is no small part of a reputational risk audit. Unclaimed Community Pages might be a small hole in a brand's armor against a potential online crisis, but not an insignificant one.
Read more...
There are some situations where you might want to contact the Administrator or Owner of a Facebook Page: for example, if it's an unofficial Fan Page, if there is misinformation you'd like the page owner to correct, or if you'd like to get in touch directly and congratulate them on a Page well run. However, unlike with profiles, it isn’t immediately obvious how to go about reaching out to them.
Facebook doesn’t display any particular way for someone to get in touch privately with a Page Administrator, but there are a few ways you can do so.
Page Owners widget
One way to find out who a Page Administrator or Owner is, is (if they choose to tell you) via an option buried in the Page’s settings. An Owner can display a number of Page Administrators in the left hand column – if you can see this, click through to one of the profiles and send them a Private Message.
Info Tab links
Another way to find a contact number or address is to click on the Info tab in the left hand column, and check to see whether the owner has added any website links in the page information page. If there are, you might be able to find an email address or phone number on these websites.
Write Something box
Finally, if neither of the previous methods have worked for you, you can post directly onto the page by typing a message in the “Write Something” box.
Most administrators will be receiving email notifications when someone posts to their Page Wall, so apart from choosing what you say publicly and maybe restricting yourself to just asking for a more private way of contacting them, this method is likely to get you in touch with a Facebook Page owner or Administrator.
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In which we bring to your attention some bits and bobs you may have missed while you were doing that other stuff you do.
Urban Outfitters: 'plagiarism' woes go viral A shot of social media pain for style store Urban Outfitters this week, after a tweet noting the remarkable similarities between a UO necklace and the work of independent jewellery artist Stevie Koerner went crazy-viral.
Urban Outfitters - no stranger to online accusations of plagiarism – removed the items from sale, but (perhaps unwisely) posted on their site that “the idea is not unique to Koerner and she can in no way claim to be its originator.”
Alas, too late – the scandal was already trending on Twitter. As various heavyweight slebs piled in to heap opprobrium, pop songstrel Miley Cyrus reminded her followers that “not only do they steal from artists, but every time you give them money you help finance a campaign against gay equality” - a reference to Urban Outfitters’ $13,000 campaign contribution to presidential candidate Rick Santorum, a notorious opponent of gay marriage. The brand’s Facebook page was over-run with negative comments, and at the last count, the original Twitter link to Koerner’s Tumblr had been clicked 265,637 times.
Google's Wallet issues Google this week officially announced the launch of Google Wallet, an app that allows users to store credit cards, loyalty cards, and coupons on their Android smartphones, and to pay for goods and services by tapping the device against wireless in-store readers.
If you’re pondering Wallet-based questions like ‘and if I lose my phone?’ or ‘do I trust Google with my transaction data?’; or are, perhaps, mulling how this initiative squares with Android’s notoriously short battery life, Forbes and The Guardian have the skinny here, and here, respectively.
The launch itself was somewhat overshadowed by the news that Paypal has filed a lawsuit against the Google, alleging that two key eBay executives were persuaded to defect to the company, and subsequently passed on trade secrets without which Google could not have developed the new service. Carumba.
Newsflash: social networks are productivity-suck, customers like brands which answer questions According to an InboxQ survey of 2049 users, 64% of respondents are more likely to buy from businesses who respond to their questions on Twitter.
Predictably, the survey also found that businesses were twice as likely to respond to users with 100+ followers than to those with skinnier follower-counts.
In a further despatch from the Dept of the Bleeding Obvious, social email provider harmon.ie reports that the blame for 57% of workplace interruptions can be laid at the door of social tools like email and social networks. The remaining 43% of lost workplace time – calculated to cost big US companies $10m each per year – is caused by phone calls, talking with co-workers, and ad hoc meetings.
PBS in Tupac Shak-a-Hack PBS’s news site was spectacularly hacked this week by a Wikileaks-supporting group called ‘The Lulz Boat’. The group planted a story on the site which claimed that Tupac Shakur, the US rapper shot and killed some 15 years ago, was alive and living in a small New Zealand town. With fellow rapper (deceased) Biggie Smalls. The group also posted the passwords and other sensitive details of PBS journos, in apparent retaliation for the network’s unfavourable WikiLeaks documentary, with which they claimed to have been ‘less than impressed’.
Mubarak fined for turning off internet - Iran has similar plans Reuters reports that an administrative court has slapped ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak with a £20m fine, after the dictator cut off Egypt’s internet access during the popular revolt which ultimately deposed him. As Google exec and part-time revolutionary hero Wael Ghonim has previously written, Mubarak's move eventually backfired: thousands of citizens took to the streets in search of news, hastening the regime’s demise.
Elsewhere, the WSJ reports that Iran has taken steps to disconnect the country from global cyberspace by launching its own private internet. According to reports, 60% of Iran’s homes and businesses can now only access the country’s internal network, which will be rolled out nationwide within two years.
Lord Sugar's wrist slapped It emerged this week that Lord 'Sir Alan' Sugar, irascible-yet--yes--adorable host of The Apprentice, was in January ordered by the High Court to delete a tweet which might have unfairly influenced a jury deliberating in an MP's expenses case. Sir Alan was contacted by the clerks of the court about the tweet, which speculated that one particular peer might be cleared of wrongdoing because he was a Tory. The Labour peer immediately deleted it, avoiding any unpleasantness of a contempt-of-court kind.
Parents message their children three times a day A National Family Week survey has found that parents track their children’s movements by sending them an average of 312 emails, and 600 text messages every year – and 20% of parents say that social networks are the best place to find out what their kids are up to. But over 75% of them felt that technology had negatively affected family life - the average family now spends fewer than two and a half hours together every week. A bientôt, mes amis!
For more social media snippets, follow @emodkate - or for general twittery, @KateVWilliams
In which we bring to your attention some bits and bobs you may have missed while you were doing that other stuff you do. This morning, we're all about Twitter.
Twitter buckles under court order Twitter has bowed to a US court order to disclose the name and email address of the owner of four Twitter accounts. South Tyneside Council launched the suit, at an estimated cost of several hundred thousand pounds, to uncover the identity of an anonymous whistle-blower named ‘Mr Monkey’, whom it claims has libelled several of its members.
The latest ruling will fuel the ongoing kerfuffle over freedom of speech and privacy in social media. A similar suit was recently launched by family-friendly footballist Ryan Giggs, famously revealed on Twitter to hold a superinjunction preventing any mention of an alleged extra-marital affair. Earlier this month a raft of injunctions were effectively broken after the names of various luminaries alleged to have been granted gagging orders were widely disseminated; this week, a fresh batch of names was served up by an anonymous account-holder, and was heavily-retweeted before Twitter could remove them.
Twitter has previously been remarkably bullish over the privacy of its users; earlier this year, it successfully fought to 'unseal' a secret court ruling requiring it to disclose the identities of several users under investigation by the US government's Wikileaks enquiry. Twitter's legal tenacity alerted the individuals, one of whom was an Icelandic MP, to the existence of the order, enabling them to fight their case in court.
First Tweetdeck, now photo-sharing: Twitter ups it's ad-game? The Guardian reports that Twitter is poised to launch its own photo-sharing service - news which should send icy shivers of fear down the backs of competitors Twitpic, Yfrog, Flickr and Instagram. It’s thought that the new service may feature ads; an indication, perhaps, that Twitter is stepping up its quest for commercial viability, most recently evidenced in its clampdown on third-party developers’ access to the Twitter API.
Elsewhere, there's speculation that Twitter's purchase of British third-party client Tweetdeck was a strategic thrust to allow it to target ads at its ‘power users’. According to one commentator, "the power users' eyeballs are looking at their TweetDeck stream constantly, and if Twitter controls the ability to reach those eyeballs with meaningful ads, then that only helps justify their valuation".
Twitter rolls out new features More goodies from Twitter, which appears to be aggressively strengthening its social graph. After Tuesday’s rollout of updated email notification options – a feature which hasn't met with unbridled enthusiasm in all quarters – a new feature enables users to view tweets from accounts followed by other users. Till now this had been a laborious process, requiring the curious to manually visit the individual pages of the relevant accounts.
Next up, a new button on the ‘Following’ page which allows users to shuffle, StumbldUpon-style, through the streams of their own followers. And finally, Twitter has launched a ‘Follow’ button, to be embedded, like its content-sharing ‘Tweet’ button, on third-party sites. The new button allows users instantly follow that site’s owners on Twitter.
A bientôt, mes amis! For more social media snippets, follow @emodkate - or for general twittery, @KateVWilliams
In which we bring to your attention some bits and bobs you may have missed while you were doing that other stuff you do. Today, we're all about Facebook.
Zuckerberg slaughters ickle animals Squeal! Downy-cheeked Mark Zuckerberg has revealed that he now only eats meat that he kills with his OWN BARE HANDS. Last month he announced to startled Facebook friends, "I just killed a pig and a goat". Next, he posts a photo of a slaughtered chicken with a list of the dishes he’d cooked with its constituent parts, including its heart and liver. Now, he tells Fortune that “many people forget that a living being has to die for you to eat meat… now the only meat I'm eating is from animals I've killed myself". Sweet jeezum, was ever an alpha male more hunter-gathery?
Facebook squares up to Sarkozy The revelation that the Facebook CEO has found his inner Iron John adds a delicious piquancy to his recent mano-Ã -mano with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the e-G8 summit. In his opening speech, the stack-heeled dirigiste urged global governments to regulate the internet; Zuckerberg argued manfully that this would stymie creative dynamism and inhibit global economic growth: "You can't isolate some things you like about the internet, and control other things you don't".
At the same summit, Zuckerberg vigorously downplayed the strength of public anxiety around internet privacy, claiming that, though a million Facebook users initially protested against the introduction of Facebook’s news feed in 2006, the service was now seen as an integral element of the platform: “one of the good things about the Internet is you can just kind of build something, and people will choose to use it or not, and that's how we win debates."
Facebook takes off the gloves with critics Nevertheless, Facebook is clearly unafraid to get down and dirty when wrestling with its critics. Monitoring service Pingdom this week uncovered a list of Facebook-critical domain names owned by the social bruiser, which it suggests have been seized from the original owners via formal domain-dispute proceedings. Facebook now owns, amongst others, IHateTheFacebook-LikeButton.com and FacebookCredits-Suck.org; FacebookSucks.org is still up there, but for how long?
Facebook bats away ownership challenge The social gargantuan bared its teeth again this week while contesting a lawsuit by Paul Ceglia, a wood-pellet-manufacturer with a sketchy past who contends that a till-now undiscovered contract p0wns him 50% of the social network. Facebook’s lawyers smacked down the suit, describing the plaintiff as “an inveterate scam artist whose misconduct extends across decades and borders”, and the purported contract as "a ‘cut-and-paste’ job fraudulently manufactured” by Ceglia.
Facebook rival launches A potential pretender to Facebook’s throne emerged this week in the form of nascent social network Altly. The site is helmed by social entrepreneur (and ex-MySpace maven) Dmitry Shapiro, who previously raised $70m for Veoh, the movie-streaming site which never quite took off. Shapiro cites as motivation Facebook’s carelessness with its users’ privacy and its vice-like grip on their data, and claims that the perceived power of Facebook has historically prevented credible rivals emerging: “For every Coke there is a Pepsi, for every Ford there is a Chevy, for every PC there is a Mac and for every Facebook there is…. a void!” Rousing stuff – though, as TechCrunch points out, it could also be that previous attempts just weren’t good enough. For all its faults, Facebook - valued this week at $87.5 billion - does what it does pretty damn well.
A bientôt, mes amis!
For more social media snippets, follow @emodkate - or for general twittery, @KateVWilliams
This blog has been created by some key eModeration members to provide up-to-date information about user-generated content (UGC) moderation, social media, child internet safety, virtual worlds and MMOGs, and ... well ... pretty much anything else which interests us.
eModeration is a leading international user generated content (UGC) moderation company, providing a comprehensive moderation and community management service. eModeration helps media owners, broadcasters, advertising agencies, international corporations and virtual worlds to avoid the legal and moral issues arising from unmonitored content.
The company’s CEO, Tamara Littleton, was a member of the Home Office Sub-Committee which advised the British Government on moderation of communities to help safeguard children. eModeration is an affiliate member of the International Watch Foundation.
Managed from the company’s London headquarters (with other offices in New York and California), dedicated staff with wide-ranging cultural knowledge moderate 24/7 in over 30 languages.
