Monday 16 May 2011

Who Will Win the Facebook and Google War?

Like two sumo wrestlers srtruggling to get the first fall! I have to laugh about Google's corporate motto "Don't be evil" - maybe this needs to be amended to ...."except to Facebook".



And Facebook are just as bad - pretending to care about their user's privacy when their previous track records shows blatant disregard for it.



As for us users, the best thing to realise is that there is no such thing as privacy on the Internet. If you want privacy cancel your internet contract and throw away your mobile phone. In the mean time, stand back and watch the wrestling!

Amplify’d from latino.foxnews.com
In this May, 26, 2010 file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talks about the social network site's new privacy settings in Palo Alto, Calif. Schools in New Jersey's largest city are poised to receive $100 million Friday, Sept. 24, 2010, from the founder of Facebook.

Ali-Frazier. Yankees-Red Sox. Celtics-Lakers. The sports world has often seen knock-down, drag-out battles between titans. But seldom do massive companies zero in on each other.

In the latest salvo of an increasingly nasty war, Facebook hired public relations firm, Burson-Marsteller to try to covertly get journalists and bloggers to write negative articles about Google's privacy practices relating to its new social media feature. 

The feature in question, Social Circle, allows Facebook user information to show up via a Google search.. While Facebook says Google is infringing on its users privacy, some say, Facebook railing on about the abuse of its users privacy is like the pot calling the kettle black.

"The competition is between the new and the old -- between Facebook as the early leader in the social Web, and Google as the dominant player in the content Web. Everyone else, such as Microsoft, Yahoo and Twitter, will play a secondary role," adds Valdes, "and will start lining up on one side or the other."

Lance Rios, Founder of Being LatinoAs stated in the movie 'The Social Network', "the internet isn't written in pencil, it's written in ink". As so, we can never expect for anything to be fully private in any capacity, ESPECIALLY when it comes to social networking sites. What Google is doing is wrong and intrusive and I see it to be a direct violation of our rights and believe that they will soon be reprimanded. 

While this specific incident will not be the last of companies trying to invade our personal lives, I do think that it will set off a red flag, leading many companies to be a little more conservative about how to approach people and their privacy.

Louis Pagan, Content Director for Hispanicize: This is not shocking to me. Google is making use of already public data...the big 'problem' with social media is just that - the media that you put out there is public. If that's a 'bug' in social media that needs to be fixed is another conversation. Unfortunately, the public is slow in learning this.

What I find disturbing about this story is the sneaky tactic that Facebook used to bring this to the public's attention. Back door deals, and back door conversations are suspicious in their very nature and should be taken with a grain of salt. It seems that Facebook wanted this story to go viral and wipe their hands clean from it.

It's like a cold war between the two companies, and the coveted prize is user data.

Julio Ricardo Varela, Founder of Latino Rebels: As a prophet of social media, Facebook made a huge error by turning this over to a PR company. It surprised me, since they are all about transparency, but in this case, they acted just like any other technology corporation.

The Google tactics don't bother me at all. My profile is protected on Facebook but I also allow some of my information to go out into cyberspace. From a marketing perspective, being linked to Google creates a greater opportunity for someone new to click on your profile. Makes sense to me.

In the end, this is moot, since Facebook will buy out Google in three years.

Read more at latino.foxnews.com
 

Monday 2 May 2011

Happy memories of Punch and Judy

Had a great Bank Holiday weekend watching a show about a dysfunctional family, complete with husband and wife battering, child cruelty, and assault on a police officer. We had such fun, and everyone laughed when the baby was thrown out of the window. Ah yes, good ol' Punch and Judy. It's somehow comforting to know that the story hasn't yet been 'sanitised' by the politically correct lobby (also known as the British Taliban), and is much the same as when I first saw it as a toddler - all those hundreds of years ago!

For those ignorant of such quaint customs, the story is roughly as follows:

The show starts with the arrival of Mr. Punch followed by the introduction of Judy. They kiss and dance before Judy requests Mr. Punch to look after the baby. Punch fails to carry this task out appropriately, sitting on the baby in a failed attempt to "babysit", and even putting it through the sausage machine. He then drops it out of the window onto the floor. Cue little child who rushes to pick it up and on tippy-toes tries to hand it back to Punch - but can't quite reach. Cue slightly taller child who similarly fails. This sequence continues until finally one of the older children in the audience finally has sufficient height to hand the baby back to Mr Punch.  Judy returns, is outraged, fetch's a stick and the knockabout commences. A policeman arrives in response to the mayhem and is himself felled by Punch's slapstick. All this is carried out at breakneck and farcical speed with much involvement from the gleefully shouting children in the audience. Enter Joey the Clown who suggests it's dinner time. This leads to the production of a string of sausages which Mr Punch has to look after. Cue even greater audience participation with the arrival of the crocodile, which Mr. Punch does not see until the children shout out and lets him know. Punch's subsequent struggle with the crocodile leaves him in need of a Doctor who arrives and attempts to treat Punch by walloping him with a stick until Punch reciprocates.  Punch then counts his "victims" by laying puppets on the stage only for Joey the Clown to move them about behind his back in order to frustrate him. A ghost appears and gives Mr. Punch a fright before it too is chased off with a slapstick. 

In the version I remember, a hangman would arrive to punish Mr. Punch, only to himself be tricked into sticking his head in the noose. This seems to have been expunged from this most recent performance, so I guess we have moved on with the times. Maybe later versions will include an ASBO or community service!. Anyway, great fun was had by all, and I'm so pleased I haven't succeeded in growing up yet!

Posted via email from stephendale's posterous