Facebook to Let Advertisers Republish User Posts

Facebook users who check in to a store or click the "like" button for a brand may soon find those actions retransmitted on their friends' pages as a "Sponsored Story" paid for by advertisers.

Currently there is no way for users to decline this feature.

Facebook says this lets advertisers promote word-of-mouth recommendations that people already made on the site. They play up things people do on the site that might get lost in the mass of links, photos, status updates and other content users share on the world's largest social network.

The new, promoted posts would keep the same privacy setting that the original posting had. So if you limit your check-ins to a specific group of friends, only these same friends would see the "Sponsored Story" version later.

The promoted content will appear on the right side of users' home pages, not in their main news feed. That's where regular ads, friend requests and other content are located.

Involving users in advertisements without their consent has been a thorny issue for Facebook. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said in this case the company is making money off a person's name or likeness without their consent. He calls it "subtle and misleading" and says users should object.

Twitter already offers advertisers something similar, called "promoted tweets." These are Twitter posts paid for by advertisers to show up in search results and on top of popular topic lists on the site. But while Twitter's ads are written by the companies that pay for them, Facebook's sponsored stories are created by users.

Both represent an effort to make advertisements more akin to what people are already experiencing on the site instead of putting up virtual billboards that users might ignore or find tacky.

Online Video from Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v10100328087082670

Facebook, MySpace and YouTube Named Top Blacklisted Sites Of 2010

Social media sites like Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube continue to polarize corporations and people in charge of networks, judging by a new report from OpenDNS.  The sites showed up on both "top blacklisted" and "top whitelisted" lists covering the entire year of 2010.

If you'd like a definition of those terms, OpenDNS said in its report, "Blacklists are typically used when there is no desire to block an entire category in principle, but there is a focus on preventing traffic to specific websites based on a combination of their popularity and content.  This top ten list suggests a concern with the use of bandwidth by streaming sites and with privacy concerns from advertising networks."

Then the company added, "Whitelists are typically used when there is a desire to block entire categories, but access to selected websites is granted on an exception basis.  These sites represent the most trusted sites in their category."


All sorts of interpretations seem possible as a result.  An unpleasant one for Mark Zuckerberg: perhaps companies like Facebook less than Playboy.  Or, to head in the other direction, maybe the average office worker prefers Facebook to Playboy, thereby necessitating the "blacklist" response.

Either way, the sites appearing on these lists can at least argue that they've succeeded in attracting everyone's attention.  And home usage is likely to be high as a result, since blacklists and whitelists can't restrict everyone's browsing all the time.

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/01/25/facebook-myspace-youtube-named-top-blacklisted-sites-of-2010

27% of People Use Facebook in the Washroom

Recently AIS Media asked a very interesting question to its readers in a survey: "Do you ever use Facebook on your mobile device while you’re in the bathroom." 27% of respondents said yes. This is not surprising to me whatsoever, considering that Facebook recently surged past Google in regards to time spent on website. The majority of the respondents were between the ages of 30-49, with Females representing a 54% share.

Source: http://www.webanalyticsworld.net/2011/01/27-of-people-use-facebook-in-washroom.html