Just How Concerned with Privacy Are Facebook Users?
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PeopleBrowsr shared a rather interesting report with us this week, looking at privacy related tweets during the center of this year’s Facebook "privacy storm." The firm studied the public’s reaction to Facebook’s open graph-related announcements that set off the majority of the Facebook privacy controversy back in April.
Are you concerned for your privacy as a Facebook user? Let us know.
The report specifically compares the general public’s (or at least the portion that uses Twitter) thoughts about Facebook privacy with the media sensationalism around the story. The firm studied tweets with references to privacy, along with other keywords like Facebook, Open Graph, Zuckerberg, and Google.
"We are the last generation to know privacy as it was," says Brian Solis, Chief Data Analyst for PeopleBrowsr. "As Facebook moves human connections and society into a more public spotlight, people and the press will push back. But this will move things forward collaboratively. Over time I believe the debate will evolve into a series of productive forums and memes that explore the risks of living in public and the rewards for participation."
Some of PeopleBrowsr’s findings from the study:
- Prior to the F8 conference on April 24, privacy tweets hovered between 1,000-3,000 references per day, then spiked to 9,000 on the day of F8
- On April 25 (day after the conference), privacy-related tweets fell to 3,500 – then surged to 7,500 when politicians joined the fray. Around May 25, privacy discussions hit the ceiling in this study with 20,000 unique discussions.
- In terms of context, Facebook dominated the landscape for mentions of #privacy
- Conversations followed media reports
"We see that even on the day when privacy took center stage, the media sensationalized the topic. But the public, at least those on Twitter, did not flood the streets with 140 character picket signs. 9,000 tweets does not seem to account for the millions of Twitter users or the 500 million people who have Facebook accounts," says Solis.
That last statement is true on a couple of different levels. For Solis’ purpose it does not appear to indicate that the majority of Facebook users were that concerned. However, it is also worth noting that the majority of Facebook users are not necessarily active Twitter users. Facebook has over 500 million people. It’s not a flawless argument, and the findings should be taken with a grain of salt like any such study. That said, Twitter is generally viewed as a good indication of public opinion, as trending topics often reflect pop culture and news at large. If there is something significant happening, you can generally find people talking about it on Twitter.
Besides, Facebook’s numbers continued to grow. Diaspora (the "Facebook alternative") will be here soon. I’m willing to bet that will have little impact on Facebook’s growth as well.
Do you think the privacy discussion around Facebook was overblown? Share your thoughts.
Skype for Windows Gets Ten-Way Video Calling
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MusOpen Uses Diaspora Model to Set Classical Music Rights Free
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Google, Facebook and Boxee Respond to Apple
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Update 2: Swisher reports that Facebook blocked API access to Ping after failing to strike an agreement with Apple, so Apple removed the feature after launch. She credits "sources familiar with Facebook’s platform" with this information.
Update: With regards to Facebook and Ping, Dan Frommer points out that the screenshots Apple used in its prsentation actually did show Facebook integration. MG Siegler also notes that he actually was able to connect to Ping with Facebook, but then it disappeared. It appears that Apple may have pulled Facebook from it at the last minute. Siegler writes:
I can tell you for sure that yesterday Facebook Connect was a part of Ping — because I used it.
When I first loaded iTunes 10 yesterday and started up Ping, connecting with Facebook was the first thing I did to find friends. At first, I will say that it didn’t work. I hit the Connect button, entered my credentials, and nothing happened. But I tried again and it worked perfectly. I found a handful of Facebook friends who had just started using Ping as well and connected with them.
He also claims that he’s still connected to the Ping app from within Facebook and that while Facebook isn’t on iTunes, it’s still live. 
Original Article: At Apple’s music event yesterday, where the company launched a new version of iOS, a new version of iTunes with a new social network (Ping), a new line of iPods, and a new version of Apple TV, Steve Jobs took a shot at Google involving numbers of smartphone activations.
Last month, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that Android gets over 200,000 devices a day.
"People throw out a lot of numbers about how many devices they’re activating per day," Jobs is quoted as saying. "We are doing 230,000 activations a day.  We think our friends may be counting upgrades - if we were counting upgrades, that would be way higher."
Fortune has a quote from a Google spokesperson responding to those comments: "The Android activation numbers do not include upgrades and are, in fact, only a portion of the Android devices in the market since we only include devices that have Google services."
Ping, the iTunes social network, is like Facebook or Twitter meets iTunes. That’s the way Jobs described it in the announcement, anyway. While that may be the case, and it may even resemble Facebook, there is no integration with either Facebook or Twitter (or other social networks).
Kara Swisher was able to speak to Jobs about this, who said Facebook wanted "onerous terms that we could not agree to." When asked about integrating Facebook Connect to help people find their friends, Swisher quotes him saying (or shrugging rather), "We could, I guess."
She also got this statement from Facebook on the matter: "Facebook believes in connecting people with their interests and we’ve partnered with innovative developers around the world who share this vision. Facebook and Apple have cooperated successfully in the past to offer people great social experiences and we look forward to doing so in the future."
Om Malik at GigaOm calls Ping "the future of social commerce". "From a content perspective, there are three different types of media we love to talk about: movies we see, music we listen to and books we are reading," he says. "These are accepted social norms. In fact, many relationships are made on the basis of collective love of a movie and many friendships have started with mixed tapes."
Boxee, whose Boxee Box is due out in November, had some comments on Apple’s Apple TV announcement. These two are now direct competitors. On the Boxee blog, Avner Ronen writes:
We think people want to be able to watch anything that they can watch on their computer, only on their bigscreen TV.  There is an overwhelming consumer expectation that the content we can consume in our cubicles, our dorm rooms, and in our laps should be available in our living rooms, in full 1080p with a gorgeous interface.  It’s a simple premise, but the challenge is to do it in a way that makes sense in that space, so you can put your feet up, grab a remote and start watching. No keyboards, mice, windows or labyrinthine menus. It should be calm and it should be beautiful. And it *must* be open.
We all watched the Apple announcement. We walked away feeling strongly confident about the space it left for Boxee to compete. We have a different view of what users want in their living rooms. We are taking different paths to get there. The Boxee Box is going to be $100 more expensive than the Apple TV, but will give you the freedom to watch what you want.
We think it’s worth it.
NewTeeVee has a comparison of Apple TV, the Boxee Box, and Roku, which some have also said is superior to the new Apple TV.
 
AP Updates Attribution Guidelines, Links Not Mentioned
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The Associated Press has revealed some new guidelines for its reporters with regards to credit and attribution. The guidelines come in the form of a letter from AP Senior Managing Editor Mike Oreskes.
The guidelines apply to AP reports in print, broadcast, and online news, and stress the importance of giving proper attribution to other publications that break stories.
"We should provide attribution whether the other organization is a newspaper, website, broadcaster or blog; whether or not it’s U.S. based; and whether or not it’s an AP member or subscriber," writes Oreskes. "This policy applies to all reports in all media, from short pieces, such as NewsNows and initial broadcast reports, to longer pieces aimed at print publication."
Oreskes says attribution doesn’t have to be at the beginning of a story, and that sometimes it can be two or three paragraphs down.
"If some information comes from another organization and some is ours, we should credit ourselves for what’s ours and the other organization for what’s theirs," he writes, adding that if material from another source turns out to be wrong, that will be cited in corrections later. (emphasis added)
The AP is one organization that has famously expressed disdain with blogs in the past (ones that quoted AP stories and gave credit), and was cited among various other publications earlier this year by Danny Sullivan as one that failed to credit where it got its information (most likely his article, at least somewhere in the chain).
It is interesting however that these guidelines appear to suggest that its reporters can freely do what the AP has in the past complained about others doing - using snippets of content. Now, the guidelines don’t exactly say anything about using "snippets", but it’s either that, rewriting, or regurgitating something that’s already been discussed elsewhere (hopefully with some additional original content added). Am I wrong? It’s a matter of fair use, and the AP’s stance on fair use in the past has basically been that there isn’t any when it comes to the AP’s content. Is it a double standard? Clearly, this is admission that the AP has participated in this same type of reporting.
It’s good to know that they’re recognizing that this is just part of how it works in this age of online news, but you still have to wonder what side of the fence they come down on with regards to their own content. I guess we’ll see if AP reporters abide by these guidelines and whether or not the AP attacks anybody for using the same methods with AP content.
The whole thing is very related to the AP’s stance on search engines and aggregators as well. These sites do, after all, provide snippets, links, and credit to the sources.
While stressing the importance of attribution, he does also make a note of telling reporters not to use other sources so much that it appears they’re "free riding" on another organization’s work, and stresses matching or further development of the story.
What is not mentioned once in the guidelines is the word "link". There is no mention of linking whatsoever. It is unclear whether linking is included it in the proper attribution described or whether they deem simple credit to be sufficient. While obviously you can’t link in print or broadcast (one reason why online content is more valuable to readers), linking has become commonly looked upon as necessary to attribution in online news, so those who deserve credit for breaking a story can in turn get traffic to that story.
The letter does say that it will continue to use "information from" lines with URLs, but that attribution should be in the body of the story as well. However, it is unclear whether or not this attribution will actually include links.
It will be interesting to see how the AP proceeds in this regard. Without links, the organization is setting itself up for a great deal of criticism.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt Portrayed as Evil in Another Video
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Consumer Watchdog has created a new anti-Google video portraying Google CEO Eric Schmidt has some kind of evil ice cream man. The video is a commentary on what the group perceives to be Google’s lack of regard for consumer privacy. 
Google Calls Upon Retailers to List Inventory
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Google announced today that it is making public its help documentation for Local Shopping inventory for Google Merchant Center. This is a feature that allows retailers to let consumers know about what they have in stock right from the web. 
"One weekday evening a few weeks before our son was born, my wife commissioned me to find a box of raspberry red leaf tea for the delivery," says Google Product Search business product manager Paul Lee, explaining the usefulness of such a feature.  "I promptly drove to the nearest grocery store, which has an awe-inspiring wall of tea. After diligently scanning the wall and not finding the tea, I began to wonder if it even existed. Was the similarly-labeled raspberry tea the same thing? What about red leaf tea?" 
"Stumped, I pulled out my phone and looked up ‘raspberry red leaf tea’ on Google," he continues. "Beneath the ‘Shopping results,’ I saw a red map marker for a nearby Vitamin Shoppe and a link, ‘In stock nearby,’ next to a picture of Alvita Raspberry Red Leaf Tea. I hopped back in the car, and 15 minutes later had accomplished my mission. Two weeks later, my wife accomplished her much more important mission and we welcomed Benjamin, a healthy and happy baby boy, to our family."
Keep in mind that Google doesn’t accept all retailers who apply for listing this information, but there is a form you can fill out to do so. If you aren’t accepted, Google will keep you on file for potential future inclusion. 
You’ll be asked to submit a complete and accurate data feed, including unique product identifiers. You’ll also need to be listed and verified in Google Places.
Chrome Celebrates 2nd Anniversary with New Stable Version
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Google announced today that it is releasing a new stable version of Chrome, which the company says is even faster and more streamlined. In fact, Google claims it is three times faster on JavaScript performance than it was two year ago, when Chrome was first launched (it’s the two-year anniversary, by the way).
"We’ve also been working on simplifying the ‘chrome’ of Chrome," says product manager Brian Rakowski. "As you can see, we took the already minimalist user interface and stripped it down a bit more to make it easier to use. We combined Chrome’s two menus into one, revisited the location of the buttons, cleaned up the treatment of the URL and the Omnibox, and adjusted the color scheme of the browser to be easier on the eyes."
"As always, we’re hard at work on making Chrome even faster, and working on ways to improve graphics performance in the browser through hardware acceleration," adds Rakowski. "With the Chrome Web Store, we hope to make it much easier to find and use great applications on the web. We also ratcheted up the pace of our releases so that we can get new features and improvements to everyone more quickly."
The new stable version can be downloaded here. Google has a list of all stable and beta channel updates here.
If you’re more interested in the fact that it is Chrome’s 2nd birthday, you can get more reflection on how far the browser has come in those two short years by reading this celebratory post from Google.
Dell Appears to Lose 3PAR to HP
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Update 2: It looks like Dell has lost the bidding war for 3PAR after all. The company issued a release saying it has ended discussions and will recieve a $72 million break-up fee from 3PAR. This comes after 3PAR accepted an increased bid from HP of $2.4 billion.
Update: Following the below news, HP and Dell got into a bidding war for 3PAR, but according to TechCrunch, 3PAR has accepted the latest offfer from Dell  for $27 per share in cash, or approximately $1.8 billion.
Original Article: Dell announced that it is acquiring virtualized storage solutions provider 3PAR for $1.15 billion. Dell says the acquisition will enable its customers to take advantage of the "virtual era" and cut data management costs by as much as 50%.
"We have aligned our storage offerings over the last several years to provide our customers choice and value," said Brad Anderson, Dell SVP, Enterprise Product Group. "3PAR brings the same values of performance, agility and ease-of-use to higher end, virtualized storage deployments as EqualLogic does for the entry-level and mid-range, rounding out our industry-leading solutions portfolio."
"3PAR has consistently provided customers with the ability to do more with less," said 3PAR President and CEO David Scott. "With Dell we combine a powerful, virtualized storage platform with an outstanding distribution network to deliver this value to an even broader set of customers."
The transaction has been approved by both boards of directors. Some analysts are saying Dell overpaid for 3Par, and the Street calls the acquisition a "shrewd move".
After closing, Dell plans to maintain and invest in additional engineering and sales resources for 3PAR. The company has no plans to move the current operations.
Kobo Emerges as the E-Reading App for the Samsung Galaxy Tab
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Samsung has unveiled its Galaxy Tab tablet device, and Kobo announced that it is supplying the e-reader technology for it.
"After much speculation, the new Samsung GALAXY Tab has just been announced by Samsung’s CEO in Berlin, and Kobo is THE eReading application powering the ‘Readers Hub’ on the new Android tablet," says Kobo. "This partnership is an industry first for Kobo and Samsung, offering the first eReading experience on an Android Tablet to readers worldwide."
"This is a HUGE WIN for Kobo!" the company proclaims. "Samsung is a global leader - a world class organization that touches billions of consumers worldwide.  The GALAXY Tab is an amazing device and will be a real contender in the marketplace as consumers everywhere adopt tablets. To have been selected as THE eReading application that powers the ‘Readers Hub’ on this device is simply incredible."
The announcement comes at a time when not only is the competition heating up in the tablet space, but it’s also heating up in the e-reading space, led by Amazon’s Kindle, which offers apps on other platforms as well as its own. This is going to be another space (in addition to the connected-TV space) to keep a close eye on over the next year or so.
Kobo’s store has over 2.2 million popular titles, including new releases and 1.8 million free books. The company also says its adding thousands more each week. Apple announced yesterday that it has 35 million books in iTunes.
