Facebook email still blocks some links

Ryan Singel at Wired reports that “[…]  Facebook’s “modern messaging system” may make it convenient to seamlessly move between instant messaging and a Facebook.com e-mail account, but not if you are sharing a link to a file sharing site. Facebook began blocking BitTorrent link-sharing on Facebook walls and news feeds last spring, and also started blocking private messages between users that included a link to torrents on the Pirate Bay. […]” (full article at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/11/facebook-link-blocking).

I do not endorse or support bittorrent sharing for protected materials, but I think that blocking bit torrent anyway is quite meaningless. I also think that is strange this kind of approach by a company that has demonstrated that security is maybe its last concern.

This post as a comment also at   http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/11/facebook-link-blocking/comment-page-1/#comment-58772

Zuckerberg opinion on Facebook fail and the ability to say “sorry”

Ryan Singel at Wired reports an interview with Facebook founder and owner Mark Zuckerberg, where “[…] 

Monday’s statement, Zuckerberg refrained from such bragging and pledged to add more privacy controls. But he did not back off his company’s seemingly perpetual push toward making users share more information publicly.

We have heard the feedback. There needs to be a simpler way to control your information. In the coming weeks, we will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use. We will also give you an easy way to turn off all third-party services. We are working hard to make these changes available as soon as possible.

Note that Zuckerberg is not saying that Facebook will get user permission before it shares user information with third parties — as Senator Chuck Schumer and Facebook’s original privacy officer called for — only that it will make it easier to opt-out.

Perhaps designing a better way for users to set how public or private of a person they are will quiet the latest furor — as we’ve mostly seen this show with Facebook before. Launch audacious feature, wait for outrage, sort-of apologize but not, and then mostly continue on as planned. […]”
(full article at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/zuckerberg-speaks).

I think that all was said (also by me) on this situation. What really makes me think is the complete absence of good sense (and the total being immature on a business point of view) in Zuckerberg words.

Being an entrepeneur and having a good idea, together with being capable of a commercial development of the idea is not enough to be a respected and trusted business counterpart.

Sometimes, when a mistake occurs, saying sorry and pay for the consequences is the most honest way to deal.

But omitting to say “the little magic word” is something that the owner of such a big business is not allowed to do.

This post as a comment also at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/zuckerberg-speaks/comment-page-1/#comment-47711

Again on Facebook privacy

Ryan Singel at Wired reports that “[…] 

Facebook’s getting lots of advice these days on how to get out of the current jam it’s in over its recent, ambitious drive to put itself at the center of the net by pushing users to be more public.

One of the best is a call from Will Moffat, a San Francisco-based coder who created a site called Openbook that lets searchers see what people have written in status updates that are public to the world. Many of those — try a search on DUI — fall squarely in the category of “too much information.” […] (full story at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/openbook-facebook-design).

A design is reported at this link http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/epicenter/2010/05/facebook_slider11.gif

Though the solution is intuitive and easy to use, I think that setting privacy through a slider is a little bit too big jump for Facebook users.

This post as a comment at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/openbook-facebook-design/comment-page-1/#comment-47710

Facebook simple privacy

Ryan Singel at Wired reports that “[…] 

Reacting to the latest privacy backlash, Facebook will be rolling out new “simplistic” privacy options for its users in the coming weeks, according to Facebook head of public policy Tim Sparapani. “Now we’ve heard from our users that we have gotten a little bit complex,” Sparapani said in a radio interview Tuesday. “I think we are going to work on that. We are going to be providing options for users who want simplistic bands of privacy that they can choose from and I think we will see that in the next couple of weeks.” […]” (full article at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-simple-privacy-choices/; same topic covered at Lifehacker by Kevin Purdy at http://lifehacker.com/5542373/facebook-to-offer-more-simple-privacy-settings-soon and Brian Barrett at Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com/5542616/facebook-promises-simplistic-privacy-choices).

The same old motto of keeping simple for me is always the best solution.

I wonder the method that will be used to restore a reasonable situation, because simplifying a hundred of privacy options is not easy.

And doing it without changing the qualifying elements (including the look and feel), is a more complex challenge.

This post as a comment also at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-simple-privacy-choices/comment-page-1/#comment-47491 , at http://lifehacker.com/5542373/facebook-to-offer-more-simple-privacy-settings-soon and at http://gizmodo.com/5542616/facebook-promises-simplistic-privacy-choices

Facebook open alternative, the solution?

Ryan Singel at Wired writes an article discussing on Facebook changed role and scope. While discussing, Ryan asks some questions on real role of Facebook and if an alternative not driven by the market should be found (full story at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-rogue/).

I think that Mark Zuckerberg’s company that started as a place for meeting and sharing has changed into a cash cow.

This is not, of course, bad at all. What is bad is the will to overcome everything and force users at having unwanted behaviours.

This is part induced by the tons of features available and that only a few masters, and part of how much the informations are spreaded for commercial pourposes.

And part by the stupidity of some people that count over anonimity in order to do and act as they wouldn’t in real life.

When you join a Social network, most of the people think of a “healthy” place to share thoughts and informations or to meet people. But this is the good part, because lot of informations remain there available for most of the people (and companies).

As I wrote in another article, if on top of this the owner (Facebook) of infrastructure isn’t capable of managing it, the result is that everyone of us is subject to the risks of sharing informations and, at same time, brings lot of money to those having access to those datas.

I’m not quite sure that switching to an open source alternative is the solution, but I think that a signal to Facebook should be given.

This post as a comment also at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-rogue/comment-page-2/#comment-46354

Google vs Microsoft

Ryan Singel at Wired writes an article representing the facts behind Google and Microsoft (ull article at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/google-vs-microsoft-what-you-need-to-know/).

Also Ron Schenone at Lockergnome covers the topic (full article at http://www.lockergnome.com/blade/2009/07/14/microsoft-vs-google-great-for-consumer).

What follows is my comment:

“I hope it’s not a death match.

Numbers are big ones, and so a commercial war is a clash of titans.

Hope we, as consumers and users, are not in the middle”.

This comment as a post also at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/google-vs-microsoft-what-you-need-to-know/comment-page-1/#comment-31711 and at http://www.lockergnome.com/blade/2009/07/14/microsoft-vs-google-great-for-consumers/#comment-186940

Internet advertising regulation

Ryan Singel at Wired writes an article talking about the need of regulations in internet advertising (full article at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/internet-ad-industry-begs-for-regulation/).

I think internet advertising has passed from a wild area to a wilder one.

To make a step forward to an economic, organized and trusted industry, what is needed is a solid and durable regulation.

This post also at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/internet-ad-industry-begs-for-regulation/comment-page-1/#comment-31464

Again on Google OS

Ryan Singel at Wired writes an article on planned Google OS (full article at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/all-roads-lead-to-chrome-os/).

This topic is also covered by my last comment (posted yesterday here).

I’m still confident on what I wrote: I’m feeling that for an economic interest we are taking a leap back, where everybody’s got his own OS.

I’m not for or against Microsoft.

But I also think that the standardizations we have these days are an achievements on IT side and informatics diffusion.

This article also at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/all-roads-lead-to-chrome-os/

Google rollercoaster

Yesterday Google went down.

And went down hardly.

And it’s not the first time.

But is really a tech failure or what is experiencing serious outage problems is a model: the model of web based and shared applications.

During the years, we’ve been building an entire migration from local or client server based applications to “webbized” one.

And of course this trend is accompanied and followed by a lot of money in terms of technology, investments and marketing.

But this new paradigm in application deployment is eating up a lot of band and requires an infrastructure that is reliable, bullet-proof and available.

Because the risk is to leave without vital (or not so vital) informations million of user.

Google is at it’s 3rd or so, outage. And that means no informations, documents and applications for many more people than ever.

This make me think if we didn’t run to much faster than technology and prudence counselled.

As Matt Harley writes on Lockergnome, “Despite various efforts to make Google Apps available locally as well, at the end of the day, the applications are considered apps that are made available online. And when these apps go offline, it makes those in the enterprise sector seriously question the value of such application”. (full article at http://www.lockergnome.com/it/2009/05/14/massive-google-outage/)

And that is the point. It’s not only Google apps, it’s the entire paradigm of web apps and informations that is now central for everyone, that needs to be supported by infrastructure.

If infrastructure fails, there’s no reliability. And no reliability brings to drop of investments. And big looses.

I think we put too much (and too early) confidence in web apps and everything that is “webbized” and over stressed the infrastructure needed to run and access all these informations.

Which is the solution?

One solution could be slowing down our webbization, but I think it’s not possible.

The other solution is to invest more and more in infrastructure to enable more reliability. But is able to invest so much in this moment?

Couldn’t be we will approach a big crackdown?

(Part of this article is posted on Wired as a comment to Ryan Singel good article “When Google Goes Down, It Falls Hard” that can be found at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/05/when-google-goes-down-it-goes-down-hard/, while my comment is at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/05/when-google-goes-down-it-goes-down-hard/comment-page-1/#comment-28871)