Catch Up Lady

What a Tangled (Privacy) Web Facebook Weaves

Today's sign that people are circling the wagons on Facebook and their privacy settings.... 

A graphic from the New York Times showing Facebook's 50 privacy settings and 170+ options.  In the wake of Facebook's roll out of it's Open Graph API and associated complaints about privacy concerns, the company called a privacy all-hands meeting (announced yesterday) and changes are expected.

I predict dramatically simplified privacy setting options and clear, and easy opt-outs for third party sites to quell the backlash that's quickly growing (i.e. consumer protest with efforts like Quit Facebook Day.)

Levi's Facebook Friends Store - The Future For The Socially Connected

Brands talk a lot about integrating social into their Web site.  Unfortunately more often than not it seems this inspiration results in simply the addition of sharing functionality and potentially Facebook, Twitter and YouTube icons linking out to other social channels.  True social functionality facilitates content sharing and conversation - which transforms a brand website from a cathedral you can walk away from to a dynamic space requiring regular maintenance.  Many brands aren't there yet, and may never be in some cases.

That being said, it's nice to see brands like Levi's leaning forward - in late April they launched their Friend's Store as an integrated part of their home page online shopping experience.  When you arrive at the Levi's home page you can use Facebook Connect to tap into your friend's Likes and opinions on their styles.  Likes, of course, appear in your stream, creating the oh-so important generational spread of your activity/WOM.

Like other friend-based social features (i.e. Twitter, FourSquare) I see Facebook Connect being as powerful as your network.  If you have hundreds of social friends using Facebook Connect you are immediately going to realize the value of brands using Facebook Connect - if your network is more inactive, these changes won't impact you or your web experience and you'll wonder what all the fuss is about. 

Facebook's hurdle will be rolling out these partnerships and Connect opportunities in a way that feels safe and secure to users.  I Tweeted yesterday that I was tightening up my Facebook privacy settings and 4 people immediately tweeted that they were doing the same.  Recent incidents, like the Yelp debacle, leave even the early adopters a little skittish on the true benefits of connecting their network to third party sites.  I'm banking on Facebook clearing the hurdle, and consumers following suit. 

EDIT - Literally minutes after posting this I saw on Twitter that Facebook has called an all-hands privacy meeting today to discuss their strategy on this topic... stay tuned.

  

PS - Hey Jason Falls, how those 501's fitting?

Colgate Yearbook Goes All 2.0 On Yo' Ass

When I went to college in 1999 my @wellesley.edu was the first email address I ever had.  In contrast, two years ago Boston College stopped offering @bc.edu email addresses and made them simply a forwarding addresses to student's existing personal email accounts.  In other news from the wow-has-technology-changed-college-file, Colgate University has launched this mashup with yearbook style info of their graduating class and their plans for the future.  8 of the students have added video on their year end thoughts on their college experience.

I found the actual interface and student info to be pretty bland - but as Mashable points out the concept is totally dynamic and you can easily see a more robust version of this catching on for face books (the old kind), yearbooks, alumi groups, and other student organizations.  The ability to customize your info with multimedia and content, or even link to specific content on your existing social channels would make this an particularly easy lift - essentially filtering pieces of your social life to represent you in a designated group.  Easy to see how this concept can be broken out and applied more broadly.