Posts Tagged ‘facebook’

So some Facebook users were upset at Facebook's announced privacy policies. (Facebook is, you will recall, the massively popular online social service that allows you to easily stalk your high school girlfriend) So Facebook launched a new privacy policy today, which you know if you logged in and was immediately confronted by a new pop-up demand for clarification of what you wanted seen by whom. Now you can get much more specific on which elements of your Facebook experience can be seen by only your friends, which bits can be seen by friends of your friends, which chunks are visible to your friends and networks, and what gets hung out for the whole frickin' world to see. And yet people are still complaining!

The transition screen recommends you set your privacy settings to "Everyone" and helpfully preselected that for you in every instance, no matter what your previous settings were. You can, of course, select your old settings again and go about your merry, but many users won't bother or won't understand and will unknowingly leave themselves open to identity theft and other nasty things as their personal info gets spread across the land.

Well, yeah.

That was almost certainly Facebook's hope. They want more stuff to be open to all searchers. The more easily findable content there is, the more valuable Facebook is to advertisers. And your Wall comments going public means they can take on Twitter in the highly competitive unprofitable-online-chattering field. They want money, they do, and are in the business of procuring more of it. Granted, it's a bit cheesy to default everyone to the most open and unprivate settings possible — better to leave everyone's settings as they were and then let people open up if they wish — but if FBers don't read the rules they can't really complain when they lose the game.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sure, you want to send your Facebook buddies a beer or a bouquet or a box of chocolates or a plant or a pet or any of a zillion other virtual items available through the many Facebook gift-giving apps, but who can afford them?

Times are tough, and even free gifts might be too a little too much for your strained budget. Fortunately, I can help.

Depression Gifts allows you to send economy-appropriate presents to your friends. Pencils, apples, sticks, and more easy-to-afford items are available, with more coming. Your friends will appreciate the thought and your wallet will appreciate the break.

Depression Gifts. Available wherever lots of sad-looking people stand in line, in black and white.

Breastfeed your child on Facebook, even in a private account only friends can see, and Facebook will frown upon you. That's what happened to Heather Farley, who was told to remove a photo she'd posted of herself. She wrote and asked why, and upon receiving nothing back she posted another, only to be told to lose it or lose her account entirely.

This has resulted in some bad publicity for Facebook and a new group, "Hey Facebook, Breastfeeding in Public is not Obscene" which quickly grew to over 90,000 members, 11,000 comments, and over 3,000 breastfeeding photos (along with paintings of Madonna and Child, and a few Hooters pics that snuck in there). In the face of this public outcry and public picketing, will Facebook change its TOS to accommodate such images, which it says violates their no-aureole policy?

Probably not. (Although shouldn't that mean that BF pictures that are aureoleless are OK?) But as long as we're removing images from Facebook that are patently offensive to the eye, I'd like to suggest they take care of the following:

– Guys with hairy backs, wearing thongs.

– Any "cute dog" picture, especially involving costumes, where the poor animal is clearly begging for death's sweet release.

– Women with hairy backs, wearing thongs.

– Photoshopped images of Sarah Palin. That ship has sailed, my friend.

– Pictures of injuries, abcesses, running sores, open wounds, or gangrenous feet posted with a "hey, check this out" message.

– Dangerously ugly people. You know who you are.

– Profile pics cranked out by the latest make-your-own-avatar fad in the forms of anime characters, elves, M&Ms, vampires, or rotting pirates that look just like the other 3,000,000 avatars that everyone else made.

– Pictures of drunken hijinks, unless the person involved is attractive enough to overcome the stigma of red eyes, slack jaws, goofy grins, and dried vomit. Very few people are.

– Any vacation pics where the person in frame is cleverly positioned so that it appears he or she is holding up a massive monument. Honestly, we're all rooting for the monument to fall and crush you. Seriously.

– Any profile photo made "artsy" by the application of a single, apparently random Photoshop filter.

– Any picture of a person with a design shaved into their hair, at any location.

– Pictures of your adorable children doing something that would get a grownup put in prison.

– Any topless man boasting more than a B cup.

So, Facebook, as long as you're being arbiters of good taste, let's get on these, OK? Any one of them — or, shudder, any combination — is far more offensive to me than an infant suckling at a mother's breast.

“Paul, I have to say your review doesn’t look so good this year.”

“What? Mr. Jenkins, you’ve never complained about my work before.”

“Your job performance is fine, Paul, that’s not the problem.”

“Our company won awards for my work this year!”

“No, Paul, it seems the problem lies in your people skills.”

“What?”

“It’s here in your file. There have been issues with how you deal with those around you, and we take that sort of thing seriously at this company.”

“Someone complained about me? Who complained about me?”

“I really can’t divulge—“

“Just tell me. Was it Lucille? Did she complain about me? Anyone could have dropped the mustard bucket on her at the picnic, it was just dumb luck I happened to be—“

“No, it wasn’t Lucille, I can tell you that much.”

“Then who?”

“Let’s just say there are people in your network who are unhappy with how you deal with them.”

“How I—I barely deal with anybody, I usually stay to myself. Heh, about the only time I see anyone I recognize is on my Facebook page…”

“Yes, well.”

“…You’re kidding me.”

“I did say in your network.”

Read the rest of this entry »

I'm sitting here in the dark, light from my monitor flickering across my face. Were I a drinking man, I would surely be hammered and morose; instead I'm starting to get queasy from all the Diet Pepsis. I've started to type dozens of times in the last two hours, each time getting several sentences in before angrily deleting it all in frustration.

I have a great idea. Original, startling, innovative. Guaranteed to get attention and maybe bring in some bucks. And I don't know where to talk about it.

I started to put it here where it would have the biggest audience, but froze when I realized that my MySpace page would have a broader reach. Then I backpaged and went to post it on my own Web site since anything major in my life should go there, even though I usually forget since the most major thing in my life is usually posting on a blog.

Read the rest of this entry »