Facebook Driving More Traffic Than Google To Some Big Sites

from the balance-of-power dept

Yesterday was the news that social networking and blogs had become more popular than email; today, word comes that Facebook has become the most significant source of traffic for a number of big web sites. It's overtaken Google for some sites, even with just a third of the unique visitors of the search behemoth. But, as paidContent points out, Facebook needs to figure out how to translate this traffic-generation power into revenues as a part of its bigger overall search for a monetization strategy. An issue persists for the likes of Google, too, though: as social networks start to become more powerful sources of traffic, will advertisers shift more of their dollars to them, and away from search-based keywords?

Filed Under: social networks, traffic
Companies: facebook, google

Cops Taking To Private Social Networks; Is There Enough Oversight?

from the rules-for-your-own-good dept

After spending a long time decrying social networks and media-sharing sites for helping to encourage crime, lots of police around the world are realizing that the sites can actually help them fight crime. Some have started posting details of crimes and suspects on popular sites, but some cops are going even further, and taking to private, crime-focused social networks to share information with other cops and investigators. It sounds like they've discovered some of the benefits that increased and easy information-sharing can generate, but there are a couple of areas for concern. First, it isn't just police on these sites, they also include private companies like banks and retailers and security companies. Second, all of this info-sharing is unregulated -- no subpoenas or warrants, or any sort of oversight or rules for transparency. It would seem there's a lot of scope for abuse or for innocent people to be misidentified and mistreated, particularly by private companies on the systems. The rules governing police investigations and the protections they aim to give people exist for good reason; while police and other groups should be able to use technology to better do their jobs, they shouldn't be able to use technology to circumvent regulations. Balancing these two aims will be a critical battleground for legislators, investigators and civil-rights groups moving forward.

Filed Under: law enforcement, social networks

Social Networks Now More Popular Than Email, Report Says

from the you've-got-a-poke dept

A new report says that "member communities" -- sites like social networks and blogs -- are now more popular than email. The Nielsen report says that two out of three internet users, in the eight countries it tracks, visit social sites more than email sites visit member communities, a higher percentage than use email. Though usage remains behind search, portal and PC software sites, the social-site usage is growing at a far faster pace than any of them. The methodology here is a bit odd, and the classifications of sites not immediately clear, but, if anything, the report underlines how users' online time, as well as their communication, is shifting towards social networks and, perhaps, away from email. This makes sense: as more and more people are spending more and more time inside social networks, it follows that they'll communicate within them, rather than outside them via email. Email still has tremendous value, but also brings plenty of problems, from spam to annoying reply-all responses. As long as in-social-network communication can improve on this experience and offer benefits over email, its use will continue to grow. But that advantage can be fleeting, particularly as problems like spam move to social networks. If social network-based communication becomes as polluted as email, it can't expect to hold its popularity for long.

Filed Under: communication, email, social networks

Courts Around The World Dealing With The Fact That There Are Mean People Online

from the but-is-it-illegal? dept

Here are two separate lawsuits, halfway around the world from each other that seem to be touching on quite similar issues: whether or not it's illegal to be a jerk online. The first, described by Eric Goldman, is about a student who has sued a bunch of high school classmates, their parents and Facebook, because those students created a private group on Facebook where they made fun of the girl. Goldman points out all the problems with the lawsuit: suing Facebook makes no sense and will get thrown out pretty quickly. The group was private, and limited to six students, so the total "audience" for any defamation was a grand total of five people -- and, while the comments were mean, they were also pretty obviously not true. Also, suing the parents for "negligence" in supervising their kids isn't likely to get very far. All in all, it seems like the case probably won't last very long.

However, the results on the other side of the planet were a bit different. VivekM points us to the news of a teen in India who started an Orkut group against a certain political party. Many people left anonymous comments as a part of the group, but the party sued the teenager who created the group, claiming he violated a local law against "hurting public sentiment." Rather than realizing the the kid starting the group should have no liability for the statements made by others, the Supreme Court in India has said that he can be charged, noting: "You are a computer student and you know how many people access internet portals. Hence, if someone files a criminal action on the basis of the content, then you will have to face the case. You have to go before the court and explain your conduct."

At some point, people and courts will recognize that there will always be jerks online, and it makes little sense to go around filing lawsuits against anyone in any way connected to those being jerky (even the jerky folks themselves), but until that time, the court systems around the world are going to be quite busy with similar cases.

Filed Under: india, lawsuits, liability, libel, social networks

Canadian Court Apparently Decides That Private Facebook Profiles Aren't Actually Private

from the privacy-settings-are-meaningless dept

The folks at Facebook are notoriously proud of the granular levels of privacy their system allows, such that you can pick and choose what you share with different people. Apparently, all of that is meaningless to a judge in Ontario, who has decided that if you use Facebook at all, your profile can be used against you in a civil court case, even if you set it to private. The judge's reasoning is quite troubling:

a court can infer from the social networking purpose of Facebook, and the applications it offers to users such as the posting of photographs, that users intend to take advantage of Facebook's applications to make personal information available to others. From the general evidence about Facebook filed on this motion it is clear that Facebook is not used as a means by which account holders carry on monologues with themselves; it is a device by which users share with others information about who they are, what they like, what they do, and where they go, in varying degrees of detail. Facebook profiles are not designed to function as diaries; they enable users to construct personal networks or communities of "friends" with whom they can share information about themselves, and on which "friends" can post information about the user.

That's sort of true. It is for sharing content with others... but the very point is that you get to choose who those others will be. So, even if it's not exactly like a diary, it could be considered a diary that is just shared with a select group of individuals. Just because I share something secret with one other person, does not mean I automatically have consented to have that information shared with everyone. I wonder if this means that all of the judge's correspondences with others should be opened to the public. After all, the judge is obviously not conducting a monologue with himself, but uses things like email or letters or phone calls to share information with others.

Filed Under: canada, privacy, social networks
Companies: facebook

And Now Facebook And Twitter Will Melt Your Mind

from the evidence-please? dept

It's been quite a week or so for people with fancy titles and no actual evidence to spout off about just how evil and dangerous social networks are. First, there was the totally ridiculous claim that Facebook could increase your likelihood of cancer. Then, there was the news that using Twitter meant you had no identity, and now a "professor of synaptic pharmacology" is claiming that Facebook and Twitter are threatening to "infantalize" our brains. This is based on what... exactly? Well, it appears nothing more than a hunch. There isn't any actual evidence presented, and some of the facts appear to just be wrong. For example, she claims that these services mean kids read fewer books, and that means they'll empathize less. Well, there are a couple problems with that... such as the recent research that showed that people are reading more books than in the past. And... I'm curious as to the proof that actually communicating with real human beings online is less likely to create empathy than reading fictional books?

Oddly, while she complains about less empathy due to less reading, she then complains about people showing empathy via social networks, saying that social networks encourage bad behavior by providing people "constant reassurance -- that you are listened to, recognised, and important." Confused? You're not the only one. Then she pulls out the same old line that's been trotted out for years about how since these interactions are all online (gasp!) they seem to count less... and somehow that will lead people to no longer want to interact in person. This is an argument we've heard for over 15 years online, and it's never been supported by the slightest evidence to back it up. Most people who actually use the internet to communicate have found that it's increased opportunities to meet and talk to people in person, not diminished them. It's amazing how many experts can be trotted out who so fear a technology it's clear they've not really used it very much.

Filed Under: moral panic, social networks

And Now It's Twitter That's Evil

from the we-fear-what-we-don't-understand dept

It's amazing how much people fear what they don't understand. Every few years, there's something new to "fear" online -- and it's often backed up by quotes from clueless "experts" who buy into the fear rather than understanding what's actually happening. When the internet was first becoming mainstream in the 90s, there was the hilariously wrong Rimm Report, which had politicians and the media in a big frenzy about how the internet was just a massive den of porn that needed to be stopped. And, of course, more recently there's been similar attention paid to things like violent video games, despite the lack of evidence of any actual damage done to people playing such games. A few years ago, it was blogs that were evil ("an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective"), according to Dan Lyons, who at the time worked for Forbes, and later became famous thanks to his blog

Now, it seems that the main target of today's moral panic is the various social networking sites. Obviously, there's been a lot of trumped up complaints about sexual predators on social networks (despite the fact that, as social networks have become more popular the number of sexual offenses against children has been dropping). However, in the last few months, we've been seeing various weak attacks on social networking from a variety of other perspectives -- often clearly written by folks who haven't actually used the sites in question very much.

There was the claim that girls who used Facebook more often were more depressed, with the implication being that Facebook made them depressed, rather than the fact that those who were depressed may have turned to Facebook to talk to people and relieve their depression. Then there was the ridiculously misleading reports last week, implying that social networks could be harmful to your health, though the real story turned out to be a lot more benign.

The latest is a bit of fascinatingly yellow journalism out of the UK, where a reporter found a bunch of "experts" to opine on why Twitter was only home to insecure losers. There are a bunch of hilarious quotes from people who apparently have never even used the service:

"Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It's a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity." -- clinical psychologist Oliver James

"Using Twitter suggests a level of insecurity whereby, unless people recognise you, you cease to exist. It may stave off insecurity in the short term, but it won't cure it." -- cognitive neuropsychologist Dr David Lewis

"a way of making sure you are permanently connected to somebody and somebody is permanently connected to you, proving that you are alive. It's like when a parent goes into a child's room to check the child is still breathing. It is a giant baby monitor." -- book author Alain de Botton

The author of the article then goes on to whine about how "mundane" messages on Twitter tend to be -- which is reminiscent of the old complaints about bloggers just blogging about their cats. It's pretty clear that none of these folks have ever really used Twitter -- because they all seem to interpret it as being a broadcast mechanism, rather than a conversational one. This isn't to say that Twitter is right for everyone, but most of the people who find value in it, find value in the conversational aspect of it, not that it "broadcasts" mundane facts of their lives. I know that I've used it to become a lot closer to a number of people, because it allows me not to find out what they had for lunch today, but to converse with them more frequently and with much more depth and insight than I would have had the opportunity otherwise. Sometimes, that's because of direct communications via Twitter, but often it's because of connections created because of Twitter -- such as realizing I'm in the same city at the same time as someone else I'd like to meet. There are still plenty of people who hate Twitter, but it's difficult to take seriously people complaining about it when it seems quite clear they've never even bothered to use it.

Filed Under: broadcast, conversation, moral panic, social networks
Companies: twitter

Facebook Boots Off Almost 5600 Sex Offenders; Don't You Feel Safer Now?

from the now-that-that's-out-of-the-way dept

Facebook says it's cleared about 5600 sex offenders from its userbase, following the big push from a bunch of state attorneys general. The figure's being compared to the 90,000 people that MySpace said it kicked off, leading to some speculation that Facebook isn't trying hard enough; its chief privacy offer says its requirement that people use their real names could deter sex offenders from registering in the first place. If these people Facebook has identified are using the site in violation of their parole or other restrictions, it's good they're being exposed. But the real problem here is that finding sex offenders on social networks and kicking them off is being misconstrued as the ultimate protection for kids. The actual threat posed by sex offenders on web sites is often exaggerated by politicians, and this sort of find-'em-and-ban-'em response causes some actual ways to keep kids safer online to be overlooked, in favor of non-existent magic bullets.

Filed Under: bans, sex offenders, social networks
Companies: facebook

Social Networking Will Kill You... Or Maybe Not

from the scary dept

A story doing the rounds says a new article in a British biology journal claims that social networking is harmful to your health, running under headlines like "How using Facebook could raise your risk of cancer." Apparently replacing face-to-face human contact with online socializing "could alter the way genes work, upset immune responses, hormone levels, the function of arteries, and influence mental performance," according to the BBC, leading to an increase of serious health problems -- or, put a slightly more sensationalized way, Twitter will kill you. Charles Arthur at The Guardian's tech blog actually bothered to read the entire article, not just the press release, and says the breathless stories are based on more on bad journalism than junk science. The original article doesn't ever really get into the direct effect of online social networks, beyond saying people are spending more and more time on them, and never mentions any by name; it just says people are spending less time with other people, and that biologists should work to create more awareness of the detrimental effects that can have. But hey, that's way less interesting than saying MySpace is going to rot your insides.

Filed Under: dangers, social networks, studies

What Happens Once MySpace's Deal With Google Ends?

from the then-what? dept

You may recall, that a few years ago, MySpace (or, rather, News Corp.) signed a $900 million advertising deal with Google. The deal guaranteed at least that much in revenue from Google, even if the ads didn't really earn that much. Basically, Google felt the need to do the deal to keep competitors off of MySpace. However, as people have finally started realizing that advertising on MySpace (or other social networks) isn't working out, it's worth noting that the clock is ticking on the deal. There's still a bit more than a year left on the deal, but Google has been shying away from similar deals, and there's growing evidence that ads on social networking sites just don't pay. The Google deal may have helped keep MySpace afloat for the past few years, but without a replacement things may get trickier.

Filed Under: ads, revenue, social networks
Companies: google, myspace