There’s been a lot of concern surrounding the Facebook code that found its way to the Web in August due to a web server error.
While it reportedly hasn’t caused any members’ personal information to be exposed, it is a reminder of potential vulnerability on social networks. They can be enticing targets for hackers and identity theft.
For that reason, it’s probably a good idea to think twice before posting sensitive information on sites like Facebook and MySpace.
Thousands of applications and millions of downloads are driving Facebook’s economy. Who’s behind it? Hackers.
Unlike MySpace, Facebook has opened up its network to developers, making it easy for them to make money from applications. A full list of third-party applications, designed to allow Facebook users interact with friends and networks, can be found in the official site’s application directory. They range from tools to compare people to applications that allow you to adopt virtual pets.
To witness this economy’s escalation, one only needs to stop by Adonomics (formerly Appaholics). The website, conceived by San Francisco-based programmer Jesse Farmer, provides stock-market-style analyses of Facebook features. Programmers can analyze the value of their applications in advertising dollars, and how it correlates to their applications’ growth.
Once a social networking site exclusively for college students, Facebook opened registration to the general public last year and attracted vast groups of visitors from outside the 18-24 year old age segment. In fact, comScore reported last month the website grew to 26.6 million unique visitors in the U.S. in May 2007, marking an 89 per cent increase versus the same month last year.
Editor’s note: see Facebook security post
The LA Times recently published an article, in which it compares Google to Osama bin Laden. It seems Google’s plans to let users comment on aggregated news has some editors and journalists edgy. But as long as they do their jobs and publish objective and complete articles, they have nothing to fear.
I wrote the following letter to the LA Times editor in response to the article:
Welcome to Web 2.0, LA Times, where consumers and the public at large get a say.
Surely, providing Google users forums to comment on news stories will result in some biased and uninformed viewpoints, but it’ll also keep editors and journalists on their toes.
For if you don’t do your job, and produce biased or incomplete articles, there will be a newly empowered body ready to call you on it.
StrawberryFrog, a global agency with offices in Amsterdam and New York, recently blogged about the impact and future of consumer-generated content.
Tori Winn, Digital Executive Creative Director at StrawberryFrog, gave her take on the future of consumer-generated content, concluding the future is bright.
Indeed, the emergence of consumer-generated content is rapidly empowering consumers. That’s a good thing, and it’s here to stay.
During a coffee break at a Small Business BC web writing course I was delivering this week, an entrepreneur approached me for some advice specific to his business. After discussing a couple of solutions, he sighed and said, “things take forever to set up on the Internet.”
I grinned. Just a few short decades ago, business ventures required products to be built by hand, marketing opportunities were limited and distribution could involve railroads and steamships. Such vast operations would call for huge sums of manpower and money.
