Friend. This is a word people use very lightly these days thanks to social networking. Places such as Linked In, FaceBook, and MySpace have become channels of marketing rather than social sites. Permissions have been granted for a job screening agency to archive FaceBook pages. If they are using screen scrape technology, that is easily countered by setting permissions but one line in the article makes me wonder if they are actually accessing file archives. This is only one step away from allowing similar access to marketing companies, But wait they have some of that information already no matter WHAT permissions you have set!
For those of you who use FaceBook I am certain you have noticed those advertisements off to the right hand side on many pages. The ones that list things like Acai Diet, Cosmetic Laser Surgery, and other dubious sites and companies. If you look at them they now show John Doe and 14 other friends like this. Yes, they are accessing your information to see who you are friends with and what their preferences are. Why? Because they believe, correctly, that you will trust a recommendation from a friend rather than an advertisement.
On the opposite end of the spectrum are the Spam Police from FaceBook, they check reports of spam or offensive posts and punish users they deem guilty. Yet, with the trend in 'Branding' oneself through the Internet and specifically through social sites, where does marketing leave off and social interaction begin? One friend of mine from way back in high school is very popular. (His web sites are here and here )He is a local celebrity in Key West and in the gay community. He is a professional photographer, a male model and a wedding planner. He likes to share his better work with his friends.
As an artist in photography some photos are technically in violation of FaceBook Policy, like his engagement photo with the groom seemingly naked hidden under the bride's vanity. It is a beautifully lit piece, very artistic. He was asked to remove some of his photos. He was not happy about it, but complied. Instead began to link to his blog for people to see his work. Not good enough for FaceBook. Instead they called it spamming, advertising and punished him. Why? Because it links offsite and he did not pay for a ad on that right hand side to do so.
Now some of us speculate it is because he is gay and posts pictures of beautiful men. FaceBook says not, they claim he cannot be that popular and must be spamming. So he is moving gradually to another social network and taking his over 500 friends with him.
This is an example of poor business on the part of FaceBook and any other social network. Others on the site openly hold the title of Social Networking Specialist on their profiles. They use a company created profile to network and to point people to company sponsored (read paid for) page and encourage their friends to do the same. Yet a person actually trying to stay within the rules of the site is punished for being popular.
He is not the only one, I have heard reports of others with similar issues. One friend who makes unique purses sometimes posts a picture of her latest design, another that does Cosplay items like ears and tails, one that makes jewelery and another that does website design - FaceBook has told them to 'buy an ad' if they want to market their services. Yet they ARE real friends of mine, people who I went to school with, worked with, played games with, and we have supported each other in many endeavors. They want to show their friends something they are proud of. But FaceBook wants only marketeers and sheep who blindly chose things from their paying customers. This is a poor business model. Soon all that will be there are Marketeers marketing to each other. Then again maybe that is not a bad thing. Maybe they will leave us alone then.
2 days ago
