Opt-in may save Facebook brand

Facebook responded to a significant user revolt (50,000 signatures) who demanded that the Beacon system be turned into an opt-in program. For the last 3 weeks, Facebook was turning personal buying decisions over to online friends and info-hungry companies such as Fandango.com and Blockbuster… that is, unless users opted out of the Beacon program. Now, [...]

Facebook vs. porn

Here’s another interesting trend, as revealed in Time: … after other social networks, the most clicked-on category of sites was search engines, with 11.6% of all downstream visits. Web-based e-mail services were next with 8.5%. Blogs came in third in popularity at 6.1%, claiming more than four times the number of visits to traditional news [...]

Facebook sharkbait

First, what the press is saying: “Facebook has turned all the people who rooted for it into a lynch mob….from media darling to devil. The most interesting thing about Facebook right now is who will replace it.” My take: Millennials at their core are civil libertarians, but not in the way Boomers are. Unlike Boomers, [...]

SpaceBook and MyFace

On a lighter note, here’s a funny Norwegian-esque look at this careening internet culture… Gunther Wilson on SpaceBook and MyFace.

Do you want to associate with Facebook?

It’s funny how when a company goes overboard, as Facebook did with its Beacon info harvesting snafu, its customers start looking at everything it does a little more carefully. It’s a lot worse than first glance. So now I discover what a young facebook user produced last June: Ominous Facebook video Which is on the [...]

Millennials' webnetworking and ethnicity

Interesting research at Northwestern finds a connection between ethnicity and the sites millennials choose for their social networking activity. The research surveyed just over 1000 freshmen at my daughter’s school, UIC — which is in the top 10 nationally in terms of student ethnic diversity. Facebook enjoys 80% usage, 75% frequently. MySpace is used by [...]

Chase is chasing Millennials

The marketing department of Chase certainly keeps up with the Millennial generation demo research. In a letter to my daughter promoting the Chase Plus 1 Student Mastercard, notice how many hot button phrases get dropped in one short paragraph: “it’s about being a part of something… Totally new way to hook up your friends, your [...]