Monday, July 7, 2008
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
What's in a Facebook name?
When Australian graphic designer Beta Yee joined social-networking website Facebook, she did not expect to be virtually snubbed before sending her first "friend request".
But after she filled out the website's sign-up form she was told her name was "illegitimate", and she would not be able to join.
Facebook has banned a range of words from people's user names to prevent abuse and profanity - and Beta is on the banned list.
Ms Yee decided to try again and was accepted as "Beatrice" Yee.
"I think it's quite amusing... my first reaction was laughter at being 'rejected' for my name," she said.
Online identity crisis
Facebook bills itself as a website "that connects you with the people around you", but using the name "Beatrice", Ms Yee found she was unable to connect with many of her real-life friends on the site.
To ensure that people do not register with fake names or identities, Facebook has blocked a list of common names people might use to abuse the site 
"They were either amused or confused... while others had no idea who I was," Ms Yee said.
Many social-networking sites allow users an escape from their real-life identities. Users create online personas through profiles based on their photos, videos, music and other tastes - and choosing their own online names.
But Facebook is based on "real people making real-world connections", spokeswoman Malorie Lucich told the BBC News website.
Unless, of course, your real name has been banned.
The "real-world" networking is one of the key factors in Facebook's recent success, says Amanda Lenhart, senior research specialist at the US-based Pew Internet Project, which studies the evolution of internet use.
"Facebook is trying to hold on to its initial differentiator, which is that it is more connected to your offline identity, which is why it is safer and which I think is why people were initially more attracted to it," Ms Lenhart said.
But the problem lies in the website's automated computer system, she says.
"This is really the problem, where we try to have a computer system and an online space fill in for our offline relationships," Ms Lenhart said. "It's not perfect."
Privacy controls
With nearly 50 million users around the world, Facebook is growing at a faster rate than rival social-networking websites such as MySpace and Bebo.
Facebook may only be three years old, but it is fast becoming part of the online establishment. Last week, Microsoft purchased a 1.6% share of the company, placing its value at $15bn (£7.3bn).
The company would not reveal the words it had banned for user names - or why it had banned the name Beta - but Ms Lucich said: "To ensure that people do not register with fake names or identities, Facebook has blocked a list of common names people might use to abuse the site."
While this seems prudent to prevent offensive behaviour on the website, automated processes rarely take into account real-life circumstances.
In July, it was reported that New Zealand woman Rowena Gay was unable to sign up with her real name.
"The social-networking system isn't set up to deal with people who for whatever reason have unusual names or difficult names," Ms Lenhart said.
This could become more of an issue as the site's popularity spreads - already, 60% of Facebook users are outside the US.
As social-networking sites become more popular - Facebook alone is said to account for 1% of all internet traffic - they are also coming under pressure to tighten privacy and safety controls.
This month, Facebook agreed to enhance safety mechanisms and respond more quickly to complaints of inappropriate content and conduct on the site, after New York prosecutors accused it of false advertising over its safety claims.
"The safe thing for them to do is to default to the most stringent kinds of cut-offs and requirements," Ms Lenhart said.
'No Lords'
The policy has become such a joke among some Facebook members that user Patrick Lord initially signed up with the user name "Illegitimate name" when he found his surname was on the banned list.
Other users whose real names were also rejected have created groups on the website such as "Facebook Hates My Name" and the "Against Kate Beaver Joining Facebook Coz Her Name's Illegitimate Society".
Since coming under fire from users for its banned name list, Facebook has altered its sign-up procedure, allowing users with "illegitimate names" to contact a customer service team to verify their name.
But Ms Yee says that after joining once already, she cannot be bothered to go through the process again.
"My real life takes precedence over my virtual life," she said.
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The Back Door Into Facebook Ads
Microsoft nabbed much of the banner ad space on Facebook last week, but pockets of the site remain out of the technology giant’s hands - for now. (Release on the deal here.)
Or so advertising networks like AdBrite want to remind everyone. AdBrite, a network that places ads on sites across the Internet, announced today that advertisers can purchase ads on Facebook through its “Facebook Channel.” The channel is a collection of more than 100 Facebook applications, often called widgets, whose creators let AdBrite sell ads within them.
When Facebook began allowing individual developers to create widgets within the site last spring, it gave them leeway to set up their own ad arrangements. The ads do not appear on Facebook profile pages (that’s Facebook and Microsoft territory). Instead, they show up when a user interacts with a widget, visiting a sub-page - or what developers call a “canvas page.”
Philip Kaplan, AdBrite’s co-founder and president of products, said this terrain was highly valuable and that Microsoft had missed out.
“We’re not exactly sure what Microsoft got, but we know we have a very fast-growing business of enabling people to advertise on Facebook,” Mr. Kaplan said.
Jia Shen, chief technology officer and co-founder of RockYou, a widget maker, said it was crucial for Facebook to allow developers to cash in on their creations without Facebook’s meddling.
“Everything on that page is ours, it’s ours and we can do what we want with it,” Mr. Shen said, referring to the canvas page of widgets. “If they broke that and really started competing with application developers, it will make everybody think twice about developing on Facebook.”
Companies like RockYou and Slide design widgets and run ads in them — making them a bit different from AdBrite, which does not create widgets. Still, they all provide ways to wedge brand messages into Facebook. Facebook widgets spice up people’s profile pages, allowing visitors to do things like single out their favorite friends, start a virtual food fight or watch Will Ferrell perform the Saturday Night Live skit known as “More Cowbell.”
But advertising executives say ads on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace will be most valuable when linked to data about users, and widget designers do not have access to Facebook’s data trove. Mr. Kaplan of AdBrite responded that because his company serves ads all over the Internet, AdBrite has plenty of data to serve just the right ad to the right person.
Some widget developers like Mr. Shen think sites like Facebook will eventually become the primary framework for computer users - like the Windows start screen or the Internet Explorer browser. Then, they say, widget creators will act like Web site owners — autonomously selling ads.
That is, of course, if Facebook does not jump in and start charging a toll.
Facebook News
Last week Microsoft announced plans to acquire a 1.6% interest in the social networking Web site Facebook. The sale price on paper was US$240-million; in theory that means that the great minds at Microsoft believe the whole of Facebook to be worth about US$15-billion. It's the culmination-- though perhaps only the first --of an amazingly successful game of chicken between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of the tech world. Zuckerberg's creation is not yet four years old, and he is only 23, yet for months he had the guts to fend off lower valuations of the site -- in the form of deals that would have guaranteed the financial independence of his great-great-grandchildren -- while Facebook continued to snowball and gain pop culture traction. Most notable of the offers that we know about was Yahoo!'s 2006 bid of a cool billion, which now seems like a positive insult. Facebook's market value now compares in theoretical magnitude to that of the Ford Motor Company (US$18-billion), Xerox (US$16-billion) or Enbridge ($15-billion).
The $15-billion number probably shouldn't be taken too seriously, for better or for worse. Stock-watchers will recognize it as being the sort of in-between sticker number that any marketplace will slap onto an extremely promising new player run by smart people whose actual financials could settle in anywhere down the road. "Real" tech companies are worth a lot more. $15-billion is like a bridge convention; it's a bid that says "This isn't a penny stock anymore, but ?" On the other hand, the deal doesn't come with the premium that a buyer for all of Facebook would pay for control of the company and denial of access to competitors. Microsoft is now firmly on board as an advertising partner, but Google and Yahoo are still circling menacingly overhead, waiting to see if Zuckerberg is willing to take Facebook to yet another level of user-base penetration. Can they all afford to resist buying out what could become the next Google?
And what would they be paying for exactly? It is hard to explain if you are not already on Facebook, though if Alexa.com's (admittedly sloppy)Web traffic measurements are anywhere near correct, you probably are: the site is now rated the single most-visited by Canadian users, is #5 in the U.S., and stands at #7 globally. A value of US$15-billion seems like the symptom of just so much irrational exuberance in the tech market if you try to break down what Facebook does: namely, allowing users to share personal news, event plans, photos, private notes, tastes, hobbies and political passions with selected friends over a single platform.
The skeptic will ask what you can do with Facebook that you can't do with an e-mail account. And the correct answer to this is "absolutely nothing." We haven't seen a single Facebook sub-application that couldn't in principle be handled by e-mail. Sending valentines? Announcing travel plans? Instant messaging? Playing chess? People were doing these things on the Net before there was a graphical Web browser. Or, for that matter, a Web.
But it would be a mistake to judge Facebook in this way. Just for starters, the full answer to "What can you do with Facebook that you can't do by e-mail?" should probably be "Nothing, but have you checked your e-mail lately?" There is plenty of what you might call spam on Facebook, but you can rest assured that every last bit of it was put there deliberately by someone you originally chose to add to your friends list, and you retain the power at all times to choke them off or drop them.
But this is the least important part. You know a technology holds real promise when people are comparing it to a drug: the joke of calling Facebook "Crackbook" is already stale. What Facebook really provides is the best existing solution to the problem of how to create stable online social presences. It's like a sticky bulletin board that incorporates e-mail and photo-sharing and event calendaring; unlike a physical bulletin board, it is unconfined by geography, but strictly confined by the limits of your own social circle. You're barraged with notices and status updates from the people you've chosen, and you're not forced to rummage through the weird garage sale and lost-dog notices from the people next door. At times the news feed takes on the texture of a personalized soap opera, only the heartbreak and triumph are real. So-and-so got mugged last night; so-and-so quit his job; so-and-so is no longer listed as single.
Marshall McLuhan, the great Canadian media theorist who died before the Internet came along and we needed him the most, spoke of the technological emergence of a "global village." The metaphor has, honestly, always seemed like a bit of a stretch until now. Television, for all its power, has made us part of an ultimately unconvincing village of tiresome politicians and intoxicated, undereducated celebrities; it has forced us to live with the people who live to be on TV, and has thus remained a little artificial. Facebook ups the ante. At its best it feels like the solid back fence of a global village, one with endlessly overlapping social circles.
The last Web site that grew so fast and offered such a convincing promise of future ubiquity was Google, which is worth US$211-billion right now. It's just possible Microsoft is getting a bargain.
Last week Microsoft announced plans to acquire a 1.6% interest in the social networking Web site Facebook. The sale price on paper was US$240-million; in theory that means that the great minds at Microsoft believe the whole of Facebook to be worth about US$15-billion. It's the culmination-- though perhaps only the first --of an amazingly successful game of chicken between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of the tech world. Zuckerberg's creation is not yet four years old, and he is only 23, yet for months he had the guts to fend off lower valuations of the site -- in the form of deals that would have guaranteed the financial independence of his great-great-grandchildren -- while Facebook continued to snowball and gain pop culture traction. Most notable of the offers that we know about was Yahoo!'s 2006 bid of a cool billion, which now seems like a positive insult. Facebook's market value now compares in theoretical magnitude to that of the Ford Motor Company (US$18-billion), Xerox (US$16-billion) or Enbridge ($15-billion).
The $15-billion number probably shouldn't be taken too seriously, for better or for worse. Stock-watchers will recognize it as being the sort of in-between sticker number that any marketplace will slap onto an extremely promising new player run by smart people whose actual financials could settle in anywhere down the road. "Real" tech companies are worth a lot more. $15-billion is like a bridge convention; it's a bid that says "This isn't a penny stock anymore, but ?" On the other hand, the deal doesn't come with the premium that a buyer for all of Facebook would pay for control of the company and denial of access to competitors. Microsoft is now firmly on board as an advertising partner, but Google and Yahoo are still circling menacingly overhead, waiting to see if Zuckerberg is willing to take Facebook to yet another level of user-base penetration. Can they all afford to resist buying out what could become the next Google?
And what would they be paying for exactly? It is hard to explain if you are not already on Facebook, though if Alexa.com's (admittedly sloppy)Web traffic measurements are anywhere near correct, you probably are: the site is now rated the single most-visited by Canadian users, is #5 in the U.S., and stands at #7 globally. A value of US$15-billion seems like the symptom of just so much irrational exuberance in the tech market if you try to break down what Facebook does: namely, allowing users to share personal news, event plans, photos, private notes, tastes, hobbies and political passions with selected friends over a single platform.
The skeptic will ask what you can do with Facebook that you can't do with an e-mail account. And the correct answer to this is "absolutely nothing." We haven't seen a single Facebook sub-application that couldn't in principle be handled by e-mail. Sending valentines? Announcing travel plans? Instant messaging? Playing chess? People were doing these things on the Net before there was a graphical Web browser. Or, for that matter, a Web.
But it would be a mistake to judge Facebook in this way. Just for starters, the full answer to "What can you do with Facebook that you can't do by e-mail?" should probably be "Nothing, but have you checked your e-mail lately?" There is plenty of what you might call spam on Facebook, but you can rest assured that every last bit of it was put there deliberately by someone you originally chose to add to your friends list, and you retain the power at all times to choke them off or drop them.
But this is the least important part. You know a technology holds real promise when people are comparing it to a drug: the joke of calling Facebook "Crackbook" is already stale. What Facebook really provides is the best existing solution to the problem of how to create stable online social presences. It's like a sticky bulletin board that incorporates e-mail and photo-sharing and event calendaring; unlike a physical bulletin board, it is unconfined by geography, but strictly confined by the limits of your own social circle. You're barraged with notices and status updates from the people you've chosen, and you're not forced to rummage through the weird garage sale and lost-dog notices from the people next door. At times the news feed takes on the texture of a personalized soap opera, only the heartbreak and triumph are real. So-and-so got mugged last night; so-and-so quit his job; so-and-so is no longer listed as single.
Marshall McLuhan, the great Canadian media theorist who died before the Internet came along and we needed him the most, spoke of the technological emergence of a "global village." The metaphor has, honestly, always seemed like a bit of a stretch until now. Television, for all its power, has made us part of an ultimately unconvincing village of tiresome politicians and intoxicated, undereducated celebrities; it has forced us to live with the people who live to be on TV, and has thus remained a little artificial. Facebook ups the ante. At its best it feels like the solid back fence of a global village, one with endlessly overlapping social circles.
The last Web site that grew so fast and offered such a convincing promise of future ubiquity was Google, which is worth US$211-billion right now. It's just possible Microsoft is getting a bargain.
