Fade to Play

Today I was on CBC’s On the Coast discussing the changes that Facebook will be making to enhance the control users over their data and to enable more informed choices regarding privacy. Over the last year Facebook has worked with the Office of Privacy Commissioner of Canada to address a series of recommendations that would allow compliance with Canadian privacy laws.

According to Facebook:

“Our productive and constructive dialogue with the Commissioner’s office has given us an opportunity to improve our policies and practices in a way that will provide even greater transparency and control for Facebook users,” said Elliot Schrage, Vice-President of Global Communications and Public Policy at Facebook. “We believe that these changes are not only great for our users and address all of the Commissioners’ outstanding concerns, but they also set a new standard for the industry.”

Until these changes have been implemented I would recommend everyone read Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, their privacy policy, and think twice about whether it is necessary to add a third-party application to your profile.

Thanks to Rebecca Bollwitt aka Miss604 for directing CBC to me today.

Relevance: Education about how one’s data is used by Facebook or third-party applications should be combined with the ability to control access to one’s information as desired.

Today I was interviewed by CBC News – The National for a segment they are doing on Facebook. It was taped and will air in the future.  It was my first time being interviewed for TV so I’m pretty excited to see the segment. In the interview, I cited stats from themeaningofweb.com regarding how 10.6 million Canadians use Facebook while talking about the popularity of Facebook.

Here is a quick video I made prior to the interview:

Relevance: Do you think about what you are saying before you post to a public Facebook group?  Do you have concerns about what people might say on a Facebook group you’ve created or are the admin for? Do you monitor the wall conversations?

On January 13th, I was part of a panel hosted by the Office of Learning Technology as part of the Teaching and Learning with Technology Speaker Series at UBC.

Facebook’s popularity is uncontested but questions remain as to its role and purpose in an educational setting. How are students and educators using Facebook? What are the benefits and drawbacks of this social networking tool? Come join our diverse panel for a discussion that promises to provide multiple perspectives, deeper understanding and further questions.

The other two panelist were:
Sheryl Adam, a Humanities and Social Sciences Librarian, Koerner Library
Cyprien Lomas, Director of the Learning Centre in Land and Food Systems

The panel was moderated by Cindy Underhill, Office of Learning Technology

I enjoyed being a part of the panel. It was a great opportunity to learn from the staff and professors in attendance about their opinion regarding how Facebook can be used to network with each other and how they were using it educational purposes. There were comments made that the focus of these discussions shouldn’t be limited to Facebook but should involve how social media can be beneficial for education.

In addition, as there were not alot of students in attendance, there were questions about how best to reach students so that they can be adequately informed about Faceboook privacy issues? For example, for some exchange or foreign students coming to UBC, (e.g. China), this is their first exposure to Facebook.

I would love to see a panel about social media and education in which we discuss the advantages of tools like twitter for learning environments. Another beneficial panel would be about applications like Evernote and how they can enhance time management and productivity for students.

There is a podcast available.

Thanks to Catherine Paul, Office of Learning Technology for organising this panel.

Relevance: Knowledge about the social media, facebook, and online productivity tools is beneficial in understanding not only why a certain application may have value for educational settings, but to clarify why another may be better.

In the technology section of today’s globeandmail.com, there is an article about the landmark ruling against a Canadian spammer that awarded Facebook $873 (US) million in damages.

In a landmark ruling Monday, U.S. federal Judge Jeremy Fogel awarded Facebook $873-million (U.S.) in damages after finding Mr. Guerbuez was in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) which prohibits the distribution of mass e-mail messages that contain false or misleading information.

How was Mr. Guerbuez able to send four million messages before being shut down by Facebook? He sent messages to people’s email and got them to click on a link that looked like it was from Facebook and told them to enter their username and password.

“Spam has gone Web 2.0,” said David Poellhuber, president of Montreal-based Zero Spam.

“The social networks are really the new spammers playground. … Tech savvy young people are new, fresh targets for spammers.”

But Mr. Guerbuez gained the usernames and passwords of a number of Facebook accounts through more traditional means: He spammed countless e-mail accounts with a message purporting to be from Facebook that requested the recipient follow a link and then enter their login information. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the spammer’s book.

For many students I know Facebook = Internet.

People need to be careful online and less trusting of messages they receive. Just because a message looks like it from Facebook asking you for your username and password, it doesn’t mean that it actually does. Facebook uses the @facebookmail domain to send email messages to you (e.g. notifications).

I have been on Facebook since 2005 and absolutely love it as a place to socialise with my real world student friends, comments on their walls, share photos, and RVSP to various events taking place on campus that I ordinarily might not know about. Like most of my student friends, my Facebook friends are real-world students, not people I know only from the Internet or that are interested in networking.

So, when a message comes from my best friend Sam telling me to click a link because it’s a cool photo of us, then my trust level is higher and I’m more likely to do it than if it’s Steven, who added me as friend because they heard me on the radio or liked my photos on flickr. That trust factor is what spammers are using to exploit Facebook accounts. I have received a number of messages either on FB or on my wall that were spam because that friend had clicked on a spammer link, that had also been sent by a trusted friend.

Spammers will continue to exploit the high level of trust that students have for Facebook. Be careful, think before you click.

Relevance: I’m in ur Facebook, spamming ur friends.

According to research from the world’s largest privately-held speech techology, SpinVox, it seems that the pick-up lines work in Canada.

The report has revealed the top five ‘worst’ pick-up lines in Canada to be:

1. “Do you have a mirror in your pocket? Because I can see myself in your pants.”

2. “You must be leaving the country if you’re packing that much ass.”

3. “Excuse me if I’m wrong, but is your name Yolanda?

4. “Inheriting 50 million dollars doesn’t mean much when you have a weak heart.”

5. “Excuse me, but I’m new in town, can I have directions to your place?”

Whether you rely on these old favorites or a more original opener, it’s worth starting up a conversation: the research, based on feedback from focus groups conducted among 1,000 Canadians, showed that for 37 percent of women, a well-timed chat-up approach will lead to conversation. (Regardless of how well the night is going, only six percent of the women surveyed said it would lead to an overnighter.)

They come to interesting conclusions regarding Facebook users.

With 120 million active users, Facebook is another great way to connect with potential dates online. Even if things don’t fare well initially, men may get a second chance: nearly half of the women surveyed will look up the men they’ve met on Facebook. Meanwhile, only 38 percent of men said they look for the women they’ve just met on the Internet, which sharply contrasts the 95 percent look-up rate of men in America.

I personally wouldn’t randomly message a stranger on Facebook looking for a date. I’ve been on Facebook since 2005 and Facebook is still a place where I interact with close real-world friends and maintain personal relationships with them there.

Does anyone use social media for finding dates? Do people feel comfortable using Facebook, twitter, or Flickr for this purpose? Were you happy with the results?

Relevance: As social media becomes more known to the public, how are these tools being used to connect people seeking partners?

On May 14, I was one of the speakers for a workshop organised by the International Internet Marketing Association. It was a fun event and I was able to learn a little bit about how businesses are using Facebook for advertising, brand marketing, and networking. I am really glad I was able to be a part of this event. There were about 70 people in attendance and the questions during our presentations and the subsequent panel were beneficial in helping each of us better understand some of the needs and objectives of business people.

One lesson to take from the workshop is that businesses are using Facebook to find information about potential hires especially questionable photographs or content on one’s profile page. For example, having a status update message about getting drunk every night could get your name removed from a short list against equally qualified candidates. Some people were also surprised at the amount of time and effort that is necessary to maintain a Facebook presence (e.g. updating a company page, responding to wall messages, or organising events).

Regarding one’s profile page, my advice would be to keep your profile friends-only (maybe even only be searchable by friends) and to create friends lists where you can hide and share personal content based on the closeness of your friendship. I am very careful about who I add as friends and even more careful about who sees my full profile.

My presentation was divided into 3 sections that I perceived to be of most relevance to the Internet Marketing audience. I first focused on how Facebook can be used as a networking tool to enhance real world meetings and potential connections made at events and conferences. I then discussed how Facebook can be used to create a brand identity and the importance of understanding the privacy filtering available. I used the book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman as example of how you want to create a persona through Facebook — “I’m who Facebook says I am”. I closed with examples of how Facebook can be used as an information management tool and the importance of the News Feed feature to share and gather information of specific relevance to one’s work interests.

Both Maureen McCartney of Citizens Bank of Canada and Michael Fergusson of Kinzin had excellent presentations of their case studies. Unfortunately I was unable to take notes as I focused on running through my own talk.

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Relevance: A useful opportunity to find out how business people are using Facebook and have an informative discussion of its value as a marketing, communication, and organisational tool.

Last night around 2am I received an email from Facebookmail. I was a little bit cautious so I googled the terms “facebookmail” and came across this post on SpeakGood in which a similar thing happened to them.

Yes, Facebookmail exists and it is how they contact people. They emailed me to let me know that I needed to change my password as my old password was no longer valid. I can only assume that somehow my account got compromised and they decide to act accordingly. I guess it was that unprotected WiFi that I accessed Friday afternoon while downtown. It was a stupid thing to do, next time I will be alot safer.

From: Facebook <xxx@facebookmail.com>
Date: 17.05.2008 02:45
Subject: Facebook Password Security Alert
To: Phillip Jeffrey

Hey Phillip,

We have reset your Facebook account password for security reasons. You will need to use the link provided in this email to create a new, secure password for your account. Do not use your old password. In the future, please make sure that when you log in to Facebook, you always log in from a legitimate Facebook page with the facebook.com domain. To reset your password, follow the link below:
https://login.facebook.com/xxx (If clicking on the link doesn’t work, try copying and pasting it into your browser.)

Please contact info@facebook.com with any questions.

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

Relevance: Very cool that Facebook caught this, responded accordingly and contacted me to change my password. Thanks.

In a couple of hours I will be giving a presentation entitled Facebook for Business: How to build relationships, express identity, and manage information in a social ecology. It is for a workshop being organised by the International Internet Marketing Association (IIMA). I am very excited and actually pretty nervous as I always get nervous speaking in public. I feel privileged to get this opportunity and I am in excellent company as UBC Internet Marketing professor Ean Jackson, Maureen McCartney, Web Marketing Manager at Citizen Bank, and Michael Fergusson Chief Products and Innovation Officer at Uniserve and the Founder of Kinzen will be speaking prior to myself.

Their biographies are available here.

What You’ll Learn:

* start with an overview by UBC Internet Marketing professor Ean Jackson that gives some background on the phenomenally-successful social networking application and how it stacks up with contenders such as MySpace and LinkedIn.
* Case Study – Citizens Bank of Canada. Maureen McCartney, Web Marketing Manager at Citizens Bank will share how a financial institution used Facebook to promote brand awareness and drive business results.
* Case Study – Uniserve/Kinzin. Michael Fergusson Chief Products and Innovation Officer at Uniserve and the Founder of Kinzen will talk about how and why he created a Facebook application that now boasts 1.5 million users
* Facebook How-to Workshop. Phillip Jeffrey of the UBC Media and Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre (MAGIC), will take you on an entertaining voyage of discovery as you learn how to use Facebook for your business

Unfortunately it has been sold out for a little while now, but there will be a similar event in the Fall. I will be placing my slide deck on slideshare tonight.

Relevance: Although Facebook has been public since Sept 2006, many people still are unaware on its value as a tool for productivity, business, and getting things done.

  Studying on a Spring day
As we move into the exam period, some students here at my university are minimising distractions by deactivating their Facebook account until their exams are complete. The idea of a deactivation means that it is temporary, rather than a deletion which is permanent. If you ask them, they will tell you that they just want a break for a period of time and that they know that once exams are over they will be able to reactivate and they are confident that their profile will be as it was.

When I asked one of my friends about why and when she deactivates Facebook (she has done it multiple times), she said that she will do it when she has exams or assignments. She considers herself to be addicted to Facebook (“I am a Crackbook addict”) and felt that alot of time would be spent there if she didn’t deactivate.  Her concern is that Facebook is how she keeps in touch with everyone back home and elsewhere. When she is deactivated, a cheaper alternative for communication is unavailable compared with skype or her mobile phone.

Relevance: I wonder what students that use the dactivation option would do if this option wasn’t available?

Phillip Jeffrey and Olga Skutina @ Vancouver Sun
Last month I was contacted by Chantal Eustace, a writer for the Vancouver Sun as she wanted to interview me about social networking/Facebook within Canada. I was interviewed over the phone and I went down to the Vancouver Sun offices for a follow up photo session with my friend Olga Skutina and to make a video of us demoing something cool on Facebook.

A week ago, the article and related video was released online and in newspaper format. You can view the article entitled “Net Friendships: Part 2″ here and the video entitled “Social Networking with Facebook” is here. (I had lost my voice due to a cold).

[Phillip Jeffrey] likes to know what his friends are up to, browsing photos and checking out new events and parties: “It’s sort of like a social-friendly stalking.”

He’s been a Facebook user since 2005, when he e-mailed the once-college-focused site to ask it to include University of B.C. in its networks.

Jeffrey doesn’t just use Facebook though, he’s also a Twitter.com-user and an Utterz.com-user, along with a list of others.

Jeffrey predicts that in 2008, social networking will cater more to “user-generated” video content.

“Witness any concert or live public event and you will see audience members using cellphones or digital cameras to capture the moment for later sharing,” Jeffrey says.

“I see user-generated content as an example of how young people are increasingly more willing to communicate and develop digital identities for sharing personal aspects of their everyday life using social media.”

Relevance: I enjoyed sharing information about Facebook to readers that may not be full aware of its advantages and benefits.