The Social Media Marketing Blog: 04/01/2010

Taking my inspiration from Andy Warhol (who famously said "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes"), I first used the above phrase two years ago at a Streaming East Conference, where I was on a panel with Steve Garfield and Sarah Austin. It seems more relevant now than ever, thanks to some developments last week that touched on the concept of privacy.

First, at the f8 conference in San Francisco (where we were lucky enough to be able to bring a mobile app-enabled Ford Fiesta), Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave a keynote address that brought a significant amount of attention to Facebook. And rightly so: Zuckerberg prefaced it with the remark that it would be "one of the most transformative things for the Web we've ever done." So what was it?

Basically, the notion is that Facebook would bring the Open Graph to the web - enabling friends to see what each other are doing, reading, sharing, liking, etc. not only on Facebook, but across the entire web. Every site you visit will have the potential to be "Facebook-ized" and share your actions with your network of friends. Pretty cool, on the face of it - you'll be able to get a lot more insight into your friends' habits in a single place (such as where they're checking in via Yelp, the music they're listening to on Pandora, or the articles they're reading on CNN). It's personalization at its most sublime.

But on second blush, that's a LOT of data that people have the potential to share, without realizing what it means to their privacy. The users that don't take the time to understand the full impact here might end up being sorry later. Oh, and did I mention that the feature is turned on by default? This is a little reminiscent with what Facebook encountered with Beacon in 2007/8 or what Google Buzz just ran into.

What You Need to Know About the Facebook Changes

I've got a link roundup here, with a little context to help you make the most of it.

First, you can watch the keynote on Facebook's official site.

Next, please be sure to familiarize yourself with Bobbi Newman's writeup over at Librarian by Day that noted you have to opt out of the setting. If you'd like to do that, you can:
1. Go to your to your privacy settings --> Applications and Websites and uncheck box at the bottom.
2. Then click on the links to Yelp, Pandora and MicrosoftDocs.om on Facebook and click on “Block Application”

Mashable wrote about Facebook's Open Graph: What it Means for Privacy

One of their most important takeaways: "Public no longer means 'public on Facebook,' it means 'public in the Facebook ecosystem.'" - i.e., the Web. That's right. My old chestnut is more true than ever: whatever happens in Vegas stays on Google.

ReadWriteWeb has The Definitive Assessment for Publishers, Users and Competitors (and upon reading it, I agree - it is definitive)

Summary: For users, it's about privacy. For publishers, it's an opportunity to make your content sociable, ratable and part of a pseudo-CRM system. And competitors are essentially on notice to collaborate or die.

And if those didn't answer your questions, GigaOm has Your Mom's Guide to Those Facebook Changes.

UPDATE (May 11, 2010): from the New York Times, Facebook Executive Answers Reader Questions
And the NY Times offers a helpful graphic to help you make sense of the changes.

UPDATE (May 27, 2010): Facebook updates its privacy settings, including providing a new Privacy Guide.

Another Blip on the Radar
As if Facebook's announcement didn't send enough of a shockwave through the privacy ecosystem, Friday brought another concern. Blippy, a social sharing site that lets friends know what you purchased, screwed up royally when they released some credit card numbers of members. The full credit card numbers that Blippy members used to make purchases were visible via a Google search.

Blippy then went on to explain exactly how it is that something like that could have happened. But the damage was already done. While they may not have lost a ton of customers, there may be a good number of them who'll simply never return. And Blippy's tepid response to the crisis, was slow and lacking in empathy; their original blog post on Friday, April 23 (which has since been changed, I might add - tsk, tsk) stated: "While it looks super-scary and certainly sucks for those few people who were affected, and is embarrassing to us, it's a lot less bad than it looks." They updated their stance as of Monday the 26th, but as I said, it may be too late for them already.

So that's the last week in privacy. If you don't mind sharing your identity, feel free to jump in with a comment on your thoughts on the latest developments.

Labels: crisis, facebook, news, trends

About Scott

For hi-res, click here

Ranked by Forbes as one of the top 10 influencers in social media, he has been called "an unstoppable force of nature," "the best corporate social media lead on the planet," and Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford Motor Company, called him "a visionary."

At Ford, Scott heads up the social media function and holds the title Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager. He is a strategic advisor on all social media activities across the company, from blogger relations to marketing support, customer service to internal communications and more, as social media is being integrated into many facets of Ford business.

Prior to joining Ford, Scott served as Consigliere for crayon and spent a number of years with PJA Advertising + Marketing, a boutique BtoB agency specializing in health sciences & high tech.

In addition to his professional responsibilities, Scott is an active blogger and podcaster. He writes about the intersection of advertising, marketing and PR at The Social Media Marketing Blog and also writes The Baker Street Blog and cohosts I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, two literary undertakings. Scott has been featured in hundreds of news and business publications in print and on the web, in nearly dozens of books, and on a variety of mainstream media, including NBC, NPR, CNN and The Wall Street Journal. Scott is a recognized thought leader in the social media industry and frequently speaks at industry events.

Scott received his Master's in Medical Science from Boston University's School of Medicine concurrently with his MBA from BU's Graduate School of Management. He lives in the greater Detroit area with his wife and two young sons, golfs all too infrequently, and has a hidden talent for voice over work.

Oh, and one last little-known fact: Scott coined the Oxford Dictionary of English-accepted term "tweetup."

You may download a headshot here, courtesy of Rosh Sillars; a PDF version of Scott's bio is here .

Books in which Scott or his work is featured:

The Social Media Strategist

Social Business by Design

Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications

Social Media Marketing for Dummies

Real-Time Marketing and PR: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now

Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web

Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business

Brains on Fire: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable, Word of Mouth Movements

Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead

MicroMarketing: Get Big Results by Thinking and Acting Small

Spend Shift: How the Post-Crisis Values Revolution Is Changing the Way We Buy, Sell and Live

Power Friending: Demystifying Social Media to Grow Your Business

The New Rules of Marketing & PR

by David Meerman Scott

Twitterville
by Shel Israel

Six Pixels of Separation
by Mitch Joel

Monkeys with Typewriters
by Jemima Gibbons

Read This First
by Ron Ploof

World Wide Rave
by David Meerman Scott

Get Seen
by Steve Garfield

Disclosures/Relationships

Scott is on the board of the Social Media Advertising Consortium

Scott has been named to the Advisory boards of Pivot, SavvyAuntie, Business Smart Tools, The Hive Awards,
Scott is a judge for the SAMMY Awards

Named one of iMedia's 25 Top Internet Marketing Leaders & Innovators

Humongo occasionally does web work for me and designed this site

No animals were harmed in the making of this blog.

Scott Monty Bio

Speaking Events

Scott speaks on social media at events, seminars and conferences around the world. His topic generally focuses on corporate use of social media, becoming an online spokesperson, and specifically on the progress that Ford has made in the recent past. If you're interested in booking Scott to speak at your event, please click here to submit a speaking request for Ford-related purposes or email me at speaking [AT] this site's URL (if you know what I mean) to send a general email request.. Scott's bio and headshot can be found in the "About Scott" tab above.

Who is Scott Monty?

Hi, I'm Scott. I'm the global head of social media for Ford Motor Company. This is my personal blog, where I share my perspectives on social media - the convergence of marketing, advertising and PR on the Web - for marketers, agencies, the enterprise and the individual. This blog contains my personal views. My bio is available here and my headshots can be found here.