Newsweek Magazine’s August 27, 2007, hard-copy issue, sitting beside me as I type, carries a cover story headed “The Facebook Effect.” The article is about Facebook and its founder and developer, 23 year old Mark Zukerberg. He’s made millions on his innovative social networking tool and now stands to make some more.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook “Gets personal with ad targeting plan.” Under the plan, advertisers would target users based on the information they enter about themselves. The Palo Alto company reportedly is making its new ad plan a top priority, with service expected to begin late this fall. If you have any personal or sensitive information on your Facebook page that you don’t want advertisers to use as an ad plant trigger, change it now.
One interesting mining angle to Facebook is the ability of a user to see the friends of just about anyone with a page and some “Friends” listed in it. There is nothing inherently private about this information, but an astute human analyst could spot trends and relationships among users that the owner of the page may wish to remain unknown. Newsweek has diagrammed some interesting Friends connections, including Rudy Giuliani’s daughter who joined a Facebook group supporting Barack Obama.
Facebook, like many programs, has a few privacy and security concerns. With the proper know-how, a hacker is able to access RSS feeds and read a user’s postings, which may include appointments and private messages. You can find out more by Googling “Facebook issues” to see what pops up.
How do I know these things? I have several friends who are Facebook regulars and they feed me information. They’ve encouraged me to join and I may eventually take them up on this. First, I have to locate a skilled digital artist who can touch up a few photos. No one in his/her right mind wants to look natural when the appearance of a Hollywood star is just a few mouse clicks away.
