It's a Status Thing

The notion of privacy almost seems quaint in the hyper-connected world of social networks, and maintaining the right balance of exposure and anonymity is a tricky combination of art and science. A prudent Facebooker, for instance, will typically want to customize his or her privacy settings for news feeds in order to control what types of stories get published, particularly those relating to changes in relationship status.

Sansserif and I have blogged extensively on this in the past, discussing the varying degrees of seriousness of a particular relationship status, the pitfalls of publicly changing said status, and the sudden ripples that can occur from abrupt transitions between, say, "single" and "married." Indeed, cautionary tales abound on why taking the time to tweak a privacy setting or two is probably a good idea.

Such controls are good for everyday life, but what happens when you want to spread the word far and wide? Well...

...Sansserif and I recently announced our engagement. After telling our families and a handful of close friends, we decided we were ready to go Facebook Official about our big change in status. In our excitement, however, we neglected to make sure our privacy protections were turned off so that word would quickly travel to news feeds far and wide. It took a day of puzzling silence on the airwaves for us to realize our error, whereupon we changed status back to "in a relationship," turned the news feed announcements back on, and got Facebook Official all over again.

Curiously, all of the comments that flooded in after our second announcement appear only on my wall, which strikes me as somewhat old fashioned for a progressive social network like Facebook. I mean, just because we're getting married, does that really mean we have to forfeit our individual comment threads? It seems to be an obvious breach of Netiquette.

Despite the pitfalls of controlling the flow information in your news feed, maintaining an active stance on privacy is still a good idea, especially when the relationship waters run the other way. Consider, for instance, Prince Harry's breakup with longtime girlfriend Chelsy Davy, which only became official when the media discovered her change of Facebook status. Then there was the recent case of Burger King's "Whopper Sacrifice" campaign in which Facebook users were offered a free hamburger for publicly dumping ten of their friends (the program was axed after ending a mere 234,000 friendships).

All I know is that once Sansserif and I set an official wedding date, I'm going to make a pop-up reminder in our shared Google Calendar to change our privacy settings well in advance. After all, when it comes to announcing the big "M" on Facebook, you only get one chance to do it right!

A friendly conversation with 22,250 Obama supporters

UPDATE: It seems somebody at Daily Kos got pretty upset at the email chain, raising questions about a "dirty trick" from the McCain campaign. Fortunately, the comment section came to the rescue (however bluntly).

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Yesterday, I casually checked mail on my iPhone and did a double-take when the screen message reported that over 50 messages were being downloaded. After all, I'm pretty neurotic about checking my messages, and it had only been an hour or so since my last fix. What could possibly be spamming my inbox like this on a Saturday morning?

That's when I was introduced to "CANeighborhoodTeam5."

I watched the listserv name scroll across my screen 57 times before my phone buzzed to inform me that I had new messages. I punched open one of the messages and started reading:

"Okay, folks,

Please, take a deep breath and relax. Someone made a mistake in how they addressed the original email and that's why 20,000+ of us got it."

Some mistake, indeed! As it turned out, 56 of the 57 emails were "unsubscribe" requests that were inadvertently blasted to the entire listserv. As the thread progressed, the requests became increasingly urgent and sometimes angry: "Please remove me," gradually gave way to a chorus of "TAKE ME OFF OF YOUR STUPID LIST. I ALREADY VOTED FOR OBAMA, OKAY?"

The increased temperature of the responses prompted another wave of messages from helpful people (about 20 of them, to be exact) with detailed instructions on how to unsubscribe from the list, and specific requests to NOT reply all to the message, as it would only generate more spam for everyone. The problem is, the unsubscribe link was broken, provoking another wave of emails reporting on that latest development. "This is not some kind of nefarious spam tactic by McCain," one message promised. "It's just a little glitch, so don't let it affect your enthusiasm. VOTE!"

This did not stop the conspiracy theorists or angry "unsubscribe" requesters from furthering the breech of netiquette with more and more messages. As the day wore on, Sansserif and I took turns announcing the arrival of new messages. Our favorite:



Another responded:

"This is fun! Barack on!"

We concur. Barack on, everyone, and get out the vote!

News Feed Head Fake

I was shocked to sign on to Facebook the other day and find that two of my friends from school were no longer in a relationship. I actually did a double-take and blinked dumbly at the screen as I re-read the words: "...ended their relationship."

Could it be? I thought. But they seemed to be so good for each other.

Well, today I got the full story:



It was just another news feed head fake. Granted, my friends must have changed their "in a relationship" status to "single" prior to correcting the error. But a moment's lapse in status is all it takes for Facebook to broadcast hot relationship gossip across seven continents.

So let this be a lesson to all you status changing readers out there...save your friends and family the emotional roller coaster and type carefully when you perform this highly sensitive operation! I'm torn between giving Facebook some direct feedback about this or simply penning a new entry into the Book of Netiquette, 9th Edition (revised). They should really do something about these head fakes, but then again it does make such good blog fodder!

If you see me wearing this shirt...

...please don't take my picture. And if you do take my picture, please don't post it on Facebook.

September 16, 2007

I currently have 36 pictures in my profile, and I am wearing this shirt in no less than 20 of them. I kid you not. I mean, it's not like I only wear this shirt when I go out. I've got lots of shirts, and I also have a rotation method that has served me very well over the years, thank you very much. But somehow I've gotten into this weird spin cycle where all my friends post pictures of me on nights when I happened to wear this particular shirt.

Sometime in October, 2007

I wonder, is it proper netiquette to request photo removal on the grounds of creating the false impression that I only wear one shirt when I go out? Or, if I simply remove my name from the tags, will that remove the offending photos from my profile? But which ones to remove? This could get political.

November 17, 2007

Look--I mean, seriously--it's not my fault it's a comfortable shirt. It's 100% polyester, form fitting, and an actual vintage store find that's not one of those semi-replicated trying to be vintage sorts of things.

January 26, 2008

Please...I'm begging you. The only conclusion that a reasonable person can draw from my profile is that a) I went on one hell of a bender one night, or b) I don't change and/or wash my clothes all that often. So if you see me wearing this shirt--and especially if you see me wearing this shirt and the brown jacket--do not, I repeat, do not take my picture. And if you do, for godsakes keep it off of Facebook, okay?

RTFMS

My first conversation with my dad in 2008, and the subject was none other than how he really, seriously, honestly and truly, no joke, was going to take a shotgun and blow up his Mac. His language was a little more colorful, but it would certainly make this blog NSFW.

Speaking of acronyms, when I realized that all he really wanted was free tech support, my courteous response was RTFMS.

Picture This

I have a Flickr stream, and I take a lot of photos of people, my friends in particular. It seems natural to tag their names in the photos - but I stopped doing that.

There are a few services out there working on facial recognition; one of them is Polar Rose (a Swedish company with $5.1 mill in funding). PR relies on users to tag the faces of people; the software can recognize that a face is depicted and, I believe, first relies on users to tag them. After some tagging, the software seems capable of matching a name to the face on its own.

I entered the name of a friend of mine; they didn't have him in the database, but they did refer me to an external website of a company he once worked for, where they speculated a photo of him might exist. They were right - there was a photo of him there. The majority of the photos in their database appeared to be celebrities. (Google Image Search, anyone?)

Anyway, I've decided to stop tagging photos on Flickr with my friends as a part of good netiquette. If people want their names attached to their faces where public search engines can tag them, I guess they should be able to choose it. (I need to think a little more about Facebook, but you can de-tag yourself there.) Could Polar Rose use Flickr title and tags as a shortcut? Will you be able to opt out of PR? Robot.txt for your face?

Despite my privacy apprehensions, I could imagine getting sucked into tagging like you get hooked to a game. What's that bar game with the half-naked people? Photo Hunt!

UPDATE:
I discovered this today from EPIC:

In September of 2007, Facebook introduced public search listings. Previously, only Facebook members could search Facebook for other users. Now, non-members will be able to search. Further, major search engines such as yahoo and Goggle will index the public search listings. The listing shows a limited amount of information such as name, profile picture, and Friends.

Mile High WI-FI

It was probably inevitable, but the internet is reaching new heights--literally. Soon you will be able to surf from 30,000 feet through a number of services that will start popping up on American Airlines, Virgin America, JetBlue, Alaska Airlines and a number of international carriers. For selfish reasons, I am interested in this development because it will raise a whole new set of web-based social dynamics and, of course, another chapter in the ever-evolving Book of Netiquette.

From the AP via the Denver Post:

"Technology providers and airlines are already making decisions. Some will block services like Internet phone calls altogether while others will set limits and install filters on content. And traffic-management tools that are frowned upon on terra firma could become commonplace in the air."

I'm trying to imagine what air travel would be like if everyone around me were chatting away on Skype while surfing their favorite websites and sending off emails to their friends back home. Would this really make a long flight more bearable? And what of censorship? We've heard the stories of Southwest Airlines asking people to de-plane for dressing too provocatively. So is it proper netiquette to tattle on your neighbor for streaming porn? Only time will tell.

One thing is for certain: I will be investing in a pair of noise canceling headphones (and keeping my eyes on my own screen).

Fundamentally Flawed

I have started noticing a group on Facebook called "6 Degrees of Separation - The Experiment"

No, it's not about Kevin Bacon. According to the group's creator, Steve Jackson, it is the "most ambitious facebook experiment ever." I don't think I could explain the purpose of the group quite like Steve himself, so I am reproducing the original description for full comic effect:

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You are invited to take part in the most ambitious facebook experiment ever...

Using the Six Degrees of Separation theory, I want to see if it's possible to contact every single person on facebook. The theory states that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. (it could be argued that we're all only six degrees from Larry Page and Sergey Brin - "The Google Guys"... although I'm guessing it's a lot less than that! LOL).

To take part all you have to do is:

1 Join this group.
2 Click on "Invite People to Join" from the menu on the right.
3 Select all your friends (for the experiment to work, you need to do this).
4 Click on "Send invitation"

It's that simple.

All the best,
Steve
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Is this some kind of joke? This "experiment" will only work if every single Facebook user agrees to join a group in the "Just For Fun" category. But if one single Facebook user decides that it would actually be more fun to make the group fail simply by not joining, then the whole endeavor was a flop. All I can say is that registry of the "Facebook Users Boycotting 6 Degrees of Separation" will commence momentarily.

Think I'm bluffing? Well then....jest on, ye skeptics! The "6 Degrees Group" now has 2,692,713 members in several countries, and after 22 days of existence is currently the single largest Facebook group out there.

-Youareyou

Political Commentary

No doubt you've seen the MySpace page of a friend who has been the victim of comment-chaining by one person. I do my best to interrupt these chains. When one person comments continuously on someone's page, it looks bad. It looks like 1) s/he has no other friends who care, 2) s/he has been very remiss in commenting for other people, or 3) s/he is being stalked.

Proper netiquette requires that, after you make a comment on someone's page, wait for two or three other people to comment before you add another yourself.

Then there's the sensitive issue of comment removal. The most politically correct way to remove a friend's comment from your page is to give him/her apologetic notice, either just before or very soon after you remove it.

This leads me to a final issue: don't leave snarky comments suggesting that your friend is a player. These will probably be removed, apologetically, because "you're blowing up my game."

UPDATE: This blog comment affirms my rule on player comments.

- Sansserif

"Dude, quit Twittering my Facebook!"

A friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) is a bit of a Twitterhead. While this term may not yet sound familiar, I can guarantee that it will soon enter the lexicon of many frustrated Facebook users, for it is a clear violation of Rule #1 of Netiquette Decorum: Thou Shalt Not Spam.

Twitter describes itself as "a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?" Random thoughts are the norm on Twitter, as registered users jot down the little things throughout their day that would otherwise go unremembered. Good enough.

The problem is that some genius created a Facebook application that syndicates the RSS feed automatically to all of the offending Twitterhead's friends.

Facebook provides a similar function with its "status updates," which allow users to post short messages to their friends. These tend to be along the lines of "Frank is partying in SF tonight!" or "Jenn is pretending to be busy at work," etc. These messages are typically somewhat interesting, humorous, and relevant (particularly if you are actually friends with the person who is posting). And--most importantly--these messages usually have a shelf life of at least one day, sometimes more.

But what happens when these Twittering RSS feeds go awry? Say, for instance, that I don't want an update every 45 minutes to learn more about my friend's thoughts about his cat, or approximate blood level of caffeine, or length of facial stubble on Monday as opposed to Tuesday. Or, suppose I don't want to spend time deciphering the meaning of the following entry: "XXXXX is twittering: Hello 1:31 am. You look a bit worn around the edges. have you shaved lately? here, let me make you some overpowered coffee."

Yesterday alone, there were 14 entries. The day before, 22. And the worst part is that I, as a Facebook user, cannot opt out of this Twittering madness. You either have to opt out of status updates altogether, or just suck it up and deal.

But I ask you this: what if everyone started synching their Twitter and Facebook accounts? It would be utter chaos--that's what. And the post-modern gentleman never adopts manners that cannot be universalized.

My wikipedia entry on Twitterheads will be forthcoming. In the meantime, I will just have to fight the urge to say, "Dude, quit Twittering my Facebook!"

-Youareyou