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Facebook’s Beacon: Just When You Thought It Couldn’t Get Any Worse |
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On Monday TechCrunch reported more shady business with Facebook’s Beacon advertising system. I’ll sum it all up:
Let’s just think about that last item for a minute. Beacon advertising partners are basically dumping all their purchase data on Facebook so that Facebook can data-mine it. Does that seem right to you? I didn’t think so. Facebook claims that they are deleting all the data that isn’t relevant to news alerts that members have explicity okayed. But they also claimed that “as long as you are logged out of Facebook, no actions you have taken on other websites can be sent to Facebook” until they were outed by a security researcher at Computer Associates. Update: Mark Zuckerberg posted an apology about the whole Beacon mess on the Facebook Blog today. More importantly, he said that you can now opt-out of Beacon permanently. Unfortunately, the partners are still going to give Facebook all their purchase data: “If you select that you don’t want to share some Beacon actions or if you turn off Beacon, then Facebook won’t store those actions even when partners send them to Facebook.” (my ephasis) |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
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November 30, 2007
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Dan Bought a Cordless Drill at Target Last Friday |
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Black and Decker, 24v. With 115 bits. At 7:45 am. Boy, was the store crowded. Whaddaya mean you don’t care? Obviously you’re not a Facebook user. Last week they launched Beacon, an advertising program that sends your Facebook friends news about what you’ve purchased from online partners such as Overstock.com, Travelocity, and Fandango. Beacon has ticked a lot of Facebookers off. News stories tell about holiday and birthday purchases that have been inadvertantly revealed to their recipients. To date more than 50,000 people have signed a petition requesting that Facebook modify Beacon. The crux of the issue is that they want to be able to click one box in their profile to opt-out of Beacon for good. Facebook won’t let them. They’ve modified Beacon so that you have to explicitly OK a news alert about your purchase. (Give them credit for that.) But this points out the problem with being a social networking site valued at $15 billion. You have to turn the eyeballs into revenue, or you won’t be valued at $15 billion much longer. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
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April 3, 2007
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Web Hosting Deal |
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Hurry this one ends tonight! GoDaddy is offering 20% off on any of their 12 or 24 month hosting plans. |
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Submitted by: Nicole Engard, Former Web Manager
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September 8, 2006
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Maybe I Could Just, Uh, Watch a Movie While the Other One’s Downloading |
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The NY Times has an article today (registration required) about Amazon’s new “AmazonUnbox” service, which lets you download movies to watch on your computer. You can’t, however, burn them to DVD. The following quote caught my eye: “Amazon says its movie service improves on others because the video quality is higher. That quality comes at a price: longer download times … Amazon says the typical movie will take two to seven hours to download, depending on the connection speed of the user.” How convenient. Let’s do the math here. Target is a 10 minute walk away. Say 15 minutes to browse their DVD offerings and 5 to get through checkout. Another 10 minutes to walk home. (Maybe longer if I stop at Famous Dave’s BBQ next door. But we’ll say no more about that.) Tack on 10 minutes for opening the package, getting a soda from the fridge and going pee. Bingo … ready to watch the DVD in less than an hour. I love the real world. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
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May 8, 2006
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Keep up with air fare sales |
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Why visit all of the different travel search engines to find the best deals when you can check out all of the deals in your RSS Aggregator? The following airlines offer RSS feeds for their current deals and sales: The following travel sites also offer handy RSS feeds to make your life easier: Keep an eye out as other airlines and travel sites start to offer similar services. |
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Submitted by: Nicole Engard, Former Web Manager
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February 7, 2006
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Gosh, When You Put It In Context Like That |
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Pretty amusing commentary on the state of digital music via Wired:
[Four hundred million for ringtones? For like 20 seconds of a song? Am I missing the point here?]
But, according to Joanna Glasner, if you put them into perspective, “these are actually piddly sums.” She compares the 1.1 billion with reported box office receipts:
And then she (ahem) digs deeper:
I have a few suggestions, but never mind. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
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February 2, 2006
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RSS Just for News - Not Anymore |
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If you’re just using RSS to get your daily news and blog fix, you’re missing out. RSS is being used to deliver so much more than news. The New York Times has an article titled “There’s a Popular New Code for Deals: RSS” that covers how to get travel deals delivered via RSS. Why visit a bunch of travel sites to get the best deal when you can read them all in your feed reader? |
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Submitted by: Nicole Engard, Former Web Manager
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November 29, 2005
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Track your holiday packages with RSS |
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This is a nifty little tool. Simple Tracking offers a way for you to track your holiday packages with RSS. Simple Tracking will let you plug in any UPS, USPS, FedEx or DHL number and it will either let you generate an RSS feed or immediately display your tracking information. I don’t have any outstanding packages right now so I can’t play, but if you’re buying a lot online this holiday season you can give it a go. |
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Submitted by: Nicole Engard, Former Web Manager
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November 3, 2005
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Get your domain cheap |
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Yahoo! Small Business is doing it again. They’re offering domain name registrations for $2.99 a year. Don’t miss out on this offer, it ends on 12/31/05. |
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Submitted by: Nicole Engard, Former Web Manager
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September 2, 2005
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Don’t Miss This Deal! |
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Yahoo! Domains is one of the cheapest places to register your domain and until 11:59 PST tonight it’s even cheaper. Don’t miss out on this amazing sale; register your domain name for only $1.99!! Yep, I’ve read all of the fine print and it looks like there aren’t any catches to this amazing deal! |
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Submitted by: Nicole Engard, Former Web Manager
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