WSJ Experiments With Location-Based News
Checking-in at a venue around town with the Foursquare mobile location app could now come with a thought provoking payload: a news link related to the place you’re at. The Wall St. Journal announced today that as a part of its new focus on covering New York City, links to Journal stories about various locations will now be offered as tips when Foursquare users check in. Some media observers have been critical of the partnership, focusing on the addition of a few new WSJ-related badges that Foursquare users can now add to their collection. That might seem like an underwhelming feature for a media giant like the Journal to add, but the addition of location-specific, hard news stories as tips is a very intriguing experiment that could point to a big new future for news. It also looks like a lot of fun. Sponsor Previous Foursquare media partnerships have been limited to delivering lightweight content like nearby restaurant reviews or stories about Olympic competition in Vancouver. The Journal is inserting good and bad news, though. Check in at the Mark Hotel on East 77th and you’ll see the following, with a link to full coverage: “This 83-year-old landmark property’s $200 million makeover is facing deep financial woes. Note the top-floor suites, which the hotel is struggling to convert into private residences.” Hanging out at Goldman Sachs HQ? “The SEC has sued Goldman Sachs for fraud related to sub-prime mortgages and the collapse of the housing market. Goldman is fighting the charges.” That’s pretty cool. Of course lightweight tips about baseball games and museums are included as well. A representative from the Journal tells us that the tips are added by hand (not automatically) and that the company is very interested to see what will happen when nearby breaking news starts intersecting with check-ins. The company recognizes there’s a risk of cognitive dissonance, we are told. People probably aren’t expecting to hear about terrorism when they check in to a bridge or other location that’s had such things reported about it. Augmented reality, as it were, isn’t always pretty when it’s good. If this experiment proves successful, we can only hope the idea will be expanded on by these companies and others. From public records, to social media to archival and current news stories – there is a rich depth of information tied to locations in any city that new tools could help unlock. Discuss
Giving in to Facebook: A Weekend on the New "Instantly Personalized" Web (Op-Ed)
At last week’s F8 developers’ conference, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled plans to offer “instant personalization” all over the web , a way for websites to become instantly more social. Without even signing in, sites gain access to publicly available Facebook information like your name, profile picture, friend list and more, in order to personalize your experience on the site. At launch, only three partner sites are offering this feature: Microsoft’s new Docs.com , Internet radio Pandora and user review site Yelp . You can opt-out of this experience if you like, but by default, you’re opted in. Sponsor These changes have raised concerns among privacy advocates and are even now being questioned by government officials like U.S. Senator Charles Schumer who is urging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to look into how social networks handle our private information. And yet… and yet …after spending the weekend on these “instantly personalized” sites, I have to admit…begrudgingly, mind you…that the experience itself is amazing. Online Music Gets Personal, Too Personal? Pandora’s Internet radio is a service I usually partake of via its mobile application on my iPhone, not its regular website. But after the launch of the newly personalized Pandora , I had to take a look. And it was worth it. I immediately discovered which of my friends had the same musical interests as I do. My editor, Richard MacManus, for example, is also a fan of The Killers! Who knew? And apparently, a whole bunch of friends are getting into MGMT now. But finding connections like these aren’t the only types of discoveries you can make here. As social media user extraordinaire Robert Scoble found out , you can easily discover your friends’ more embarrassing personal tastes too. Kenny G?, Scoble laughingly chides a co-worker after stumbling upon his decidedly unhipster musical interests. These are precisely the types of things we want to stay hidden. Kenny G, for instance. But also our secret obsession with that attractive actor or actress, our fondness for pictures of cute kitties, our forays into celebrity gossip sites when we have a reputation for being intelligent thinkers, our secret Star Wars addiction and so forth and so on. While there aren’t ” instantly personalized ” sites showing you all these types of interests just yet, believe me, there will be. If Facebook has its way (and guess what? It will), your real identity , not just the public parts you’ve willingly shared in the past, will be revealed to anyone and everyone unless you take action to opt-out. The Real You Can No Longer Be Hidden This is precisely as it should be, Facebook CEO Zuckberberg, more or less said. Earlier this year, he made statements regarding Facebook’s new openness, claiming that if he built the social network now, he would make a lot of the data housed there more public by default. This would reflect the current social norms, he said. But that’s not exactly true. Facebook isn’t reflecting social norms, it’s attempting to create them. That said, what an amazing creation it is. On Yelp, I can find the reviews my Facebook friends authored with just a click. I can see who else really digs that local sushi place. And I can do all this without going through the whole “re-friending” process that Web 2.0 sites have put me through in the past again and again. I’m there, my friends are there, and I didn’t have to do anything to make that happen. Frankly, it feels right. (Fellow ReadWriteWeb blogger Mike Melanson agrees .) A Minute on the Lips… But it’s oh so wrong, isn’t it? By giving into to Facebook’s vision for the web, we’re ceding control of our data, our likes, our interests, our “social graph” (aka who we know, who we friend) – everything – to one company. Historically , one very, very closed company . We’re definitely worried about the implications of that. You should be too. But in the meantime, like that calorie-rich dessert we know we shouldn’t eat, we’re sampling Facebook’s web and secretly savoring its deliciousness. Why does everything that’s so wrong have to feel so good? Blast you, Facebook. Blast you. Discuss
ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 24 April 2010
Time is running out to register for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 ! It’s going to be the premier place to explore the latest mobile development trends – both the technology and the emerging business applications. And since it’s an unconference, you’ll be able to analyze, think and create the future of mobile with the brightest in the industry, your peers! Sign up now. How do you like your events guide? You can import individual events into Google Calendar using the link beside each entry, or download the entire thing as an iCal (and Google Calendar-importable) file, or even view it as a world map . Know of something cool taking place that should appear here? Let us know in the comments below or contact us . Sponsor 29 April 2010: San Francisco, California Green:Net 2010 Calling Internet entrepreneurs! A Greentech conference for you. From Vinod Khosla and Steve Jurvetson to Jerry Brown and Bill Gross, our speakers at Green:Net 2010 will be focused on one thing: how the Internet and IT can be leveraged to save the planet. Could this be the theme of your next startup? Attendees will gain insight into the huge new technology markets that are about to be unleashed. What is Green:Net ? Green:Net is where green and IT meet. While alternative energy gets a lot of attention at most green conferences, only the The GigaOM Network’s Green:Net offers a specific point of view on how the computing and Internet technologies will provide the tools needed to fight climate change. Subscribers of ReadWriteWeb click here to buy your limited supply $150-off ticket. 26 April 2010: San Francisco, California Future of Money and Technology Summit The Future of Money & Technology Summit will bring together the best and brightest thinkers around money, including visionaries, entrepreneurial business people, developers, press, investors, authors, solution/service providers, and organizations who work where cash and commerce collide. We meet to discuss the evolving ecosystem around money in a proactive, conducive to dealmaking environment. Featured speakers include Jolie O’Dell, formerly of ReadWriteWeb, as well as representatives from Wells Fargo Bank, Kiva, SharesPost, Jambool, Founders Fund, Outright.com, SoftTech VC, and many more. Use discount code “rww” to get 10% off registration . 3 – 6 May 2010: San Francisco, California Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco brings together the designers, developers, entrepreneurs, VCs, marketing professionals, product managers, and business strategists – from startups to enterprises – that are building the next-generation Web. Along with a vibrant Expo Hall and plenty of networking opportunities, four main conference tracks cover a spectrum of Web 2.0 topics from business strategy to Web design, user experience, developer hacks, community building, real-time, mobile, cloud computing, user-generated content, and more. Featured speakers include Chris Anderson, Ben Huh, Charlene Li, Kevin Lynch, Hilary Mason, and Brad Stone. Register today . 6 – 7 2010: San Francisco, California Social Gaming Summit
Analyzing Facebook: Sysomos Adds Public Facebook Updates to Its Analytics Platform
Now that Facebook allows developers to store data for more than 24 hours, social media analytics firms like Sysomos are finally able to include public updates from Facebook users in their databases. Sysomos began surfacing this data on some of its customers’ accounts yesterday and plans to roll these new features out to the rest of its users soon. Sponsor Given the size of Facebook’s user base, being able to analyze this data will be a major boon for anybody who is interested in tracking these kinds of updates. Sysomos already allowed its users to search and analyze Facebook fan pages and groups for the last few months through its MAP analytics tool. The company now also includes these updates in Heartbeat, Sysomos’ social media monitoring tool. Sysomos’ integration of the Open Graph API will surface all the activity that has been made public by a user, including status updates and public wall posts. Thanks to Sysomos’ new ability to analyze and search public Facebook updates, we were, for example, able to track the backlash against Facebook’s “instant personalization.” According to Sysomos, only about 15% of the public updates about this topic were positive. Are Facebook Users Aware that their Updates Will Live a Second Life in Social Media Analytics Tools? Sysomos, of course, only pulls in public updates, but we have to wonder if most Facebook users are aware that their updates will end up in the vast data repositories of firms like Sysomos and Radian6. Given the current backlash against what some users perceive as an invasion of their privacy by Facebook, it will be interesting to see how Facebook users will react to this. Discuss
Why Newspapers Need to Heed Facebook, Now
Given Mark Zuckerberg’s announcements at the Facebook F8 conference , one thing is certain: newspapers can no longer ignore Facebook’s impact and reach. Whereas publishers continue to scapegoat Google for many of their current troubles, they should be equally, if not more, wary of Facebook. Whether they acknowledge it or not, newspapers are losing out to the social networking site on the fundamental fronts of community relevance, attention and information dissemination. Yet behind the perceived threat from Facebook, there is also a new opportunity for publications to achieve newfound audience relevance. Sponsor Guest author Chris Treadaway ( @ctreada ) is founder and CEO of Lasso , and author of the upcoming book Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day, an imprint of Sybex. He blogs at treadaway.typepad.com . Facebook’s rise to dominance has been astounding. It is currently the most visited site in the United States, and boasts 400-plus million worldwide users. We’ve seen it go from a dorm room distraction to now being larger than the combined population of the United States and Mexico. With the social network claiming that roughly 70% of its user base is outside the United States, that means that there are at least 120 million Americans on Facebook today. Taken down to the local level, though, this means that Facebook might just already have more reach in the community than any other media outlet – especially local newspapers. With the unveiling of their Web-ubiquitous “Like” button and “social bar,” as well as their Graph API, Facebook is now using its strengths to redefine how we interact with the Web in its entirety. So what does all of this mean for the publishing industry and for newspapers in particular? A few very important things: Facebook is now a legitimate threat to Google. It has accomplished this by changing the game from search discoverability to social context, which wasn’t doable with 40 million users but is with 400-plus million users. Facebook is trying to become the first place people visit when logging into their computers every morning. The site that leads this battle carries the most online leverage, at least until it is knocked off the pedestal. Facebook is attempting to become pervasive across the entire Web, and without permission. Like it or not, site owners are going to have to deal with social media, but now in a much more pervasive way than ever before. Facebook is a competitor for the attention of local audiences. One minute spent on Facebook is a minute not spent on another Web property. Facebook will become a more interesting place as it aggregates data on what people are doing and how they are reacting to the Web as a whole, not just Facebook’s network. So it isn’t just necessary for media outlets to build a better Web sites anymore – they have to build engaging content that can appear on Facebook and drive value to their paper. It isn’t impossible, but it has to be a priority. All of these things impact discoverability of a newspaper’s content, who monetizes it and how. Those that succeed in becoming a viral Facebook content commodity will grow rapidly. Likewise, the decline of those news sources that fail to realize the necessary potential of Facebook will be swift. A deep and complete understanding of social media is necessary for publishers of any kind to modernize, grow and ultimately survive. It’s becoming a necessary core competency, and fast. Yesterday, The Washington Post announced their “Network News” initiative, integrating Facebook into the paper’s website. The Post’s incorporation of activity from users’ Facebook friends immediately creates a value of social relevance that trumps efforts like the New York Times’ similar, though detrimentally insular, TimesPeople network . More importantly, however, are the possibilities such integration might provide for local newspapers. Relevance is a central theme to both the content shared on social networks and the community publication. Facebook offers those newspapers a readymade audience that is already connected to their desired local demographic. Local publications need to recognize the importance of tapping into Facebook’s community, because, first and foremost, it is precisely where their readers are finding, sharing and discussing the types of pertinent content that the papers seek to champion. Newspapers no longer need traditional Web developers. Papers now need Facebook developers, experts who can partner with creative social-savvy businesspeople who know how to take advantage of the social graph. In the wake of Facebook’s new features, it will not be long before newspaper and media executives are attacking and blaming Facebook for their problems in the way they do Google today. However, those publications that more progressively pursue the opportunities and value opened to them by Facebook’s new tools will have a very different reaction. Photo by Michael Rogers . Discuss