Lotame is a new advertising service that tries to find out as much about a consumer as possible and then using that information and giving it to advertisers. The CEO of Lotame said that the information collected is completely anonymous and only really gathers information on age, gender, and zip code. Advertising is only successful when the advertiser can give solid demographics from their publisher. Traditional media ranges from age, gender, location, and interests to almost anything. It all depends on how successful the survey is and how they collected other data. In traditional media, advertising is collected and saved. Internet media does not. Some people want for the Internet to be anonymous with absolutely no hints to actual identity. It’s all about privacy.

Lotame and Facebook are looking to change advertising on the web. Facebook now has ‘Engagement Advertising’. Both ‘Engagement Advertising’ and Lotame want to target ads to the intended audience. They want to do this by collecting more and more data in better and more meaningful ways. Facebook believes that old advertising tactics wont work in advertisings new phase. They think their plan will satisfy more advertisers and will appeal to the publishers who are looking to increase their revenue through advertisements. “Online culture dictates privacy.” This blogger thinks Lotame and Facebook are forgetting this, which he considers a major sticking point for every advertiser and publisher. He believes if they hint at invasion of privacy even a little it, their new campaign won’t work.

I do not like Lotame. I think it completely invades privacy even though its CEO says it only keeps zip codes and age. I think he is trying to cover himself so that people do not fear invasion of privacy. I do agree that people will run if they think their privacy is being tampered with. Especially in today’s society, it really is all about privacy.

Social Networks are Like the Eye approaches social networks through the lens of social trends as they are transmitted through social networks, thereby fueling the network and the trend, itself; then, it applies its findings to online social networking.  In this sense, social networks are contagions because they contain contagions: flows of social trends, social groups, and other amorphous entities pervade the networks from one end to the other.  Moreover, Christakis believes networks to be active beings and must be treated as active agents.  Christakis invokes weight gain to describe trends.  Weight gain among one’s friends leads to one’s own weight gain; interestingly, weight gain among people in one’s “social horizon” also have a degree of influence on weight gain on the individual.  In some cases, the relationship’s intensity did not matter: strangers and friends, alike, had profound impacts on weight gain.  These behaviors are dictated by preferences.  For instance, online privacy norms (e.g. hiding pictures on Facebook can conjure the impression that one is mysterious and desirable) emanate from the fact that “privacy is a taste.”  As an aside, partial inspiration for interaction is derived from age-old societies, who perceived well-ordered societies to be the optimal breeding ground for progress and engagement.

Social trends provide another motivating factor for engaging with online social networks.  Rather than seeking senses of community, humans are once again inspired by topics to “talk about” or “objects” rather than social networking, itself.  Moreover, accusations of social networking sites’ transience are further supplanted by the volatile modality of social trends from one media medium to another.

Schawbel’s catalogue review of social networking overextension provides solutions for effectively maintaining a stable and meaningful network.  He deems comprehensive activity on every network impossible; therefore, one must determine which social networks to partake in to ensure that one’s “brand is visible and easily manageable.”  First, he believes that strength comes in numbers: networks are as strong as the number of people in them.  Second, Schawbel believes that “credibility” on social networking sites matters, determined almost entirely by who is on the network (e.g. there is mention of Bill Gates) and not necessarily by the content or number of people.  Third, Schawbel believes that users should engage with relevant and self-sustainable sites.  Finally, users must constantly monitor and update their profiles as to remain relevant.

While Schawbel’s advice may be construed as general and cliché, I drew many (perhaps unintentional) paradoxical conclusions.  For one, although users certainly engage with relevant social networks (e.g. the pregnant mother will explore sites related to pregnancy, infants, etc.), how do general sites like Facebook and Myspace gain popularity?  While subgroups may certainly be created through social circles, privacy settings, music groups and other mechanisms, it seems that such energies are squandered when other, more specific social networks already exist.  I postulate that engagement with general networks occurs because of users’ desires to engineer accurate virtual environments.  Such dedication is rooted in habit: online social networkers are simply more predisposed to certain behaviors and therefore translate those to the web.  Maintaining accurate virtual environments, I would argue, is not then attributed to cognitive dissonance or subconscious desires to replicate reality – it is merely natural.  Secondly, while I understand the need to constantly monitor and update (as needed) one’s online identity, I find it difficult to maintain consistency amidst such volatility.  Online social networks necessitate constant activity and maintenance, as virtual behavioral variations enumerate identity.  However, one could argue that the pace of such evolution is exponentially faster than paces in real-life, which presents the pervasive dilemma: what, then, is an online user’s identity?

This project is about advertising and privacy and whether or not companies should have access to consumer personal information without consent and then personalizing advertisements back to the consumer. It will also look at actual consumer response to advertising and privacy and how actual consumers feel about receiving personalized advertisements.

Using Facebook and social networking for class

Annotation (all three facebook annotations are the same)

These three articles address the issue that one cannot be fully deleted from facebook. Instead your account is deactivated. The data persists on facebook's servers "in case you wish to reactivate your account". Users were concerned about persistence, i.e., forgetting, but of course, the articles and facebook frame the issue as a question of privacy. Facebook has since incorporated the ability to delete, but the option is still difficult to find and implement. Facebook has also integrated several other privacy features, but I would argue that the issue (again) is that of data persistence rather than data exposure.

Citation
Aspan, Maria. 2008. Quitting Facebook Gets Easier. The New York Times, February 13 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/technology/13face.html?sq=facebook%20profile%20delete&st=nyt&scp=2&pagewanted=print (Accessed March 1, 2008).

 

Annotation (all 3 articles have the same annotation)

These three articles address the issue that one cannot be fully deleted from facebook. Instead your account is deactivated. The data persists on facebook's servers "in case you wish to reactivate your account". Users were concerned about persistence, i.e., forgetting, but of course, the articles and facebook frame the issue as a question of privacy. Facebook has since incorporated the ability to delete, but the option is still difficult to find and implement. Facebook has also integrated several other privacy features, but I would argue that the issue (again) is that of data persistence rather than data exposure.

Citation
Aspan, Maria. 2008. How Sticky Is Membership on Facebook? Just Try Breaking Free. The New York Times, February 11 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/technology/11facebook.html?_r=1&sq=facebook%20profile%20delete&st=nyt&oref=slogin&scp=3&pagewanted=print (Accessed March 1, 2008).

 

 

Annotation (all facebook artilces have the same annotation) 

These three articles address the issue that one cannot be fully deleted from facebook. Instead your account is deactivated. The data persists on facebook's servers "in case you wish to reactivate your account". Users were concerned about persistence, i.e., forgetting, but of course, the articles and facebook frame the issue as a question of privacy. Facebook has since incorporated the ability to delete, but the option is still difficult to find and implement. Facebook has also integrated several other privacy features, but I would argue that the issue (again) is that of data persistence rather than data exposure.

Citation
Aspan, Maria. 2008. After Stumbling, Facebook Finds a Working Eraser. The New York Times, February 18 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/business/18facebook.html?sq=facebook%20profile%20delete&st=nyt&scp=1&pagewanted=print (Accessed March 1, 2008).

 

 

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