Is Path CEO a Zuckerber...

Today, the fledgling social network Path was forced to issue an apology based on how it used contact data from its users. That’s an oversimplification of course but you can find plenty of places where the incidentals have been explained. Even Path investors like Michael Arrington’s CrunchFund had to call out the company. The story of the day is definitely about Path (a CrunchFund portfolio company). The company has been copying address book information to their servers without user knowledge. The company was apparently already aware of the issue and was taking steps to address it prior to this post coming out. The Android app has an opt-in, and a version of the app with an opt-in is awaiting approval at Apple, says CEO Dave Morin in the comments to the original post. Morin has also flat out apologized. What is most interesting though is that the CEO of Path, Dave Morin, issued his apology via the Path blog. The title is “ We are sorry .” and it goes something like this We made a mistake. Over the last couple of days users brought to light an issue concerning how we handle your personal information on Path, specifically the transmission and storage of your phone contacts. As our mission is to build the world’s first personal network, a trusted place for you to journal and share life with close friends and family, we take the storage and transmission of your personal information very, very seriously. Where else have we seen a young social network play fast and loose with the data that is their users then turn around and have to apologize? Hmmmmmmm, let me see. Wait, isn’t their one CEO that has said he is sorry so many times that anyone who is a thinking human being doesn’t believe him anymore? Oh yeah, that’s right! Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. He’s practicaly turned apologizing to his users into a cottage industry. Back in November of 2011 as Zuckerberg took to the Interwebz to discuss the smackdown that Facebook received from the feds about their privacy faux pas. Liz Gannes of All Things Digital did what was in essence a “Zuckerberg’s Greatest Apologies” retrospective in a post in which she led with At this point, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s pattern on privacy is clear. Launch new stuff that pushes the boundaries of what people consider comfortable. Apologize and assure users that they control their information, but rarely pull back entirely, and usually reintroduce similar features at a later date when people seem more ready for it. And followed up with Most of all, Zuckerberg seems to take pride in offering an explicit, earnest apology, but doesn’t actually admit he was wrong, just that he’s sorry for how things were rolled out or perceived. What followed was the determination that of the 25 posts that Zuckerberg made on the Facebook blog to that point, 10 were apologies. It’s pretty comical quite honestly. Now we have Path’s CEO Morin. Our hope is that this is not the first of many public mea culpas that serve to soothe the nerves of those who, for the time being, are focusing on Path’s mistake. One would like to think that Path will now walk down the straight and narrow path itself with regard to how it treats its users. All things considered though, Zuckerberg has already shown the way in that you can screw up numerous times and get away with a lot of shenanigans if you just play nice and apologize in an “aw, shucks” kind of way. Considering this established pattern and the likes of Arrington pushing some buttons at Path I bet this won’t be the last time they push the boundaries of Internet courtesy and good taste. At least it appears that Morin is willing to up the ante regarding how to apologize. He actually says that Path was wrong. Through the feedback we’ve received from all of you, we now understand that the way we had designed our ‘Add Friends’ feature was wrong. We are deeply sorry if you were uncomfortable with how our application used your phone contacts. Nice job, Dave but there is a problem. Now that you have established that your company is willing to walk in the footsteps of Facebook you have given all of us every reason to be suspicious of how you move forward with Path’s development as it relates to privacy and data protection. We have been burned enough by Zuck and Co. that the “Get Out of Privacy Screw-up Jail Free” cards are all used up. You are now on the clock and everyone is watching what will happen in the future. Just be aware that if you try to test these waters again your hopes of becoming something that might challenge Facebook or at least take some of its share could be dashed to bits on the rocky waters of Internet privacy. Was that over the top? I’m sorry.

Facebook Open Graph App...

As if most don’t already feel as if they have handed their lives over to Facebook to some degree that feeling may escalate of the announcement scheduled for tomorrow is what Liz Gannes says it is. From All Things Digital Facebook will on Wednesday launch the Open Graph applications it first debuted last September, sources told AllThingsD. These are the apps made by outside developers that “frictionlessly” and continuously share users’ actions back to Facebook after a user has given permission once. The new apps behave similarly to the “read,” “listen” and “watch” Open Graph applications that have already rolled out in the past few months, which include The Washington Post, Spotify and Hulu. So, every time your friends read an article or listens to a song, you might now learn about it on Facebook, and possibly even join them at the same time. We can save the examination of how this plays out for when it, gulp, actually plays out. If the early indicators that I have seen with regard to Spotify, The Washington Post etc this could be one of the most annoying developments in Facebook for end users in a long time. But that’s me speculating isn’t it. Please forgive me. As for advertisers there will be enough people buying into the frictionless sharing that Facebook is proposing to make this a success. Otherwise, why would Facebook be going through all this trouble? Marketing Pilgrim’s Social Channel is proudly sponsored by Full Sail University, where you can earn your Masters of Science Degree in Internet Marketing in less than 2 years. Visit FullSail.edu for more information. So let’s predict what will happen as Facebook makes what could be one of their last big announcements before a quiet period if they are indeed planning a Spring IPO. Facebook has big announcement in San Francisco for the press (the cool kids) Industry blogs go crazy with opinions based on no real information to go on other than speculation, conjecture and the desire to get more traffic The people who care about this (those closest to the tech world) go crazy and complain because this move by Facebook is now surely the end of the world as we know it At least one “well-known” person gets some press because they close their Facebook account Google+ fan boys (i.e. the Google employees who were bonused based on the performance of social initiatives from the search giant) make their pitch for everyone to come over to Google+ A few people who represent the commoners complain that they don’t get it and will be leaving Facebook There is so much sharing that Facebook users will have to take a “binge and purge” approach in order to not get bloated on all the “information” that will be coming down the pike A week after the announcement everyone will have moved on to five other things to complain about, predict or whatever So strap into your seats. This will be a bumpy and rather uncomfortable ride. Your best bet may be to actually wait and see what happens to your experience with Facebook and then make a decision whether you can live with it or not. Guess what? Facebook is betting that just about everyone will stick around no matter what is said. I suspect they will be correct. Your take?

Walmart Uses Facebook T...

OK I ‘ll get the cynical and sarcastic part of this thought out of the way right out of the gate. Why on earth would anyone turn to Walmart to make decisions for what gifts to buy for your friends and family? Well, when you consider that the source of the information is your friends’ and family’s information on Facebook you can relax and think “Ok, well maybe this might work.” Walmart has used the talent of one of its acquisitions, Kosmix, to develop @WalmartLabs which is their arm for putting together apps like this one called ShopyCat. All Things Digital reported Wal-Mart has launched its first Facebook application that helps people buy better gifts for their friends. The application, called Shopycat, makes product recommendations based on the items people have liked or talked about in their news feed. It is not particularly flashy. The logo is a picture of a cat sticking its head out of a shopping bag. The tagline reads “the right gift every time.” This is an interesting approach to taking social signals to get information that will help shape a decision by a customer. There are two questions that come up, at least for me. First, is about permissions. The article says The application is available to Wal-Mart’s 10 million fans on Facebook if they give permission to install it. OK, so if I were to give permission to install the app where is the permission by my friends for the app to scan their news feed come in? Am I able to give permission to an app to scan , scour and collect data on my friends without my friend opting in as well? Seems a bit presumptuous doesn’t it? My friends are my friends but I am not so sure that part of being a friend is allowing a large retailer access to your information just because I am too dense to really know what my “friend” might want as a gift? If I am missing something here please explain it to me (anyone at @WalmartLabs reading and / or listening?!?). This is where Facebook and privacy gets a bit dicey. As soon as my information shows up in a friends’ feed (which is the only reason you post anything anyway, right?) have I then given up the right for that data to just stay between me and my friend? Is that information about me now fair game to anyone my friend has given permission to? A slippery slope indeed considering the latest rulings by the FTC as it relates to Facebook’s privacy practices. Marketing Pilgrim’s Social Channel is proudly sponsored by Full Sail University, where you can earn your Masters of Science Degree in Internet Marketing in less than 2 years. Visit FullSail.edu for more information. I admit that I could be playing the role of an online paranoid here but how else can an algorithm, which is all that Shopycat is, know ANYTHING about me unless there was some permission granted by someone? In this case, however, it’s not granted by me implicitly for this app but I suspect that deep in the recesses of the Facebook terms and conditions I have agreed to this kind of thing. This is why people are suspect of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook and advertisers in general. The second area I wonder about is one that ATD’s Trciai Duryee points out in her piece The technology also sometimes fails. When Harinarayan (of @Walmartlabs) viewed gift ideas for me, it recommended a number of Sony products. Months earlier, I liked Sony’s fan page in order to gather information for a story — not because of any deep admiration I had for the company’s products. An algorithm would have a hard time knowing that. This kind of result speaks to the reliability of Facebook likes. I know of several occasions where I have done the same thing just to get some information. If I don’t go back and clean up by unliking the page then it appears as if I care about what’s there when it’s likely that after the initial need is met, I don’t. Marketers need to be very cautious as to how much faith they place in the reliability of so-called “social signals” especially Facebook likes. One of the downsides of the ubiquitous nature of these likes is that it has watered down the meaning of the term “like” the same way that Facebook did with the word friend. Just because something is liked on Facebook doesn’t mean that it matters to the user at all, especially in the way that marketers might hope for. So while this kind of experiment is interesting it also brings up many questions about the two things that marketers should be most concerned about: privacy and data reliability. Is there a perfect solution for business problems like this? Not now and there may never be. As all of this gets hashed out over time it is likely that we see and experience today will play out much differetnly in the future. Your thoughts?

Louis C.K. on Twitter

I don’t get around much so thanks to Peter Kafka at All Things Digital for sharing this. Louis C.K. is a funny guy. Admittedly he gets a bit out of line but we can all do that at times. This bit he does on Twitter when he appeared on the Conan O’Brien show last week will hopefully start your week with a chuckle. There is plenty of truth to what he is saying in my opinion. Below is the entire segment which covers a variety of subjects including George W. Bush’s motorcade and how Loius C.K. looks to circumvent traditional pay per view channels for an upcoming gig. Please note that the subject matter can be off color at times so you have been warned. Marketing Pilgrim’s Social Channel is proudly sponsored by Full Sail University, where you can earn your Masters of Science Degree in Internet Marketing in less than 2 years. Visit FullSail.edu for more information.

Striking While the Iron...

If you have been following this saga for any time you may have wondered if the day that Groupon goes public would ever come. Well, unless something goes terribly awry, today is the day and there is plenty of interest in the IPO. Kara Swisher of All Things Digital reports Groupon has priced its public offering at $20 a share, several dollars above the expected price range of $16 to $18. That will garner $700 million for the start-up, which is only several years old, at a valuation of close to $13 billion. The offering for the Chicago-based daily deals site — which has had a controversial IPO process — was well upward of 10 times oversubscribed, meaning there was a lot more demand than supply of its stock. To alleviate the difference, Groupon added five million more shares to its offering, totaling 35 million shares sold. Based on the history leading up to this day which has been bizarre at times while seeming just plain slimy at others this will be one to watch. Not so much for the first day. Well, actually for the first day because those getting in at $20 based on the initial interest in the shares are likely to win big in a short time period by buying then selling the stock quickly. Many think this is a sucker bet because the long term viability of the company and the business model is still a large question mark. How this looks six months from now will tell the tale of whether Groupon has been what it has claimed all along ( worthy of even a much higher valuation with talks at one point placing it at $30 billion) or whether it has indeed been just an elaborate Ponzi scheme that will create one of the most infamous business stories of recent memory. Of note, LinkedIn, whose IPO was about 6 months ago is trading below the closing number after their first day of trading in May . It closed at $94.25 on its first day with its stock having been set at $45 per share. Yesterday it closed at $87.50. Over the six months it has been as low as around $65 per share according to Google Finance . Content farm monster Demand Media went public in January and saw its stock go up 33% on the first day trading as high as $25 per share. Yesterday’s close ? $7.51 per share. While these companies are quite different from Groupon they are still part of the Valley IPO story of the past year. Honestly, I have read almost too much about this “event” and am now content to sit back and see how it unfolds over time. I won’t be an investor so I am in it purely for the story. I hope there is a happy ending but I really hope it’s not just for those who are in the position to capitalize on the low price out of the gate then dumping it when there is sufficient profit made. I know that’s capitalism but sometimes capitalism can be so obvious in its “there are winners and losers” foundations. This time I fear that the losers may lose big. What are your thoughts? Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community

Facebook Gets Friend.ly

Social Q&A company Friend.ly has been acquired by Facebook. Hooray? Friend.ly refers to their app as a conversation starter that will help you find new friends and meaningful relationships on Facebook. The app is designed to offer you a list of thought provoking questions that you can either answer or simply approve of answers given by others. Friend.ly suggests that if you say someone’s answer is cool, they’ll probably say you’re cool and there’s no telling where it will go from there. According to All Things Digital , the two-year old company had an impressive growth spurt earlier this year but the numbers don’t tell the whole story. Like many Facebook apps, there’s a big difference between those that signup and those that actively use it on a regular basis. Even if it’s not a top app, it has potential, which is why Facebook plunked down the cash to buy them. There’s something about a meaningless question that makes us all want to stop what we’re doing and write in an answer. Forget the meaning of life. How about the meaning of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida? The more trivial the question, the more answers you’ll get. Marketing Pilgrim’s Social Channel is proudly sponsored by Full Sail University, where you can earn your Masters of Science Degree in Internet Marketing in less than 2 years. Visit FullSail.edu for more information. The company blog says that Friend.ly will continue to operate as is, even though the Friend.ly team will be focusing on creating new projects for Facebook. Which is code for, everything is going to change and soon. Right now, there’s no significant marketing value in the app since it doesn’t allow you to participate as a Facebook Page and it doesn’t look like you can’t write your own questions. But it will be interesting to see what the company comes up with now that they have Facebook’s backing and blessing.