5 Friends

Too true -- The Five Types of Political Friends on Facebook:

1. The Republican Yapper
I had to block one of these, now she's making a pro-birther movie.

2. The Do-Gooder Slacktivist
Like my friends who think bin Laden isn't dead/was already dead/is in a prison somewhere/corpse being warehoused for science.

3. The Low-Information "Swing" Voter Who Consistently Reminds You Of How Low-Information They Are
One friend recently responded to a video post of mine with a slew of Mitt Romney lies by saying "All politicians lie." Low-Information false equivalency.

4. The Insider
Actually have some value. The Conservative ones I have a little trouble forgiving when they should know better.

5. The Future Candidate
Don't think I know any...but happy to support them if I like 'em.

Full explanations in the DailyKos piece by Georgia Logothetis herself.

This all ring true for anyone else besides me?

Bunch of Endings

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) announced his retirement from Congress today -- he won't be running again next year -- at age 71. This is a huge bummer legislatively, but hopefully he'll turn up on news commentary a lot more, especially as he promising not to become a lobbyist. Consistently the smartest and wittiest guy in the House, Frank was no different today:

[Barney Frank] on the House under Republican rule: “It consists half of people who think like Michele Bachmann and half of people who are afraid of losing a primary to people who think like Michele Bachmann and that leaves very little room to work things out.”

Goodbye to Ken Russell, legendary British film director known for his combination or erudition and over-the-top visuals. Classics include: Women in Love (Oscar for star Glenda Jackson), Altered States, Tommy, The Lair of the White Worm, The Devils. Who can ever forget Tina Turner as the Acid Queen?

Goodbye to pre-IPO Facebook, between April and June 2012. The stock options will never mean the same thing again, the innocence lost, time for quarterly analyst calls and big annual reports. Guaranteed to have more investors than anyone imagines.

Goodbye to 2000's European prosperity. And maybe the Euro.

And, as much as we all hope not, we may be saying hello to a new global depression.

Social Media 101: Facebook Profiles

So there's something new and confusing going on: Facebook's new picture-centric profiles! Has it got you hunting around your friend's page for buttons and features that used to be elsewhere? Per Larry Magid:

To begin with, your profile photo, which appears in the upper left corner, is now bigger. And information such as where you live, where you work, your hometown, where you went to college and your birthdate are now directly under your name near the top of the screen. Speaking of friends, if you click on a friend's name you can view your relationship with that person including all of your interactions on Facebook going back to the time you became Facebook friends.

Facebook is also featuring your friends and family. Family members are now listed in the left column along with some of your friends. And, if you decide you want to feature some special friends, you can create a list and feature that list directly in the left column your profile.

Facebook is quick to point out that nothing has changed when it comes to privacy settings and that's true. Any limits you've put on who can see information will be respected on the new profile page. But what has changed is that information that was once somewhat obscure now jumps out at anyone who visits your page.

Yes, per Facebook Founder & CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, privacy is a thing of the past. Or maybe you just need to update your settings. I haven't figured out yet how to pick the pictures it shows, because they may not be the ones you want. As for what Zuckerberg said on 60 Minutes about the new look:

"It gives you this amazing connection with that person in a way that the current version of the profile that we have today just doesn't do."

...

Current Facebook profiles list personal information such as birthday, relationship status and city of residence in a left-rail column underneath the user's single profile photo. The new design moves that information up higher, in a more conversational format -- offering a quicker, more readable mini-portrait of a person.

In Sunday's interview, Zuckerberg called the change an effort to put the most important details about a user front-and-center for new friends or friends looking to catch up.

"I work at Facebook, and I spend all of my time there, right?" he said. "I mean, here are my friends. I grew up in New York, and now I live in California, right. Those really kind of basic, important things."

Old:


New:


Dave Knox posts what he thinks is the real reason for the changes, and it's not (mainly) to improve user experience:

One of the major reasons Facebook is emerging as such as an intriguing advertising platform is the targeting capability that it gives brands. An advertiser is able to specifically target a person through the information that is available in their Facebook profile. This information goes far beyond simple age / sex / location and includes everything from music tastes to political views.

But the problem is that very few people spend the time to update their profiles on a regular basis. As a result, much of the information that marketers are using to target is either out of date or not as reflective of the person as it could be.

I personally think that the new profiles are an attempt to change that. By elevating and enhancing the way information is displayed in the profile, Facebook is hoping to trigger people to update their profiles. Obviously Facebook would like people to keep the profiles updated, but this release at minimum provides a trigger to get people to make the change this one time. And with that update, people will be providing more valuable data to Facebook and its advertisers.

Whichever it is, it is unavoidable. Perhaps you may want to do this to change your profile picture yourself -- use a cartoon image from your childhood (yes, a form of piracy) to indicate your support for awareness against child abuse.

Which might help cause targeters find you as well.

Zucking It Up

I'm short on time and don't have a lot to add to the praise for The Social Network, which is a very entertaining movie and one that's more relevant than most. I think it's actually more of a comedy than a drama, a giddy rise-to-the-top with youth and speed, ending on an ironic note that's more up than down.

There are two things about the movie that I do want to highlight. One is that it's the first film I can remember, certainly a major Hollywood film, that gets enough of the start-up and venture capital scene right. The growth of the company from dorm room to dining room to offices is how it works, and while the angel investment scene is much shorter and easier than in real life, the dilution dangers are very real -- preferred shares vs. common shares, etc., even if not the mechanisms are not completely spelled out in the movie.

The other element I found interesting was how director Fincher and screenwriter Sorkin played with our empathy. We see Zuckerberg as a jerk in the beginning and often in his cutting asides to Savarin and others, but we're still rooting for him through most of the movie, especially against old lawyers in the deposition scenes. But the ambiguity is very interesting, including the sense that Savarin screwed himself by not coming to Palo Alto and staying to be CFO. My favorite example of how the movie plays with audience sentiment is in the Larry Summers scene. At first we're laughing along with Summers as he stonewalls the Winklevoss brothers with wit and contempt. But when the twins leave and one accidentally breaks off his doorknob, commenting on having broken a 300 (400?) year old doorknob and tossing it on the secretary's desk, they're the ones getting the big laugh against stuffy olde Harvard.

I do think that Mark Zuckerberg handles himself well in this interview snippet, although I wouldn't be surprised if he had either rehearsed the lines or been coached, or is just repeating something he's been telling a number of friends ever since seeing the movie:



Yep. The geeks shall inherit the earth.