Thanks to an update to Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, there will be one less place for advertisers to encroach onto your private life: your friends’ news feeds.
Facebook Members Go After Coca-Cola
By 8.12.09
How long will it take for Coke to give up on its Facebook page? That depends how long its PR machine can keep deleting the “fun facts” on its Wall:
Grocery Store Cancels Facebook Coupon Deal, Enrages Customers
By 8.3.09
Marsh, a grocery chain in Indiana and Ohio, made a special coupon available to their fans on Facebook. The coupon was good for $10 off a purchase of $10 or more. Great deal, right? Until the promotion got out of hand, and the store stopped accepting the coupon on Friday, with no warning to customers. Based on past similar experiences, you can guess how well this turns out.
Facebook Bans Advertisers From Stealing Your Photo To Sell Stuff To Your Friends
By 7.30.09
Facebook has firmly told app developers that it’s not okay for them to steal your wife’s photo from her profile page and use it to entice others into a sexy local singles dating service.
Free Food From Pizza Hut Via Twitter And Facebook
By 6.25.09
The new Pizza Hut social media intern has her first assignment, and it’s to give out codes for free stuffed pizza rolls to the company’s followers on Twitter and Facebook. Let’s hope they’ve planned ahead better than KFC did. [Mashable] (Thanks, David!)
Facebook Twice Feared Letting Angel Tread Its Network, Changed Its Heart
By 6.25.09
If you think 20th Century Fox was cruel to Dark Angel, canceling the show after just two seasons, get a load of what Facebook did to Dark Angel. Not the show, the person. Yes, there’s a guy out there who legally changed his name to Dark Angel. And on top of the gloom of instilling massive disappointment in everyone who meets him hoping he’ll be Jessica Alba, Dark Angel was deemed too fake of a name by the Facebook cops. So they booted his account twice.
Facebook Encourages Open Marriages—Just Ask Dan's Wife
By 6.24.09
One thing I personally hate about Facebook is how the ads co-opt my friends’ pictures and use them to try to sell me stupid stuff. Dan received one of those types of ads yesterday, only the combination of text and photo selection was a little… um, let’s say “open minded.”
Facebook, Where Are You Getting These Crazy Friend Suggestions From?
By 6.23.09
This morning, I woke up to find an inbox full of readers freaked out about Facebook friend suggestions. What’s the big deal about that? Privacy-minded Facebook users can’t figure out where these suggestions are coming from, and aren’t happy with the possibilities.
Applying For A Job? Great, Give Us Your Google And Facebook Passwords
By 6.19.09
ReadWriteWeb has a scary article about the city of Bozeman, Montana. It doesn’t sound like a scary place, but if you want to say, work for the City, you’ll need to give them all your social networking usernames and passwords.
Facebook Bans Guy For No Reason, Acknowledges Error, Re-Bans Guy For No Reason
By 6.15.09
Matt was kicked off of Facebook for no reason in March, got the social networking site to admit its error and reinstate him after a few weeks in April, then got the boot again and has been floating around in outer darkness ever since. His tale of despair:
At Ease, Facebook, Twitter: Soldiers Can Access You On Base Now — MySpace? Not So Much
By 6.11.09
The Army’s network administrators have stopped blocking base access to social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, as well as personal e-mail accounts, Wired reports.
Pseudonymbook? Facebook Will Let You Use An Alias June 13
By 6.10.09
Facebook has prided itself on forcing users to stick hard and true to their real names, eliminating the zany, anonymous nonsense on other social networking sites. The real-name policy isn’t changing, but Facebook is finally letting wacky nicknames into the mix, announcing that it will let you choose an alternate name for your profile page, letting friends who know you only as “Spanky” find you without having to recall your given moniker. The new name can also replace the nine-digit number assigned to you on your Facebook URL.
The Rockstar Energy Drink/Michael Savage Connection
By 6.8.09
Look, another update! I think I misinterpreted the point of the legal threats yesterday when I wrote this post. As Savage listeners point out in the comments below, Michael Savage has never hidden the fact that his son is the CEO of Rockstar Energy Drink. The legal threats seem to be against people who are claiming that Michael Savage is directly involved in the company, which he is not. And no, there’s no behind-the-scenes shenanigans at work here making me post this; I just feel I need to clarify it after reading the comments.
Is Pottery Barn Stalking Me Through Facebook?
By 6.8.09
Jacob got engaged last weekend. Yay! Mysteriously, before the wedding plans could even begin, his fiancÈe received an e-mail from Pottery Barn inviting her to start a wedding registry. Except she never signed up with them, or told any other retailer that she was engaged. What she did do was…change her Facebook status.
TOSBack Keeps Track Of Changes To Terms Of Service Policies Around The Web
By 6.8.09
It’s difficult enough to parse a lengthy TOS for one web-based service, let alone for dozens, or to keep track of when and how they update them. It would be nice if some public-service website out there would keep track of this stuff for all of us, wouldn’t it? Last week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) did just that with the launch of TOSBAck.org, “the terms-of-service tracker.” It tracks TOS agreements for 44 different services, including Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, Twitter, and eBay.
AT&T Wireless Customer? Turn Off Phone Purchasing Power To Prevent Unauthorized Charges
By 6.3.09
If you’re managing cellphones for a family or your parents, or let’s say hypothetically you have a boyfriend who says he reads Consumerist but really he doesn’t or else he would have known better, you’ll probably run into stupid subscription and content fees from time to time. You know how people are when it comes to fake “free” offers.
Xbox 360 To Get Facebook And Twitter, Still Breaks
By 6.3.09
Good news for gamers, bad news for anyone who count the pixel-obsessed among their social media friends: This Fall Microsoft will bring Facebook and Twitter applications to the Xbox 360, allowing gamers to more easily stalk acquaintances from their couches and brag about their gaming accomplishments. Gaming blog Joystiq covered the announcement, which came at Microsoft’s Electronic Entertainment Expo press conference in Los Angeles Monday:
