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In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the year 1984 and the 60th anniversary of George Orwell’s epic dystopian novel “1984,” Vernon Coaker the U.K.’s Home Office security minister said the EU Data Retention Directive, under which ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) store communications data does not go far enough. Currently the rules require ISP’s to store data for 12 months. “Social-networking sites such as MySpace or Bebo are not covered by the directive. That is one reason why the government’s looking at what we should do about the Intercept Modernization Program, because there are certain aspects of communications which are not covered by the directive.” said Coaker, speaking at a meeting of the House of Commons Fourth Delegated Legislation Committee. For those that are wondering what is the Intercept Modernization Program, let me explain. The Interception Modernization Program  is a government proposal for legislation to use mass monitoring of traffic data as an anti-terrorism tool. Orwellian indeed…

Ok, so what’s the deal. According to Coaker this change is critical to track terrorist activity in the UK.

It makes one wonder if someone doing something that sinister would use a service like Facebook, MySpace or Bebo to do so? So let’s play what if?

What if…you have a family member currently living in the UK and they use Facebook to send you messages, chat with you and update you. Do you like the thought of someone reading that communication?

What if…you have a business associate that is traveling oversees and sends you a SMS from a text platform, let’s say the text contains confidential business information? How do you feel about that?

What if…someone you love is traveling overseas and chats with you over Facebook chat. Do you enjoy the thought of a government reviewing and saving the chat? Will that change how you behave?

In each case I would be a bit uncomfortable sharing any private, intimate or confidential information and would have some discomfort, but not allot sharing basic small talk.

At the end of the day, the real questions are these…Is this loss of privacy worth a safer world? And do you believe the world will be safer after the loss of privacy? Do you trust a government to keep your secrets a secret when you are not breaking any law?

For those of you that will argue, “why would you feel discomfort unless you have something to hide?” I say “get a life,” that is the same argument that propagated the persecution of people for centuries. I think that argument would fade the second someone starts going through your underwear drawer…

In Orwell’s 1984, we have a vivid picture of a government that has justified the infringement on freedom; one that  used speech codes to limit everyone’s ability to understand and used a powerful media to build unwarranted consensus. This fictional government used technology to nip opposition and the result of was humanity denied its freedom to think. No, I am not saying the sky is falling here and I do believe we need to take steps to keep society safe but when is enough, enough? I don’t have a clue what the answer is but whenever I start to feel uncomfortable and like our privacy may be going away I suspect we may be getting close.

Yesterday, The Nielsen Company released their “Topline U.S. Data Report for February 2009.”  The easy to read news release provides the Top 10 online Parent Companies and the Top 10 online Web Brands. To no surprise Google is the largest Parent Company (133,983,000 unique audience in February) and largest Web Brand (127,142,000 unique audience in February).  For those wondering what the difference is between the two categories Nielsen describes as follows;

• Parent Company: consolidation of multiple domains and URL’s owned by a single company or division
• Web Brand: consolidation of multiple domains and URL’s that has a consistent collection of branded content

The big winners for February, as far as audience is a line-up of “you could have guessed” companies and brands; Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.  So which company was fourth on the largest audience list? Apple? Facebook? eBay? Nope, AOL.  That’s right AOL.  The former king of the net and then fallen son was fourth in company audience and sixth in brand audience, still ahead of Facebook, FOX Interactive (MySpace) and Apple.

But the wins do not stop there for AOL. AOL was the stickiest place on the net with each person spending 3 hours 45 minutes on AOL in February.  More sticky than Yahoo (3 hours 27 minutes) and Facebook (2 hours 59 minutes).  It appears the AOL strategy to add more social and media features to their site. Features and applications such as Twitter apps and Lifestreaming seem to have AOL users staying on AOL longer than any other site user.

Surprised? I was.

So after a big win in the ratings today AOL announced a new CEO, Tim Armstrong; the Google veteran who help build Google into an online advertising behemouth.  So let’s take guess at the future of AOL.  Long user visits+better ad delivery=more revenue.  Could it be that simple?  I don’t know but it will be fun to watch.

No sooner did we all get riled up about Facebook becoming big brother the grand master of the community steps out today and announces reversal of the new controversial Terms of Service back to the old.  In fact Mark Zuckerberg has gone one step farther and opened a new Facebook group called, Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. This will be a place for everyone to voice their thoughts on what should be included in new and improved Terms of Service.

Below is Mark’s blog post from earlier today explaining Facebook’s actions;

Update on Terms

by Mark Zuckerberg Today at 12:17am

A couple of weeks ago, we revised our terms of use hoping to clarify some parts for our users. Over the past couple of days, we received a lot of questions and comments about the changes and what they mean for people and their information. Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.

Many of us at Facebook spent most of today discussing how best to move forward. One approach would have been to quickly amend the new terms with new language to clarify our positions further. Another approach was simply to revert to our old terms while we begin working on our next version. As we thought through this, we reached out to respected organizations to get their input.

Going forward, we’ve decided to take a new approach towards developing our terms. We concluded that returning to our previous terms was the right thing for now. As I said yesterday, we think that a lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective so we don’t plan to leave it there for long.

More than 175 million people use Facebook. If it were a country, it would be the sixth most populated country in the world. Our terms aren’t just a document that protect our rights; it’s the governing document for how the service is used by everyone across the world. Given its importance, we need to make sure the terms reflect the principles and values of the people using the service.

Our next version will be a substantial revision from where we are now. It will reflect the principles I described yesterday around how people share and control their information, and it will be written clearly in language everyone can understand. Since this will be the governing document that we’ll all live by, Facebook users will have a lot of input in crafting these terms.

You have my commitment that we’ll do all of these things, but in order to do them right it will take a little bit of time. We expect to complete this in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we’ve changed the terms back to what existed before the February 4th change, which was what most people asked us for and was the recommendation of the outside experts we consulted.

If you’d like to get involved in crafting our new terms, you can start posting your questions, comments and requests in the group we’ve created—Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. I’m looking forward to reading your input.

The instant update phenomena has overtaken us.  With the arrival of smart phones and other portable web-enabled devices we live in a world of instant access, instant communication and instant reporting.

A few weeks ago, Continental Airlines flight 1404 and was leaving from Denver and heading to Houston.  It was carrying 107 passengers and five crew members.  The plane veered off course about 2,000 feet from the end of the runway and did not appear to be airborne.  The plane appeared to have slid into a ditch and was on fire after the crash.  Thirty-eight people were reported to have been injured in the crash, no one died.  The crash was first reported not by a news agency but by Mike Wilson as he sent out a tweet to his Twitter stream from his seat on the plane;  “Holy #$&*@%^#@* I was just in a plane crash!”  (I took out a few expletives ).  I believe this action is a mere foreshadowing to how events will be reported in the near future.  Don’t be surprised if Twitter users from across the world breaking newsworthy events becoming a very common occurrence.

Not to be outdone, on January 16th, a US Airways flight took off from LaGuardia Airport at 3:26pm.  Within one minute of take off, the pilot Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger, knew they were in trouble.

A few minutes later the plane miraciously landed in the Hudson River with all passengers safe and no major injuries.  At 3:36pm a news breaking picture of the plane was sent to TwitPic by Twitter user Janis Krums .

No news agency reported the crash until an estimated 3:48pm.

Once again, Twitter and it’s universe of user, scooped the media.

Sometimes breaking the news is not the best thing to do.

Take for example the story of Virginia GOP Chairman, Jeff Frederick.  A few days ago on February 10th, the Virgina GOP nearly was able to wrestle control of the State senate from the Democrats as they were close to convincing a Democratic Senator to switch parties.  This change would have put the Senate in a 20 to 20 tie with the Democrats.   Once at a 20-20 tie, the tie would have been broken by the Republican Lt. Governor. Then Mr. Frederick sent a tweet.

The Democrats saw and read the Tweet and quickly moved to talk the party switching Senator from doing so. This quick action to the update by the Democrats stopped the GOP coup in it’s tracks.

So was Virginia GOP Chairman reporting news?  Or is this a “what was he thinking?” moment.

We have an incredibly powerful tools to instantly communicate today.  Tools that if not used wisely, can be used against us (just ask the Virginia GOP).  So what do we do?  What are some rules we can follow?  This technology is way too new to have accepted protocol like email but if we use a little common sense, we can stay out of hot water:

• First and always report the facts as you see them.  Nothing added, no imbelishment.
• If you are involved in something that could be described as “negotiations” it would be safe to never report until the negotiations are complete, and then only if appropriate to report (does anyone remember the non-disclosure agreement you may have signed?).
• If the item is deemed confidential, keep it as such.  Leaking “secret projects” at work is something for the Marketing Department to figure out .
• If you see news happening in front of you, by all means report it (but remember the above points first.)

The breaking of major news has made some normal folks for a short period of time “micro famous” and the incentive is certainly there for people to want to be the first to break the big story.  Using some common sense will help us not only get our fifteen minutes of fame, but let us enjoy it and talk about it the rest of our lives.

One of the cool things about having a phone that can get on-line is going to sites like Yelp.  For those that have never used Yelp on your phone, let me quickly explain.  Go to Yelp, put in your location, put in what you are looking for (i.e. tacos) and up will pop locations that have tacos sorted by their ratings!  Very cool.  If you use Yelp on your computer you can rate, review and talk about the good and “not so good” in your area.   It is a powerful tool that creates amazing word of mouth marketing at the most organic level, the end user.  If you are a business owner, you should be aware of Yelp and keep an eye on the site to see what people think about you.  And unless you have amazing business practices, from time to time reviews will be negative.

That is exactly what happened as  one Yelp reviewer said something negative about a local chiropractor.  Here is the quote:

“I don’t think good business means charging people whatever you feel like hoping they’ll pay without a fuss. Especially considering that I found a much better, honest chiropractor.”

The chiropractor did not like what he read and sued the reviewer Christopher Norberg over the comment.

Now, not being one to judge what is the law and not the law, and whether the reviewer was right or wrong, I can tell you this; the internet community is watching very carefully what happens in this case.  Norberg’s attorney, Michael Blacksburg went on to say  “This strikes at the heart of Yelp’s business model and other Web sites that provide a bulletin board for people to state what they think of businesses in their community. This is clearly Christopher Norberg’s version of conversations with the doctor relating to a billing dispute and his opinion of how the doctor was behaving. This is clear opinion that falls squarely within constitutionally protected speech.”

So I guess what Mom always told us was good advice, “if you have nothing good to say about someone don’t say anything at all.”  Or at least in cyberspace, be very careful how you say it.  Opinion is protected by libel law but just because you declare a statement as opinion it does not necessarily make it one.  If you are a blogger, tweeter, Yelp reviewer or just a commenter on forums and boards you should probably take a peek at the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s guidelines for blogger’s and web user’s  regarding Online Defamation Law.

Just like you, I see negative posts all the time.  Are they opinion or a statement of fact?  Sometimes it is hard to tell.   Just remember, count to ten before you post that flaming review/comment and keep yourself out of court.

Guess what, the phishers have hit Twitter.  And the impact it has had on the service has reached around the globe.  So if you see an update in your Twitter stream that says something like “Check out this funny blog about you”  if clicked (but please don’t) you will be taken to what looks like the Twitter sign in page.  But please note the address bar (see below);

As you can see, it is not twitter.com but rather a different address page.  The intent here is to take your password and hopefully use it enter other sites you visit and to fill up your “fake twitter” with spam like “I won an iphone! come see how here” or “Somehow your picture ended up on this site” and once you click on the url’s in the fake stream, here come the cookies, spy-ware and more as the phisher tries to find out where your accounts are.  And to make things worse, the phishers may use your password and identity to send spam and malware to your friends.

So, do yourself a favor and go change your password.  Twitter is aware of the phising and you will find at the top of your Twitter home “Warning! Don’t sign in to fake Twitter.com from a DM”, you will also find a link where Twitter will tell you that they are already changing the passwords of those that have unwittingly signed in.  In a world of multitasking it is not a shock to hear about someone signing back into Twitter without realizing they are on a phishing site while talking on the phone, keeping up with IM’s/DM’s, reading emails, shuffling papers or just not paying attention.  This is the busy world where the phishers live and hope for.

I guess I am not surprised, it had to happen eventually.  The lessons to learn here are:

• change your passwords often
• have different passwords for different sites/accounts
• have good firewall/virus/spyware/phishing protection on your computer and keep them up to date
• Only open attachments you expect or know what they contain
• Never enter personal information in a “pop up box”
• Be suspicious of anyone who contacts you and asks for personal information
• Don’t click on links that ask for personal information
• Whether a victim or not, report phishing to Fraud.org

So be careful, take a moment and stay out the phish pond.

My plane landed in Dallas last night and just as I have done a hundred times, I reached for my phone to see what I missed during my flight. I opened my email to find the following;

Yes, Pownce…one of the original “micro-blog, what I am doing, file sharing” sites was shutting down.  Now, in all fairness to Pownce, the company was acquired by Six Apart (annoucement on Six Apart blog here) and I am sure this is an acquisition of talent and ideas as much as anything.  The rock stars at Pownce; Leah Culver,  Mike Malone and Ariel Waldman have all moved over to Six Apart and along with them, their extraordinary talent and ideas.  I am sure Six Apart is a much better company because of it.

I was an early user of Pownce (back when you had to get an invite to join) and I did so enthusiastically.  I found many friends and colleagues already there and loved how you could attach media to your post to enable easy views or downloads.  Pownce did not have some of the limitations of Twitter and was a useful way to get your message out, let people know what you were up to and to follow those you knew.  Now, it is gone.

It makes me wonder if this is the first of many “fallouts” by companies providing great social networking tools.  Right now the big kids on the block (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and more) seem to continue to grow not only in size, but services (sometimes third party mind you).  But it seems, allot of companies are doing basically “the same thing.”  Is Jaiku really that much different than Twitter?  The examples are endless.  Are we beginning to see the large squeeze out the small, the “first to the space” to squeeze out the later in not only terms of usage but funding dollars.

It seems the economic times have reached right into the world of social media and the first ones to take the hit are the start-ups that bring us the coolest new widgets and gadgets.  Many will go the way of Pownce and find someone with the dollars to help the dream continue or just…go away.  With venture capital money going out extremely selectively many of these start-ups will be gobbled up by those with the new currency of acquisition, stocks.  Having said that, almost all the past ‘high tech high flyers’ are trading no where near where they were this time last year,  so stock deals will also be selective.  Maybe again, if these start-ups are lucky, they can find a company with some dollars willing to trade talent and ideas for debt.

Tough times reach everywhere.  Everything is linked to everything else somehow, someway.  Social media is no exception.  As much as I loved and will miss Pownce, I believe the acquisition of Pownce is the start of a trend where many social media companies do the same.  Hopefully they will have the talent of a Pownce and be an acquisition candidate and not just fade away.

So Goodbye Pownce you will be missed.  And with that, I make my final post to a great idea and a great website.