Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Faeces Fighters

So you think you're privacy is safe on Facebook . . .that only your friends can see you? Not if you write in notes . . there's a glitch that shares your information with anyone. Now there's a more insidious way to capture a new demographic via Facebook . . pitched and personal appvertising. (God I wish I'd thought of that).

Many youngsters and some wannabes like myself are joining social network sites like Bebo and MySpace but the flavour of the month, at least in Australia is Facebook.

I joined mainly to checkout ClareBear on her travels but since she also has a blog, I don’t use it a lot. It seems that since the introduction of the Throw app . . .the one where you can throw sheep, cows, food . . you can even throw poo .

It seems that Facebookers would rather pelt each other with virtual faeces (Daz' fave word) than safeguard their personal information. At least, that's the word from Seth Goldstein, co-founder and CEO of Social Media, a company that enables virtual doo-doo tossing.

Social Media introduced a Facebook application called Food Fight which they creatively call a "Throw app" (rocket scientists these geeks), Typically, the app allows Facebookers to purchase virtual food items and throw them - at virtual friends. It plays off the Facebook "poke", a kind of online hello.(Well hello- o-o haggis!)

But you don't pay real currency for this virtual food. You pay virtual dollars. And you acquire these virtual dollars by giving up personal information. (Did you know that kiddies? I wondered why I had so many $ in my growing gift app.) Food Fight is part of a larger network of tools used for "appvertising". That personal info will eventually be used for marketing purposes.(so if you don’t want to be bothered by virtual junk mail – be careful!)

What happens is the advertisements you receive will not only know who you are but also your friends, your spouse or those you are in a relationship with. Providing an opportunity for ad networks to provide the holy grail: personalised advertising.

An example might be: "Christmas is coming soon and Baino would lov a special gift from Qantas, like a round-the-world-air-first-class-air-fare or a holiday in Vanuatu!” (can’t blame a girl for trying) The thing is . . . all the information is given up voluntarily when you’re on Facebook.

Throwing poo however costs more virtual dollars than a quick chuck of a ruminant - $20 to be exact . . Apparently people are more than happy to pay the premium and the response rate has gone through the roof. There are a lot of people out there throwing poo at each other! It’s surprising how willing people are to give up their personal details for a faeces fight . . . perhaps you'd better put your poo where it really belongs. . . bless you little monkeys!



13 comments:

Unknown said...

Well, as you probably know I've had my doubts and suspicions about facebook from the start and everything I continue to hear makes me realise those sneaky misgivings were spot on. I think I might yet follow Big B's lead and chuck the whole thing!
But you got to hand it to marketing types, when it comes to weaselish wisdom, boy can we dream it up.

Anonymous said...

Have you seen this movie about Facebook?: http://albumoftheday.com/facebook/

PARANOIA!!!! Have been paranoid about the likes of Facebook for a long time and it helps to keep tabs on what I'm doing by being 'anonymous'. They'll catch up with me one day ... :)

Anonymous said...

Thats mad, I'm not into facebook or bebo but Manipulation but corporate giants is reaching epic proportion . What happened to good old fashioned ethics!

Anonymous said...

Who is this Daz chap?

I'm sure he has fantastic hair.

Anonymous said...

Here is a hint when it comes to deleteing yourself from Faece-book.
You can't!
You can not delete your account. You can de-activate it but you cannot delete yourself from this insidious application, so what I did was first I deleted all the applications attached to it. I then, one by one, deleted all my messages. After that I edited my account and removed all information. Since you cannot remove your email address I changed mine to nunya.business@fuckyou.com.
I then deleted all my photos and then dug through the application to see what I missed. Once I was sure that I had not missed anything I checked the "deactivate my account" button and jumped through their hoops including typing a reason for leaving. I used the old, short and sweet reason of, Eat me you Clowns.

Facebook blows! I joined it because I was asked to by an old friend so we could keep in touch on a regular basis but with all the vampire requests and the buy me a fish demands and even all the please answer these silly questions just left a nettle in my nose and I got sick of it all after a very short time. Sorry Faece-book but I graduated from Junior High school quite awhile ago.
By the way, if I want to keep in touch I have access to email, skype, post mail, my blog and I even have this new fangled invention called a telephone.
So for me, Faece-book can S**k my D**k!

Anonymous said...

Sock my deck?

Weird request, that.

Anonymous said...

I keep hearing these horror stories about Facebook. My kids use MySpace and haven't had anything happen, but I require them to stay 'private' and I'm very vigilant about what they put on there.

Ah, the internet. A wondrous thing, and a scary thing.

Great post!

Baino said...

AV: We're both weaselish marketing types . .

Anon: Fortunately, anonymity is not an issue with me except when it comes to credit cards which I don't use on the internet. If you wanna find me, I'm in the phone book! I don't use Facebook much, just check in and change my mood! It's a good way to keep in touch with the non bloggers.

Nonny: What? Ethics in marketing? You have to be kidding it's all about the almighty buck and long lunches

Pinata: Are you a hairdresser? I could do with one. You wouldn't know him but he's cute as a button, maybe I could arrange an introduction if that's your scene

And . . Brian . ..wow, nothing for days and then a diatribe! And that 'old friend' is now talking to me thanks very much! Maybe I'm still on there because I want to still be in Jnr High! hehe . . .

Wordnerd: Yeh, I get my kids to supervise me just in case I start an inappropriate liaison with people I've never met (hang on . . .I have lots of liaisons with people I've never met DOH!)

Excellent Adventures said...

Always the sceptic! MySpace and Facebook are fun for only 1 thing - when you're totally and utterly bored at work. And when the IT guy comes down and tells you to stop accessing them through proxies cos you're stuffing up his system, slapping you on the wrist, they suddenly become redundant. I'll call the friends I like and won't the ones I don't!

Baino said...

ClareBear: and they're paying you how much? Clogging up the proxy server eh?

Anonymous said...

You know me, I love myself alright ...

Anonymous said...

Baino what happened to your earlier post I was only half way through reading it? Are you in trouble?

Baino said...

Nonny: I'm constantly in trouble. DB took the dim view, apparently I can only say nice things bout him on the blog so I deleted a post for the first time eva! Anything to get that room tidied up.