Hilarious. And a musical too, which makes it classier.
Posts tagged: facebook
Facebook Caught Red-Handed Planting False Stories About Google In Media…
It seems that social media giant Facebook — perhaps the least trustworthy of the social media giants — has been caught red-handed using a PR firm to plant wildly exaggerated stories about Google’s privacy violations (via the Daily Beast):
Somebody, it seems, hired Burson-Marsteller, a top public-relations firm, to pitch anti-Google stories to newspapers, urging them to investigate claims that Google was invading people’s privacy. Burton even offered to help an influential blogger write a Google-bashing op-ed, which it promised it could place in outlets like The Washington Post, Politico, and The Huffington Post.
The plot backfired when the blogger turned down Burson’s offer and posted the emails that Burson had sent him. It got worse when USA Today broke a story accusing Burson of spreading a “whisper campaign” about Google “on behalf of an unnamed client.”
But who was the mysterious unnamed client? While fingers pointed at Apple and Microsoft, The Daily Beast discovered that it’s a company nobody suspected—Facebook.
Dan Lyons’ piece makes for engrossing reading, and it’s a reminder that Facebook (and most of the other social media companies) trot out the warm puppy images when they’re talking user privacy, but in truth, they’re willing to do pretty much whatever they can get away with to win in the competitive social media space.
Users often seem blissfully unconcerned about privacy issues, though maybe this particular PR nightmare will coax a viable alternative into the open (like the much-hyped Diaspora), offering users and marketers a way to opt out of the madness.
Until then, you pretty much have to go where the crowds are, which means putting your faith in Facebook — something that’s pretty difficult to do given their actions the past several years.
I don’t do business with clients I can’t trust, and I’d rather not associate with companies I can’t believe.
Keep writing, Tom Chandler.
Waste Less Time on Social Media With the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine
Social media’s the hot marketing topic right now (and this despite the reality that search and email remain the ROI leaders, and by a sizable margin).
Still, there’s no underestimating the amount of time most slackers freelancers waste on Facebook and Twitter, so if your New Years resolutions include “I will focus on my business and waste less time on Facebook and Twitter,” then we’ve got just the site for you:
It’s the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine – a brilliant site which will wipe out your Web 2.0 existence while you wait.
Twitter, Facebook, MySpace… all gone in minutes. Then you can join the ranks of luddite curmudgeons worldwide. Frankly, we don’t see a downside.
(Still, if the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine truly is anti-Web 2.0, why aren’t they bucking the “everything is free” trend and charging for it?)
Once again, the Underground scours the Internet for the kind of productivity-enhancing tips you simply won’t find anywhere else.
Keep writing (and not on Facebook), Tom Chandler.
Post-Project Stress Syndrome, and "Who Really Owns Your Words?"
With my big, deadline-driven Web project launched and humming (for the time being), it’s time to get out of town for my anniversary.
That’s what writers do; we finish the book/Web site/project, then go somewhere warm to shake off the Post-Project Traumatic Stress Syndrome – preferably with an appropriately literary alcohol (the Copywriting Maven says “mojitos” are the cure, and this time, I may test her theory).
Still, I’m going to leave my readers with some legal fun (really). Read on: you’ll find this interesting.
Who Owns Your Work Now?
You can run from big projects, but you can’t run from the law, which is why I sat up a little when Valleywag listed the five most laughable Terms of Service Agreements in high tech.
For example, download Google’s new Chrome browswer, and you agree that:
…any “content” you “submit, post or display” using the service — whether you own its copyright or not — gives Google a “perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute” it? Google’s ambitions for Chrome are even larger than we thought; by the letter of this license, Google will own all information that flows through its browser. But Chrome’s terms of service are just the latest in a long line of ludicrous legalese.
Facebook’s says it owns the rights to the photographs you upload to the service.
Sure, it’s ludicrous, but then, it’s also in keeping with the anti-intellectual property ethos of Web 2.0, where content creators give up their right to content as fast as they create it, and only those providing technology are allowed to cash in.
In this case, Google’s obviously trying head off the legal challenges that suggest their ad netowrk illegally profits from the work of others.
As a copywriter, it’s easy to think none of this will affect you, but in some not-so-distant future, some of these agreements could come back to bite writers and other creatives on our flat butts.
Imagine a professional photographer who innocently uploads a couple images to his Facebook page, then finds them starting back at him in a Facebook ad.
Legal? Maybe.
UPDATE: Now Google says they don’t want the rights to your work, and are removing that passage from the Chrome license.
Non-Disclosure Agreements
Web Worker Daily also posted a short interview with a legal expert about Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) – a legal form copywriters are often asked to sign.
I’ve signed quite a few over the years (mostly high-tech clients), and most protected my rights as much as the client’s.
Still, I was once handed a “standard” NDA across a desk, and though I came within a whisker of not reading it, I’m glad I did.
On page six, I discovered a non-compete clause.
I muttered a “Huh?” (Not my best moment, verbally speaking.)
A little reading, and I realized this little gem would have prevented my working for anyone else in the client’s markets (all of them) for several years.
“Houston,” I said, “we have a problem.” (This was much better than “Huh.”)
While I avoid direct conflicts of interest, I’m also clear that I’m being paid for my copy and expertise – not the exclusive rights to “own” me in a particular field.
It became a sticking point – until I explained to my contact exactly what I was signing away.
We excised the offending passage from the NDA (both initialed the change), and went on with the project.
The moral? Don’t sign an NDA without reading it – even a “standard” form.
Keep drinking mojitos writing, Tom Chandler.
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When It Comes To Facebook, Marketers Should “Like” Reality
General Motors announced they were abandoning their $10 million Facebook ad buy in favor of Facebook’s “free” aspect and other media channels, and what’s most astonishing hasn’t been the news.
These days, whenever an organization backs away from social media marketing, the “They just don’t get it” posts from social media gurus pop up like dandelions.
And like my lawn, the results aren’t pretty.
I admit to smiling in a tolerant, parental way when I read “expert” quotes like this:
So getting cars into the hands of customers — who presumably will talk to their friends if the experience is positive — is less desirable than building a low-quality online relationship via paid advertising featuring abysmal clickthrough rates?
Really??
I think somebody needs a hug.
Getting It For Free
Keep in mind GM isn’t abandoning Facebook, it’s simply abandoning paid Facebook advertising. Something you might see with increasing frequency.
For marketers, there are currently two Facebooks: the paid side and the content side.
The free side where you post videos of yourself lip-syncing rap songs in your underwear.
The paid half are the ads that appear while your friends are liking your rap video.
For some organizations, Facebook ads have proven maddeningly unproductive, and clickthrough rates in social media as a whole have been abysmal (though Ford has said they’re happy with their paid Facebook results).
Here’s a Not Very Bold Prediction: the free, engaging side of Facebook is the part that will prove most valuable to organizations over time:
Wow. It’s more cost effective to drive a prospect to a Facebook presence via traditional, “you kids get off my lawn” media like direct mail, TV ads or the dead-and-buried-several-times-already email channel?
More spending on content, but less on paid advertising?
Yep. And expect to see more of that.
Why I “Like” Reality
One reason Facebook’s stock had to be propped up by its underwriters on opening day was because its free offerings are apparently more effective for organizations than its paid offerings, which are starting to seem less effective than yesteryear’s marketing channels like email and broadcast.
Add the rapid growth of Facebook’s mobile channel — which has proven difficult to monetize — and you can see the problems.
Before you say it, no, I’m not a knee-jerk anti-Facebook critic.
They may solve their ad effectiveness problems. They may even do it before they make one too many privacy missteps and drive away visitors.
But for now, I believe “experts” should fall in love with their client’s products instead of media channels, and that modern marketing plans should reflect real-world results, not the World As Social Media Marketing Fanboys Would Like It To Be.