Midtown: SEO Specialists

Google announced in a blog post today that it was killing Wave, a web-based messaging platform intended to promote real time communication and collaboration. 

Wave features heralded by Google include character-by-character live typing within the web browser and the ability to share images and other media in real time.

Despite the initial excitement surrounding the product when it launched last year, Wave was slow to catch on, probably due to its complexity.

“Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product,” Google Senior Vice President of Operations Urs Hölzle said in the post.

Even Wave development team leader Lars Rasmussen admitted in May that the product was “a little daunting” for new users, and that Google had “failed to answer the question of what can I actually use Wave for, right now, right here.”

Mr. Hölzle said Google will extend Wave’s technology for use in other projects and that the company will work on creating tools to allow users to easily “liberate” their content from Wave.

Wave joins the long list of Google’s failed social media attempts, including Orkut and Google Lively. 

Maybe the company will have more luck with its rumored new social network, Google Me.

Facebook is trying to save face after privacy concerns surrounding its Phonebook feature spread virally across the web.

The social media site has posted the following statement on its blog:

Rumors claiming that Facebook’s Phonebook feature exposes phone numbers are false. The Phonebook allows you to find your friends’ phone numbers if they’ve posted them to Facebook and made them available for their friends. Learn and share the facts in this blog post.

The Phonebook allows Facebook users to see their friends’ phone numbers in one simple list. It also displays contacts imported from a user’s phone.

A report on All Facebook debunks the rumor, explaining that the feature is meant to give users an easy way to locate their friends’ contact info. The post gives step-by-step graphic instructions on how you can your hide phone number from your friends, if you choose to keep that information private.

Essentially, there are two ways to remove your phone number from appearing on other peoples’ Phonebooks: (1) adjust your privacy settings or (2) remove your phone number from your Facebook profile. The better bet seems to be modifying your privacy settings, since Facebook uses your phone number to verify your account even if you didn’t add it to your profile. The mobile Phonebook feature can be disabled with one click.

While it appears that the Phonebook does not permit the sharing of phone numbers with third party non-users and with friends of users who have hidden their numbers, the security glitch rumor is just another headache for the social media site in its neverending battle over privacy concerns.

The Facebook Ads Team sent out an e-mail to the site’s advertising partners today announcing new changes to Facebook’s privacy settings:

Facebook will roll out changes today that will make it easier for our users to understand and control their privacy settings. As this change will have an impact on our users, we wanted to let you, a valued advertising partner, know about it. Please note that this change will not affect your advertising campaigns and there is no action required on your part.



Facebook is a company that moves quickly, constantly innovating and launching new products to improve the user experience. The feedback we heard from users was that in our efforts to innovate, some of our privacy settings h ad become confusing.
 


We believe in listening to our users and taking their feedback into account whenever possible. We think the following changes address these concerns by providing users with more control over their privacy settings and making them more simple to use.



Starting today, Facebook will: 

* Provide an easy-to-use “master” control that enables users to set who can see the content they share through Facebook.  This enables users to choose, with just one click, the overall privacy level they’re comfortable with for the content they share on Facebook. Of course, users can still use all of the granular controls we’ve always offered, if they wish.

* Significantly reduce the amount of information that must be visible to everyone on Facebook. Facebook will no longer require that users’ friends and connections are visible to everyone. Only Name, Profile Picture, Networks and Gender must be publicly available. Users can opt to make all other connections private.


* Make it simple to control whether other applications and websites access any user information. While a majority of our users love Facebook apps and Facebook-enhanced websites, some may prefer not to share their information outside of Facebook. Users can now opt out with just one click.


I encourage you to take a moment to read our CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s blog post and check out the new Facebook Privacy Page.

Thanks,
The Facebook Ads Team

In his blog post, Zuckerberg claimed that the changes would make the site’s information controls much simpler.  Zuckerberg said “[w]e’ve focused on three things: a single control for your content, more powerful controls for your basic information and an easy control to turn off all applications.”

The new changes are to be rolled out over the next few weeks and can be reviewed on Facebook’s new privacy page.

After weeks of controversy over Facebook’s new privacy settings, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg finally admitted that the social media giant has made mistakes and promised changes to its privacy policies.  

In a Washington Post op-ed piece published today, Zuckerberg attempted an apology to its more than 400 million users in response to mounting criticism over issues with Facebook’s privacy settings. 

Facebook has come under fire recently for privacy settings that exposed personal user data, including users’ private chats, to the public due to confusing settings and technical glitches.  Zuckerberg’s statement attributed the errors to a quickly-growing community, but admitted that the privacy controls were too complex.

“We have heard the feedback,” said Zuckerberg. “There needs to be a simpler way to control your information. In the coming weeks, we will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use. We will also give you an easy way to turn off all third-party services. We are working hard to make these changes available as soon as possible.”

If you think social media is only for your company’s marketing department, think again.

Coca-Cola recently unveiled a 3-page document (below) to govern and encourage the use of social media by all of its employees. The company understands that its employees may be representing themselves not only personally, but also as employees of the company, through social media. Coca-Cola sees the value in building its brand through social media but must realize how much harder it is to monitor social media than company e-mail. Through the implementation of its ”Social Media Principles,” Coca-Cola can help ensure that its brand is helped – not harmed – by its employees’ use of social media.

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Privacy advocates filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday, arguing that recent changes to Facebook’s privacy policies and settings violate federal consumer protection laws.

The complaint, filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and nine other advocacy groups, addresses changes rolled out by Facebook earlier this month that make certain information publicly available outside the Facebook network.  Among the modifications were setting defaults for certain categories of information to the public setting, including name, profile photo, friend and page lists. Facebook users may adjust these privacy settings to limit the accessibility of this information.

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Google announced today that its Google Scholar now features full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts. Users can search by case name, citation or topic. (more…)

Google has revised its Google Books settlement agreement and may soon be making millions of books available online.

The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers sued the search engine in 2005, claiming its Google Books project, an attempt to digitize books and make them publicly available online, constituted copyright infringement.
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