
In today’s Reputation Management, Internet Privacy, and Social Media Quick Hits, we cover a lot of news coming out of Austin, Texas and the world-famous South by Southwest Music and Technology Conference. Check it out!
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People Care About Privacy, But Do Little To Protect It
With Internet users clamoring for increased social media functionality, such as recent developments by Twitter and Facebook that allow for geotagging status updates, many in the Internet industry are proclaiming that nobody really cares about privacy. This is not necessarily true, however, as Cecilia Kang reports for the Washington Post.
In remarks made by Danah Boyd, a social media researcher at Microsoft Research New England, during her opening keynote speech at this year’s South by Southwest conference, Boyd explains that users do care about privacy, they simply don’t voice their concerns until they feel that they have been violated in some way, as in the case of Google’s error-filled launch of Google Buzz.
The Post article also talks about a forthcoming Pew Research Study on Internet privacy that was taken before the launch of Google Buzz and the development of geolocation technology for Facebook and Twitter. According to early reports, the Pew research indicates that people care about privacy, but they do little to proactively protect it.
Netflix Cancels Recommendation System Improvement Contest Over Privacy Issues
Back in December, we wondered why Netflix would move forward with a proposed contest to improve its recommendation system when the company was in the middle of a lawsuit regarding the very information it was opening to the public to run the contest. Apparently, they wondered the same thing, because the New York Times is reporting that Netflix has called off the contest and is looking for alternative methods to improve its recommendation engine. The New York Times article also explains that Netflix has “reached an understanding” with the F.T.C. and settled the class-action lawsuit brought by Netflix customers.
College Assignment: Give Up Cellphone, iPod, Social Media
As part of an assignment, a professor at the University of Minnesota required her students to go five days without using any technology that didn’t exist before 1984. That meant no iPod, no cell phone, and no Facebook or Twitter. The experiment is one that is being duplicated around the country at other campuses where teachers hope to teach students something about the process of communication and the impact of new media technology in our lives. While some students enjoyed the assignment, finding freedom in the restrictions, others couldn’t help but break the rules in order to maintain their social lives.
Twitter Announcing Advertising Model Today at SXSW?
According to TechCrunch, Twitter is expected to reveal at least part of the company’s advertising model today at the South by Southwest Technology conference when Twitter CEO Evan Williams delivers his keynote speech at 2:00PM this afternoon. While Twitter claims to be profitable based on the real-time search deals the company struck with Microsoft and Google, the issue of Twitter advertising has been a hot topic in the tech industry for many months now and is certain to cause a lot of reaction from other social media services.
Digg Nation Shows How Easy it is to Start a Twitter Rumor
We knew it was easy to spread rumors on Twitter, but we didn’t know it was this easy. According to CNET’s Daniel Terdiman, this year’s South by Southwest Conference demonstrated just how easy it was to start a Twitter rumor when Digg founder Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht asked the crowd at SXSW’s Digg Party to tweet a false story in unison. What was the story, that recently laid-off talk show host and Twitter hero Conan O’Brien would be joining the Internet television start-up Revision3.
In his article, Terdiman explains why the hoax worked, at least for a little while, saying, “If only one or two people had tweeted the hoax, no one would have believed it. These days, most people’s nonsense detectors ring out when things that seem a little too good to be true make their way across the Internet, especially on sites like Twitter where anyone can say anything…But when dozens, or even hundreds of people, all tweet the same basic news at the same time, that would seem to lend the concept legitimacy; after all, hundreds of people wouldn’t all send out the same false information.”
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski Offers the Broadband Plan for Children and Families
In a talk Friday at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski shared the “broadband plan for children and families.” Here is a YouTube video featuring Genachowski’s remarks.




