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Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

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Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#81
post #36

This seems pretty interesting - it's a good opportunity for sites like Flickr and the like to allow 'Facebook Zip' uploads and they'll automatically parse out your photos and store them in your account.

Their Graph API allows this to be done without the ugly hacks.

People may feel more open when they are sharing a .zip rather than 'logging in' - I know a lot of people that are still opposed to 'connecting' accounts - this avoids that connection, regardless of OAuth, straight username/password, etc.,

It's not clear to a lot of people 'what exactly' they are sharing when they link accounts, but when you upload a .zip, you are ONLY sharing what's contained in that file - there really is a big difference between uploading and linking =p

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#82
post #7

People seem to be intepreting this as "OMG now we can build a new social network and convert users easily!" Users still aren't going to leave Facebook. Facebook realizes this, which is why they can do this now. Your mother's cousin is on Facebook. She won't be on Diaspora or (X). That said, this is pretty cool for its own reasons. Like waterlesscloud said, it looks like they "want to be the source of all social inter…

The combined size of social networks that aren't Facebook is over 1.5 billion people, probably more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websi... Facebook has the most users in one place, but the dust is nowhere near settled on where everyone will end up. This bodes very well for a decentralized solution. I doubt Diaspora will be the first (I think Appleseed ( http://opensource.appleseedproject.org…

My sister is in four social networks other than Facebook. I don’t think it matters. (Five if you insist on counting MySpace.) She would pick Facebook if she had to.

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The combined size of social networks that aren't Facebook is over 1.5 billion people, probably more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websi... Facebook has the most users in one place, but the dust is nowhere near settled on where everyone will end up. This bodes very well for a decentralized solution. I doubt Diaspora will be the first (I think Appleseed ( http://opensource.appleseedproject.org…

Scanning your link, It seems like the majority of the non-Facebook figure comes from Chinese language sites. Since social networking sites will quite likely be segmented by language for the foreseeable future, I don't think this really counts. In the English-language world, Facebook has serious network effect and you would be hard-pressed to combine all of FB's competitors into anything. I agree dispersed social netw…

Sort by Registered Users. You don't even need the Chinese language site (QZone).

Habbo + MySpace + Bebo + Orkut + Friendster + Hi5 = 679 million. Assuming 50% cross-over (which is a very high estimate), that means 340 million unique users, for just six social networks.

And that is nothing to sneeze at.

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#84
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No: the purpose of a critic is to provide critical insight - having criticism silenced is not part of that purpose.

If they don't want their criticisms acted upon, why are they criticizing?

Okay, to a degree I'm playing semantics .. but silencing an opinion isn't the same as reaching a resolution. To 'quell' suggests a pointed action, which puts the purpose of quietening the critic's voice, above resolving the critic's concern.

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#85
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The combined size of social networks that aren't Facebook is over 1.5 billion people, probably more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websi... Facebook has the most users in one place, but the dust is nowhere near settled on where everyone will end up. This bodes very well for a decentralized solution. I doubt Diaspora will be the first (I think Appleseed ( http://opensource.appleseedproject.org…

> The combined size of social networks that aren't Facebook is over 1.5 billion people, probably more. How much of that overlaps with Facebook? Approximately 500 million? Also, they're measuring total registrations: FB has probably close to a billion registrations on their 500 million actives. All that statistic tells you is that FB has room to grow.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#86
post #85
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The combined size of social networks that aren't Facebook is over 1.5 billion people, probably more. How much of that overlaps with Facebook? Approximately 500 million? Also, they're measuring total registrations: FB has probably close to a billion registrations on their 500 million actives. All that statistic tells you is that FB has room to grow.

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#87
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are living proof their PR department is on top of their game again.

You know, what exactly can Facebook do to make people like you happy? Facebook has to make money to do this they have to have users to do this they have to make a good product to do this they have to hire good engineers and to do that they have to make money , oh and if they're super evil no one will want to work for them, let alone use their product Facebook really isn't as evil as most of these comments make out, a…

How about:

"Hi, this is facebook, this time we've really learned from our past mistakes.

I know you've heard that before (several times in fact), but this time we actually mean it and we'll show you how and why.

To begin with, from now on we will detail the commercial activities that we engage in with your data and we will allow you to say yes/no to every individual transaction. We wouldn't be a commercial entity if we didn't find a way to make that to our advantage though, so here is the deal: Every time we have a commercial proposition you get a link in your email and a notice on your wall. You can configure to default 'accept', 'deny' or 'hold until confirmation'. If you default to accept and you do nothing the deal is on. If you default to 'deny' then the deal is off, unless you decide to accept anyway through the link on your wall. If you default to 'hold until confirmation' then you will only be able to proceed after the terms and conditions of this particular deal have been made clear to you and accepted by you through an extra confirmation step.

Our advantage in all this is that we hope you will visit facebook more frequently to check up on us.

Of course we hope that you will trust us with your data, but given our recent antics we fully understand if you want to put us 'on probation'.

As for the why part, we've decided that we'd rather make a bit less money in the sort term and be around in the long term as opposed to chasing you away or giving a competitor enough air-supply to make our lives miserable.

We sincerely apologize for our past behavior.

As another token of our newly found conscience we will create a board of 10,000 randomly selected users that get to vote on changes that will affect privacy in a negative way, the advice of this board will be binding on us. What with facebook now being larger than most countries we figure democracy is the best way forward. We're making this a sampled democracy rather than a representative one to limit the impact on the day-to-day dealings with our site, however if you want to you are always eligible to vote on any proposals the board votes on and your vote will count just as heavy as a board members.

This policy is effective immediately.".

That would win me over.

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scanning your link, It seems like the majority of the non-Facebook figure comes from Chinese language sites. Since social networking sites will quite likely be segmented by language for the foreseeable future, I don't think this really counts. In the English-language world, Facebook has serious network effect and you would be hard-pressed to combine all of FB's competitors into anything. I agree dispersed social netw…

Sort by Registered Users. You don't even need the Chinese language site (QZone). Habbo + MySpace + Bebo + Orkut + Friendster + Hi5 = 679 million. Assuming 50% cross-over (which is a very high estimate), that means 340 million unique users, for just six social networks. And that is nothing to sneeze at.

I was mistaken.

The sites I hadn't heard of aren't Chinese language sites but failed English language sites. But they are still failed sites. I don't go to my two Myspace pages, ever.

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#89
I think this would be more interesting if it included the behavior profile facebook keeps on you. I've read articles where they describe tracking every page you visit, when, how many times and for how long. Facebook is interested in knowing which of your friends you're paying attention to, who comments you read and which photos you like.

I would like to see their "file" on me. I would like that to be more transparent to users who don't realize it's being kept as well.

Google started doing something like this where they let you see (and delete?) the browsing and search histories they keep based on your gmail account, google cookies and advertising partners logs.

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scanning your link, It seems like the majority of the non-Facebook figure comes from Chinese language sites. Since social networking sites will quite likely be segmented by language for the foreseeable future, I don't think this really counts. In the English-language world, Facebook has serious network effect and you would be hard-pressed to combine all of FB's competitors into anything. I agree dispersed social netw…

Sort by Registered Users. You don't even need the Chinese language site (QZone). Habbo + MySpace + Bebo + Orkut + Friendster + Hi5 = 679 million. Assuming 50% cross-over (which is a very high estimate), that means 340 million unique users, for just six social networks. And that is nothing to sneeze at.

Orkut is not really competing with Facebook. It's huge in Brazil, but has very few English speaking users left.
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