Posts Tagged ‘MySpace’
Twitter has seen the development of a strange phenomenon in recent weeks, whereby thousands of user profile images have been ominously replaced by plain black squares. However this is not due to a a server error or code glitch, but is instead an act of co-ordinated protest against new proposals for internet regulation from the government of New Zealand.
The ‘blackout’ has also shown signs of spreading to other social networks like Bebo, Facebook and Myspace. Organised by the Creative Freedom Foundation, the action has had some impact already in causing the offending legislation to be delayed. Whether it can actually stop it remains yet to be seen, but the wider question really is – just how effective can such internet protest ever…
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Power.com, the recently launched social network aggregator which lets users easily transfer data and files from one network to another has had some tricky hurdles to overcome already since its November 2008 launch. There was a lawsuit and fallout with Facebook over privacy and data storage which was eventually resolved (though Facebook is not currently one of the networks accesible via Power) and now Myspace is the latest to take issue with Power’s use of its users’ data…
Myspace has blocked the aggregator from accessing its data for the latter’s decision not to use Myspace’s OAuth system for user logins, citing considerable (and valid) security concerns. The development leaves Power with only Orkut and Hi5 as its remaining significant networks, representing a considerable setback…
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Prominent web commentator Seth Finkelstein is no fan of Wikipedia – and even less so of its founder Jimmy Wales. Finkelstein’s Infothought blog regularly features sharp criticisms of both, and while sometimes it can be perhaps overly negative about Wikipedia itself (he likens its functioning to that of a sweatshop, due to the ‘exploitation’ of unpaid contributors), I cannot help but feel that when he is critical of Wales he is sometimes right.
Wales is partially responsible for attracting some of criticisms leveled against him. The rather extravagant use of the Wikimedia expense account, that has been both widely documented and criticised (he once, unsuccessfully, attempted to charge a $1,300 dinner for four to the account) is one factor. It has long…
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The folks at Facebook have had a busy week. They began with announcing a forthcoming data portability product called Facebook Connect, (which marks the abandonment of their fundamental ‘walled garden’ approach to user data management) and then went on to ban Google’s own data portability service (Friend Connect) from their Facebook API, stating a violation of terms of use as the reason.
Some bloggers and commentators have been contemplating if this might mark a new phase in the development of social networking, with the earlier co-existence of the main players now giving way to a more open tug-of-war for market share. After all, new user uptake is slowing down, and one way for social networking sites to continue to grow will…
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This week saw Myspace win a huge victory against junk mail in the form of a record £120m legal judgement against two spammers. Their press sources are claiming this represents the beginning of a serious spam crackdown. For many however, the question remains; is this genuinely likely prove an effective example in curtailing spam, or simply turn out to be yet another high-profile waste of time?
Parallels with the record industry’s efforts to discourage illegal downloading with much-publicised lawsuits come to mind. Despite generating quite a few short term headlines, the lawsuits rarely achieved their purpose of scaring downloaders into paying or abstaining. The odds of getting caught were simply far too remote to warrant desisting.
In the case of Myspace spammers…
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