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April 30, 2007

Lone Rangers in Cyberspace: How Can we Protect Ourselves?

I've spent the last few days trying desperately to get into my hotmail account and being unable to do so. That irksome error message -- this page cannot be displayed -- is so exasperatingly embedded in my brain that I've caught the words dancing unrestrainedly through my head on the long subway ride to and from work.

The sneak preview of new email messages that MSN tantalizingly flashes at me when I sign onto messenger is the closest I can get to finding out who responded to my Craigslist posts, what my dad had to say about yesterday's abominable cricket final, whether my movie plans for tonight have been confirmed, and of course who posted on my Facebook wall. My whole week (not to mention my mood) is affected; this currently ranks pretty high on my list of the most inconvenient of inconveniences.

Wondering about how I -- a single individual -- am so disturbed by this temporary (I hope) lapse in one of my daily communication mechanisms leads me to marvel at the inordinately high levels of my dependence on my email, my cell phone, the Internet, and basically any form of digital communication/information gathering in general. It also leads me to wonder about the effect that such lapses can have on larger groups and their ability to function.

Continue reading "Lone Rangers in Cyberspace: How Can we Protect Ourselves?"

Posted by Saabira Chaudhuri at 3:36 PM | 3 Comments

April 27, 2007

Inside "Inside Facebook"

One of the nice thing about being a magazine writer who also has access to a clean, well-lighted space on the internet, is that I get to resurrect some of tasty tidbits of reporting which get cut in the often brutal process of making words fit into the time/space continuum of magazine-making. There were many people who contributed to my understanding of the Facebook phenomenon and who didn’t make it into print; one of my clear favorites is former Facebook senior engineer Karel Baloun.

Baloun was an interesting and generous source, and spent a lot of time helping me grasp the many personalities behind the company. (It was Baloun that tipped me off to the anecdote that became the lede to the magazine piece.)

He’d been one of ten engineers hired in May 2005, right after the $12.7 million Accel Partners cash infusion, when the 790 day old company had grown to accommodate a heady 800 college networks, and was still called thefacebook.com. One of the engineers hired along with him was Steve Chen, who would leave the company a few months later to found YouTube. (Follow the networking ball: Baloun was recruited by Matt Cohler through a trusted connection via LinkedIn. Those playing along at home will remember that Cohler had been working at LinkedIn with investor Peter Thiel when Mark Zuckerberg came in for his first pitch meeting in the summer of 2004. Cohler joined the company shortly thereafter, as VP of pretty much everything.)

The Accel cash meant new blood, but it also meant that the small, ragged band of coding brothers who’d been building the site on rickety furniture from rented flats around the area would have to give up their alt.business creds and move into real offices. Sort of. In a self-published eBook called “Inside Facebook,” Baloun has fun describing the casual nature of the early Facebook as they adjusted to their new space on University Avenue inPalo Alto. “Zuck would come into the office, and seeing every chair full, just lie down on the thin carpet on his belly, sandals flapping, and start typing into his little white Mac iBook.” There’s lots of “history of the product” stuff in there too; Facebook job-seekers will no doubt get a kick out of that.

There’s quite a bit of friendly dish in the book as well. For example, Baloun believes that Chen was looking to create, ramp up and sell a company from the get-go. “Steve was looking at two choices: be a critical early success at a succeeding start-up (since he’d done that before at Paypal) or start his own company with his buddy Chad.” In a funny passage, Baloun describes counseling Chen to stick with the steady paycheck of Facebook, since he’d just bought an expensive condo in San Francisco. “But when I talked to him about the risks of adjustable rate mortgages… his mind was obviously somewhere else. His vision had him worth millions.” Sixteen months later, YouTube had a $1.65 billion pricetag, and Chen was victorious. Baloun recalls good-naturedly, “I laugh to myself how insistent we were that he personally return his corporate laptop!”

Baloun is a soft-spoken, introspective man, who recalls feeling a bit like an elder statesman among such young talent. In the book, he takes the opportunity to share his philosophies about life, family, start-ups, materialism and how technology is changing the world. Baloun, a former LookSmart engineer, also shares his 1.0 battle scars. “One fond LookSmart memory is of an executive at an all-hands Q&A session in mid-1999, at an expensive San Francisco hotel ballroom, being asked about purchasing Google. He replied that such a move would dilute LookSmart’s stock.” Ouch. But in between philosophizing and reminiscing, Baloun makes a similar point as early Facebook investor Peter Thiel does in the magazine piece – that the Facebook founders’ youth is an asset, not a liability. “I loved my early Facebook days so much because Zuck and company were completely oblivious to [sic] cynicism and therefore immune to being paralyzed by it. I have some lingering business cynicism shared by many late-nineties dotcom investors and one canine sock puppet…”

Baloun left Facebook after nearly a year - both he and the Facebook crew are politely vague about why - but each recalls the other fondly and clearly wish each other well. In fact, Baloun is a frequent contributor to many online conversations on the future of Facebook.

Baloun has moved on to other projects. He’s launched ptrades.com, a niche social site for commodity traders to experiment with free paper trades. “It applies the strengths of web2.0 community to a financial application - members can see what other successful traders are doing and why.” He’s also built a social web application “on which I'm launching half a dozen niche sites this year.”

But one of the things he misses, I bet, is the Mexican hot chocolate over at the Coupa Café, where Facebookers occasionally spend too much time. It was one of a series of recommendations he made to me which were gratefully received.

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Posted by Ellen McGirt at 4:39 PM | 4 Comments

ad:tech SF: The Digital Decade

On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to conduct the ad:tech San Francisco opening keynote interview with aQuantive CEO Brian McAndrews. In "The Digital Decade: What the Past 5 Years Can Teach Us About the Next 5," McAndrews discussed surviving the bust, the difference in this Web boom vs the last, mergers & acquisitions within the marketing/advertising industry, as well as the affects of social media and mobile on marketing.

Of note was McAndrews statement that all media would be going digital in the next five years.

“I think we’ll be a lot closer to all digital in the next five years,” Mr. McAndrews said. “The market will be significantly larger, and it is our belief is that ultimately all media will become digital. The biggest medium of all, television, will become digital. The Internet is the beginning, but it is still one channel.” (via DM News)

As for the future of marketing on mobile, he said:

"There's a healthy tension between advertisers and agencies on the one hand -- who want to push publishers for standards -- but on the other hand, advertisers want innovation and for publishers to give them creative ideas. I think a mistake can be made if we try to format mobile too quickly." (via iMedia Connection)

Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 1:34 PM | 1 Comment

April 26, 2007

"Idol" Empire Shares Fortune

If you weren't one of the 30 million people that typically tune into "American Idol" every week, then maybe you will be pleasantly surprised to hear that the show's executives are giving back some of their good fortune. Finally. For the first time in the show's six-season history, this week's broadcast was dedicated to a charitable cause. The special two-night "Idol Gives Back" segment was a huge, star-studded fundraising effort to help children living in extreme poverty in the U.S. and Africa.

On Tuesday, the night of the contestants' performances, "American Idol" teamed up with its sponsors -- Coca-Cola, AT&T and Ford -- who pledged to donate a certain amount of money for every vote cast. Last night, host Ryan Seacrest announced that over 70 million votes were tallied. On Wednesday night, the show was filled with singing performances by Celine Dion, Josh Groban, Earth, Wind and Fire, Annie Lennox, among others, along with video messages from celebrities and segments showing the Idol judges visiting some of the most impoverished places in Africa and the United States, including New Orleans.

There were many opportunities for viewers to donate money--some as easy as downloading the contestants' performances on iTunes, another brand that was giving proceeds to the number of charity funds designated on the show. By the end of last night, the show had raised a reported $30 million.

So, now is the time to confess that I was watching, and as I was sitting in front of my TV last night, I couldn't decide whether I was annoyed or genuinely moved. Watching Simon Cowell in the video montages of the suffering children (while an inspirational song played in the background) I couldn't help but feel that the message was a little sensationalized. It's hard not to want to bash "Idol" for tooting its own horn sometimes. But then I think, so what? If a brand as influential -- and with as much voting power -- as "American Idol" wants to build itself up even more by doing good, who is really going to fight that?

It's not like the American public doesn't know that there is suffering in the world, we just choose to care more about other things, like a singing talent show. Regardless of their methods, recognizing how much influence their show can have on people's actions is exactly where "American Idol" went right. As much as we don't want to admit it, sometimes we need that extra push, and "American Idol" is exactly the kind of show that can make people feel empowered.

Did you watch? What did you think?

Posted by Tamara Schweitzer at 4:56 PM | 9 Comments

The Marketing of Menstruation

"The curse, on the rag, my Aunt Flo is coming to visit." Call it what you will, but periods have been a dirty word, cloaked in shame and secrecy, since way before the first tampon ads in the late 20's or early 30's.

[Now just to come clean, I co-wrote a paper in the journal "Sex Roles," which was presented at the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research conference]

Since my days of researching women's reactions to their periods and the messages they receive through the media, school, and even their mothers regarding menstruation, I have been suspicious about the marketing of women's menstrual cycles. The commercials, showing a woman in a white skirt or white shorts playing tennis and hoping no one notices her tampon or pad, haven’t changed much. In fact, the only difference is that over the years the menstrual pads have gotten smaller, the shorts and skirts have gotten shorter, and the contempt towards menstruation has become more overt.

Continue reading "The Marketing of Menstruation"

Posted by Ruthie Ackerman at 4:52 PM | 2 Comments

Take Our Kids To Work Day Guest Blogger

Today the children of Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, Inc.com and FastCompany.com have gathered at the offices shared by their parents for annual Take Our Kids to Work day. These kids who are of a variety of different ages have spent the morning seeing what it's like to work at a magazine or website. So far they've toured the office, made their own magazines (with pictures of themselves on the cover), had a pizza lunch, colored t-shirts and learned magic tricks from Dylan Fitch (Executive Producer). We even got to interview the staff on video camera. They plan to spend the rest of the day here with their parents at Mansueto Digital.

Posted by Mia Feldman at 3:02 PM | 10 Comments

Pop!Tech Pop!Casts free for all

Last year’s PopTech! Conference featured an astounding line-up of great speakers: Tom Friedman, Brian Eno, Richard Dawkins, Thomas Barnett, and Juan Enriquez among them. All that cranium-cramming stuff was deliciously leavened with right-brain relief, from the likes of comedian and musician Reggie Watts, the Sinikithemba Choir, and my favorite, the Mexican thrash guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela. For those of us lucky enough to be in the room, it was a mind-bending event.

But here’s the problem with PopTech!: it’s held in the Opera House in Camden, a lovely little venue, but not exactly Madison Square Garden in terms of capacity. As word of this conference grows, and more and more people jockey for one of the 500 spaces, a growing number end up languishing on the waiting list. It’s gotten to be like scoring a ticket to a Stones concert. (and, at $3495 a seat, costs about as much) Can PopTech! scalpers be far behind?

But, taking a page from their concert-promoting brethren, PopTech! organizers are fielding a “Live at PopTech!” batch of videos so that those who didn’t make it to Maine in October can still have the pleasure of sampling the event. (The other alternative for this year: rent a room in a B&B in Camden during the conference. PopTech! broadcasts live on local access cable, so you could watch the whole thing from the comfort of your bed.)

Take a look – or, rather, a listen, to the whole range of delights – the PopTech! Popcasts -- on the conference’s site. It’s all free! Load ‘em on your iPod. Share ‘em with your friends. Sign up for the RSS feed so you can get notice of new ones as soon as they’re posted.

Meanwhile, they’re already taking reservations for this year’s event, whose theme will be the impact human beings have on the world (and each other.) The organizers plan to take a deep look at where ideas come from, exploring startling new scientific insights into the mind and brain, and examining the origins of creativity, innovation, and the essence of human nature.

If you’re serious about going, you might want to sign up soon.

Posted by Linda Tischler at 2:09 PM | Add Comment

HSBC Bank Giving the Green Away

"How many lightbulbs does it take to change the environment?" I heard these words this morning while getting dressed. This radio commercial from international bank HSBC was pushing a new initiative to give "Green Kits" to its customers. Another commercial stated that if everyone in American recycled 10% of their newspapers, we would save 25 million trees each year.

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Posted by Kevin Ohannessian at 1:37 PM | Add Comment

Free Expression? Heavy Price...

At a meeting yesterday of China’s Communist Party Politburo, President Hu Jintao warned that more stringent controls on internet content must be put into place. Over the last week, the Chinese media has been leading a campaign to underscore the negative effects of “unhealthy” internet content. It’s no news to anyone that in large part the “healthiness” of online content is defined according to the parameters of what the Communist Chinese government finds palatable.

Last year a report published by Reporters Without Borders revealed that more than 60 “cyber dissidents” in China are in jail for comments they made online. According to an Amnesty International spokesperson, some of those imprisoned have been jailed for offenses as petty as disseminating information about the SARS virus or signing an online petition.

The country uses key word blocking technology to restrict access to “dangerous” websites (including the BBC’s and Wikipedia,) and monitors cyber café activity by taking screen shots at periodic intervals.

The internet was ignored for a long time, as governments focused more on print journalists, authors, and real live protesters rather than those prominent in movements centered on cyber specific dissent in the form of blogging or online petitions. Of late however, conservative governments have woken up to the dangers that the unbounded nature of the internet poses to their regimes. Write a piece or stage a protest in cyberspace, and all of a sudden you’re gathering support from England, Australia, and even Sri Lanka.

I personally believe that the Chinese will continue to find a way around these regulations, and that cyber dissidents, although quashed temporarily, won’t be easily eliminated. In cyberspace, rules can be broken far more easily, and innovation is proceeding at a far quicker pace than in real life.

Just as digital rights management technology is constantly being eroded by a few small groups who circumvent the latest DRM protection, the efforts on the part of the Chinese government to control access to content could also be eroded by a motivated few. The BBC lists sites like Peacefire, Anonymizer and WebWarper, which aid in circumventing blocking technologies.

Earlier this year, Microsoft, Yahoo, Cisco Systems, and Google were accused in a Congressional hearing of censoring internet content in order to be able to enter the Chinese market. There are two sides to this issue- both of which have some credit to them.

The first, advocated by politicians like Tom Lantos, condemns Google and the rest. This side accuses the corporations of caving to Beijing’s demands for their own selfish business incentives without any sense of social responsibility. The second, advocated by the relevant corporations and their supporters, is that it is better to offer the Chinese some access to information than restrict their opportunity to interact with the world outside China by denying them of their services altogether. This side could conceivably argue that they are in fact facilitating a movement toward democracy within China by allowing some exchange of information as opposed to a total ban.

Whatever stance one takes, the situation at hand is a real eye-opener regarding the power that the Chinese government has gained over the content that enters and leaves the country. As China’s economic influence continues to increase, it is extremely important for democratic governments that have relations with China to not buckle under pressure. It is just as important for us, as citizens of less restrictive states, to not ignore the fact that “free” expression comes at a heavy price for many.

Posted by Saabira Chaudhuri at 11:15 AM | Add Comment

April 25, 2007

Caught by a Queen

I have gotten some interesting comments on a post I wrote last week about internet safety. One parent urged other parents to try posing as a "hottie" online to see how their child responds. While another young adult found this to be the end of good parent/child communication. Regardless of who you agree with, there are people out there who are trying to catch child predators through this method. One of the most famous people to lure in the bad guys is now-reformed Miss America, Lauren Nelson. Nelson did a recent stint with the Suffolk County police to lure online predators to a house where police were waiting. The results of her efforts will be aired on America's Most Wanted.

Posted by Lisa LaMotta at 3:22 PM | 3 Comments

We've Been Nominated for an EPpy Award

FastCompany.com and its sister site Inc.com have both been nominated as finalists for the Best National Magazine-Affiliated Web Site 2007 EPpy Award.

The 2007 EPpy Awards, which are sponsored by Editor & Publisher and MediaWeek magazines. The finalists were announced today. EPpy winners will be revealed at the Interactive Media Conference and Trade Show in Miami on May 24.

The 2007 EPpy Awards competition is expressly designed to honor Internet sites that are affiliated with the media industry, and especially newspapers, television networks and affiliates, radio networks, syndicated shows, local radio stations, and magazines.

Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 12:44 PM | Add Comment

Is California Sacrificing Green for Green?

In hindsight, the cover line of Fast Company's "The Fast 50" issue (March) says it all. California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Green Ultimatum Will Create Huge New Markets Across California".

Key word: across

California is fast-tracking several big alternative-energy projects in the southernmost quarter of the state costing $4 billion. A proposal to build power lines, substations, and transmission towers through a national forest, two wildlife preserves, and a rural village used in TV and cinema westerns has provoked the ire of environmental groups even as authorities say no final decisions have been made, reports The Christian Science Monitor:

Continue reading "Is California Sacrificing Green for Green?"

Posted by Alex Pasquariello at 12:18 PM | Add Comment

April 24, 2007

University Blogging

On April 16 the Boston Globe reported that college admissions offices have begun to use student-written blogs as a medium to entice potential applicants. These blogs are not what you might think. They do not necessarily come off cheery and in total praise of the school. The example the Globe used was one of the blogs on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology admissions page written by a student named Lulu Liu.

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Posted by Ryan Derousseau at 5:21 PM | 2 Comments

The Vision Thing

Here’s a cool new book that has nothing to do with business, but a lot to do with vision. "Seeing Beyond Sight: Photographs by Blind Teenagers," is out this month from Chronicle Books. It was created by Tony Deifell, a visual artist and social entrepreneur whom I’ve met through his work as chief strategist for Kaboom!, a past winner of our Social Capitalist Awards.

Continue reading "The Vision Thing"

Posted by Keith Hammonds at 1:24 PM | 2 Comments

Office Space: The Shwag (finally)

A mere eight years after the blockbuster movie, ThinkGeek brings us "The Office Space Kit." Included: One red stapler (of course); one Initech mug; 5 TPS Report cover sheets; a "PC Load Letter" copy machine sticker; a starter flair; and various other stuff.

One has to wonder: Did it take 20th Century Fox this long to figure out it had an underground hit on its hands? Its lawyers spent eight years working out the licensing terms? Does this mean that a sequel might finally be in the works? (Please, no…)

Posted by Keith Hammonds at 9:38 AM | 2 Comments

Green v. Green

Get ready: The green-web-portal wars are set to begin!

In this corner, from Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, it's Sprig! It's an "online publication for the smart, sophisticated, and eco-conscious woman. As green moves into the mainstream, Sprig [run by former Newsweek editor Mark Whittaker] answers the consumer demand for eco-friendly choices without sacrifice, offering fashion, beauty, lifestyle, food and home trends, profiles and news with a touch of 'green.' "

Continue reading "Green v. Green"

Posted by Keith Hammonds at 9:32 AM | 5 Comments

April 23, 2007

Facebook and Virginia Tech: A New Normal

In the hours, now days, following the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech, this blog, as well as numerous outlets, chronicled the role of Facebook and other online media sites in the lives of those affected. First, information about the event and -I'm alive! - declarations spread between Virginia Tech students and their loved ones. In some cases, Facebook was the only source of information available. Later, funeral plans were shared. The site also become a resource for news media, who gleaned intimate details about the victims from their profiles, and in some cases, broadcast information on-air and online which was intended to remain private. (The Facebook communications staff spent a brutal forty-eight hours policing their privacy policy and violations thereof.) Now, Facebook profiles of the deceased victims have been transformed into dynamic shrines, where friends can continue to post messages of sadness and tribute. And there are also more than 500 global groups which any registered Facebook user can join to share messages of support, tribute, outrage, activism or grief.

Today, as classes resume, the Virginia Tech students, faculty, family and community are struggling to carry on in the wake of something terrible, a brave attempt at a new normal, invented one halting step at a time.

But the new normal of a digital age adds an additional, and often mind-bending, element to the attempt to make sense of a world gone temporarily mad. Consider the killer’s first victim, nineteen year old Emily Jane Hilscher. Within hours of her murder, Hilscher had become the subject of gossip and conjecture on The Drudge Report, among other sites, due to early speculation that she was Cho Seung-Hui's girlfriend.

Her friends, certain that they knew the facts of the matter, immediately set up a Facebook global group, Truth For Emily Hilscher, to defend her honor, and that of her actual boyfriend, who had become a person of interest in the moments after the shooting. (The police have since confirmed that Hilscher had no mutual relationship with Cho, though police are searching to see if he had contacted her via phone or e-mail. And because her own boyfriend, Karl Thornhill, was an early suspect, it may have lead to the speculation that this had been some sort of love triangle.) Like the other victims, she is now the focus of many Facebook memorial groups. One particularly poignant one, which I won’t name, opens with a pointed message to the media not to contact group members or quote from the site. Hilscher - and her story - also became a Wikipedia entry. (It’s since been expanded to include all the victims.)

In this case, the ability to set a record straight is encouraging. But in others – like the false profiles of the killer which popped up across social media sites – remain more disheartening, and familiar examples of the madness of crowds on high-speed. And still others, like mydeathspace.com – a macabre portal of publicly available information about myspace members who have died – are just too creepy to discuss. (They’ve been offering premium memberships since March. Woohoo.)

And as if things weren’t bad enough, the notorious Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church, famous for their bile-filled, anti-gay rhetoric, threatened to picket any Virginia Tech funerals. The organization, which is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, runs two websites, GodHatesFags.com and GodHatesAmerica.com. They have become known for staging protests at events such as funerals for military service personnel, because they believe, among other things, that random violence and war related deaths are God’s wrath against homosexuality.

Again, Facebook users spread the word. The group - Stop Fred Phelps and the WBC from protesting at fallen VT student funerals!! alerted community members to the threat, and circulated a petition of protest. Something worked. From the group's profile page: “Through some influence of this group or just the willpower and prayers of 50,000+ people, the WBC was STOPPED. They will not be picketing any Virginia Tech victims funerals.”

The public outcry, quite likely fed by online protests like those found on Facebook, brought the issue to the attention of radio talk show host Mike Gallagher, who offered the WBC airtime to spew their viewpoints, in exchange for leaving the mourners in peace. (He did the something similar after the WBC threatened to disrupt mourners after the Amish school shooting last October.) The terms of the negotiation was announced on the WBC’s own website:

Westboro Baptist Church hereby cancels all pending pickets, and agrees not to schedule future pickets, related to The Virginia Tech Massacre, on the following terms and conditions; to wit: In consideration for 3 hours of national radio time with Mike Gallagher on his National Radio Show -- next Tuesday, April 24, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon New York time -- Westboro Baptist Church has agreed to cancel all pickets now pending and not to schedule future pickets related to The Virginia Tech Massacre.

Gallagher’s statement on why he agreed to give them airtime can be found here. (Note: Gallagher's producer has since contacted me by e-mail to let me know that Gallagher also monitors the WBC website, so he knew of the threat to picket in advance of the public outcry.)

So while all of this rightly inspires debate on the role of social media in the modern world, it’s also a deeply practical matter for a fairly hefty segment of the Facebook employee base, the customer service department. And since I’m in full Facebook mode these days, I thought I’d share some insight into what they do all day, since when things go wrong with the site, or in the lives of their users, they are often the first to know.

In addition to fielding basic requests for assistance, password resetting, help using the site, etc., the fifty person customer service team also handles issues of abuse - everything from inappropriate posts and privacy violations to the appeals queue, where you end up if you’ve had your account taken away and are attempting to wheedle your way back on. (Good luck. I’ve met Simon. He’s heard it all before.) And in times of trouble, like these, the assistance they offer is far more intimate.

“We have had an unusually busy week,” allows Tom LeNoble, the director of customer service. A spike in user traffic would mean a related rise in customer service requests. But some of it has also been making themselves available to customers who need to connect. "Our users have expressed how much they appreciated Facebook during this horrific event as it, at times, was their only means of correspondence. They used Facebook mainly to let each other know they were ‘ok’.”

Let’s be clear: Any doubt that Facebook doesn’t take its business seriously is erased with one visit to the customer service floor. Leadership is a big part: LeNoble is a preternaturally calm man, with a soothing voice and just enough of a southern twang to make you want to curl up with a bowl of biscuits and gravy. But his easy-going manner masks a serious corporate vitae. He ran global service operations for Palm, supervised customer service for walmart.com and ran customer service consumer sales and support for MCI, among other things. Tapped by a venture capital "friend" to check out the growing business, LeNoble had never heard of Facebook when he showed up, in a suit, for his interview in November 2005. (Networking alert: Jim Breyer of Accel, a Facebook investor, is also a board member of walmart.com) Their original offices, which had been covered in murals (and are about to be again) were a surprise. “I thought I’d walked into a restaurant”. Zuckerberg appeared in t-shirt, shorts and his trademark sandals. “I was clearly overdressed,” LeNoble says.

Unlike the engineering area, the customer service space is relatively clear of food, debris and all-nighter clutter. But the talent pool in the department (some are pictured) is just as impressive as the wizards who stay up late. The nearly 50 reps are all college educated, mostly from top shelf universities. (As I mentioned in the piece, my back of the envelope calculation suggests that there is about five million dollars worth of tuition handling customer service at Facebook.) And they are hiring aggressively – there will be 100 reps by the end of the year. All are former Facebook users, and all have to pass a fairly rigorous screening and orientation before they are set loose upon the Facebook community.

They also play a role - about a third of their time - conducting quality control analyses or research on various products, for example, on how search works on the Facebook site. Or, they may be asked to do a competitive analysis on other social networking sites. “We spend a good deal of time generating information internally for our engineers and developers.”

But there’s no way to get a Facebook customer service rep on the phone under normal circumstances. If it’s a real emergency, it will be LeNoble’s voice that you hear. He’ll get on the phone with frightened parents looking to understand more about what Facebook actually is, although he won’t let them into their kid’s site. Occasionally, it’s more serious. “I deal with a few suicides a week,” he says, through the National Suicide Hotline, occasionally he’ll need to contact the Center for Exploited and Missing Children or some other authority “but those numbers are small in comparison to the number of users we have and also other sites.”

The past few week, of course, has been dominated by the shooting. And LeNoble is characteristically circumspect about how they’ve been handling things. But he's clearly been working the phones and supporting his team. “The CS team, being so close to the demographic impacted, felt very compassionate and concerned for everyone involved…the victims, their families and friends,” he wrote me in a recent e-mail. The company sent out an announcement of sympathy that topped the News Feed for all Virginia Tech network users (39,000+). “And on Friday we changed the colors on the Virginia Tech network to maroon and orange in support.” But when any user dies, “we memorialize the account” says LeNoble, which protects the user’s privacy, while allowing their friends to continue to visit the profile and “post on the wall to express thoughtful comments.” (They have plenty of active military members, so they've had a bit of experience with this.) And with so many deaths happening at once, falling within Facebook’s chief demograpic, the growth of the memorial sites seems nothing short of amazing. “This clearly has become part of the grieving process for many,” write LeNoble.

Thanks to this digital world, now anyone can say - "today, we are all hokies" - and expect that the message will be heard swiftly and personally. That may be one of the more beautiful elements of the new normal.

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Posted by Ellen McGirt at 5:03 PM | 1 Comment

April 20, 2007

My Week on MySpace

Yesterday, I wrote a blog post about the safety of social networks. I would personally like to rescind that and talk about how I have since been violated by the lack of security on MySpace. While I am still a firm believer in Facebook and the precautions that site takes to protect its users, my prior apprehensions about joining MySpace have been reaffirmed by today's events. (Prior qualms included lack of security and overabundance of advertising)

I logged on to MySpace this morning as I have been everyday this week. It was becoming as natural as checking my email every morning and I was finally starting to grasp some of the nuances of using the site. Although, I quickly became frustrated when I could not post a comment to a friend's wall and the site continued to redirect me back to my homepage. That is where I found the message from "Tom", the universal MySpace friend, that has set this blog in motion.

Continue reading "My Week on MySpace"

Posted by Lisa LaMotta at 4:36 PM | 15 Comments

"Pimp My Ride" Goes Green with Governor Schwarzenegger

With a little help from California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, MTV and the "Pimp My Ride" crew prove that going green can get extreme.

As part of a very special Earth Day episode airing April 22nd at 1 pm ET/PT, Governor Schwarzenegger visits Xzibit, Mad Mike, and the entire "Pimp My Ride" crew at G.A.S. (Galpin Auto Sports), as they take aim on a '65 Chevy Impala, and give it a one of a kind ecological alteration. Ultimately proving that power and preservation can co-exist thanks to partners at Galpin, Imperium Renewables, General Motors and others, the Impala gets an 800 horsepower diesel engine that will run on biodiesel, turning it into one extraordinary clean machine.

"I would like to thank MTV and the entire "Pimp my Ride" crew for shining the spotlight on the importance of alternative fuels and the fight against global warming. I am very encouraged by the great potential in converting vehicles to run on biodiesel as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said Governor Schwarzenegger. "I am pleased that the power of MTV's message will reach an audience throughout California and the nation to reinforce the benefits of alternative-fuel vehicles and protecting our environment."

Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 2:09 PM | 9 Comments

Disaster-proofing our Lives? Technology on High-Alert

Hindsight is always 20-20. In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings this week, many questions have been raised about whether this tragedy could have been prevented to some extent by better campus communication. The answer that several technology and security companies are giving is that the severity of the situation could have been lessened by new technologies that can quickly alert thousands of people to dangerous situations.

While purchasing a program that is capable of mobile alerts may have previously been considered an excess to institutions and large corporations, I have a feeling that many of these organizations will start to make them a necessity. I have come across two companies -- First Mobile Alert and Send Word Now -- that have emerged this week highlighting their disaster-alerting technology.

Both companies provide similar automated services that are capable of sending a message out to several thousand mobile devices or e-mail addresses at once and in a matter of minutes. This kind of service would not just be a benefit to Universities, but it would also make a lot of sense for corporations that might need to get time sensitive information out to employees. I hope these companies start getting some much-deserved attention.

Continue reading "Disaster-proofing our Lives? Technology on High-Alert"

Posted by Tamara Schweitzer at 1:51 PM | 2 Comments

April 19, 2007

Is "Green" the New Organic?

Vanity Fair is doing it. The Week is doing it. Even Wal-Mart is doing it. Everyone is going green. So, here's a riddle for you: When is green no longer green? Answer: When it's a green marketing machine.

Just like organic, someone obviously got the memo that green is the trend du jour. And many companies jumped on the bandwagon because green wasn't just good business practice, but it made dollars and cents.

But now that the buzz about green has reached a critical mass, the consumer no longer knows who's green or what green even means? And that's exactly the point I'm afraid. If no one knows what green is, then anyone and everyone can say they're green and no one can tell the difference. And it's oh-so-PC right now to say we're green because who doesn't want to breathe clean air and drink clean water and save the planet for their children. Even the most anti-green of businesses and politicians know that green is good for them.

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Posted by Ruthie Ackerman at 3:11 PM | 5 Comments

MySafety: Teen Privacy on MySpace

In the era of social networks, many media outlets have focused on issues of privacy and it is not uncommon to hear older adults aghast at what kids or younger adults like myself make available as public information. Kids are putting there sexual orientation out there for anyone to see, posting every up and down in their relationships, and showcasing pictures of drunken nights in places like MySpace and Facebook.

I have been a member of Facebook since 2004 and recently caved to some friendly peer-pressure and joined the MySpace revolution. As someone who is so visible online I sometimes feel that the whole world can follow my every move. I often worry about what a potential employer might think or if some creepy person is checking me out without my knowledge. It makes me feel safer to know that these sites have given me the resources to only let certain people become part of my cyber life. (Although I find Facebook's privacy settings a little more secure than MySpace). While I do put a lot of personal information on these sites, I think I've been careful not to post anything I wouldn't feel comfortable with my mom viewing (the ultimate test of decency in my eyes).

The Pew Research Center has been concerned about the same issues and released a study this week from the Pew Internet and American Life Project that focuses on what teens are doing to protect their privacy in the Internet world and if they even consider things like privacy as they pimp out pages on MySpace with the latest design or widget.

Continue reading "MySafety: Teen Privacy on MySpace"

Posted by Lisa LaMotta at 11:24 AM | 4 Comments

Greener Mountain Coffee

"How can we even think of saving chimpanzees if the humans around them are struggling to survive?" That was the question posed by Dr. Jane Goodall, who's devoted 47 years of her life studying chimps in the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, and who's finding ways to help both now through the sales of specialty grounds through Green Mountain Coffee. Yep, that ever-green staple of overcaffeinated eco-conscious consumers has found a new champion in one of the most renowned anthropologists this side of Louis Leakey.

I know what you're saying: Who hasn't written about using one of the vices of the first world to help improve the fortunes of the Third World? And I don't mean this. We've all heard about fair-trade coffee now, even written about it in this magazine. So it was nice to see a new take on an old idea.

Fifteen years ago, Goodall flew over the park, and was shocked to see the rampant deforestation in the areas immediately surrounding it, especially in the higher elevations. Not only did this cause massive erosion, but it also isolated the chimps into "islands," lessening their chances of survival, especially considering their numbers have dwindled from more than a million in the '60s to around 150,000 today.
But the deforestation is caused by the poverty of the local population, who, trying to eke out a living, use the trees for firewood. So her institute set about looking for ways to help them as a way to indirectly help the chimps, through microcredit loans to education to farmland revitalization projects.

During this process, she also discovered that Tanzanian coffee growers in the area were producing some high-quality beans near the park, but due to the remoteness of the area and the market economics, were mixing them with lower-quality beans and selling them to middlemen in bulk.

Not only do these beans grow best at higher elevations adjacent to the park, but they also thrive when partially shaded by other trees. By incentivising the growers to cultivate more of these beans, it would also encourage them to reforest the areas around the park, effectively giving the chimps a little more breathing room, and acting as a natural buffer between them and the local villages. So the Jane Goodall Institute found a partner in Green Mountain Coffee who buys the beans directly from the growers, and has created a special line called "Gombe Mountain Reserve."

During her talk, Goodall proved to be a very charming and funny woman. She described her early interest in primates and Africa was sparked when she was a child and was regaled by tales of Tarzan. "Of course he married that other, stupid Jane," she said. After promoting the partnership with Green Mountain, Goodall, a coffee lover herself, gamely demonstrated to the room full of reporters how she filters coffee in a pinch by using her pantyhose. When you're out in the jungle that long, you've got to get creative.

And the coffee? Not bad, but then, for $17.95 for 12 ounces, it'd better be good.

Posted by Michael Prospero at 10:52 AM | Add Comment

min day summit 2007 Wake-Up Call

Here at the MinOnline min day summit in New York at the Grand Hyatt Hotel where George Janson, managing partner, director of print, Mediaedge:cia, stood in front of a room full of magazine and advertising professionals to share insights and suggestions on magazines' "next practices" online from a media buyer's perspective.

Some of the highlights of his 15-minute talk focused on magazine's creating integrated plans that truly offer value to both the reader and the advertiser. He said that people in the magazine industry should stop focusing so much attention on booking banner ads on their sites that interrupt the reader's experience, and start thinking about bringing clients into their sites in a manner that enables the reader to get involved -- such as sponsoring content like polls, quizzes, contests, and mobile messaging programs. But one caveat -- the program has to make since for your site and meet the client's needs.

Janson also stressed that when creating content, editors should focus on the reader. In the end, the advertiser will only be interested in supporting content that's going to be successful on your site. This brings me to another point that Janson made -- that advertising be contextual. Not just text and banner ads that are contextual, but also video ads. He suggested that pre-roll video may not necessarily be the only and best solution for video advertising and that there's room to be more creative and innovative about making this work.

The rest of the day here at min day summit looks like this...

Continue reading "min day summit 2007 Wake-Up Call"

Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 8:50 AM | Add Comment

April 18, 2007

Garage Shop Innovation

Too much experience, too much familiarity, or too much money can kill innovation fast, observes Richard Watson in his latest Innovation Resource Center Column. That's why game-changing ideas tend to come from a lone inventor or two in a cramped garage.

Read Watson's latest column, "Garage Shop Innovation," to learn more about "Trends that occur at an intersection of other trends may also turn into megatrends, which are the key disrupters and drivers of innovation and change across all industries."

Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 7:17 PM | Add Comment

Community Censorship

Is free speech an absolute right in online communities? Yes, suggest Resource Center Columnists David Teten and Scott Allen -- but community owners have the right to establish and enforce codes of conduct.

Read Teten and Allen's latest column to learn more about "Free Speech and Censorship in Online Communities."

Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 7:13 PM | 1 Comment

April 17, 2007

Next Level DVD Bootlegging

Maybe I have the wrong idea about SSupload, a video sharing and uploading community made possible by EntertaimentScripts.com, a Web development company that creates advanced scripts for webmasters seeking to generate revenue from entertainment websites.

Visiting SSupload is like going to your neighborhood barbershop on Saturday and watching a movie that just came out on Friday. And the quality of many of the videos are just as bad as the ones you find street bootleggers hawking. Yes, you'll miss several minutes of the movie when someone decides to go to the bathroom or to the concession stand for a snack. We should've figured that eventually someone would have done something illegal with movies beyond P2P or Torrents.

The truth is, though the site's treading on some serious legal ground, is it any different than what sites like IMEEM or esnips offer? The ability to share content, without the ability to download. There's a constant thread with most of these sites, most of the community is sharing content that doesn't even belong to them. It's how YouTube got popular -- with clips from The Daily Show and SNL. And in this case, there's competition facing the distribution deals that entertainment companies have made with the likes of Bittorrent, Amazon, Netflix.com, and iTunes, or even Joost.

The old adage, "If you build it, they will come," is certainly true in this case. People always want something for nothing. And the same way that offline bootleggers continue to exist, so will the online ones. It's just that in the case of online, entertainment media companies have a better shot at making a partner out of a criminal.

Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 8:51 PM | 5 Comments

ATV Training Wheels

Over 40,000 children injure themselves every year from riding all-terrain vehicles. Manufacturers want to appease parents concerns about this number, and the solution proposed; make children vehicles bigger and faster, according to the Wall Street Journal. (Subscription required)

The manufacturers believe if there was a larger, faster vehicle available for children above 14, then the teenagers would not switch to an adult vehicle so early. The article says 90% of the injuries occur while a kid rides an adult ATV, which can go faster than 70 miles per hour and weigh over 600 pounds. The kids are not ready for the size of the machine which leads to crashes. This opens the door for the “Y-14 model.” It has a top speed of 38 mph and weighs less than 500 lbs.

Continue reading "ATV Training Wheels"

Posted by Ryan Derousseau at 12:39 PM | Add Comment

Virginia Tech--and America--Mourn on Facebook

As we all mourn the loss of 32 Virginia Tech students, it should come as no surprise that Americans--and particularly college students--have congregated on Facebook to grieve together. Many memorial groups have made Facebook pages, including one entitled, "A tribute to those who passed at the Virginia Tech Shooting" with more than 107,000 members and 550 discussion boards as of 11 a.m. EST today.

Sometimes in all the hype about Web 2.0 and the technology and money behind it, it's easy to lose track of an important component of this brave new world--people. Today Facebook reminds us of the power of social networking to bring us together. Much will be written on this blog and others about Facebook's role—a mix of mourning and newsgathering--in the aftermath of the tragic events of April 16, 2007 in Blacksburg, Va. But for now...

Posted by Alex Pasquariello at 11:10 AM | 6 Comments

My Virtual Twin, in Progress

I've been hard at work lately, building my virtual me. You can meet this work in progress at MyCyberTwin, a new and somewhat mind-bending social networking site created by an Australian outfit called Relevance Now! (like Yahoo!, the "!" comes with the package)

Relevance Now! was founded by John Zakos and Liesl Capper, the latter of whom was featured a couple of years ago in Fast Company as the founder of Mooter, a pretty cool search engine that, like others, is still breathing Google's fumes.

Anyway, MyCyberTwin lets you create a "Cybertwin," an online representation of yourself (or really, of anyone) who will chat with others online. About anything. Without you!

Clearly, this raises all sorts of worrisome red flags. (Like, what it my virtual twin has really bad taste in music?) But consider the opportunities. I certainly have.

Continue reading "My Virtual Twin, in Progress"

Posted by Keith Hammonds at 11:07 AM | 1 Comment

April 16, 2007

Ideas that Change the World

Remember being a kid and wishing that you could change the world or solve world-hunger? Well, there are adults out there who still believe it is possible and who get together to make it happen in the form of Pop!Tech.

Pop!Tech is a non-profit organization that believes in progress, even if that progress is made by a small group of people one baby step at a time. For the last decade, the company has been holding its annual conference in Camden, Maine where change-agents from all over the world gather in a non-formal setting to make the world a better place. You can get the inside scoop on Pop!Tech 2006 right here at Fast Company.

But if that is just not enough, you can check out a new series of podcasts by Pop!Tech called Pop!Casts, showcasing the great minds of last year's conference.

**Fast Company is a media partner of Pop!Tech

Posted by Lisa LaMotta at 3:31 PM | 2 Comments

April 13, 2007

MyMaps Dashes Startup Dreams

Last week, Google launched its latest feature, Google MyMaps. This handy upgrade of its already useful Map feature allows anyone with a Google account to create maps that are personal to him or her. The feature lets its creator add pictures, YouTube videos, and text to explain where the map is taking you. You can also draw lines and make shapes around your destinations.

I used the feature to map out art gallery openings in Chelsea that I attended last night. It allowed me to go seamlessly from one gallery to another without the hassle of figuring out where they were (even if they are all in a five block radius). My Google MyMap led me to an opening at the bitforms gallery. The exhibit featured installations and artwork by Mark Napier. Napier is an anomaly in the art world -- he produces Internet art using various software programs an is actually featured in galleries. The main attraction of the exhibit was a video installation he did that made the Empire State Building appear to be melting and reshaping in a series of images.

While the MyMaps idea isn't new, it could have a significant impact on a slew of startups that are already out there, like Platial and Frappr. These startups already use the Google and Yahoo map functions as a platform for their own MyMaps services. Now these companies will be competing against the Internet giant. I don't see them stacking up, do you?

Posted by Lisa LaMotta at 3:13 PM | 6 Comments

The Designer Who Meant Business

It is somehow fitting that what is arguably corporate design's most powerful mantra—"Good design is good business"—is widely credited to former IBM chief Thomas Watson Jr., but was in fact formulated by the architect and industrial designer Eliot Noyes. Watson, who was chairman and CEO of IBM during its most explosive period of growth, used the phrase in a 1973 lecture at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. But Noyes, IBM's consulting director of design from the late 1950s until his death in 1977, articulated the axiom a good decade before Watson.

Noyes, who did as much as anyone to demonstrate the power of design to corporate America, might well be the most famous designer you've never heard of—perhaps in part due to his premature death at the age of 67. But now a new monograph by Gordon Bruce, who worked for Noyes for ten years and went on to become a distinguished industrial designer in his own right, puts Noyes in his proper place: at the pinnacle of 20th century design.

The book, titled Eliot Noyes: A Pioneer of Design and Architecture in the Age of American Modernism (Phaidon Press) combines archival photographs, rare drawings, previously unpublished notes, and Bruce's insightful text to introduce Noyes' accomplishments to a wider audience. Noyes' vast influence is instantly established on the book's front cover, which consists of a "spider diagram" that traces his sprawling web of connections to some of the past century's leading design innovators (Charles and Ray Eames, Alexander Calder, Paul Rand) and organizations (IBM, Westinghouse, Mobil, and New York's Museum of Modern Art, where he was the first director of its industrial-design department).

Noyes penned some of the icons of 20th century industrial design, including IBM's Selectric typewriter and Mobil Oil's service stations, but his most lasting influence springs out of his "unified theory of design," which held that all aspects of a corporation should be expressed "in the best possible way." As Noyes put it in a 1962 speech, "In a sense, a corporation should be like a good painting; everything visible should contribute to the correct total statement; nothing visible should detract. Thus, a company's buildings, offices, graphic design and so forth should all contribute to a total statement about the significance and direction of the company."

Working in the era of the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, when nearly every corporation regarded designers as mere stylists (when they thought about designers at all), Noyes was a tireless champion of design's capacity to positively impact business. Bruce argues persuasively that Noyes' holistic approach to design was, in a sense, one of his greatest architectural achievements, because it "reconstructed America's corporate attitude toward design forever" and "laid the groundwork for the modern design ideals and global design principles...in the days when such principles were nowhere to be found." Today's industrial designers, who are reaping the benefits of design's growing clout in business circles, owe Noyes a huge debt of gratitude.

Posted by Bill Breen at 1:55 PM | 1 Comment

April 12, 2007

Facebook: We're Laughing With You. Mostly.

At some point a company or service gets so big that people make fun of it. (The public, not just family members.) Awareness in the form of pan-cultural parody is probably a good thing; it certainly marks a tipping point of relevance for any brand. (And, of course, if you use nonsense terms like “pan-cultural parody” it all sounds less mean than it can sometimes be.) So, in what is no doubt a tip of the hat to their growing cultural heft, people are starting to go out of their way to make fun of Facebook.

Facebook is still in many ways a niche site – the experience, albeit defining, of a very specific group of people, namely college students. As a result, the universe of users who know Facebook well enough to understand inside jokes about the site is also pretty narrowly defined. But even if you only have a rudimentary understanding of how the site works, you'll get the general idea pretty quickly. (In fact tribute/parody sites often have a funny way of helping you understand how the site functions.) And you'll probably be amazed at the amount of time that people who should probably be studying (or working) are spending making fun of the fact that they are spending too much time on Facebook. Either way, when SNL finally makes fun of Facebook, we can all feel good about knowing that we were laughing at, er with, them first.

Here's a skit, from a group called Penn Masala, who bill themselves as the world's first and premier Hindi a cappella group. It's performed to tune of the Enrique Iglesias' song Hero - with a bit of Bollywood flair thrown in - and makes fun of some of the voyeuristic possibilities of the site. It's enjoyed over a million views. From one commenter: “wow, that was retarted and disturbing.” You be the judge.

One group of filmmakers “Not Drunk Enough Productions,” turned the company into a scrawny, ever-present Big Brother character in “The Facebook Movie: They Know.”

In this particularly well-produced video, student filmmakers manage to make fun of both Facebook and eHarmony.

This is a short film about a boy who uses Facebook as a substitute for actual social interaction, courtesy of Nate Daniels. For the amateur anthropologists out there, it offers some interesting insight into the thought processes and dating habits of the young white male college student. (This is only part one; if you feel like you need to see more, part two is easy to find.)

This podcast from The RhettandLinKast does a pretty good job of both explaining and mocking the site.

A charming a capella tribute drives the point home that Facebook is to college as indoor plumbing is to the developed world.

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Posted by Ellen McGirt at 4:47 PM | Add Comment

Outting Imus

If I were Don Imus I would stay home for a while. Not just in the house, but in bed, with the shades drawn.

With all the invectives being slung around -- about his comb-over, his lack of sexual prowess, his tired rants -- it's better just to hibernate out of sight than to feed the fire. But the problem with Imus, which is what got h