Librarian by Day

In case you missed it Facebook reverted to its previous terms of service.

But that shouldn’t stop you or me from thinking about what happened and what it means. Some recommended reading

• Facebook Battle Ends in Major Victory for Users, But the War Continues
  a good look at what happened
• 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know just what it says, using Facebook? Go learn these
• What Libraries Can Learn from Facebook Peter Bromberg looks at the privacy issue from a libraries and librarian point-of-view. He makes some great points and  I agree with him
• Matters of Policy Steve Lawson compares the  Facebook incident to  OCLC policy changes.

What I saw happen yesterday – a LOT of people blogging, twittering and linking to articles about Facebook’s change to their Terms of Service. ( If you don’t know about it see links at the bottom. I’m not writing about that, 50 bagillion other people already have.)

What I didn’t see happening – a mass exodus of friends from Facebook. I hear some people are removing content, but they aren’t leaving (I’m sure someone will leave a comment pointing out people who have left)

I even asked on Twitter this morning – did you delete your account? As of writing this no one has answered yes.

What this tells me – that people are mad at Facebook, maybe even really really mad, but they aren’t mad enough to leave.  Which means, that whatever they are getting from Facebook, they are willing to accept the new TOS to get it.

Now what that means is a whole different blog post.

• Facebook: A lesson in power-grabbing
• Public Service Reminder 1: facebook
• Facebook: “We have never claimed ownership” of members’ content | The Industry Standard
• What Facebook’s revised terms of use mean for your content | Jacobson Attorneys: the new media law firm
• Wake Up to How You Share on the Web | chrisbrogan.com
• Facebook Clarifies Terms Of Service: “We Do Not Own Your Stuff Forever”
• Facebook’s New Terms Of Service: “We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever.

My addiction to Facebook is no secret, I check it regliously regularly and if your’e my friend you probably get poked a lot.  For me it’s a great tool to keep in touch with people.  I pretty much igonre the ads, but today there was one that really caught my eye.  Rideshare! In my area! 

Are any Libraries using these targeted ads?  If they are displaying based on users zip code or network it could be a useful way to draw more people to your page, or in the case of this ad, your website.

I’ve spent an hour or so playing with Facebook this morning.  MRRL has had a facebook page for awhile now, but I thought I’d create a group to see if that works better and/or attracts more fans.  One perk I noticed is I’m allowed to create officers and name them whatever I like, so far I’ve named myself Crown Princess and Robin Webgoddess   Does anyone have any experience with Page vs Groups? or just thoughts you’d like to share? 

On a slightly related note, have you seen TouchGraph?  It will create a visual map of keywords or URLs.  Very cool.  It also has a Facebook plugin which I used to make the graph below. 

Not mine this time, Robins! She developed a search our catalog app for our Facebook page and she’s been contacted several times by people wanting help creating one for their library. I have no doubt she was helpful and nice and gave them excellent advice!

Robin and I often work together here at the library or with taking our show on the road for presentations and she really knows her stuff!

NPR reported this morning that protesters in Columbia used Facebook to organize support around the world against FARC.