Wayne Sutton examines how he and the fine folks at TriOut used social media tools to launch and manage location based services startup. #lbs

Steve Bruner showcases new aspects of customization available in the upcoming WordPress 3.0 release, including custom post types and the new menu management feature, using the new default Twenty Ten theme as an example. #blogging #video

The latest episode of the video podcast “Beer Diplomacy TV” attempts to solves the world’s problems (and decipher the season finale of Lost). Answers provided by Stuart Tracte, Baratunde, and Brian Brushwood, moderated by Owen JJ Stone, who I met at SXS10 via Twanna Hines and Adria Richards). #politics #video

Food Network’s new, 24-hour Cooking Channel, launches. But why isn’t it in HD? #food #tv

Thumbs Up

I have to give props to rapper Wale for turning around a PR fiasco. After news got out that the rapper was canceling his appearance at D.C’s. Black Gay Pride, the web was on fire with “homophobic” linked to his name.

Wale maintains he was unaware of the obligation (like most popular artists, he doesn’t book his own shows). After the dust settled, Wale made a special guest appearance at D.C. Black Pride Legacy Festival. For free. Now that’s gangsta. #black #hiphop #lgbt #video

Thumbs Down

Despite BP’s various cleanup attempts, the company and U.S. government warn that the oil could be leaking until August. Ugh. Houston Business Journal has continuous coverage. #news #environment #bitchlips

By now, the entire world knows how Kanye West made a jackass out of himself at the 2009 VMA Awards (hey, if the President can call him a jackass, who am I to argue). Predictably, Kanye’s rant set off a swarm of anti-Kanye responses — including, a slew of racially charged tweets such as this one from amber_berry:

I wonder if Amber Adamson (who knows if this is really her name) really wants this to be her first impression on a job interview? At church? At PTA? Hell, at the pumpkin pie shop?

As the real-time web gets faster, I hope we are realizing that anything can be cached on the web — forever. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be ourselves online. But we certainly need to be aware that anything we say or do (even offline) can be “picked up”, rebroadcast and remixed. So if you’re not prepared to defend it, you should think twice about what you’re doing.

This is not news, per se. But Twitter has been particularly susceptible. The ability to instantly fire off anything on your mind has generated some interesting content, to say the least. I suggest you think before you tweet. Even “protected” accounts are only as private as those you follow.

But wait. There’s more at Harry Allen’s Media Assassin.

I’ve been attending SXSW since 2005. This year (2009) brought a noticeable, welcome influx of panels focusing on non-technical aspects of interactive life and social media. In addition to learning the latest advances in mobile, power coding, browser improvements and startup secrets; there was an increase in panels about managing content, online identity and feminism.

It would be valuable to discuss how all of this convergence is playing out in social media in regards to how we interact with one another. So I proposed the following panel, along with Liz Burr and Brandon Sheats for SXSW 2010:

Online Gatekeeping: Who Died and Made You King?

Description

As the web becomes more open via social networks, we’re adopting new rules of communication. But who creates these rules? How much does class, race and gender figure into social media policing? We’ll discuss how identity affects social networks, as well as look at how online communities police themselves as participation expands.

Questions Answered:

1. Which groups are in control of what is worth sharing via social media?
2. Are the under-25 community using social media differently?
3. How do we recognize and confront social media ‘gatekeepers’?
4. Is our behavior in online communities merely a reflection of offline stereotypes and experiences?
5. What is the impact of the amplification of social stereotypes online on under-represented groups?
6. How do we integrate previously, under-represented groups into this more social world?
7. Is there really such a thing as a “digital ghetto”? If so, is it our responsibility to combat it?

There are over 2200 proposals and this is my first time giving it a go. Your help in getting the panel chosen (assuming you support the idea) would be greatly appreciated. Not planning to attend SXSW? No problem. The sessions are recorded. So you’ll still get the benefit of the discussion.

Please give us a big thumbs up and don’t forget to leave a comment about what you would like us to discuss in this panel. We can’t see vote counts. So comments really help. Also, voting closes at 11:59PM on Friday, September 4.

Hat tip: Karsh, who came up with the snappy panel sub-title.

The biggest (and legitimate) areas of concern seems to be that even if you choose to delete your account from Facebook, they still own all of your shit content. Not only have they made their TOS less protective for its users but it did so without allowing them to “opt out”.

I’m not an user of Facebook.; never have been. But I believe this is bigger than just Facebook. As a (current) leader in the social network space, their methods have the ability to inform other networks as well. And because of that, a proper reaction from social network users should be concern. As I tweeted yesterday:

you may not care about your web service’s TOS; but you should. and as a user you should ensure they treat *your* content the way you want.

Mind you, if you’re “panicking” about the changes Facebook made to their TOS, chances are you’ve never read a TOS carefully. Few of us do. Companies bank on it, actually (just like those rebates many of us never claim). Teams of lawyers are hired to include everything in a contract to completely absolve its company of any foreseeable lawsuit (no matter how rare or ridiculous it may be).

However, while panicking may be overkill, I’ve seen plenty of comments regarding the Facebook issue as “It’s no big thing”, “I don’t see the problem” and “If you care log-off the internet.” Oh really? Maybe it’s not an issue for you (which is valid). But to claim that it shouldn’t be an issue for others or that they should stop using the Internet is ridiculous.

Few are under the false impression that the web is a big, anonymous playground. But there’s a serious difference between having your hosted content crawled by Google (if you choose to allow that) and having a service claim ownership of everything you’ve done and shared, even after you’ve left said service.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has since responded to the privacy concerns. Well, sort of. He seems to boil down the TOS legalize to “just trust us”. Surely, Facebook can do better than that.

As social networks are born almost daily, we are still navigating privacy concerns. It’s during this time that users need to be clear about how they expect web spaces to treat their information. Let’s face it, if a social network lost 30% of users due to its TOS, it would be addressed. Users still have power and they should exercise it.

Privacy and ownership will continue to be a hot topic as geo-aware applications are built. Jayson hipped me to Mathew Honan’s article on Wired, in which Honan became a “geo-guinea pig”, loading “every cool and interesting location-aware program [he] could find onto [his] iPhone” and updating the world of his every move.

While Honan was able to see benefits of using the apps he also saw some of the shocking ways in which people (including himself) were leaving digital footprints in some of the least likely place; sometimes as a by product of how they talk to each other (sometimes by default). He lists one example:

[...] The first time I saw my home address on Facebook, I jumped—because I never posted it there. Then I realized it was because I had signed up for Whrrl. Like many other geosocial applications, Whrrl lets you cross-post to the microblogging platform Twitter. Twitter, in turn, gets piped to all sorts of other places. So when I updated my location in Whrrl, the message leaped first to Twitter and then to Facebook and FriendFeed before landing on my blog, where Google indexed it. By updating one small app on my iPhone, I had left a giant geotagged footprint across the Web.

I’m sure this will come up at SXSW Interactive. Who knows, by then, perhaps Facebook will have made more changes. Certainly, they don’t want another Beacon brouhaha.

Update: So yeah… Facebook reversed gears on their TOS, no doubt due to user outcry and negative press. You have power; use it.