Old Panda Movie

While looking around for old photographs, I found this Panda Movie that yuka and I shot in 2001… not real pandas. But cute.

Facebook’s Friends Data Has Already Left the Barn

Another duh! moment. Companies are fighting over people’s data, but parents and educators, and their children, not to mention all the rest of the universe, just keep signing up to give away their personal information (mine got out there before we knew of the problem, and most of it now is public because of the freedom of information act (FIPPA)), I guess people don’t care…

Facebook’s Friends Data Has Already Left the Barn

How much are your friends worth? That is the question behind the big debate going on around social networks and data portability. In the last ten days, Facebook, Google, and MySpace have all announced ways to let people access their data (including friends lists) from other sites, except that what they are really trying to do is erect new walled gardens by positioning themselves as the primary repository of that personal and social data. This is valuable data and none of the big players want to cede any more of it than is necessary, which is why Facebook banned Google from tapping into its members’ social data.

But here’s a little secret. All of this data is already leaking out in ways that Facebook and other social networks can hardly control. Startups are finding ways around their official APIs to get the data consumers want into their own systems.