In light of recent events surrounding CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, watching the Social Network today reminded me of the tech industry’s attitude toward women in tech. The film introduces the Silicon Valley start up culture by juxtaposing it to the exclusivity of Harvard’s Finals Clubs. Historically, these clubs have been a haven for young, wealthy, white males. Sound familiar? This is the same kind of demographic that dominates start-up companies such as Facebook, Twitter and the likes.

Unsurprisingly enough, the film covers this culture by depicting the female characters as either useless props for the geeks or psychos who cause their downfall and unhappiness. The first scene of the movie depicts women being bussed to a finals club, dancing on tables and generally being a source of entertainment for men. Throughout the film the women serve no other purpose than that. For example, when the girls ask what they could do to help in terms of expansion, Zuckerberg replies, “Nothing.”

Even when the females play a role within the company, they are still objectified. An example is Natalie the intern whose only line is “Thanks” and appearance is of Zuckerberg and Sean Parker admiring her looks as she walks away. This type of sexism plagues the entire movie and draws attention to the women of silicon valley and how they are treated.

Taking these examples, I want to draw attention to the most recent case of mistreatment to women in the Valley. Marissa Mayer is the current CEO of Yahoo and was the topic of recent controversy and general talk concerning her time at Google and her appointment as CEO of the failing Yahoo brand. Mayer’s notoriety stems from the fact that she was the first female engineer to be hired by Google and her steady downfall within the company.

Within Google, Mayer ran the “search” team until she was essentially demoted during the company’s reshuffling phase. Most people thought it was a standard job switch and didn’t mean much, others pointed to the fact that Mayer’s position changed after breaking up with Google company founder Larry Page. According to a recent New York Magazine article entitled, “Can Marissa Mayer Really Have It All,” while Google was diverse, many high level teams such as the L-Team on Google had no women on them.

This is an issue that is more of a problem today. While there are more women in the Valley, many fail to make progress once a part of these companies. It’s as if they aren’t really in the club at all. According to this New York Times article, the percent of female chief executives is around 3 percent. This is in an industry with more than 100 companies.

While the film’s representation of this has been criticized heavily, I think it draws attention to an important question which is: Where are the women of Silicon Valley? Until women in tech stop being an anomaly, depictions such as those of Christy in The Social Network will continue to exist.

Facebook and other social networking sites such as Twitter, Myspace, and Friendster, among others, revolutionized society. They transformed the Internet into a venue in which not only dedicated content producers disseminate information, but in which ordinary people as well can share their lives with others and interact among each other. Social networking has changed the offline world as well: from establishing new social norms about friendship and relationships, to aiding in the organization of groups such as class groups, and, more importantly political groups, Facebook has turned the Internet into a tool for real world benefit. However, major social networking sites as they currently exist have one fundamental problem: they do not seek to be a mechanism through which opinions form, change, and grow; rather, they exist for people to share their preexisting opinions.

Don’t get me wrong: social networking has the potential to accomplish this. Furthermore, it is true that already by scanning someone’s Twitter page, or by randomly happening upon a friend’s opinion in a status, I might develop my opinion further about an issue. However, I have found that it is my experience that 140 word (maximum) posts and short statuses which seek “likes” have, at best, informed me of the basics of others’ opinions. Social networking as it exists today just does not seem to be equipped to allow people to disseminate well-thought out views about issues, hold discussions which are easily spread to others, and, most importantly, allow people to view the aggregate of users’ opinions about issues.

Today I will touch on one proposition which could substantially alter the way we view social networks. What I propose is that rather than Facebook deliberately turning away social science researchers and other academic data collectors, Facebook should provide free, open-source data on the site itself. This would be good, both for society and for Facebook.

It is widely known that Facebook’s potential for research on a wide number of social, political, and economic issues is extremely great. Indeed, a great deal of research has been done using Facebook’s vast capacities for data mining, and an even greater deal of research has never occurred due to Facebook’s unnecessarily strained relationship with research institutions. Open data on Facebook would allow social and political science researchers to much more easily — and openly — study trends and conduct experiments. However, I believe that the even greater potential of this proposal lies with ordinary people. Regular users would be able to compare their friends’ beliefs with those of society at large, for example. Obviously, it would be difficult to implement such an idea: how exactly does Facebook determine which issues are important? How would Facebook decide how to measure such trends? I believe that in collaboration with researchers, Facebook can transparently begin the process of allowing people to understand more about society.

Lastly, open data could be great for Facebook. What makes Facebook great now is the free exchange of social capital that is enabled through the medium of social networking. However, efforts to open up intellectual capital — alongside with structural changes to the site to allow for a space for more serious discussion, posting, and dissemination — could free up and make possible, more than ever before in the offline world, the ability for people to grow their opinions and see, in real time, how society thinks about things. This would attract more use and interest, from people and governments alike.

Would Facebook ever implement such a policy? It certainly does not seem like it right now. But I believe that in an age when our actions on the Internet become less and less meaningful, the pressure will mount for one site to differentiate itself and provide on an unprecedented scale the seriousness that people currently crave.

If Facebook doesn’t do it, I guarantee that someone else will.

Recently, I’ve wondered whether there’s a better way to backup one’s Facebook data than Facebook’s proprietary “My Archive” service. While functional, the no-frills HTML archive is unwieldy and bloated. Messages aren’t separated by conversation; rather, all messages sent to or from your account are listed in the order they were sent. “Likes” on comments and photos aren’t displayed. Pages or groups that you’ve “liked” are not hyperlinked. Worst of all, navigation is near-impossible, with your entire news feed (from the beginning of time) displayed all at once, on the same page. Finally, with Facebook’s backup, you get everything. You can’t, say, only backup your messages. For those with many photos or videos, expect a long processing time and a large, tedious download (my file took a day to process and was over a gigabyte).

There must be a better way, I thought. Enter SocialSafe. SocialSafe is a dynamic backup solution that pulls your data from Facebook at regular intervals and creates a comprehensive, easy-to-browse backup on your computer. Marketed as “a beautiful way to treasure your online social life,” SocialSafe was launched in 2009 and has steadily added social networks to its scope (it currently can create backups of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+, and Viadeo). It’s available for Mac and PC in four tiers: Free, Standard ($3.99/year), Pro ($6.99/year), and Enterprise ($13.99/year). I purchased the Pro version last year and have been using it ever since.

After clicking through the initial “Allow Access” dialog box, SocialSafe asked me what I wanted to backup. I checked all of the options, but one can easily limit the backup to only messages, or only photo albums, for example. The initial sync took less than an hour, and created a 300 MB local backup that was as functional as it was elegant. A calendar mode allows one to go back in time, making navigation a breeze, and the application includes a powerful search function (something that Facebook glaringly lacks). In regards to content: if you can see it on Facebook, SocialSafe can back it up (the exception being support for Messages; SocialSafe doesn’t currently backup attachments, such as photos in message threads). Conveniently, the application can also export a subset of your backup as a CSV file. Finally, one nifty gem: SocialSafe tracks your Friend List in between backups, and keeps a list of “old friends” — people who have unfriended you or deleted their account. So far, I have 39 “old friends.” (What a self-esteem booster! Kidding.)

SocialSafe’s default view. Note the “Old Friends” list.

Browsing through past wall posts on SocialSafe is easy.

Why do I use SocialSafe? Well, I use it occasionally to search through old, lengthy message threads, a task that Facebook handles clumsily. More importantly, though, I use it as insurance against data loss and as a way to feel that I “own” my own data. If something catastrophic happens with Facebook’s servers (unlikely), or I accidentally delete an important conversation or post (more likely), it’s nice to have a backup. And in an age where Facebook claims that it doesn’t have to hand over all of one’s personal data (remember Max Schrems?), keeping a local copy of my online social life is important to me in a strange, idiosyncratic way. SocialSafe doesn’t truly make you the owner of your online data, but it creates a pleasant facade that embodies a reassuring sense of control.

Is Facebook good for your heart post-break up? Not so much. When he breaks your heart or she dumps you, you never want to see your ex again. But there is one problem. Her new profile picture is all over your newsfeed; he’s writing flirty messages on another girl’s wall. There is no doubt today that Facebook has complicated break-ups. A study published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking found that stalking an ex on Facebook is linked with greater distress over the breakup, more negative feelings, and more longing for the ex-partner. It evident for obvious reasons that Facebook can prolong break-up pain and interrupt the emotional recovery of it. Being exposed to your ex on Facebook, through photos, updates, or new relationships, intensifies stress and sadness. Thus, it is better to keep a distance, both online and offline, in order to heal the wound that the break-up created. But let’s face it, who can really help it? One psychologist surveyed more than 450 users and found that keeping up with one’s ex resulted in longer-lasting heartache. But this raises the chicken and the egg question: which came first? Are people becoming more depressed over their breakup as a result of their stalking, or are they stalking because they’re more depressed in the first place?

Not only are people using Facebook to monitor their ex, but they are also using it to check out their ex’s new, or supposedly new, partner. Further, some go as far as using a mutual friend to gain access to their ex’s life if they defriended each other after the breakup. While pictures of an ex can easily stir jealousy, studies also found that people post pictures in an attempt to make their ex jealous. The social network site is also causes people to linger over their past. People might re-read and overanalyze old messages or wall posts and delete pictures from when they were actually dating. Additionally, Facebook is in some ways used as a coping mechanism. One might quote song lyrics about the breakup or update depressing, sad statuses.

Whatever the case is, in my eyes, Facebook is not good for the heart post-breakup. The social networking site becomes an anchor to more depressing thoughts as it allows you to be continually updated on the life of your ex. To successfully overcome a breakup, Facebook should be steered out of your path. But let’s face it. In the age of social media, who can really help it?

“John Doe invited you to his event BIG BIG PARTY.” Despite being the root of dozens of pesky notifications in our news feed, Facebook events is an extremely convenient event planning tool as I blogged about last week. In my limited experience, most of the invites I’ve received have been for celebrations and frivolity. However, Facebook events have been incredibly effective in gathering people for protests and demonstrations. Facebook events helped the Egyptian protests by mobilizing thousands of protesters, and recent suspicions of election fraud caused thousands of Russians to plan Facebook events for mass demonstrations at Moscow’s Revolution Square. Used for a variety of purposes ranging from small dinner parties to uprooting a regime, this Facebook tool is clearly quite versatile. On this note, let’s examine its strengths and weaknesses, particularly for social activism purposes.

The advantages of Facebook events center around the network nature of Facebook. On Facebook, people are friends with quite a bit of other people in various social circles (family, friends, acquaintances, etc), so finding the right people to invite to social occasions isn’t difficult. Inviting them is even easier as Facebook simplifies it to a mouse click and optional descriptions. For demonstrations, though, Facebook events is extremely useful. It allows people to invite everyone on their friends list, and with enough organizers, thousands of people may be easily invited. From there, invitees can choose to invite their own friends, creating an exponential rate of increase. The sheer number of people who are “going” reveals the popularity of the event, and more attendees will cause more people to want to go. Just the amount of people who support these events by clicking “attending” on the RSVP represents the scale of the protest and serves as a good indication of disapproval of current conditions, political or social.

On the other hand, many disadvantages exist when using Facebook events. First of all, invitations are less personal and clicking “attending” is extremely simple, so actual attendance cannot be ascertained. Also, because invitations are much more easily spread through Facebook than by word of mouth, the chance of outside attendees going are low, so the number of people who are “going” on Facebook will almost always overshoot the eventual attendance. If invitations were more personal (as they used to be), attendance rate would be higher but it would be more difficult to invite large numbers of people. Other concerns include government censors, such as the Egyptian shutdown of social networks in the wake of protests coordinated through Facebook and Twitter. In addition, it’s very easy to locate and identify organizers and attendees of these events, so persecution is a real possibility even before the demonstration takes place.

Despite these concerns, Facebook events is a great tool for organizing large events, as we have seen with recent examples. We’ll just have to wait to see the next creative use of Facebook tools.

I was recently reading a CNN Money article about how two NYU business school professors are advocating that Facebook pay users for the right to sell personal info to companies. This, the article argued, would allow Facebook to pull out of it’s stock market slump and “jolt its business.”

Supposedly, this would give Facebook a new revenue stream, give users some extra pocket change, and let Facebook be much more clear about their stance on privacy.

The question is, is your data worth $10 a month?

Let’s take Facebook out of the equation for a bit. Would you sell your photos, your birthday, your current location, your likes, your interactions with friends, and a list of all the people you know for $10 a month?

No, I wouldn’t. And I’m sure not many people would.

Why do we use Facebook, then? Essentially, Facebook can partially utilize the information they have about us without having to pay $10 a month. . . yet I, and many others, will gladly give the right to use our photos, our birthdays, our current locations, our likes, our interactions with friends, and lists of all the people we know for the right to use Facebook. I would say that Facebook’s worth to me is easily worth $100/month. I would have to be paid $100/month to stop giving away my info to Facebook in order to use their service.

So this brings us back to the $10 dollars a month. Would this help Facebook?

The $10 dollars a month would allow Facebook to actively sell info.

I really don’t think this is a good idea.

I use Facebook because it’s a valuable service and I’m willing to put up my information for us of that valuable service. I don’t put up that information for use of the $10. Of course, I would enjoy some extra pocket money, but it doesn’t change Facebook’s worth to me.

However, by monetizing personal info, Facebook will have been re-branded as a service that sells personal info for $10 a month, not a service that collects info in exchange for access to the Social Network.

I want to leave you with two questions. How much is Facebook worth to you, and do you think the NYU professors’ ideas are good?

Since we are watching the Social Network next week, I thought an interesting thing to blog about this week would be Mark Zuckerberg’s thoughts on his portrayal in his movie.  After watching this movie the first time, my guess was that Zuckerberg would not be happy with the way he was portrayed in the movie.  He seemed to be extremely arrogant, and was portrayed as not really having the most proper ethics a person running a business should have.   He was also shown to not be personable at all, as seen in the scene in the very beginning of the movie when his girlfriend leaves him.

In the movie, the makers of the movie make it seem like he created Facebook just to help his chances with girls and become a popular kid at a prestigious school.  His response to this, in an article about his thoughts on the movie, was “They [the film’s creators] just can’t wrap their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like building things.”  This is interesting because it shows that he is a truly motivated person, which is apparent in the success he has had in his life with the Facebook.  Although he disagrees with how they portray him as to why he created the company, he and his company have been careful not to criticize the movie.  “Facebook has previously been careful not to attack The Social Network, a strategy which had appeared to pay dividends. The film has certainly done nothing to harm the company’s position as the world’s pre-eminent website of its type.”  I’m sure if the Social Network  had been detrimental to people’s perception of the company the Zuckerberg would have strongly expressed his problems with the movie and how they portrayed him and the company, but because it didn’t have a negative affect there was no real reason to cause bad press by making a big stink about the movie.  He does accept the fact that he was a little self-centered when he was forming the company, but he does make it clear that he hopes people don’t think he is still the same way when he says, “I think a lot people will look at that stuff, you know, when I was 19, and say, ‘Oh, well, he was like that … He must still be like that, right?’”.   Basically, he does reject his portrayal, but doesn’t have a huge problem with the movie.

*This article is inspired by a CNet article, available here.

*This article deals more with why promoted post is a terrible idea to make money. For why nobody would want to pay to promote their posts, check out my classmate Amanda’s article.

Starting this earlier this month, Facebook started experimenting with personal promoted posts. The idea is that people who really want their status updates to be seen (i.e. an important announcement) will be willing to pay $7 to “promote” their posts. Upon paying, the person’s particular post will be prioritized in the person’s friends’ news feed. This is part of Facebook’s strategy to find new ways to make money other than advertisements, which are not working well in the mobile space. While this feature makes sense for pages, it is a terrible idea for personal profiles.

Let’s start with a little background. Facebook’s primary revenue comes from advertisements. Although half of Facebook’s over a billion users access Facebook from mobile devices, it is no secret that Facebook has been struggling to make money from mobile users. On a computer browser, it is easy to unobtrusively add an ad tab to the right of the news feed. The same cannot be said for a mobile device; the screen is just too small. As a result, Facebook has been experimenting with new ways to make money from mobile users. While it is totally understandable that Facebook as a company needs to make money, allowing people to pay for their posts to be prioritized is not the way to go.

Personal promoted posts breaks the very purpose of Facebook’s news feed. Facebook wants the users to trust its formula for delivering “top stories.” Based on some complicated algorithm that considers the amount of comments, the amount of likes, and the time the post was posted, Facebook will automatically present the most relevant posts to the users. By allowing promoted posts, suddenly, the news feed becomes a collection of who pays the most amount of money instead of relevant posts.

Most users do not even want promoted posts. According to a survey by Sterne Agee, 83.6% of Facebook users are not willing to pay a single penny for Facebook. In fact, only 1.2% are willing to pay more than $5, much less Facebook’s $7 pricing. In my own opinion, there are two primary types of message that general users would want to promote. The first is a message to a select group of people. Facebook’s Group feature does a much better job at this. That leaves the second type, which is an announcement to the general public. The problem with the logic that people will pay is, if the person and the announcement are important enough, people will end up liking and sharing the post, eliminating the need to pay. That is how Facebook works. When one sees a post he likes, he can either like it or share it. SHARING is the heart and soul of Facebook…or maybe it isn’t anymore. This brings me to my final and most important point.

Promoted post itself is not nearly as dangerous as the precedence it sets up. It shows that Facebook as we know it is changing, and not for the better. If it becomes the norm that users must pay to have their posts prioritized, how long will it be till Facebook starts charging for its services in general? This act of monetary incentive is the very sign that Facebook is transforming from the “cool” service it used to be to just another corporate giant.

Nobody is stopping Facebook from making money. In fact, we all want Facebook to make money so that it may continue to serve us with its awesome service. However, there is a line, and personal promoted post crosses it. Facebook should not lose sight of its mission, which is “to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” There are other, more effective ways to make money. For example, Facebook has been including mobile ads right into the users’ news feed. While this does disrupt the news feed, the disruption is subtle. Users see the ad. Advertisers are happy. Facebook gets paid. Period.

Jumping off of the brief question I asked in class yesterday, I’d like to give a brief overview and discussion about something relatively new in the battle for phone, tablet, computer, web, and cloud offerings: ecosystems. 10 years ago, the Shapiro article mentioned the concept of luring customers into an ecosystem, whether closed or open, depending on the model. We see that phenomenon more prevalent today than ever, as (mainly) three companies battle it out for customer’s money, favor, and loyalty.

Apple

No one has ever used the ecosystem model as much as Apple has. Ever since Steve Jobs returned in 1996 to save the company, he wanted to provide its buyers a complete list of Apple products that would work well with each other. Steve Jobs even became annoyed when he had to be convinced to port iTunes to Windows (for greater iPod sales), because he wanted Apple products only to be available for Apple users.

Arguably, Apple’s ecosystem model even extended to before and after a product was purchased through Apple Stores. These locations allowed users to try out products with employees teaching (not selling) them about the computer, and even provided support after it was over, developing the first “ecosystem” model as we know it. This end-to-end interaction and support from Apple helped develop this network effect around its products.

Today, Apple’s ecosystem stretches from the iPod to iCloud. Every single Apple device can sync data, contacts, calendars, and email through iCloud. iPods and iPhones easily synced through iTunes, and nothing else. All users could also message each other using Apple’s free iMessage, restricted only to users of their products. Even though users were restricted to other Apple components using the 30-pin iPod cable (and now Lightning!), FireWire, Thunderbolt, etc. the lure is just too compelling to forgo. And Apple’s comprehensive support facilitated a positive feedback cycle: the more people were satisfied by the product, the more they were able to buy another and refer friends to it.

Why did Apple get people to switch from the dominant format, Windows? Compelling performance, among other things. Macs were generally known to work well (apparently 10x as well), and buying one immediately made you the “cool kid” on the street. Apple’s Performance Play definitely succeeded, though with strong challenges from Microsoft and Google, no one can predict how long Apple will hold on to its appeal.

However, there are some areas where Apple is still lacking in adoption, namely Office suites (iWork vs. Microsoft Office v. Google Docs), video and photo editing (Final Cut Pro v. Adobe Premiere Pro; Aperture v. Lightroom, etc.), mail (iCloud Mail v. Gmail v. Outlook.com [formerly Hotmail]), Objective C, etc. In most of these cases, it’s because compatibility is restricted to its own products, by using proprietary file formats or limiting use to its own software. For these offerings, Apple doesn’t have the 10x performance benefit it has with its other more popular products, thus they still remain niche products.

Apple currently has the lead among the companies listed, but next week, I’ll take a look at Microsoft and Google’s offerings, seeing how they try to compete with Apple to create their own ecosystem.

When one considers these two companies, the following thought immediately springs to mind: “LinkedIn deals with professional profiles, Facebook serves as a social medium.” One would also imagine that Facebook is the more profitable company, given their widespread reputation and large user base. However, a closer examination of the statistics between the two social media behemoths yields some interesting results.

Indeed, Facebook has more users – an enormous 1 billion compared to a paltry 175 million. However, according to statistician Geoge Anders of Forbes, LinkedIn receives $1.30 in revenue for every hour a person uses their site. Facebook? A measly 6.2 cents. Granted, the average LinkedIn user spends 18 minutes on the site a month compared to the average Facebook user who devotes 6.4 hours to the site. Nevertheless, LinkedIn’s profit growth is expected to double this year to $70 million. How does LinkedIn, referenced by Forbes magazine as the “Anti-Facebook,” have such a sustainable and rapidly growing business model?

For starters, LinkedIn spends a whopping 33% of its revenue on sales and marketing. This is more than twice the amount that Facebook dedicates to their marketing campaign, 15%. The answer to LinkedIn’s successful model lies within these numbers. Recruiter, LinkedIn’s main product for talent scouts, turns a person’s résumé into a money-making scheme. Big-name companies lease Recruiter seats for as much as $8,200 a year – Adobe rents 70 seats, bringing in nearly $500,000 a year to LinkedIn alone. This mutually beneficial process allows LinkedIn to maintain a steady profit from year-to-year without having to worry about many potential setbacks.

Facebook’s revenue model is entirely different from that of LinkedIn’s. Roughly 84% of their revenue comes from advertisements, but users only click once every 2,000 ads. This obviously only applies when you’re on Facebook, for that’s the only time that ads can make an impression. LinkedIn’s Recruiter process works even when you’re offline, a distinct difference that translates to a difference millions of dollars in yearly revenue.

Both LinkedIn and Facebook operate as “information-rich” systems, but LinkedIn touts itself as the #1 professional network in the world, as opposed to Facebook’s social network. The latter doesn’t necessarily serve a greater purpose than connecting people on a basic level. However, LinkedIn produces jobs, fulfilling the need that is professional recruitment. In a corporate setting, there is a greater purpose for information that attracts both large and small businesses. Simply put, a company can benefit greatly from searching for a job candidate who fulfills a set number of requirements. Ad companies can personalize their target audience, but even after customization their impression is very low, with sales at an even lower rate.

Clearly, the target markets and business plans for both companies differ greatly – LinkedIn focuses on the middle-aged white-collar workers and college graduates. Facebook tends to appeal more towards the pre-teen and teenage populations. Both are excellent businesses leading their respective fields, but it will be interesting to see the comparison of their performances in the coming years.