F*** My Life: Making money on people's misery

A few days ago, I've stumbled upon this rather controversial website that seems to be a favourite of some of my Facebook friends: F*** My Life. This site enables individuals to share their most embarrassing moments anonymously and comment on them. The lenght of shared "anecdotes" is very limited, which reminds me of Twitter.

Apart of self-critically admitting that only a few things cheer one up more than reading about other people's misery ;-), I find quite interesting, how you can make money on that.

Of course there are ads by Google. It's funny in a way what Google chooses as best targeted ads for this site's audience. 3D sexy chat for loners and a book telling you how to be popular with a very interesting banner:

On top of that, authors are proudly announcing that they declined offers made by others who wanted to buy & use the content of this site. Instead, they are enabling everybody to share the content for free through an API... of course only as long as there is a link back to the source. Clever? Maybe... smells kind of sneaky if you ask me.

Microsoft Office 14 on-line to include banners

A whole new playground for advertisers is probably going to open up in 2010. Microsoft's upcoming Office package (version 14) will be available as a bundle of offline applications just as we know it, but there will be an on-line ("cloud computing") version as well.

It seems that the on-line version will be available free for everyone and supported by ads. In this move, Microsoft is in my opinion trying to secure the dominant position of their office package by making it available for anyone anywhere. At the same time, Microsoft is likely going to re-emerge as an important advertising channel, thus fighting Google on two fronts.

The reaction of consumers is hard to predict, could be positive if the level of aggression of ads is controled, so that they do not disturb users concentrating on work. Microsoft also should not forget that Google is offering their package free of advertising. Anyway, Microsoft's decission to try out a new revenue model hints at being sick of fighting software pirates. Moreover, from ad-supported to free and free of ads is just one step, as we've seen in many cases.

Google to launch "behavioral advertising" (read "spying")!

Google is currently testing the long denied technology for user preferences tracking. The system will track user behaviour across the immense Google partner network. Data on visited sites will be associated with your unique browser ID and stored in Google's database. Mined data are then going to be used for advertising purposes (so called behavioral advertising). According to Google, this is going to be beneficial for advertisers (providing them better targeting options) as well as for internet users (ads shown will be more relevant and thus add more value).

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!!

This is a serious privacy disaster! It is equivalent to being followed whenever you go! Sure, more relevant ads are a nice thing, but for what price? How safely will be the data stored and who assures it's not abused? Google is playing with fire here, as it's good image might end up in Microsoft's levels in a few years... What made them change their attitude and start experimenting with a technology they have been refusing so far? Global economic downturn and decreased advertising revenues?

Sure, Google offers an opt-out. You can go to a specific site (note: you can also edit your ad preferences there) and download a plug-in to your browser that insures that you're not being spied on. What a convenient solution! Moreover, they made the announcement silently on their blog. How many people do you think will know that they are being followed and that they can opt-out?

In my opinion, if Google dares to do something like that, it should certainly be on an opt-in basis. I'm pretty sure that we are about to hear more about this story in the media soon. Read more here.

Is Google going to delete my blog?

Queen Elizabeth II going social

Queen Elizabeth II is going to have her own Twitter feed. Although probably one of the oldest, she's the first member of the whole Royal Family to start using Twitter. Bravo! Her feed is expected to be followed by many people and should bring her closer to young people.

Barack Obama style?

Sounds familiar? This may look like trying to copy Barack Obama, just like many other politicians do nowadays, but the Royal Family is certainly one of the most innovative out there. Look at their Royal Channel on YouTube - set up a year and a half ago, having over 26000 followers. Sure, Barack was there a year sooner, but fall 2007 is still long before everyone started to talk about Obama's social network mastery and on top of that, the Royal Channel got a prominent web address ;-).

Facebook to introduce new homepage design

Facebook is about to introduce new homepage design soon. This is a very welcomed step, since Facebook promises to offer new filtering and highlighting capabilities to combat the ever-growing amount of information. "About time!", I say. Have a look at the following screenshot that explains it all (more screenshots here):

Facebook vs. Twitter: Open war?

If you look "behind the scenes" a bit, Facebook is trying to deliver a more Twitter-like experience, changing the "Status" to more liberating "What's on your mind?". Maybe there is no need for two social networks when one could offer the functionality of both...?

At the same time, Facebook is going to recommend you information about certain friends that you communicate with the most. This means we are probably about to lose a bit of control of who gets what preference on our homepage.

Facebook -> Google -> Microsoft

These are certainly tiny details, but aren't they a bit controversial? If you look further into the future: When does the time come that a nice and friendly company becomes ugly and evil? Look at Microsoft or Google that is potentially on the way to the other extreme. Does this happen to all companies, because we like small and new and hate big and powerful?