Everyone’s talking about the launch of Togetherville, a social network designed to bring parents and their kids together with the goal of learning responsible social networking. Does it occur to anyone that children six to ten years old (Togetherville’s target) don’t need social networks, and to encourage them to use one is the antithesis of responsible social networking?

Katherine Boehret, in a May 18 piece on the Walt Wall Street Journal’s Mossberg Solution column,  wrote that Togetherville is intended to ease parental worries about the perils of Facebook and other grown-up social networks:

“Togetherville offers young children their first taste of social networking like grown-ups, using their real-life identities (not cute avatars) and real-life relationships.

Togetherville smartly restricts certain online activities, but does so in ways that don’t make a child feel too restrained.”

Any serious adult user of Twitter, Facebook, or MySpace knows these sites are both social and anti-social. They encourage introverted behavior and the partial/total substitution of real world personal relationships with their online equivalents. Togetherville is also the Web 2.0 version of the Happy Meal toy. It is designed to deliver to marketers an elusive group of big spenders.

Children should be encouraged to read, write, paint, draw, take walks, think, play act, talk, be creative, be curious, be kind, be tolerant, question the established order, and respect others. These are things that are not learned by showing children how to upload video or add strangers to their contact lists.

Togetherville’s banner image. Note the “girls and their mother” are happy because they are outdoors in a green field. In other words, they are not using a social network.

I love that Mossberg Boehret says Togetherville doesn’t “make a child feel too restrained.” They’re meant to be restrained! There are dangerous people online who prey on children. Cyber bullying is a growing problem. Constrained chat is a gateway drug to unconstrained chat, which can lead to personal meetings. Why ease children into this process? The only goal is to make them comfortable chatting with strangers. My goal is to make my child aware of the dangers of speaking to strangers, in preparation for some day letting her make these decisions on her own. The age at which a child should be allowed to speak to a stranger anywhere in the world is different for each child, but I don’t think any child under 12 needs to be encouraged to do that.

The idea is not to teach them to use social networks. That will come in time. They need to be taught the importance of privacy and personal space, the value of real relationships, and to be aware of their own self worth.

My daughter is nine. The CD was pretty much gone when she was born. I’m no Luddite. She’s had three iPods. There is plenty of technology in this house. I work in the IT industry. BUT TECHNOLOGY IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR PARENTHOOD.

The responsibility for preparing children for sociological or technological change rests with parents. Whether our kids say, “Daddy, please please please can we go to McDonald’s?” because they want the Barbie toy, or they say “But mom, everyone’s on Togetherville,” we need to make decisions based on what we know about our children and what we want for them, and not simply roll over, saying “social networking is inevitable, so let’s get them going!” According to research from New Dream, “The nagging strategy is paying dividends for kids and marketers alike: 55% of kids surveyed said they are usually successful in getting their parents to give in.” The same survey also found “57 percent of children age 9-14 would rather do something fun with their mom or dad than go to the mall to go shopping.”

I like that Togetherville is at least thinking about this, because it will become a bigger and bigger problem, though I don’t think a great many adults understand “proper” social networking either.

But the introduction to social networking is not to say, “Look, sweetheart, social networks are cute, just like Hello Kitty.” Really, have we forgotten the lessons from earlier this month? Facebook, the world’s leading social network, trampled the privacy rights of well informed technically literate adults. Let’s not escort our children into that world prematurely.

Note: It was pointed out to me after I published this that the Wall Street Journal piece was written not by Walt Mossberg, but by Katherine Boehret, and edited by Mossberg. It appeared in a section of the Wall Street Journal online edition titled “The Mossberg Solution,” and Ms. Boehret’s picture was on the far right sidebar so I did not realize she wrote the piece. This has been corrected and I regret the error.

Tags: Togetherville, Walt Mossberg, privacy, social networking, kids, children

You have to wonder why the Obama administration isn’t hinting at a bailout for Facebook in the event that the social network’s latest privacy kerfuffle threatens the very vitality of the global poking grid. There are Facebook user protests and even predictions that this will cause a mass exodus of users and the eventual shuttering of Facebook as a going concern.

Seriously, does anyone believe that Facebook’s dominance (doubling in users from 200 million in April of last year to 400 million today, for example) is somehow threatened by this?

Here’s what’s going to happen. Already the EU and other parties have stepped up and notified Facebook that its recent behavior is unacceptable. But like a parent threatening to throw a teenager out of the house if he or she doesn’t “shape up,” these admonitions from the EU and other bodies have little long term effect. In fact, the EU warned consumers in January, 2009 that Facebook might compromise their privacy, but said nothing about the company’s obligations.

Regulators, ill equipped to deal with the new media new frontier, will make a show of protecting consumer interests. That’s not to say there are not smart people at the EU, FTC, etc. who want to do the right thing, but there are not enough people anywhere who understand the complexities of what Facebook is doing well enough to draft coherent consumer protections right now.

The company, perhaps for the first time in its history, recognizes that consumer (and regulatory) outcry requires a response, and today held a Privacy All-Hands Meeting. But ultimately, what will change? Facebook will issue a watered down explanation — it won’t be an apology. It will back down on a few missteps, tweak the privacy settings, and update its privacy agreement. And it will be damn sight more careful the next time it adjusts its privacy settings, which, in essence, are the setting for the company’s ability to generate advertising revenue.

Here’s what’s not going to happen. I think it’s highly unlikely that Facebook will be fined. Regulators are still mostly uncertain as to how current laws apply to social media/networking. And that’s not a slam. Now that Facebook has released its Open Graph Protocol for example, which allows, among other things, developers to add a Facebook “Like” button to their blog or web site, who is responsible for privacy as it pertains to the use of that Like button? The web site owner or Facebook? You now have the intermingling of functionality, the blurring of ownership, and the competing interests of two potentially responsible parties with nothing that resembles a contractual agreement.

There will also be no new privacy protections enacted in response, at least not this year. Public outrage at the latest affronts is greater than ever before, but that is because more people know and use Facebook than ever before.

Remember Microsoft’s anti-trust problems? In June, 1990, the FTC launched a probe into allegations that Microsoft and IBM were colluding to corner the PC software market. The FTC deadlocked, and the Justice Department took over in 1993. In 1994, Microsoft signed a consent decree agreeing to not use its dominant position to squelch competition. Short version: that action took four years to culminate, and did not harm the company’s long term viability. There have been numerous other actions taken against Microsoft in the intervening years (click the link above to see Wired’s excellent timeline), but none has taken the company down, and today it boasts annual revenue of $59.54 billion and a market cap of over $250 billion.

Facebook is no Microsoft by revenue or valuation, but it is in a similar position. It is essentially a social networking monopoly, as Microsoft was an operating system monopoly. People have the proverbial love/hate relationship with both companies. They complain constantly about both companies’ policies, privacy abuses, complexity, constant unexplained and sometimes invisible changes, and seeming obliviousness to the rights of consumers. But at the same time, hundreds of millions of people use the products and services of both companies all day long, every day of their lives. Because each offers the most popular and most widely understood (not necessarily the best) offering in its respective category.

In both cases, there is too much marketplace momentum and dominance for either company to fail. They will both experience ups and downs in user sentiment, and revenue. But people simply aren’t going to walk away from Facebook. The very experience that has made Facebook so successful, the ability for people to so easily make connections with others, necessarily requires some sacrifice or privacy. And Facebook is run by business people who will keep crossing the line to maximize the dollar value of the business.

This will not be recorded as an online privacy sea change. This is going to be a minor course correction. I do hope Facebook heeds this as warning and changes its position on consumer privacy and user satisfaction. But I’m not optimistic about that.

Tags: facebook, privacy, monopoly

How much information are you willing to make public in order to improve your social networking experience? With the introduction of Foursquare and other location-based services, we started publishing our precise location data, and now with Blippy, our friends can see our credit card purchases as we make them.

What capabilities might the next social networks  have to “improve” our intimacy with our online friends? I imagine it might go something like this*:

Creddy

Creddy is a social network that makes your FICO credit score available to all of your social network friends. They can see things like your current debt, your income-to-expense ratio, your credit card balance and interest rates, whether you’re over the limit, and whether your account is current. As you make purchases and pay bills, friends can see your score go up and down, and they can comment on various items on your account, offering information that credit agencies might use to adjust your score. Leveraging the interfaces and functionality of both social networking and bookmarking sites, friends can also click “Like” or “Thumbs Up” on credit report items like “John’s account is 120 days past due.”

Pollygraf

Pollygraf, as its name implies, is the truthful social network. Users are equipped with a USB polygraph device and each status update includes both the user’s direct polygraph readings and a guess, generated by a proprietary algorithm, of the truthfulness of the post.

Doxx

How many times have you wished a friend could go with you to a doctor’s appointment? Well, with Doxx, all of your friends can come with you (if you have an iPhone or BlackBerry). Doxx lets your friends see your medical records, and lets them know in real time when you visit your doctor, what the doctor’s specialty is and details of why you’re visiting. In an attempt to monetize the service, premium users can, for $7.95 a month, see periodic posts of your vital signs and live diagnoses. Doxx plans to add polling this summer, so that network friends can vote on diagnoses and help choose courses of treatment. Crowdsourced medical care may be the answer to our current health care crisis.

Dubyacee

Why leave your social network access and experience behind when you’re in the bathroom? (I know, most of you don’t any way.) I’m not sure exactly what features Dubyacee will have and I don’t think I want to know. But some imaginative Web 2.0 entrepreneurs are working on it.

*These networks don’t exist (unless I just missed the announcement on Mashable.) I wonder what else is coming. Any ideas?

Thanks by the way to Dulcita Love for helping inspire this post.

Tags: blippy, foursquare

Recently a couple of people told me they were thinking about unfollowing all of their social network friends and starting over. I’m not sure I understand the thinking behind this. Sometimes it’s done as a “grand gesture” to convey to the world that the quality of social network relationships matters more than the quantity. Sometimes it’s done to simplify one’s online life and eliminate the noise of too many followers. And sometimes it’s done merely to attract attention to one’s self, making it an ironic gesture. (”Having a lot of people follow my Twitter updates isn’t important, so I will do something that attracts a lot of attention, thereby driving more people to be interested in me, to prove that I don’t care how many people are interested in me.”)

Many Twitter users with a large number of followers (and similarly, Facebook users with a large number of friends) have either unfollowed in equally large numbers, or considered it.

One of the first people I recall doing this was Loic LeMeur, CEO of Seesmic. Jason Calacanis also did it. According to the tech news blog, they both unfollowed everyone but “kept” all their followers. I am not sure what that means, since you don’t directly choose or control who follows you. I suppose if you were really serious about recouping your privacy you could block all your unwanted followers, but that’s really inconsiderate and pointless as well.

Shockingly, I have been unfollowed and rarely do I give a rat’s ass. Loic was following me (and vice versa) when he unfollowed everyone. I don’t think I was following Jason Calacanis.

I will say there are a couple people who have unfollowed me on Twitter but have kept me as a friend on Facebook and even added me elsewhere, which is momentarily puzzling but does not affect my self worth.

Mass unfollowing as a gesture is like suicide. If you’re contemplating it just because you want to impress a bunch of people, don’t bother. No one will notice. (Even Loic and Jason had to announce to the world they were doing a mass unfollowing to insure they were noticed.)

Here’s why. Let’s say you unfollow 5000 people on Twitter. It’s not like there are 5000 people in an auditorium who came only to hear you, who are now gasping in amazement and stunned by your maneuver. That 5000 is made up of individuals, many of whom will be oblivious to the fact you unfollowed them and some of whom will be pleased. There is no 5000-person impact. CNN will not report it.

If on the other hand you feel the quality of your social network relationships has deteriorated, then maybe you do want to unfollow a bunch of people. Just keep it to yourself. Anyone who boasts they are going to ignore a bunch of people, essentially snubbing them, doesn’t have very good manners.

Tags: twitter, facebook, follow, unfollow, followers, mass

Several clients have told me recently they don’t think their Facebook pages have as many fans as their brand seems to warrant. They’ve asked me what they were doing “wrong” and how to improve their pages. One executive compared the “coolness” of his brand to a larger, boring brand that drew many more fans to its Facebook page, adding, “I don’t get it.”

I think one of the issues here is the inflation of language so pervasive in social networking. There’s a big difference between a real fan (short for fanatic) of your company, and someone who decides to “Become a Fan,” on Facebook with a single click of the mouse, and who may never again engage with the company.

Still, big business is creating fan pages and a study released in January 2009, commissioned by Princeton, N.J.-based interactive marketer Rosetta, found that 59% of the 100 leading retailers, including Best Buy, Kohl’s and Wal-Mart, are using Facebook. In fact, when I made informal inquiries into what companies had the best Facebook pages, large retail brands were most often cited. Victoria’s Secret’s Pink and Whole Foods were both mentioned.

Among smaller businesses, Boom Boom Cards of Santa Cruz, CA, does a nice job with its Facebook page. The page is frequently updated and makes good use of video and images. On the home page of its regular web site is a link titled Community Hub, which leads to the company’s blog as well as providing links to its Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts. I noticed Boom Boom Cards’s link opened to the Wall section of their Facebook page which is probably the right place to send people. Victoria’s Secret’s Pink on the other hand opens to a tab called The Scoop. There’s obviously some degree of choice and customization available. (For information on the mechanics of setting up a Facebook Fan Page, check out Facebook’s help area on this topic.)

The first step in Facebook Fan Page success is to have a strategy. You have a Web site, maybe a blog, perhaps a Twitter account and a few other social media vehicles. Why do you have a Facebook Fan Page? The answer is not “to engage with fans of our company,” though that may be an outcome. You should have a business strategy, like “grow revenue by 20% in 25-34 year olds.” That strategy will in turn “suggest” communications strategies and vehicles. If you think Facebook offers the right platform and demographic to achieve this goal, the time spent building and maintaining the page might be worthwhile.

While Facebook pages reside within Facebook, they should be thought of as simply Web sites when it comes to attracting and retaining visitors. Many of the same principles apply:

1. Determine the purpose and audience for the page
2. Use it as a standalone communications channel, with a unique charter and frequently refreshed, unique content not available elsewhere. It’s OK to have some content from your other channels, but don’t just recycle content and run it through your Facebook page.
3. Provide something of relevance and value, such as how-tos, schedules of industry events, and informative or humorous videos. People are not going to return to the page simply because they love your company. They need a reason to come back.
4. Use your Facebook Fan Page to launch time-sensitive promotions. This creates a sense of urgency and drives people to the page.
5. Staff your Facebook page with one or more company representatives who can keep it up-to-date, and can respond to comments and questions left on the page
6. Take advantage of the features Facebook makes available, like the ability to upload images, integration with YouTube and Twitter, status updates (which will appear in fans’ news feeds), creation of discussion boards, etc.
7. Watch out for overposting. If you have too much automation through FriendFeed, etc., you might find your blog posts displaying multiple times on the same network, which really bothers most people.
8. Coordinate your Facebook pages. If you have several that serve different purposes, name them and describe them in a way that helps people understand what each one is for, or consider deleting extraneous ones
9. Support independent (non-company owned) fan pages as long as they are largely positive.

Link from your regular web site and your blog to your company authorized Facebook pages (and all other company-maintained social media destination for that matter) to drive traffic and help people know which ones are sanctioned by the company. Ignore most (see #9 above) independent Facebook pages that use your logo and company name unless they are making gross misrepresentations or seriously harming the company’s reputation. Even then, consider the backlash before taking legal action against an independent page. It’s probably not worth it.

For some top, global brands, participation will mirror the enthusiasm surrounding the brand’s actual popularity, but for most, a fan page should not be seen as a direct measure of a brand’s appeal. The top three Toyota pages have about 90,000 fans combined (and nearly half of those are Prius fans.) The top three BMW pages have over 500,000 fans. Apple and Starbucks, predictably, have huge numbers. Apple has1.3 million fans on its main page, and Starbucks has 3,837,365, with another 1,362,237 fans on its Frappuccino page.

So how does this influence consumer behavior? I think many of Starbucks’ 5 million Facebook fans have not modified their habits since stepping up and clicking the “Become a Fan” link. They were already fans of the company and they aren’t drinking more coffee since they joined the Starbucks page. Many of the people I spoke with as I prepared this article said they didn’t pay much attention to the fan pages they had joined on Facebook. Often it’s a gesture, a way of saying, “sure, I like Starbucks.” Sometimes it’s aspirational. Ferrari typically produces 3000 to 4000 cars, so the majority of the 650,000-plus members of its official Facebook Fan Page are just that, fans, and not customers.

A Facebook Fan Page can be a useful part of the social media marketing mix, but expectations should be realistic. A fan page is particularly well-suited to promotions and unfolding stories, like a road trip, or a campaign tied to a sports team, a television program or a movie about to be released. The key is to keep content unique, relevant and engaging, give people a reason to come back, and most importantly, have objectives for your Facebook page and design and manage it accordingly.

Note: This article originally appeared in my September, 2009 Talent Zoo column.

Tags: Facebook, Fan Pages