2008 Social Media Warning: Beware Google AND Facebook
“Become a knowledge management ninja with Google Reader”?
If 2007 was the year of Facebook’s “social graph,” Google hopes 2008 will be the year of Google Social. From Open Social, to Google “shared stuff,” to Google Reader “sharing,” Google hopes it can simply “share” its Googley way to Facebook extinction.
I have often underscored, however, that sharing Web 2.0 social media style is NOT really caring.
SEE: NewsFriends? Facebook Anti Social Utility: Real Friends DON’T Share and YAY? Weblo Cheapens Facebook ‘Friendship,’ Whales Rejoice! and Twitter and Facebook: The BIG Illusions of Friendship and Influence
After all, Old Chinese proverb says: “You can hardly make a friend in a year, but you can easily offend one in an hour,” i.e. Facebook Beacon and Google Reader “sharing.”
Nevertheless, Steve Micro Persuasion Rubel wants more sharing in 2008, especially the Google kind:
Be a ninja in 08. Go forward and good luck. have been using various RSS readers for nearly five years now - I’ve tried them all. However, none matches the power of Google Reader. I have found that if you tap into all of its features, it’s the Holy Grail of Personal Knowledge Management.
Rubel’s buzzwords dazzle, but where is the real knowledge that he claims to be managing?
I encourage you to throw as many feeds as you can at the Google Reader just so you can capture and mine it. This should include relevant feeds that you never have any intention of reading or even scanning.
Sound familiar? Facebook whales “throw” up to 5000 “friends” around, with never any intention of ever being their friends.
Rubel nevertheless believes his own custom searchable database makes him a knowledge “ninja”:
With the recent addition of search, the Google Reader becomes much more. Like Gmail, Reader should be viewed as a database that you can build from scratch and continually hone.
The end game? Rubel can do his own search for all mentions of employer Edelman’s client Microsoft’s Xbox in Techmeme!
YAY? For Google! Google is the one becoming the knowledge ninja, all knowledgeable of Steve Rubel’s every personal and professional interest and need.
The end of the year privacy brouhahas over Google Reader “sharing” and Facebook Beacon were but charades, feel-good “outrage” with no meaningful privacy effect.
What privacy transgressions were Facebook and Google accused of? The enabling of “sharing” of users’ information with users’ own social graph. The real privacy danger of Google and Facebook continues to be ignored by users, however, as I often underscore here at Insider Chatter.
SEE: Google Reader: Naughty or Nice? Santa Safe! and
YES! Facebook IS Scarier Than Google! and
Facebook is ‘Sorry’? Savvy Users Will Forget, NOT Forgive, Mark Zuckerberg and
Beacon Privacy Solution: STOP USING FACEBOOK! and
Dear Facebook, Beacon Tracking STILL Evil: Will Zuckerberg Partners Repent?
Why have I deemed facebook to be scarier than Google? Each Facebook user knowingly and willingly provides an interested corporation with the intimate details of their daily personal and professional lives to enable persistent data records for the unique data mining profit advantage of the corporation. Because Facebook as “Big Brother” is consensual, there is no redress.
Google has now tied Facebook for scary honors, however, due to how it profits from users’ personal genetic materials obtained by Google under false pretenses via GOOG 411. SEE: Google Warning: How GOOG 411 Tricks Consumers
Bottom 2008 line? Use Google and Facebook accounts at your own risk.
ALSO: Why Google Worship is a BAD Call in 2008 and How Google AdSense FAILS Better Business Bureau