Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

The comScore CEO doth protest too much?

After taking what he acknowledges is the “unusual step” of personally penning eight long blog paragraphs of comScore (exceedingly favorable) “opinion” about the financial performance of a publicly traded behemoth, Google, he returns to the comScore blog to comment on his own post!

Magid Abraham insists he has “not heard a single word” from Google subsequent to GOOG taking a multi-billion dollar hit “thanks” to a non-public comScore “report” on Google’s internal operations. The disclaimer rings as true as his VP of communications declaring at the comScore blog that another comScore “study” has determined “beyond a shadow of a doubt” that cookies are deleted by 31% of Internet users on any given month. SEE:  comScore Web Power Grab: Google Data Games and Cookie Monster

In defending comScore’s interference in the public markets today, Abraham is not only gaga over GOOG’s future, but he seems to be inspired by Google’s own PR strategy to boot. Abraham asserts a defense of the “interests of the overall Internet industry”!

HOW INSPIRING? A gesture as genuinely noble as Google rising “to the defense” of the entire Internet industry by publicly trashing its number one competitor for attemtping to team up with Google’s number two opponent? 

“We felt compelled to make these clarifications because the data was being used to draw incorrect conclusions,” Abraham claims. comScore, though, is NOT making any clarifications about its proprietary data which ought to be at the core of the “entire matter.” Abraham rallies for Google’s internal method of operations by echoing Google’s own circular claims that what is good for Google is good for consumers and good for marketers. comScore aims to tell us more about what goes on at the Googleplex then about what data magic it concocts itself in good old Reston!

Abraham says “It is important to emphasize that we are not repudiating our own data.” REALLY? Then why doesn’t he release to the public comScore’s “own data” that he is spending so much time (inapproriately, by his own suggestion) defending to the publc?

The comScore’s concluding (for now) statment on the “entire matter”:

Our data remains unchanged, and, we believe, correct. We are just offering a more thorough analysis to ensure the information is interpreted correctly and that the proper conclusions are being drawn from it.

WOW! First the top spokesperson for comScore characterizes a comScore report (that is contested within the industry) as being an irrefutable reflection of the Web’s reality, “beyond a reasonable doubt,” and now the comScore CEO informs the entire world that it is he, and he alone, that certainly knows what “proper conclusions” are to be drawn about a non-public comScore “report” on the non-public operations of a third-party company!

The entire world, in fact, ought to be skeptical of everything the comScore CEO says regarding the purported “correct conculsions” he says should be drawn from a secret comScore document.

If Magid Abraham’s ultimate concern was truly transparency for the sake of “the entire Internet,” he would RELEASE THE ”January 2008 qSearch paid click report” TO THE PUBLIC, NOW!

Abraham’s blog comment to his own post is disingenuous. If comScore’s concerns are really only that “the softening of the online advertising market, while at first glance is supported by a data sound bite like a “drop in paid clicks”, does not hold water once you dig deeper into the more detailed information provided in the paid click data,” the Abraham blog post would not be headlined “Google” and comScore would not have waxed poetic for eight paragraphs about a Google sales pitch for its “own program for improving the quality of paid listings.”

In Abraham’s own words: “All indicators point to the company continuing to do very well as far as consumer usage and competitive position…Google wins by providing more relevant ads for consumers and a less cluttered ad environment for marketers…which helps explain Google’s continued overall query growth and share dominance.

ALL HAIL GOOGLE, including comScore!

MORE: comScore Web Power Grab: Google Data Games and Cookie Monster AND The Web Economy Rejoices: Google IS Overrated and Due For BIGGER Fall!

PLUS: PR Agencies: The Next Digital Casualty? and Google vs. Microsoft: The REAL Health Platform War Story

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Yahoo touts it is making video advertising “easier to buy.” One thing is certain, IT IS PUTTING ITSELF AT VIDEO RISK, thanks to the disgraced millionaire, SEC-fined, once Merrill loud mouth.

Henry Blodget continues giddily milking (blogging) the Microsoft bid for Yahoo untill the cows come home!

Way back in pre Microsoft-Yahoo fever days (December 2007) I noted: Henry Blodget Slams eBay’s Whitman: Yahoo’s Yang Next?, asking WILL HENRY BLODGET SOON BE CALLING FOR YAHOO CEO JERRY YANG’S HEAD, VIA YAHOO’S OWN TECH TICKER????

Two months later, Blodget pounced on Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo by declaring that the Yahoo “once great brand and franchise” has already been “close to being history” for the past two years. Today, the very brand that Blodget called “history” confirms it is the proud new host to Blodget for its Tech Ticker video finance show debut.

Blodget has a history of deeming Yahoo “history.” Blodget Yahoo! headlines circa 2007:

“The Real Reason Yahoo’s Revenue Per Search Stinks”

“Google Great, Yahoo a Mess”

“Yahoo Lights On, Nobody Home”

IS YAHOO A BLODGET MASOCHIST?

After all, while Blodget was crying out loud about what he disses as ”the formerly great company,” aka Yahoo, in November, 2007, Yahoo was wooing the SEC-disgraced, banned from Wall Street, “analyst” to spout off about Wall Street, under the Yahoo banner!

Ever adept at playing on both sides of a fence, Blodget lent his hypocrtical hand to Yahoo with ”open letters” to the company and Jerry Yang in 2007, stepping up to “help” a Yahoo deemed by Blodget to be “shrinking away pathetically forever”:

Dear Jerry,

It’s time to start firing people.

Henry Blodget, Silicon Alley Insider

YES! You go Blodget: Jerry, start your firing by dismissing Henry, now a smiling public face of the very Yahoo he loves to publicly humiliate.

Blodget will continue to whip the Web into a frenzy for his own unique financial advantage, but Yang’s Yahoo Finance ought to know better.

Who does know better? Lauren Feldman, who decries Yahoo’s embrace of a SEC-banned “scum bag piece of shit,” at Yahoo:

Yahoo, in a bid to completely lose credibility is developing a show with Henry Blodget, a live show no less, about the financial markets….If the SEC bans you for life, you fucked up pretty good…Blodget touted all kinds of bullshit while privately knowing it was bullshit, lots of innocent people lost money…why Yahoo would pick this guy to do a financial show is beyond me…If anything, the Yahoo Blodget deal will expedite the SEC coming down on the Web…All of these bullshit financial sites and quote unquote experts, especially disgraced ones, who have been banned for fucking life…Yahoo needs to get its head out of its ass…like there aren’t enough analysts out there, they have to pick Blodget…Big mistake. 

AND, a BIG mistake the SEC may cause Yahoo Finance to regret.

MORE BLODGET ‘WHITE COLLAR DECEPTION’:  How Web 2.0 Meetups Displaced the New York Software Industry and

Henry Blodget Braces For ‘Harder Times’: Silicon Alley Insider ‘Screwed’? and
Henry Blodget: Mary Meeker Pulls a Blodget on Google
Blodget & Ryan: Cool, or Suck? WHAT Silicon Alley ‘Insider’!
Henry Blodget Has Internet Boom Lessons For NBC

ALSO: MySpace To Google: Learn How To Sell Advertising, OMMA Report

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

On the heels of Robert Scoble calling out Facebook for an alleged “erasure,” Danah Boyd shares the sad tale of a “Google horror story,” claiming a third party “disappearance.”

While both Scoble and Boyd do a fine job of tugging at the Web’s heart strings, both cases cloud data security issues in the cloud. Here at Insider Chatter, I have advised of the unavoidable user privacy and data security risks inherent in the use of both Facebook and Google services, and warn non-tech savvy users about using the dangerous services.

In both the Scoble and Boyd’s anonymous “Bob” case, however, both Facebook and Google have appeared to act in the privacy and security interests of their large numbers of non-paying “customers,” attempting to neutralize potentially nefarious affects of dangerous acts (intentional or otherwise) emmanating from the accounts of individual, tech savvy users.

What’s more, in both the Scoble and Boyd’s anonymous “Bob” case, both Facebook and Google restored the free accounts, intact, in a timely manner. Contrary to the sensationalist headlines, Scoble was not “erased” by Facebook and Bob was not “disappeared” by Google.

“Bob” corrects the Boyd story in comments to the post: “I’m the Bob in question. To be fair to Google, it’s unclear if the connections were the reason my account was restored (within 3 days). I filled out the “account hijacked” form several times (advice on the discussion group was to do it every day). And the support email did not come from an individual at Google, but the “team.” So either it was at the guiding hand of one of my friends’ connections and they aren’t taking credit, or I had a really good experience with the standard customer service.”

“Bob” also laments that he ought to have known better, given his technology expertise:

I’m a very experienced internet user, which is part of why I’ve asked not use my name. I’m the -last- person that should be a phishing victim, yet it happened to me. Since it happens to internet professionals far less than, say, the clueless relatives of internet professionals, of course we blame it on the user.

The very expertise of “Bob” and Robert, though, begs the question as to why they are even entrusting free Facebook and Google consumer services with anything!

“Mike” undersocres in the comments: “IMO you should never let a third party (especially electronically) maintain any personal information or data which you wouldn’t want disclosed.”

YES, and one should also not willingly provide such data to such a third party which maintains it in perpetuity with no abillity to correct, modify and or permanently delete the data from all of the third party’s systems, as both the Facebook and Google Privacy Policies and Terms Of Use suggest.

An eternal data trap is the REAL Google and Facebook nightmare and there is only one sure way to avoid it: Don’t use such free, consumer services which do not offer adequate privacy policies and terms of use.

Legislation is not necessary to “protect” users from willy nilly willingly handing over their own personal, proprietary information and data to the greedy “free” servers of for (big) profit corporations, common sense is.

Facebook is NOT a public service, nor is it a necessary one: It can very well be a dangerous service, though. Scoble and “Bob” lessons learned ought to be to STOP using Facebook and Google free login services, not to demand government “protection” from them.

Concerned about Gmail? Get your own domain email account. Concerned about data backup? Use for-fee, professional third party services that guarantee it, in writing. Concerned about not being able to permanently delete data from third party, “free” non-professional servers? Don’t put your information in such places.

Facebook and Google login services are not constitutional rights, they are optional, free, opt-in, corporate services, which adult users of the Internet are free to use, at their own risk.

ALSO: LinkedIn Preps Spy Network: Is YOUR Company Safe?

MORE: Facebook Davos PR Blitz: Beware Scoble Hype, Users Still at BIG Risk and
2008 Social Media Warning: Beware Google AND Facebook and
MySpace to Facebook: Where is Your ‘Reach, Relevancy, Results’? OMMA Report 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? and
Facebook STILL a Danger to Children: Zuckerberg, Attorney General Cuomo in PR Push and
Mark Zuckerberg: Use Facebook at Your Own Risk! and
With Facebook Platform as a Developer Friend, Who Needs Enemies? and
Startups: Why Facebook Platform is a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing 

Google Warning: How GOOG 411 Tricks Consumers and
Google Privacy Trap: Consumers Beware and
Google is WRONG On Consumer Privacy and
Google is NOT Your Friend 

PLUS: How Web 2.0 Meetups Displaced the New York Software Industry and Yahoos Rally: Beware Sticky Peanut Butter Tales

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Think Mark Zuckerberg’s Beacon is scary? Reid Hoffman has some user “tracking” of his own in store.

In November, The Washingotn Post reported the sad tale of how Facebook “ruined” Facebooker Sean Lane’s Christmas when Mark Zuckerberg conspired with Overstock to alert his “friends,” including his wife, of his happy (supposedly surprise) purchase of a diamond ring, for his wife.

Reid Hoffman may soon have some (serious) unwelcome surprises of his own, for the thousands of companies represented within the “rich profile data” of “17 million professionals” hailed by LinkedIn as the “largest group of business decision makers on the Web.”   

LinkedIn’s Mike Gamson is touting an impending fee-based “Research Network” aimed at capitalizing on the reams of data LinkedIn houses on those millions of people:

The service will help hedge fund managers and investment banks find people who used to work at a company they’re interested in, or even who is working for a customer of a company they are interested in. (as cited by eWeek)

In other words, insider corporate intelligence, or espionage:

Let’s say I’m thinking about making an investment in a producer of product X. I might want to speak to people that sell that product, people that buy that product, or that used to work at that company as part of my research process to have a better understanding of how valuable that product is.

BUT, “let’s say” the “producer of product X” does NOT want current or past employees talking to hedge funds and investment banks about its proprietary, confidential, insider goings on. LinkedIn’s financial incentives to its “17 million professionals” may nevertheless be hard to resist. Gamson boasts, “If we can begin to help our members make money and help our clients find the right people, that’s when you create value on both sides and we like those situations.”

Corporations about which LinkedIn users divulge insider information to hedge funds and investment banks, however, will undoubtedly NOT “like those situations.”

Barron’s Business Dictionary on corporate espionage: 

Act of spying. An example is spying on the activities of another company by improperly gathering information about the competing company’s new products or practices. Usually the spy is paid a fee for the information obtained.

The danger of corporate espionage, according to The SANS Institute: 

Corporate espionage is a threat to any business whose livelihood depends on information. The information sought after could be client lists, supplier agreements, personnel records, research documents, prototype plans for a new product or service. Any of this information could be of great financial benefit to a scrupulous individual or competitor, while having a devastating financial effect on a company. Just about any information gathered from a company could be used to commit scams, credit card fraud, blackmail, extortion or just plain malice against the company or the people who work there.

In Web-based social networking, six figure Fortune 500 execs seek the discretion and confidentiality that LinkedIn uniquely offers, Reid Hoffman has indicated to me. The “LinkedIn Research Network” appears to thwart such desired privacy, however.

The “LinkedIn Research Network” also appears to contradict the spirit of LinkedIn’s Privacy Policy which asserts “We will never sell, rent, or otherwise provide your personally identifiable information to any third parties for marketing purposes.” How then will LinkedIn market its “Research Network” company-specific “expertise”?

What’s more, LinkedIn’s “primary research service” risks impacting non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements and insider trading restrictions.

Linkedin claims a “simple philosophy”: relationships matter. YES, but the way relationships are monetized matters as well.    

MORE: AP On LinkedIn: Social Networking Gold Mine at $5 per User? and Reid Hoffman: LinkedIn About Face (book) and Beacon Privacy Solution: STOP USING FACEBOOK! and Multiply.com CEO to Facebook, MySpace: STOP Claiming to be Real-Life Social Networks, INTERVIEW

PLUS: Google Apps Meets Les Miserables: Enterprise IT Team DREAMS Big and Why Silicon Alley VCs Should Do Blogging Due Diligence, Too

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Corporate interest in shaping public messaging to its advantage is alive and well througout the Web.  

Craigslist and the University of California, Berkeley are a match made in new media heaven, so say the two parties and so goes conventional media wisdom. Indeed, Berkeley hails a shared “fundamental respect for alternative thinking in the public interest,” in hailing a $1.6 million Craigslist donation to the university.

In tandem with Craig Newmark’s namesake Craigslist contributing $1.6 million to Berekely to help fund a Center For New Media, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster becomes founding member of the center’s executive advisory board. Buckmaster on Craigslist’s affinity for Berkeley: Their “history of challenging convention means a lot to us.”

Odd then, that despite public congratulations all around, little of substance has been offered on how the parties aim to “think rigorously about how new media will continue to change our lives and perceptions.”

Even more peculiar, new media bloggers dutifully regurgitate the UC Berkeley-Craigslist self-congratulatory press release of a “thrilling” financing of the “first endowed faculty chair in new media,” with nary a sighting of any of the supposed new media “critical analysis” that the Craigslist donation is said to support.

The blog “paidContent”–self-described as providing insight into “the economics of content”–acknowledges the lack of substantive information available in its one paragraph reposting of the press release announcement–”hard to say what the center itself is doing”–but apparently made no journalistic effort to find out for itself, or its readers!

Here at Insider Chatter, I have been making a deliberate effort to understand BOTH the economics AND the content of the Craigslist-Berkeley financial and executive collaboration.

I have submitted extensive, detailed questions to the Craigslist CEO with the goal of gaining a more in-depth understanding of how Craigslist will interact with Berkeley and how the substantial comittment reinforces the Craigslist mission, questions such as:

Among the prospective research areas of the Center, “privacy, reputation, trust, access and new ways to encourage socially constructive action,” what will you personally lobby for as areas of inital pursuit for the Center? What actionable types of deliverables will the Center research projects produce?

Buckmaster, however, declined to “say much about specific projects”:

Other than the advertised advisory role, i’ll try to be useful in any way that makes sense.

Surprising PR style speak from an organization that claims a “service mission and non-corporate culture” and touts a $1.6 million contribution to “partner with the Berkeley Center for New Media, as it is uniquely positioned to change the very way we think about new media.”

BUT, is Craig Newmark’s namesake Craigslist changing the way it thinks about any media coverage of its activities? Craigslist is not forthcoming about its philanthropic efforts beyond PR platitudes and it is secretive about its publicly posted Terms Of Use.

Since EveryBlock launched Thursday, I have been investigating and anlayzing the new site’s bulk use of Craigslist RSS feeds. SEE Craigslist vs. EveryBlock? UC Berkeley New Media Case Study and EveryBlock Tests Craigslist RSS Feed Generosity: Missed Connection? and have been in contact with both EveryBlock and Craigslist.

The issue extends beyond EveryBlock. Craigslist’s actions vs a vs Oodle and listpic caused many to consider Craigslist a “walled garden.” The hows and whys of access to Craigslist listings is of interest to the Web community at large. Unfortunately, Craigslist is not forthcoming about how it actually evaluates what is, or is not, acceptable to Craigslist.

I asked Buckmaster for clarification on how Craigslist defines “non-commercial purposes” regarding usage of its RSS feeds: 

“Third parties can easily ascertain what is permitted on our site by consulting our Terms Of Use and/or contacting us with any questions they may have,” Buckmaster has demeured.

Cragislist’s lack of candor with the media, and subsequently the public, is contrary to the ethos of both Craigslist and its founder.

Craig Newmark wrote about “community building on the Web,” seeking the “strength of good citizen journalism”:

When the correspondent has the courage to speak truthfully even in the face of powerful opposition….journalism’s essential role of being a watchdog on government and other important social and economic institutions.

This citizen journalist has been seeking to get the truth from Craigslist, a very important social and economic institution. STAY TUNED!

ALSO: Facebook Davos PR Blitz: Beware Scoble Hype, Users Still at BIG Risk and Google TV Ads Auction: NO AdWords Buyer’s Remorse

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Mark Zuckerberg and Robert Scoble ARE meant for each other!

Why does Facebook make young men swoon? I analyzed way back when (September 2007). To start the New Year, on the heels of the Scobleizer’s unauthorized intrusion into Facebook property, I pointed out “Robert Scoble’s Facebook heaven turns to hell,” Beware Extreme Evangelism, underscoring the on again-off again, here today, gone tomorrow, Scoble whale of a love-hate relationship with Facebook.

First, Scoble declared an unabashed, but insufficiently researched, love for Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, imploring the world to join HIS Facebook world, deemed by the Scobleizer to be the future of the world. Lo and behold, though, Scoble tired of his newfound Facebook love faster than a New York minute.

Scoble to Mark Cuban: “I’ve just given up on managing this stuff. Which is just as well cause now I’m getting more work done.”

Scoble’s Zuckerberg ennui then quickly turned to Facebook unrest, with a helping nudge from Plaxo, a company with ambitions to profit from its own idea of the “next-generation social network.”

Rather than soliciting all to share in his once Facebook love, Scoble’s Facebook New Year cry turned to one of passionate public indignation, deploring Zuckerberg’s unlitateral corporate power to “erase” a Scobleizer trail for a few moments from publicly accessible servers owned by Facebook.

What does it take to “erase” Scoble’s supposed fury over Zuckerberg’s modus operandi?  A personal invitation by the “shy” Zuckerberg to Davos breakfast together with Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf.

Scoble’s commenters have been commenting on his chameleon Facebook flip-flopping and inconsistent editorializing:

CALI LEWIS (re: Scoble’s claims of Facebook “erasing”): Robert, you embrace and endorse third party services all the time. You’re blog is stored on Wordpress.com rather than using the amazing Wordpress software on your own hosted site. If you don’t host it, IMO, you don’t own it. You’re giving a lot of content to companies that may or may not have your best interest in mind.

Facebook sucks. Your endorsement of it almost got me interested, but ultimately, I can’t except a social network owning my stuff when it’s just as easy to get a domain name, get hosting and keep control. When I speak to kids in college. I tell them to register a domain and buy hosting and work to own their stuff. You should do the same thing. If you do, you’ll never get banned.

DON (re: Scoble’s endorsement of “shy” Mark Zuckerberg): The funny part is that you didn’t discuss your “wrongful” termination, nor the other issues your readers discussed, like the inability to get reinstated, nor the inability to commit “facebook suicide” and remove your content when you wish. That is why your article seems fawning and shallow to me.

Scoble says he did discuss such “other issues.” The net of Scoble’s discussion, though? Facebook PR speak:

“But he didn’t yet have answers as to just what Facebook will allow in the future,” Scoble demeured.

EXACTLY! Zuckerberg and Scoble are better off after their mutual win-win Davos turn, but citizen Facebook users are still in the same old Zuckerberg “no answers yet” boat. Beware Scoble’s Facebook advice, however, as he is now, post-Davos Zuckerberg tete a tete, firmly and supposedly for ever more in the Facebook camp:

This post sounds fawning, I know. But Zuckerberg demonstrated to me that he is, indeed, the real deal and that the hype he’s gotten over the past year has largely been deserved. He definitely won me over. Imagine what’ll he get done when he gets over his shyness.

WHO IS HYPING WHOM NOW? What “real deal” was demonstrated to Scoble by Zuckerberg over a PR breakfast aimed at “winning over” the Scobleizer? Facebook PR mission accomplished. Scoble reposted, seemingly verbatim, the official Zuckerberg PR lines, which did not contain any substantively new, concrete information. Outside of the Facebook VIP treatment he was accorded, there is no “real” reason apparent for Scoble’s latest dramatic editorial turn.

Moreover, there is NO need to imagine what Zuckerberg has in store for his users, as I have been underscoring since Scoble’s new found “shy” Facebook buddy unveiled F8 to the world. FOR EXAMPLE:

Why Zynga, NOT Scrabulous, Has a Lucky Facebook Charm and
Scrabulous At Risk? Zynga $10 million VC Game: Facebook Roulette and
2008 Social Media Warning: Beware Google AND Facebook 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? and
Facebook STILL a Danger to Children: Zuckerberg, Attorney General Cuomo in PR Push and
Mark Zuckerberg: Use Facebook at Your Own Risk! and
With Facebook Platform as a Developer Friend, Who Needs Enemies? and
Startups: Why Facebook Platform is a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing 

PLUS: Craigslist PR: Same OLD Media?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN