I’ve always been a defender of Facebook to the many haters and non-believers as I do think Facebook fills a great gap - non-geeks are into it, so I can interact with my non webby friends on a regular basis.

But they’ve just made a totally misguided change to the privacy settings that is making me realise I’m deleting my acccount.

Previously you could control what showed up if someone searched for you - I had mine set that they could see my name, but not my picture or friends list, or any other information about me. I liked it this way as I could control what information was publicly available.

But as of today, Facebook has made the ridiculous decision to make all that data public.

What is considered publicly available information?
Publicly available information includes your name, profile picture, gender, current city, networks, friend list, and Pages. This information makes it easier for friends, family, and other people you know to connect with you.

Why is my profile picture, friend list and pages considered public information? Why is Facebook taking control of that data and not giving us a choice of showing it or not?

We should have control of our own privacy and data settings. A private Twitter account doesn’t show friends, so why has Facebook decided that it’s going to open it’s users’ data to the world?

A really crap decision. It’s a shame as I do really love Facebook but I’m going to delete my account as I can’t control privacy settings anymore.

Update: the very clever @disassociated has discovered that if you go to profile, click the pencil icon by friend’s list, then untick “show my friends” your friends won’t appear in the search results. I’m wondering if he had a PHD to figure that out? I’m still trying to switch off my profile picture and Pages. If anyone figures it out, let me know.

Tags: customer experience, social networking, transparency

Molt:n recently attended the Edge of the Web conference in Perth where I delivered the presentation, Entering the Mobile Space.

The topic was a new one for me so it was great to research and deliver in front of a mixed crowd of developers, designers and soon-to-be mobile fanatics. I am hoping the podcasts are released in the near future, then I can sync up the slides so everything makes a bit more sense.

Otherwise, enjoy the slides and feel free to post any questions regarding the presentation below.

Tags: Design, Development, eotw09, mobile

It’s not often I blog out of spite* but Jeremy Keith has just blogged a story of an internet bully that gets my blood boiling.

Jeremy has the full story here, but a quick summary is that a forum had a discussion on whether having perfect pitch was a born or learned skill. In a comment, someone referenced a website called www.perfectpitch.com and mentioned politely that they didn’t think it would work.

I think that is referring to www.PerfectPitch.com. I’m not saying anything about such commercially-oriented courses because I don’t know them, but I think we’d all be wise to bear in mind the general comments voiced in the first two posts on this thread.

The owner of www.perfectpitch.com then filed a cease and desist citing the Digitial Millenium Copyright Act so Google have removed that page from their index. This is such a blatent, cynical and hideous abuse of the DMCA that I can’t quite believe they’ve done it.

Jeremy explains he believes they did this as his site ranked higher in the search engine results pages than www.perfectpitch.com.

The Session has pretty good Google juice. The markup is pretty lean, the content is semantically structured and there’s plenty of inbound links. Could it be that the owner of perfectpitch.com sent a DMCA complaint to Google simply because another site was getting higher rankings for the phrase “perfect pitch”? If so, then that’s a whole new level of SEO snake-oilery.

I just can’t believe I’ve spent the last 3 weeks trying to defend the SEO industry and saying we’re trying to do good, and then some stupid ignorant company does this to prove everyone’s point, that we’re a sick and self-serving industry.

So anyway, I love what BoingBoing do when they’re served stupid and irrelevant abuses of the DMCA - they mock them and ensure more people see what the abuser want hidden than would have seen it before the notice. Hey www.perfectpitch.com, I believe it’s called the Streisand Effect.

So here is a blog post about Perfect Pitch - hopefully given that my pagerank is higher than theirs, this might appear in the search results.

* Ok that might be an exaggeration, but I’m trying not to.

Tags: SEO

John Safran’s Race Relations showed on the ABC last night (you can download the episode here or subscribe to the vodcast here) and it was just as funny as I’d hoped. I’ve loved John Safran since he put a voodoo curse on his ex-girlfriend in Race Around the World, and he’s just gone from strength to strength. As an aside, why isn’t any of that footage on Youtube?

The ABC has also just launched the website to go with the TV show and it’s a brilliant Facebook parody.

Go and check it out - if you’ve seen the first episode of Race Relations, there are some great subtle in-jokes in there. I’m really looking forward to both the show and the web integration, the ABC really seem to “get” the web.

Tags: random thoughts

It was only last week that we mentioned in our Web Directions talk that Google and other search engines were trying to get access to the Twitter firehose but didn’t index the information yet.

Well the “future” we spoke about is here, with Google and Bing both returning Twitter results in their feeds.

Google said:

In the past few years, an entirely new type of data has emerged — real-time updates like those on Twitter have appeared not only as a way for people to communicate their thoughts and feelings, but also as an interesting source of data about what is happening right now in regard to a particular topic.

Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results.

Bing has also launched Twitter Beta.

This will be great for the “real time” searchers - the 40% of searches that are looking for what’s happening now, or trends, or what people are talking about. I think it’s going to be of limited value to the “navigational” or “informational” searchers - those looking for a specific piece of information, or searching for a brand.

A few months ago I had an obscure problem with my computer that, strangely enough, Google didn’t have any information on when I looked up the error message. I took it to Twitter and found a lot of other users with the same problem, but it was a frustrating experience as I couldn’t see the “conversation” - I could see a user reporting the problem, then tweeting “thanks for the solution” but couldn’t follow tweets back in.

I’m hoping the search engines will be able to address this at some stage as this could really help the navigational searches rather than keeping it for the real time. After all, not everybody wants to hear more about balloon boy.

Tags: Development, SEO, twitter

I feel like we’ve finally decompressed after an amazing week at Web Directions South last week. Not only was it the best WDS ever but the whole Web Week was a load of fun, with a top opening night and a really great Ignite Sydney.

Scott and I presented Beyond SEO, which was lots of fun to write. The topic has been developing for years as Scott and I have had many friendly arguments about SEO. My original view was that the SEO industry shouldn’t exist as good developers, producers and content writers should be fulfilling all SEO needs within a company - if a site is developed and written correctly, an external SEO agency shouldn’t be needed.

However, Scott has convinced me recently to his point of view - for advanced techniques and tricky situations there is still a need for SEO as an industry. I’ve embedded the slides below, and the argument will continue underneath…

Derek Powazek published a rant against SEO yesterday, saying:

Search Engine Optimization is not a legitimate form of marketing. It should not be undertaken by people with brains or souls. If someone charges you for SEO, you have been conned.

He then followed up with an SEO FAQ today. Derek is someone I have a lot of respect for but I think he is wrong on a few key points. His general argument I agree with. If websites were build correctly by good developers and content writers, there is no need for SEO. I think most people who I know in the SEO industry agree with that.

However it’s like watching Jason Fried talk about how func specs are useless and you should never use them. (I’m paraphrasing a little). I agree in theory but if you work in a large organisation, you need them to avoid scope creep, etc. In a small agile company like 37 signals it’s great to not use them, but if you’re working on a project involving 3 separate agencies and 27 stakeholders then a func spec is a necessity.

It’s the same reading Derek’s thoughts on SEO. If you’re Derek Powazek, or Eric Meyer, or someone who has worked in the industry for 10 years, you don’t need SEO. We don’t “SEO” our own site as we believe in providing quality content and clean code - I don’t count keywords or target density and rarely check my stats. But I am not an online retailer trying to run a business selling things online. I’m not trying to build a brand without about-the-line advertising. And I know a lot about the web - something many people engaging SEO agencies don’t.

I think Derek’s argument is around semantics - many SEOs (ourselves included) teach companies about web standards and clean semantic code, writing well for humans and not using jargon, and providing quality content. Derek says we should call ourselves web developers. A very simplistic view as I don’t develop for clients, and I do more than development - it’s also around writing content, IA and structure. But the big reason I won’t call myself a developer is that clients often don’t have budget for developers, or they have them in-house - they do, however, have budget for SEO. With this SEO budget, we are making the web a better place for the above reasons - we’re teaching clients about web standards and writing properly.

Anyway the whole argument makes me feel like this:

I think it’s unfortunate that Derek tars the entire SEO industry with the shonky used-car SEO brush but I accept that I am probably never going to change his mind so I’ll leave it at that. Yes, the SEO industry does attract some sleazy real-estate agent types in it for the money. But there are a lot of brilliant, good people in the industry and it just makes me a little bit sad that we are all generalised as the same type. I mean, I could say that due to the number of rubbish usable crappy all-Flash sites out there that the Design industry are scammers and scum who rip you off and don’t know the web but I know it’s not true - they are only a small percentage.

So I will re-iterate Derek’s point without the vitriol and say that the majority of SEO is about having good clean code and quality content - we have always said that. And I think it’s something that belongs in-house in an organisation (that point is from me in our presentation rather than Derek). But whilst there are developers coding in tables and Flash out there, and non-online-savvy marketing people in charge of your website then there is a need for SEO.

Tags: Conferences, Development, Molt:n Digital, SEO, Speaking engagements

So most people know, Sydney woke up to an apocolyptic scene on Tuesday as a 400 km wide and 2000 km long dust cloud covered the city and produced the craziest light.

For an idea of how insane the dust storm was, check out the video below (it’s worth watching until the end).

The media and internet were full of news about waking up on Mars, Armageddon and zombie attacks.

Web genius Derek Powazek got right on it, emailing Flickr members with dust storm photos to see if he could use them in a magazine about the dust storm. So here it is on Friday and the magazine is ready - talk about the future of publishing, the dust storm isn’t even in NZ yet and there is a magazine ready for shipping.

Derek does some work with Magcloud, which is magazine publishing on demand. Those of you at Web Directions last year would have received a copy of Scroll magazine, which was created using Magcloud. It’s a brilliant idea and service, the only downside being that they don’t ship to Australia.

Derek has kindly agreed to send over a one-off bulk shipment of “Strange Light - Photos from the Great Australian Dust Storm” magazine, which I can then onward post from here in Rose Bay. Let me know if you want to order a copy, and I’ll add it to the order. Just email me at cheryl [at] moltn.com and I’ll sort the rest.

Update: I’ve just put the order in so unfortunately I can’t take any more requests. (1st October). Thanks.

Update II - I’m still getting enquiries so I’ll collect them all for another week or two and put another order in. Feel free to send requests, I’ll probably order the next batch around 18 October.

Tags: Cool websites, innovation

It’s not often I’m stunned into silence by an ad campaign but a new viral from the Danish Government, by Visit Denmark, has left my jaw on the floor and me lost for words.

In a similar vein to Witchery’s “Man with the lost jacket” campaign, a Youtube video shows a cute Danish woman with a young baby. It’s a Danish mother seeking… the father of her baby, as she goes on to say she was drunk when they met, she doesn’t remember his name or where he’s from and just wants to let him know that he has a baby.

They got a great actress and it’s actually a bit of a heart-breaking video. Then it turns out that it’s a viral campaign to promote visiting Denmark.

Karen’s story shows that Denmark is a broad-minded country where you can do what you want. The film is a good example of independent, dignified, Danish women who dare to make their own choices…We tell a good and sweet story about a mature, responsible woman who lives in a free society and shoulders the responsibility of her actions. And she uses a modern social medium.

Well yes, that’s one way of putting it. Either that or it shows that Denmark is a great place to go and get blind drunk and have unprotected sex before fleeing the next morning before she wakes up.

Exactly who are they targeting here? If they’re trying to attract English lads on a bucks night, then they’ve done an excellent job but honestly, is this the sort of tourist they’re trying to appeal to? I really think they cheapen the reputation of Danish women and Denmark in general.

The video has 40,000 views. The original has apparently been taken down, but the Grey Group (the creators of the ad) claim that they had 773,000 views.

And the internet being the internet, there are already a fair number of spoofs out there.

The campaign definitely has cut-through and memorability but I’m not sure it’s for the right reasons.

Tags: dishonesty in advertising

I was very excited to see the NSW government take a great initiative and open an apps4nsw Public Competition - there are $100,000 in prizes (although I wonder if that’s my own taxpayer money back to me again?) for coming up with great apps that utilise government data.

Brilliant idea, and a lot of people I know are talking about it on Twitter. I have a few ideas up my sleeve so went to see what data sets are available.

Data.nsw.gov.au:

A catalogue of NSW data and information sets will be available soon.

Oh dear. Oh well, they have this message about following them on Twitter.

Brilliant, I’ll go and look to see what data they have released.

One update and they’re not following anyone.

Thanks NSW Government. It’s a brilliant idea but maybe they needed to prepare a little further in advance before they released the idea.

Update: As of 21st September they have released their first dataset for the NSW Public Transport Data Exchange (TDX) Program. (I found that out via a friend on Facebook - their official twitter stream and website haven’t been updated yet).

Tags: customer experience

We’ve been spoiled for choice for awesome events in Sydney lately, and there’s now another one to stick in your calendar - TEDxNSW. I’m sure everyone has heard of TED talks (and if you haven’t, stop reading this now and go and check them out). Sam Whiteman (former colleague, good friend and awesome all round) is bringing TED to Sydney on Tuesday 15 September.

The night is going to be a mix of unseen videos from TED, as well as inspiring local speakers. The local lineup looks great, with personal hero John Allsopp talking about augmented reality, the director of Earth Hour speaking about setting up the event, as well as a couple more that sound really interesting.

Andy Ridley - executive director of Earth Hour, the global climate change campaign that was held in more than 370 cities, towns and municipalities around the world in 2008, with tens of millions of people taking part.

Paul Gilding - served as CEO of a range of innovative NGO’s and companies in his 35 years as a social entrepreneur. His commentary on The Great Disruption has been picked up by numerous outlets including Pulitzer-winning Thomas Friedman in the New York Times.

John Allsopp - Web pioneer John Allsopp explores how this collapsing of the virtual and the real is creating an “augmented reality”. Software developer, long standing speaker, writer, evangelist and self proclaimed expert on all things web development related, John has spent the last 15 years working with and developing for the web.

David Malin - world renowned astrophotographer involved in scientific imaging for over 45 years, initially as a microscopist and later as photographic scientist and astronomer with the Anglo-Australian Observatory.

I’m really excited about the event, and the best part is all proceeds are going to be donated on KIVA so will help entrepreneurs in the developing world. Tickets are selling quickly so head over to the site and get yours now. We’ll see you there.

Tags: Conferences