Facebook is slowly starting to roll out its long-awaited new comment system. TechCrunch covered this in some detail by showing off the new system and even installing it on their site so people could use it at the bottom of the story.

It’s an interesting system that uses Facebook Connect to link content off of Facebook with discussion on Facebook. When someone comments on the TechCrunch post, it posts the comment on the bottom of the story. No biggie, we’ve seen that before. But the comment also then goes to the commenter’s Facebook wall, consisting of a post of the original link as well as the person’s comment underneath. Any further comments on that new wall post then go on Facebook as well as on the TechCrunch post.

Essentially it’s a way of having discussion in two places at once. Better, the comments on the original story are threaded, so it’s not confusing to follow along and any follow up comments on or off Facebook are made in context. Read more

Matt McKeon’s jarring graphical look at Facebook’s privacy evolution has been making the rounds this week. If you haven’t seen it, check out the link and look through the years via the animated version. The evolution away from default private in a person’s network and toward what is now public is pretty interesting to see.

Three weeks ago I engaged my Media & Society class here at Lehigh in a discussion about and privacy. I asked them how many considered their photos, status updates, and wall posts to be private. More hands were raised than not. I asked them how many thought their email was private. All but one hand went up.

Then I asked the kicker question: Why the difference? The minute you send that message, whether it is an email or a wall post on Facebook or clicking to “Like” something, you are losing control of that information. Several students looked alarmed, but I pressed it further: the only privacy you have is in your head. The minute the things you think become the things you say, you lose control of those bits of information.

This one has been on my mind since SXSWi, when danah boyd delivered an excellent keynote address about privacy and social networks (full text). The definition of privacy, boyd argued, is having control over how information flows. Using as an example, boyd argued that when services take a system that is understood as private and makes the information shared on those networks public they are violating a user’s sense of privacy.
Read more

I  just sat in a couple interesting days of presentations and discussion here at the Reynolds Journalism Institute. Dean Thorson and RJI hosted a gathering of scholars that was provocatively titled ” How Newspapers Could Have Saved Themselves and How Some Still Can” and brought together both academics and industry leaders to talk about marketing, econometrics, and research needs for the industry.

It was an intriguing couple of days and I learned a ton. I’ll post some more developed thoughts tomorrow as I get some time to ponder it during my travels to ICA in Chicago, but I did want to highlight one thing.

There were a few statements regarding social media that stuck out. One presenter referred to and as “fads” compared to the staying power of newspapers. During discussion today, when the integration with social media was brought up, several pointed out that Facebook isn’t profitable and thus doesn’t present a viable model for newspapers.

Two thoughts on this. Read more