No this is not a pun on Apple, it has been an idea I’ve had for quite some time and actually one of the first articles I wanted to write about when this blog began. There are so many limitations of where mobile is today. I’m not going to discount all the incredible work that has been done with Smartphones, they certainly have become the lifeblood of how many people function on a daily basis. But Smartphones evolved from tradition cell phones, which evolved from home phones. We’ve chosen form factors that feel like something we have known for decades. Sure the Candy Bar Style of phone doesn’t exactly look like your phone that you had at home as a child but the evolutionary path of Smartphones of today basically merged PDAs and Cell Phones when Handspring stuck a VisorPhone Module on top of a PalmPilot. Not much has really evolved from an external design point beyond that, just more polished (sorry Apple).

However, in the last year or so, things outside of the SmartPhone have evolved. People are using Tablets and needing ‘always on’ access to Notebooks. Though there is more WiFi than ever before, its never there when you really need it so we move to our SmartPhones at that point. A small few use their phones to “Tether” and some have bought MiFi devices. New laws have also come into play where you are required to use hands-free devices while driving.

So Where Am I Going With This?

I think we are at a time or very close to a time to reverse what we call the “mobile phone”. The cell antenna, Bluetooth, RFID and WiFi should all be driven by the Bluetooth headset and be your communication hub. I know this sounds radical to some and some people think that I have lost it but I’ll explain why we should be on the cusp of major mobile change.

• The components have gotten small enough to do this. We could not have done this 10 years ago.
• This frees our mobile cellular connection from the screen. The carriers will hate this but you finally will be able to have one device drive all of your voice/data and share it among all of your devices.
• The only time that you will need a cellular upgrade would be for new, faster speeds and major communication spec changes.
• One day you can carry an iPod Touch, the next day an Android Tablet, the weekend just you Bluetooth Headset. It frees you from being locked into the need of a one size fits all device environment. SIM Cards were suppose to allow us to do this but never really fulfilled the promise. And CDMA never had an option.
• This also means any PDA device can work on any carrier so iPod Touches could be used on Verizon and so on.
• Few people will carry multiple devices today but the iPad, Kindle and netbooks have entered enough mainstream to begin changing that. I’ve lived the days of a bunch of devices on my toolbelt, this could eliminate that.
• Don’t think of today’s Bluetooth headsets being the same as the ones I’m talking about tomorrow. Voice technology is vastly improving and many things could be cloud-driven and collected without the need of a screen or full mobile OS. Carriers could be tracking location while apps like Foursquare, Gowalla, Google Latitude could make use of the Carrier’s API to that data. Alerting triggers can be filtered in the cloud.  This would significantly reduce the overhead of multiple apps collecting the same thing which heavily drains battery.
• Think of form-factors of devices sensor-driven such as the FitBit that can also track all of your Activity and Sleep Patterns
• RFID Tags sensors in your cars, in stores and even in rooms of your house that can create very low powered scenarios in a small radius that can do adaptive things such adjust lights and temperature based on presence too small for things such as GPS to recognize. Check-ins can occur once you enter a door.
• The headset will always be with you, something that we are suppose to have with us in the car but usually don’t
• Do you really need a full screen at all times? Really? Didn’t you think the same about a physical keyboard?



• Decoupling Communication could technically move screens to glasses
• It allows for new ways to evolve mobile. This big Candy Bar is holding us back in ways we don’t even know yet. Size does matter!

We’re still clearly at the beginning of this evolution and we may still be years away but it takes bold leaps of change to avoid ending up in the same place as what has come before. If you had this smaller device, your ‘new normal’ may no longer be a pocketable device, maybe it will but it allows for new growth of many form factors  and choice. We need to release the ‘death grip”.

Since we were kids, we’ve been pretty taught that there is usually a two contrasting party system in place and that you need to pick a side. Whether it’s the perceived concept of good versus evil, rooting for the local sports team, being picked for a team or political party (in the US); we’ve been trained that we must choose a side. Sometimes we pick the lesser of two evils do to not liking one choice for whatever reason, the anybody but the Yankees mantra. Somehow human nature made this rule up, rarely can your view be anything in between black & white unless the subject isn’t important to you. If you’re neutral, many consider that as a sign that you don’t know enough information to make a decision. But why is that?

I bring this topic up because I along with many others on social networks see and somehow get passionately involved in these debates every day. I believe as human beings, we are naturally led by our emotions and rivalries trigger those feelings. Debates are of course discussions over opposing views. Does there have to be a best Smartphone or OS? Does there have to be a Twitter vs Facebook debate? Gowalla vs Foursquare? Star Wars vs Star Trek , etc. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have a view on any of these things but why do we feel so passionate that there is only one right answer and it’s ours?

In many cases, there is no right or wrong answer but it seems that everybody has it. The answer you have is the answer for you and I’m sure that you have good reasons for your position on whatever subject. I think it’s healthy to discuss and debate these things and perhaps share a piece of information that perhaps they did not know. You can say that you are trying to influence your position and help that’s position’s momentum. But we all need to realize that trying to influence someone who has a strong opposing view on the debate is highly unlikely to change that person’s position. Yes, we will take cheap shots at the other side when problems or signs of weakness arise and perhaps the bias has blinded the person from establishing a well-balanced conclusion but we believe in what we want to believe which is very difficult to change. But in many ways even two opposing views still brings us together as a community,  a ying needs a yang to complete the circle and add balance.

Call us fanboys but just be thankful that we have choice in this world and let others choose the other team. The word Choice seems to be overused in certain topics as of late however it is really one of the greatest gifts we have. We should embrace choice and diversity, the goal is not to influence a person to see things our way but to know that multiple solutions exist because of different types of people and needs. Competition and rivalry fosters passionate innovation in multiple directions which is good for everyone!

The past few weeks have had a lot of news that are about “the future of TV”. Everyone is apparently moving into this space at a rapid pace. The past few weeks major players such as Microsoft, Google, Apple and TiVo have made new product announcements. I think most people reading this knows about the Google and Apple TV news, those are huge topics on their own. Microsoft’s didn’t get much press to the mainstream that they will now have Media Center ‘Headless Appliances’. Maybe you may not have heard about TiVo’s somewhat similar plan. A theme has certainly been solutions without any local disk. The problem I have with TiVo’s approach to this is that they will create market confusion and in many ways it’s their own fault.

TiVo has a branding issue, A HUGE ONE!: Because they were pretty much the pioneer and leader in the space, the word “TiVo” means “DVR” to the mass audience. I mean really, DVR is literally synonymous with TiVo. Having an TiVo-branded, Insignia TV using the “latest TiVo non-DVR software” is just going to cause a huge mess for Best Buy. I’m not going to know Best Buy but their majority consumers and staff are normally not the best educated on their products.

A Quickly Crowded Space: Can TiVo really come out on top of the names of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Apple (not mention Boxee, Roku, PopcornHour, etc) in an all out war of merging TV and the Cloud? And TiVo’s 3rd Party Cloud Apps are rather sparse and a bit dated compared to what Google could bring from Android. I know TiVo is facing some financial issues with 5 straight quarterly losses but I’m not convinced that this is the best strategy to improve that situation. In fact, I think its a distraction that will prevent them to focus where they need to.

Cable/Satellite Industry Boxes: Steve Jobs said the other day, “nobody’s willing to buy a set-top box” because cable operators “give everybody a set-top box for free, or for $10 a month”. But this is exactly why putting the UI into the TV is going to fail too. Unless the Cable/Satellite industry gives up control of that core box (ROFL) and replace it with a CableCard/Tru2Way alternative, putting a UI inside the TV’s core features will struggle just as much as another set top box. Why?

Remote Controls: There’s not much detail on what this TV’s configuration will look like but it’s either going to require a CableCard or IR Blasters. I’m assuming it will come with a TiVo QWERTY remote but will it be Universal? If they have a BluRay or DVD Player, A/V Receiver, etc then they will more likely use the Universal Remote which means a built-in TV UI will most likely now be used, at least not it’s full potential.

Local storage Is Nice: Sure I think Cloud TV or IPTV is the future but I like to queue and store shows, not just for the sake of storing but also to eliminate bandwidth constraints and lags. Most of the videos I watch online on a TV, I store locally first to have a seamless watching, pausing and rewinding experience. This can be done on a TiVo today for selected Podcasts, I’m not sure about this Insignia solution yet.

Revenue Concerns: I sure hope TiVo doesn’t try to generate monthly fees and/or a “TiVo Basic” Tier. Those days are behind us and this economy is not going to help TiVo generate revenue in that way. I still own and use two TiVo Series 2s with Lifetime Subscriptions on them because I can’t justify the upgrades when I also have a Windows Media Center/Boxee/Hulu machine to handle HD and much more.

All-In-One TV Lock-ins: Lastly, I (and many others) don’t like all the things being built into TV’s. People don’t want to by a new TV every 3 years, it’s a longer term investment. The industry is trying to push things like Widgets and 3D Technology to spark consumer spending to replace a 1080p TV they fairly recently bought. I would rather have all that stuff in a seperate box. That way if something goes wrong it is easier & cheaper to repair/replace. Keep the TV a TV and let us decide what options we want with a seperate box.

There’s no doubt the Internet-connected TV is an idea that’s finally ripe for consumer adoption, I’m just afraid that TiVo’s newest strategy is 3-Thumbs Down though with the other options out there.

Back in February of 2006 I wrote about a crazy concept for TiVo: I suggested that the Palm OS could have been embedded into TiVo units based on how the Treo 5-Way Rocker for navigation was much like the TiVo Remote’s design. This suggestion was mostly do to the frustrations with TiVo’s APIs (still a frustration BTW) but let’s flash-forward to today.

First I want to say that TiVo has a great product for your basic needs of a DVR and has some great extras that many DVRs lack. However, HTPCs and many newer devices that connect to internet services has made the TiVo feel a bit dated in features. I use to watch Video Podcasts on my TiVo (moved to a HTPC) and still rent a Movie through Amazon to TiVo but I’ve had a thirst for more from this company for well over 4 years now. I don’t want to see TiVo go away but they need to reinvent themselves as something special and new.

Fast forward to today. I still think that TiVo has one of the easiest forms of UI navigation for DVRs, it’s design works much better than things such as Boxee and Roku. I still believe my concept of Palm OS integration would have been a perfect fit for the time but now they can take that same concept and use either Android along with the Google TV concepts or even look to partner with Apple and bring the iPhone OS to the TiVo Platform for unlimited application expandability. A TiVo/Apple partnership could really be a win-win. Granted many of today’s apps will have more navigation challenges that didn’t exist with the Palm OS or Windows Mobile that used 5-Way Rockers more but it gives developers a new way to help reinvent TiVo. As I said in 2006, it can turn TiVo and your TV into a Personal Information Center. TVs are no longer just about sitcoms, they are a 10 ft interface that can give us unlimited information from a remote control if done right.

David Weinberger & Dave Winer discussed this weekend “What if Zuck invented the web?”.

The hypothetical “what-if” of one different person creating one event is really hard to see the rippled changes in the future. But let’s have some fun. If you’ve watched Hot Tub Time Machine, it illustrates that one person can change the future if they knew how to change the future for their benefit. This story is a bit lengthy but I really hope you enjoy the wild journey and ending, I had fun making it up.

Would Zuckerberg have seen the birth of the World Wide Web as something that he would have had the drive to build? In hindsight of course but without the knowledge of the future, I just don’t see Mark being “that guy”. The concept of creating hypertext data and using TCP with the help of DNS for addressing to transmit to rendering tools for viewing systems is not something I’d see him coming up with. But let’s suppose he did and let’s suppose he worked for CERN.

1989

Zuckerberg would most likely have designed a core centralized system that all data from TCP would have gone through with nodes (think Twitter with 3rd Party Clients being Nodes). Those nodes would expand all around the world but there would always have been a core that acts as an intermediary for requests to go through. That core would have acted as a HTTP proxy to allow two nodes (the server and the browser/server) to transport the hypertext data. This core would have had the ability to collect, categorize and store transactions and the hypertext data stream. He even created a way to encrypt the stream to ease the concern called Domain Front-end Security (DFS) which acted as a Public-Private key type system. Essentially it had full control of the World Wide Web.

1996

He decides that he needs to monetize HTML/HTTP somehow. By this time, Search Engines have become major start pages. He comes up with a plan and decides to create his own search engine and firewall these other Search Engine nodes claiming that they are scrapping information and datamining is no longer allowed unless they pay WWW Credits.

2003

Sites which connect people Socially begin to form and they begin to really become the new Internet. Zuckerberg’s Search Engine is becoming less relevant but he still collecting incredible amounts of metadata within the hypertext between the various nodes, he starts to build an Identity Store which also creates relationships. Zuckerberg goes further to add the need for WWW Credits to any nodes that are making money through the HTML/HTTP services. The centralized design allows him without much alternative to collect 30% of money following on the Net.

2010

Zuckerberg is challenged do something new to transform his amazing revenue-generating creation. So he decides to embed new information within the hypertext being transmitted without giving much notice. In the newly embedded information contains information about the author and the viewer’s past and the two nodes that exposes lots of good information to add value to all parties because it is assumed that it is what everybody wants. People begin to notice a very different World Wide Web, their interests and information throughout all of the years suddenly become merged between all sites and others can see it. People freak out but have little control, the data has already been stored and seen. Some decide to live an off-line life.

Some college students come up with their own idea to replace Mark Zuckerberg’s World Wide Web. The word gets out about this concept and many people love the concept. They donate a lot more money than the students are looking for. The concept turns into reality and becomes the World Direct Nodes (WDN) which skips the centralized core proxy and allows Nodes to connect directly. A new smaller Web is born, some people use it but Zuckerberg’s momentum of size and tight control of existing nodes makes it very difficult for this WDN to go mainstream. It’s simply too late because we all allowed this form of the future to happen.

2012

Over time the concerns quiet down but human behavior has changed. People become much more Open in some respects but become much more reserved with items only a handful of people should know about. People resort to other somewhat more private protocols such as SMTP and WDN to communicate to close friends. Now when someone watches a movie on Netflix, Pandora and iTunes will know that and will suggest the Soundtrack while the “actor” (bot) will pretend to want to be your friend. When someone goes to a restaurant, their cell phone notifies a waiter that they are their and that they have complained about the service in the past and Blippy tells him that they usually spend a very low amount at this location. The waiter doesn’t bother to give them great service and spits in their food. That customer doesn’t really know transpired except they had gotten bad service again. People are relatively happy with how information is shared.

2015

More profits were needed to be made for the Shareholders of Zuck’s Internet. The Internet is “free” now with a Global Wireless WiFi system. Mark Zuckerberg decides that people have adapted to an “open web” so well that he decides to expand the idea. He decides to release data that was secured in transactions using his DFS encrypted system (you see, his private key system that everyone is using has a backdoor in the Centralized Proxy Farm and yes DFS stands for something else he said years back in an IM). Now any individual item you buy, any bank transaction, any move you make with your cell phone, your Net Worth, anything “securely transmitted” is exposed to public consumption. Through Augmented Reality, we know everything about everyone by just pointing our phones at each other. A reputation management system determines if a company should hire people, no interviews required. Your date on Friday already knows all the names and activities you have had with past relationships. Cameras are everywhere and anyone can access the public ones and for a fee, the private ones. The government and companies will be watching us, but we’ll also be watching them. Nobody can hide their true selves. Our Digital Life and every action make up our historic DNA. Is this good or bad, you decide…

Back to Real Life:
We’re almost already here and if it wasn’t Facebook’s recent changes, someone else would have taken the bold next step. Video cameras track you in stores and are also cropping up in many public places. Point of Sale systems and Credit cards already record of what you buy, credit-rating agencies know if payments are late. Web sites record your browsing preferences. Insurance companies store your medical data on computers, which can be hacked. Wiretapping phones, legal and otherwise, is on the rise. Many people find this trend alarming, and they should. But privacy between people only gives us a false sense of privacy, someone has your information and a lot more than you think. Why not just make it public and not give companies or government any advantage of power. The next step may force them to be less private (though doubtful).

Science-fiction writer David Brin, argues that in a more perfect world, privacy might matter less than we think. Many others assert exactly the opposite: that privacy is critical to our way of life. I can’t tell you if this is a good thing, society and companies will do that for you if you have no opinion of your own. But each of us carry a critical role of trying to error-correct cyberspace.

As always, Louis Gray very eloquently said tonight “It’s Time to Stand for Something Better (Again)“. Things have gotten a little vicious as of late because some very sensitive issues have arise and I admit I’ve been caught up in the emotions. Yes at some point the mob needs to die, I’m not sure if we are there yet but it’s always good to reflect on your role in the picture. The sad thing is, we’re not talking about technology these days, we’re talking about philosophies, politics and religion of technology companies and their users. Now these are all important things to talk & debate about but they do tend to lean towards the negative writings after a while and mud gets thrown very heavy from all sides. We’ve essentially have become “The Tech Baggers” (Hey, Tech people drink coffee not Tea), not something I’m proud of when you put it into that type of perspective.

But we really want to be talking about technology and it’s better future. The issues we are talking about today really do define the tomorrow. But we need to be reminded sometimes that it should really be done with respect and civil. That of course goes in hand with respect over breaking news first. There are lines that should not be crossed even if you have something to prematurely break.

An Echo Filter and Ranker

But finally, I did want to touch upon “the echo effect”. We all want to say our piece on current topics and honestly, there isn’t that much news on a daily basis. Yet every day I easily have 1500 new RSS feed entries which has a lot of overlap. Some of this issue is too many voices but this is something that I know technology can fix for us. We need ways to reduce the Echos to our individual eyes. Between Feeds, RTs, Shares and Ranking Systems there needs to be a way that you can group topics and echos together while choosing to expand the grouping out if you really want to read every article. I kind of want Robert Scoble’s curation dream or at least the early building block of that system. This isn’t Lazyfeed or anything that exists today that I am aware of, this is something like Google Reader and Seesmic with much smarter ways of auto-grouping topics with sub-topics and knowing which ones give me all the news information I need at the top and which ones are opinion. AND it gets smarter by the reader’s actions understanding what and who the reader feels gives them the most signal. If I subscribe to an RSS feed, remove those RTs of who I’m following and use those as ranking Likes instead. I don’t know what this fully looks like and I know this is no easy task but it’s needed badly.

I think the world needs a break from FB-related posts and though this still somewhat touches the subject, Kickstarter really had significant news this week due to Diaspora and have been mostly an Unsung Hero in the process. Something that’s not really being said is this week has proven that Crowdfunding can work if you have a killer idea and the proper marketing awareness around that great idea. But what it also told me is that despite popular belief, people are willing to pay for social networks and web applications. There may even be a business model hidden in here have your community fund you early or before they join and then crowdfund future features. Personally, I would prefer this over monthly recurring payments. The Kickstarter.com platform is really the key here which I had the pleasure of hearing other success stories at SXSW.

There are groups of people that have been classified as Freediots or Freetards because they want everything to be free. I could be wrong but I believe some of those people may have donated to Diaspora this week. On the opposite spectrum, even Fred Wilson donated money which isn’t very surprising but always a good sign when VC people support the idea with no strings attached.

fredwilson

Fred Wilson

@fredwilson: I just funded this project on Kickstarter - Decentralize the web with Diaspora: http://kck.st/9QC2zk

May 13, 2010 @ 12:42 AM from web Powered by Tweeted

Was all of this due to getting caught up in the anti-Facebook movement and timing? Yes a lot of it was due to perfect timing but it still showed me something I’ve never seen before, a lot of money was given to 4 college students who have a vision and a dream which obviously a rather large group share even for this moment. The team was only looking for ten thousand dollars, they now have over $130,000 with another 2 weeks of funding to go. Again, a huge shock to me as many people could have easily decided that Diaspora clearly met their goal and not bothering to contribute at that point. Not to put any extra pressure on the Diaspora team but they now have a spotlight on them to deliver something big. If they remotely meet people’s expectations, I can assure you that you’ll see many other projects come to life via the same route.

People will pay for stuff. They will always look for the best deal, and yes that usually is free with it comes to apps online or on a phone, but you need to create something people want that nobody else is doing cheaper. People like to buy things that give them emotional satisfaction. We pay for iPads, Internet Access, Music/Entertainment, Souvenirs, etc. We pay money to travel to visit family and friends , see new places or just relax on a beach/ski trip. Shopping or Contributing is a very emotional transaction, it’s imagining owning or wearing or using something that’s “just the right thing” for us. In Diaspora’s case, privacy and control are features that people think are worth the value.

So words for thought, people will pay money for things that give them emotional satisfaction, especially those things that involve interacting with others or have a high emotion content or strokes their egos. Figure out your idea, figure out how to get some early media coverage and then use something like Kickstarter to plant the seeds of yours and other people’s dreams.

A lot has been discussed about privacy or lack of. But what do you consider private data? Its a complex concept even before any other concerns are even lumped with it. Private information is treated as a distinct subset of personal information. This is the best way to discuss the issues clearly but there really is no defined subset of what is and what isn’t out of bounds.

• Is your name private? Age?
• Your physical address, phone number, cell phone?
• Is your email address or instant messenger usernames?
• Are your emails or voice messages inside your mailbox private? Your contact lists? Your pictures?
• What about your family names and relationship? Are family matters private?
• What about your discussions with your friends? Co-workers?
• Is the knowledge of your physical items within your house private? Your Wishlist?
• What about the software you use on your PC or CellPhone? Your Web History?
• Are your interests private? What you watch on TV? What you listen to? Activities?
• Is your financial data private? What you bought? Your stock portfolio?
• Your health information?
• What about your Computer’s Video Camera? Your Physical Location?
• Religious beliefs? Political Views?
• Your somewhat-naked body picture in an Airport Scanner?
• You get the Point…everyone has a different line in the sand.

Privacy is a very complex onion, many subjects and layers within those subjects. Privacy is a personal, subjective condition. One person cannot decide for another what his or her sense of privacy should be.

While privacy is important, people willingly (and should) share information about themselves to others. Lack of privacy allows people to interact with one another socially and in business BUT THIS DOES NOT MEAN that people should lose control over the information they want to keep private whether to themselves or to a small select group of people. Privacy is not binary but, due to lack of user knowledge or warning, Facebook almost turned it binary by default.

Generalizations about privacy are almost always wrong because each person views that Firewall barrier or set of barriers to be different. Privacy of information control have merits for safety, autonomy and peace of mind. But more importantly, it allows us to be us. You should have layers of privacy and be allowed to let your guard down for close friends and family. The world and companies do not need to know about everything you discuss with others online. And in today’s age, online is where people talk to friends. Every person in the world naturally guards their privacy by assessing whether and when to share information with others. These judgments are made in ways dictated by culture, upbringing, and experience.

When something such as the Facebook Platform suddenly changes the rules, all those past personal judgments where compromised with little warning. Privacy and security are different topics but when Facebook auto-opted-in these changes that reflect past conditions, they chose to break security rules that were defined between site and user. Facebook: When some of your first words in your Terms of Service page say “Your privacy is very important to us” and then you do a switch-a-roo that reflects past data, really how important is privacy and security to you?

A recent study found that people are becoming way more private than they were five years ago. Basically Facebook’s former niche was that is was a place to find and connect with your real-life friends. Facebook was a place to write or send something funny, perhaps NSFW or Mom. Facebook needed to grow and the way to do that was to transform their niche to something much wider, eliminating barriers of that former niche along the way.

So while Mark Zuckerberg is still “CEO….Bitch!“, the rest of us need to think a bit more about our public image and really think about how we use Facebook as it’s no longer a place to talk “just among friends”. Who’s to say that your “friend of a friend” settings may mean something different someday in Facebook, Open Social means “another app that has your friends with Facebook”. I’m cool with that but I no longer trust Facebook and will use it much more reserved than before. And the funny thing is, I never thought I was sharing anything too crazy and I’m not a very private person but I treated Facebook as a much more personal site, I loosened my guard a little more there. What I believe this all will mean is that average people (in general) will become even more selective with whom they friend within the Facebook-connected Universe and will perhaps join the next “private real-friend” niche site.

One final note: A public web and public lifestream has many positives. I’m all for an open and connected web of your information. I just believe that Facebook did it 100% wrong by changing the game mid-course, without much warning or education and affected all data from the past with a different privacy policy. Facebook was that private and personal niche, now it’s just another social network but one that many people no longer trust.

There have been some recent reports about Zynga considering leaving Facebook which most are assuming is due to Facebook Credits and the revenue money split. If true, this along with Facebook’s recent privacy changes can really become the perfect storm that turns Facebook into GhostBook. You see, it’s been reported that 66% of all traffic to Facebook is for it’s Games. If this happens, many of today’s daily visitors may drop their visits to the site which can create a rather dramatic ripple. Facebook really needs Zynga!

Could Facebook become the next Friendster or MySpace?
If Zynga leaves, it may. My gut tells me that many of my connected friends which keep me on Facebook may stop logging in frequently if the games disappeared. The other set of friends that are not social gamers are usually on other services such as Twitter, LinkedIn or Google Buzz anyway. I don’t like Farmville, Mafia Wars, CafeWorld in my social streams but ironically those games are the glue that keep many of my present and past “real life friends” engaged with Facebook. Could the things I dislike the most on Facebook may help me disappear if they disappear? Zynga may be the glue that may loosen to make it easier for those looking to leave due to privacy concerns but don’t due to friends.

Though I doubt that Zynga will fully leave the platform, suddenly Facebook’s Open Social API and attempt to be the center of the Internet looks much more irrelevant if Facebook shrinks down to 1/3 of it’s current size.

Google, Facebook, Twitter and even Apple have without a doubt done some innovative things throughout the years and have great products that a very large number of consumers love and use everyday. One would say that all three of these companies have shaped not only new technologies but all the ways that we do things within our lives both personally and in business. They truly have transformed the world in a way that never existed before.

However the past few months and weeks we have seen some pretty interesting turn of events in the technology space that quite frankly have been very disturbing to me. Some have been just disruptive but others have been much more deceptive. I’d like to give each of these companies the benefit of the doubt and say that deception was not the intent but it’s what has caused the controversy in each of them. The desire for more power can clearly cause the need for deceit and its a fine line that needs to be watched.

First was the release of Google Buzz and how it was released with some rather interesting methods to introduce mass adoption. Twitter made some moves in direction that caused some 3rd Party tools to be Then we saw the Apple announcement regarding limiting the developers choice of programming languages for iPod/iPad applications and this week we learned about Facebook’s new strategy and features.

The core issue I see in all these news events is that there are elements of deception in each one. I’ll start by looking at the two that affect developers the most. The first being Apple’s changes to the iPhone developer program license and the app approval process in general. Though I don’t agree with the stance; it’s not an issue that the iPhone requires apps to be written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript. If this was the stance from the beginning, I think the developers would never have questioned the move. The Apple approval process has always been scrutinized but I think the biggest issue is when existing “approved” apps suddenly get removed such as WiFi scanners or now the 100+ Flash CS5-based apps currently in the iTunes Store. Both of these issues are that Apple changed the rules in the middle of the game that has gotten everyone up in arms. To me these aren’t disruptive changes, it’s deceptive when you change something that affects and includes apps that preexisted the rule.

Twitter’s news of acquisition was not much different for developers at first though caught people by surprise. Twitter’s success without a doubt is largely due to it’s third party developers which have created 70,000 innovative apps. That ecosystem of developers helped Twitter become one of the most revolutionary communications platforms we’ve seen on the Web. In my view this is not deceptive, just disruptive to who the developers are competing with in their apps.

An Auto-Opt is not an Autobot, it’s a Decepticon

The other two situations of Google Buzz and Facebook are more concerning to me as these situations directly affect the consumers or users of the service. They both had the same major flaws that are unacceptable: auto opt-in services which lead to some fairly major privacy issues. Originally when a user first went into Google Buzz in it’s first few days which was enabled within GMail for all users, it automatically set you up with followers and people to follow. These people were chosen based on whom the user emailed and chat with most with other Google services. That in general was fine but the problem was that the people you follow and the people that follow you were made public to anyone who looked at your profile….BY DEFAULT! You may not want people to know that your chatting with a competitor, a potential business partner or someone from your past. Google did adjust most of the settings that affected the worse of the privacy flaws and the auto-follow flaws. Google Wave’s flaws were simply not well thought out but at least Google acknowledge the user’s concerns and addressed the issue, therefore I don’t really consider this to have been intentionally deceptive.

This finally brings me to Facebook and mostly it’s Graph API that concerns me. While I understand is trying to make things easier for consumers, this auto opt-in system that they have chosen is downright evil. I would forgive Facebook in this mistake but the Beacon fiasco should have been their lesson learned, this auto opt-in was clearly intentional. The majority of Facebook users by default have no idea how much data they are pouring out and handing over to Facebook. Personally I am a very transparent person on the web but I have a strong belief in personal privacy needs to be protected by default and the user chooses to be “open” to the things they are comfortable with to all friends, groups of friends and the public. Several people were surprised this week when I told them the latest music they were listening to on Pandora and that it was due to Facebook’s default new settings. Today’s it’s Pandora and Yelp, tomorrow it can be NetFlix which has had lawsuits on issues similar to this type of privacy issue. Pandora, Yelp and Netflix potentially could disclose sensitive things such as sexual orientation to people.

The scary thing is that we have no idea what other information may pop up one day to your Facebook friends. Hypothetically, Facebook could make a deal with Mint.com one day and all your friends know you full financial information. Or one day you’ll wake up to find your health records shared. Granted these extremes are not likely but you should have the right to know and approve of when more about you is being shared to an audience especially when two sites have never been connected before. A single privacy setting is simply not enough control all connected partners nor is a single bucket of  ”all friends”.

But most importantly, any auto opt-in that affects privacy should be considered illegal. This privacy issue is not just about targeted advertising, it’s about how varies pieces of information tied together can really affect someone in real life. I realize that Facebook is trying to help the web get connected and social but you need to respect people’s privacy first. But Facebook is clearly being deceptive in it’s approach and attitude on that subject and it scares the hell out of me when a company of that size doesn’t respect its user’s information first.