Interesting settlement, Facebook has to contribute to a non-profit that awards grants to projects that promote online privacy… how wonderfully ironic! A federal judge has approved a $9.5 million settlement of a federal class-action lawsuit over alleged privacy violations by Facebook Inc. Under terms of the settlement, Facebook will contribute $6 million to set up a non-profit foundation that will award grants to projects that “promote the cause of online privacy, safety and security.” The suit was filed in August 2008 on behalf of people who said that Facebook had violated their privacy with its Beacon technology, which posted information about them online without their permission. Read more at online.wsj.com |
I am going to be SALTY if I purchase an iPad and it is NOT loaded with content… I’m just sayin’…. Apple Inc. is still trying to secure media content for the iPad with just weeks to go before the tablet computer’s release, said people familiar with the matter, as the company tempers some of its initial ambitions for the much-hyped device.
Since the iPad became available for pre-order last Friday, Apple has seen strong demand and sold hundreds of thousands of units, say people familiar with the matter. One of these people said Apple could sell more iPads in the first three months than it sold iPhones in the three months after the smart phone’s debut.
With just weeks before Apple releases the iPad, the tech giant is racing to secure content for the tablet. |
The U.S. House of Representatives today expressed its strong appreciation for AmeriCorps and its important contribution to our nation by overwhelmingly passing a resolution recognizing May 13-20 as National AmeriCorps Week.
House Resolution 385, which passed this evening by a 346-21 vote, “acknowledges the significant accomplishments of AmeriCorps members, alumni and community partners; recognizes the important contribution to the lives of our citizens by AmeriCorps members; and encourages citizens of all ages to participate in service opportunities in their communities, including in AmeriCorps programs.” (Full text below) Read more at www.americorps.gov |
Happy Birthday to .com who turns 25 today! These days, when everyone seems to have a Facebook friend, is LinkedIn or can Google themselves, it’s hard to remember the old days, before the dot-com revolution. It was 25 years ago — March 15, 1985 — that the first dot-com domain name — Symbolics.com — appeared on the Internet, ushering in the commercial age of the World Wide Web. Having a domain name made it simpler for the average person to access a Web site. Instead of having to remember a long series of numbers and dots, you could type in ATT.com, IBM.com or CNN.com. Development was slow, at first. It took more than two years for the first 100 sites to go online and by 1995, the number had grown to 18,000. But from those humble beginnings the Internet has grown to more than 80 million dot-com domain names, according to the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF). Crunching the numbers, 99.9 percent of all Internet growth has occurred over the past 15 years. Read more at www.cnn.com |
One fast-growing American industry has become a conspicuous beneficiary of the recession: for-profit colleges and trade schools. At institutions that train students for careers in areas like health care, computers and food service, enrollments are soaring as people anxious about weak job prospects borrow aggressively to pay tuition that can exceed $30,000 a year.
But the profits have come at substantial taxpayer expense while often delivering dubious benefits to students, according to academics and advocates for greater oversight of financial aid. Critics say many schools exaggerate the value of their degree programs, selling young people on dreams of middle-class wages while setting them up for default on untenable debts, low-wage work and a struggle to avoid poverty. And the schools are harvesting growing federal student aid dollars, including Pell grants awarded to low-income students.
“If these programs keep growing, you’re going to wind up with more and more students who are graduating and can’t find meaningful employment,” Read more at www.nytimes.com |
President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law was a major failure and coming from a family of educators I am so very glad to the focus back on what the children will be learning and not on national test scores. Maybe these kids can actually learn something now! By announcing that he would send his education blueprint to Congress on Monday, President Obama returned to a campaign promise to repair the sprawling federal law, which affects each of the nation’s nearly 100,000 public schools. His plan strikes a careful balance, retaining some key features of the Bush-era law, including its requirement for annual reading and math tests, while proposing far-reaching changes.
The administration would replace the law’s pass-fail school grading system with one that would measure individual students’ academic growth and judge schools based not on test scores alone but also on indicators like pupil attendance, graduation rates and learning climate. And while the proposal calls for more vigorous interventions in failing schools, it would also reward top performers and lessen federal interference in tens of thousands of reasonably well-run schools in the middle. Read more at www.nytimes.com |
I don’t often like opening speakers but I really dug what Dana Boyd had to say and she gave me pause a several topics as it relates to privacy on the Internet. Boyd says that most techies think about Personally Identifiable Information, but that the vast majority of people are thinking about personally embarrassing information. People often share private information with their friends in part because it allows them to bond, it makes them somewhat vulnerable and establishes trust. But when it’s through technology (e.g. Facebook’s public by default setting) it’s a huge technology fail.
Boyd also called out the presence of racism in social media. On the night of the BET awards last year, all of the trending topics were dominated by terms relating to the event and the black community. In response, some Twitter users made very racist comments — clearly even these open communication platforms are still prone to hate. Read more at techcrunch.com |
I take it back… the Foursquare guys DO know what they’ve got!!! Foursquare means business. The 1-year-old startup now has a huge brand — Starbucks — using its platform to test out an experimental customer rewards program. Starting today, frequent Starbucks visitors who check in at retail locations using Foursquare ( ) will earn customer rewards. Although there’s no financial incentive or free coffee to begin with, customers can unlock the “Barista badge” after five checkins. Of course that’s just the beginning; the coffee behemoth plans to use Foursquare as a testing ground for alternative reward strategies and to unlock “the pulse of the experience” for each store. If you think this is a straight-up play to offer location-based mobile coupons, think again. The New York Times Bits Blog writes that the company is “hoping to use Foursquare to provide even more meaningful prizes, like invitations to special events, photo-sharing or online reputation scores.” Read more at mashable.com |
I’m downloading Free WiFi finder NOW! 12 iPhone Apps for Surviving Conference Season Amybeth Hale is a Talent Attraction Manager with AT&T’s Interactive Staffing team. She uses social technology to help drive awareness of job opportunities as well as interact with candidates. Connect with her on Twitter at @researchgoddess.
As conference season is upon us (including SXSW, of course), I began thinking about all the things one might need to survive and stay connected with a busy schedule of travel and networking. Personally, I’m headed to San Diego to attend both SourceCon and the ERE Spring Expo. Then I remembered that I’m the proud owner of an iPhone (), and that almost everything I’ll need to make it through is easily accessible and at the tip of my fingers. Here are some of the apps which I believe will help you navigate, stay connected, and meet new friends when you attend a conference. |
I’m not sure if the Foursquare guys even know what they have going but they are buzz of SXSWi 2010. Wait… I don’t think I’ve checked in yet… gotta go…. Despite that short amount of time, Foursquare () has more than half a million users, 1.4 million venues and 15.5 million checkins, and it’s still growing. Experian Hitwise decided to use this milestone to analyze Foursquare’s growth. As you might imagine, not only have Foursquare’s mobile apps seen growth, but so has Foursquare.com. What did strike us as surprising is that the site’s number-one referrer is Facebook (), which accounted for a whopping 33% of upstream visits last week. That’s even bigger than Google ( ) (22%) and Twitter () (8%) combined. It’s yet another indicator of how much traffic the world’s largest social network can drive. Searches for Foursquare have also been sharply rising, accounting for around 0.00032% of all U.S. searches. Its most recent peak was February 20, about the time Please Rob Me was gaining the press’ attention.
 Read more at mashable.com |
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Judge Approves Facebook’s Privacy Settlement
