Update — Instagram now says it was all a huge mistake, that users own their pictures and there’s no way Facebook is going to sell them to anyone… but the company hasn’t yet revealed alternate legal language, which they should have been able to cobble up in an hour or two. The underlying problem of mean-spirited, self-serving, over-reaching terms of service is still with us at Instagram and almost everywhere else. Their revised terms of service were stupid and couldn’t stand. Let’s hope in their next attempt to grab rights (because that’s what this whole thing was about and probably still is) Instagram and Facebook treat their users fairly. Until they do, most of what’s […]
Some readers may recall one of my predictions for 2012 was 
With Facebook now public and sitting on a huge pile of cash, let’s turn the conversation to the social network’s most pressing competitor, Google. Google and Google+ don’t appear to present much of a threat to Facebook, but the game board was reset on Friday and tactics at both companies will change accordingly. Now Facebook has to find a way to grow revenue and users and will increasingly bump up against Google’s huge advantages in search and apps. For Facebook to achieve its goals, the company will have to enter both spaces with gusto.
Facebook last week announced its Initial Public Offering — exactly the event I said wouldn’t happen in one of my controversial predictions for 2012. But I’m sticking with my call on this one since we’re 2-3 months from the actual event and a lot can happen to screw things up between now and then. I’m pretty sure Facebook shares will be trading sometime this year, I just don’t think the company will have a traditional IPO.
A reader came to me this week with a problem. He was being sued in federal court by a company claiming he had defamed them online. That will be $75,000, please. I’m not getting into who the reader is, which company is suing, even what jurisdiction, because none of that matters here. But the case is real and I feel for the reader. So let’s come up with a way to make sure this doesn’t have to happen again.
There is supposed to be something of an Internet revolution going on right now in Egypt, but have you noticed that the Internet isn’t directly involved? Oh there’s plenty of Twittering going-on, but it is all about the demonstrations and civil unrest in Cairo — not from those crowds. The Internet was turned off, you say, along with the mobile phone networks, but that misses my point. I think the Internet component of this social movement is being overblown. While it may be easy for a reporter to say that the Internet or texting or Facebook or Twitter is at the heart of what appears to be a multinational revolutionary juggernaut, I don’t think that’s […]
What happened to Second Life? The 3-D virtual world from Linden Lab is still very much around but I don’t spend much time there, do you? Second Life has peaked. And there is something to be learned from this transition.
Just in case you ever sue me, you should know that I have every e-mail I have ever sent or received since 1992.
