I received an email from a Facebook public relations person just a little before midnight Wednesday, or about 10 hours after I posted my rant about Facebook mobile advertisements and giant-breasted zombie-stalkers. The spokesperson sought an opportunity to chat about the work Facebook was doing “to improve the controls people have over the ads they see on mobile.”So we chatted. The big news: Facebook promises that within just a couple of weeks mobile users will get new controls that will allow us to block specific advertisers. These controls will be similar to those that currently exist for the desktop Facebook experience. Individual Facebook users can decide for themselves how excited they are by this pledge. As I wrote on Wednesday, Facebook’s track record on the desktop advertising experience leaves something to be desired. (To be fair, Facebook’s spokeperson acknowledged that the company’s ad-delivery algorithms are not “perfect.”)Continue Reading… … Read More
He made me his drug mule
Facebook has been used to find ex-lovers, childhood BFFs or the one who got away.I used it to find the guy who, without my consent, made me his drug mule.It was 1989, long before Israelis were involved in the international ecstasy trade. I was a University of California, Santa Cruz, student in need of a break. My plan was hardly original: Go to Israel, live on a kibbutz, learn some Hebrew.Before leaving, I attended a Jerry Garcia Band show at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. After the show, my friend and I got a ride back to Santa Cruz with some random guys, one of whom was Israeli. When I mentioned I was going to Israel in a few days, he asked if I would take a birthday present to mail to a friend. It was already late.Given my strong Israeli-dar, I knew he would do no harm to Israel. What I failed to consider was whether he would cause any harm to me. He told me it was jewelry. He wrote his name and return address in Israel on the back of the envelope, and his friend’s on the front.My mom was adamant that I not take it. Duh. But I was 20. I believed that my fellow Deadhead and Jew could be trusted; he was a brother.Continue Reading… … Read More
Is Saudi Arabia deporting men for being too handsome?
According to a recent Time Magazine report, three men were deported from Saudi Arabia for being “too handsome.”Now The Telegraph is weighing in, explaining:A statement in Arabic-language newspaper Elaph, translated by The Telegraph, added, “A festival official said the three Emiratis were taken out on the grounds they are too handsome and that the Commission [for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vices] members feared female visitors could fall for them.Continue Reading… … Read More
Why can’t America unite on the economy?
We come together as Americans when confronting common disasters and common threats, such as occurred in Boston on Monday, but we continue to split apart economically.Anyone who wants to understand the dis-uniting of America needs to see how dramatically we’re segregating geographically by income and wealth. Today I’m giving a Town Hall talk in Fresno, in the center of California’s Central Valley, where the official unemployment rate is 15.4 percent and median family earns under $40,000. The so-called “recovery” is barely in evidence.As the crow flies Fresno is not that far from California’s high-tech enclaves of Google, Intel, Facebook, and Apple, or from the entertainment capital of Hollywood, but they might as well be different worlds.Being wealthy in modern America means you don’t come across anyone who isn’t, and being poor and lower-middle class means you’re surrounded by others who are just as hard up. Upward mobility — the old notion that anyone can make it with enough guts and gumption — is less of a reality.Continue Reading… … Read More
Mark Zuckerberg launches political group
NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other Silicon Valley leaders have formally launched a political group aimed at revamping immigration policy, boosting education and encouraging investment in scientific research.Zuckerberg announced the formation of Fwd.us (pronounced “forward us”) in an op-ed article in The Washington Post late Wednesday. In it, he said the U.S. needs a new approach to these issues if it is to get ahead economically. This, he wrote, includes offering immigrants a path to citizenship.”We have a strange immigration policy for a nation of immigrants,” Zuckerberg wrote. “And it’s a policy unfit for today’s world.”The move comes as a bipartisan Senate group is expected to roll out a comprehensive immigration bill in the coming days. Zuckerberg’s goal echoes the proposed legislation. Zuckerberg, whose great-grandparents were immigrants, said he wants “comprehensive immigration reform that begins with effective border security, allows a path to citizenship and lets us attract the most talented and hardest-working people, no matter where they were born.”Continue Reading… … Read More
Meet the blogger who says “Hey, parents! STFU!”
Blair Koenig is not the enemy, parents. Sure, she’s been portrayed in certain whipped-up media venues as everything from ”mommies’ worst nightmare” to one of the scolding “sancti-childless.” Earlier this week, “Good Morning America” helpfully introduced her as a “childless blogger” who has “a lot of moms and dads up in arms.” And it’s true, she does provocatively declare on her site that “You used to be fun. Now you have a baby.” Continue Reading… … Read More
Facebook Home capitalizes on Google
NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook Home, the new application that takes over the front screen of a smartphone, is a bit of a corporate home invasion. Facebook is essentially moving into Google’s turf, taking advantage of software the search giant and competitor created.Facebook Home will operate on phones running Google Inc.’s Android software and present Facebook status updates, messages and other content on the home screen, rather than making the user fire up Facebook’s app. The software will be available for users to download on April 12 and will come preloaded on a new phone from HTC Corp., sold by AT&T Inc. in the U.S.Google gives away Android, the most popular smartphone software in the world, in the hope that it will steer phone users toward Google services, such as Maps and Gmail, and the ads it sells. Compared to ads targeting PC surfers, mobile ads are a small market, but it’s growing quickly. Research firm eMarketer expects U.S. mobile ad spending to grow 77 percent this year to $7.29 billion.Continue Reading… … Read More
