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Facebook Launches Location Based Product
adeelarshad82 writes "Facebook officially launched its 'Places' location-based product, backed by seeming rivals Foursquare and Gowalla. Facebook had been expected to announce a location service ever since it announced the press conference earlier this week. The Places service officially goes live August 19, although an iPhone app will go live on the August 18. According to Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Places has been in development for several months. It had three goals, he said: helping share where you are in a nice and social way, to see who's around you, and just discover new and cool places to visit in the future."
I turned this off as soon as I could.
http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/7046/how-to-prevent-being-checked-into-facebook-places-privacy/
I get social media. I really like most of it. However, I enjoy my fancy stereo and big screen TV too much to let people know when I am out of town or out of my house.
"Oh, I know that dude. He just bought a fat entertainment system and now his facebook says he's out of town for a month. Woot!"
No thanks.
change "Places I check in" to "only me"
and uncheck "enable" in "Include me in "People Here Now" after I check in"
and set "Friends can check me in to Places" to "disabled"
and you're back to good ol' privacy-invading facebook as you know it.
~men are from earth. women are from earth. deal with it.~
You say that like it's a bad thing... ;)
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You'll wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe
People always seem to get mad about the possibility that the ads they see might actually be relevant to them.
It's worth remembering that what the viewer considers relevant and what the advertiser considers targeted are not the same thing. You may be interested in computers and sci-fi, but that doesn't mean they will only show you ads for those products. Advertisers try to hit middle-ground in viewers. It's true that it's a waste of their money to try to advertise a product to you that you will never buy (e.g. baby products to people without kids). But they also don't really want to waste advertising to die-hard fans and aficionados, who will already buy those products (of course they need to keep the fans aware of the products to some extent). Advertising dollars do the most good for the group of fence-sitters: people who might or might not purchase the product. This means that if the advertisers are doing their job right of targeting you on products that you're "on the fence" about, then you'll get a bunch of ads for things you don't quite want. In other words, stuff that is only semi-relevant.
Also worth remember is that quite a bit of advertising has to do with just getting consumers to remember brand names. People always bring up the "I'm a guy--I don't need to see ads for tampons!" but that's actually a case where some advertising to men can make a difference. Guys don't regularly buy tampons, but on the few occasions that they do (girlfriend has just run out and desperately needs more), they want you to walk into the drugstore and, because you're unsure of what to buy, gravitate towards their well-recognized brand ("No boyfriend ever got dumped for buying Tampax")...
Again, it may not be relevant for you to see Tampax ads, but the company certainly wants you to recognize the brand.
The only possible reason I can see to be offended is because you have no will power to resist the messages of advertiser
You're implying that only weak-willed people are affected by ads (implicitly, that you are able to 'resist'). People are more affected by advertising that they realize or would care to admit. If you are among those who are good at spotting crap and not buying it (e.g. making a decision not to buy from companies that make ridiculous claims in their commercials), then properly targeted ads would instead show you the much more subtle kinds of advertising (again, building-up brand recognition and brand image has a large but typically unnoticed effect on your shopping behavior).
I'm not saying that people are slaves to marketing. You can certainly rise above the ads to some extent. But conversely it is effectively impossible not to be somewhat affected by advertising.
This is not to say that I think people should be deathly afraid of targeted ads. But let's at least recognize the dangers (or even just nuisances) they present.