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General: The Bank of the Internet
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com's Justin Webb uses his column inches this week tot alk about Facebook, wacky privacy settings and what it can mean to you as an MMO gamer.
In this article I’m going to talk about Facebook’s latest iteration of their privacy policy and what that may ultimately mean for the internet and, specifically, MMO gamers. To do so, I’m going to refer to Jeff Jarvis’ distinction of “a” public versus “the” public; link to a pretty diagram; and to an article in the New York Times. The United States Constitution will be mentioned. Facebook’s attempt to become the Bank of the Internet will be alluded to. And a war between Google and Facebook will be hinted at. At the end of the article is shameless plug.
Recently, Facebook updated their privacy policies making it extremely difficult to keep private stuff private. An article in the New York Times estimates that you now need to navigate through “50 settings with more than 170 options” to manage all your Facebook privacy options. And that the privacy policy itself is a staggering 5830 words long, 1300 more than the US Constitution.
Read The Bank of the Internet.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
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Comments
I must be to quick, link isn't working at the moment.
Don't forget the part about Google reading all your mail in Gmail accounts to help with their targetted marketing!
As a rule: write nothing of importance and nothing too personal over the internet. Simple as that.
And I don't but it that browsergames replace MMOs. They are two different target audiences. MMO players are seeking more immersity and depths even then current MMOs have not less. I just don't see that.
Google have also been using their streetview vehicles to "grab" data sent over unencrypted wifi networks, theyre in trouble over that one in Germany.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8684110.stm
F2P/P2P excellent thread.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/282517/F2P-An-Engineers-perspective.html
I remember in school when people were saying this new thing Amazon was going to take over the world too.
I remember when people were saying MySpace was going to be what everyone was using.
I remember over a decade ago when electric cars we're the immediate future, then so was ethanol, then hydrogen based cars, and let's not forget those flying cars everyone was always told about.
People like to image that the future is going to radically change, but change happens a lot slower then people seem to realize. The reason is that someone has to invent/change something, and then it has to TAKE HOLD. That keep part takes a long time and doesn't always happen. Remember those tiny CDs that were going to replace CDs? Whoops mp3s destroyed that plan.
Facebook is sad and pathetic, and it consists mostly of people making posts like "Trying to find my car in the parking lot" or "Mmmm spaghetti for dinner". Enough people will get bored of it and move on, facebook isn't going to rule the world. Farmville already posted a major loss for the last quarter, showing that even those crazed facebook people can realize something is crap and not want to deal with it anymore.
The only accurate part is MMOs will no longer be giant download clients, and likely a lot of them will play right in the browser. It's not like there haven't been browser based MMOs for a decade now already. But there is still consoles as well. Let's not forget that there are more console gamers then PC gamers now, which would in turn mean that the biggest push is to get the first major MMOs on console and make a fortune. But there will definetly be a push for streaming MMOs on PCs.
I grew up in the era where someone finding out you played that evil D&D game could get you blacklisted from many community activities - this has caused me to continue to feel a near-paranoid distrust of sharing information about my gaming hobbies outside a close circle of friends.
Unfortunately, online identity is trending to become like a credit rating, a database of one's habits and gulabilities with potentially massive impact on your real life assembled behind the scenes. Personally, I'm just not ready for it. I don't want it. I've boot-kicked facebook after feeling like I was constantly fighting against its business model, but is that database entry ever really going to go away? Will my MMO accounts still end up linked to it behind the scenes and be shared with employers and others who may make arbitrary life-impacting judgements of me because of it?
I've noticed that. One of their engineers got a bit too cute for their own good. Personally, it looks like an honest mistake that just happened. Some of the howling about Google "wire tapping" or "spying" on people is hysterically funny. Especially in the context of No Such Agency doing exactly that on a global scale for decades.
Farmville is owned by Zynga. Zynga is a privately held company. If you have the financials for Q1 2010, I would love to see them.
Can you link them please?
Google is your friend. (Ok, actually it's not. But let's not get paranoid.)
http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2010/05/03/top-25-facebook-games-for-may-2010/
I don't know why they are called "Social Games". There isn't anything social about them! Either way, I think they are a fleeting fashion of the month thing and in a few years we will sit together and laugh about it over a cup of tea.
Again you let one major fact escape you. Browser based games depend on very high speed internet. The US is way behind many other countries in implementing this because it has let the cable giants get too large and the market competition is not forcing them to do so.
Google is putting fiber in a few towns, even they can't afford to fiber even the major US cities...this will not happen in the next two years, nor probably in the next 5-10.
Even getting a high speed connection from the cable company does not guarentee good speeds, they like to overload the lines.
Not to say browser based MMO's won't be popular, just not anything like the big boys.
So as usual, you make predictions without evening looking at the road blocks in the way. It is nice to attempt to foretell the future, but one has to use realities in existence when considering such.
Actually, Google has been buying up unused fibre-optic cable from cable companies and laying their own since 2005.
Their current initiative, that enables towns to "bid" to become the first test case, doesn't have any geographic limitations.
I think you'll find that Google's super-high-speed network is coming quicker than you think.
The Cable its self is not the problem nor the solution, an ordinary RF cable can deliver 20 mb per outlet without even breaking sweat, 50 at a push is possible and 100 can be done without FTH.
The problem is that the company providing the internet part then likes to load up to 200 people per node (This is called a contention ratio, look it up). Meaning that you never get that amount of streamed internet continiously but a share of it based on your need for that microsecond.
This is why major providers in the developed world cannot deliver internet connections anything like their adverts claim.
As for facebook, It is self perpetuating now, It will only continue to grow.
The avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote.
Don't have a Facebook account. Don't want one, don't need one. Facebook is not the internet, it's just a modern BBS.
I have no desire to see other people puking their guts out or flashing their surgically enhanced assets. I don't need to post pictures of myself for others' approval. I'll keep them safely tucked away for my own family's enjoyment, thank you. Once a picture or information is shared on the internet, whether publicly or not, it's public. Just ask Epic Boobs girl: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/may/11/pcc-privacy
Back in the day: AOL was Facebook; Yahoo was Google; Netscape was IE/Firefox/Chrome; EQ was WoW. The only constant is change.
Heh, but you know that even Kosh was wrong about that, in the end. And some avalanche is just a pebble seen from the wrong perspective. Trends are a fickle thing. People said the walkman takes over the world and it would spell doom on the youth. There were a loit of doomsday trends. Like Japan is supposed to rule economy, or so it was said in 1980ies. It has too much of conspiracy theories for my taste. I mean, be cautious with what you post and where you use your real name. I never give my real name anywhere, and I am often astonished how many ppl use their real names and real photos in the internet. It's something I would never do. In the end the internet only knows what you LET it know.
There also in a little mess with google maps.
Anyone know about "spam house". this little software made by a few peeps desides what gets sent to the spam folder and what does not. Every browser uses it. They collect data on everyone.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
Equally "solid" research as last weeks article. The main reasons why it's most likely not happening have been mentioned already.
My Signature
While you might be right about that, I'm on Comcast and my internet connection is 1/12th what I'm paying for during peak hours. They may be fast, but I'm bogged down. So my gaming experience will be craptastic and I doubt I'll get instant playability with even a browser client.
Earth Eternal tried that and they failed when it came to their stress testing. Hundreds of us were unable to even get to the website during the stress test because the system was so overtaxed. They claimed it as a success, but it only succeeded in pissing a lot of us off. Haven't been back since. Don't plan to go back. It iwll be the exact same with any other browser based game.
And don't get me started on the streaming clients. SOE uses one. Some people have no problems. But the solution for people who are having problems? Download the Station Launcher and wait for the full client to DL. Yep, the solution to the streaming client not working is for you to go get the normal client and wait. Not exactly tech support excellence. I'm not impressed with streaming clients. I'd rather wait for a full download of a client that will run everything when I start it than a streaming client that may not run what I want when I get into the playing. I'm far more likely to ditch a game over a bad play experience than I am over having to wait to start playing in the first place.
If you persist in using the dinosaur/mammal cliche, the dinosaurs last a very long time, and probably wouldn't have died out save for that little ELE that killed off anything weighing more than about 20 pounds. And even then they only survived for as long as they did off the carrion, so we're all evolved from bottom-feeders. Helps bring Facebook into focus, doesn't it? Browser-based and Streeaming Clients will end up being evolutionary dead-ends. They're an interesting novelty, but they are hardly the way of the future.
People demand reliable, and reliable is what they will actually spend money on. If something doesn't do what it's supposed to do, people return it. Simple law of retail. Give them a product that works or get out of the way. Clever marketing aside, no one wants to buy another Edsel.
But when you sign up for an MMO, you have to provide billing information with your real-world identity. How widely does that information spread? If the MMO company partners with Facebook or a similar company to manage a database of online identities, who does that database now get shared with?
I admit, this is hardly a new problem - just one of scope and scale and pervasiveness. For fun, I have long put fictious middle initials into forms (physical or online) as a code to watch how they propagate. It's a real eye-opener of just how far and wide data gets passed around, even by companies that insist they respect your privacy.
I avoid the hell out of Facebook, and I wouldn't even have an account there were it not for the fact that my aunts, one of whom is dying from cancer, use it to keep in touch with the family, and, since my mother refuses to learn how to use a computer on her own, I have become an involuntary intermediary.
I hope that society's natural skittishness for sharing their personal information online will eventually overcome their lemming-like propensity for 'jumping on the bandwagon', especially when, and if, it sinks into their heads that Facebook is sharing all of this information with anybody and everybody.
Speaking of which there's a certain Nigerian prince who's looking for someone to embezzle fifteen million dollars into the US, past the IRS, and is willing to cut one lucky sumbitch in on the profit. I would, but I've just won 700,000 pounds in the UKlottery that I never bought a ticket for.
See, with Facebook everyone's a winner!
With Google you know what you are getting into upfront. Plus their sharing or effectively sharing is still shielding you from other eyes. Facebook is just plain forcing you to fight and fight to keep things you likely have already said you don't want shared private. I don't use Facebook personally, I only leverage it for business purposes.
Comstrike
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Founder, Leader, www.SonsOfNumenor.com LOTRO - SW.ToR (Yes, we are recruiting)
Not a Facebook fan myself. There is a difference between sharing your personal life and good boundaries, and Facebook doesn't know the difference. Many people don't either, hence the inability to protect themselves from personal attacks through blogs to account infornation theft. Facebook has it entirely backwords - it should start out with the lest exposure possible, then each step of exposure you want has to be a conscious choice to add. It would also go a long way towards responsibility for the community and the individual to explain what access to each piece of information means.
I'm certainly not a fan of any one organization having control of multiple aspects of our society, in terms of goods and services or otherwise. If Facebook wants to issue a credit card along with half the rest of the large businesses in the world, fine, but I don't want it becoming the banking center of the internet. It's big in its area, and will get bigger, and that, imo, is enough.
I feel the same about Google. And, I believe Google has stepped away from their original business ethics, or didn't have much to begin with. Why? Because of Google Ads. They continually allow advertisements that support ilegal activities to be displayed through their advertising. Now, in terms of search engines, it is not their job to police the internet, I'd be upset if they tried. However, in terms of advertisement, it is unethical and probably illegal to display ads that support things like selling in-game MMO currency for real money. I sure as heck don't want that kind of company to have the kind of control over my data that the cloud computing technology they want will give them. It is downright scary.
In case you don't know, what Google wants is to basically turn your computer in to a terminal, and have all your programs and files stored on their end. Frankly, I think securlity is a big enough issue as it is. Bottom line, Google is big enough. I don't want them to have more power than they do.
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
Maybe if the US constitution was 5830 words it would not be as easy for politicians to rape it every day. You're right though i don't really care what happens to facebook or google. Nor would i care if they are put into future games. These games suck ass anyways. Everyones got money on the brain and stupid people are behind the helm ruining mmos.
That is a huge leap of making 2+3=9. Really, an MMORPG is not facebook nor is it myspace. Plus most MMORPG's you subscribe to plainly spell out exactly what their privacy policy is. Facebook, Twitter and Myspace have always been pretty ambiguous in this - especially Facebook.
Also to think the MMORPG's will all ewnd up being browser based is really pushing the envelope in how these games actually work and function. Browsers make for lousy game platforms otherwise they'd be the norm.
Do what I do. Stay as far away from online social networks as you can. Do not join them. Want to stay in touch with friends, family and co-workers? There is the little thing all cell phones come with - it is called List of contacts. What more do you need?
BTW - Twitter, Facebook and Myspace are not the internet...in fact they are just a very minuscule blip on it. According to statistics only 7% of internet subscribers between the age of 18-35 actually use any kind of social network online in the US. Just like Youtube. If there really were that many people using it the views would be in the billions and not in the thousands. Few of even the most popular youtube vids have 10 million plus views. Compare that with the population of Earth and it almost becomes insignificant.
What's even worse is that you can be penalized for not participating in this kind of crap. An employer might look for your Facebook account and then wonder what's wrong with you if you don't have one. It's like credit scores, for the better part of my adult life I avoided credit, because as the banking melt down in 2008 showed, it's not necessarily a good idea to borrow a bunch of money you can't pay back. But now I have a shitty credit rating because I never wanted to buy something I couldn't pay for in cash, which, excludes me from a lot of things like renting an apartment. WTF is wrong with the world, I'm asking you?
I don't even believe in Jeebus.
Teala, the majority of people on Earth don't have internet access, so that is not a good measurement of internet share. I'm just saying.
I don't even believe in Jeebus.