Overheard

“We were addicted to the intensity of our hunger—the almost limitless depths of it—and to the certitude that we were needed, that we were vital.  Such a feeling is not as wonderful as the condition of being loved, but it is similar, with its dependencies, and far more reliable.”

“When authorities warn you of the sinfulness of sex, there is an important lesson to be learned. Do not have sex with the authorities.”

“From the backstabbing co-worker to the meddling sister-in-law, you are in charge of how you react to the people and events in your life. You can either give negativity power over your life or you can choose happiness instead. Take control and choose to focus on what is important in your life. Those who cannot live fully often become destroyers of life.”

“Don’t let your victories go to your head, or your failures go to your heart”

: “If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; build anyway.”

Comments

Thanks for the heads-up Travis, I wasn't aware of this issue. I've updated my privacy setting accordingly.

Posted by Jason Landry  at  3:38 pm on Mar. 18, 2008

Hi Travis; I'm the head of the Kinzin team. I hope you'll excuse the long comment.

We've been experimenting with Facebook Social Ads for a few weeks now. Facebook Social Ads have a feature called "Social Actions", whereby, apparently, Facebook users will be told when a Friend of theirs (it has to be a Friend) has some relationship to the Facebook app or group being promoted. Honestly, I'd never actually seen it in action until looking at your screen shot today. As an advertiser, Facebook just says to us "Hey, we've got this great feature. You should use it." Obviously, it's a problem for me if Facebook offers me their social ads product with the suggestion that it will help our business grow, and it turns out to piss people off. We are going to ask around a bit more, but as of now have turned off social actions on our ads.

As a Facebook user, I'm of two minds about this whole trend. On the one hand, Facebook is a social, but proprietary, space. Basically everything we do and say in the space belongs to Facebook and they can use that information any way they like according to the Terms of Service we all agreed to. They make it pretty clear, in fact, that their whole business model is to sell that information. On the other hand, Facebook doesn't do much in the way of telling you *how* they'll use your info, just that they will. This is a new area: proprietary social spaces, and the standards of etiquette are still being set, apparently through trial and error.

Posted by Michael  at  4:30 pm on Mar. 18, 2008

Interesting.

On the one side, you have me, being a fan of your service without really understanding the unintended consequences of that.

On the other, you have you guys, buying "social ads" without really understanding the unintended consequences of that.

And in the middle, you have Facebook, trying to broker and profit from our social relationship.

Posted by Travis Smith  at  10:14 am on Mar. 19, 2008

It raises some very interesting questions about ownership and culture, to be sure.

As of now, though, I think we both understand the implications of Facebook's "social ads" a bit better. You can be sure that you won't see your status as a Fan of Kinzin used in that way again. I'm currently putting together a little statement of principles to post on the Kinzin Fan page, so everybody's expectations are in synch, and we don't run into this problem again.

Thanks for bringing it up, and helping us do what we do better.

Posted by Michael  at  10:31 am on Mar. 19, 2008

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