Live streaming video by UstreamSource:TechCrunch

Tom Kincaid, a top Facebook developer and blogger mentioned in the Facebook Developer Forums last night that Beacon seems to be rearing its ugly head once again.

According to Kincaid, he signed up for CBS Sportsline and got a Beacon-like pop-up, which he thinks may have used a Facebook cookie in someway.

“I signed up on CBS Sportsline and joined fantasy football,” he wrote on the forum. “I got a pop-up on the bottom right. It looks like the old beacon stuff. I thought that didn’t work anymore, but it published a story to the homepage. I didn’t go through any kind of connect log in, it must have used the Facebook cookie somehow.”

Blogger, author and Facebook developer Jesse Stay today discovered that we may be seeing soon on Facebook a return to the dreaded Project Beacon (or as I have come to call it: Project Bac’n). In case you weren’t around the blogosphere or Facebook last Christmas, Project Beacon was a “revolutionary new initiative” by Facebook to help monetize their network. 

The way it worked was that any activity you took part in on sites that had partnered up with Facebook on the Beacon initiative would automatically send your activity to Facebook. This would, in turn, create an entry on your News Feed that would advertise your activity to all your friends.

Bloggers, privacy advocates, and folks who didn’t want their Christmas surprises ruined threw a fit, and Facebook eventually made the options available for users to opt-out of Beacon. Shortly thereafter, Beacon participating sites either dropped out or phased out what activity ended up being sent to Facebook, and the whole nasty incident faded from our collective memory.

As Jesse notes, Beacon’s been just biding its time, waiting in the wings to pounce when we least suspect it:

I’ve mentioned previously that Facebook has never removed the information about beacon for advertisers. Even today you can go to “Advertising“, then “More business solutions” at the bottom of the page, and then you will be given the option to e-mail Facebook about signing up for the service. I mentioned before that it was unclear if they were actually fulfilling these requests, but it appears they may just be doing so. The beacon message even appears to have a fresh new design to it.

As it never really went anywhere, users can still go into their privacy settings and turn off beacon as they choose, but it defaults to on currently. With choice, maybe this isn’t so bad though.

I still contend that this is a bad idea. What FriendFeed has shown us is that people are more than willing to hook in all sorts of sources to lifestream themselves from, but when it’s done without us knowing, it’s not only annoying, but a bit creepy.

Throw up a dialog box, instead. “Would you like to stream your activity to your Facebook News Feed?”

I bet Facebook would get a lot more targeted results as well as some less irritated users.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:The Daily Poll: Will Facebook Cave to Beacon Critics?Facebook Faces Beacon Class-Action LawsuitFacebook Beacon Collects Data on Non-Users TooDid Facebook Lie About Beacon to Gain Advertisers?Facebook Beacon Loses Retailers. Lying Doesn’t Pay.The Daily Poll: Reactions to Zuckerberg’s ApologyHow To: Block Project Beacon

Michael Bull, a film and media professor at England’s University of Sussex, has spent three years interviewing more than 1,000 iPod owners — only to reach the most of obvious conclusions. In the process, Bull dubbed himself Professor iPod and won a book deal. The book, Sound Moves: iPod Culture and Urban Experience, holds no revelations: People carry their digital content around with them, relying on it to get them through the day. iPod owners use the devices to create personalized, controlled environments insulated from the dislocation of their work lives and the cacophony of the city. Is it any shock Apple found his research worthless?

When asked by Wired whether Apple had shown any interest in his research, the aptly name Bull replied:

The head of Apple’s research division contacted me and said he wanted our results, and I said, “I don’t have any.” He wanted the quantity of things, and I said, “Well, I could give a seminar or come talk,” and he said, “Well, if there were no results, I can’t make time for you.”

Does Steve Jobs need a university professor to repeat to him the promises Jobs made to customers from the very introduction of the iPod in October 2001? Perhaps Bull should find a new market: All the gadget makers trying to compete with Apple, since they’re the ones who seem to keep missing the obvious.

Source:Valleywag

Yes, Facebook, I am getting married. I presume you know this because my fiancée and I are listed as engaged to each other in our profiles. It’s even possible you know the wedding is soon because she registered us on TheKnot.com, a Beacon partner. And even though she opted not to have you spam our friends about it, it’s conceivable that you’re still keeping track of her activity on the site, despite promising to discard the data. That’s fine. Eventually we were going to tell you about the wedding anyway. But, Facebook, you might want to know: I’m not an American Express cardholder. And also: I’m not going to buy that dress. Oh, and one more thing?

How hard could it have been for American Express, your partner in advertising bliss, to check off “female” on this order form? Answer: Not very. Next time, try a coupon for discount tux rentals at Men’s Wearhouse.

They were going to CHANGE EVERYTHING. Whoops. presenting five biggest technology disappointments of the past year. No, not Vista and the Kindle — you didn’t expect anything there.

5. Apple TV

Cable TV was going to be dead by Christmas. Instead, Forrester Research reversed its bullish forecast, placing Apple TV behind Jam Packs for GarageBand.

4. Googlephone

Valleywag editor Owen “Wrongway” Thomas repeatedly insisted all year that there was no Googlephone. He was almost right: Google’s only built a phone software platform, one which launched with no killer apps or interface innovations. Don’t drop your iPhone just yet.

3. Facebook ads

“Once every hundred years, media changes,” Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg declared moments before unveiling an overhyped ad system for broadcasting your purchases to your friends’ Facebook pages. Even if Zuckerberg proves bizarrely right about media, he picked the wrong day. A hundred years from now, the history books — or whatever replaces them –will talk about YouTube instead.

2. DRM-free music

Cory Doctorow is finally happy, but face it: DRM-restricted music and video files weren’t the repression of personal freedom that evangelists like Doctorow made them out to be. They’re merely irritating when they don’t play. Copyright crusaders are like medical marijuana advocates: You can’t argue with them in theory, but in practice you know what they really want is the right to party hearty — or in this case, to download music not just free of DRM, but free of charge.

1. Tesla Roadster

The all-electric sports car really would change the mass public’s attitude toward electrics. If only it would hit the road. The company missed its promised ship dates, and genius founder Martin Eberhard has been ousted. To be clear, Tesla’s electric motors work just fine. Gossip says that Tesla’s electric motor is so strong that it breaks its gearbox. The company has acknowledged that its custom-made two-speed transmissions have proved a problem.

Special Achievement Award: Pownce

Never confuse celebrity with software. Videogenic Digg founder Kevin Rose announced a new company that would do something radically different. Lead developer Leah Culver topped an online beauty contest, despite posting dubious integer-rounding code to her blog. But to date, I still don’t even know what Pownce is — NO DON’T TELL ME LA LA LA LA NOT LISTENING! Uncov writer Ted Dziuba explains it for me. As for Pownce’s cyberlebrity status, Ted adds, “their daily traffic is now less than 2girsl1cup.”

(Illustration by Uncov. Photo of Google Android by Mobile magazine. Photo of Leah Culver by Brian Solis)

newVideoPlayer(”Here_Comes_Another_Bubble.flv”, 475, 376);
“Here Comes Another Bubble,” the charmingly derivative video by the Richter Scales which satirizes Web 2.0 in the style (and to the tune) of Bill Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” is gone from YouTube. The reason? A copyright claim by an unspecified third party. One possibility: Sony BMG, the record company which owns Columbia, Joel’s label; lawyers there might take issue with the use of Joel’s composition. YouTube and Sony BMG struck a deal last year, though, so that seems unlikely. Another possibility: Lane Hartwell, the photographer whose photo of yours truly was used, uncredited, by the Richter Scales. Hartwell posted about the incident on Flickr. I called Hartwell to ask if she had filed a copyright claim with YouTube, but didn’t get an answer.

From the tone of her Flickr post, though, it’s unlikely Hartwell was very satisfied by the Richter Scales’ response, which suggested that it was simply too difficult to credit everyone whose work they incorporated into the video. I’m not a lawyer, and the role of photo credits in copyright law isn’t clear to me. Giving credit where credit’s due simply strikes me as the polite thing to do. And surely not that difficult.

I suspect that the members of Richter Scales were simply lazy. The photo Hartwell took of me is the first search result for me in Google Images. It’s not particularly apt, either; I was working at Business 2.0 when she photographed me. On top of that, it makes me look even more jowly than I am.

But enough about me. The issue here is credit, and whether it’s hard to give. I’ve reposted the video above for the sole purpose of discussing the works that went into it. Please view it, and if you recognize a copyrighted photograph whose author deserves credit, please name him or her in the comments. I’ll start: The photograph Hartwell took of me was originally published on Epicenter. The iconic photograph of Michael Arrington smoking a cigar was taken by Ramona Rosales for Business 2.0. Those two credits only took a few minutes to identify and write. How hard could it be to do the rest?

Source:Valleywag

Here in New York’s so-called Silicon Alley, we occupy ourselves by filing stories about people setting up meetings to talk about organizing events to increase awareness of necessary preconditions for entrepreneurship. This leaves us with no time to do anything as tiring and complicated as, say, actually writing software. Bricabox founder Nate Westheimer and the Silicon Alley wantrepreneur community have their answer to the old white guys on Silicon Alley Insider’s top 100. It’s the Silicon Alley 100: People’s Choice. Problem is, because its order was decided by nominations and votes, it’s full of self-promoters you’ve never heard of, such as tech “activist” Dana Spiegel. Yes, he’s the guy who takes the top spot. telling that there are more people on this list than there are votes for the winner.

Source:Valleywag

Advertisers have forgiven Facebook for Beacongate, Mediaweek reports. Despite the ill-thought-out introduction of Facebook’s privacy-invading ads, they plan to keep their money flowing. Most even appreciate how with Beacon, Facebook tried something new and uproven. But more and more, readers are finding very proven methods of advertising all over Facebook. Sex sells, and despite rules against porn ads, Facebook’s ad-review staff can’t seem to keep up with the softcore stuff flooding the site. Frankly, we’re disgusted amused. Here’s the latest example. With apologies to Fark, we must note it’s NSFW.

So it’s past midnight at the Valleywag holiday party when I answer the door. “Owen’s totally wrong about that Facebook thing,” blurts out Kara Swisher, whom I hardly know, in the conversational space most people would waste with a vacuous Hello it’s good to see you can I come in. “What’s with Loudmouth Gay Guy,” she adds, nodding toward a tipsy guest. “Handle it, will ya?” I used to wonder why Owen had such an obvious thing for Kara, but I get it now: Kara Swisher is the ruthless-yet-right reporter we all wish we could be. But we can’t be her. Back to book reviews for me. (Photo of Swisher not impressed with the animatronic reindeer by … oh wait, I took this one.)

Source:Valleywag

When Inc. posted a 1,279-word “Field Guide to Your Tech Staff,” I couldn’t shake the suspicion the piece’s real intent was hey Slashdotters! Everybody click here! For those of us unable to spend 10 minutes looking busy by reading the printer-friendly version, I’ve boiled it down to a PowerPoint stack of bullet points. Because they hate that.

Habitat

• Dark room — allows focus, rests eyes

• Headphones — get deeper into the zone
• Desk organization — pristine or cluttered, it’s intentional. Touch nothing.

Psychology

• Perfectionism — “good enough” isn’t good enough

• Gadget lust — latest gizmo is badget of honor
• Intellectual curiosity — figure out how things work, absorb info from multiple channels at once
• Systematic thinking — nothing is magic, it just needs to be problem-solved
• Wrong? Never! — hoo boy, no kidding. Wrong = failure
• Competitive nature — being smartest is important

Motivation

• Recognition — take them to lunch and let them talk about latest accomplishment

• Playtime — Google’s “20% Time” policy leads to huge R&D breakthroughs

DO to get along with geeks

Source:Valleywag

newVideoPlayer(”The_Sauce_Facebook_Feature.flv”, 475, 376);
This clip about Facebook’s controversial Beacon ads from the MTV-wannabe Fuse network doesn’t tell you much new — but there’s a great line at the end. The fact that it’s become news on music-video channels tells you this: The bad buzz about Beacon has traveled much, much farther than the actual ads have.

We hear that Yahoo is hosting its holiday party tomorrow night at the San Mateo Expo Center, conveniently near the Bay Meadows racetrack, where Yahoos might have better luck cashing in than with their stock options. Last year’s entertainment was American Idol reject Chris Daughtry. This year?

We’re hearing that Super Diamond, the Neil Diamond tribute band, will be providing the tunes for the Yahoo employees. Rumored opening band The Spazmatics, an ’80s cover band, continues the nostalgic theme. The choice of music — bands hired to rehash songs others created — sings volumes about Yahoo’s direction.

Source:Valleywag

Why has Facebook gotten into so much trouble over Beacon, its online-advertising program which alerts friends to your online purchases and other Web activity? Until CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized, its response was largely tone-deaf. And that, we suspect, is because its youthful, well-paid employees don’t see what the big deal is about telling everyone what you’ve bought.

One in particular has become the object of derision among his supposed friends for talking up all of his purchases, including the price tag. Marcel Laverdet, a JavaScript expert whose prowess with hacking the social network, became so celebrated that Facebook finally hired him, posted the following note about a recent trip to New York, with plugs for the brands Apple, Timberland, and Peter Luger Steakhouse.

I was walking out of Peter Luger Steakhouse after spending $85 for my portion of dinner and the sidewalk had iced over. I was SMS’ing someone on my iPhone when I started slipping. Even $130 Timberland boots can’t keep you from slipping in the ice. I fell but I didn’t want to drop to my iPhone to break my fall with my palm, so I landed on my fist. That sucked.

We feel your pain, Marcel.

Sorry people, show’s over. Connected Ventures cofounder Jakob Lodwick has pulled the plug on JakobandJulia.com, his joint venture with his girlfriend, Star editor-at-large, and geekboy aficionado Julia Allison. “My interest in creating fuel for the gossip sites has dried up,” Lodwick writes on the blog. “I don’t enjoy the attention anymore.” We’ll hold you to that, Mr. Lodwick. Allison, however, doesn’t seem like she’s going to hold you much at all anymore, judging by the following response.

Source:Valleywag

You’ve heard the horror stories about how Facebook’s Beacon ads can ruin your Christmas. Even though Overstock.com — the online retailer whose use of Beacon caused most of the uproar — has turned Beacon off, there’s no telling who Zuckerberg might sucker into installing the ads next. Take action now. Use Facebook’s new privacy options to turn it off. Here’s the simple four-click process.

Just click where the red arrow points.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

That’s the easy way. If you’re really paranoid, technically adept, and have time on your hands, Lifehacker has a more complicated way involving a Firefox extension.