Wednesday, May 05, 2010

We got this story from this website: http://www.rocket.ly/home/2010/4/26/top-ten-reasons-you-should-quit-facebook.html
It was written by someone calling himself Dan Yoder (don't know if he's a former Facebook employee :-) ) Anywayz, you read it and tell us what you think

10. Facebook's Terms Of Service are completely one-sided
. Let's start with the basics. Facebook's Terms Of Service state that not only do they own your data (section 2.1), but if you don't keep it up to date and accurate (section 4.6), they can terminate your account (section 14). You could argue that the terms are just protecting Facebook's interests, and are not in practice enforced, but in the context of their other activities, this defense is pretty weak. As you'll see, there's no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. Essentially, they see their customers as unpaid employees for crowd-sourcing ad-targeting data.

9. Facebook's CEO has a documented history of unethical behaviour.
From the very beginning of Facebook's existence, there are questions about Zuckerberg's ethics. According to BusinessInsider.com, he used Facebook user data to guess email passwords and read personal email in order to discredit his rivals. These allegations, albeit unproven and somewhat dated, nonetheless raise troubling questions about the ethics of the CEO of the world's largest social network. They're particularly compelling given that Facebook chose to fork over $65M to settle a related lawsuit alleging that Zuckerberg had actually stolen the idea for Facebook.

8. Facebook has flat out declared war on privacy.
Founder and CEO of Facebook, in defense of Facebook's privacy changes last January: "People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time." More recently, in introducing the Open Graph API: "... the default is now social." Essentially, this means Facebook not only wants to know everything about you, and own that data, but to make it available to everybody. Which would not, by itself, necessarily be unethical, except that ...

7. Facebook is pulling a classic bait-and-switch.
At the same time that they're telling developers how to access your data with new APIs, they are relatively quiet about explaining the implications of that to members. What this amounts to is a bait-and-switch. Facebook gets you to share information that you might not otherwise share, and then they make it publicly available. Since they are in the business of monetizing information about you for advertising purposes, this amounts to tricking their users into giving advertisers information about themselves. This is why Facebook is so much worse than Twitter in this regard: Twitter has made only the simplest (and thus, more credible) privacy claims and their customers know up front that all their tweets are public. It's also why the FTC is getting involved, and people are suing them (and winning).
Update: Check out this excellent time line from the EFF documenting the changes to Facebook's privacy policy.
6. Facebook is a bully.
When Pete Warden demonstrated just how this bait-and-switch works (by crawling all the data that Facebook's privacy settings changes had inadvertently made public) they sued him. Keep in mind, this happened just before they announced the Open Graph API and stated that the "default is now social." So why sue an independent software developer and fledgling entrepreneur for making data publicly available when you're actually already planning to do that yourself? Their real agenda is pretty clear: they don't want their membership to know how much data is really available. It's one thing to talk to developers about how great all this sharing is going to be; quite another to actually see what that means in the form of files anyone can download and load into MatLab.

5. Even your private data is shared with applications.
At this point, all your data is shared with applications that you install. Which means now you're not only trusting Facebook, but the application developers, too, many of whom are too small to worry much about keeping your data secure. And some of whom might be even more ethically challenged than Facebook. In practice, what this means is that all your data - all of it - must be effectively considered public, unless you simply never use any Facebook applications at all. Coupled with the OpenGraph API, you are no longer trusting Facebook, but the Facebook ecosystem.

4. Facebook is not technically competent enough to be trusted.
Even if we weren't talking about ethical issues here, I can't trust Facebook's technical competence to make sure my data isn't hijacked. For example, their recent introduction of their "Like" button makes it rather easy for spammers to gain access to my feed and spam my social network. Or how about this gem for harvesting profile data? These are just the latest of a series of Keystone Kops mistakes, such as accidentally making users' profiles completely public, or the cross-site scripting hole that took them over two weeks to fix. They either don't care too much about your privacy or don't really have very good engineers, or perhaps both.

3. Facebook makes it incredibly difficult to truly delete your account.
It's one thing to make data public or even mislead users about doing so; but where I really draw the line is that, once you decide you've had enough, it's pretty tricky to really delete your account. They make no promises about deleting your data and every application you've used may keep it as well. On top of that, account deletion is incredibly (and intentionally) confusing. When you go to your account settings, you're given an option to deactivate your account, which turns out not to be the same thing as deleting it. Deactivating means you can still be tagged in photos and be spammed by Facebook (you actually have to opt out of getting emails as part of the deactivation, an incredibly easy detail to overlook, since you think you're deleting your account). Finally, the moment you log back in, you're back like nothing ever happened! In fact, it's really not much different from not logging in for awhile. To actually delete your account, you have to find a link buried in the on-line help (by "buried" I mean it takes five clicks to get there). Or you can just click here. Basically, Facebook is trying to trick their users into allowing them to keep their data even after they've "deleted" their account.

2. Facebook doesn't (really) support the Open Web.
The so-called Open Graph API is named so as to disguise its fundamentally closed nature. It's bad enough that the idea here is that we all pitch in and make it easier than ever to help Facebook collect more data about you. It's bad enough that most consumers will have no idea that this data is basically public. It's bad enough that they claim to own this data and are aiming to be the one source for accessing it. But then they are disingenuous enough to call it "open," when, in fact, it is completely proprietary to Facebook. You can't use this feature unless you're on Facebook. A truly open implementation would work with whichever social network we prefer, and it would look something like OpenLike. Similarly, they implement just enough of OpenID to claim they support it, while aggressively promoting a proprietary alternative, Facebook Connect.

1. The Facebook application itself sucks.
Between the farms and the mafia wars and the "top news" (which always guesses wrong - is that configurable somehow?) and the myriad privacy settings and the annoying ads (with all that data about me, the best they can apparently do is promote dating sites, because, uh, I'm single) and the thousands upon thousands of crappy applications, Facebook is almost completely useless to me at this point. Yes, I could probably customize it better, but the navigation is ridiculous, so I don't bother. (And, yet, somehow, I can't even change colors or apply themes or do anything to make my page look personalized.) Let's not even get into how slowly your feed page loads. Basically, at this point, Facebook is more annoying than anything else.
Facebook is clearly determined to add every feature of every competing social network in an attempt to take over the Web (this is a never-ending quest that goes back to AOL and those damn CDs that were practically falling out of the sky). While Twitter isn't the most usable thing in the world, at least they've tried to stay focused and aren't trying to be everything to everyone. I often hear people talking about Facebook as though they were some sort of monopoly or public trust. Well, they aren't. They owe us nothing. They can do whatever they want, within the bounds of the laws. (And keep in mind, even those criteria are pretty murky when it comes to social networking.) But that doesn't mean we have to actually put up with them. Furthermore, their long-term success is by no means guaranteed - have we all forgotten MySpace? Oh, right, we have. Regardless of the hype, the fact remains that Sergei Brin or Bill Gates or Warren Buffett could personally acquire a majority stake in Facebook without even straining their bank account. And Facebook's revenue remains more or less a rounding error for more established tech companies. While social networking is a fun new application category enjoying remarkable growth, Facebook isn't the only game in town. I don't like their application nor how they do business and so I've made my choice to use other providers. And so can you.

What's your opinion on this article?

Monday, May 03, 2010

Do We Do or Diss This Song?

What do you think of this new joint?
Danger.mp3

Tiger Woods Not Welcome To My House!

Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik says Tiger Woods is not welcome at his house — and he's not looking forward to seeing Woods on the golf course.
Parnevik introduced Woods to his Swedish wife, Elin Nordegren, a move he regretted publicly after reports emerged of Woods' marital infidelity.
Parnevik told Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet in an interview published on Saturday that Nordegren — who once worked as a nanny for his family — regularly visits him and his wife at their Florida home but "Tiger is not welcome here any longer."
Sidelined with back problems, Parnevik has said he hopes to return to the PGA Tour this year. He says running into Woods on the golf course is "not something I'm looking forward to. But I won't hit him with a golf club."

My Favourite Mobile Phone Poll




Blackrock 2010 Confirms 12 Girls' Schools

It’s back, and this year it’s bigger and more competitive than ever before; it’s the annual St. Mary’s Blackrock Rugby Festival, East & Central Africa’s biggest high school rugby tournament. With barely two weeks to go before the kickoff, tournament organizers have confirmed a record total of 36 teams (24 boys & 12 girls).

This year’s tournament, the 27th edition, will take place on Saturday, May 15th, at the school’s expansive Landsdown Road field from 9am to 6pm. Bringing together several secondary school rugby teams to show their brawn, resilience and brain, Blackrock is an event that is key in highlighting Kenya's finest rugby talent. The St. Mary’s Blackrock Rugby festival was started way back in 1983 by Father Cormac O’Brachlain, the Headmaster at the time. As always, entrance to the event is free as it continues to foster and grow the popularity of the game of rugby.

The Saints Blackrock festival has for the past 26 years been the nurturing ground of Kenya’s top rugby players. Virtually the entire top creame of Kenya’s rugby elite, past and present, have honed their skills at the prestigious tournament. It is at the Blackrock festival that Kenya’s future rugby stars are identified, nurtured and given the platform to shine. Last year’s MVP and former Saints star play, David Ambunya, 19, (Kenya Harlequins RFC) is testament just how the tournament can elevate a student-athlete’s status in just one short year. This year, the CHAT Awards Teeniez Athlete of the Year winner traded his Saints white & blue strip for that of top Kenyan rugby club Kenya Harlequins RFC. At the culmination of Kenya’s top club rugby tournament, the Kenya Cup, Ambunya was voted MVP in the exhilarating final match between his club and KCB. Other Blackrock Rugby Festival MVP’s include; Allan Hicks, Ian Simiyu and Biko Adema. Who will be this year’s MVP at the St. Mary’s Blackrock festival?

Each game of the round-robin style tournament is twenty minutes, with fast and intense competition. Watching some of the quickest and most agile high school athletes in Kenya’s, spectators are entertained by the fast paced, high scoring games, as well as the electric atmosphere created by the avid fans. This year, 24 of rugby’s heaviest hitters and 12 pioneering girls’ schools will go head to head in an adrenaline-packed tournament.

Tournament coordinator, Mr. Gregory Sang’, expects a tough draw not just for his Saints boys, but for all participating teams. In the words of the sports administrator, “gone are the days when teams would get draws and refer to them as walk over’s – we have seen that on a good day, even schools like Kangaru High can beat any team in the country…”

Teams Confirmed for 2010 Event

Boys’ Teams; St. Mary’s School (2 teams), Upper Hill (2 teams), Strathmore, Nairobi School, Lenana School, Highway, RVA (2 teams), Dagoretti, Mutuini, Muhuri Muchiri, Ofafa Jericho, Jamhuri, Sunshine, Hillcrest, Rosslyn Academy, Ruthimitu, MFA, Mutungoni, Uhuru, NPC, Juja Preparatory

Girls’ Teams; Maono Educational Centre, Raila Educational Centre, State House Girls, Ruthimitu, Hidden Talent Academy, Nile Road, Saint Martins, Precious Blood Girls’, Saint Teresa’s Girls, Buru Buru Girls, Crescent Girls, Nembu Girls