There is no quick fix for online privacy protection.  Unfortunately the internet is not an opt-in universe where the user has the power to check a box of whether or not to allow data tracking companies to track her clicks across the web.

What you’ll realize in reading this article that what most people don’t realize is that a visit to one article on a site like CNN actually allows dozens of companies to track your web browsing activities from that moment on.  Yes, they are doing much more than tracking you on that one website which didn’t tell you that these companies have deals with them to suck your information.

Another little known fact is that the goldmine for these companies is that they can track you because you are a friend of someone else.  For instance, if you are my Facebook friend and a data retrieval company is tracking me, they will be able to reach your information because we are connected.  This is truly the dark side of online connectivity.

Every day we go online, read news, share on social media sites, listen to music, research everything from how to cook a recipe to how the latest health fad can slim our waistlines. Each click of the mouse as we do these things leaves breadcrumb trails of our interests, needs and websites we stumble upon.

We all know that, right? But do you know about Flash cookies that leave an unlimited number of cookies on your computer? These cookies track your web browsing activity for hundreds of companies you don’t even know exist. They may have access to the information you leave about your finances, health, relationships, interests, birthdays, preferences, address, occupation, age and more. This information affects which online advertising you are served up, which credit card offers you are presented with, while also creating a profile of you with both correct and incorrect assumptions based on these connections.

I learned about Flash cookies, or Flash Local Shared Objects (LSOs), while watching a Ted Talk video of Gary Kovacs, the CEO of Mozilla, describe the new free Collusion Firefox add-on. Kovacs’ talk on Tracking the Trackers is a wakeup call to how much privacy we have unknowingly given away as the price of using the internet.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Behavioral tracking, when done with our permission, can help companies we like to connect us to deals, offers, products and services that make our lives better. But the reality today is that the majority of the companies that track us online and collect data on our activities never asked for permission and we never would give them permission if they did ask. As an industry described by Kovacs as being worth over $39 billion, it is safe to assume they will fight regulation and giving consumers the power to choose which companies they allow to track their online information.

Rules and regulations for consumer protection against the darker side of behavioral targeting have not been created. If Lori Anderson, the author of I Know Who You Are and I Know What You Did, has her way, we will eventually create a social networking constitution that may be the first positive step in rectifying this situation.

To protect yourself and your family today you can add Collusion, Better Privacy and No Script to your Firefox browser. If you are a Chrome browser user you can add Keep My Opt-Outs and Do Not Track PlusChrome browser extensions and follow these steps to manually remove Flash cookies from your computer.

This article was originally published in The Huffington Post

Apps are awesome, right?  They’ve changed our lives and some expect computing to move to being completely app based at some point.  But how many do you actually use?

If the stats are correct, you use 10 or less on a regular basis, regardless of whether you’ve downloaded 15 or 150.  In fact, a Pew Research study revealed that 68% of users only use five or fewer apps at least once a week.

I realized after reading that statistic that it was true for me and I started asking others and they have the same experience.  What was interesting to me was how some apps I adopted early and used often, like “Bump” (to share contact information) and Angry Birds (to kill time in line at the post office), are apps I haven’t touched in months and I don’t miss them at all.  So even the apps that were originally sticky ended up not sticking.

Only two-thirds of people with apps on their phones use them.  My theory is that our bandwidth is limited, our choices of what to do with our limited free time are growing exponentially, and we’re choosing to use the few apps that either make our lives easier, save time or entertain us well.

Here are the types of apps that adults download and then do not delete on their cellphones:                            

Type of application                                 % who download

News, weather, sports, stocks                       74

Communications (social)                             67

Learning                                            64

Travel                                              53

Work-related tasks                                  48

Shopping                                            46

Video viewing                                       43

Health management                                   29

SOURCE: Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, July 25-Aug. 26, 2011 tracking survey.

How do these numbers compare to the types of apps you download and use frequently?  Do you use the same apps on your phone as your iPad?   (I could say ‘tablet’, but let’s be honest, that’s like calling Kleenex ’tissue’).  Which apps do you find the most useful?  …inquiring minds want to know.

The announcement that Goldman Sachs invested $500 million in Facebook, giving it a market valuation of $50 billion sent ripples across the media.  With this deal including Goldman helping Facebook to raise an additional $1.5 billion, and noting that Facebook has raised $800 million over five rounds of funding, it is official that social networking is big business that is only getting bigger.

What this means to any user is that their services are only going to get more addictive and beneficial.  What this means to any business owner is that you now have a place where increasing numbers of individuals and groups of people potentially interested in your products and services are actively engaging.

This isn’t news to everyone, but this benchmark clearly states the markets confidence in the future profitability of Facebook, and therefore in social media marketing.  This announcement had additional gravity that reflects the shift from old media to new media’s prominence in that it came on the heels of the New York Times losing it’s slot on the S&P 500 to Netflix.

If you have a business that does any marketing then this is great news for you.  The bigger Facebook gets, the larger their user base is growing and the larger opportunities grow for brands.   The two main channels you can utilize on Facebook that are uniquely Facebooks are the fan page and Facebook advertising.

Through Facebook fan pages, which are now even more of a must than having a website for your company, you can build loyalty, announce product launches like Ford did, and gain from Facebook’s #2 ranking in the search engine indexes among other benefits.

Through Facebook advertising you can extend your reach through targeted advertising that reaches people who have raised their hands as being interested in topics related to your products.  This is especially good for local businesses.  You can also reach their friends while receiving detailed reports to reveal your campaign cost and conversion analytics.  Try getting those numbers on a magazine ad, television spot or a billboard campaign. …there’s a reason why Facebook will make over $2 billion in revenue, and served over 1 trillion display ads, in 2010.

The cash infusion from this latest round of funding signals even more development of features that make Facebook the social networking 500 pound gorilla it is.  Facebook page views and average times spent on site continue to rise with each new innovation.

As our Facebook usage habits grow along with these other growth factors there will be fewer competing platforms that can effectively get the marketing results that Facebook delivers.  Whether you love or hate Goldman Sachs and whether you love or hate Facebook, if you’re in business, recognize that marketing through Facebook has become as necessary as having a phone number, a website, and a product people want to buy.

Yesterday the Federal Trade Commission took the first steps towards creating a Do Not Track feature to allow internet users to opt-out of having companies obtain data on their online surfing habits. This mechanism is being designed in the spirit of the Do Not Call registry that regulates the activities of telemarketers.

On the surface this sounds great. You would be hard pressed to find anyone, besides a telemarketer, who preferred life before the Do Not Call list eliminated those annoying sales calls that interrupted your dinner. But online advertising and telemarketing are very different animals, so let’s look a little deeper into what the reality of a Do Not Track bill would look like.

In theory implementing a Do Not track mechanism will allow consumers to have more control over their personal information that is shared online. Internet privacy has been a hot topic for awhile now, so it’s easy to have a knee-jerk reaction to supporting anything that will protect online privacy. The more prudent way to analyze the implications of a Do Not Track bill is to look at what it will actually accomplish.

Eliminating or decreasing the frequency of internet users receiving targeted advertising while they surf websites is the result that the Do Not Track bill. Building individual profiles of how we search, surf and interact online for the use of targeted advertising, based on behavioral targeting and contextual advertising, is assumed to be a problem that needs solving. …but is it?

Common wisdom tells us that people hate advertising. Is this true, or is this is a myth when it is thrown out as a blanket statement?

People don’t hate advertising; they hate advertising for stuff they don’t want.

People love advertising that tells them about a new cool product they will use. We are psychologically wired to connect with other people and seek their validation. Therefore we love to be the first one to tell our friends about something that we think is cool, and that we think they will think is cool.

Click here to view the embedded video.

With this in mind, why wouldn’t you want to see targeted advertising when you’re online? You’re going to see advertising anyway, so what’s bad about it being for products and services that are aligned with your historical online profile of interests?

Why should anyone be afraid of marketers using this data to offer you more things that you want? This isn’t the same as someone using your private information for identity theft. This is a way for you to find out about things you’ll probably be interested in rather than finding out about things you don’t care about.

The word ‘privacy’ is a trigger word. No one wants to give up their privacy. If the Do Not Track bill goes into effect you can choose to keep a little bit of your privacy in exchange for continuing to receive nonspecific advertising instead of targeted advertising online.

Either way, this issue is not anywhere near the problem it’s made out to be and your life as an American consumer will continue on. You just may have to wait longer to discover cool new products and be stuck with seeing diaper advertisements when you don’t have any toddlers or ads for singles websites even though you’ve been married for 10 years.

This article was originally posted in the Huffington Post.

This article was originally posted in the Huffington Post.

Last week was the week of ‘instant.’ It began with the launch of Google Instant, which added a new evolution to online searches. And then almost instantly, we saw the birth of Google Instant : Maps, Google Instant: Images, YouTube Instant, Etsy Instant, iTunes Instant, and Twitter Instant.

What the proliferation of instant online platforms means for you is that information is coming at you faster and (hopefully) it is better targeted to what you are searching for. The general idea is that the search box is smarter than you are. It will finish your thought for you and give you multiple terms which ideally helps you to create better search terms.

By using instant searches it is expected that you will save 2-5 seconds per search. The predictive nature of Google Instant, for example, is designed to guide you to the best result before you have time to type in what you are looking for. There is debate as to whether this is true.

As an example, as I started to type in “best cities in America,” this is what I saw:

Granted, I had only typed in three letters, but it is curious to note that Best Buy is the first result. Is that because people are looking for Best Buy more than any other ‘best’ topic on Google? Or is it because they spend the most amount of money per month in paid search with Google for the term ‘best’?

As soon as I typed “best cities i” the top result was actually “best cities in America,” which is still impressive.

Many people have already turned off Google Instant, but if you haven’t tried it yet I suggest you give it a go. Nothing’s perfect, but Google has seemed to improve the user experience yet once again.

AT&T sent a letter to customers yesterday that has lit the AT&T Facebook page up with hate mail.

Lets start with the idiocy of AT&T talking at their customers about what they plan to do while ignoring the 3 year tsunami of complaints that we have lodged at them. We can end with the fact that you have to hit the “Like” button on their Facebook page to leave a comment. This is not only lame, but shows again how AT&T does not ‘get it’ or simply does not care beyond lip service.

It’s not worth it to go into the hours of lip service instead of phone service I’ve had in my dysfunctional relationship with AT&T. But, a highlight from a friend is being told that the large trees in front of his house that the AT&T rep saw on Google Maps may have been interfering with the cell signal. Maybe that works in the boondocks, but that friend owns a software company is knows how stupid that idea is.

The logo on the right is from The People of Boulder County vs AT&T Facebook page.

Since Facebook limits comments to 1,000 words, here is my comment for the Facebook page in it’s entirety:

AT&T contracting to provide iPhone service is like an ice cream truck with no air conditioning having an exclusive contract to deliver ice cream in the Sahara desert.

Bottom line: AT&T customer service reps do their best, but the data plan sucks, the phone service sucks and AT&T will see a mass exodus as Verizon gets an iPhone contract. This is not news. Customers have been complaining incessantly for 3 years. Buying Verizon stock and dumping AT&T stock before Verizon gets an iPhone is sound advice.

The corporate lunacy and avoidance of reality in that letter would be hilarious if I wasn’t a customer. Instead, it’s sad, frustrating and annoying that I am yet another iPhone hostage to AT&T. Mr. Jobs, why the hell did you do this to us?

The only reason to have an extortionist (let’s call it what it is) ‘early termination fee’ is to force customers to pay a company for overpriced fees and crap service that the company is not fixing. It’s the customer equivalent of slavery.

Everyone loves their iPhone as the #1 mobile device and hates (loathes) the forced substandard service of the phone service app delivered solely by AT&T. No customer service rep can fix that. They have a thankless job trying appease us.

Only tons of cell towers, a good reliable network and a reasonably priced unlimited data plan will suffice. I try not to use my mobile device (what we used to call a cell phone) for data as much as possible because of the fees. Instead I use my computer and iPad (wifi – no monthly 3G AT&T bills) whenever possible and I think twice before using data when I’m not near those devices.

Corporate lip service and $150 in home devices to solve a MOBILE ( which means we mostly use it outside the house, AT&T) phone service issue are plain disrespectful to customers forced to pay premium monthly fees to you for crap service and limited data plans.

You have one job – provide cell phone service, and you fail at it, AT&T. Now that Droids are out with no issues you can’t use the excuse of data overfilling your pipes. Verizon does not have your network problems with a similar load of data.

When it became obvious that AT&T could not provide cell phone coverage for the iPhone they were (are) breaking their contract and should be let go. Why are we forced to pay premium prices for unreliable (at best) service? If I can’t do my job, I get fired, I don’t get a raise from my client.

My service has been slightly better with the iPhone4, but I’ll be going to Verizon & will probably pay the extortion fee to leave & get on to a network I don’t have to police my usage on for fees while dropping calls all the time.

This article was originally published at Oxstein Labs.

Facebook Places has been live for almost two weeks now.  Have you tried it out?  Do you plan to?  Do you care?  Only 19% of the worldwide cell phone market is smart phones and the word on the street is that Foursquare users are happy with Foursquare.

That will undoubtedly change.  Foursquare has 3 million users to Facebook’s 500 million for starters.  Inevitably, as checking-in through location based services hits the mainstream, Facebook will dominate all comers just based on the simple fact that they are the hub of our online social worlds.  There is a reason that the Facebook movie is titled, “The Social Network” and not “A Social Network.”

If you are not already in the check-in game you may wonder why anyone would do such a thing. The main reasons are that:

It’s Fun – Checking-in is a game.  Some people like to earn the badges and points given for multiple check-ins at a specific place or within a certain time frame.  Gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry for many reasons including psychological factors like feeling a sense of achievement each time you master a level or earn rewards.  Getting a virtual badge delivers that same sense of success.

Social Proof – People want to tell others that they are at cool places doing cool things.  This fulfills the same basic needs for connection and  validation that people fulfill by participating in social networks.  Beyond that, it’s a way to see when your friends are nearby and you can spontaneously meetup.

Deals – People love to get a good deal and smart retailers are rewarding people who check-in at their store with coupons and freebies.

In a year or two adoption rates of users for location based check-ins will skyrocket.  There will be a tipping point just like there was for Twitter and Facebook.  People who now say “That’s stupid” will find check-ins to be a part of their daily or weekly routines before they know it. Those of us who have been using Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Brightkite and other LBS services for about two years are using more than one service now and will probably see them all repost to Facebok Places by the end of the year.

The social web is now connected and we are at the beginning phase of the game layer that is creating new functionalities on top of the foundation that social networks have built.  Since Facebook is THE social network, the question isn’t if you will use Facebook Places, it’s how soon you you will start.

This article was originally posted at Oxstein Labs.

There are many ways that consumers and companies are cashing in on the escalating frugality trend.  This is a direct effect of the increasing use of both social networking platforms and of smart phone use.  As the population continues to talk on the phone less and less, we are also welcoming using our phones (and email) to receive notifications of deals on products and services that we like.

If you have a retail business and have not launched a campaign through group buying then you have missed out on a lot of business.  Groupon and LivingSocial are at the top of the group buying mountain and can deliver results that will blow your mind.

The biggest problem companies have with these campaigns is not preparing their internal structures and supplies to meet the flood of demand they receive.  One example is a Washington D.C. company that offered $50 worth of cupcakes for $25 and had to make their staff work around the clock to bake enough cupcakes.

The front end of why this works is that people opt-in to receive daily notifications of deals.  Why opt in?  Because everyone loves the gratification of feeling that they got a good deal, and even more importantly, people love to be the first ones to tell their friends about something cool.

This brings us to the backend value of participating in group buying.  If Jane gets a notification about half off for a spa day at a local salon, not only does she get to talk about saving money (which means she’s smart), but she also gets to be the one to forward the email to friends.  This is both giving a gift and spreading influence which raises Jane’s level of importance to people whose opinions she cares about.  Deep psychological needs for connection and validation are met through this process.

But beware of magic bullets.  There is no absolute guarantee that if you pay for a campaign the customers will come.  You need to apply due diligence on what it will take to break even on a campaign.  If you have a shoddy product and you have not proven that people will pay for what you have, even giving a great discount  through group buying may not boost your bottom line.  That said, if you ask yourself the right questions before committing to a campaign, there are few other avenues to build interest in your products as instantly as group buying offers.

There are great articles all over the web about the amazing new features of the iPhone 4.  There are also almost as many articles about the problems the iPhone 4  has.

But what’s more interesting from a psychological perspective is how each new iPhone release ups the fanatic interest of more and more people.  Last week the online reservation system for the phones crashed within hours of going up because 600,000 orders hit it so fast.  Then huge crowds turned out worldwide to buy them today, the day of the launch.

More than a need to have the new cool toy, people are clamoring for easier ways to communicate and connect.  With each new iPhone release consumers are compelled to have a better device with upgraded apps and features that help them to be social in better and faster ways.

Beyond this, the sense of community between iPhone users to share tips, geek out on technology and have fun is a reflection of types of people attracted to the Apple tribe. Apple understands the experience economy and Apple lovers love the products because they always deliver better experiences.

Last night in Boulder people began lining up outside the Apple Store at 4pm.  By 5:30 Matt Emmi, an Apple customer, had set up a huge Samsung screen that campers would use to play video games and their kids would use to watch movies like Wall-E.  Others were already sharing iPads, playing board games and going on food runs for strangers next to them in line. This set the context of a community sharing an event.

Here a ‘shot in the dark video’ of the scene with about 100 people at 11pm last night:

Click here to view the embedded video.

By 6am the crowd grew to over 500 people:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And then at 7am over 1,000 faithful Apple addicts were rewarded as the ‘Black Curtain Hiding Awesomeness” (as some labeled it) fell and the doors were opened. This video of how Apple launched iPhone 4 today, including the ceremonial reception of Michael Sitarzewski and Dave Taylor, the first customers in line, reflects how Apple understands the experience economy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Facebook has just announced a plan to socialize the web in ways that have far reaching implications.  This is a game changer for consumers and marketers.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You may have noticed that Facebook Fan Pages switched over to becoming “Like” pages instead this week.  That was only the beginning.  With a Facebook “Like” button that every website can install for free, you will now be able to show your interest in articles, bands, movies and every other type of content on the Internet.  Once you click “Like” on a piece of content it will automatically show up on your Facebook wall with a link back to the page that you like.

Because this is so easy, and will soon be ubiquitous wherever you go on the web, you will be bringing your friends with you to every site you visit.  When you click on a CNN article you will see which of your friends have “Liked” it before you. CNN is one of the first websites implementing the Facebook “Like” technology.

Facebook is now the fourth most-visited Web site in the world with over 500 million visitors a month. According to Nielsen Co., Facebook visitors spend more than five and a half hours each month on the site.

In essence, the biggest shift from this is that many people who do not participate very much on the social web outside of Facebook will now.  Imagine a year from now how much participation will be going on when you see a “Like” button on every web page.  People who have never bookmarked a website through Digg, Delicious or Stumble Upon will find it second nature to click the “Like” button on Fandango while purchasing movie tickets.

Everyone is an influencer and now we will be influencing each other at warp speed.  The top down model of companies with the most money and power controlling a monologue of information is dead.  As brands interact more with consumers through all social media channels their outreach will deliver greater benefits.  We have moved from monologue marketing to dialogue marketing.  Now we are entering a new phase where community marketing is gaining traction because technology is laying the highway for it to happen naturally.

To better understand the changes coming with Facebook’s Open Graph, read Jeremiah Owyang’s excellent post with a matrix breaking down all the implications. To delve deeper into How to Delete Facebook Applications (and Why You Should) check out Read, Write, Web. To discover how Facebook’s Open Web will affect your privacy read this Mashable article. This is only the beginning of what you will be reading about regarding Facebook’s Open Graph. It’s changing how we use the Internet.