Zuckerberg's Facebook Page Hacked

Perhaps it is not that Zuckerberg's page was hacked, but what the hacker wrote...


(CNN) -- Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's fan page was hacked Tuesday -- a high-profile breach on a site that constantly faces scrutiny about its handling of its members' private data.

The message that appeared on Zuckerberg's page under his name read: "Let the hacking begin: If Facebook needs money, instead of going to the banks, why doesn't Facebook let its users invest in Facebook in a social way? "Why not transform Facebook into a 'social business' the way Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus described it?" the message continued, referring to the founder of the Grameen Bank which has transformed millions of lives by extending micro-loans to poor people.

Zuckerberg's fan page has more than three million followers and is probably managed by media assistants to the social networking magnate, according to cyber-security experts.

The message received more than 1,800 "likes" before it was removed from the page. Facebook's representatives have not returned calls seeking comment.


So the hacker was complaining that, why has Facebook not crowd funded its members especially when they have 600,000,000 of them. Why indeed?

How Threadless plugged into Facebook with 190,563 fans

Threadless Weaves its Awesome Customer Support Experience Directly into Facebook, Providing a Smoother and More Interactive Customer Experience

New Support Access Powered by Parature for Facebook™, the Industry’s First and Only Social Support Application for Directly Engaging Customers and Fans through Facebook

Chicago, IL and Vienna, VA (Vocus) November 18, 2010

Threadless.com, a community-driven online design platform for retail, and Parature, a global leader in Web-based customer service software, today announced Threadless has extended its customer support and service experience by directly integrating support into the world’s most popular social network, Facebook. The new support service can be accessed at Threadless’s Facebook Page, and is powered by the first and only social support application for directly engaging customers and fans through Facebook, Parature for Facebook™.

Customers and Threadless’s more than 180,000 Facebook Fans are now able to rapidly resolve support issues by simply clicking on a Support Tab from the Threadless Facebook Page. Fans and Customers can now:

Search a knowledgebase of frequently encountered issues and resolve support issues quickly and independently;

Submit a trouble ticket if unable to resolve a support issue; and,
Post comments on the Threadless.com Facebook Page and receive an individualized response rapidly.

Threadless is known globally for its pioneering approach to crowdsourcing and social media innovation, focusing its business on helping customers build social art and design communities that make the creative and fashion design experience more collaborative, fun and enjoyable. Providing integrated support with Facebook is another crucial step in Threadless’s evolution as a social media innovator.

"We are really excited to extend our support experience to our growing community of fans and customers through Parature for Facebook,” said Brianne Hattaway, Director of Customer Support for Threadless. "Threadless's approach to support is shaped by our online community and their need for transparency and immediacy. We can reach out to our customers on Facebook even more than before and give them a fluid support experience across different channels with the same rich FAQs and personalized support that Parature enables on our site."

“In today’s increasingly social and collaborative world, customers demand support when and how they want it,” said Parature Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Duke Chung. “With over 500 million members at last count, and recently surpassing Google as the most visited site in the United States, according to HitWise, companies are compelled to provide direct and real-time support, sales and service through Facebook. Parature for Facebook enables them to do just that.”

Parature for Facebook is the industry’s first and only customer support application for directly engaging customers and fans through Facebook and is delivered through the cloud and charged by subscription. Customers can monitor Facebook Wall conversations, posts and comments in real time, appropriately route, respond and report on social interactions, gaining an enhanced view of customer engagement and support effectiveness. With Parature for Facebook, corporate Facebook fans can search knowledgebases, submit tickets and chat directly with customer success agents without leaving Facebook. Demos are available for viewing at http://www.parature.com/res_demos.aspx

Parature for Facebook can be purchased as a stand-alone application or as part of the Parature Customer Service software suite.

Threadless.com
Founded in 2000 by entrepreneur Jake Nickell, Threadless has evolved from an online t-shirt design company into an international community-driven design platform featuring merchandise designed by and for its fan-base of nearly one million users. Considered the "poster child" of crowdsourcing, Threadless boasts a diverse community of designers, artists and general consumers from around the world who submit and vote on designs for ongoing competitions. Winning designs are produced and available for sale at Threadless retail locations and online store, and the winning designers receive $2,000 plus a $500 gift certificate. Threadless integrates its passionate, authentic and highly active community into every aspect of its business and continues to offer them new design opportunities through strategic partnerships with major brands including Disney, Dell, Griffin and Havaianas.

Parature, Inc.
Parature enables organizations to better serve, support, engage with and retain their customers via the Web. Industry-leading, Web-based Parature Customer Service™ software provides customer service organizations with a comprehensive, multi-channel way to meet the growing expectations of their customers. With more than 10 years experience, Parature serves organizations in a wide variety of industries worldwide and helps support nearly 20 million end users. Parature is among Inc. Magazine’s Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Software Companies and is the recipient of numerous product, technology, and leadership awards. Today, the Parature name is synonymous with innovation and value in Web-based customer service software, strategies and best practices. Parature is headquartered in Vienna, Virginia with offices in San Francisco and the U.K. For more information, visit http://www.parature.com or follow @parature on Twitter.

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Social Enterprise: 'Diaspora' Crowdsources $200,000

Diaspora, the pro-privacy social network and social enterprise being built as an alternative to Facebook by four NYU classmates, announced today that it has been able to crowdsource its goal of $200,000 in first-round funding via Kickstarter.

The group, which announced its project April 24 amid Facebook's privacy brouhaha, gave itself 39 days to raise $10,000 using the online fundraising site. The group reached its $10,000 goal in 12 days, and today, the group announced it was able to raise all of the money it sought -- some $200,000, plus an additional $642, from 6,479 people (including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg).

[Diaspora software aims to let users set up their own personal servers, called seeds, so users can control who-sees-what about their private data. Diaspora will provide the same functionality as Facebook, the group says, but it won't rely on centralized servers.]

According to Max Salzberg, 22, one of the four co-founders, the group began its work on the project in April, after hearing Eben Moglen, a Columbia University law professor, describe social networks as a form of "(corporate) spying for free." In recent weeks, Diaspora has become a buzz magnet, receiving mainstream media coverage and attracting nearly 29,000 followers on Twitter. [See fellow blogger Audrey Watter's recent piece on Diaspora here.]

The news is significant for the social enterprise sector, in that it proves that it's possible raise startup capital online for popular projects. Diaspora isn't the only "un-Facebook" social network that is being developed amid privacy concerns. Appleseed and OneSocialWeb also have been working on alternatives.

What do you think? Is crowdsourcing a realistic alternative for new social startups? Let us hear from you.
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The Diaspora Project and Kickstarter: The Power of (Micro)Funding a Good Idea

$162,376 pledged on kickstarter.com for the Diaspora Project with a goal of $10,000
a massive response! (as of Saturday 15th May 2010.

Since we broke the story about the Diaspora Project last week, the plans for an open source, distributed alternative to Facebook has seen widespread press. But just as importantly, funding for the undertaking has skyrocketed.

The Diaspora Project is the brainchild of four NYU computer students, and as Sarah Perez noted in her article, while the concepts of "open source" and "distributed network" might not normally have mass appeal, the latest round of privacy concerns with Facebook have helped to generate a lot of attention for the project and the concepts behind it.

The project is currently being hosted on Kickstarter, a site that lets entrepreneurs crowdsource funding. Kickstarter allows entrepreneurs to set a funding goal and deadline, as well as offer an optional set of rewards to their backers. Projects that don't reach that goal have their pledges returned.

In Kickstarter's words, the service demonstrates that "good idea, communicated well, can spread fast and wide" and that "a large group of people can be a tremendous source of money and encouragement."

Last week, Diaspora was $2000 short of their $10,000 goal with under a month left to go until reaching their deadline. Yesterday, when Techcrunch wrote about the project, funding stood at around $60,000. As of this morning, they have raised over $90,000 from over 2100 backers, including some fairly big names in the tech industry, and still have 19 days of fundraising to go.

Kickstarter offers a sliding scale, of sorts, for donations, and most of the funding for the Diaspora Project has come in small amounts. While 4 backers have pledged over $2000, most backers have opted to donate $5, $10, or $25. The latter has been the most popular donation amount, with almost 900 individuals committing $25. That $25 will get you a CD, some stickers, and a t-shirt - and the satisfaction of helping support a Facebook alternative.

While certainly the Diaspora Project is well-timed, their use of the Kickstarter platform also points to the power of crowdsourced microfunding - particularly for a project that many people outside typical investment circles are finding compelling and important.
Kickstarter.com The Diaspora Project
Click To Watch Video
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Multinational Search: Is Facebook A Global Threat To Google?

In December, Hitwise released data showing that the top Google search term of 2009 was “Facebook” having moved up from position number ten in the previous year. Hitwise also wrote that Facebook took the number one spot on Christmas Day—a claim Barry Schwartz later investigated...

..Both Google and Facebook have also used some form of crowdsourcing or volunteering to undertake localization for broader markets.

What this demonstrates is that if you have a great idea with global potential and you intend to go there,you’d better move early and fast because it’s very easy for local players to use your great idea and to become a threat to your own progress in your future roll out...
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Crowdsourcing: Facebook users can help Chase find small charities

NEW YORK — JPMorgan Chase is letting Facebook users help decide how to give away $5 million.

The idea is to get small, local charities on Chase's radar — ones that don't have the operating budget to go around asking for grants but do a lot of good work in their communities.

The "Chase Community Giving" program will let Facebook users choose from more than half a million charities that have an operating budget of less than $10 million apiece. Examples include the Children's Diabetes Foundation in Denver, the East Bay Habitat for Humanity in Oakland, Calif., and the Montana Connection For Afghan Women in Bozeman, Mont.

The Chase program is not the first time a company has asked Facebook users to vote on its charitable dollars. But it is the first time that they can nominate charities that the giver likely hasn't even heard of.

"We are moving from a centralized way of philanthropic giving to the wisdom of friends," said Elliot Schrage, Facebook's vice president of communications.

The 100 charities getting the most votes by Dec. 11 will each receive $25,000 from Chase.
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Kimberly Davis, senior vice president, Global Philanthropy and president of the JPMorgan
Chase Foundation
Chase Community Giving $5,000,000

Tweetdeck will Crowdsource Information Filtering

Tweetdeck, the popular, free Twitter client, is expanding its reach to Facebook and MySpace. The new versions of the desktop and iPhone program let you post to all three networks and read feeds from them, all within the same interface. The big idea here, according to Tweetdeck founder Iain Dodsworth, is to make Tweetdeck a more powerful way to keep up with everything — like a web browser for socially distributed information, be it news, memes, or photos. “Instead of just being a Twitter client, we want to be a new type of browser,” Dodsworth said. “Instead of browsing web pages, we want people to use Tweetdeck to consume all different sources of real-time data… [this] is the first step towards that vision.” In addition to the MySpace and Facebook integration, which worked smoothly when we connected multiple accounts, the new Tweetdeck lets you group Facebook friends into subgroups, so you can follow work friends, personal friends and frenemies in separate columns. (Tweetdeck presents your social media feeds as a series of highly configurable columns — essentially, you get one for each account, group or service.)
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tweetdeck.com

Will VitaminWater's Facebook App Make Us Smarter About Crowdsourcing?

Before we begin with our deep thoughts about flavored water, here's a brief rundown of the crowdsourcing program: The brand has added a "flavorcreator" tab to its Facebook page (which currently has almost 475,000 fans), allowing people to vote for the next VitaminWater flavor, the ten finalists having already been determined. (A cloud and a ranking list within the app shows what flavors are currently the most talked about. At this writing, green apple and mint were running one and two.)...I'm a little confused about why ultimate decision-making goes to 50 Cent (a company investor) and Carrie Underwood. Shouldn't the winner be the one most people voted for?
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facebook.com/flavorcreator

Audi crowdsources for car designs using Facebook fans...

Audi has asked its 300,000 Facebook fans what functionality and features they'd like to see on a new vehicle in 2030 as part of a competition at the Los Angeles Auto Show, which has challenged vehicle manufacturers to design a youth-oriented car of the future. Videos created by TurnHere encourage fans to participate in the design challenge, while follow-up discussion questions solicit specific feedback, such as 'How will your car play a role in keeping you connected to your digital world in the future?'The videos showcase real Audi designers sharing their design philosophies and visions for the future of the automobile. Brad Stertz, spokesman for Audi of America, said the contest helps fans of the vehicle understand and engage with the passion of the brand's design team
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Facebook mirrors Google with crowdsourcing agenda

Journalists and Silicon Valley insiders alike often wonder aloud why venture capitalists have reportedly poured $716 million into social networking startup Facebook Inc., giving it a massive valuation estimated by some at $15 billion. Facebook may have dropped a hint as to why in a new patent filing on language translation technology that TechCrunch noted last night.Facebook has melded technology and human intellect via crowd sourcing to create a better language translation technology.
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Facebook Wants To Own Idea Of Crowdsourced Translations

Apparently Facebook is trying to patent the idea of crowdsourced translations of its service. The actual patent application was filed in December of 2008, but the real priority date (I believe) is December of 2007 (when I think the company filed a provisional patent). This one caught my attention for a few reasons -- with a major one being that way back in March of 2006, some friends of mine were working on a startup called Gabbly, which did online chat, and they had amazing success with crowdsourcing translations.
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