Jeff's Items of Interest

An IKEA store in the UK let 100 cats loose in their store overnight, and filmed what the kitties explored, played with, and got into. They made it into a very cool little commercial.

There is also a that is worth a watch to see how they did it.

Below is my taxonomy of social networking data, which I first presented at the Internet Governance Forum meeting last November, and again -- revised -- at an OECD workshop on the role of Internet intermediaries in June.

• Service data is the data you give to a social networking site in order to use it. Such data might include your legal name, your age, and your credit-card number.

• Disclosed data is what you post on your own pages: blog entries, photographs, messages, comments, and so on.

• Entrusted data is what you post on other people's pages. It's basically the same stuff as disclosed data, but the difference is that you don't have control over the data once you post it -- another user does.

• Incidental data is what other people post about you: a paragraph about you that someone else writes, a picture of you that someone else takes and posts. Again, it's basically the same stuff as disclosed data, but the difference is that you don't have control over it, and you didn't create it in the first place.

• Behavioral data is data the site collects about your habits by recording what you do and who you do it with. It might include games you play, topics you write about, news articles you access (and what that says about your political leanings), and so on.

• Derived data is data about you that is derived from all the other data. For example, if 80 percent of your friends self-identify as gay, you're likely gay yourself.

This is not light reading, but if you work in the social media/online space, I highly recommend spending the time. Bruce Schneier is an expert on information security and privacy issues, and has a very skeptical view of many of the ways that we and our data are kept "secure".

Whether you are a practitioner in the social space or run a business wondering how to approach handling your customer's data, this is a great foundation to build from.

Interesting topic, but mainly trying my Google Reader to Posterous link. Read the article, but tell me what topic you're more interested in, if any. There is so much interesting stuff flying about it is tough to tell the valid from the fluff,

It was quite some time ago that Facebook passed into the realm of the unprecedented in terms of size, scale, and involvement. Where they go from here is almost terrifying to contemplate.

Great vintage posters for current social media services, sites, tools, properties, whatever. (found via Jay Baer

Exhibiting poise, insight and respect, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has risen to the top of the list of politicians using social media effectively. Johnson set up a Facebook account a little over a month ago and has posted at least once a day since. However, it is not simply the number of posts that makes his account one to watch for interested politicians and pundits, but rather the content therein – he discusses many dimensions of the government’s actions and policies, even reversing one of his decisions based on the comments that citizens left on his Facebook page. Read on for an in-depth look at what makes his use of social media such a success.

It's amazing and more than a little sad how many politicians in the United States view their office as a personal career and have little time/desire to connect with the people they serve. I see more SM every election, but still used as more of a news source. Over the next few years this is going to continue to shift and the face of politics around the world will continue to change.

“I’m setting the example, and it’s going to be puzzled over and studied and followed, from now on.” – John Doe, Seven.

Although Wieden + Kennedy had a very different aim than the homicidal “John Doe” character from David Fincher’s thriller Seven, this is probably what the advertising agency behind Old Spice’s latest marketing campaign must be thinking right now.

If you're on the internets you're almost surely aware of Old Spice's campaign over the past two days. My love for it is unabashed. Brazen in concept, flawless in execution, unerring in its target. This is an Olympian nailing a 10.0 performance in an event that didn't even exist before.

There is a wealth of sites and tools out there, and 99% of the companies, brands, and players use them in near traditional ways. There is so much more available for someone bold enough to experiment.

With no risk there is no reward.

According to Domino’s UK financial earnings report, the company has increased its pre-tax profit by nearly 29%, which equates to roughly $26 million. The UK pizza retailer attributes social media initiatives and its Foursquare promotion for the gains.

In the earnings statement, CEO Chris Moore points to the rise in online orders — which now account for 32.7% of all orders — as proof that their web and social media efforts are paying off.

I'm a big believer that Foursquare and geolocation apps are going to play an increasing role in the way people interact with businesses, but these numbers are just nuts. 29%?

I'd love to see the accounting behind this, but either way it is a bold statement from a very big brand.

Google has quietly (secretly, one might say) invested somewhere between $100 million and $200 million in social gaming behemoth Zynga, we’ve confirmed from multiple sources. The company has raised somewhere around half a billion dollars in venture capital in the last year alone, including $150 million from Softbank Capital last month and $180 million late last year from Digital Sky Technologies, Tiger Global, Institutional Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz. The Softbank announcement was never officially confirmed by the company, however, and the Google investment was likely part of that deal as well.

Can't say this surprises me much at all. Gaming is not only a great traffic driver (witness the abomination known as Farmville) but also a great behavior shaping device (witness badges and mayorships in Foursquare).

It's one of the areas I'm most interested in watching in the social space, both for entertainment and commernce.

Security has always been a hot topic. Offline, people buy wired homes, car alarms and gadgets to bring their security to the max. Online, security is important, too, especially for people who make a living from websites and blogs. In this article, we’ll show you some useful tweaks to protect your WordPress-powered blog.

I had to wrestle a pretty nasty Wordpress security issue a few months back and it was not, not, not fun.

If you run Wordpress, give this a look. There are some ideas here that require code changes, but if you depend on Wordpress for your business you don't want it going down.