Le Web3 Live

With social networks becoming more and more important every day, and users revealing more and more of their private life, there are bound to be problems - especially in terms of digital identity theft and protection of personal data. This was the subject of the opening session of LeWeb3. It was a good choice of topic, as the question has been in the news since Facebook tried to add social advertising to its services.

So a debate took place between Chris Alden from Six Apart, Dan Rose (the International Facebook vice-president), lawyer Michel Jaccard and Jaewoong Lee from Daum communication.

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When asked if there were “any Digg fans in the room”, the audience reacted with moderate enthusiasm. “Well, there are, like, three”, Kevin Rose laughed. This was a good way to introduce his conversation with journalist Sarah Lacy.

The session, “Making your information social,” actually turned into a cosy exchange between the journalist and the creator of Digg.com. During the whole time he was on stage, someone in the audience held a “Digg this!” banner in front of the cameras.

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It’s not easy to become a “friend” with Dan Rose. It’s rather paradoxical that the vice-president of Facebook can’t be easily found on the Web. Perhaps it’s because “Dan Rose” is such a common name in the US. A better explanation could be that Rose is careful about his privacy on the Web. On his Facebook profile, Rose “only” lists around 400 friends, just as many as on his LinkedIn network. And most of his “friends” working for the social-networking company. Read more

For jobseekers, Facebook can’t hold a candle to Viadeo or LinkedIn, which are built specifically for business relationships. However, the global craze for Mark Zuckerberg’s invention means anyone could come across a jobseeker’s Facebook page. Applicants and employees should take care what they write on it, and job recruiters ought not to take what’s written at face value if they want to avoid a kind of “discrimination 2.0”. Here in France, where Facebook caught on last year, jobseekers and employers are beginning to understand they have to be careful.

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A fortnight ago, Canadian student Adam Morrison was arrested by the police because his Facebook profile indicated he wanted to kill many people the way two teenagers did ten years ago at Columbine High School in the United States. Actually, Adam was not guilty. After checking his personal computer, the police found someone else had opened a fake Facebook profile using the student’s name and e-mail address.

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The participative Web is becoming an ever-increasing reality in everyday life. Companies are aware of the amazing boost social networks can potentially provide for their image. Some of them are also afraid of losing control of their reputation. Two weeks ago, the French Navy, la “Marine Nationale,” launched its first recruiting forum on Second Life. 1,400 applicants, hidden behind virtual characters, were able to chat 24 hours a day with army recruiters, special guests such as a submariner or a frigate captain for instance, before enjoying a live party “on board” entertained by a real DJ. “Among the visitors, 600 of them seem to have interesting profiles for us,” said Stanilas Gentien, chief of the operation. That’s more than the figures of a regular recruiting session in real life, and at a cost lower than running a recruiting campaign in the national media. When even “la Grande Muette” (the Big Mute Lady, the nickname for the French Army) gets hooked on one of the coolest virtual chat rooms of the moment, there’s no doubt: the Web 2.0 is definitely invading the minds of managers, eager to follow society’s latest crazes. However, companies’ marketers should think twice before investing in the Web 2.0…

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