I'll start out by admitting that this is a spoof video. I know. That was a spoiler comment, but I actually think that this hilarious video makes a great point.

For those of you who are not very familiar with Twitter, it's original purpose was to enable short quick updates similar to a blog, but not intended to be as lengthy, i.e. "microblogging". Users liked it because they could make quick statements about what they were doing or thinking without the pressure to write full paragraphs like this one. Twitter "tweets" are limited to 140 characters. As a result, numerous tricks were invented to stay within that space such as shortening URLs with TinyURL.com or Adjix.com and others. You can "follow" those that you find interesting and see all of their tweets (please follow me at http://twitter.com/vivosity) and you can be followed.

When I worked at AOL, I always imagined being able to start and visualize an international conversation about "Green Energy" for example where all the tweets were communicating together like a global town hall. We did not do this. My model was Twittervision, but users would actively join the topic and you would be simultaneously viewing a single topic stream. Today, you can see what tweets are being said about a particular subject by searching on a topic at Twitter.com, but it is not a unified conversation really. It's more like simultaneous, independent statements.

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"Hey Peter," the ad said. "Hot singles are waiting for you!!" He might have dismissed the advertisement, which appeared on his Facebook page, but for one thing.

The woman pictured in the ad was his wife.

Source: http://bit.ly/WLlVC

In an earlier post, I discussed the important role of honoring the trusted relationship that we create with our guests online. Facebook's change of policy regarding the use of my uploaded photos for advertisements has now bit them in a very public way as shown above. Facebook claims that the ads were created by partners who didn't follow their policy. But does that matter? Facebook ran fast and loose with member content and ended up hurting someone, albeit only slightly in this case since the husband had a sense of humor and his wife did not lose her job or similar.

What mistakes did they make? Facebook didn't follow the premise of "permission marketing" popularized by Seth Godin. If they believed that the policy change was a good idea for both users and Facebook, Facebook should have made the change, but set the option to "off" and invite members to enable it for some yet to be discovered end user benefit. Instead they decided what was best for us and put us at risk of their sometimes "rogue" partner behaviors. Perhaps Facebook was struggling with the belief that users would not opt-in because the value proposition was hard to convey, so they imposed the change instead. If that is the case, and I've been in businesses where that was the crux of it, then they undervalue their members and the respect that they deserve.

If you are fortunate enough to build a passionate audience, honor it. Respect it and it will honor and respect you right back with loyalty.

One of the cornerstone principles of Web 2.0 is empowering the customer/user to become truly a part of your online experience, not just a spectator. This is a powerful engagement tool and can build strong, sustainable value for your company while making users feel as though they are important to your business. This enhanced value can also deliver stickiness. However, as with most relationships, there is an honesty, courtesy and trust that you are hoping to build and leverage. Users are hoping for it too at varying levels.

Facebook is struggling with this very issue. They want desperately to leverage the content that users are posting on their service while still giving users control over what is shared. They also want to lean into some of the behavior models that Twitter has fostered such as "following" other's messages. Confusing privacy settings are, in their thinking, preventing users from sharing openly more of their content to larger audiences. The dilemna is that Facebook is not adept at rolling these changes out to users and earning their buy-in. They tend to make changes to their policies somewhat quietly and then the blogosphere tips their hand for them.

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