CyberMummy 2011 Live Blogging: Working With Facebook

Is he here yet? Lord who? No, Denzel Washington.

Oh, hello, I didn’t see you there. Welcome, welcome, and if you are reading these words it means I made it to live blog the CyberMummy 2011 Conference Opener: “Working With Facebook: The Power Of The Social Web” – by Lord Richard Allan, Facebook’s EU Director of Policy.

While we wait for the magic of that to begin, though, would you do me a favour? If my Grandmother asks, the CyberMummy 2011 Conference is taking place at Buckingham Palace. Please, I cannot tell the woman I am at The London Brewery all day. She’ll come and haul me out, and the organisers asked specifically I not bring any ‘misunderstandings’ with me today. Thank you.

My other big hope for the day is that Denzel Washington shows up in the audience. I’ll give you fair and subtle warning if I see him. Watch out for something like, “ARRRGHHH… Later people, I’m outta here.” If I am not swept away by Mr Washington, this post will start scheduling updates on the salient points of Lord Allan’s opening address (due to start at around 09.35 hrs). Hitherto to be known as The Sensible Part Of This Post.

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“Working With Facebook: The Power Of The Social Web” – Address by Lord Richard Allan, Facebook EU Director of Policy.

- Good morning and thanks from Lord Allan. His credentials are mainly father of twin girls and past experience as a ‘boring’ blogger. [Laughter]

- Facebook increasing focus is keeping children safe on line.

- Lord Allan believes that Facebook is not new in the social web – bloggers were there before. What Facebook has done is bring the experience to more people and cohesively.

- Numbers now … more than 30 million people have logged onto Facebook in the last month and 50% log on every single day.

- In terms of business blogging, you don’t have to like Facebook to get value from it. However, if you own a business, it is fast becoming the way to disseminate information to a large number of people.

- Facebook has now entered the massive world of photo sharing and has become one of the biggest photo sharing sites. Facebook photos go viral (he hates that word) because of the tagging and ‘word of mouth’ aspect of this kind of sharing.

- Facebook also provides insight tools – what people love and what they have interacted with is valuable information for businesses in order to shape a business future based on what people are asking for or using.

- Now a biggy…child safety. Since Facebook is cross-generational – Grandparents, parents, child – the company is anxious that the safety conversations continue. Facebook now provide targeted advice to, say, the police, parents, educators. Facebook now also has social safety reporting. Facebook deals with reports of unsafe incidents and works with the parties involved to ensure responsibility is shared in keeping our children safe.

Question Time

Question: Ownership of content on Facebook because there is confusion?

Lord Allan admits to the company causing a lot of that confusion with changing and ambiguous terms of service. This has now been made very clear. OWNERSHIP OF THE CONTENT BELONGS TO THE CONSUMER where the consumer licences Facebook to store and use data in order to make the service work.

Question: Where is Facebook heading in terms of keeping so much data on people?

Lord Allan wants Facebook to be useful to people everywhere and Facebook’s ambition is to be where other big players are. Eg: games consoles where if you make friends on that platform Facebook is also, somehow, linked to that experience.

Question: Does Facebook sell the data it collects?

Lord Allan: No. Otherwise the public would lose trust in the service.

Question: Why is service opt out – instead of opt in?

Asking people constantly to add themselves to services erodes consumer patience.

That was the last question. So…

Thank you Lord Allan.