Craigslist Gets Busy

I was having a random conversation with a friend a few days ago. We were talking about my roomates and he asked me how I had found an apartment, so I obviously answered: "Craigslist, of course!". Before coming to New York, people would say it was the best website for housing but also for buying all kind of things like tickets, furniture...

But my friend had a surprising reaction: "Oh my God, you're brave!". I didn't understand why so I asked him for further explanation and he told me something that scared the hell out of me: "Craigslist is known for being dangerous, heard people got killed" he said.

After considering the possibility that I was currently living with serial killers, I stopped being paranoid but did some research out of curiosity. It turns out that Craigslist is actually in the news for suspecious activities.

It seems like the success of Craigslist partly depends on a controversial revenue called sex ads. Indeed, more and more people are posting ads on the website to promote prostitution. Users have to pay from $10 to $15 to publish an ad on Craigslist, and as there is no efficient regulation for sex ads, the website makes money by promoting horrible things such as child exploitation and human trafficking. This is completely scandalous.

Craigslist used to give all the money from the sex ads to charity, which is kind of gross when you think about it. Solving problems by making money out of another huge social issue is not helping. But the icing on the cake is that now the company stopped committing to give that money away! Basically it's almost like saying "We make money by promoting prostitution, so what?" to people's face.

The ads of Craigslist are likely to bring $36 billions to the company this year, which is three times the revenue of last year's projection. But can a company really grow and spread its influence while being involved in such unethical issues?

Just because Craigslist provides online services doesn't mean it should be exempt from regulations. My point is, we should expect integrity from the Internet too, especially from Craigslist which is in the top ten most visited websites in the US. Can you imaging ads for prostitution on the New York Times or CNN? The digital media shouldn't be a no man's land in terms of rules.

Too Much Texteen

Pew Research Center recently published a study revealing that one in three American teens send more than 100 text messages a day. Text messaging becomes centerpiece communication nowadays, as it is the first channel of basic communication between teens and their friends, before cell calling.

That trend keeps on growing since 88% of teen cell phone users do text messages compared to 51% in 2006. That sharp rise doesn't really suprise me, as I'm pretty addicted to texting myself. But I'm not a teenage anymore and I still remember the time when I didn't own a cell phone. Even if this memory is getting blurrier and blurrier, it makes a difference. No matter how much I depend on mobile communication, I'm from the generation that discovered cell phones. I mean that when I got my first one, I was excited about it and didn't take it for granted, it was a major event. But now, it became totally normal for teens to own one as soon as they enter mid school, and maybe even earlier. I think this habit has an impact on many levels of our society.

Another study made by the University of Maryland reported that college students using social media showed signs similar to drug addicts. To avoid this dangerous trend, Riverdale Country School took a really interesting initiative by lauching an experiment in text-free living. They asked the kids not to use their cell phones for texting or chatting on social media for two days. As difficult as it was for teenages to keep their phones away, they were all suprised to see how fast they would finish their homework.

Texting and chatting with friends on social media are a part of our daily language. Although I recognize it can be really convenient to communicate this way, I also think it tends to narrow our thoughts and ideas. It's a really distracting activity that makes people use simple vocabulary, and that's why it's scary that so many teens are addicted to their smartphones. I believe we should encourage young people to express themselves in a more complex way, so that they always know the line between digital communication and traditional one.

Unlike The New Facebook "Like" Button

Facebook launches a new "Like" button allowing the social network to spread its influence beyond its own website. How can I unlike this?

We all know the "Like" button on each Facebook profile that allows people to show their interest in others' activity. The more friends like your status, the more influential you can consider yourself on your network. But Facebook is now applying this popular concept to a different field. Indeed, we should all prepare ourselves to see a new "like" button on famous entertainment or information websites within the weeks to come.

Becoming a fan of a brand requires the user to actually search for the company on Facebook. So in addition to that, the new "like" button will appear on the brands' official websites so that Facebook users can directly like them when they log on. It completes the function of "share" buttons already established and very popular on many websites such as Youtube.

But what looks like a partnership or an exchange of visibility from one brand to another is actually more strategic. Facebook has to pay a price to have a "like" button on other websites, because it represents a considerable opportunity for the brand.

Unfortunately, the price is people's privacy. Facebook will offer data about its users to the websites agreeing to display a "like" button. These websites will then be able to advertise for their service by targeting specific audiences thanks to the information that Facebook owns about us. I think this is the sign that Facebook crossed the line because it is openly using its users as merchandise. We think we are just expressing ourselves by saying what we like, but we are actually a part of a mercantile system we don't even get. Social media are supposed to connect people to one another, not to companies.

Social networks definitely have to think more seriously about the evolution of their business model if they don't want to loose their users' trust. The saddest thing is that people accustom themselves to the fact that they are being used because Facebook tends to be addictive. Even I, knowing the company's intentions, don't feel ready to give up on my social network.

One thing is certain: Facebook is blessed with an incredible base of brand loyal users. The executive team has to use this in a positive way if it doesn't want to turn Facebook into an unethical company. Because to me, that is what's happening right now.

Making Twistory

Last week, the Library of Congress announced that it will save all the public tweets from the day Twitter was created until the end of time....Or just until the end of social networks if that moment ever happens!

As surprising and unexpected as it sounds, this piece of news is really serious and deserves our full attention as users of Twitter and people involved in social media. I think this new initiative tells a lot on how public opinion is starting to consider social media in a way it never did. The 140 characters messages from millions of anonymous people along with celebrities will go in the archives of the nation's oldest federal cultural institution, becoming a part of “the universal body of human knowledge.”

As meaningful that step is on a historical angle, it is only legitimate to ask ourselves if all of this makes sense.

Are we being watched ?

It's probably human instinct to think that an institution interested in saving people's personal data is plotting something. The first thing I told myself when I heard the news was "Just another way to limitate privacy and freedom of speech". But I actually think my reaction was naive. It's one thing to be paranoid about companies or government trying to get information about people. But when it comes to a cultural entity like this one, I think we can let our guard down for once. After all, you can always choose to make your tweets private, like I do.

Are we making Twistory?

After reassuring myself on the privacy issue, I started to wonder if Twitter was really worth saving. Do people's tweets on personal doings or ordinary actions reveal something about our society or are we giving Twitter way more attention than it deserves ? It may sound weird to care about John Doe's personal feelings on random subjects, but it actually is a part of history to some extend. “This is an entirely new addition to the historical record, the second-by-second history of ordinary people,” said Fred R. Shapiro, associate librarian and lecturer at the Yale Law School. I have to agree, because if we wouldn't have kept letters or diaries written centuries ago, many traditions or social characteristics of certain times would have been ignored.

So in the end, I think this is a great initiative. I don't know if the tweets will help our grand-grandchildren to understand our society better, but at least, it shows that we care about knowledge of human kind.

Though one more realistic question remains:

Why did the Library of Congress and Twitter decided to team up? Is it only for culture's sake, or is there something more behind? This decision serves a lot of interests, as Twitter gains credibility and the Library of Congress makes one step forward into the digital area.

What's YOUR opinion?

More on that subject:

The New York Times

The Guardian