Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
FaceBookCampToronto is a free conference aimed at folks who've been meaning to develop applications for the Facebook platform. Co-organized by Facebook and (this shouldn't be a surprise) some of the same people who have been bringing us the Toronto incarnations of DemoCamp and BarCamp, FaceBookCampToronto is being held at the MaRS "discovery district" (101 College Street), Tuesday night from 6–9:30 p.m.
Torontoist isn't terribly convinced by the term "discovery district," but with over 30 million regular users and a few billion monthly page views, Facebook seems to be well on its way towards becoming an attractive place to jump-start throwaway internet applications, which tend to depend on large and visible user bases. Tired of trying to grow a community, or of enticing more people towards your site? For the small price of being tied to Facebook forever, you too can benefit from its seemingly well documented public application programming interface. Some 2,300 approved applications currently exist, and a few like the Lending Club [PDF] have found a way to generate revenue.
You can presumably just show up, but you should probably sign the list here. Unsurprisingly, there is also a Facebook group, and an event page.
Photo by Ryan Coleman.
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Does what happen in Facebook stay in Facebook? Short answer: not a chance.
Actually, that's kind of a silly video when put into perspective. The CIA link is a bit weak, at best, and they can only share what you've released. Your privacy isn't terribly violated when they just correlated all of the data into nice trend graphs.
Highly personalized ads based purely on demographics might seem scary, but you're just a row in a few tables in a database somewhere. It's just more efficient advertising, and it's somewhat opt-in only.
Ever been asked your phone number in a retail store? They almost certainly use that so they can appropriately map which sections of the city to advertise in.
Oh, whatever, guest #1; that movie was laughable.
I have friends of friends of friends of friends who've probably, like, killed people (I mean, eventually, someone I tenuously know must have committed murder). Is there going to be a poorly-narrated Flash movie about Torontoist's bloody history?
Also, not really sure what use the CIA or the United States' Department of Defense will have for me because they know that my favourite band is Spoon, but, by God, if they want to use that information, they're welcome to it.
Remember in Minority Report, when Tom Cruise is walking through the mall and there's a flash on his eyes, and then all the ads start talking to him? That was kind of cool.
Sorry. What were we talking about?