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We have seen people getting angry at updates to the Facebook privacy policy in the past.  Nevertheless, this same situation has now occurred with Google.

The company has just announced that they have made changes to their own privacy policy.  It has done this with the apparent intention of making life easier for its many users.  Not everyone is convinced, however, of the benefits that these changes have supposedly brought.

The new policy starts at the beginning of March.  At that time, the company will streamline its offering and track the actions of users as they use any or all of the products they have available.  Since these products number more than five dozen, you can see how big a change this is.

It is easy to see how this would simplify things.  However, it will also mean that Google can advertise to people and provide them with information far more accurately and easily than they do now.  For example if you look for specific things on YouTube, you may find that when you use another of their sites or products, ads for the items you searched for previously pop up. Google thinks this is a good service, but many believe it is overly intrusive.

There is no way to opt out of the service unless you decide to close your account(s) with Google. So many people will be likely to tolerate them, which is probably what the search engine giant is hoping.

Promotional hashtag campaigns can work extremely well on Twitter.  However, there have been examples in the past where Twitter users have taken them over for their own purposes.  In this way, something that began as a positive and promotional experience turned out to be anything but.

The latest example of such an occurrence comes from the mighty McDonald’s fast food chain.  It all began with two promoted tweets.  McDonald’s thought that asking people for their “McDStories” would lead to a positive and encouraging campaign for their business.  Of course, this did not happen.

Instead, people used the hashtag to share their nightmare stories and opinions of the company.  Incidents of food poisoning were shared on Twitter, as were stories of unfriendly staff members and undesirable things found in burgers and meals.

McDonald’s was quick to put a stop to the Twitter campaign within hours of it beginning.  But by then hundreds of people had already got started on conversations surrounding the hashtag.  It had also made the headlines across the internet, bringing the embarrassment to a much wider audience than it would have done simply on Twitter.  So the company had joined the ranks of other companies that have been bitten through trying to impress their customers by using a top social media site.

It remains to be seen whether McDonald’s will try something like this again.  It did get reasonably good results with the hashtag #MeettheFarmers.  But it is unlikely that we will ever see the likes of #McDStories again.

Chevrolet has announced that during Super Bowl XLVI, they will be running a “Play to Win” game on their interactive Chevy App.  The app itself ties in with a special Chevrolet Twitter account and allows participants to interact live with other SBXLVI fans as well as participate in trivia and game-based polls to try to win one of 20 cars being given away as prizes.

The Chevy Game Time App is available free in the Android and iTunes markets as of yesterday (Jan. 22).

Other prizes will include tires and accessories from Bridgestone, Motorola phones, National Football League (NFL) gear, Papa John’s pizza, and Sirius XM.  This is the first time Chevrolet has tried to implement a large-scale app for smart phones with this kind of interaction.

“This is the first time any company has attempted such a large-scale app,” says Joel Ewanick, global chief marketing officer for General Motors.

The games begin as soon as the app is loaded, though most of the big prizes will be given immediately before, during, and after the big game.  The first thing the app does is give the user a unique license plate.  If that plate appears in any GM commercial (both during broadcast and online) during the Super Bowl, then you’ve won a car.

Trivia questions revolve around players, teams, commercials aired during the game, the game itself, etc.  Correct answers get you entered into drawings to win prizes.

This is very cool and a first of its kind, so it will be interesting to see how well it plays out and how popular it is.

Microblogging online – on social media sites such as Twitter – is exceptionally popular across the world.  Nevertheless, not all countries are keen on people using such services.  One famous example of this is China.

While Twitter is banned in China, there are other microblogging services in the country that the Chinese people use.  However, the Chinese government appears dissatisfied with the fact that people can criticise them openly online.  More people are joining these microblogging sites – called weibo in China – every single day.  This has led to the government trying to find ways to stop the increasing tide of criticism against them.

The latest effort has seen them launch a trial run of real name registrations in five cities across the country.  This means that if someone wishes to sign up to use a weibo service, the person must supply his or her real name.  Without this information, they cannot use the service.

It also means that the government can track people who post derogatory or negative comments about them.  It is just one more step in China’s battle to control the internet – a battle that many Chinese people disagree with.

Many of us take freedom of speech for granted.  However, as this story reveals, freedom of speech is not a regular part of life in China.  Many people have already used these services to voice their discontent over the actions of the government.  While the Chinese government sees this move as a good thing, many people think exactly the opposite.

Most of us are aware that Facebook loves change.  While some of its users may not be so keen, there are more changes coming very soon.  These will take the form of sixty new apps that members can use to share information on their profiles.  It remains to be seen which apps prove to be the most popular, and whether users will be willing to get involved with them.

While sixty new apps may seem like a big number, it should pale in comparison compared to the estimated number of apps that could be built for use on Facebook in the months to come.  A spokesman for Facebook speculated that thousands of apps could eventually be built for members to use in this way.

These initial apps were set to be launched on Thursday 19^th January.  They will allow each Facebook user to add some personalisation to their profile.  This will be possible through the apps they choose, as they are extremely diverse.  Some of those launching initially include apps for Rotten Tomatoes and Foodspotting.  No doubt, food lovers will want to take a closer look at the Foodspotting app, while moviegoers will give the Rotten Tomatoes app a spin.

This is a major change for Facebook and it makes the Timeline feature more dynamic.  As more apps roll out over the coming months it could completely change the social media site as we know it.  What do you think of this new change?

Saturday night, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who’s new to Twitter and may not fully understand how permanent tweets can be and how broadly they can be distributed (which may, ultimately, be part of his problem – more on that in a minute) posted a barrage of accusations in 140 or less against President Obama and Google.

The gist of those tweets?  Murdoch is a huge supporter of the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) and accused the president of selling out to Silicon Valley money.  He then accused Google of being the world’s largest pirate enabler and of profiting from advertising sold alongside pirated content.  You can see Murdoch’s full list of tweets at this link.

Google, of course, responded by denying the accusations made against them and pointed out the millions of dollars they’ve spent and the man hours given by their company to stop piracy.  Without government legislation, it should be added.

The president, given he dignity of the office, probably won’t bother responding to these lame 140-or-less tirades from Murdoch.  If Obama does, I think it should be via a simple blog post that is then syndicated via Twitter.  Just to show Mr. Murdoch how it should be done.

Murdoch, for his part, has shown that he has a poor grasp of how social media works.  Sitting with your iPad and typing a barrage of tweets is.. well, not the right way to do it.  Twitter is meant for a quick exchange of ideas.  Those ideas, however, need to be expressed in one tweet – two at the very most.  Each tweet should stand alone and not require the tweets before it to be involved in the understanding of the micro-blog’s content.

In other words, Murdoch is doing it wrong.  His SOPA-endorsing tweets should have been compiled into a blog post and then the gist of that post plus a link tweeted instead.

In short, Murdoch has proven that the reason people like him support SOPA is that they are ignorant of how technology works.  I realize that piracy affects the bottom line of everyone in media – including myself, in fact – but it’s not something that can be dealt with with sweeping legislation that is poorly worded and which will dramatically change the Internet for the worse by stifling people’s use of it.

I would submit that if more media moguls like Murdoch were to embrace the Internet rather than try to fight it, they would be able to capture more revenue from it than they stood to lose from piracy.