Some off topic notes about Facebook

@greenbes: You're not Facebook's customer. You're the product they sell to their real customers - advertisers. Forget this at your peril.

So wrote Steve Greenberg on Twitter yesterday, and I have to say it's one of the better Tweets I've ever read.

It landed in the fertile field of my attention because moments earlier, I had been shaking my head over the idiocy of yet another petition on Facebook someone had sent me. This time, the petition was "No, I will not start to pay for Facebook!"

Facebook has no intentions to charge its users a dime for the very reason @greenbes pointed out. Facebook's users are their product, and as of the last count, there are 400 million of them worldwide.

Facebook got its start in 2003 when a sophomore at Havard named Mark Zuckerburg started a web site he called Facesmash. Facesmash was an underground thing, and Zuckerburg got into all kinds of trouble for hacking into Harvard's computer system to get the photos and names of his fellow students. Facesmash was shut down by Harvard's administration and they charged him with invasion of privacy among other things. Harvard being Harvard, the charges were dropped eventually.

The following semester, Zuckerburg launched a somewhat more reputable site called The Facebook. I say somewhat more respectable because within weeks he was facing another lawsuit from angry Harvardians who accused him of hacking into their e-mail accounts. The Facebook is what became just Facebook in 2004. The rest is history.

All of that information is readily available anywhere on the internet. Clearly, this is not Sergey Brin and Larry Page we're talking about.

A lot of people get all poetic when they talk about Facebook, if I hear it called a global village one more time I'm going to scream. It's not a town square, it doesn't exist to allow you to play Farmville, it's not there so that you can reconnect with people you knew 20 years ago. Sure, it does all of those things, but they are not why Facebook exists. Facebook exists to make money. That's by no means a bad thing, but it is something to keep in mind when you're adjusting your privacy settings.

Put simply, as Facebook's product you're performing two tasks. First, the ads on the right side of your Facebook page are there for you to click. Facebook makes money when you do. The second task you're performing is filling out your profile and leaving it in the open for the world to see. Facebook uses the information it gathers from your profile and your activity to draw a profile of you. It can then place more ads in front of you that you're more likely to click. It can also sell its carefully drawn demographic information to anyone who's willing to pay for it.

The global village is a Potemkin Village after all. (Look it up.)

I see the petitions and moot protests about paying for Facebook and I can't help but think that the folks at Facebook are laughing about the red herrings people grab. Facebook will never charge a user fee, but as their latest grab at your private information shows, that's the last thing in the world to be concerned about when it comes to Facebook.

Through it all, I find Facebook to be useful and helpful. I keep track of my multitudes of nieces and nephews through it. I keep in touch with old friends, fellow bloggers, fellow Twitterers, readers and friends. I syndicate my blog through it and thanks to Facebook, I never have to remember when peoples' birthdays are.

But I take as many measures as I can to keep the profile information I don't want to fall into the wrong hands out of the wrong hands.

My pals at the ACLU put together a quiz that shows you how much of your information goes public every time you take a quiz or use a Facebook app. Take their quiz and I guarantee you you'll never take another quiz.

I dug through the labyrinth of Facebook's new privacy settings a few weeks ago. Just the other day, the great and powerful Nancie Mills-Pipgras had a link on her page to something called Reclaim Privacy. Go to this website and follow their instructions. Reclaim Privacy will audit your Facebook settings and let you know what you're leaving out in the open.

So go use Facebook, and have fun while your there. Just remember what you're dealing with.

Architectural panels from Veritas liven up commercial interior designs

Last November, I wrote a post about a new movie theater concept that had just opened in Tampa. I fell for the interior design at first and as beautiful as they are, it's the concept of the theater that keeps me coming back. Cinebistro is a movie theater for adults. It has a full bar, a full menu and white linen table service. I won't see a movie anywhere else.

It's a great idea and the interiors of the place really set the tone. The theater in Tampa is a picture of contemporary eclecticism and every time I go back I find more cool stuff to notice and admire. Getting any information about who designed it and who supplied all the finishes in the lobby particularly has eluded me until now.

All of that changed when I heard from a company called Veritas™ Architectural Solutions this week and Veritas™ makes resin architectural panels and they happen to be the hallmark of the movie theater lobby I'm so enamored with. It's a small world.

Veritas™ architectural panels, called ResinArt™, come in a huge variety of stock sizes, patterns and colors. What makes them really unique is that they have a custom program and you can design your own panels on their website. They've made the process wonderfully simple and you can order a sample of your original design right there.

The panels come in six thicknesses, 1/16", 1/8", 3/16", 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2". And their end uses seem to be limited only by the designers who specify them.

The images I'm showing here are the lobby of my beloved Cinebistro in Tampa, but I can see these Veritas™ ResinArt™ panels used as shower doors, room dividers, ceiling panels, interior windows, privacy screens... the mind reels. Check out Veritas™ ResinArt™ architectural panels on their website and be sure to look through their photo gallery.

Keep your eye on Christopher Peacock's new designs

Attention trend watchers, keep and eye on Christopher Peacock and his new contemporary direction. The man is a genius. Just as demand for knock offs of his Refectory kitchen starts to gain real traction. Just as cabinet manufacturers all over double up their ability to paint cabinetry white. Just as smart set embraces what's variously called the all-white kitchen, he goes in a new direction.

Here's the Refectory people have been swooning over for the last couple of years.

Clearly, the man grows tired of doing the same thing every day and good for him. Here's what he's working on these days, Christopher Peacock Contemporary.

Mark my words designers, in three years, these are the eclectic, contemporary designs your clients will be asking for.

Some notes and observations about LED lighting in bath design

Check out these LED-equipped shower heads.

They seem to be all the rage and the design press dutifully repeats what they're fed by the manufacturers. "Chomatherapy is good!" "Light is therapeutic!" "Colored lights will heal the sick, make the blind see and the lame walk again!"

Hogwash, all of it.

What no one seems to be willing to say is that these showers are tacky. Multi-colored LEDs are tacky. There I said it.

Multicolored LEDs belong in theme parks, not in homes. The surest way to ruin a perfectly lovely modern bath design is to install one of these things.

Thirty pieces of silver

Rembrandt: Judas Returns the 30 Pieces of Silver

OK, I received two, count 'em, two offers for paid links and or posts today. By that I mean someone would pay me somewhere between $50 and $100 in exchange for a positive review in a post or even a link in my "Links I like Section."

I have never engaged in this behavior and I get approached at least once a day by someone dangling an offer. I think it's sleazy so I don't do it. I don't think I'm some kind of a moral guardian about it, but I like the idea of having my readers be able to tell what's my real opinion and what's a sponsored opinion.

Now, it's true that I accept products and I've been on more than my share of trips I didn't pay for. But I never accept anything as a quid pro quo. I have a cushy relationship with Brizo but I liked their faucets long before I met anyone associated with the brand. If they came up with a real dog I would say so. I don't feel compromised by my association with them, mostly because they don't expect me to treat them with kid gloves.

Accepting money to endorse a product I don't believe in seems different to me, less forthright. When someone sends me a book or a faucet and I review it, I say "Taunton Press sent me a review copy of [fill in the blank]." Accepting something and disclosing it to my readers keeps me on the stright and narrow so far as I'm concerned.

But the point of these paid posts is for me not to disclose that money changed hands. The expectation is that I'll write an endorsement that comes across as legitimate and honest.

That's the difference in my book. I'm writing this because I'm curious to hear how other people handle it. I'm turning down a not-insignificant amount of money these days but I worry that once I say yes the first time it'll just get easier to keep saying yes. Once I'm on that slide downhill I'll never regain something resembling integrity.

Of course, there are people who say I lost my integrity the first time I got on an airplane and flew somewhere to meet a vendor. For the record, that was Google in February '09.

I don't think I've lost anything, but it is a balancing act.

What do you guys think? How do other bloggers balance whoredom with integrity?