Facebook Announces Changes

Allison Howen — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 02:00:00 GMT

Facebook has announced new updates to its privacy features that will give users more control over the way things are shared.

Some of the new changes are similar to Google Plus’ Circles, making it possible for users to decide exactly who can view shared items like posts, photos, tags and other content.

These changes moved some of the privacy controls inline from the settings page, so now when posts are created, users will also decide who will be able to view specific posts with a dropdown menu that is located below the post. The dropdown menu gives the options for posts to be shared with everyone, friends of friends, friends or the ability to customize who will see the post.

Improvements have also been made with tagged photos. Instead of logging into Facebook and being surprised by random tagged photos that have appeared on your wall, users will now have the ability to approve tagged photos before they are displayed.

Additional changes include the ability for users to view their profile as another person with a “View Profile As…” button, as well as better options regarding location.

Previously locations could only be added through a smart phone, but now location can be added to anything— including previous posts. Soon the “places” option will be removed from smart phones.

Lastly, we noticed this change a few weeks ago— a recommendation option on business pages. This option provides a little box that is visible on the right-hand side of a business page, which allows someone to leave a recommendation.

By making a recommendation, consumers are sharing their comments with their friends and that business’s fans. The feature kind of brings back the “share” feature that allowed someone to share a business with their friends.

Take advantage of this feature by visiting your favorite business pages, and feel free to drop by our page and recommend us.

You Stink at Personalization

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:00:00 GMT

Recommendation service provider ChoiceStream, which provides its technology to many leading Internet retailers including Tesco, Zappos, Borders, Blockbuster and Ticketmaster, announced part 2 of the findings of their 2009 Personalization Survey – the first part can be found here.

The quality of the product recommendations on retailers’ sites declined significantly year over year with more shoppers reporting that they received poor quality recommendations in 2009 versus 2008. The survey also found a discrepancy in recommendation quality between retail categories with shoppers giving music and entertainment stores top scores while rating toy stores and office supplied at the bottom.

Overall, the number of online shoppers who received poor quality recommendations in 2009 was 59 percent, which represents a 31 percent increase over the 45 percent reported in 2008. When asked for a reason why the recommendations were considered poor, the majority of shoppers responded that the recommendations were for products that were unrelated to what they were looking for. Separately, shoppers were asked to rate the quality of product recommendations across 10 retail categories. On average, only 17 percent of shoppers rate retailers’ recommendations as ‘excellent.’ There is also a wide discrepancy in recommendation quality between the categories. For example, music and entertainment stores are 48 percent more likely to receive excellent ratings than toy or office supply stores.

"It's unfortunate, but not surprising, that so many consumers report receiving poor quality product recommendations. Consumers expect more from recommendations than they did even a year ago. They expect them to be accurate and on target, so when they're not, shoppers are disappointed," said Lori Trahan, vice president of marketing at ChoiceStream. "It's also true that as product recommendations become more pervasive and more recommendation providers enter the market to meet demand, these vendors lack the in-market experience necessary to create good quality recommendations. This should highlight for retailers the importance of working with solution providers that have deep expertise in analyzing specific shopping behaviors and factoring them into their recommendation strategy."

'Net Features : recommendation

Facebook Announces Changes

You Stink at Personalization