

"Facebook Business Solutions" - ereldon
http://www.facebookbusinesssolutions.com/

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ctkrohn
Notice the "Sign Up" link points to ConnectU, who is currently suing Facebook?
Might be a little more at work here than mere satire...

At any rate, it definitely took me a minute to realize that this was NOT real.

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nickb
Heh, I also thought that Beacon was fake too. Sometimes, reality is stranger
than fiction.

Alex3917, had a really good post on this. He basically said that as FB becomes
more and more desperate for revenue, they'll try more and more audacious ways
of selling your personal info. So I don't think this parody is that far off at
all.

Edit: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=86427>

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ivankirigin
I hear folks at facebook planned on adopting a corporate philosophy like
"don't be evil" but instead decided upon "too late"

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joshwa
Surf already exists-- it's called behavioral targeting. Of course, no one (not
even facebook) is stupid enough to directly report this information back to
the user or the user's friends, except in the form of targeted ads.

Image Scan actually sounds like a pretty good business plan-- once again, for
ad targeting. Although there are some quality issues--- do you really want
your ad showing next to someone burning one of your shoes, or a picture of a
sweatshop worker?

Locate-- facebook might not be working on it, but google definitely is.

Diary-- livejournal. fb notes. 'nuff said.

Receipt-- Beacon on crack. Marketers have been chasing the holy grail of
tracking customers purchases across all channels. If you've ever given a
"source code" or "catalog code" when ordering from a paper catalog, that's
what you're doing. Cross-channel microtargeting is the future!

One wonders if the credit card processors are doing the kinds of under-the-
table clickstream-data types of deals that the ISPs are doing.

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corentin
Wow, for a moment I thought it was for real :)

edit: good job, BTW.

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dcurtis
Image Scan, Receipt, and Locate are all only a few years away. And in lesser
forms, they could actually be cool features.

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jakewolf
Someone's going to get sued.

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joshwa
Protected- satire. Though a clearer "satire warning" is probably needed for
true CYA.

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Alex3917
IIRC satire isn't protected speech, only parody.

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boucher
Funny, the first entry in my thesaurus for parody is satire. And vice versa.

Also, last time I checked, the first amendment protects pretty much all forms
of speech.

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Alex3917
The first amendment doesn't protect using someone else's brand with only a few
exceptions, parody being one, satire not being one. As for the difference,
parody:satire::sarcasm:facetious

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boucher
The distinction is highly subjective. Nevertheless, its actually a somewhat
interesting subject.

This paper outlines the historical legal perspective:

[http://www.abanet.org/litigation/committees/intellectual/rou...](http://www.abanet.org/litigation/committees/intellectual/roundtables/0506_outline.pdf)

Among other things, it suggests that the dichotomy of satire and parody is
artificial, and furthermore should not be within the realm of the courts to
distinguish.

~~~
Alex3917
Excellent paper. For those who don't want to download the PDF, the relevant
paragraph is as follows:

"The dichotomy approach is certainly easier to apply: if the new work arguably
criticized or commented on the original, a parodic character reasonably can be
perceived ... and a fair use finding is quick to follow. On the other hand, if
the new work used the original work as a mere vehicle to criticize something
else (such as society in general), it is satire, not parody, and therefore not
fair use. However, while the parody/satire distinction has become the central
issue in many cases, the proper dividing line between quintessential parody
and satire is blurry at best. Creative lawyers and judges have taken advantage
of this blurriness..."

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alaskamiller
It became unreal when the status bar kept trying to ping onlinehome.us

