German Google Street View concerns

Why it has taken me so long to review New York Times articles, I do not know.  My last post was the first time I had really looked into reviewing they way journalists from this reputable publisher constructed their articles and I wish that I had done it sooner.  Today I am reviewing an article by Kevin O'Brien that focuses on the German privacy concerns around Google Street view and the fact that reportedly hundreds of thousands of Germans have requested that their property not be shown in Google Street view.

The journalist very clearly and succinctly sets the story up in the first paragraph, clearly outlining the location of the story, who is involved, what the issue is and why it may be a problem.  A commonly-seen method is to begin the article with the location followed by the beginning of the story, as is done here:  "BERLIN - Google on Friday...."  I think this is very effective in setting up the beginning of an article in the simplest, most succinct manner.

The layout itself is very clean (as can be seen in the screenshot to the right) and the article is void of banner ads, which makes for an excellent user experience for the reader.  Share functionality is easily accessible, thus providing an easy opportunity to spread the story.

One element I did want to point out was the hyperlink in the first paragraph on the word "Google".  My initial thought when I first saw this was "why would you hyperlink this word?  Everyone knows who Google is.  Seems like a pointless exercise".  However, upon clicking the link, I was taken to another New York Times article within the business section of the paper giving a full history, description and related news items about Google.  I think this is a very clever example of internal linking within one's own site, which greatly assists SEO.  It helps Google (from a search point of view) to see the relevance of your content and is thus able to rank the page accordingly.  Such tactics would be much easier for a paper such as the New York Times, which is overflowing with rich and varied content, however would be much more difficult for a small local paper with limited content.

The journalist presents a very objective story, adequately gathering their information from a wide range of sources:
- Google spokes people in Germany
- Germany's consumer protection minister
- German state data protection supervisors.
These are all very authentic, authoritative sources that add credibility to the article.

I do also think this is a particularly relevant and newsworthy story due to the large amount of hype in the media lately about Street view.  There has been much public backlash as a result of Street View in Brazil showing some pretty horrendous street crime - child drug users and dead bodies among things.  Privacy on the internet is something that I've looked at a number of times during this assessment.  I think it's one of the greatest issues with the ever-expanding reach of social networking and online media and one that I think we will see discussed for many more years to come.

Facebook Places Launches in Australia

I wanted, this week, to take a look at how one of the major online newspapers treated the launch of Facebook Places in Australia.  This is a topic that I’ve covered before, when the application was first launched in the States, however I looked at how the story covered by a different major newspaper and a few well-known blogs. 

As I’ve mentioned before, Places has been launched as the Facebook equivalent to the very popular iphone application, FourSquare.  It’s essentially a location-based application used to “check in” at a particular location and find out information about a particular business or surrounds.  Whilst initially seen as a direct competitor to FourSquare, it would seem that both FourSquare and Gowalla are tieing their products in with Facebook Places.

The article in the Sydney Morning Herald last Thursday is largely a copy-based article, with little imagery.  It contains one image of screenshots of the application, but otherwise the layout is fairly content-heavy.  There are numerous links surrounding the article itself, as well as ads and other drivers to other content.  The advertising displayed on this article could be a little more relevant to the likely reader – A Woolworths ad may have been better places somewhere else on the site.

As for the content of the article itself, I think the journalist does a good job of objective reporting and discussing some important issues surrounding the application’s release.  The story focuses largely on the privacy concerns surrounding Places and other location-based applications.  Whilst this is not an entirely new angle (much talk already exists around Facebook and Privacy).  The Journalist uses relevant quotations from Places’ product manager, giving the article credibility and authenticity.  However, I do think some of the objectivity is lost by the use of the phrase "Stalkbook" in the headline.  I feel this is an unnecessary play on people's pre-existing privacy concerns and somewhat negates the level of objectivity achieved through the main article.

Facebook Places and concerns over privacy

There has been much talk today over the release of the Facebook "Places" application in the US, a rival to iphone apps like Foursquare.  I looked at 3 different articles on this particular unveiling and the different ways they were treated by each publication.

Firstly, I noticed this article in the Daily Telegraph.  This article fairly blandly reported the release of the app, without really giving an opinion or going for a particular angle.  It is interesting to note that the article quotes "Some experts", without actually noting who they are, which does make you question the credibility of the article.  Not to say that the expert opinions are untrue, however their authenticity could be doubted.  The article does go to the trouble to quote the Facebook vice-president, however doesn't actually cite the reference for that quote.

This article only briefly mentions (in one short sentence) the privacy concerns that seem to be rattling the internet community at the moment.  However, this article this evening on Mashable, seems to go into much more depth on the privacy concerns.  Mashable is a social media news site, so it is understandable that it would report such a social-related story in greater depth.  In fact, it ran a number of stories on the app today:

http://mashable.com/2010/08/19/facebook-places-iphone
http://mashable.com/2010/08/19/facebook-places-guide
http://mashable.com/2010/08/18/facebook-places-poll
http://mashable.com/2010/08/18/facebook-launches-its-location-features-live

The Mashable article cites other Facebook privacy related concerns that were raised earlier in the year (in fact, the Daily Telegraph article didn't provide any hyperlinks at all).  The also cite the ACLU, a civil liberties group in Northern California; a reference that may be a valid one, but I do question how reputable they may be.  They may be well know in America, however they are not known to an Australian audience.

I actually found the ACLU article cited by Mashable a very interesting read.  They've taken quite a different approach and seems to be quite fear-focused.  Whilst the Daily Telegraph report does not differ much to a basic press release, the ALCU is focusing on the monster that Facebook appears to have become.  The use of taglines, such as "facebook is rolling out a "here now", privacy later", and phrases like "safeguarding your location information" clearly have a specific, persuasive purpose; to convince users to be wary of the app.  It is quite successful in doing so.

It really felt like there were 3 tiers of reporting here on the same issue:
- The Daily Telegraph with its fairly bland, seemingly-unresearched (or at least not originally researched) Press release
- Social media report from Mashable which felt fairly impartial
- ACLU website's somewhat scare-mongering report on facebook and it's failure "to build in some other important privacy safeguards."