OH MY

What happens when you add one Facebook event, an American Apparel rummage sale and loads of East London hipsters.

Everyone seems to be giving Mark Zuckerberg a hard time at the moment.

Like most companies that become incredibly successful and powerful in a short space of time we praise its innovation, growth and guts but inevitably sooner or later the backlash begins.

Privacy online is something i’ve wanted to write about since I took the picture above – mainly because I couldn’t understand why someone would want a person to ‘Facebook’ them. ‘Google’ yes – this will return things you have done but Facebook? Facebook is for friends right, it’s about private relationships you share with a network of people you choose to? Well maybe not for everyone plus how many friend requests do we accept from people we barely know, or like.

Zuckerberg stated that sharing is becoming the norm, and if Facebook were starting up today it would of been an open network. This struck a chord with me and reminded me of the picture I took at Southbank. People have become more open – back when Zuckerberg was starting out his friends asked him

‘why would I want to put any information on the Internet at all? Why would I want to have a website?’

That almost feels like an obsolete question now. Yet I remember thinking those things before I set up my first MySpace account 5 years ago. Of course some people you speak to still question this but no change is ever agreed by every single person. However the fact that so many blog posts, tweets, photos and video diaries are uploaded each day proves Zuckerbergs point. We are becoming more open and the Web, tools and developments have allowed this to happen but we still need to produce the content in the first place and hit publish. We cannot have one without the other.

Back in 2007 at university Anthony Giddens reflexive project of the self featured heavily in my dissertation about Digital Natives and their use of the Web’s tools in the future. Facebook, blogging platforms and Twitter to name a few have provided easy to use tools that facilitate conversations. These conversations start relationships, connections and build your identity. Our online and offline identities are not really that different anymore. As technological advancements have progressed we have naturally adapted to them and this has transferred to a much linear identity both on and offline.

These tools allow us to construct our identity (even if we are not consciously aware that is what we are doing) just like we use stories, clothes, friends and jobs to say something about ourselves. It just so happens that online tools are much more open. And this openness is natural to ‘digital natives’ because they don’t know any different.

And so younger people are more open. You only have to look at the huge surge in personal blogs, video diaries and something like lookbook.nu. Some might call it over sharing – sometimes it is. However its something that has happened gradually over time. Facebook changing their privacy settings reflects the current Web and provides an opportunity for them to monetize and grow.

Of course there is strategic thinking behind this move. Facebook is a business it takes up a lot of Zuckerberg’s time of course he wants to monetize just like anyone else would. If you had a successful business wouldn’t you take all the steps to remain ahead of the market, make money and stay at the top of your game? Can we blame one person and one networking tool for the openness the Web has given us? And can we criticize that person for innovating constantly?

Maybe we should give individuals more credit – we can still control our settings and share what we want with who we like. If people are really that worried about certain information being shared just don’t say it. I hate people who flood my newsfeed with hourly updates on their day – but doesn’t that just highlight Zuckerberg’s statement that people are becoming more open and willing to share?

I started my blog nearly a year ago, I decided to call it coffee and pie because I didn’t want to use my name or something that would determine what the content had to be. I went with coffee and pie because, I like coffee, I like pie and I liked how they sounded together

The reason I am thinking about my blog name is because my good friend Barry Pace started a mini experiment/ exercise the other day based on his observations regarding coffee and twitter. He decided to start retweeting any of his followers whenever they wrote a coffee related tweet. The main reasoning was his observation, that people seem to talk about coffee with such reverence on twitter.

It made me laugh because I think that Mr Pace has a very valid point. The amount of bios I read that state tea or coffee as an interest is huge. I think I even have it on my own facebook page. But why? Granted, I generally sleep 4-5 hours most night and caffeine is a big part of my life but how has something, as basic as drinking a hot drink come to say so much about a person that it is listed in our bios and interests.

Something’s happening in the Insurance world. Firstly I saw the Norwich Union/Aviva ad. That was baffling when all those American celebs bangng on about their names were in fact promoting the British insurance company Norwich Union/Aviva

Then rolls on Iggy Pop supporting Swift Cover.

And then its Direct Line featuring voiceovers from Stephen Fry and Paul Merton.

My favourite is Compare the Market/Meerkat ads though. Here is an insurance company tackling what I thought wasn’t really possible. Insurance, humour and social media. Aleksandr the Meerkat even has 3,000 friends on facebook and a growing discourse on Twitter, with 250 followers at present.

Maybe this is all me though. Now I’m working on an insurance client I am a lot more observant. Either way I need to get out more. This January drinking ban is good for the health but it would seem I am getting excited about insurance…hmm