Just a side note – I have been a little lapse in my posting here today mainly because my body figured I’d been burning too many candles from to many ends and as a result I’ve been having to spend much of yesterday and the day before getting some rest. Having heart problems hasn’t helped matters either so my wife put her foot down and said enough. Hopefully things will return to normal tomorrow – in the meantime on with the post I tried to get out earlier.

Well I guess everyone who jumped on the slap Facebook around a little bandwagon is giving themselves all a bunch of fives and pat on the back on how they have through the power of social media caused the giant of Social Media to retreat from their new terms of service. The champagne corks are popping and the obituaries for a truly onerous TOS when the fact is that nothing really has changed one bit. For as bad as their new terms of service may have seemed to be the one that it was spawned from really isn’t all that much better.

The previous TOS; courtesy of Consumerist, and now the one they say they are temporarily returning to until they can come of with something better goes like this

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

Then this was the new and improved TOS that got everyone in an uproar

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service.

The only difference is that the old TOS said that Facebook could only use your – their property as allowed by your privacy setting or until you left the service by deleting your account. Now let’s face it the number of people of people in general probably won’t know what their privacy settings page looked which means for I would estimate 99% of the people using Facebook that the service has free rein with your – their content.

As for being able to delete your account and thereby removing any of your data for Facebook to be able to use is like playing hide ‘n go seek. Just ask Jason Kaneshiro over at webomatica the problems he had trying to delete his account. So again chances are that the vast majority of people will just stop using Facebook but that in turns still  leaves their data there for Facebook to use as it sees fit.

In the end I don’t foresee anything about Facebook’s attempt to get; and keep, control over all the data you put into the system. The only thing that will change is the language used in the TOS. Other than that it will be business as usually – trying to figure out how to make money from all that data of yours err theirs. As Duncan said yesterday

The key with the backflip is to not be fooled. Some are already calling this a user led victory, but the only difference today is that Facebook can’t resell your content if you quit the site, and lets face it, how many people are going to quit the currently most popular social networking site on the planet? The crux of the problem remains: Facebook claiming full rights to do as they please with your content.

The Facebook shell game continues is a post from: The Inquisitr

Adding Diversity

The idea behind Allvoices is to add diversity to the standard news mix. Its creators aren’t aiming to replace traditional news media for any given audience, but rather to enrich it with often overlooked alternative viewpoints.

“Allvoices gives everyone a voice and uses these various forms of content to create multiple perspectives in order to stimulate global discussions,” Allvoices CEO Amra Tareen told The Inquisitr. “Our site is free from traditional editorial oversight and censorship characteristic of global media organizations,” she said.

Once registered, anyone can submit coverage through the Web interface, via e-mail, or over mobile messaging. The service has dedicated numbers set up to receive SMS and MMS content. Much like the meme concept, the site links related stories together to provide broader perspective into widely covered topics. Readers then validate content both from users and from traditional news sources to determine its placement on the site.

“We use our technology to elevate and leverage the individual voice,” Tareen said.

No Human Touch

While Allvoices does have a filter to catch any obscene submissions, it prides itself on being completely unedited by humans — a concept that sets it apart from competitors such as Associated Content and Global Voices, and one that’s close to its founder’s heart.

It was during a trip to her Pakistan that Tareen — who grew up both there and in Australia — was first struck with the inspiration for a community-driven, democratic news source. She saw the effects of the devastating earthquake that claimed nearly 80,000 lives and destroyed millions of homes — and realized there was no centralized global venue for people to report on their experiences. Instead, a small sampling of professional reporters controlled what most of the world saw.

Business Building

With a business and computer-oriented background — she studied engineering and computer science at Australia’s University of New South Wales, got her MBA from Harvard, then went on to work at Silicon Valley firms such as Sevin Rosen Funds and Ascend Communications — Tareen decided to give the idea a go. She secured $4.5 million in funding, recruited a team of industry experts, and set out to build an organization that — by its very nature — could not be biased.

“We want the emotions of our contributors to come through unfiltered,” she told The Inquisitr. “If somebody has a different perspective on a news event, they are free to post their own story next to other accounts of that same event. That allows readers to be exposed to different perspectives and opinions.”

Tough Topics

Allvoices doesn’t shy away from tough topics, either. The front page rivals any news networks’, jam-packed with content ranging from political issues to financial news and global conflict to medical developments. It all plays into Tareen’s goal of becoming a powerhouse for balanced information worldwide.

“Our model of merging user-generated content and professional news sources into one community will create the first true people’s media,” she predicted.

Only time — and, fittingly enough, the people themselves — will tell.

Allvoices Aims To Become “People’s Media” is a post from: The Inquisitr