After suing Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 for stealing their idea, the Winklevosses are now trying to undo their 2008 settlement.  The lawyers who helped the Winklevosses sign the settlement in 2008, are now being accused of malpractice by the Winklevosses.  After settling with Facebook in 2008 for $65 million ($20 million in cash and $45 million in stock), the twins felt they were taken advantage of. 

The Winklevosses’ lawyer, Jerry Falk, who argued the appeal of the Winklevosses’ settlement, claimed that proper disclosures hadn’t been made from the papers that the Winklevosses signed, and therefore violated federal and California state laws.  Falk said that the Winklevosses should have been told about an internal valuation of Facebook stock. 

Judge John Wallace said, “The founders [the Winklevosses] are pretty smart people themselves… They also had five lawyers from two firms sitting there with them. The twins also have a father, from the Wharton School [of Business at University of Pennsylvania], who’s very bright, and considered to be one of the top people in valuation [of businesses]… If you have all these people there to advise you, isn’t it a little difficult to say this was one of those things where they were taken advantage of?”

For more info click here.

Great timing. Hit movie, and new products. Keeping Facebook on top of the press kits, they have now come out with a new (usefulness is still TBD) tool.

Remember when Facebook first came out and you could post links, comments, pictures, and fun without the worry of people who you do not know or even dislike seeing your activity? It was exclusive and cool.

Well…it is now back to normal (kind of). As mentioned, Facebook has come out with a new platform just for this – Facebook Groups. Bringing back the exclusivity, in the “Group” you have the ability to post everything you would normally post to your wall or friends’ walls – however, now, no one can see it except your group members.

You can also have real time chat – similar to old school AIM chat rooms when people would ask, A/S/L? – but now, there is no anonymity and you are amongst friends making it much less creepy. 

Oh, and you have to be invited to the join a group. So exclusive.

Check out Mashable’s take on the new product: Click HERE 

This is a big deal.  Several large advertising industry trade organizations are pushing for an “opt-out” technology to be prominently displayed adjacent to digital marketing units that are served through the use of behavioral tracking technologies. 

When the consumer hovers or clicks the icon pictured above, the alt message would explain why the specific ad is being targeted to them and offer a chance to be removed from the behavioral database.  Publishers serving the ad would have a choice – serve a less targeted ad or stop serving ads to that specific consumer. 

This is a big step in the right direction.  As an agency we believe in the value of our client’s marketing message and brand proposition.  We also strongly believe that this message has to be delivered within an environment that is credible, served to a consumer that finds the advertising message useful or beneficial.  As part of the AAAAs, we are proud to play a role in this test. 

A few weeks ago, I contributed to a write up speaking out against technology driven organizations that are (allegedly) enhancing their behavioral serving capacity by utilizing flash cookies, embedded on a computer as a way to re-create html cookies that had been intentionally deleted by a consumer.  There are some really big names that are being investigated.  Names like Disney, MTV and Demand Media.  We’re watching carefully.  Read my comments here:  Associating with the Accused – Adotas

With Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube and others gathering tons of data on users for a constant competitive tug of war, it’s critical TargetCast stay on the leading edge of the privacy debate to ensure we represent our clients well and protect the privacy of consumers.

Read the full New York Times write up here:  Ad Group Unveils Plan to Improve Web Privacy

Clever, 23 year-old Brian, intern at BBH, has decided to take on a social media viral challenge by lunching the project called “Dating Brian” – a site on which he will involve the visitor in his dating endeavors. He has vowed to go on 30 dates with 30 women in 30 days and he’s asking the website user to decide who he dates, where they go on their dates and whether or not he should pay for the date, etc.

The site includes links to his mediums, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, all of which are actively being used to update his friends and follwers.

This is fairly amusing and I may follow his next few dates. I am grateful, however, that TargetCast does not require all interns to do this…

The official trailor for the movie ” The Social Network” Came out today! The movie is said to chronicle the creation of Facebook and the incredible impact its had on the world came out today!

Source

In Q1 Facebook accounted for over 16% of all U.S. served display ads. According to comScore those numbers make the social network the largest online display ad publisher in the country.

comScore estimates total impressions served at 176 billion for the quarter. Rounding in second in display impressions was Yahoo! – where more than the 132 billion impressions were attributed to Yahoo-owned properties. That accounts for 12% of all Q1 online display ads.

Facebook’s display ad impressions have grown by 52 percent versus Q4 2009, where it served around 115 billion impressions.

We should applaud Facebook in its exponential growth and development of ad sales. It was not too long ago that people questions Social Networks’ ability to generate ad revenue efficiently.

Along with your mom, 3rd grade teacher, high school sweetheart, and Moses – Tom Anderson, everyone’s default friend on MySpace has also made the jump to Facebook.

Full Screenshot

But don’t be alarmend; the fictional Facebook profile below was created by Comedy.com’s Brendan Bergen.

As one of my co-workers pointed out earlier last week, the SXSW Interactive convention is currently going on in Austin, Texas.  From the remarks that I have read on Twitter and the blogosphere is seems the overall conference has been somewhat of a let down, with a few sparks of excitement on the side of Localization applications and quality speakers like Danah Boyd.

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