Zuckerberg said that he hoped the privacy options would help to restore his reputation following student outrage over facemash.com, a website he created in the fall semester.
I really do think that this was said in jest, as a sort of bragging joke between two friends,not a serious attempt at getting his friend to purchase personal data.
It seems to me that Zuckerberg has a very dry sense of humour.
Haha, I logged into Slashdot for the first time in 4 years to check my Slashdot ID. I remember it seemed so high when I signed up. Now 100K users is par for the course for social websites.
The Slashdot comment is actually quite reasonable, assuaging concerns about privacy:
"And a note about privacy. None of your musical listening data will be available to anyone other than you. We hope to use massive amounts of data to aid in analysis, but your individual data will never be seen by anyone else."
OTOH if just one year after he said:
ZUCK: they "trust me"
ZUCK: dumb fucks
well... it means you can't "trust" people on the Internet with information you wouldn't want divulged.
After about a week of coding, Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com last Wednesday afternoon.
...
But Director of Residential Computing Kevin S. Davis ’98 said that the creation of a Harvard facebook was not as far off as Zuckerberg predicted.
“There is a project internally with computer services to create a facebook,” Davis said. “We’ve been in touch with the Undergraduate Council, and this is a very high priority for the College. We have every intention of completing the facebook by the end of the spring semester.”
Another cautionary tale to launch early and often...
And not to be dissuaded from pushing forward because someone bigger than you claims to be nearing completion of a competing product.
Harvard (FAS) does indeed have a facebook, but it's ugly, slow and has all-or-nothing privacy settings. It's also comically easy to pull data from thousands of people at once from it, but that's another story for another day.
Zuckerberg's Facebook is a far superior solution, and I'm glad that he didn't let vague promises of a soon-to-be-completed tool get in the way of developing his own.
"Davis said that the principle complication with the creation of an official facebook was figuring out how to design an interface so that directory information could not easily be compiled without authorization."
Funny how focusing on the wrong things will leave you in the dustbin of history.
Truly amazing. Facebook's initial obsession with privacy and ensuring people used their "real identities" might have been the reason for its subsequent success.
Sounds like that concern was a direct response to Zuckerberg compiling everyones photos for facemash. Even if the administration did complete their facebook project, I don't think it would have become what Facebook is today because it would have likely been kept Harvard only and then someone else (perhaps Zuckerberg) would have gone and created a version for other schools.
ZUCK: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard
ZUCK: just ask
ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns
FRIEND: what!? how'd you manage that one?
ZUCK: people just submitted it
ZUCK: i don't know why
ZUCK: they "trust me"
ZUCK: dumb fucks
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/09/14/damning-zuckerberg-i.ht...