Making Fast Money

Facebook DataMine: Sell your browsing data, make some cash.

There’s a new Chrome Extension that is allowing Facebook users to opt out of the Facebook data-mining. The extension is called Facebook DataMine, developed by Jim Haas, a Game Maker at MegaEpic.  Facbook DataMine allows my data to be mined (great pun with the name Jim).

If you need a refresher on what data-mining means, here the definition from the Facebook Data Mining Page;

Data mining, a branch of computer science and artificial intelligence, is the process of extracting patterns from data. Data mining is seen as an increasingly important tool by modern business to transform data into business intelligence giving an informational advantage. It is currently used in a wide range of profiling practices, such as marketing, surveillance, fraud detection, and scientific discovery.

In the less complicated words of Jim Haas;

Every time you use Facebook or one of the thousands of web pages using Facebook Connect your personal information is being collected and then sold to marketers and mysterious 3rd parties without your consent. Facebook gets rich and you don’t make a dime.

This extension blocks Facebook from tracking your movements on the web, which sounds great. The extension will block all data going to Facebook until it reaches 100,000 downloads. After 100,000 downloads this is where it gets strange. Facebook DataMine will then sell your information to third party websites and share the profits with you. This may excite you or in-my-case scare you. Users are able to opt out at any stage. My initial reaction was sweet, extra money, this extension is going to hit 100,000 installs fast. Then I pressed the install button and this popped up:

It made me think twice, “This extension can access: Your data on all websites…” I can’t just hand-over all that data to someone else. Then I thought some more, Facebook DataMine will let me own my data for a set time and then they will own it. Yes I will be reimbursed for selling my data. However if my data is to be sold by anyone, it should be Facebook. After all isn’t this another example of someone monetizing off the back of Facebook and leaving them out?

I trust Facebook. You’re all laughing at me right? But I do. It’s like the old saying, “better the devil you know”. Facebook launched in Feb 2004 and it took the site 5 years to become profitable. A part of me believes that Facebook should be making money for the amazing service that it is providing.

However if you want to make your data into money and have no issues with your data being sold, give Facebook DataMine a try.

Union Square Ventures is putting together a new fund to help it participate in later rounds of funding for growing companies. The VC says the new Opportunity Fund, first hinted at a couple of weeks ago, will allow it to continue to invest in social media and networking start-ups like its existing portfolio companies Twitter, Foursquare and Tumbler as they grow beyond the early stages that the firm has traditionally focused on.

The new fund, which Techcrunch said is $165 million, will complement USV’s core funds said managing director Fred Wilson in a post on the Union Square blog, and will include most of the existing investors from those funds. The new vehicle gives USV the ability to invest from “$250,000 or $25 million,” and participate in later rounds (as an example, the VC firm didn’t participate in the latest $200 million round for Twitter, which was led by Kleiner Perkins). Wilson said investing in social media and networks has become a much bigger opportunity, with some companies getting valued at $50 billion. As the opportunity and competition evolves, it requires USV to think bigger, he said.

“In 2004 the entire market capitalization of the social media sector was probably less than $100M. Today a single company in that sector is valued at over $50B. The amount of venture capital focused on the sector has exploded. Networks that did not exist in 2004 now consume a huge chunk of users’ time and attention, making the launch of new networks more challenging. The opportunity to invest in networks has changed, and once again we are changing with it,” Wilson wrote. “The availability of this additional investment vehicle will allow us to 1) continue to invest in our most established and successful companies, 2) invest in more established networks that have been funded initially by others, 3) invest in special situations like the spin out of a network of scale, and 4) respond to attractive opportunities as the broader market continues to evolve.”

This comes at a time when there’s increasing competition in early stage funding and deals are growing fast and getting done quickly, something Wilson noted last year. While Wilson warned about the activity, the new fund will allow USV to be more stage agnostic and will arm it with the money to get in on deals as they grow. The firm has signed on John Buttrick, a longtime advisor to USV, as a partner in the Opportunity Fund. USV won’t push to put all the money to work, Wilson said, and will only charge fees on the capital invested.

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub req’d):

• Why Google Should Fear the Social Web


• Lessons From Twitter: How to Play Nice With Ecosystem Partners


• What We Can Learn From the Guardian’s Open Platform

jasminegodwin

yokoyasha

dsdean

cheezypooza

kaskerino

vonlubcke

sitio web

lovetodetail

kkloten

mail2007atl

lisrecio

ldyhyperr

lgreyl

jessroma

jackwisps

andrearicky

ppggbbapza 2010 07 22 2010 09 14 urgrldbxqf scotland

emanuelt