The backlash against Facebook’s growing power on the web and its ongoing push to make its users share more data has captured the interest of social media watchers for the last few months and has come to a head in the last few weeks.

Facebook simplified its privacy controls for 350 million+ users last December. But some users and privacy advocates protest that important controls got lost in translation — including the right to keep one’s data from unscrupulous third-party developers.

The hacker community have ironically joined forces in exploiting this misstep in the effort to illustrate the impacts of the privacy decisions made by the social networking service provider. Sites like OpenBook expose Facebook status updates made public by default and available through Facebook’s open API.  The prepopulated search term on the site, “don’t tell anyone”, is a particularly strong indication of how little users know about the impacts of these changes.

Online communities of dissatisfied users have clustered around this issue by organizing mass boycotts, often using other social networks as the tool for communication.  Quitfacebookday implores Facebook users to “commit to quit” on May 31 by signing their name or Twitter handle to the list of pledges.   Over 6000 users have pledged their support.  FacebookProtest has organized a boycott on June 6th, “asking those who disagree with the changes Facebook has made to its “privacy” policies to commit to not logging in or interacting with Facebook in any way”.

All of these actions are striking in their unanimity that Facebook succeeded in becoming the biggest thing on the Internet by fostering trust and reflecting the open and fair qualities that drove the turbocharged, global adoption of the Internet.  Zuckerberg and his company need to make up the trust gap created by their strategies, but just ask Toyota, it’s a long way back.

So how should your company play the risk?

1) Explore other social networks: Just because Facebook is getting slammed, don’t read this as an outright rejection of social networking as a whole.  Other services, particularly vertical specialists such as LinkedIn, are flourishing.  Find the networks that make sense for your business and get active in them.

2) Use Twitter Chats: In the early days, social networking was done on online forums.  These subject matter expert arenas are still active today.  Many have turned to Twitter chats to get their message out to more users and allow more participation.  Online coupon and deal site Slickdeals does a great job with its feed. Also, the Facebook users will need to go somewhere, and Twitter is the place.

3) Have Your Authentication Plan B: The non-social networking services that Facebook provides will suffer from the perception shock that their strategies are generating.  Facebook Connect is a great way to smooth over the registration and user information hurdle for a new online service.  Don’t bet the farm on it.
4) Shore Up Your Privacy Policy: Ensure that your company’s treatment of personal information is clearly stated and understandable.

Just launched my newest site www.mobilemoneywatch.com where I will be talking about mobile banking, payments and commerce.  The first set of posts are linked below.  Enjoy.

• Monitise Goes to Asia Pac
• @Banks: Apple’s P2P Payments Could Loosen Up the “Ecosystem”
• @Banks: Sell Overdraft on Mobile Right When Customers Need It
• Everyman’s Mobile Bank

The number of mobile users are growing at an alarming rate, with a plethora of new mobile devices, mobile Internet services and powerful user interfaces vying for attention and adoption. The mobile web is not just about accessing the Internet from your phone; it’s a revolutionary technology and communication platform transforms our experience of the Web, the world, and ourselves.

Mobile devices are a highly personal extension of the individual, and have unique sociological and technological attributes – they are location aware, temporally situated, and socially connected. In the highly fragmented mobile space, it is increasingly important to offer consumers an elegant and satisfying user experience and mobile services that are intuitive, yet stunning and feature-rich.

However, if we look at mobile banking and the broader mobile industry – How do companies and individual developers create scale? By reaching users with the same products with the same user interfaces that run across hundreds of different types of devices, operating systems and carrier networks?

As the mobile banking experience evolves, it’s not about simply porting the PC experience to a smaller screen – the user experience and business requirements demand that the we create ‘mobile only’ products – services that harness the unique strengths and attributes of the mobile device while negating the limitations of size, memory, speed and processing power.  These value propositions will emerge to differentiate the mobile channel from the online channel and in some cases fulfill on a flicker of opportunity that began on the PC based web.  Examples include the mobile coupons that leverage behavior models, multi-factor authentication leveraging mobile channels or phone based biometrics.
When this type of unique value becomes the norm from the mobile channel, the question of whether to acquire a customer on the mobile first or service them on the mobile second will be irrelevant.

With the completion of MMVs credentializing rollouts in Asia Pac and the US, we are now feeling the constraints of our resources.  As a company, we live to fulfill our profit potential.  As a joint venture, our parent companies are often able to put strategic value ahead of profit.  With this context the venture is clearly moving into a new phase: Growth.

It is an amazing sight to watch your concept grow to a fully functioning company with product and customers for that product.  However it is in this phase when the company needs to prioritize well.  I would often say in the 90s startup days, “everything is a priority”.  I was stupid.

In any business that is experiencing serious growth the key issue is the complexity and number of issues that arise with each value generating opportunity. No business has the resources to execute on everything well and as the business landscape throws curve balls and variety there are limits to business planning and we have to basically go into the plate spinning mode.  Now consider these facts pertaining specifically to joint-venture management.

• Given a finite set of resources, the success of any decision is often predetermined by the ability to make it a priority that will consequently draw sufficient resource to achieve the intended outcome
• Startup managers and especially JV managers spend too much time working on the business rather than in the business
• Priorities differ from daily to monthly and perhaps yearly
• Good priority management will counterbalance a lack of people, dollars or time

In early stage business, the inability to set priorities with respect to deliverable quality, number of people, access to capital and time available, is a massive issue. This is often hampered by the board of management making decisions without consideration to the early venture’s top priority: revenue growth. No matter the perceived quality or strength of the founders or senior management, the requirement for a functional decision-making body at a board level, is a critical piece of the puzzle of how to prioritize. They are the only managers with ability to see the entire picture across company objectives.

The importance of a collegial, industrious, strategically aligned and experiences board only increases with the growth of the venture and greater opportunities.

We’ve launched our second Asian mobile banking implementation with Citi.  A proud moment for our little venture.

June 23, 2009

Mobile Money Ventures Teams With Citibank To Launch First Browser-Based Mobile Banking Offering In The Philippines

Solution Offers Customers Safe and Secure Access to Financial Information

MANILA, PHILIPPINES and SAN FRANCISCO – June 23, 2009 – Mobile Money Ventures, LLC (MMV), a leading global solutions provider of the next generation of mobile financial services, today announced it has teamed up with Citibank to offer the first browser-based mobile banking solution of its kind in the Philippines. Citi Mobile Banking allows customers to securely manage their banking needs from their mobile handsets at any time and from any location.

Customers can check account information, pay bills, and transfer money by accessing the web-based banking platform on their mobile phones. To ensure the highest level of security, MMV’s mobile solution utilizes two-factor authentication. In addition, no financial information is stored on the mobile device.

“Citibank is proud to launch this new and innovative financial service to better serve our customers,” said Sanjiv Vohra, Country Head and Citi Country Officer for the Philippines. “Our customers are increasingly dependent on their mobile devices and MMV’s technology allows Citi to provide customers a way to access their bank accounts and conduct necessary financial transactions conveniently and securely regardless of time or location.”

“We are committed to offering next-generation mobile solutions for financial institutions and have worked closely with Citibank in the Philippines to develop a comprehensive, customizable and secure platform that delivers a rich mobile financial services experience to users,” said Steve Kietz, CEO of Mobile Money Ventures, a joint venture of Citi and SK Telecom.

Citi is focused on driving innovation and making strategic investments in technologies such as mobile banking to create value for its customers and partners. The Philippines offering is the second of several planned by Citi and MMV in Asia. It follows the launch of a mobile financial services offering last year that provided Citibank Hong Kong customers basic banking features as well as Hong Kong stock trading and portfolio management.