Journal #2 – Media Audiences

Earlier this month, Facebook received quite a bit of publicity over the recent changes that they made to their Terms of Services. In order to give a remedy to the situation, Facebook retracted their newly made Terms of Services and decided to receive user input on any of the upcoming changes to the Terms of Services.

I did a quick search for Facebook to find any recent news on the Terms of Service. During one of their episodes of News & Notes, Tony Cox has a quick conversation with Geoffrey Bennett about the recent news in the technology world. They do a quick aside on Facebook’s changes, which lasts around 37 seconds. The conversation created helps create a relaxed situation that delivers the news informally. They quote two sources: a “consumer advocacy blog,” which I’m guessing is the Consumerist, and a statement by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO.

Jessica Vascellaro of the Wall Street Journal wrote a lengthy article on Facebook’s retraction of their Terms of Service. The article goes over more than just Facebook’s actions. It takes a look at what the new Terms of Service could have done for the company, such as utilizing user information for selling more ads and creating value for third party developers. The article also gives an overview of how Facebook’s rival, MySpace, deals with user privacy. Vascellaro gives this overview and insight into the situation by giving quotes, or statements, from seven sources, including The Consumerist, Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Rotenberg (executive director o the Electronic Privacy Information Center), Jeffrey Chest (executive director of the Center of Digital Democracy in Washington, D.C.), Barry Schnitt (Facebook’s spokesman), and MySpace.

The power of the web allows reporters to publish their stories with the immediacy that newspapers and the radio don’t have. Robin Wauters of TechCrunch posted an article about Facebook’s changes on February 17, an hour after Mark Zuckerberg posted a response to the disgruntled moans of users. The post is much shorter than the Wall Street Journal article. It includes a direct quote from the blog post that Zuckerberg did. The web also allows writers to update their posts, such as Wauter’s update with additional information from Barry Schnitt, Senior Manager of Corporate Communications and Public Policy at Facebook. The TechCrunch article resembles the print coverage, but includes information that is relevant to the technology world rather than giving background information that the general public may be interested in.