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Thursday was a good PR day for the social buying site Blippy . They were featured in two New York Times articles . But Friday wasn't so great, as the major technology blogs reported that credit card information from its users were found on Google. An hour later, Blippy responded with a post on its blog, explaining that the leak was months old and affected only four beta users, not current Blippy users. Later, they amended the blog post to include an apology. News of more credit card leaks continued on Saturday. Of course, Blippy is by no means the only startups to suffer from potential public relations disasters, and it remains to be seen what, if any, impact this has on the site. Blippy's response, including the need to re-edit its official announcement, demonstrates the importance in responding quickly and correctly to a crisis. Sponsor As Jacob Morgan writes in a post on "The Social CRM Process," it's important to have both a macro and a micro response to this sort of situation, addressing both the individuals involved and the public-at-large. "Remember the whole Southwest Airlines and Kevin Smith debacle, where they kicked him off the flight for being too fat? Southwest Airlines took both a micro and a macro response. They interacted with Kevin Smith directly via Twitter, email, and telephone; a micro response. In addition Southwest Airlines also wrote a public post on their blog which addressed their community as a whole, a macro response." Some advice: Make a public announcement as soon as possible. Offer full disclosure. Be clear and concise. Say you're sorry. Of course, sometimes companies opt to do nothing, and hope that the bad press is quickly forgotten. Others hope that it's true that all publicity is good publicity. Nevertheless it's best to try to cultivate some good publicity, as trust and credibility are vital for a startup's success. Transparency and openness are important, even if it means riding out a difficult news cycle. Discuss
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What to Do When a PR Disaster Strikes Your Startup
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Blippy , the controversial site where the over-sharing, web-connected generation can link their credit cards and share their purchases has just come under fire from numerous tech blogs as it has been discovered that people's credit card numbers are now available on Google. The site's value has been hotly debated since its launch with some saying it's an incredible recommendation service while others say it's a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Interestingly enough, it was featured yesterday on the New York Times , where that same question was posed to readers. Sponsor Now, thanks to a tipster who apparently emailed all the popular technology blogs (see: VentureBeat , Mashable , CenterNetworks for more coverage), there's a way to enter a simple search query into Google and get back the credit card numbers of Blippy users. The query is: site:blippy.com +"from card" At present, this security hole seems to be affecting Citibank-issued MasterCard numbers only, according to the bloggers at VentureBeat . Blippy proponents will likely argue that the mistake, although quite a large one, was caught in time before major damage could be done. It's doubtful that any identify thieves have been able to retrieve these credit card numbers quickly enough to cause harm to those affected. However, the users whose credit card info has been compromised will now have to cancel their cards and be issued new ones - a hassle to say the least. Was the benefit of using Blippy worth it? What if this security hole was only discovered by criminals and not a white-hat hacker type like the guy who contacted us? We've argued before that people should definitely weigh the risks to their privacy before using services like Blippy, especially since you're not just sharing info from one private credit card account, you're aggregating all of them. If Blippy's infrastructure was compromised, hackers could get all your credit card info and the usernames and passwords you use across the web, too. (Probably the same one you use everywhere, if you're like most people). If that risk is acceptable to you, then by all means, share away. You might find it interesting to see what others have shared too. But when something like this happens, don't be surprised. Nothing put on the Web is ever really private - as this breach clearly shows. Discuss
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Credit Card Numbers Now on Google Thanks to Blippy
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It's been a given for some time that businesses, including startups, should have a presence on and connection with Facebook . With over 400 million active users, chances are your potential investors and customers are already there. Fan pages have been a simple way to generate interest and engage customers, and Facebook Connect has quickly become a standard in signing up and signing in users. In his keynote at f8 yesterday Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg actually mentioned startups in his opening remarks, stating that they "are requiring that their users use Facebook Connect. We want to make it simple to create these personalized experiences." Sponsor Whether or not Facebook is a "requirement" for startups, there are some things new businesses should think about based on yesterday's announcements. "Facebook Connect On Steroids" Facebook announced a major overhaul to its API and introduced three new components yesterday: social plugins , the Open Graph protocol , and the Graph API . By using the tags specified in this protocol, any website can now become part of the Facebook ecosystem. If a Facebook user visits your site and Likes your page, you have the ability then to publish information into that user's stream. In addition, implementation of the code on your site will give you access to administrative tools and analytics just like any Facebook fan page owner. As we wrote yesterday , this will take analytics to the next level, providing an incredible amount of demographic data about users who like and link their profiles to your site. However, this information will reside with Facebook, not on your own website, making them a de facto owner of your visitors' social data. Applications & Virtual Currency: Where the Money Is? While many businesses will likely integrate their websites into the expanding Facebook ecosystem, there is likely still room for growth within the platform itself, namely with application development. There are over 550,000 applications on the site, a number that continues to grow - and to encourage return visitors. To coincide with the growth of the application market, particularly in the area of social gaming, Facebook also announced the expansion of its official virtual currency, Credits . Last year Paypal processed over $500 million in virtual goods last year, with social gaming company Zynga becoming Paypal's second largest merchant (following eBay). Clearly Facebook seeks to stake a claim in the virtual currency market. Facebook Credits are currently in beta with over 100 applications, and will roll out to the entire network soon, Zuckerberg said yesterday. Credits will allow users to purchase one currency for all transactions on Facebook, rather than have to enter their credit card information with each purchase. By facilitating online payments, Facebook hopes to increase the percentage of users willing to purchase virtual goods to between 8% and 20% David vs. Goliath? Despite repetition at f8 yesterday that these changes were meant designed "for developers," it remains to be seen how the announcements will play out for developers and for users alike, the latter of whom are notorious for protesting changes to the site. In particular, continued concerns about privacy might not be well received, particulary given Facebook's past history with opening user data. Privacy concerns might not be the only thing that gives some businesses pause about Facebook's direction. Facebook also announced yesterday " instant personalization " yesterday, giving three "preferred partners" - Yelp , Pandora , and CNN - instant and additional access to Facebook profile information when users visit their sites. For startups in these areas, namely restaurant recommendation, music sharing, and news delivery, the "preferred partner" program might make industry in-roads more difficult and could adversely impact user adoption. As the "preferred partner" program expands beyond the three selected for launch, it remains to be seen the effect of being sanctioned - or not - by Facebook. The buzz yesterday was that Facebook had just " seized control of the Internet ." Comments on how you think the f8 announcements might play out for startups welcome! Discuss
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David vs. Goliath? An F8 Overview for Startups
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Google is definitely on a buying spree this year. The company's latest acquisition is Episodic , an online video platform that Google will probably integrate into YouTube is some form. Neither Episodic nor Google shared any financial details about this acquisition. Episodic plans to keep its current service up and running for the time being. Sponsor This is Google's second video-related acquisition this year. In February, Google also finalized the acquisition of video compressions specialists On2 which was first announced in August 2009. Last year, a number of rumors about Google buying video provider Brightcove surfaced, but those rumors never turned into reality. What Does Episodic Do? While Episodic is probably not a household name for most, the company offers a wide range of video services, as well as a full set of analytics for its customers. Episodic offers a free trial, it is really a paid video service for both live and on-demand videos. One of the company's current signature clients is Showtime, which uses the Episodic platform to deliver live video from sporting events . Episodic also offers monetization services, including ad management and support for credit card payments. Discuss
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Google Acquires Online Video Platform Episodic
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One of the emerging trends of the Mobile Web is using your phone to interact with the real world. We're not just talking about 'checking in' to locations, either. There's a world of more practical functionality that hasn't yet ramped up in the West - using your phone as a payment device (for example mobile ticketing ), getting special offers from retailers, downloading data from the Web via 'smart posters' on the street, and more. A key technology driving some of these interactions is NFC, which was one of Gartner's 8 Mobile Technologies to Watch in 2010 . It's a technology that you ought to become familiar with; whether you're a technologist, a marketer, or a consumer looking to make the best use of your smart phone (and aren't we all!). So in this post we give you an overview of what to expect from NFC. Sponsor What NFC is & Why You Should Care As we explained earlier this year , NFC (Near Field Communication) is a short-range communication technology for mobile phones. It's similar to Bluetooth and has a range of about 10 centimeters. There are three main use cases, according to its Wikipedia entry : Card emulation: the NFC device behaves like an existing contactless card; Reader mode: the NFC device is active and reads a passive RFID tag, for example for interactive advertising; P2P mode: two NFC devices are communicating together and exchanging information. Using the phone to emulate a smart card means that it can be a deployed as a payment device (similar to a credit card), identity card, security device, and more. This type of functionality is already common in Asia, but it hasn't yet taken off in the States. Using the phone as a reader allows the phone to interact with RFID-enabled objects in the real world, for example posters embedded with chips that connect to mobile web sites or applications. NFC in Mobile Phones & Services For these use cases to become a widespread reality, an NFC chip must be pre installed in most mobile devices. According to Dan Butcher from Mobile Commerce Daily , this probably won't happen until 2011 at the earliest. One issue is that NFC is not a current feature of the iPhone or Android, the tools of choice for many Web early adopters. However one handset manufacturer is showing the way with NFC: Nokia . Its Nokia 6131 NFC phone can be used as a credit card, travel card, loyalty card and a "multi-purpose smart card." Along with NFC handsets, NFC-enabled services will arise for applications such as mobile payments. As BusinessWeek reported recently , Alcatel-Lucent has announced a new mobile payment hosting service for mobile operators, in partnership with payments systems specialists Clear2Pay and PingPing. However, the article noted that other emerging mobile payment services aren't using NFC - including Nokia Money and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey's new business Square ( our review ). NFC Has its Issues, But Also The Momentum... There are issues with NFC, perhaps the biggest being its limited range. In order for NFC to work, you need to hold your mobile phone close to the RFID tag or reader device. An alternative that has a longer range is DASH7 , which we'll review in an upcoming post. However NFC holds the most promise for delivering contactless mobile payments to consumers, along with other real world use cases. Image credit: nicolasnova Discuss
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NFC: Never Mind Credit Cards, Pay With Your Phone
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