Is Facebook planning to start charging for access?

There are a lot of Facebook groups out there claiming that on some date certain, such as July 9, 2010, FB will either start charging all users for access, or will divide its services into free and premium access levels.

(click to enlarge)

Think, people, think!

Do any of these groups point to a Facebook news release or an article on a major news website supporting this claim?  No?  Then why do you support them by joining?

Whoever started these rumors may not be trying to scam you out of your money like the “free gift card” folks are, but they are scamming you nonetheless, and they’re having a good laugh at your expense.

On the plus side, your experience may be fodder for some psychology PhD dissertation on social engineering.

Facebook is a goldmine for scammers

In recent days I noticed that several of my Facebook friends had become fans of a page called “First 10,000 Fans Get a $1000 Wal-Mart Gift Card!”
Just the name of the page raised a red flag in my mind. Walmart (not “Wal-Mart”) was planning to invest ten million dollars in a Facebook promotion?
So we start with an improbable typo and an unlikely premise. Out of curiosity, I clicked through to the fan page. Here is what I saw (click for larger image):

Well, there’s the “Wal-Mart” typo again. Maybe it’s just an incompetent web programmer that doesn’t know the correct spelling of his employer’s name. Like I said: improbable.
I looked through the various tabs of the fan page, looking for evidence that the page was actually sponsored by Walmart. All I found was a link to their online store website. The corporate website, by the way, makes no mention of this promotion, but that might be because Walmart was testing a viral marketing strategy (a ten million dollar test?), so I didn’t give this fact a lot of weight.
I also went to Walmart’s official Facebook page. Again, no hint of the promotion.
On the official page’s Discussions tab, there’s a thread about this “Free Gift Card” page. There, someone posted a link to an article on Walmart’s corporate website. The article warns about bait-and-switch scams that use free Walmart gift cards as the bait. After luring you in, they get down to their real business: trying to sell you magazines, or whatever.
Well, how about that?
I didn’t really have to do all of this additional research. The name of the fan page should have been the dead giveaway.
But wait! The fan page has testimonials of happy Facebook users! And it has a place where I can submit my own testimonial. Doesn’t that lend credibility to the page?
Sure, this comment panel can easily be faked, and sure, the links don’t go anywhere, but let’s set that aside for a moment and just try to submit a comment. If you enlarge the above screenshot, you can see the comment I tried to submit. After clicking the button, I got this:

Sure, whatever.
Did you hear that the latest edition of the Random House dictionary accidentally left out the word “gullible”?
Sometimes being a cynic can save you a lot of headaches.
12 March UPDATE: Here are some more instances of the “First 10,000” scam on Facebook. (If a link no longer works, it probably means that Facebook has removed the page in response to complaints)

• First 10,000 Fans Get a $500 Best Buy Gift Card!
• First 10,000 Fans get to Test and KEEP an Apple iPad!!!
• First 10,000 Fans Get A Free Ikea Gift Card
• First 10,000 Fans Get a $1000 IKEA Gift Card!
• Wal-Mart First 10,000 Fans Get a $1000 Gift Card! (A new one, complete with the exact same testimonials!)
• First 10,000 Fans Get A Free Ikea Gift Card (a different one from the ones listed above)
• First 10,000 Fans Get A Free Home Depot Gift Card
• First 10,000 Fans Get A Free Best Buy Gift Card (hey, wait – the testimonials here are nearly all the same as the ones for Home Depot!)
• first 10,000 to join get a free chocolate bar! (this one’s a pretty lame me-too page that appears to be a deliberate attempt to measure the gullibility of FB users)
• Twilight New Moon! First 10,000 Fans Get a Free New Moon DVD!!!

24 March UPDATE:

• Official Olive Garden Week, Dine In On Us This Week Only (Same general format as the others, but this one actually attempts to justify the obvious fact that it's selling stuff)

28 March UPDATE:

• IKEA.com Register Now to a Get Shopping Spree on Us! (This one works a little -- just a little -- harder to look legit. It might help if they would come up with some new pretend Facebook user comments)

7 April UPDATE: Great news – PC World reports that FB is aggressively taking these pages down as soon as they hear about them.  FB also has a warning on its security page.

Comic books continue to push social, moral boundaries

I've known for many years that comic books, once the prized domain of young boys, have become adult-oriented, seemingly determined to go out of their way to shock the sensibilities of the older generations. Still, articles like this news.com.au one cause me to do a double-take (and cause me to wonder how this represents a step forward for our culture):

SHE first swung into action 50 years ago, helping her boyfriend Batman rid Gotham City of villains until she was killed off in 1979.

Now Batwoman is making a comeback, replacing Batman - who is missing, presumed dead - in the popular DC Comics series.

And this time around the superheroine's alter ego, Kathy Kane, is a red-headed lesbian.

Billed as a "lesbian socialite by night and a crime-fighter by later in the night", the new Batwoman is clad in a figure-hugging black outfit with knee-high red stiletto boots.

She is set to appear in at leasty 12 issues of the Detective Comics, the first of which will appear in June, the BBC reports.

"We've been waiting to unlock her - it's long overdue," DC Comics writer Greg Rucka said.

"Yes, she's a lesbian. She's also a redhead.

"If people are going to have problems with it, that's their issue."

Great Expectations: Did we just elect Willy Wonka?

Kidthing teamed up with the nonpartisan, nonpolitical National Education Association to present the hopes and dreams of our children to their dear leader, Barack Obama, as the Associated Press reported yesterday:

End war, forever. Make the planet greener. Please help my dad find work. Make it rain candy!

Thousands of kids detailed their hopes and expectations for President Barack Obama in letters and drawings as part of a worldwide project, with 150 chosen for a free e-book being released on Presidents Day.

Most had tall orders for the new guy in the White House.

Anthony Pape, 10, of Du Bois, Pa., offered: "I hope that we will have no war ever again. I mean why are we fighting why can't we all be friends."

Fellow 10-year-old Sasha Townsend of Soquel, Calif., had a similar request, and then some.

"I would appreciate it if you would try to make this a greener planet and try to bring home the troops and end the war," the fifth-grader wrote. "I am very luckey because I am not part of a military family, but it saddens me to hear about all the people who die in Iraque and know that somewhere In the world people are greiving over a lost family member."

Seven-year-old Aaron Van Blerkom's letter was simpler — but no less problematic.

"Dear Mr. Obama," the Pasadena, Calif., first-grader began, "Please Make it rain candy!"

As we read the article, we find that the fondest hopes and dreams of our nation's youth align quite nicely with the Democratic agenda.

Even the part about raining candy -- something Obama and the Democrats are attempting to do with the economic stimulus.

Will Obama administration support automakers' call to "stabilize" gasoline prices?

Automakers are looking to suck up even more losses as low gasoline prices wipe out most of the potential demand for soon-to-be-unveiled electric cars, as the Associated Press reports January 13:

Deep inside the research centers of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC, the companies are spending billions to develop plug-in electric cars at a time when gasoline has dropped below $2 per gallon.

If their fears come true, gas prices will be so low when they start rolling out the cars next year that people won’t buy them and all the high-priced research will have gone to waste.

At GM and Chrysler, which have nearly run out of cash and are surviving on government loans, the companies can’t afford to make mistakes in spending limited research and development dollars, but they can’t predict the future, either.

What can be done to protect automakers from the ups and downs of a free economy? Prop up gasoline prices -- through taxes or price floors -- to guarantee demand for alternatives!

Detroit would love for Washington policymakers to take their inspiration from Europe.

Jim Queen, GM’s global engineering head, said the Obama administration may be open to gas taxes or policies imposed by many European countries that reduce oil consumption and make it easier for manufacturers to match their products to demand.

“My personal opinion is we’d be better served in the U.S. if we could somehow establish a comparable floor that you see in Europe,” Queen said. “And I think with the new administration we may have a shot under the umbrella of an energy policy to start talking about these things.”

In case you're wondering if the incoming Obama administration would look on such proposals favorably, consider that at least one of Obama's two top energy-related appointees think absurdly-high gasoline prices would be wonderful -- not for Detroit's sake, but for ideological reasons, as the Ben Lieberman of The Heritage Foundation writes January 6:

Earlier in the year, then-candidate Obama and leading Democrats in Congress had opposed this expansion of domestic oil drilling. However, both relented in the face of the summer’s public outrage over $4-a-gallon gas, as well as polls showing 2-to-1 support for more drilling. But, as they say, that was then. Since the election, both the incoming administration and Congress have signaled that they might reverse position and undo this policy. And two key Obama appointments might want to go further.
Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., Obama’s nominee for secretary of the interior, was on record as opposing lifting the offshore moratorium even if gasoline were to reach $10 a gallon. The Department of the Interior runs the federal energy-leasing programs. As secretary, Salazar would have the power to slow such leasing to a crawl, with or without the help of Congress.
In fairness, Salazar strongly opposed offshore drilling but never said he actually wanted the price of gas to skyrocket. The same cannot be said of secretary of energy nominee Steven Chu.
Last September, he told The Wall Street Journal that "somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe."
European gas taxes are much higher than in the United States and are designed to force people to drive less or not at all. At the time of Chu’s comment, the "levels in Europe" were above $8 a gallon.

The ideologues in Washington win. The executives in Detroit win. We lose.