Is CIA spying on you?

One of the Web’s entertaining conspiracy theories about Facebook is the idea that the CIA helped found Facebook as its latest information-gathering tool. With recent outrage of privacy invasion of Facebook’s advertisement technology, this theory resurfaced and there was another round of fear and concerns on privacy invasions.

This conspiracy theory was first sparked off when the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) started using Facebook as a platform to recruit potentional employees into its National Clandestine Service in December 2006.


The CIA's Facebook page (login required) provides an overview of what the NCS is looking for in a recruit aim at potential college-aged applicants. U.S. citizens with a GPA above 3.0. The NCS, one of the four directorates of the CIA, was established following 9/11 to gather intelligence from sources both domestic and abroad. However, both Facebook and CIA deny the accusation. They claimed that CIA had setup the Facebook profile mainly for recruiting and marketing purposes, CIA has no direct access to member’s profile.

Facebook's privacy policy states that outside companies sponsoring groups don't have access to personal information or profiles. However, it does say that information may be shared with "other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies," in order to comply with the law.

There are also theories that outlines the supposed CIA effort and tries to connect dots between the CIA, the U.S. Department of Defense and Facebook’s investors.

It was known that Facebook's first round of venture capital funding ($US500,000) came from former Paypal CEO Peter Thiel. Author of anti-multicultural tome 'The Diversity Myth', he is also on the board of radical conservative group VanguardPAC.

The second round of funding into Facebook ($US12.7 million) came from venture capital firm Accel Partners. Its manager James Breyer was formerly chairman of the National Venture Capital Association, and served on the board with Gilman Louie, CEO of In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm established by the CIA in 1999. One of the company's key areas of expertise is in "data mining technologies".

There can be many associations between Facebook and CIA, however Facebook is only as powerful as the information people voluntarily add to it. If you’re worried about privacy, don’t create a profile on Facebook, and if you must have one, omit any aspects of your life and actions that you don’t want others to know about.

Is Facebook a real platform?

Will Facebook become the standard social networking platform on the net? When Facebook launched it’s new platform for developers, there are some who doubted if they can really make money on Facebook. With many uncertainties ahead, some businesses are hesitated to used Facebook as their marketing tools. There are concerns that Mark Zuckerberg might sold off Facebook and that the future of Facebook is uncertain.

To date, Facebook have already launched a Facebook Platform for BlackBerry Smartphone, followed by iPhone-specific version of their site, http://iphone.facebook.com. Admob, a leading mobile ad publishing solutions company already announced that their publishing solutions are optimized for Facebook.

Mike Lazaridis, the Co-CEO of Research In Motion is quoted saying

“Facebook is one of the fastest growing web destinations among BlackBerry smartphone users and it has become an important element in the evolving fabric of personal communications.”

With close to 30 Million users worldwide on Facebook and growing at a rapid rate on a daily basis, we can expect to see more and more integration of Facebook into the business arena. We can see the big players like Ernst and Young, Johnson and Johnson, Coca Cola already in the lead to integrate Facebook into their marketing strategies. Blockbuster has also built an application that lets Facebook users search thousands of movie titles, create lists of movies they want to see and share movie reviews.

While some are already starting to make money on Facebook, some are still experimenting their applications. The real profit will only be seen in the near future when Facebook platform is fully exploit.

So will Facebook be the real platform? It still seems early to determine at this point in time but certainly a lot of businesses and investors are already looking into ways to tap on the hugh members on Facebook. So if you are not at it, you might be losing out this big pie!

Some fun and cool applications

As you can see in Facebook’s directory, there are thousands of applications to choose from, so which one should you choose? Here are a list of popular fun applications that you might want to explore.

Vibrating Hamster
The vibrating hamster is a simple picture of a lovable rodent you can put on your profile. As the name suggests, every time you click the picture, the hamster vibrates violently while playing the Web meme-famous hamster dance song. To keep anonymous hamster vibrations at bay, the application will track who was the latest to click and display it prominently on your wall.

ILike
iLike lets you add music and videos to your profile, dedicate songs to your friends, and see who’s going to what concerts. You can create an artist page, upload your music and events. Pretty cool application! However, they currently don’t have the full song uploaded, only 30-seconds samples but they claim to be working on it to get full songs catalog.

Superwall
Superwall is a creation of RockYou, they have successfully created popular applications such as Vampires, MyGifts etc. Superwall provide more flexibility compared to the normal wall provided by Facebook. It allows you to write messages, post photos, and post videos on your friends superwall.

Vampires
Vampires is an application which allows you to attack your friends turn them into bloody vampires. Bite all your friends with the curse of the vampire and see if you can turn them into undead, just like you. With this application, you can choose to fight your friends’s vampires, zombies and WereWolves.

Superpoke
Superpoke provides more actions you can do to your friends than the normal poke provided by Facebook. You can throw a sheep, bake a cake or throw a snowball at your friends. The more you take action, the more new actions you will uncover in superpoke. Pretty addictive and fun to say hello to your friends.

My Aquarium
This application is a fish tank simulator gone social. You start out with 250 coins to buy new fish, and earn an extra 100 every day. Each fish has a specific price and lifespan, with the more expensive and exotic creatures lasting longer than the cheapies. You can share fish with others, by sending them to your friend's tanks, and display them lovingly on your profile. The application will also publicly display a history of the fish you've sent and received. Unfortunately there's no animation or movement; the fish just sit there.

Where I’ve Been
Rumored to be the largest acquisition for a Facebook Application to date. Travel company TripAdvisor has reportedly acquired Where I’ve Been from Craig Ulliott for $3 million. Where I’ve Been is an interactive map that allows you to add all the places you've been and where you want to someday go. Then you can compare maps with your other friends.