Turns out…It’s against Facebook’s terms of agreement.
E. Promotions
If you use Facebook to communicate about or administer a promotion (such as a contest or sweepstakes), you are responsible for the lawful operation of that promotion, including the official rules, offer terms and eligibility requirements (e.g., age and residency restrictions), and compliance with regulations governing the promotion and all prizes offered in connection with the promotion (e.g., registration and obtaining necessary regulatory approvals). Please note that compliance with these guidelines does not constitute the lawfulness of a promotion. Promotions are subject to many regulations and if you are not certain that your promotion complies with applicable law, please consult with an expert.
i. Promotions on Facebook must be administered within Apps on Facebook.com, either on a Canvas Page or a Page App.
ii. Promotions on Facebook must include the following:
a. A complete release of Facebook by each entrant or participant.
b. Acknowledgment that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.
c. Disclosure that the participant is providing information to [disclose recipient(s) of information] and not to Facebook.
iii. You must not condition registration or entry upon the user taking any action using any Facebook features or functionality other than liking a Page, checking in to a Place, or connecting to your app. For example, you must not condition registration or entry upon the user liking a Wall post, or commenting or uploading a photo on a Wall.
iv. You must not use Facebook features or functionality as a promotion’s registration or entry mechanism. For example, the act of liking a Page or checking in to a Place cannot automatically register or enter a promotion participant.
v. You must not use Facebook features or functionality, such as the Like button, as a voting mechanism for a promotion.
vi. You must not notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles (timelines) or Pages.
vii. Definitions:
a. By “administration” we mean the operation of any element of the promotion, such as collecting entries, conducting a drawing, judging entries, or notifying winners.
b. By “communication” we mean promoting, advertising or referencing a promotion in any way on Facebook, e.g., in ads, on a Page, or in a Wall post.
We reserve the right to reject or remove Pages for any reason. These terms are subject to change at any time.
May people ask me as a designer if I ever think print will die. First I respond with laughter, because I often think it a rather stupid question. Then I proceed to say “I certainly hope not…”
Paperless has become quite a trend. People often think that we’ll be entirely paperless by some distant point in the future in order to save millions of trees and deforestation of rain forests etc. Their biggest advocate? The eBook. Why? Because there isn’t any paper pages, and often they’re cheaper to purchase. A pretty solid argument right? Perhaps… if you don’t live in a third world country.
There has been a big push for literacy in the world as a step towards solving poverty. It’s a great start I think, and a very noble task. People need to learn how to read as a means of making it through this life and becoming a “successful and functional member of society” (I’d love to hear someone tell an African Tribe leader that, they’d probably end up disgraced and kicked out of the village, or even worse in some cultures). Written language certainly can open many doors, but if we’re making the striving to build up the economic world using literature, we’d have to make it accessible to everyone. Now tell me, how many isolated tribes in the rainforest have pluming and electricity? Probably none of them huh?
What I’m getting at is this: eBooks are not all accessible. Not everyone in the world has internet. Not everyone in the world even has basic necessities for that matter. So why are we so convinced that going paperless is a real option for the whole world? Perhaps for more developed nations it can be a reality, but that would also cause the problem of increasing the poverty gap, and perhaps even possibly make poverty a bigger problem…or worse…cause us to take extreme measures destroying cultures by bringing in a very western and commercial line of thinking.
There is this great documentary on PBS about the development of nations based on the question “Why are some countries more developed than others?” It’s called Guns, Germs, and Steel based on a book by William McNeill and if you’re interested in the subject I recommend you find it or perhaps download it somewhere and watch it. It’s quite fascinating if you’re a history buff. It’s good stuff and talks about some of the issues of poverty and resources in certain nations, and how they developed into power houses and third worlds.
I do not think print will ever die. Printed books are easier to get to the masses that digital ones for the reasons I said above, and so many others as well. Paper is used in so much more than printed work, poster, fliers and pamphlets. It’s a practical resource.
If you need more convincing…then watch the video below.
Skeuomorphism. It’s a term you’ve probably haven’t heard much, or even at all, but you can see it almost everywhere. You open your bookshelf on your ipad and what do you see? A book shelf… designed to look like what you would in the real world. That’s skeuomorphism. At least that’s how designers have been using the term, which is inaccurate. It’s actually the mimicking of elements in a former or older device that were functionally necessary. Not necessarily the design looking like a real world object entirely…but I digress.
As many of you Apple product fans might already know, Scott Forstall, one of Apples designers, was fired over using Skeuomorphism.
“After Jobs’ death, Forstall become the company’s biggest proponent of skeuomorphism, much to the chagrin of the firm’s designers. “It’s visual masturbation,” one former Apple user-interface designer told Fast Company’s Carr. ”It’s like the designers are flexing their muscles to show you how good of a visual rendering they can do of a physical object. Who cares?”
- Should a Calendar App Look Like a Calendar? By Farhad Manjoo
Who cares indeed? Is it really that big of a deal to make objects on a screen look like their physical world counterparts? Personally, I don’t think it matters all that much. Real world objects are things users would be familiar with, and though on occasion it’s corny, I honestly feel like they make the apps and interface much more user friendly and quicker to read. People can tell what an app is for when they see a book shelf or a date book calendar, rather than some obscure screen with buttons and gizmos that have little to no indication of their use or function.
Yes, some of Apple’s software has become a bit corny. (I’m looking at your cheap-casino green felt, Game Center!) But those who advocate throwing out real-world textures and visual metaphors are missing something important. As designer Tobias Bjerrome Ahlin points out, when it’s used appropriately, skeuomorphic design can give users a quick sense of what an app does. - Should a Calendar App Look Like a Calendar? By Farhad Manjoo
Does it matter either way? Is it bad to make screen objects to look like their real world counterparts? The way I see it, if we’re using it daily in reality…why not make it look like it’s reality? Is it’s daily use not real enough for designers to want to make them look real? Because it’s certainly real enough for me. After all, it makes the virtual object more approachable for my generation, which happened to grow up from the transition between pen and paper to desktop. I’m used to using both, but perhaps in more recent generations, it may not matter as much to have any nostalgic allusion to the real world counterpart.
However obvious Apple’s skeuomorphic approach to UI might be, it’s an approach that is hard to argue with. The company is still considered highly innovative, and the success of its products is unprecedented–most would successfully argue that it’s by far the best we have. But aside from aesthetic reaons, it is hard to see how these designs will ever evolve beyond derivative representations. Will they just change color and increase their visual fidelity? -Can We Please Move Past Apple’s Silly, Faux-Real UIs? by Tom Hobbs
My question is, does it ever have to evolve? If it’s so classic do we need it to “get better” or even change? Perhaps the reason it’s so hard to argue with is because it’s so sustainable? I certainly feel like this is so. The way you can tell if something is designed well is if it can stand the test of time. Bookshelves still have the same structure as they have always had, and though we can change their color or paint them how we like in our homes, we certainly don’t change the structure of them much do we? So why would it be any different on screen. If it’s working well, why strive to change it. I think what we need to figure out is how to identify what is more valuable: sustainable or innovative?
We certainly live in a culture where everyone is striving to be “the next thing.” We automatically think that because we can have something new, we don’t want to hang onto what is sustainable. I’ve had my second generation iPod touch for a fairly long time in comparison to many of my peers. Why? Because what I have works for what I use it for…and it isn’t broken. But are we able to apply this same kind of logic to design? If it’s working, and remains relevant, is it okay to hold onto? Do we really need the next big thing in order to remain relevant, or are we confusing relevant with trendy?
Feel free to let me know what you think. For further reading visit these two articles.
Found this image going viral on Facebook. Makes one wonder what our priorities really are…and where I may or may not want to invest for my retirement. Then again there isn’t much information to say what all this really means other than to say we use more ink than we do human blood…which may be a good thing. Maybe it’s a good thing that blood doesn’t cost so much? What do you think? Are we as human beings be being taken for granted by the cost of ink? Again I don’t know the context or the research behind this infographic…but it certainly gets you thinking.
Medical technology has made leaps and bounds for people who suffer from hearing loss. This particular story touched me so much I had to share it with all of you. For many years Dawn Keim had been dealing with sever hearing loss issues causing her to be unable to hear at all. She was offered to be a candidate for a cochlear implant, but the decision to have the surgery was difficult, not because of any complications, but rather because she had grown so accustom to being unable to hear she was afraid of the unfamiliarity. She had never been able to hear her 8-year-old son speak…until now.
Hacker/Online Activist Aaron Swartz commits suicide. In his wake he left a trail of controversial actions and online revolutions, but the biggest controversy is how does the Justice System deal with online “activists and criminals.”
“Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy,” the statement reads. “It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to his death. The US Attorney’s office pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims.” - U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz
I don’t know about any of you, but I saw this on one of my dear friends facebook statuses today and it caused me to get a little nervous:
In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, comics, paintings, professional photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention).
For commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times!
(Anyone reading this can copy this text and paste it on their Facebook Wall. This will place
them under protection of copyright laws.
By the present communiqué, I notify Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, disseminate, or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The aforementioned prohibited actions also apply to employees, students, agents and/or any staff under Facebook’s direction or control. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of my privacy is punished by law (UCC 1 1-308-308 1-103 and the Rome Statute).
Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are recommended to publish a notice like this, or if you prefer, you may copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once, you will be tacitly allowing the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile status updates.
Being an artists, graphic designer, and photographer, I know better than to post any of my most personal info and artistic content on Facebook. Having a healthy caution of putting things on the internet is the first step to being a responsible patron of the online community (and respect of yourself). However, whenever I heard of things like this I always tend to get a little paranoid. So, I do what I do best, and take a little peek at the online news to see if I can find enough reliable resources to validate or refute the statements. Turns out this whole thing is a hoax and honestly, you cannot refute the contract via facebook status. That’s not how the law and copyright works friends (and if anyone seriously thought that it did then you’ve been seriously uneducated). Also how can you refute facebook’s ownership with a status when they own the statuses you put up?
If you are interested in legally putting your work under Copyright then please visit the U.S. Copyright Office website for more information on going through the proper channels. For more info on the Hoax and facebook policies read your Facebook Terms of Agreement, and view these helpful articles:
Yes folks, it’s happened. As crazy as it may seem… it is possible that weaponry can be printed. With the creation of a new form of technology there is always a down side. The use of the 3D printer for weapons has been a discussed possibility for everything from gaming dice and simple manufacturing to medicine and military use.
Now understand me correctly, these weapons are not your class A firearms. in many cases the guns printed only lasted a handful of rounds or less. The article The 3D-printed gun: When is high-tech too hot to handle By David Cardinal gives a bit more information on the problems of printing 3D guns. Plastics simply are not the kind of quality materials that guns need to hold themselves together. But he also brings up the main issue:
Few issues generate as many opinions as gun ownership. Almost every country in the world recognizes the special importance of firearms and regulates them. In the United States, the right to own a gun is written into our constitution as part of the famous Second Amendment in our Bill of Rights. Tempering those rights are a slew of state and federal regulations including laws requiring those who manufacture weapons for sale to be licensed, the weapons they create to be numbered and registered, and the guns to be readily detectable. 3D printing is threatening to turn the existing system of regulations on its head.
In short, this means that people without gun licenses — or people who have had their licenses revoked — could print their own lower receiver and build a complete, off-the-books gun. What a chilling thought.
But hey, that’s the ambivalent nature of technology, the great enabler. In just the last few months, 3D printers have also been used to print organs, blood vessels, and drugs. In a few more years, when 3D printers move beyond plastic resins, who knows what we’ll be able to print.
For every piece of technology we create, there is usually a number of pros and cons. In many cases the pros are larger in number than the cons, but at the same time the few cros are much larger problems than we realize. At what point do we critically regulate the uses of certain technologies, and when do we draw the line between the 1st Amendment and the well being of the population? Are we really being enabled and is it taking us in the wrong direction?
If you’re a Mac user you know some of the connotations that go along with Macs. Yes, they’re expensive. Yes, many wealthy schools and people have Macs. Yes, Apple is a large company that has made quite a bit of money on their flashy (aka beautiful) products and unique marketing scheme. But, is that really cause for making people pay more online?
Yes, you heard me correctly.
Being a Mac user I can’t say that I’ve come across this problem. Mostly because the site found to have done this kind of marketing was Orbiz, which is a site I don’t particularly use, because I’ve not needed to book hotels before. But several articles from US News, CNN, and CNet have given information about this type of business practice, one that I find personally to be unethical. The CEO of Orbitz comments on the matter (From CNNs report):
“CEO Barney Harford told CNN that Orbitz recommendation results are part of an attempt to pair customers with the hotel they’d probably pick. In this case, Orbitz will offer recommendations based on what other PC or other Mac users selected as their final hotel, on the assumption that spending habits are the same, he said.
“What we have found is … that Mac users are 40% more likely to book four- or five-star hotels than PC users,” Harford said. “That lines up with (the fact that) Mac users are typically more willing to spend more money on higher-end computers.”
Now when one reads this 40% is a pretty high number. But, what if you consider that 40% of students are the purchasers of Mac computers? According to SeattlePi reports, Microsoft hasn’t been very attractive to this new generation. Though the information is almost 2 years old the trend is apparent on college campuses, coffee shops, and cyber cafes across the nation. Students are a fairly large sum of mac users, and I ask why should they pay more? Aren’t loans enough to pay off?
Of course this is all here-say as well, there is still a lot of information that isn’t accounted for. There is still that 60% of Mac users to take into account. There is still the fact that some people receive Macs as gifts like I did with mine (I’d like to know what % that is). But, regardless of that information, it causes a kind of socioeconomic profiling that I simply cannot reconcile, even if it’s for the sake of marketing. It’s almost as bad as The Nations report on how women pay more for everyday items (even medical insurance) than men do. It’s simply unreasonable. If The United States is a nation that stands for equality, then why are we being reduced to stereotypes based off something as small as the kind of computers we use? Why do human lives and choices have dollar signs all over them at all? All I know from this information is I won’t be using Orbitz anytime soon…or later in my life.
Turns out…It’s against Facebook’s terms of agreement.
