A few months ago I was listening to some music on my Pandora station. It was a song that I really liked (and I had expressed so by clicking the “thumbs-up” like button), when I happened to notice a new option of posting the song on my Facebook wall. I thought “why not?” and clicked on the button which prompted me to the Facbook Share page that requested my permission to share information between the two sites. I accepted the request and proceeded to share my newfound fav song with all of my FB buddies. This wasn’t a new behavior for me, as I often also share articles and YouTube links that I want my friends to experience.
Fast forward to this week and I was again listening to Pandora when I was pleasantly surprised to see one of my friend’s face in the middle of my Pandora screen. Apparently Pandora felt the need to let me know that my friend was also a fan of that particular song.
Umm, can you say weird? Or maybe TMI?
Of course, I don’t think it’s a big deal to know that my friends and I have similar tastes music, but I’m just not sure how comfortable I am with Pandora’s need to dig into my FB account and not only use my information, but my friend’s information as well, compare the two and then share. The pixelated (and unfortunately unflattering) profile pic of my friend completely caught me off guard and slightly concerned me. So this means my profile pic shows up whenever someone else is listening to a Pandora song or artist I like, I thought to myself. In general, I am a pretty private person. I have internally debated my own presence on FB, but have thus far refrained from deleting my account my employing my privacy settings and limiting the amount of information I share. Yet, as more and more sites become part of the social network our personal information spreads further and further into cyberspace. And we don’t always have control on how it is shared. I obviously didn’t mind sharing a song or two on my FB page, but showing up someone else’s Pandora page every time we share a musical inclination should be an option that can be turned on or off.
Brands who are capitalizing on the value of social media sites are finding Facebook and Twitter to have the most accessible networks of consumers. People are already established on the sites and find them to be (largely) trustworthy. So when you’re local news channel, favorite musician, author, sneaker brand, or cell phone company wants to link with you through the site it initially seems like a friendly connection. Until you realize, just what they’re getting out of the deal. Or, perhaps more aptly, what you’re giving up.
Posted on April 29, 2010
0