1. Hide group and page memberships

Facebook changed its formal Privacy Policy to say that "pages you are a fan of... and networks" are now totally public information (along with many other things). There's apparently no setting to shield page and network data, which leads to terrible situation like this one, sent in as a reader plea:

All of a sudden my grandmother can see that I belong to the Queer Graduate Student Union and Open Relationships Networking Group. Please help. I can't bring myself to de-friend my grandmother!

UPDATE Dec. 17: We're not sure if this is new, but this can now be changed by going, confusingly, to "Application Settings." Go to the "Settings" menu at the top right of your profile page, then select "Application Settings," then scroll down to "Groups" and select "Edit settings." Set to "Only me" (click to enlarge):

Thanks to the tipster who walked us through this. Sadly, even as one privacy mystery was resolved, we were made aware of another. See below.

2. Block Facebook activity from appearing on your wall

There used to be a setting that allowed users to prevent Facebook activity from automatically showing up on their Facebook wall, thus blocking updates like "John commented on Jane's picture," "John is now friends with Bob," "John is attending Uber Gay Circuit Party 2010," etc. This setting is apparently gone, and you have to remove such notices one at a time.

Writes one tipster:

It is extremely annoying not to mention a complete tell of how often I use Facebook during work hours:)

3. Prevent strangers from friending you

It used to be you could keep non-friends from sending you a Facebook friend requests, although they could confirm. That's not the most, well, social way to use a social network, but judging from our email, it was a frequently used and valued feature. Wrote one Gawker regular:

Before the changes I wasn't searchable on FB and hence friended only those I wanted to friend, in essence, I would initiate the request. But... I am now getting friend requests from people I don't know, or worse, from people I know but I don't want to befriend on FB...

Facebook now makes you offer the "Add friend" option to all friends of friends — you can't restrict any tighter than that, so strangers can still send you friend requests. Screenshot (click to enlarge):

4. Completely hide friends list

Your friends list, too, is considered public information. Though you can remove it from your profile, you can't keep friends of friends from seeing it. They just have to pull up one of your friends' friend list, click you name, and view your friends list.

Writes one reader: "Many of us are concerned, seeing as how there are thousands of people faced with the threat of stalkers." Another, right on cue:

I have been dealing with a deranged, threatening stalker... There is no way of keeping your Friend list private... I have been obsessively reading about this topic [overall Facebook privacy]... To say I'm outraged is an understatement.

We thought Facebook might be improving this, but we continue to receive emails like these, and Facebooks written Privacy Policy still states that friends lists are now public information.

5. Block Wall announcements that you've been tagged in a photo

You can keep photos of yourself out of the "Photos" tab on your profile, even if they've been uploaded by other people. But it seems you can't block from your Wall announcements that you've been tagged in someone else's photo , which sort of defeats the purpose: It leaves your profile as a very convenient central location for any incriminating pictures of yourself.

You can remove each notification manually, but that becomes a game of whack-a-mole.

Wrote one Facebooker:

I've already blocked everyone from viewing photos that I'm tagged in, but I'd prefer that my friends not even see that I've been tagged in the small preview photo that gets posted to my wall every time someone tags me.

UPDATE: According to a helpful tipster, this can be disabled by going to the Settings menu at the top right of your Facebook home page, then to "Application Settings," then the "Photos" application, then click "Edit settings." Then click the "Additional Permissions tab," and there is an option to "Publish to streams." Uncheck this. Like so (click to enlarge):

UPDATE: 6. Profile photo

While it's possible to restrict your profile photo album, your main profile photo is one of the pieces of personal data that was forcibly made public by Facebook when it updated its formal Privacy Policy. The best you can do is upload a fake pic, or remove your profile photo entirely; there's no way to have a profile photo that only your friends see.

And more, we're sure

We'd love to be wrong about any of these privacy rollbacks, so if you know of settings or workarounds we've overlooked, do email us at tips@gawker.com. Conversely, if we've left out a lost privacy option you feel strongly about, let us know about that, too.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) originally said his social network's privacy changes were intended simplify and enhance the privacy experience on the site. Judging from our inbox, it would seem he's achieved neither.

Past coverage:
The Valleywag Guide to Restoring Your Privacy on Facebook, Dec. 15
Facebook's Great Betrayal, Dec. 14
Facebook CEO's Private Photos Exposed by the New 'Open' Facebook, Dec. 11

Ideally, we'd all be allowed to just accept Facebook's recommended settings. But the social network is defaulting most people to share their private content widely with strangers, in an obvious bid to grow traffic and to compete more directly with Twitter. Then there's the content the company is trying to take from you and make entirely public.

And, to borrow a phrase, what can't be attributed to Facebook's greed can be chalked up to ineptitude. Highly complex privacy schemes are bound to fail, as others have written, because most users don't have the patience to sit and learn intricate details of various options. That would seemingly include Facebook co-founder Zuckerberg, who initially accepted the default options, according to published reports. But he soon altered these defaults to make them more private, hiding his photos from friends of friends.

And now it's emerged in True/Slant that the CEO has also roped off his friends list and events calendar from strangers he has no friends in common with. (At least, he's removed them from his profile page; Facebook's official Privacy Policy still states that all friends lists are irrevocably public, and it's not clear whether that's been changed.)

If the CEO of Facebook is changing his default privacy settings, shouldn't you? Here are some things you can do (click any image to enlarge):

Hide your photos (as much as possible).

Most people don't seem to realize their old profile photos and albums are available to strangers The profile photos usually default to being shared widely, e.g. to "Everyone," while the photo albums are often only slightly more restricted, e.g. "Friends of Friends."

You can't hide your current profile photos, but you can hide the others that you've uploaded. (UPDATE 1: The wording of this part was updated to make it clear that you can't ever hide your main profile pic. So do, like, a picture of your cat or something. Or a building!)

From your Facebook home page, go to the Settings menu in the upper right corner, and select "Privacy Settings." Then select "Profile Information." Then scroll down to Photo Albums and click "Edit Settings"...

...and adjust to the level of privacy you are comfortable with ("Only Friends" was probably your setup before):

Hide other people's photos of you (partly)

If someone "tags" one of their Facebook photos with your profile, it can show up on your profile. If you don't want strangers (including "Friends of friends") to get to conveniently peruse these often candid shots from your profile, go to Settings/Privacy Settings, then "Profile Information" and adjust "Photos and Videos of me." We'd recommend "Only friends:"

UPDATE 1: To clarify, you can never remove pictures in which you are tagged from other people's accounts, as we implied before. But by removing them from your profile, you make it a lot harder for strangers to find pictures of you that you might not want them to see.

Hide your birthday

It's insane that Facebook recommended that many people share their birthday with "Friends of friends" in its defaults for the new "privacy" scheme. This personal information can be used by financial fraudsters to help impersonate you to your bank, credit card company, email provider and others. We'd recommend showing it to as few people as possible. Or, even better, set it to a false date.

Under Settings/Privacy Settings/Profile Information:

Hide your posts

Facebook is defaulting people to share their posts with "friends of friends," i.e. strangers. You may want to revert this to share only with your friends. Under Settings/Privacy Settings/Profile Information:

Remove your friends list from your profile page

Facebook has updated its privacy policy to say that you can never permanently hide your friends list, and last week it was impossible to hide the list from friends of friends (see Felix Salmon's second update here). This might be changing; on Monday, we couldn't find a way to view the friends list of certain "friends of friends."

In any case, it's definitely possible to make your friends list harder for strangers to view, by removing it from your profile. Go to your Facebook home page, then click on "Profile" in the top right corner to view your profile.

Then scroll down to the section of the profile that shows your friends (titled "Friends"), and click the pencil symbol in the upper left corner. This will reveal a checkbox to hide your friend list from some strangers, at least on your profile page:

UPDATE: We're getting "corrections" on this telling us exactly what we already said above, so we'll repeat it in bold: this does not completely shield your friends list. Friends of friends can reportedly still see it, for example, and as we said above Facebook considers it public information.

Hide your profile from search engines

Facebook is touchy about this one, because it's always displayed some data for search engines, by default, and suddenly people are noticing. That's why when you go to change your settings under Settings/Privacy Settings/Search, Facebook now pops up this ultra-defensive dialog:

What Facebook doesn't tell you is that it now offers a link to "View Such and Such's Friends" from the public, search-engine-indexable profile page. At least, that's what ours does. At the very least, you should look at your search engine page using the preview link under "Public Search Results" and see if you want to continue to make it available:

Hide your info from friends' apps (UPDATE 1)

This is a big one we missed the first time around — by default, your friends can share huge amounts of your personal information with applications they authorize, like quizzes and games. It would be a good idea to restrict this even if Facebook weren't sloppy about policing its apps and partners; as things stand, we'd recommend unsharing most if not all types of data from your friends' apps. (Thanks to the commenter and tipsters who sent this in.)

Go to Settings/Privacy Settings, then "Applications and Websites," then "What your friends can share about you - Edit Settings:"

Did we forget or mis-state something?

Email us and let us know; tips@gakwer.com.

UPDATE: Our other coverage of this topic:

The Facebook Privacy Settings You've Lost Forever, Dec. 16
Facebook's Great Betrayal, Dec. 14
Facebook CEO's Private Photos Exposed by the New 'Open' Facebook, Dec. 11

(Top pic: Zuckerberg, via Getty Images.)

Its new privacy policy have turned the social network inside out: millions of people have signed up because Facebook offers a sense of safety. For the last five years — as long as you're relatively careful about who you accept as your friends — what you do and say on Facebook for the most part stays on Facebook. Katie Couric's daughter first posted pictures of her famous mom dancing silly in 2006, but it took three years for them to leak to us. (Thank you tipsters!) But virtually overnight and without a clear warning, Facebook has completely reversed those user expectations. Their new privacy settings amount to making anything you post on Facebook to be public, unless you go to great lengths to keep your info private.

The most insidious part of Facebook's scheme to expose user data has been how the company framed them, claiming to want to enhance privacy. In an open letter to his 350 million+ users, CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed he believed the old privacy framework was "no longer the best way for you to control your privacy," and that the new system would give people "even more control of their information." It would be "simpler" and finer-grained.

But when the system came out a week later, it actually gave less, not more, control over information. Gone was the ability to hide your friends list, profile pictures, fan pages and network membership from all strangers; Facebook's new, formal privacy policy explicitly made this information public (despite the ability to keep some of it, like the friends list, off your profile page).

Meanwhile, the social network is pushing users hard to share their personal content with strangers. Users are being forced to update their privacy settings, with most default choices set to "Everyone" in the world or "friends of friends."

Facebook's business rationale here is clear. Rival Silicon Valley startup Twitter has grown extremely quickly in the last few years, almost entirely on the back of public content — from celebrities, people's friends and users' professional colleagues. That has brought traffic, money from search engines and a $1 billion valuation.

Facebook wants in on that kind of growth, and more public content means more traffic. But Facebook has historically been one of the most private of the social networks, functioning as a sort of safe alcove amid the chaos of MySpace and Friendster. "Privacy is a big reason Facebook users are so loyal," BusinessWeek's Sarah Lacy wrote in 2006 (via Big Money).

So Facebook needed to give users a big shove to put its business plan into play. As startup founder Jason Calacanis puts it,

Facebook is trying to dupe hundreds of millions of users they've spent years attracting into exposing their data for Facebook's personal gain: pageviews. Yes, Facebook is tricking us into exposing all our items so that those personal items get indexed in search engines–including Facebook's–in order to drive more traffic to Facebook.

But it's not just that Facebook is tricking its users; it's betraying them. It did so when it literally communalized private friend lists that people spent years accumulating, without which their accounts would be useless. It did so when it mislead them by saying it wanted to enhance their privacy, when the real goal was growth and profit. And it continues to do so every day it does not respond to the loud fedback of its users (and the implicit feedback of its own CEO).

And people increasingly know they've been betrayed. This past weekend, journalist Dan Gillmor publicly deleted his Facebook account. Heidi Moore at Slate's Big Money temporarily deactivated her account as a "conscientious objection." And look at the big-name tech journalists weighing in on all the shock and outrage on Facebook critic Calacanis' "Wall" (click to enlarge):

Facebook has been through embarrassing privacy snafus before, like the intrusive "Beacon" advertising system, which the company eventually abandoned. But this one was so pre-meditated, so pre-processed and so condescendingly hyped and spun in advance. It's obvious that Facebook is making a calculation, one that, for users, involved a lot more subtraction than addition. Barring mass defections, the difference will drop straight to Facebook's bottom line.

UPDATE: Our other coverage:
The Facebook Privacy Settings You've Lost Forever, Dec. 16
The Valleywag Guide to Restoring Your Privacy on Facebook, Dec. 15
Facebook CEO's Private Photos Exposed by the New 'Open' Facebook, Dec. 11

(Top pic: Zuckerberg, by Josh Lowensohn)

Today's initiative has been variously billed as "iTunes for Magazines" (correct philosophically, but wildly overstated) and "Hulu for Magazines" (incorrect, since Hulu is free). Basically you can now go to this digital storefront and buy all your favorite Conde Nast, Meredith, Hearst, Time Inc., and News Corp publications, to read on your "portable digital device" of choice. Your crappy mobile phone, or iPhone, or upcoming Apple tablet, or, hey, Time Inc. is making its very own tablet, & ad infinitum.

And, of course, this is not the only "digital storefront" thing—Hearst, a partner in this venture, is also going forward with its own personal digital storefront called Skiff , and there are similar services already operating, although, hey, there's not dominant iTunes-type player yet, so you never know.

This could be a successful venture. Then again, it could fade into irrelevance in months. Somebody will make the dominant digital storefront for content like this, just like someone will make the dominant digital reader. Magazine publishing companies, one would think, are likely to get smoked by someone like Apple in this particular sector. But they think it's worth the gamble, after watching what happened to the music industry.

But it'll take a few years. How much would you pay to read Sports Illustrated on your E-reader right now? You don't have an E-reader. And you can read Deadspin for free. So, you'd pay nothing. Changing that dynamic is what media companies need to worry about.

And here's Time Inc's announcement to employees, just because we have it:

December 8, 2009
To: Time Inc. Employees
From: Ann Moore
Re: New Digital Venture

Today, five leading publishers including Time Inc., Conde Nast, Meredith, Hearst and News Corporation announced the formation of a new venture to develop a digital storefront and a common reading application that will allow consumers to enjoy their favorite magazine and newspaper content on any platform they choose.

We already know that the next generation of mobile devices will be loaded with color touchscreens, flexible displays, video capabilities and other features that will make them ideal for consuming rich content and an appealing environment for advertisers. These devices will allow us to combine the best of what consumers love about magazines – quality, curated journalism, engaging content and beautiful photography – with the speed, convenience and portability of the latest technology.

While Time Inc. is pursuing a number of initiatives that will help us expand our current digital businesses and develop new products and revenue streams, our participation in this venture is an important part of our efforts. You'll be hearing more about it in the coming weeks and months.

In the meantime, for a look at some of the work Time Inc. is doing around portable devices, check out the demo Sports Illustrated developed, which will give you an idea of how our digital content might be enjoyed in the near future.

www.si.com/tablet

A.M.

The most popular story on WSJ.com today has been their semi-exclusive about Joe Lieberman saying he's never going to vote for a health care bill with the public option. If you heard about Lieberman making news on health care today and went to Google "lieberman public option," you'd get these results. The shaded red boxes are the News Corp. properties: WSJ.com and Foxnews.com. Those would disappear, but there would be no shortage of results showing you what Lieberman told the WSJ in the top results.

But let's say you were really motivated to find the specific Wall Street Journal story about Joe Lieberman derailing health care and you searched "lieberman public option" and "wall street journal." That would currently bring up the story in question, as well as the Fox News result and an old WSJ blog post. But it would also bring up plenty of other sites that can tell you what was in the WSJ story. Those all likely will also provide a link to the WSJ story, but if they put up the pay wall Murdoch has promised, why would you bother to click through?

Lastly, here's a search for "lieberman public option" and "wall street journal," but with results from WSJ.com and FoxNews.com filtered out—in other words, what Google would return if they weren't allowed to index News Corp. pages.

All but the top two results — irrelevant HuffPo stories — show you exactly what Lieberman said in the Wall Street Journal. And would conceivably show you a link to the WSJ. So, no big loss.

The Apple Tablet has been something of a holy grail for gadget fiends. Now print publishers are enlisting in the cause with just as much fervor. Condé Nast's plan, as described by company execs to Peter Kafka of All Things D: Port Wired to Apple's tablet by mid-2010, followed later by all 17 other titles. By using a special digital format now under development by Adobe — which makes the publishing software that Condé and most other magazine publishers use — Condé also hopes to gain compatibility with tablet and other touch-screen devices made by Hewlett Packard and others.

Jobs should be flattered that such a high-profile publisher is chomping at the bit to get onto his new gizmo. Condé joins New York Times editor Bill Keller in talking up Apple's device; News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch is another recent print-media convert to the tablet religion.

Condé, clearly eager, should keep its enthusiasm in check. The company has closed six magazines and slashed budgets 25 percent at its remaining titles this year, setting off a wave of layoffs. It's doubtful that even Steve Jobs can come up with a silver bullet to rescue businesses that have spent many years squandering past digital opportunities. Especially if the company rushes too quickly and turns out a slapdash tablet product that burns its readers on the format forever.

(Photo illustration by Photo Giddy on Flickr)

Mayer's union with real estate investment manager Zach Bogue will take place as part of a wedding stretching from Dec. 11 - 13 at the San Francisco Four Seasons, we're told. Mayer and Bogue bring out the competitive overachievers in one another, and the event sounds like an extension of their mutual mania. Even the invitation came wrapped in a heavy red velvet box, said a tipster.

The lengthy wedding should only further Mayer's reputation for aggressive well-roundedness: She was on both the debate team and pom-pom squad in high school, and today her master's degree in computer science makes a geeky contrast to the Oscar de la Renta clothes and fashion spreads in Vogue and Glamour. In keeping with the theme, we'd expect her fairytale weddings to have some geeky twists (laser tag, anyone?). If you have any further details — or better yet, a picture — we'd love to hear from you.

UPDATE: Added location of the Four Seasons.

UPDATE: We failed to mention that Mayer lives at the SF Four Seasons, in a penthouse, as we've reported previously. So maybe she's having the wedding at home.

(Pic by JD Lasica)

British writer and analyst Charles Leadbeater, and researcher Annika Wong, have put together a report called Cloud Culture to be published by the British Council next year. Their statistical study, provided to me by Leadbeater, is based on figures from the social media analytics company Sysomos. It shows that such a tiny proportion of Iranians are on Twitter that any stories about a new movement based on the social network are meaningless. The figure they provide, by they way, includes the thousands of foreigners who changed their Twitter location to Tehran when the 'Iranian internet revolution' story struck after the elections in June and Facebook and Twitter were afire with Iran sentiment. So the likely figure is even lower.

The report adds that only one third of Iranians have internet access at all. And because opposition supporters are young, and on the internet, and Ahmadinejad supporters tend to be older and rural, the picture on the ground is likely skewed by any analysis that relies on tweets.

Leadbeater and Wong also compile a series of hyperbolic quotes from a variety of media sources at the time of the protests:

• "Twitter has become a key information conduit as the authorities in Tehran have cracked down on reporting by traditional media." Chris Nuttall and Daniel Dombey, Financial Times.
• "After disputed election results and massive street demonstrations in Tehran, Iran, information is flooding out of the country – on Twitter." Ashley Terry, Global News.
• "This is it. The big one." Clay Shirky of NYU.
• "We've been struck by the amount of video and eyewitness testimony... The days when regimes can control the flow of information are over." Jon Williams, BBC World News editor.

The meme was just too tempting, it seems, for anyone to dig into its veracity. The media — this site included — loves to write about Twitter, and loved doing so even more in summer when it was even newer and shiner. The storyline also fit the fact that Iran is a young country, and chimed with the heartbreaking YouTube video of the shooting of Neda Agha-Soltan.

The solidarity that thousands, even millions of Americans showed with the people of Iran during June's elections and the subsequent protests was admirable. It was also potentially dangerous. I was at the UN protests against President Ahmadinejad earlier this fall. Several young men were wearing dust masks they had purchased from hardware stores. I asked one why. "I am wearing it because I have to go back to Iran," said a softly-spoken and shy 28-year-old student who gave his name only as Mohammed. "I return next year and this is for safety, in case they are watching," he added, pointing to his mask. "It could be the best $3 I ever spend."

If Mohammed is picked up despite his dust mask, the fact that the protests in Tehran were partly fomented by Western support based on a false story about Twitter will be of no consolation. It's probably not much comfort to these people either.

Lose yourself in art, rich tech people; the proceeds go to charity. Kataoka, an entrepreneur and Julia Allison-grade protocelebrity, has announced her participation in a charity auction. The prize? "Sit back, relax & ... Leave your mark on a conceptual work of art by prominent artist Drue Kataoka... on a private jet across the Bay." That certainly sounds immersive. And if there's any time left over after the art session, you can ask Kataoka about fashion, and her recent conversation with designer Yigal Azrouel for her site Culture Lick (see video below, which opens with Kataoka's trademark ice cream lick.)

Hopefully Kataoka will bring her camera onto the plane, as well. Can't wait for the footage!

Blame this altogether more sinister portrait of Decker as narcotized, philandering spy on her increasingly messy divorce, which involves a custody battle over her children. The accusations are mentioned in a September 29 letter we've obtained, sent to Decker's legal team from the San Francisco attorneys representing her husband (Click here to read the eight-page letter) .

Notice of the breakup first surfaced nearly two years ago. There didn't seem much reason to believe the parting was especially bitter. Though Decker led a series of power grabs at Yahoo, elevating herself from CFO to president and would-be CEO, her divorce generated little such noise. Divorcing couples tend to fight over money, but in April 2008 it emerged that Decker's husband Michael Dovey was not seeking alimony; he told people he was independently wealthy.

But an increasingly contentious court battle has nevertheless erupted, judging from the September 29 letter. The attorney for Dovey references hearings and letters attempting to resolve how to handle discovery, the early legal phase in which evidence is collected.

Dovey's legal team is using discovery, in part, to collect evidence concerning Decker's purported and unspecified "accusations about" her husband — including personal emails Decker may have sent referencing his conduct, "state of mind and/or mental or physical well being," according to the letter.

Some of this material may reside on old Yahoo computers, and Decker's legal team is trying to win the ability to selectively block the disclosure to Dovey's legal team of evidence as it emerges, according to the letter. Dovey's team wants much more: all potential evidence not protected by attorney-client privilege or "attorney work product protection," with particularly sensitive material handed over and protected by a confidentiality agreement.

Near the conclusion of the letter, Dovey's attorneys hint at what else they might be looking for in discovery — and what else Decker's attorneys might be trying to keep a lid on:

These sorts of allegations are relatively common in nasty divorces and custody battles and Decker, for many years a fixture of Yahoo's quarterly conference calls with stock analysts, knows how to mount a strong defense in the bright glare of the public spotlight. Still, a woman who quit Yahoo in January and just bought a waterfront home in the San Francisco Bay Area's quiet Marin County can't be happy to be caught in such a maelstrom of mudslinging. Nor, one would venture, can her former colleagues.

We've posted the full eight-page letter here.

Update: Richard Rados, who wrote the letter, declined to comment on the divorce because of "pending litigation" and added, "I don't want to contribute to ill will between" the parties involved. We left a message for Jennifer Wald, Decker's attorney, and will include any comment when/if she gets back to us.

(Top pic: Decker at an "All Hands" company meeting last year. From Yahoo Blog's Flickr account.)

OMGICU has been on a campaign to bring Morgan to Twitter since Tuesday, according to the Wall Street Journal, after collecting such stalker sightings as these:

• "tracy morgain [sic] is walking around soho eating blueberries looking confused."
• "Just saw Tracy Morgan driving a Yellow Lamborghini with a blond woman listening to Sade."
• "Tracy Morgan at the Bowery whole foods. I smiled but he gave me a mean look back. He was with a lady."

Welcome to Twitter, Tracy. Every week is Shark Week!

Oh look! He just delivered his first tweet:

Poetry.

Let's look at the apps released so far, for other phones as well as under prior versions of the iPhone OS: restaurant reviews, taxi and subway information, ATMs, WiFi and houses for sale. Ugh! Way to take advantage of a brand-new paradigm, programmers. This is like looking at the Web in the mid-90s and deciding its best use was for distributing newspaper articles and selling pet food.

We've already though of some vastly superior ideas off the tops of our heads, since that's the sort of thing we do on a Friday in August:

Got any ideas of your own? Post them in the comments. We have a feeling this is going to be the next mini-bubble in tech; might as well get to work inflating it now so the cycle plays out as quickly as possible.

Web entrepreneur Jeff Atwood, who first highlighted the ads, writes that they "take advertising on the internet to the absolute rock bottom," and toward the moronic, hypersexualized future foretold in Mike Judge's movie Idiocracy.

Yes, sure, inevitable cultural and intellectual decline of America, whatever. Vulgarians that we are, we're far more burned up by the game's false advertising: After all that flesh, there's not actually a "queen" to "save" in the game! The boobage was strictly for "marketing purposes," according to Evony. Now that's something you can (probably!) sue over.

The first ad emphasized Evony's pedigree as a clone of the strategy game Civilization, in which the player must "build an empire to stand the test of time."

The next picture used a stolen catalog photo to emphasize the game's ample... opportunities for adventure!

But that ad really didn't convey the teamwork aspect of the game. To get across the "cooperation" theme, what could be better than hot twins?? The word "lover," perhaps. There's your ad!

The words "my lord" in prior ads really didn't properly convey a player's dominion over buxom females as well as a kneeling woman with an exposed bra and a sword pointed at her chest. But we'd have gone with, "buy our game or we stab this hot lady" for the tagline, here, as it's really more direct than "Help! Save the Queen," but without distorting the original message.

Oh, forget about saving the queen. So much work! Click here to just have wench sex and rule the world, already.

The orgasmic wench-elf and the kneeling queen and the lusty court twins were all too subtle, it turns out. Click here to play the boob game!* (*Game does not actually involve boobs). (This is an actual ad.) [Coding Horror]

We're not going to explain every feature, quirk, and option in the Google Voice service, which is slowly giving out invites to those who request them. We've already taken a first look at Google Voice, and Google Voice's own Getting Started guide does a nice job explaining the service's ins and outs. We're looking to answer the question we seem to hear most often from commenters, friends, tech pundits, and just about everyone: What would I get out of it?

The wild card: number portability

If the rumors prove true, Google will, at some point this year, allow you to "port," or at least integrate, your existing cell phone number with its service, requiring none of the millions of phone numbers the search giant is supposedly securing. That would eliminate three of the service's biggest barriers to entry:

• Having to call Google Voice, and then dial a number, to place a call "with" your Google number, so it shows up on caller ID as such
• Having to store and reply to a separate SMS number for each of your contacts so that, again, your Google number shows up
• The time and hassle of getting your contacts to call you at your new Google Voice number, despite the fact that your old numbers still "work"

You might like Google Voice if you:

• Regularly use two or more phones: If you've heard about one feature of Google Voice, or its GrandCentral predecessor, this is it—and for good reason. Google excels at giving you one phone number for others to have, then letting you fine-tune which phones that number rings to an OCD level. If you want your wife to ring through to your work line between 9am and 5pm, but not your chatty, unemployed friend, you can do that. If you want your home landline to ring along with your cell during the hours your carrier charges for minutes, you can do that, too.
• 
  
• Loathe standard voicemail: "Please enter your passcode, followed by the pound sign!" "You have ... two ... new messages. To hear your"—You know what we're talking about. Using cell minutes and precious time just to hear your friend say "Try you again later" is almost as annoying as trying to wipe the voicemail icon off your phone screen. Google Voice makes it easy to play voicemail audio and read semi-correct transcriptions from a single web page, and it's a good bet it'll be integrated into Gmail for even easier access. When you're away from your browser, Google Voice sends voicemail notifications through email or text message, making it easy to know that you really don't need to step outside and call your sister back just to confirm you prefer Diet Dr. Pepper to Diet Coke.
• 
  
• Enjoy text messaging, but not phone keyboards (and fees): For anyone whose friends chide them about short or nonexistent text message replies, this is a game-changing feature. When sent to your Google Voice number, text messages are organized on the Google Voice site like chat conversations, with back-and-forth dialogue and options to reply or mark as read and archive. Writing a new message is also easy—hit "M" or click the SMS button, start typing a name or phone number, then choose the contact and type away. You'll still be charged for texts you receive on your phone, but it can be a real money saver when you're near your plan's limit for the month. Those with iPhones, Android handsets, or other smartphones can also make use of Google Voice messaging on the go with apps like the previously mentioned GV (Android) and GV Mobile (iPhone).
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• Want better filters on who reaches you, and when: Google Voice has four levels of annoyance resistance available to weary phone hostages. You can activate "Call Presentation" to have every unknown caller say their name to Google's servers, which then call you and ask if you want to take the call. If the annoyance is someone you know, you move them into a particular group (like "Annoyances") and make that group always go to voicemail. If they sometimes call about something important, Google Voice's ListenIn features lets you send them to voicemail, but hear what they're saying and pick up, if necessary. If you absolutely can't get a telemarketer or semi-stalker to take the hint, the video at left explains how you can simply have them hear something that sounds like an old-school disconnect notice.
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• Are down with Skype-like VOIP calling: Want to make calls over a computer-connected headset and not pay a dime for them? Google Voice allows you to add a phone number from the Gizmo Project and control when it rings through. Make a call through Google Voice's web interface, set it to ring your Gizmo number when it's connected, and the other party just sees your standard Google Voice number—you're effectively making an outbound call for free that Skype and the like would charge you for.
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• Make a lot of international calls: We haven't done a price comparison, but Google Voice's rates to international landlines and mobile numbers are said to be competitive, and you can call from your own phones without having to hunt down the right calling card.
  
• Record calls regularly (and legally): Just hit the number 4 during a call and Google's robotic queen announces "Call recording on." Right now, it only works with incoming calls, but the finished recording is ready for playing, downloading, or embedding in your Google Voice inbox in a matter of minutes. It's how I recorded my Jonathan Coulton phone interview for later transcribing and audio clip pulling.
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• Have or want an Android phone: iPhones, BlackBerries, Symbian-based models, and Windows Mobile devices will likely get Google-built apps for integrating Google Voice into their dialing, voicemail, and SMS interfaces. But Android phones already have an impressive third-party app for doing so, Evan Charlton's GV, and would be a pretty good bet on being the first, or at least among the first, platforms to get the Google Voice team's attention. Fully integrated Google Voice means free, conversation-threaded SMS, fewer hassles with your one-and-a-half phone numbers, voicemails that don't require talk time, and much more.

You won't like Google Voice if you:

• Rarely use your cellphone and/or text messages: Unless you're that rare breed of VOIP headset lover who doesn't ever talk on a cellphone, there's not a lot to recommend Google Voice to landline-focused folks. Your office's phone system offers (hopefully) most of Voice's features, and residential internet phone providers can fill in the other gaps. It could be a help to those who absolutely won't type out a text on a phone—but, then again, so can email.
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• Think Google knows too much about you: There's something to be said for breaking Google's personal data monopoly, and the tinfoil hat crowd have a whole new set of worries with Google Voice—your voicemails, calling history, and text messages are, after all, right on Google's servers, for who knows how long. It's not all that different from Gmail—Google breaking one user's trust could collapse the whole system—but it is something to think about.
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• Dislike Google's Contacts handling: Google Voice uses the same contacts database, so if its auto-inclusion of names you've emailed a few times drives you batty, well, you'll get the same results from Voice's Click2Call auto-completion. Only the names you've stored phone numbers for show up on Voice's dial feature, but we'd like to see a way to set a "primary" number that's the default when you're typing out a name.
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• Get annoyed at voice delays: Early Google Voice users (myself included) are noticing an audio delay on certain calls. Sometimes it's ever so slight, like a wonky cell phone connection. Sometimes you and the other party are toppling over the ends of each other's sentences. Google is certainly aware of it, but since it's a service that inserts a server as the middleman between parties, there might be an inevitable bit of latency on Google Voice calls, as there is with most international calls. If you've ever switched carriers because of voice quality or connection problems, you might find a new antagonist in Google Voice.
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• Really don't want to write another "New number" email: As noted above, Google's rumored to be working on offering number portability/integration for Voice. In the meantime, Voice users have to ask their friends, acquaintances, and business contacts to save a new number, figure out how to deal with the stragglers, and, in all honesty, hope the service isn't abandoned by Google anytime soon. If you live and die by your availability and can't stand the idea of being late to return even one call, switching numbers just won't fly. Everyone else has to make the call.

I had lunch with a friend at Apple today and as I was leaving the campus I saw Jobs getting into a chauffeured black Lincoln Continental. This was right outside 1IL [Infinity Loop] at about two PM today.

A Lincoln is, of course, not Jobs' usual ride, and the notorious micromanager usually likes to be behind the driver's wheel; his Mercedes is known for turning up in Apple's handicapped parking spots. But Jobs just underwent a liver transplant and is only traveling to the Apple campus a "few days" per week, according to an Apple statement heralding his return to the company today. Presumably, the CEO's health is such that he needs to conserve his energy for activities other than driving, like running a company.

Earlier today, Apple declined to tell Bloomberg News whether Jobs was on campus. The company had good reason to avoid such a discussion: Entertaining that line of questioning might have led to a discussion of Jobs' itinerary and unwelcome question about why the CEO had to leave early, and about his health. More practically, it also would open the company up to endless questions from reporters about where Jobs is on campus that day. Of course, there's a good chance Apple is going to be getting those queries anyway, whether it answers them or not.

Anyone else spot the newly-returned honcho today? We'd love to hear from you.

UPDATE: Last week, Reuters spotted Jobs leaving the campus in a "black car."

UPDATE 2: The original version of that Reuters story last week had Jobs being "driven off by men in black suits with ear-pieces."

(Pic: Jobs at a MacBook press announcement on Apple's Cupertino campus in October via Getty)

"Bill Gates shocks Cambridge with open-collared shirt" said the Seattle Examiner, before calling the billionaire's wardrobe a "call to action for all laid back Seattle business executives, as well as tech geeks everywhere."

Quite the opposite, actually. Gates can go casual while accepting an honorary degree precisely because of his power; mere peons will find a highly irregular wardrobe has real consequences in the real world. It's the same deal with Gates' new ranch in a desolate stretch of Wyoming: you buy one if you're in such demand you must flee all large clusters of humans.

(UPDATE: The tie item originally appeared in TechFlash.)

(Video via Cambridge News; image by AP)

When Della launched earlier this week to promote the computer manufacturer's line of Inspirion Mini 10 netbooks, the site included a video on shopping for vintage clothing and "Tech Tips" explaining how ladies could use this strange device, as of course, we don't know how to use real laptops.

Joanna Stern summarized on LAPTOP magazine's website:

The Tech Tips page, with its patronizing "Seven Unexpected Ways a Netbook Can Change Your Life," is full of stereotypes of how women's lives can be changed with a mini-notebook... "Track your exercise and food intake at free online sites like Fitday," is Tip Number One, like any self-respecting women's magazine would recommend. Number two: Find recipes online (just because we have laptops doesn't mean we don't still belong in the kitchen). Dell, is this all you think us women do with our laptops? Or do you think women are that slow at the technology uptake that we don't know that a netbook is capable of these activities?

In response to the huge amount of criticism the site received online, yesterday, Dell revised the site, adding the message, "Some of you have read this article over the last several days & will notice a few modifications. You spoke, we listened. Thank you for your ongoing feedback." The "5 Ways to Use a Netbook" section now boasts that the product can help women get organized, read eBooks, track workouts, and is easy to take along when traveling. The page on "featured artist" Robyn Moreno and her video on vintage shopping are still up.

"Some brands go too far with the girlie stuff, and that's when they start getting into trouble," said Andrea Learned, author of Don't Think Pink - What Really Makes Women Buy in the New York Times. Learned said Della emphasizing netbook colors and computer accessories, but burying price information and specifications, seemed condescending to women. "Della's marketing strategy sounds like it's advertising a purse," Ms. Learned said. "There's a level of consumer sophistication they're missing."

"There was certainly no intent to offend anyone and if we did, we apologize," said Dell spokesman Bob Kaufman, according to MSNBC, adding, "Many people do see their laptops and netbooks as a style statement, and we want to be part of those conversations." Style is an important consideration, especially since you'll hopefully be staring at the computer for several years, but it isn't the most important factor in purchasing a computer, nor is it something only women care about. As several of our commenters pointed out earlier, Apple and many PC manufacturers have used style as a selling point to both male and female consumers, but don't assume in their commercials that people don't care about the product's performance as well.

Though Dell revising the more egregiously annoying aspects of the site is a step in the right direction, it still takes a few clicks to find any specifications on Della. The section about Mini 10 Netbooks on Dell's main page seems to include a comparison of the three netbooks' prices, processor speeds, and display sizes. We're not sure what all those crazy numbers mean, but we still don't want a Dell netbook, even if it does come in pink.

Dear Della, Sexism Doesn't Sell Laptops [LAPTOP]
5 Ways To Use A Netbook [Della]
What Do Women Want In A Laptop? [The New York TImes]
Let's Market PCs Like It's 1959 [MSNBC]
Mini Notebooks - Products [Della]

Earlier: Marketing Madness

Nick's email asked a question in the subject line..."Did someone hack the Times Twitter?"


Um, yep!

A source who's plugged into the Valley's deal scene and has been recruited by Apple for a senior position says Apple and Twitter are in serious negotiations, with the goal of unveiling a deal by June 8, when Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference launches in San Jose.

Twitter turned down a $500 million offer in cash and stock from Facebook, in part because Twitter's investors couldn't agree on whether Facebook's stock was worth as much as Facebook said it was. But Apple could easily pay cash. A source familiar with the thinking of Twitter's board says the company would be hard-pressed to refuse an all-cash offer in the range of $700 million. (Is Twitter really worth that? Since it's business is nothing but a fantasy at this point, any valuation, high or low, is a matter of make-believe.)

What does Twitter, an adorable but unprofitable startup, have to do with a hardware company like Apple? The iPhone is the obvious driver of the deal: The many iPhone apps like Tweetie that people use to post Twitter messages are hot sellers for Apple. But Apple gets the benefit of Twitter-addicted iPhone users whether or not it owns Twitter. And it seems like an odd cultural fit, since Apple's hardly known for its Web prowess.

That's where the deal makes a certain amount of sense, if you understand the particular culture of those who work on the Web. While Apple might have its pick of hardware designers and software engineers, Web developers are a breed apart — and they have balked at working at a company like Apple, which may look innovative to the world at large, but seems fusty and hidebound to the Mission hipsters who build websites. You'll hear the complaints: Apple's secretive and paranoid, resistant to the wide-open ways of the Web.

Twitter , of course, is open in both nature and spirit. Users overshare every last detail of their lives, while Twitter makes these updates available on its website, via RSS, and through third-party applications. Apple is surely realizing it needs to play in this world, and needs someone to show it the way. Is it coincidence that Apple has put Twitter executives on stage so frequently, or that it profiled Twitter as a "business" recently?

If Apple buys Twitter, it won't be about making money. It will be about making a statement. In 140 characters or less.

(Photoillustration via Virality)

Did we say "kindled"? Amazon's Kindle, the e-book reader, has indeed sparked fever dreams among the ailing lords of print. The New York Times has paused from chronicling its own doom to contemplate its salvation — a large-format Kindle, better suited to displaying newspaper-like pages. Hearst, News Corp., and other print-media concerns are pushing their own devices, loath to grant Amazon so much power over their future — but they are fumbling, while Amazon may introduce its newspaper-friendly device as soon as Wednesday.

What a petty concern to worry about, rather than asking if that future even exists!

The argument for e-readers goes like this: Newspapers and magazines will once again be able to charge for subscriptions to support the cost of production, while shedding the expense of printing presses. Readers will pay for the convenience of getting the news delivered to a device.

That prediction fundamentally misunderstands the lessons of the Kindle, which made books available in a convenient digital format, on an appealing device, for the first time. Downloading five books for the beach is vastly more appealing than packing them.

What are the publishers really proposing? Taking a product available for free on the Web, dumbing it down, and then charging for it. News without links, comments, or video, in black and white, updated once a day? In an age when print media ought to be learning to do more with less, they are instead fixated on getting customers to pay more for less.

There is one prospective market for this: The old, who may be so attached to printed media that they will accept an electronic substitute. Hearst digital chieftain Phil Bronstein, the former San Francisco Chronicle editor, told Maureen Dowd that the industry's best hope was that people would live longer, so those trained to read newspapers will stick to the habit.

The obvious converse of Bronstein's feeble hope: The young will never learn to read newspapers and magazines again, having grown up reading online. Why would they switch to a product like the Kindle?

Like the libertarian wingnuts who would rather flee to science-fiction cities on the sea, escape to outer space, or cosset themselves in an online fantasy world rather than live in reality, the addled lords of print like Bronstein would rather dream of a technological rescue than face the hard work of survival.

What newspapers and magazines need to do is obvious: Build appealing websites, and sell them better. But that would require changing.