Prsm' is the social network that knows everything about you, courtesy of the NSA

Social media fragmentation is a real problem in the modern landscape. Foursquare may let you check in at a restaurant, and your Netflix queue may go to Facebook, but who's keeping track of the calls you make from your cellphone or Skype number? What service will give a group of interested strangers access to your email? Where can you turn if you just want to let somebody literally watch your ideas form as you type? Well, you might want to consider Prsm. Not that you have to, strictly speaking. You probably have an account already.

Mind you, Prsm isn't a social network, precisely. Almost everyone you know is on it, but you're only sharing with the highly trained media engagement experts at the NSA, who will use their time-tested sorting algorithms and proprietary XKeyscore software to put you in circles with the people most like you. If you're a non-US citizen located outside the US, you'll have free access to its premium Pinwale database, though we're told at least a few thousand US users will be admitted as part of a closed beta. While Prsm doesn't have the gaming ecosystem we've grown accustomed to in major networks like Facebook, sources tell us that it's internally testing an Ingress -like alternate reality game in which players identify potential terrorists to earn "skilz" points and unlock achievements.

Foursquare expands its Ads service to more small businesses

In an attempt to take its Ads service to more small businesses around the world, Foursquare, the popular location-based social networking site has introduced its self-serve Foursquare Ads. A post on the Foursquare
blog confirms that the service aims to help small businesses around the world to “connect people looking for somewhere to go with businesses that want to drive traffic to their stores.”
“Foursquare is the best way for those businesses to reach nearby customers. In our ad pilots over the past year, we’ve been honing our targeting technology, using the same algorithm that powers our Explore recommendation engine,” an excerpt from the post reads.
Foursquare is hopeful that with its new self-service tools, it will be able to help more peopleconnect with the1.4 million+ small businesses around theworld that use Foursquare. Interestingly, the new toolsmean that businesses will only pay whenpeople visit – inperson or thelistingon thesite.
The feature is currently being rolled out and will reach more businesses in a month, and a few thousand local businesses will receive it today. If you want to be among thefirst ones to try this out, click here.
Foursquare recently launched an all-new app for Nokia’s S40 range of phones , including thenew Asha devices. This release is boundto bring in a lot more users to the social app’s fold, consideringthefact that S40 is still one of theworld’s most popularoperating systems. The application’s new user interface looks minimalat best and will provide for simple discovery and check-in using your S40 phones. The application will come pre-loaded onto newer Asha devices around the world as they go on sale inthe next few months.

Round Table: Would you payfor an ad-free Facebook with a fewadditional features?

The day power-Facebook users have been dreading since time immemorial is one when thesocial networking service will start charging forsome of its features. The thought that had always been a kind of an open secret is now being talked about pretty candidly and theperson to coin theidea of a paid Facebook is none other than Twitter’s co-founder.
Twitter honcho Biz Stone suggested ina blog post on Saturday that Facebook shouldconsider launching a Facebook Premium for a nominal fee of $10 a month. People who “love Facebook (and can affordit),” shouldbe offereda no-ads Facebook. The social networking website could even throw ina few additionalfeatures to lure inthe crowds. “If 10 percent of Facebook signed up, that’s $1B a month in revenue. Not too shabby,” says Stone.
Even though this will hypothetically rake in themoolah for thesocial networking giant, thequestion now is, would you pay $10 a month to access a premiumversion of Facebook that shows you no ads and throws ina few extra features?
Nishtha Kanal
While I would personally not shell out an equivalent of 600 bucks a month simply to useFacebook inan uncluttered manner, I don’t see theharm inthe company rolling out this service for peoplewho would like to useit.
Advertisements have been the baneof users’ existence on Facebook ever since they were rolled out. They’re intrusive and they’re after your personal data. I can probably put up with Facebook’s ever-changing design, but theway the advertisements are taking up more and more space on thewebsite is a tad too irritating.
Facebook has been trying to spread itself out to users in
developing nations with its mobile website. Access chargesto this website are very minimalfor even feature phone users in India. Players like Airtel offerFacebook for free to its subscribers. Why shouldFacebook then not cater to theother end of thespectrum? From a business point of view, it makes a lot of sense forFacebook. Parting with $10 a month could be completely finefor users who can affordit, if it helpsthem use Facebook in a much smoother fashion. If Facebook addsa no-ad feature to it as well, nothing like it.
Hatim Kantawalla
If the paid ad-free model is all they can come up with, then I think they are probably scraping thebottom of the ideaspit.
However, I do thinkthere is an enormous room for additionalpaid features within FB. I wouldn't mind paying to store, access and share high resolution images and videos. Or security features that allowed me to protect my images/videos from being tagged or shared outsideof a particular group/location. If these were easy-to-setup appsfrom within the Facebook App Center, then I’d happily pay forthem as add-ons, knowing fully well that these are infact Facebook built apps/features.
I thinkmany dedicated users, many who even make a living off Facebook, would definitelyconsider payingfor such features.
Priyanka Tilve
I have been using Facebook since 2009, but frankly speaking, my usage has reducedsignificantly over the years. And this has nothingto do with theads. What I find annoying are the constant changes that Facebook keeps introducing, which has you clamouring to getyour privacy settings right. There isn’t really a straightforward way about figuring out thenew settings and, forthat matter, even thechanges made.
Facebook is making it increasinglydifficultto reach those settings that allow you to control every aspectof your account. As to whether I would pay foran ad-free Facebook experience, the answer is NO. The ads are annoying, but it’s like a necessary evil to keep theservice free. And if you wish, then there is a way you can getrid of them. You can effectivelyusebrowser extensions like AdBlock Plus or Ad Munchers to block out these ads.
About payingfor certain features, I frankly can’t think of Facebook coming up with anything that will want me to pay. But yes, come to think of it, I will be willing to pay if they just let my privacy settings remain unchanged.
Shunal Doke
I personally wouldn't really pay forusing any social networking service. The only reason I use Facebook is because it’s needed to sync my contacts. The problem with thewhole hypothetical businessmodel is that there just isn’t much of a value to the service that’s being (hypothetically) provided. Facebook is essentially an addressbook on the Internet—hardly worth paying for, at least for me.
Besides, it doesn’t help thecompany that there already is a way to avoid ads on Facebook; using a simple browser extension like AdBlock will give me all the ad-free experiences one would want. In the end, it simply comes down to how value is perceived. If someone is on Facebook every waking moment of their life,but hates all the(blatant) advertising, this could be an invaluable feature, assuming theprice is nominal.
I, however, must be in theminority here, since companies as big as Facebook or Twitter wouldn’t be stupid enough to consider something like this if there wasn’t a demand forit. I welcome theoption, since, in principle,having options is always a good thing.
Mithun Kidambi
The currentinformation age has brought a certain idea to thefore—that a user’s data is of a certain definite value and can thereforebe used as a currency. This is exactly what Google, Facebook and practically every other businessdealing with information does today. Thus, the idea that Facebook is currently "free" is a misconception and thereference is not the bandwidth/data chargesthat any user pays.
Every user transacts with Facebook by payingwith her/his personal information and usage data. Facebook then packages this data and sells it to advertisers fora tidy sum. So, for thefree versus paid debate to be real, we first need a completely free-to-access-Facebook, one where users can simply turn off their data tap from fillingup the information pools of brands and advertisers.
This does not mean an ad-free experience; it simply means that the user’s data will never be available to advertisers and brands. The arguement will then extendto what can Facebook charge forbeyond storage and heavy infrastructure use? A paid-for Facebook (whether theuser pays with money or data) can offerspecial deals from brands to the users.
Think of it as discounts on products, free offeringssuch as movie tickets, an exclusive access to a certain product or service, or all of this and more.