There were tweets a plenty today about Mark Benioff and his latest term: “Cloud 2,” referring to the apps that will come from VMforce, the new Java-platform as a service that Saleforce.com and VMware are launching.

Dennis Howlett added to the discussion by picking up on the meme that Salesforce.com CEO Mark Benioff shared as part of the launch:

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Benioff understands the value of a meme. And as a result, he has more command over the enterprise cloud market than any other executive in the space.

Cloud 2 is a that term shifts perspectives, connecting the concept of the cloud and the social Web to the Java-dominated environment of the enterprise. People may run away cynically but the language seems to work in the public discourse.

In the message is a clear realization that the social Web is the overall dynamic theme that is affecting the Internet as we know it.

That’s something people can understand.

Facebook is playing on that theme to challenge Google on the premise that hyperlinks are the future of the Web. Facebook is connecting presence with location to serve relevant updates, which act as gestures. In this regard, the social Web is woven into Facebook’s fabric.

Salesforce.com and VMWare understand the dynamic that Facebook brings to the Web and into the overall enterprise. The apps developed out of VMforce will connect to an open graph that the enterprise controls. That’s a theme that can be communicated through the discussions about the VMForce platform. It will resonate far more than dull conversations about technology infrastructure.

The alliance also shows that VMware is now positioned to compete as a platform providers against Google, Amazon and Windows Azure.

All of this leave Oracle and SAP in a tight spot. These are not exactly companies that are commanding in their influence about the social Web and its connection to the enterprise.

They are deeply entrenched, for instance, in this long discussion about private cloud computing, not communities of interest. It’s like Oracle has rejected this aspect of the Sun merger.

Sun would seem like the logical successor to Java in the cloud. Java has historically served to represent Sun as the force behind one of the technology world’s most important developer communities.

But that power is changing hands with Salesforce.com and VMware as possible successors.

VMware now is a direct benefactor of the Salesforce drive to the enterprise. And Salesforce.com has all the advantages that VMware offers from its own enterprise imprint and its $420 million acquisition of SpringSource last summer.

Java is a cornerstone coding language of the enterprise The question we now have to face: What will the competitors do as the Java platform moves into the cloud? How can they counter the micro application approach that seems to be gaining importance in the enterprise with each passing day.

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Facebook’s Open Graph API is getting some negative attention in Washington today. Four democratic U.S. senators, Charles Schumer, Michael Bennet, Mark Begich and Al Franken, sent a letter to Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier this morning, asking for clarification about the privacy implications of Facebook’s latest initiatives. Specifically, these senators complain about the company’s new policy to allow third-party developers to store data for more than 24 hours, Facebook’s Instant Personalization feature and the social network’s new initiatives that make more of its users’ personal information public by default.

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Washington and Facebook Privacy

The discussion in Washington mostly centers around the fact that Facebook’s new Instant Personalization service is opt-out. Facebook’s current partners – Microsoft’s Docs.com, Pandora and Yelp – automatically get access to a subset of your personal data whenever you visit their sites while you are logged in to Facebook. According to the senators, Facebook now shares “significant and personal data points that should be kept private unless the user chooses to share them.”

In his response to the senators’ concerns, Facebook’s VP of global communications Elliot Schrage argues that these new products are “designed to enhance personalization and promote social activity across the Internet while continuing to give users unprecedented control over what information they share, when they want to share it, and with whom.”

This discussion comes down to Facebook’s decision to make many of its latest features opt-out instead of opt-in. Currently, Facebook is only testing Instant Personalization with a small number of hand-selected partners. Facebook’s ambition, however, is to turn itself into the hub for personalization on virtually every site on the Internet, so this small group of partners could soon grow exponentially. This – combined with the end of the company’s 24-hour limit on storing data by third-party developers – could potentially pose a serious threat to its users’ privacy.

Opt-In vs. Opt-Out

There is a reason why Facebook is currently using opt-out as its default. After all, this guarantees Facebook the largest possible user base for these features and the best possible user experience for those who want to use them. Making new features opt-in exposes Facebook to the (very real) possibility that not enough users sign up and that the reach of its current and future initiatives will be very limited.

On the other hand, if its users really wanted to these features, wouldn’t they just opt-in if asked? And if these features turn out to be really useful, wouldn’t word about them spread across Facebook like a wildfire?

Should Facebook Make Opt-Out Its Default?

Given the Beacon fiasco from 2007 – and the recent discussion around how Google handled the launch of Buzz – however, we have to wonder if Facebook simply didn’t learn its own lessons.

Facebook already hosts more private information about its users than any other site on the Internet. Given the company’s current trajectory of exposing more and more personal data, it’s probably time for the company to establish a consistent policy for how it plans to handle personal data in the future and make it very easy for users to opt out of any new initiatives that will expose more of a user’s data to third parties in the future.

If you want to make sure that Facebook developers can’t access your personal data, here are Sarah Perez’s excellent instructions for how to opt-out.

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It’s been a given for some time that businesses, including startups, should have a presence on and connection with Facebook. With over 400 million active users, chances are your potential investors and customers are already there.

Fan pages have been a simple way to generate interest and engage customers, and Facebook Connect has quickly become a standard in signing up and signing in users. In his keynote at f8 yesterday Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg actually mentioned startups in his opening remarks, stating that they “are requiring that their users use Facebook Connect. We want to make it simple to create these personalized experiences.”

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Whether or not Facebook is a “requirement” for startups, there are some things new businesses should think about based on yesterday’s announcements.

“Facebook Connect On Steroids”

Facebook announced a major overhaul to its API and introduced three new components yesterday: social plugins, the Open Graph protocol, and the Graph API. By using the tags specified in this protocol, any website can now become part of the Facebook ecosystem.

If a Facebook user visits your site and Likes your page, you have the ability then to publish information into that user’s stream. In addition, implementation of the code on your site will give you access to administrative tools and analytics just like any Facebook fan page owner. As we wrote yesterday, this will take analytics to the next level, providing an incredible amount of demographic data about users who like and link their profiles to your site. However, this information will reside with Facebook, not on your own website, making them a de facto owner of your visitors’ social data.

Applications & Virtual Currency: Where the Money Is?

While many businesses will likely integrate their websites into the expanding Facebook ecosystem, there is likely still room for growth within the platform itself, namely with application development. There are over 550,000 applications on the site, a number that continues to grow – and to encourage return visitors.

To coincide with the growth of the application market, particularly in the area of social gaming, Facebook also announced the expansion of its official virtual currency, Credits. Last year Paypal processed over $500 million in virtual goods last year, with social gaming company Zynga becoming Paypal’s second largest merchant (following eBay). Clearly Facebook seeks to stake a claim in the virtual currency market.

Facebook Credits are currently in beta with over 100 applications, and will roll out to the entire network soon, Zuckerberg said yesterday. Credits will allow users to purchase one currency for all transactions on Facebook, rather than have to enter their credit card information with each purchase. By facilitating online payments, Facebook hopes to increase the percentage of users willing to purchase virtual goods to between 8% and 20%

David vs. Goliath?

Despite repetition at f8 yesterday that these changes were meant designed “for developers,” it remains to be seen how the announcements will play out for developers and for users alike, the latter of whom are notorious for protesting changes to the site. In particular, continued concerns about privacy might not be well received, particulary given Facebook’s past history with opening user data.

Privacy concerns might not be the only thing that gives some businesses pause about Facebook’s direction. Facebook also announced yesterday “instant personalization” yesterday, giving three “preferred partners” – Yelp, Pandora, and CNN – instant and additional access to Facebook profile information when users visit their sites. For startups in these areas, namely restaurant recommendation, music sharing, and news delivery, the “preferred partner” program might make industry in-roads more difficult and could adversely impact user adoption. As the “preferred partner” program expands beyond the three selected for launch, it remains to be seen the effect of being sanctioned – or not – by Facebook.

The buzz yesterday was that Facebook had just “seized control of the Internet.” Comments on how you think the f8 announcements might play out for startups welcome!

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At Facebook’s f8 conference, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company was removing restrictions on user data retention within Facebook applications. Previously, the company had a policy where developers couldn’t “store and cache any data for more than 24 hours,” Zuckerberg said while speaking to the audience of Facebook developers crowded into the San Francisco Design Center on Wednesday. “We’re going to go ahead and…get rid of that policy,” he said. The audience cheered.

But should Facebook end users cheer this news, too?

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The Change is for Developers, “No Effect” on End Users?

For developers, the removal of this technical limitation is great news. Apps had to constantly connect to Facebook’s servers in order to refresh their data. Application load speeds were also affected as the apps would have to do this server pinging process upon first launch. Now the data the apps need will already be there – a change that may even result in noticeable performance gains for the end users of the applications.

Yes, Facebook Apps Have Your Data

The new policy, however, brings to light something that your average Facebook user may not have ever known at all: Facebook applications access your personal data.

We’ve looked at this issue before (see: “What Facebook Quizzes Know About You“) after the ACLU put together an awareness campaign surrounding the privacy issues of Facebook applications. Using a sample app, the ACLU’s Facebook Quiz, many everyday Facebook users were shocked to find that applications (like quizzes) could access almost everything on a user profile, including hometown, groups you belong to, events attended, favorite books, and more. What’s worse is that your profile information becomes available to developers when your friends take the same quiz.

Why the Policy Change is Riskier Than It Appears

On its own, the new data retention policy doesn’t change how developers can use the data they store. In fact, for some developers, it won’t change much of anything at all – many simply ignored Facebook’s rules about data retention in the past. Even with the change, it’s just business as usual for those developers and their apps.

That said, the indefinite storage now permitted is concerning for a few reasons. As security engineer Joey Tyson points out on his blog, a site where he has detailed numerous hacks and security holes for Facebook, Google and more, the change makes Facebook apps “far more valuable targets for attackers.”

A popular application’s database could be filled with literally millions of users’ personal details (Facebook now touts 400 million users and Facebook’s most popular app, Farmville, for instance, boasts over 81 million users). If such a database was targeted for attack, the payload for hackers could be incredible.

In addition, Tyson explains, opportunities for behavioral targeting and visitor tracking are increased since developers can now maintain complete archives of profile information.

It’s also worth noting, as tech blog VentureBeat points out, it’s impossible for Facebook to know about how application developers are using the data they collect. If a developer chooses to use that data in ways that are misleading, malicious or that break the company’s terms of agreement, Facebook may not be aware. With 500,000 supported applications, Facebook just doesn’t have the resources to police the apps they house.

How to Remove Facebook Applications

To the end user, these changes may sound overwhelming and even scary. But there is something very easy everyone can do to minimize their risk and that’s delete the Facebook applications you no longer use.

The process of doing so is incredibly simple.

After signing into Facebook, do the following:

1. Click on “Account” at the top-right of the screen.
2. Click “Application Settings”
3. Change the “Show” drop-down box to “Authorized.” This will show all the applications you’ve ever given permission to.
4. In the resulting list, click the “X” button on the far right next to each app you want to remove to delete it.
5. On the pop-up box that appears, click “Remove” then click “Okay” on the next box confirming the app was deleted.

Repeat this process to remove all the apps you no longer use on a regular basis.

Doing this won’t eliminate risk entirely – nothing can do that – but it’s a good first step in reducing risk. However, as long as you have a Facebook account, your data won’t be private. If true privacy is really a concern for you, it may be time to find that account delete button instead. (Hint: it’s under “Account Settings.”)

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One of the many announcements at Facebook’s f8 conference today included an expansion of the Facebook Credits program, the social network’s official virtual currency. Expansion of the Credits program could have a huge impact on how and how much revenue Facebook applications will generate.

Already in beta testing with over 100 applications, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Credits would soon role out to the whole network. Credits allows users to purchase virtual currency through Facebook that can be used to purchase virtual goods across multiple applications.

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Credits are meant to simplify online transactions by allowing users to use just one source of currency, rather than having to enter separate bank or credit card information for every purchase. According to Deb Liu, product marketing manager for Credits, users can currently purchase credits for use in Facebook applications with credit cards, special offers, mobile phones and Paypal, and Facebook plans to add “100 or 200″ local payment options worldwide.

Liu also introduced the App2user Credits program, promotions that will allow users to earn Facebook credit without paying with their credit cards. The App2user program is designed to enable merchants ways to convert reward points into Facebook Credits. Facebook may seed new and inactive users with credits in order to incentivize their use, and they hope that this will “grease the system,” introducing more users with more Credits into the system.

While some developers have grumbled at the 30% cut that Facebook takes from Credits, they soon may have little choice. However, the move to a single virtual currency for the entire Facebook network will mean more revenue overall as users find transactions easier to make.

When Facebook released their revenue figures in February, the Credits program accounted less than 2% of revenue – only $10 million out of $700 million. The consolidation of virtual transactions on Facebook into one currency means that these figures are likely to change substantially. Liu said today that there were around 800 million unique social gaming experiences on Facebook each month. Clearly there is potential for phenomenal growth in virtual currency – for developers and for Facebook – lies with users who are willing to pay for virtual goods to help them in their social gaming.

But according to Zuckerberg, Facebook is not doing this to generate revenue, but “for the developers.”

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“Safety is Facebook’s top priority,” writes Facebook’s Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan on a company blog post introducing the social network’s new Safety Center, a revamped help portal featuring educational information for users, with sections dedicated to parents, teens, teachers and law enforcement professionals. It’s a somewhat ironic statement from a company that recently prompted its 400+ million users to accept “recommended” changes that opened up their data – including status updates, photos, videos, links and friend lists – to a public audience, revealing details that many users assumed were private.

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Around the same time as the “privacy debacle,” as we like to call it, unfolded, Facebook also announced a “Safety Advisory Board,” a group whose purpose is to review safety-related procedures and documentation as well as make suggestions regarding best practices and other procedures. How about this safe practice, Facebook: don’t publicize people’s private information?

Are we bitter about Facebook’s changes? OK, maybe a little. After all, many of us joined up with the network when it was in its fledgling stages. When it was a place to hide from mom and dad, not communicate with them. When you could complain about work in a status update and not worry that your boss or an HR department would see it.

What’s a Little Cyberbullying Among Friends?

But the world changed and Facebook changed with it, or at least that’s what CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims. The oversharers of the iGeneration have generally shrugged their shoulders at the threat of their private photos and updates having gone public. Their outrage? Practically non-existent. After all, this is the same group who grew up around sex offender scandals on MySpace, posted sexy “MySpace angles” photos mom and dad would be shocked to see and who developed the trend of “sexting,” texting revealing pictures to their crush du jour. So their status updates are public? Who cares?, they think.

Ah, but they should. The publicizing of private data has led to a host of issues in its wake, including harassment and cyberbullying, to name a few. Cases of teens committing suicide after becoming victim to abuse via social networks has also occurred, unfortunately.

Now one could argue that cyberbullying and the like could occur among groups of friends, whether or not Facebook remained a private network. It’s a valid contention – the dark underbelly of the human condition allows such behavior to exist, even amongst friends. But by exposing every little detail, photo and link to a user base who seems oblivious to the need of plugging the privacy holes, Facebook is simply allowing there to be more opportunity for someone to actually see the nasty comment made about them on a wall post…or the embarrassing photo of someone cheating on their boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse. It provides the fodder for the cyberbullies and the tools for those who seek to stalk, monitor or control another’s behavior. It’s provides more avenues for abuse.

At the very least, it should provide a few tools to the potential victims, too.

Safety Center: Q&A’s on Abuse Prevention, Reporting

That’s what the Safety Center is for, at least in part. With Q&A’s for how to deal with abuse, stalking, cyberbullying and unwanted wall posts, messages and chats, a good bit of the Center’s guidance is aimed at reporting and stopping this unwanted behavior. Even in other Safety Center sections outside of “safety for teens,” this information is essentially just rehashed for others, like parents and teachers, for example. (Teachers and law enforcement professionals get a few extra tips about Facebook, too, like how to maintain a professional presence or how to report a sex offender).

According to the Facebook blog post, the Safety Center’s overhaul now features quadruple the information as in the prior help center plus a “cleaner, more navigable” interface. The launch is one of the first initiatives from the Facebook Advisory Board, a new coalition of members including Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely, WiredSafety, Childnet International and The Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI). Together, the board members will “accelerate our efforts to make Facebook a better and safer place to engage,” notes Sullivan.

But Facebook already had an opportunity to make itself a safer place and they blew it. Private networks of friends and family sharing content amongst themselves doesn’t lead to as much harassment, abuse and victimization of its users beyond the typical family brawl or fight amongst friends. But when you can see anyone’s content – especially the stuff they thought was private – problems are going to occur. Facebook’s new Safety Center is the result of the company having to deal with the fallout from that choice.

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Do you remember that terrible yearbook picture of you, with the feathered hair, two-inch thick Coke bottle glasses and braces? (Don’t even mention the giant forehead zit.) That one? It might be coming back to haunt you.

TechFlash reported this week that Classmates.com has an “ambitious plan” to digitize high-school yearbooks and offer them on the site.

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According to TechFlash, Classmates.com CEO Mark Goldston laid out plans to digitize yearbooks, among other initiatives, as a way to differentiate itself from other social networking sites. The initiative comes after the company reported a nearly 20% profit loss in the fourth-quarter from the previous year. Goldston said the company plans to offer free thumbnail views of the yearbooks, but will charge for full-size views as well as DVD and hard copies.

In addition to yearbook scanning, the company plans on developing apps for both Facebook and the iPhone, as well as getting in on the business of class reunions.

Goldston told TechFlash that the company is looking at a “major reunions initiative that will allow us to be more involved in the planning and selling of tickets, travel-related revenues, and the creation of reunion-specific products and services that we can sell to our users.”

We found ourselves wondering where exactly Classmates.com is going to get all of these yearbooks. Will schools have a collection and willingly hand them over to the site for use? Or will the have to pay some sort of royalty? Even more importantly, will they be scanning in clean, unadulterated copies of yearbooks or are we going to be able to see all the silly, dirty and downright mean things we all wrote when we were in high school?

We know that when many of us graduated high school, we weren’t yet aware of the fact that everything we said and did could end up permanently enshrined on the Internet.

Perhaps our saving grace here is the fact that Classmates gets only a fraction of the traffic of Facebook or Myspace and is largely kept behind a pay wall.

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke at the Reuters Global Technology Summit on Tuesday, and declined to confirm recent reports that the company had held discussions regarding $150 million in funding (as reported by VentureBeat) and turned down $200 million (as reported by TechCrunch).

He basically said that Facebook is fine with the money it has. "If there’s an investment to be done on very good terms, we will consider it if for no other reason than to have more buffer if we want to do something in the future," he said at the event.

He also said that he hopes an IPO is in order, but that it won’t happen for a few years according to Reuters. There is no rush on that.

"I know for a lot of companies the IPO is the endpoint or the goal. For us it will be an event on the path to where [we] want to get eventually," Reuters quotes him.

Zuckerberg also mentioned the possibility of the company developing an ad network. "You can see over time us wanting to offer more ways for people to monetize their site and help out with that, and it could be a pretty natural extension for us to do something with ads or a number of other things that we’ve considered."

Speaking of monetization, Justin Smith at Inside Facebook has an interesting post up about how Facebook might one day monetize the open stream API, which was opened up to developers a while back. He lists the following three ways as possibilities:

1. Selling targeting data
2. In-stream virtual currency transactions
3. Selling tools and reports

Yesterday, All Facebook claimed to have data showing that Facebook has surpassed 225 million users. Compete data showed that the network had 104 unique visitors and over 1.6 billion visits in April.