Sprint’s Epic 4G from Samsung stands out from the competition as one of the best Android phones on the market.

The first thing you notice is the stunning 4 inch AMOLED display and the extra vibrant icons at the bottom of the screen for Phone, Contacts, Messaging and Applications. You can’t see the 1GHz Samsung “Hummingbird” processor but you will appreciate how it quickly loads applications.

At first glance you may not notice that the device has a slide-out physical keyboard because it adds very little bulk to the phone. The Epic’s dimensions are : 4.9 inches 2.54 inches x 0.56 inches making it barely thicker than some Android phones that don’t have physical keyboards. Although I once thought I’d never prefer a touch screen to a physical keyboard, I rarely find myself using the physical keyboards on Android phones but as cell phone keyboards go, it’s quite good. It even has the standard Android Home, Menu, Back and Search keys.

The phone has a nicer feel to it than the Motorola Droid with rounded edges, reminiscent of the iPhone 3G and 3GS.

Interface Customization

Samsung, like most Android phone makers, has added its own user interface which it calls TouchWiz 3.0. Unlike HTC’s Sense interface, Samsung took a relatively light touch by not dramatically changing the standard Android which those of us who go from phone to phone greatly appreciate. They did add some widgets such as Buddies Now which is sort like favorites for instantly being able to call or text someone.

There are a couple of small changes to the Android interface but most won’t slow down experienced Android users. One thing I did find annoying is that to unlock the phone each time you use it you have to drag a circle in the middle of the screen up. Nothing terrible about that but it’s different than the standard Android unlock gesture.

Personally I wish that Android phone makers would just stick to the standard Android interface or, if they must make a change, allow users to turn off the eye candy and revert back to the standard interface.

The phone comes with Android 2.1 but Sprint is likely to push an upgrade to 2.2 relatively soon.

There is both a 5 megapixel rear and a VGA quality front-facing camera. The front facing camera can be used to take a picture of yourself or use for a video conference call.

The Epic 4G comes with the Swype keyboard interface that allows you to type words by sliding your finger from letter to letter without taking it off the glass. Some people swear by Swype and others swear at it. I do find that it can speed up my typing a bit but I still prefer pecking at the keyboard. The good news is that Swype can easily be disabled and you have the choice of the Swype keyboard and the standard Android keyboard.

Swype Interface Let Your Type by Sliding Fingers

The phone comes with a 16 gigabyte microSDHC card. Although it doesn’t come with a slick PC client like iTunes, it is very easy to connect the device to a PC or Mac USB port and drag and drop songs to the memory card. One the music is on the phone the experience is just as good as an iPhone with and easy to navigate music interface that even shows album art. Although most people will listen with earphones, the phone’s internal speaker is surprisingly good and loud enough to fill a small room.

The call quality was good for both incoming and outgoing calls. Like all Android phones, there are some user-interface issues when it comes to calls. I have found myself accidentally answering the phone by touching the screen in the wrong place when reaching for it in a pocket. I’ve also done a little bit of pocket dialing. One thing I don’t like about this and many Android phones is that there is no dedicated physical Phone key. There is a clear icon for it but I would like to be able to make and hang up a call by pressing physical key that’s always accessible.

I tested the phone in Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area which are 3G but not 4G zones. Sprint is in the process of rolling out 4G nationwide but it’s currently available in fewer than 40 markets. Still, it works well in 3G areas too.

On cool feature on this and a growing number of Android phones is the ability to use them to create a WiFi hotspot to provide Internet access to a PC, iPad or any other device. I find that extremely useful but it does add to the monthly cost of using the phone.

By Android standards battery life is good. By turning off WiFi and GPS and using it in 3G (not 4G) mode, I was able to get through most full days on a single charge which is more than I can say for Sprint’s other 4G phone, the HTC Evo.

My biggest complaint about the phone is that the power button is set back a bit on the right side of the phone and exactly the same (black) color as the rest of the phone, making it a bit harder to see and press than with the typical placement at the top of the phone.

Cost and Availability

Sprint’s unlimited service called “Simply Everything” is $110 a month which is $10 more than 3G phones. Unfortunately, you pay that $10 even if you never use the phone in a 4G market. And if you want to use the phone to create a WiFi hotspot, it will cost an extra $30 a month. The phone itself will cost $250 which is $50 more than most other smart phones. The phone will be available on August 31th.

A new Facebook scam is taking advantage of people’s desire to be able to “dislike” posts by tricking users into completing an online survey and spamming links to their friends.

Sophos blogger Graham Cluley has reported that there is a rogue Facebook application that promises to give you a dislike button but instead “silently updates your Facebook status to promote the link that tricked you in the first place, thus spreading the message virally to your Facebook friends and online contacts.”

The app never actually installs a dislike button but does require you to compelte an online survey (which Cluley says “brings money for the scammers”) and then points you to a Firefox browser add-on from FaceMod which installs a browser-based dislike button. FaceMod does not appear to be connected with the scam.

Facebook doesn’t actually offer or support a dislike button, though it is apparently a frequently requested feature. The service does have a “like button” that lets users indicate their appreciation for posts, groups and other elements on the service.

In a statement, Facebook said “We’re working hard to block and remove malicious applications that claim to provide dislike functionality and inadvertently update people’s statuses. It’s important to keep in mind that there is no official dislike button. Also, don’t click on strange links, even if they are from friends, and notify the person and report the link if you see something suspicious. For more information on how to protect your data on Facebook and across the Internet, like theFacebook Security Page”

Fake Facebook Dislike Button

Follow Larry Magid on Twitter: www.twitter.com/larrymagid

Lately I’ve gotten a sense that lots of Internet users are suffering from “privacy panic,” not unlike the “predator panic” that plagued the Internet a few years ago when lots of people falsely believed that children faced a grave risk of being sexually abused by Internet predators.

The problem with these panics is they tend to be based on extreme and often rare cases, or just plain myths. And they tend to focus attention on the wrong issues. A few years ago, obsession by the media and certain politicians with rare cases of predation distracted attention from much more likely risks, such as cyberbullying. Lately, fears of a loss of privacy at the hands of big Internet companies such as Google and Facebook have been obscuring more serious privacy issues that get less attention.

For example, a few months ago it was revealed that the cars that drive around taking pictures of buildings for Google Street View were also collecting data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks. Google said the data collection was unintentional and that it never used that data. Critics accused Google of deliberately spying on people’s Wi-Fi networks, leading to official government investigations on both sides of the Atlantic.

The furor over this alleged attack on privacy was silly. To begin with, data was collected only from unsecured networks. Most people now know to put some type of encryption on their Wi-Fi networks, and those who don’t face risks a lot more serious than a Google car driving by accidentally collecting snippets as it passes the house. It’s no surprise to me that the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office found it “unlikely that Google will have captured significant amounts of personal data,” and further found “no evidence — as yet — that the data captured by Google has caused or could cause any individual detriment.”
If you want to be paranoid, why worry about tiny amounts of unencrypted data picked up by passing vehicles? You’d be better off worrying about the data Google really does have access to. That includes not only what people search for but also the incoming and outgoing e-mail messages from millions of Gmail users and literally everything people do with Android phones — e-mail, text messages, Web surfing and even phone calls.

If Google wanted to get evil about user privacy, it could do a great deal of damage. What I worry about is not so much what Google is now doing with this data but what could happen if some future U.S. government or law enforcement officials conjured up ways to access Google servers.

There has also been paranoia about Facebook privacy policies. It’s true that Facebook has raised suspicions on more than one occasion by abruptly changing its privacy policies, making them too complicated and at times reaching too far. That’s why the company in May acknowledged its mistakes, backed away from some of its policies and streamlined its privacy settings. But at least Facebook has been transparent about the information it shares, and gives users control over most of the information they share with friends or the public.

Facebook is often accused of harvesting reams of data about users that it shares with advertisers. I suppose it could do that, but it doesn’t, not only because it would violate the company’s privacy policy but because it would be a bad business decision. Why turn over member information to advertisers when you can make more money by displaying their ads? Once the advertiser had that information, it would no longer need to advertise on Facebook. It makes business sense for Facebook to keep it confidential.

Facebook readily admits that it targets ads to members based on demographic information, just as Google admits that it targets ads based on people’s search queries or the content of their Gmail. That’s how these companies are able to offer free services — by making lots of money with highly targeted advertising.

I’m not suggesting that people shouldn’t be vigilant about Google and Facebook’s privacy policies. It’s important not only to be aware of their current policies but to keep abreast of any changes they might make in the future. The same goes for other companies you do business with, especially your bank, credit card companies, health insurance company, phone companies and even the grocery stores where you use loyalty cards.

It’s also important to be aware of cookies that can track your whereabouts on the Web. And, most of all, it’s important to be cautious of what you say online, especially in public forums.

There is a role for regulators, politicians and the media to keep companies accountable for protecting privacy, but what these parties do about privacy should be based on reasonable concerns, not paranoid fantasies and urban legends.

Disclosure: Google and Facebook are supporters of Connect Safely.org, a nonprofit Internet safety organization where I serve as co-director.

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Twitter is giving website operators and bloggers access to its new “Tweet button.” You can grab a bit of code here that you can insert into a website or blog post. If readers want to Tweet about that post, they click on the button and it’s shared.

Here’s the button. If you have a Twitter account, please click on it to share this post with your followers:

Tweet

The following video from Twitter shows how it works but before you leave this page, be sure to click the Tweet button at the bottom to share it with others.

The Net is full of criticisms of Google and Verizon’s announcement on Monday when they released a joint policy proposal “for an open Internet” but as disturbing as the “Verizon-Google Legislative Framework Proposal” is, it’s important to remember that it’s a proposal, not a federal law. Sure, Verizon and Google are very powerful companies but, last time I checked, they were not able to make national policy — at least not yet. It’s up to Congress to make the big decisions about network neutrality and broadband and wireless policy and up to the Federal Communications Commission to help draft and carry out rules.

Less Than Fully Open Internet

As many bloggers and commentators pointed out, the proposal actually calls for a less than fully open Internet. The issue, which is generally referred to as “network neutrality” is whether broadband and wireless carriers such as Verizon (which is both broadband and wireless), Comcast and AT&T should have the ability to prioritize certain traffic on their networks over other traffic. Network neutrality proponents say they shouldn’t, arguing that carriers should be agnostic about traffic and not be able to create “toll roads” that let certain data flow faster or more freely than other traffic. Opponents of network neutrality, which typically include broadband carriers, argue that such restrictions would inhibit investment in infrastructure because carriers would not be free to fully exploit the networks they build-out. They further argue that there are legitimate reasons to discriminate between some network traffic such as prioritizing telemedicine or educational videos over the ability to watch dancing cats on YouTube.

It’s no surprise that Verizon would want to put limits on net neutrality, but what disappointed many people about Monday’s proposal was that Google had been a staunch advocate of network neutrality and it appeared to many as if Google had sold out to Verizon and other carriers.

To its credit the statement did say that providers “would be prohibited from engaging in undue discrimination against any lawful Internet content, application, or service in a manner that causes meaningful harm to competition or to users” and it called for the requirement for broadband Internet access providers to “disclose accurate and relevant information in plain language about the characteristics and capabilities of their offerings, their broadband network management, and other practices necessary for consumers and other users to make informed choices.”

But the statement also carved out some exceptions big enough to put a 1980′s vintage cell phone through. These include a vague statement that could exempt “additional online services” and a provision that would totally exempt wireless broadband which, by most accounts, is growing a lot faster than fixed broadband and is likely to be the dominant way most people access content in the future.

For example, the statement said that a provider that offers a broadband Internet access “could offer any other additional or differentiated services.” It went on to say that “such other services would have to be distinguishable in scope and purpose from broadband Internet access service, but could make use of or access Internet content, applications or services and could include traffic prioritization.”

But the proposal didn’t give much detail as to the meaning of “Additional Online Services.” I have no problem with that if what they are talking about is companies like Comcast or Verizon delivering cable (or digital) and Internet through the same wire as they now do with Comcast’s cable service and Verizon’s FIOS service. But I’m not sure that Google and Verizon are limiting it to that. They could just as easily be talking about new broadband services or perhaps just renaming existing services. For example, there are many streaming video services on the Internet. Could the agreement allow for a company to re-package and rename an existing service and then prioritize it as an “additional online service?” And what about voice over the Internet or video calling? Right now, it’s just another data type that flows through the same pipes as all other data, but could a communications company decide to give priority to its own voice or video conferencing service? They could certainly make a compelling argument for it, claiming that it’s in their customer’s best interest, but it wouldn’t be a neutral thing to do.

What concerns me most is the paragraph about wireless broadband which states “because of the unique technical and operational characteristics of wireless networks, and the competitive and still-developing nature of wireless broadband services, only the transparency principle would apply to wireless broadband at this time,” which is their way of saying that they are completely exempting the fastest growing segment of the broadband market. This is a very significant exception not only because Verizon happens to be the nation’s largest mobile carrier but also because Google, through its Android mobile phone operating system, is now a major player in the mobile business as well.

Send Congress Some Traffic of Your Own

So, if you happen to have a Verizon phone or Verizon broadband service, use it to call or write your representative. And if you have a Gmail account, use it to send them email. For the time being at least, your message should get through just fine.

Follow Larry Magid on Twitter: www.twitter.com/larrymagid

Apple’s enduring contribution may be less about the products it makes than the ones it inspires.

As I look back at the company’s history and that of its competitors, it’s clear to me that Apple is living life at the bleeding edge of technology by creating innovative and much-loved products that are quickly copied by other companies that, collectively, wind up selling more of their copies than Apple does of the original.

The one exception, so far, is the iPod, which continues to dominate the standalone digital music player market. But largely thanks to Apple, the standalone market may dwindle now that most smartphones are also media players.

Think back to the late 1970s, when Apple was one of the first companies to introduce a personal computer. The big tech companies at the time — IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Digital Equipment Corp. — thumbed their noses at the idea of an entire computer sitting on someone’s desk. IBM and DEC were busy making “big iron” mainframes. The story goes that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who worked at HP in the ’70s, unsuccessfully pitched HP on the idea of building its own PC.

It wasn’t until 1981 that IBM entered the PC business and quickly overtook Apple as the No. 1 PC vendor. HP entered a bit later and now it’s the leading PC maker. Ever since Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the Mac’s market share has been on an upswing, though it’s never likely to overtake the bevy of PC makers

that bundle Windows.

With the Apple II looking a bit old, Apple’s next big contribution was the Macintosh, which it introduced in 1984. Apple didn’t invent the graphical user interface, but the immediate appeal of the Mac put it on the map.

Microsoft actually announced its Windows operating system a few months before the Mac was announced. But it didn’t start shipping Windows until 1985, and it wasn’t until 1990 that Microsoft released the first popular version of Windows (3.0). Since 1990, Windows has been on a long but not always steady ascent and, despite the Mac’s recent gains, continues to dominate the PC market.

Microsoft and the BlackBerry from Research In Motion were way ahead of Apple in the smartphone market, and BlackBerrys continue to outsell iPhones, as do phones with Google’s Android operating system. Yet, if you look at the Android interface and the interface on the BlackBerry Torch that was announced last week, it’s pretty obvious that they are taking a cue from Apple.

In the meantime, Apple is starting to lose a bit of market share to Android. A report from Canalys found that Android shipments in the second quarter of 2010 were up 886 percent from the previous year. NPD puts Android’s second-quarter 2010 U.S. market share at 33 percent, compared with RIM’s 28 percent and Apple’s 22 percent. Of course, Apple is just one company with one carrier partner and Android sales are divided among several, manufactures and cell phone carriers.

Apple dominates the tablet market, but the iPad is new and it’s only a matter of months before we start to see lots of tablet computers with a similar interface and more or less the same features as Apple’s popular tablet. Of course, Apple didn’t invent the tablet PC — it reinvented it.

It took Apple to figure out that tablets need an operating system designed for hand-held touch-screen devices. And since it already had an operating system for its touch-screen iPhone, it was pretty easy to extend that to a larger screen with a similar form-factor.

In late June, just three months after it released the iPad, Apple announced that it had sold 3 million of the devices. But Apple’s continued dominance in the tablet business depends, in part, on what other choices people have, and soon there will be lots of choices. There are several Android tablets in the works, and HP has announced plans to build a tablet or “slate” PC running the Palm Web OS that it inherited when it acquired Palm.

I have no doubt that HP will build a classy tablet PC that at least approximates the fit and finish of the iPad, and I am equally convinced at least some of the Android tablets will be shoddy imports that are a bit rough around the edges. But there will also be some excellent Android tablets, perhaps from Motorola, HTC and other well-respected phone vendors. And collectively, they are likely to gain a pretty big share of the tablet market.

Despite its likely loss of dominance, I’m not shedding any tears for Apple. Despite some small setbacks, Apple stock is near its all-time high, and last month the company reported record profits.

So let that be a lesson. Just because you can be copied doesn’t mean you shouldn’t innovate. As Apple has proved, you don’t have to dominate to do well.

This article originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

Hewlett Packard CEO Mark Hurd was forced to resign on Friday after an internal investigation at HP revealed that he had allegedly filed false expense reports for meals and travel and authorized payments to a woman, 50 year old part time actress Jodie Fisher, that were not legitimate business expenses.

On Sunday Larry Magid spoke to the BBC World Service’s Russel Padmore to provide some perspective on Hurd’s tenure at HP and the company’s future without Hurd.

I fully admit that my BBC radio interview might not be quite as entertaining as Jodie Fisher’s demo reel but I like to think that it’s a bit more enlightening on the business implications of Hurd’s resignation.

Larry on BBC World Service World Business News with Russell Padmore

(full program: HP Segment begins 40 seconds in)

A few weeks ago, the big news in the smartphone world was that Apple set the world right by agreeing to give away free cases to iPhone 4 users to prevent them from touching a crack in the phone’s antenna which could lower call quality. This week, we’re hearing from the other camps.

Research in Motion, the Canadian company that makes the BlackBerry on Tuesday announced a new model designed to compete with the iPhone and phones running Google’s Android operating system. The BlackBerry Torch is RIM’s first phone with a true touch-screen interface, similar to iPhone and Android phones. As the first phone to use the new BlackBerry 6 operating system, it even comes with a web browser that lets you use two fingers to “pinch” the screen to zoom in and out.

The Torch has a new media player, enhanced media synchronization and “universal search” which means that a single search tool can be used to find anything on your phone or on the web including contacts, apps, personal data and websites.

The phone also comes configured with BlackBerry’s “App World,” which is RIM’s answer to the Apple App store and Google’s Android Marketplace.

The hardware isn’t as impressive as some smartphones. The 3.2 inch (360 by 480 pixel) screen is tiny compared to the 4.3 inch screen on Sprint’s HTC Evo 4G and Verizon’s Motorola Droid X, and while the Torch’s 5 megapixel camera is more than adequate for photos that are likely to be viewed on screen and not

printed, it’s not quite as impressive at the Evo’s 8 megapixel camera. Of course, the Torch is a bit smaller than those gargantuan phones from Motorola and HTC which will be a real plus for some.

The new BlackBerry also has an optical trackpad that you can use in addition to the touch-screen to move about. And because it has a slide-out physical keyboard, users of older BlackBerry devices should be able to get up to speed quickly.

The new Torch goes on sale at AT&T stores on Aug. 12th. Like most smartphones, it will cost $199 for those willing to sign a 2-year contract. Right now, AT&T is the exclusive carrier for the phone but I’m pretty sure that RIM will bring out similar phones for other carriers within a few months.

If you plan to spend much time in Saudi Arabia or United Arab Emirates, you might consider not taking the Torch or any other BlackBerry. Both countries have said that they plan to ban the use of BlackBerry messaging and web browsing for “security reasons” because the data is encrypted and processed outside of their borders. “Security,” I think, is a generic term to mean that the countries won’t be able to spy as easily on people who use the phones. There is some speculation that India and Bahrain could be next in banning the use of these functions.

Another development this week is that the latest version of Google’s Android operating system called “Froyo” (officially Android 2.2) is beginning to roll out to users of the HTC Evo and is slated to soon be available for Motorola Droid and Droid X. I downloaded Froyo to the HTC Evo and didn’t notice any major changes in the interface, but the phone does feel a bit faster now; plus it now has the ability to display Flash video. The improved speed is the result of a new compiler which, according to Google, improves performance by “2-5 x” compared to Android 2.1.

There are also improvements to the camera app with a new user interface to make it easier to zoom or control the flash as well as an easier way to zoom images.

The new version also supports the ability to turn some Android phones into a portable hotspot so that you can use the phone’s cellular data connection to provide Wi-Fi for up to eight devices (depending on the phone).

With recent upgrades from RIM, Apple and Android, the only major smartphone platform left to upgrade is Windows Mobile. And for that, we have to wait only a few months. In February, Microsoft announced that it has completely overhauling its mobile operating system with plans to ship the new Windows Mobile 7 sometime before this year’s holiday season.

Apple and Hewlett-Packard are very different but have a few things in common. Both companies are not only doing very well in today’s PC market but also have played an important role in the evolution of the personal computer ecosystem — Apple more so on the PC side and HP on the printer side.

HP over the years has designed some of the best-selling and most innovative laser and ink jet printers, and has made a lot of money selling ink for those printers. Apple, as we all know, has been an innovator when it comes to its Macintosh PCs as well as the operating systems and application software that runs on those computers. But even on the PC side, HP has been innovative.

Because of the enormous success of the iPhone, people tend to associate touch in general and multitouch in particular with Apple. But it’s worth noting that HP introduced a touch-screen PC in 1983 and demonstrated its own multitouch devices before Apple introduced the iPhone. Like the iPhone and now the iPad, HP’s multitouch allowed you to use your finger to move, resize and manipulate on-screen objects.

Other similarities between the companies are that both are in the smartphone business, and HP will soon have devices that compete with Apple’s iPad. HP didn’t develop its own smartphone but recently acquired Palm not just for its phones but also for the Web OS operating system that Palm developed for its Pre and Pixi phones. HP has said it also will use the Web OS

on tablet or “slate” PCs aimed at consumers. Last week, HP announced that will also offer a Windows 7 slate PC for the business market.

But while there are similarities between the two companies, there are also some significant differences that came to mind as I listened to HP personal systems group Vice President Phil McKinney speak last week at the Always On Summit at Stanford.

Unlike Apple executives, who never talk about unannounced products and rarely even share concepts for products with the public, McKinney was happy to talk about the types of products that he thinks can make a difference. For example, during his presentation and our subsequent interview, he touted a concept product that HP has been talking about for five years but has never built — a wristwatch that provides connectivity for whatever devices you may want to use.

Although the watch he envisions would have better battery life and better reception than today’s mobile phones, the idea is similar to what some mobile phones, including the Palm Pre, Motorola Droid X and HTC Evo, now provide — a Wi-Fi hotspot to give Internet access to nearby devices. The notion is that each device we buy won’t need cellular connectivity as long as we have personal hub to get all of our devices online.

McKinney shared other ideas as well. For example, he thinks it makes sense to disengage the device from the display. He envisions a world where mobile devices don’t have their own display screens but instead wirelessly transfer still and moving images to whatever screens are nearby. As for devices, he said, “it’s more about what you carry with you in terms of storage and the apps you chose to use.”

He didn’t raise the issue of keyboards and user interfaces, but it strikes me that they, too, can be separated from devices. We’ve already seen some creative though not terribly well implemented products like the Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard that projects a virtual keyboard onto a desktop. There are also roll-up keyboards but they too are very clunky. But the keyboards on most handheld devices are even harder to use, which is one reason we still need laptops and netbooks.

As far as screens are concerned, the most creative idea — and it’s an old one — is to wear eyeglasses that are actually video screens. These have been around for years and even though they seem like a good idea, there is probably a very good reason why they’ve never taken off.

I don’t think we’re anywhere near ready for mobile devices that don’t have screens or input devices, but I am intrigued by the idea. Which brings me back to HP vs. Apple. If anyone can come up with a way to make this happen, it will be one or both of these Silicon Valley companies. And if history is any indication, HP is likely to be instrumental in coming up with some of the early designs, but Apple could be the one to release a killer product that people might actually want to use.

by Larry Magid
This article originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

Facebook’s announcement last week that it passed the 500 million mark reminded me that the concept of a “face book” is not unique to Facebook.com.

Long before computers and the Internet, the term was used to describe printed books that included pictures and brief descriptions of students. I’ve read that founder Mark Zuckerberg’s high school, Phillips Exeter Academy, had a printed publication called “The Photo Address Book,” which students referred to as “The Face Book.”

My children’s elementary school didn’t have a face book but it did have a printed student directory. And probably because it was in print, and not online, I never heard parents express concern about the possible negative implications of having a printed book with the names, addresses and phone numbers of young children and their parents. Perhaps that was because we all appreciated how the book made it easy for us to reach other families who were part of our school “network,” or maybe it was because we weren’t quite so sensitive about privacy issues back then.

While Facebook.com might not look much like those original photo books and directories, it does help us find and communicate with people who share a common bond. Indeed, based on “friend” requests I’ve received on Facebook from former classmates in college, high school and even elementary school, it truly is a replacement for that old printed ”face book.” It’s also starting to replace those venerable high school yearbooks, and its impact on alumni inspired Time magazine, last year to run a story “How Facebook is Affecting School Reunions.”

To commemorate its 500 millionth member, Facebook launched “Facebook Stories,” where members are encouraged to share their experiences. Although it’s clearly a self-serving move on the part of the company, it’s nevertheless a revealing glimpse into how people are using the service to connect. Stories are organized by location and by theme, including crime fighting, grief, movements, pets, causes, lost and found, religion, natural disasters and, of course, love. Kevin’s story is not uncommon: “Because of Facebook I found my long lost crush since grade 4 “… now I’m 23 years old. She’s now my girlfriend and soon to be wife.”

Look at Privacy from Both Sides Now

My guess is that Kevin was able to find his long-lost crush because she made at least a little personal information available either to everyone with access to Facebook or to friends of friends. I say this because Facebook has received a lot of negative publicity (including from me) about its privacy policies, which, by default, expose some personal information to everyone.

While I understand why a lot of people object to these defaults (I have argued that the disclosure of most personal information should be opt-in rather than opt-out), I can also see the other side to this. The default settings that disclose users’ photos, posts, bios and family connections makes it easier for people like Kevin to make sure that the 23-year-old woman he found on Facebook is the same person as that fourth-grader he once fancied. This is especially the case for people with common names.

I met my wife a long time ago by one of the old-fashioned methods — at work. But I’ve certainly unearthed a lot of old friends on Facebook. In many cases, we found each other because we were “friends of friends.” For example, someone I worked with in the late ’70s “friended” me last year, and once I accepted him as a friend, I started browsing through his friends and came across a number of people we knew in common.

As a result of this one friend, I ended up “friending” several of our mutual friends and — two weeks ago — my wife and I spent the night on Cape Cod with one of them and her husband. I had posted a note on my profile that I was visiting Cape Cod and because she had access to my “news feed,” she knew I was nearby and sent me a message inviting us to stay with them.

That little reunion on the Cape would never have happened if my friend and I had maximum privacy settings turned on. We would have never found each other had either of us restricted our basic information to “friends” only. And had I used the “customize” feature to further restrict access to my news feed, she might never might have known I was on the Cape.

None of this is to suggest that watchdog groups and public officials shouldn’t continue to scrutinize Facebook’s privacy policies, or that people should uncritically accept Facebook’s default privacy settings. I think it makes sense to look at your settings periodically and think about what you want to expose and to whom. To that end, I created a tutorial on Facebook privacy that you can view at connectsafely.org/facebook.

Disclosure: Facebook is a supporter of ConnectSafely.org, a nonprofit Internet safety organization where I serve as co-director.