In response to mounting concern from users and the media, as well as a member of the Senate, Facebook unveiled simpler privacy options yesterday.

Mashable Founder and CEO Pete Cashmore appeared on PBS today to discuss Facebook’s response to user backlash. While he agrees that Facebook’s decision to simplify privacy settings was a good one, he thinks the company should have gone a step further and made its Instant Personalization feature opt-in instead of opt-out.

To hear the full discussion, watch the video below. (Note: Pete appears at around 4:30).

Do you think Facebook needs to go further to address users’ concerns?

Tags: facebook, pbs, pete cashmore, privacy

This week, social media news was dominated by three things: Facebook privacy concerns, Twitter troubles and one seriously golden girl, Betty White.

If you missed anything over the course of the last seven days — we know, the thought of losing all your Twitter followers was so tragic as to be totally debilitating — we’ve got all the top stories right here. Read up, get educated and wow all your Twitter followers (who have been thankfully restored) with your ample knowledge of all things social media and tech.

1). Betty White on “Saturday Night Live”: Every Single Sketch: Betty White hosted Saturday Night Live, realizing the dreams of more than 500,000 Facebook users. Reception from fans and critics alike was mostly positive, and a day later White’s gig led Google searches and Twitter conversations.

2). Twitter Bug Lets You Control Who Follows You: Twitter had an embarrassing bug on its hands –- one that allowed users to make anyone follow them.

3). Another Next Generation iPhone Found, Dissected: A company generally well-known for its secrecy, Apple has been losing the next generation iPhone left and right; this time, a slew of images and a video of another iPhone 4G prototype appeared on a Vietnamese site.

4). AT&T Has iPhone Exclusivity Until 2012: It was speculative before given the lack of independent confirmation, but now apparently Apple has gone on record to confirm that the original deal signed with AT&T for iPhone exclusivity back in 2007 was a five-year deal.

5). Google and Verizon to Launch Tablet Computer: Add a big new twist to the tablet computing wars. The Wall Street Journal is confirming that Google plans to bring a tablet computer to market with Verizon Wireless.

6). NYU Students Raise More than $100,000 to Build Facebook Alternative: Four New York University students have a vision to build Diaspora, “an open source personal web service that will put individuals in control of their data,” or essentially the anti-Facebook.

7). Adobe Responds to Apple’s Attacks on Flash with New Ad Campaign: Two weeks ago, Steve Jobs published his now infamous “Thoughts on Flash” memo on Apple.com. Adobe has now responded with its own message, a message of “love,” “choice” and “open markets.”

8). Obama: iPads Make Information a Distraction: Although before his inauguration U.S. President Barack Obama was rarely seen without his BlackBerry, he has criticized the current crop of popular consumer gadgets for helping make information a “distraction.”

9). BlackBerry Tablet to Launch This Year: Research in Motion is set to enter the tablet computing market with plans to unveil a 8.9-inch BlackBerry device later this year.

10. Android Now Outselling iPhone: Smartphones carrying Google’s Android operating system outsold the iPhone in the first quarter of 2010, according to new research from NPD.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Antagain

Tags: adobe, android, apple, blackberry, facebook, Flash, Google, ipad, iphone, television, twitter

Not content with the glorious victory that was Betty White hosting Saturday Night Live, the denizens of Facebook have now turned their eyes to still more lofty goals: the Emmys and the Oscars.

As of right now, “Getting Betty White to Host the Academy Awards” is the most popular page, with 53,023 members at the time of posting. Then there’s “Betty White to Host the Oscars,” with 12,600 members. Both pages appear to be fan labors of love, much like “Betty White to Host SNL (please?)!”, and they’re already garnering copious amounts of media attention.

And then there’s “Betty White Must Host 2010 Emmys!”, which was launched by blogger Abe Gurko and has a little more than 2,000 fans. Gurko told us his reasoning for nominating the Golden Girls star: “I think that the Emmy awards shows over the years have been horrible. Bad writing, coupled with bad timing by the hosts. As these award shows have decreased in ratings, who better to put on hosting — or even co-hosting duties with Jimmy Fallon — than Betty. To give the show a much needed boost. Betty IS television.”

Just a few days ago, the Los Angeles Times covered this trend, pronouncing in the headline: Hipster Culture is Having a Senior Moment. While I would assert that the affinity for elderly stars etc goes far beyond the “hipster” set, I would agree that older folk — and especially White — are, indeed, becoming what amounts to an Internet meme.

Fans are enjoying the power they have come to wield, even when striving for goals that initially seem rather lofty (like having an older, less culturally relevant star host a major awards show). See also: Can This Onion Ring Get More Fans Than Justin Bieber?

Sure, White does have legit fans who want to see her succeed (Gurko and Co. seem extremely sincere), and, yes, she kicked serious ass on SNL last weekend, but, in the end, getting behind Betty seems like it’s becoming a bit of a trend.

It remains to be seen how effective campaigns like this will be as more and more continue to launch.

Tags: facebook, humor, pop culture, television

While we didn’t watch the entire show, Betty White demonstrated that she is still a class act. You can watch the opening monologue below, and the entire episode on the NBC site.

This week was positively schizophrenic when it comes to social media news: web coverage of major news events, Google search’s makeover, Twitter innovations, Facebook privacy gaffes, Apple-centric controversy and, of course, the Webbys.

If you’re still reeling from yesterday’s market madness and have subsequently forgotten everything you learned over the past seven days, never fear — Mashable has a list of the top 12 social media and tech stories of the week.

1. Google Search Gets a Major Overhaul – After months of testing and speculation, Google is finally releasing the next edition of Google search to the public, complete with a left-hand menu bar and even an update to the well-known Google logo.

2. Facebook Chat Down for Maintenance Following Privacy Lapse – The feature was presumably disabled following a report that exposed a Facebook security bug that allowed users to access and view friends’ live chats, friend requests and friends in common.

3. iPad Coming to Nine More Countries on May 28 – Residents of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK, rejoice: The iPad will be available in your country on May 28.

4. Google Adds App Store for Analytics – Google is giving users even more tools for finding and understanding their website’s visitor stats. The company has just announced they’re opening a full App Gallery for Google Analytics.

5. Twitter to Launch Embeddable Tweets – Screenshots of tweets begone — you can now embed individual tweets on your website. There’s still some bugs, though.

6. Mashable Wins 3 Webby Awards – Mashable is honored to have won three Webby Awards in the categories Best Cultural Blog (Webby Award) and Best Business Blog (Webby Award and People’s Voice). We’re thankful to all the readers who voted for us.

7. Chrome Gains, IE Slumps in Browser Wars – Google Chrome was the fastest growing web browser for the fifth month in a row in analytics company Net Applications’ April market report, while Microsoft Internet Explorer again lost market share.

8. More Fallout at Digg: 10% of Staff Laid Off – Social news site Digg has just laid off 10% of its staff according to a representative from the company. The move comes a month after Jay Adelson’s sudden departure as CEO, in which he was replaced by company founder Kevin Rose.

9. Greece Riots as Seen on Twitter, YouTube – As riots explode in Greece, pictures and videos are flying around the social web, shared from news sources and folks on the ground.

10. Nashville Flooding: Twitter and YouTube Tell the Story – Nashville and other parts of Tennessee were hit by the region’s greatest rainfall in recorded history this weekend, resulting in a severe flood that has devastated the region and even swept away buildings and cars.

11. Apple Has Sold 1 Million iPads – Apple has officially confirmed it has sold 1 million iPads. The company sold its one millionth iPad on Friday, April 30, just 28 days after the device’s release.

12. Apple Isn’t Laughing at Ellen’s iPhone Commercial Parody – After airing a send-up of an iPhone commercial on Monday’s Ellen DeGeneres Show, the comedienne apologized for the parody at the behest of, well, Apple.

Tags: apple, facebook, Google, humor, ipad, iphone, television, trending, twitter, webbys-2010, youtube

I imagine this is similar to what PlayTV will be able to offer, but with a tight Facebook integration, maybe it will end up a little closer to how FB Connect is implemented on CNN during important events like the President’s inauguration.  We’ll see and keep you updated as more news is reported.

The Friendless User

The beginning of the episode starts off by highlighting the problems with having no friends. A 3rd grader named Kip Jordee doesn’t have any friends and hasn’t had any for three months. After feeling bad for Kip, Kyle decides to add him.

Awkward Parents

Stan’s dad tries to add him as a friend. It gets pretty awkward until Stan finally gives in and adds his dad who’s being persistent about being online buddies.

The Relationship Status

Stan’s girlfriend gets angry because his relationship status is set to “Single” despite being in a relationship. He tries to defend it as that was the default status and comes up with excuses but his girlfriend can help but get angry. Later his girlfriend gets pissed off after a random girl comments on Stan’s profile that she “likes his bunny outfit”.

Mad Friends

Cartman hosts his own “Mad Friends” podcast which essentially turns friendships into stock shares. This is probably the best clip I’ve seen from the episode as Cartman attempts to describe his own analysis of social value. The result of the podcast is that Kyle starts getting unfriended after Cartman instructs others to unfriend him because he is no longer cool for adding the “loser” 3rd grader Kip Jordee.

I Need A Friend!

Kyle explains to Stan that he needs help on his Farmville farm after he runs out of friends for being labeled “uncool”.

Conclusion

The episode turns out to be pretty entertaining as it makes a joke about every aspect of Facebook. The episode also makes a quick joke about Chatroulette. If you want to view the full episode you can check it out here.

However Facebook’s model is a smart one as they are going after high profile sites which end up generating more press coverage, building buzz for Facebook Connect. In addition to ABC’s FastForward trailer, ABC will also be launching a new video player tomorrow which leverages Facebook Connect to created a social experience as visitors watch full episodes of ABC content from the ABC website.

This sounds somewhat similar to Hulu’s integration, however it appears that this may be more integrated with the actual video player. We won’t know for sure until tomorrow, but this definitely sounds like what we would expect out of a truly interactive social viewing experience. Facebook is also highlighting a number of their other television integrations in today’s blog post.

It’s an impressive feat and now Ustream is looking to capitalize on all the attention with their new live stream Facebook program. Numerous brands have partnered with the company to do streaming video. One of the largest streams I’ve seen to date was the Techcrunch 50 however numerous others like Matisyahu, Lance Armstrong, Reba McEntire, and many others have used the service.

Facebook also streamed a developer garage where Mark Zuckerberg was speaking as well as Sheryl Sandberg’s recent keynote at Advertising week. While the communications department behind many of these companies are hailing the implementations as new “Facebook applications”, many, like Jesse Stay, have noticed that their nothing more than Facebook’s stream with Ustream off to the side (or comparable embeddable video products).

While there are numerous ways to integrate live video events on Facebook, it’s clear that Ustream is pushing hard to be the default platform to integrate with. While it’s difficult to claim that social networks (and Facebook in particular) have become a replacement for television, live video content can now come from anywhere on the web and that’s most taking away plenty of eyeballs from T.V.