Reports surfaced yesterday, and now we have the official word from Facebook. Users will now have to opt-in to share purchases via Beacon:

Stories about actions users take on external websites will continue to be presented to users at the top of their News Feed the next time they return to Facebook. These stories will now always be expanded on their home page so they can see and read them clearly.

Users must click on “OK” in a new initial notification on their Facebook home page before the first Beacon story is published to their friends from each participating site. We recognize that users need to clearly understand Beacon before they first have a story published, and we will continue to refine this approach to give users choice.

If a user does nothing with the initial notification on Facebook, it will hide after some duration without a story being published. When a user takes a future action on a Beacon site, it will reappear and display all the potential stories along with the opportunity to click “OK” to publish or click “remove” to not publish.

Users will have clear options in ongoing notifications to either delete or publish. No stories will be published if users navigate away from their home page. If they delay in making this decision, the notification will hide and they can make a decision at a later time.

Clicking the “Help” link next to the story will take users to a full tutorial that explains exactly how Beacon works, with screenshots showing each step in the process.

It seems like a win for users, although I’m sure the ramifications of this announcement will be dissected and considered in the hours and days to come. First impressions though: the immediate defaulting to privacy is sure to appease many critics, but the details may still raise some concerns, for example Facebook is still capturing this data, the only difference now is that it wont automatically share it. Will this be enough? advertisers will still be able to tap into Beacon for purchasing preferences and other details based on activity on Facebook so the privacy option is really only skin deep.

(via AllFacebook)

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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I first met Sarah Meyers when she crashed our 2006 party at August Capital. She was booted, but got enough video footage to make this video. This year she was back at the party, but as an invitee - see one of her videos here.

Meyers now lives in New York, and has been working on a new live daily tech show. It hasn’t officially launched, but her first shows started streaming earlier this week at PopSnap.net.

The show shows live daily. A time will eventually be nailed down, she says, but for now you have to check the calendar (powered by 30Boxes) to see exactly when it goes on the air. When the show is not being shown live, the last show is played on a loop. Eventually, clicking on the video will start it from the beginning.

Users can comment on the show via an embedded meebo chat widget. The show itself is powered by Mogulus, a live streaming video startup we covered back in June.

The show is clearly still working through some kinks, so be kind. But Sarah’s charisma comes out strongly in these first few episodes, and it’s clear that she will have a large following of loyal viewers.

Check out the show now and give your feedback through the chat widget. The site will officially launch in December, and archives will become available then. We are going to be one of the charter sponsors of the show.

Update: Well, she shut the site down.

Meebo

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Mogulus

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Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

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The idea behind it was that it was going to be an "open-space networking event
where everyone you meet is a potential match for your talent or idea."

It was basically a nextNY networking event. Unfortunately one that was short on drinks.

They had some tools to facilitate the networking

• Color-coded nametags

• Demospace: If you brought your laptop you can show off your goods anywhere
  

• Pitch wall= physical job board.

Tonight was the first MatchupCamp in NYC put on by the NextNY crew with Eran Hammer-Lahav and Charlie O'Donnell leading the crew. The event was held at the For Your Imagination studios and Silicon Alley Insider provided the funds.

Turnout was great with about a 70/30 mix of startup/marketing and developers. Didn't see many designers but there were a lot of startups representing. I tried to capture all of the request flyers below. My suggestion for next time is to have people put their pictures with their flyers for easy identification. Someone else also suggested that startups get 5 minutes on a mic to go over who they are and what they are looking for. I would say shorten it to 2 minutes, no demo.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and said hi - I grabbed many cards and will have more reviews coming as the products and services move into actually functioning prototypes.

Additional recaps:

• Michael Galpert

Here are some photos from the event (view all photos):

Here are the videos I captured:

Welcome video:

Wan Hsi Yuan - 8coupons.com (www.8coupons.com):

Jason Amster - BeenVerified (www.beenverified.com):

Kareem Kouddous - beYOU.tv (www.beyou.tv):

Looking forward to the next Matchup Camp!

I’m extremely excited to announce that I’m officially a chef. Well, not a chef you’d find in a typical kitchen, but more like a chef that you’d find over at The Media Kitchen. MediaWeek and PaidContent have released the news and I guess I can go public with my new role.

For those of you who know me well, I’m infatuated with the white space that exists between marketing, technology, and media. In my past entrepreneurial endeavors, I have innovated within this white space almost exclusively. Whether it was working with some of the original architects for the DART advertising server, executing a campaign across one of the top student websites in the 90s, helped land one of the largest online-only accounts in ‘96 to an interactive agency in Silicon Alley, or co-founding a world leading in-game advertising company with several other amazing co-founders, my experience has always been around brands and how they should interact with digital media.

Corporate entrepreneurship is what is next for me. I’m tasked with joining the senior ranks of The Media Kitchen to build out their entire digital media practice, from start to finish. I’ve got some incredibly talented and gifted individuals who have paved the path so far and they’ll be teaching me the ins/outs of the agency. As Mike Shields worte in the MediaWeek piece, I wanted to have the ability to help mold digital media when the opportunity is still around. By participating in the multiple conversations occuring now between the tech giants and the emerging startups, I can gain invaluable insight into the space and help The Media Kitchen position themselves as one of the most agile and forward thinking agencies.

I do bring an entirely different perspective than most agencies would staff in my rank. The perspective I am bringing to TMK is my entire thesis going forward: you cannot accurately and adequately plan digital media without understanding technology and emerging companies at the lowest level. Innovation creates new technologies and touchpoints where marketing can intersect, but unless you know how to harness these technologies and what they can do for your clients and the greater community, it’s a mute point. I am going to attempt to lead the charge at The Media Kitchen to understand this and build an entire group that believes in this at it’s core.

With this all said, I encourage ANY startup or emerging company to contact me through this site and I’d love to hear from you. My team is always on the lookout for new opportunities to join the marketing conversation and if your startup or emerging company has opportunities, we’d love to chat. If you’re passing through New York or wanted to know how an ad agency works, I encourage you to reach out.

To an amazing future and much more to come in the coming weeks,

Darren Herman

Snooth announced $1 million in angel funding from the company’s initial backers as well as a new group of international investors. The New York-based wine review site plans to spend the money on international expansion.

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NY-based Snooth has announced a $1 million angel round of financing today. This is in addition to their previous $300k funding round raised in December 2006.

Snooth is a data aggregator - they pull in content from thousands of sources. Snooth claims to be a "social shopping site" and their recommendation engine also provides customized selections based on stated preferences and user feedback. The more information a user gives on wines they enjoy, the more personalized and detailed the recommendations become. Snooth also maintains a wine database with over 1.9 million reviews for over 300,000 wines.

The new funds will be used to scale the development team, integrate the current backlog of merchants that have already partnered with Snooth, and add new retailers worldwide.

Check out our write-up of Snooth from the NY Social Networking Meetup from earlier this month.

Tomorrow (11/28), I will be at New York???s first MatchupCamp, an event I am helping to organize. MatchupCamp is matchmaking for startups. It is a unique networking events for those with an itch to join or start a tech startup in the New York area. Organized by nextNY, MatchupCamp is all about sharing ideas and skills in hopes to make some useful connections. There are many networking events in NY, but none focused on those ready to get their hands dirty and build something new. If you are in town, come and check it out. If you want to talk about Nouncer and the positions available, please find me there (or drop me a line).

I will be at Internet Identity Workshop next week in Mountain View, CA (12/3-5). It will OAuth???s primetime among many other great ideas and technologies. We plan to make OAuth Core 1.0 final and release it to the world. If you haven???t been keeping up, we???ve recently published OAuth Core 1.0 Draft 7 which is very stable and has a growing developer community and code libraries. Nouncer???s OAuth endpoint are due this week in the new alpha environment.