Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Zuckerberg admits Facebook mistakes; NBA returns on Christmas Day

ICT stuff. Facebook and the Federal Trade Commission have reached a settlement over consumer deception charges dating back to 2009. The commission claimed that the social networking giant made public information it promised to keep private, thanks to changes in site terms. According to the terms of the deal, user feedback will be required before the site makes changes to policies for sharing data. Mark Zuckerberg addressed his company's on-going privacy issues, admitting to "a bunch of mistakes" and assured users that Facebook is making a "clear and formal long-term commitment" to privacy tools. (source: The New York Times)

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One-shot. Hoop fans couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas present. The NBA lockout is finally over and the season opens on Christmas Day. As my buddy Earl puts it, “there is a Santa.” And if David Stern wants to mitigate the damage to his legacy caused by the protracted lockout, then he’ll keep the NBA’s original Christmas Day schedule and open the season where we left off last June: Mavs vs. Heat. 

Actually, I had always wanted a later start to the 2011-2012 season, being among those who think that a shortened season would help veterans like Tim Duncan (and, unfortunately, Kobe as well). While it’s highly unlikely, there's nothing more I'd rather see than the greatest power forward ever winning a 5th title. Yet my initial excitement was quickly tempered when I learned that there would be no hard salary cap in the new CBA. And after reading this article by ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, the excitement turned into disappointment. See, I’m one of those old school guys who’d rather see superstars go head-to-head rather than play side-by-side. Needless to say, I was extremely turned off by LeBron’s decision and was among those who loathed the Miami Heat. Anyway, the basic premise behind a hard cap is to level the playing field between small and big market teams by placing a predetermined limit as to how much each team can spend for players' salaries. In other words, it’s all about parity. Having three superstars team up means you’ll have one elite team (Miami) at the expense of two mediocre ones (Cleveland and Toronto). Given the way things are going—with persistent rumors of Chris Paul wanting to join Melo and Amare in NY—it is not inconceivable that in 5 years’ time there will only be 6 competitive teams. Never a good thing for sports where the underlying principle should always be competition. I really thought the owners would take a tougher stand on this since I assumed that they would naturally want to protect their own interests. But at the end of the day, I guess it’s all about the money. The owners got their 50-50 split of the BRI and that’s all that mattered, disparity and the possibility of getting screwed a la Cleveland notwithstanding.



Francis Paolo Tiopianco, Entry #1

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