Facebook Stupidity and a Heroic Kid

Two things to talk about in today's post, both from the same story.

A teenage Michigan boy was a hero recently, when he let a desperate woman into his house and then helped fend off her attacker.

The unidentified woman was apparently kidnapped, raped, and then the perpetrator was transporting her somewhere in her car when she jumped out and escaped. She saw the light on at the boy's house (his father had left to pick up his fiance and so the boy was taking care of his two younger siblings) and pounded on the door, calling for help. The man was chasing her.

With quick thinking, the boy let her in, made sure all the doors were locked, and didn't let the man's shouted threats intimidate him. He called his dad and the woman called 9-11. After an aborted attempt to set fire to the house, the man ran away, and was later killed by police.

It's an inspiring story, and I encourage you to go to the link above and read the details. The kid is a hero.

The story also prompted something else to pop into my mind, though, and it's the real reason for this post.

Stupid Facebook behaviour.

What am I talking about? The asshole rapist (now thankfully dead) posted to his Facebook account just a short time before getting killed, with the status update saying "Well folkes im about to get shot. Peace"

Is that the stupid behaviour? No, that's not it. In this day of social media, these perpetrators always do something like that. It may be stupid, but it's expected.

No, I'm talking about his friends.

Seriously, folkes...sorry, folks. If you ever have the bad luck to know somebody who has gone off the deep end, or who is just plain evil and you didn't realize it, and they post something like this? DON'T COMMENT ON IT!

There were 25 comments at the time of the Daily Mail screen grab, and four of them were displayed. One guy says "I don't know what I feel." Excuse me?

Another one is somehow looking for the cause of this behaviour, saying that the guy is a "sweet person" and something must have set him off. Funny, but this kind of gets in the way of the "sweet guy" impression:

"Ramsey had been on parole since last summer after serving the minimum five-year prison sentence for assault with intent to do great bodily harm, according to Corrections Department online records."

Yeah, sounds like a really sweet guy.

Another one wonders what happened to the guy he grew up with.

And the last one just made me laugh (in a seriously "WTF???" way). "Very unfortunate." And then she tags him! Like he's going to see it.

I'm not saying any of these feelings aren't legitimate. Who knows what we would be feeling if we suddenly discover that one of our friends did something like this. The guy who doesn't know what he feels? That's perfectly legitimate and logical. Sometimes we don't know how we feel. We thought we knew this person. And it turns out we don't.

So, feelings = legitimate.

But posting that on Facebook? Especially in response to a post like this?

Do you really want to take the chance that your name will be plastered all over the world in an article like this? When you're still trying to work out your feelings about a traumatic event?

Take a deep breath and realize that maybe Facebook isn't the proper place to work through turbulent emotions like that.

At least it doesn't appear anybody "liked" the post.

That would have been cringeworthy.

The Consequences of Being Stupid on the Internet

In the olden days, if you did something disrespectful or stupid, you would only really hear about it if somebody saw you. If somebody did see you, your reputation in the village may get a bit tarnished, but perhaps you could appear in front of the Village Council, make amends somehow, and go on your way? People might look at you funny for a while. But over time, if you behaved yourself, your offense may have been forgotten.

That is, unless you created a leaflet with a pencil drawing of you doing the stupid thing, hand-drawn about 5000 times, posted it to the notice board on the village green and dropped it off at every house in every village for miles around.

Even then, nobody in, say, Moscow would have any idea what you did if you happened to go there.

Now? Being stupid can place a permanent stain on your reputation, cost you your job, and maybe even prevent you from getting more jobs unless you do a massive, public mea culpa.

Yes, we have this thing called social media now. There seems to be a virus running rampant throughout social media, though, because it seems to infect millions of people and make them broadcast their stupidity for all the world to see.

If you were on the Internet at all this last week, you've seen the saga of two non-profit organization workers who have killed their careers. Lindsey Stone and Jamie Schuh were on a company-sponsored trip to Washington D.C. As part of their trip, they decided to take in some of the sights, including Arlington National Cemetery. To be specific, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It's very nice that they were patriotic enough to go pay their respects to the fallen like that.

Except that's not what they did.

For those who don't click on the link (and why do I provide them if you're not going to click on them???), here's what they did, with Lindsey in front of the camera and Jamie behind it.

Real cool, eh? Even more stupidly, Lindsey posted it on her Facebook page.

And it went viral. Scathing criticism came from all over the web at their blatant disrespect to our fallen warriors. Lindsey was stunned that it caused this much controversy. She said it was just part of her and her friend being their typical douchebag selves, "challenging authority in general." They took a picture of her smoking in front of no-smoking sign, for heaven's sake! This is the same thing, right? It was all in good fun.

We're cool, right?

No, we're not cool.

Criticism continued to pour in, until the organization they worked for, LIFE (Living Independently Forever) eventually terminated them (or asked for their resignation, it's unclear which, but they have basically lost their jobs).

What is it about people and social media? People are wont to post their most stupid moments for all to see. Called in sick to work? You probably shouldn't be posting that picture of you at the Cardinals game the same night, or you down at the beach sunbathing.

What we used to keep hidden, we now showcase to everybody. Even if you keep your Facebook profile private, a picture is inevitably going to get out if you're being an idiot. Remember the jerk who made a video of himself yelling at the girl at Chick-Fil-A a few months ago? He was yelling at her for the company's contributions to anti-gay organizations. Whether you agree or disagree with Chick-Fil-A's owners, what does it say about you that you take it out on a minimum-wage worker at the drive-through window?

It says you're an asshole. And then when you post it online, you tell everybody in the world that you're an asshole.

When it gets out who you are and where you work, the company you work for is not going to want to be associated with you. Unless you're unionized (don't get me started on that), the company has every right to let you go for bringing their name down into the mud with you.

For those of you crying "free speech!" very loudly, all that says is that the government can't lock you up for speaking. The First Amendment does not protect you from other consequences of your actions.

On the other hand, it is a fair question to ask about whether or not a lot of people over-react to stuff like this. When videos and pictures go viral, there's almost a pack mentality where everybody gangs up on the offender, hounding them off the Net and sometimes (as in this case) out of a job. Where do you draw the line there? Personally, I do think that having fun at the expense of the war dead (not just soldiers, but *dead* soldiers) is over the line.

It's also an unfortunate fact of life that this stuff tends to fly out of control. Why spark it to begin with? Especially when you are being an idiot? Whether or not people are right to go overboard, it happens. Why risk it?

So what is it? What is it about social media that draws out our inner idiot? Or do we all have inner idiots and social media just makes it easier to show them to everybody else? I guess the two ladies would have taken that picture even if they didn't have a place to showcase it. Maybe pass it around to all of their friends.

Or would they?

Is there an innate need for attention that brings this out? A kind of "look at me!" mentality that social media feeds off of?

Is it a virus? And if so, is there a cure?

I don't know. Personally, I think it's yet another sad reflection on society.

Both issues mentioned above are, actually.

Why be informed by something you don't trust?

(Thanks to Invicta Properties)

Last week, on one of the best Twitter blogs out there, AllTwitter, I saw an interesting post , which made me stop and think for a minute.

Apparently, Americans increasingly use social media of various types to stay informed, yet their trust level of social media is actually pretty low, according to a new study.

"The Allstate Corporation and National Journal surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults aged 18 and over, and found that while some 60 percent of Americans believe that the internet and social media has made it easier for them to stay informed as consumers, more than two-thirds (69 percent) believe that brands and political candidates are active on social media to advertise or because they want to collect information on their customers or supporters, rather than to engage."

So in other words, these people use social media, and feel more informed because they use social media.

Yet, they also mistrust what they're reading/seeing.

What am I missing here?

How can you be "better informed" if you don't believe what you're seeing?

Of course, I don't take everything I read on Twitter or Facebook (especially Facebook) as given, without at least checking it first. If a number of different sources are saying the same thing, then I'm more inclined to believe it.

But taking something with a grain of salt and not going off half-cocked about something is far different from not believing it. Because of that, I do feel that I'm better-informed because of social media, or at least Twitter (still not sure on the Facebook front).

The money part in that excerpt is that many people believe they are being manipulated or having their data collected rather than being engaged with on social media. I'm not sure what data collection they can do other than "number of Twitter followers" on Twitter, though Facebook could potentially be a bit more insidious.

The thing is, other than the data collection angle, I don't see how social media is any different than anything else in regards to how a company, politician, or what have you interacts with the public. Yes, they are using it for advertising. They're trying to get their message out.

So you see the message. You are informed because you know what the entity is trying to get across. And yet you mistrust that message because...why? Would you trust it any less if you saw it in a commercial?

There seems to be a disconnect between these two statistics, and I'm hoping that one of you can clear up my confusion.

Because I'm at a loss.

(Yes, I said "last week" at the top of this post. I realize I've been gone for a bit. Sorry about that)

When real-life death hits online

One of life's certainties, in addition to taxes, is death. Since the dawn of time, humans had to deal with not only the death of our loved ones, but the aftermath. Settling accounts. Changing our life to compensate for the loss.

Yes, we should always make arrangements so that our loved ones have as easy a time as possible in regards to settling our affairs.

In this day and age, with the rise of social media as well as other online fora where people can hang out and socialize, it becomes even more of an issue. I blogged about this before, but two recent articles on All Twitter made me think about it again.

The first article is called "When You Die in Real Life, Who Will Keep You Alive on Twitter?" and was written back in 2010. The reason I found it is because there is a new article up, dated May 22. Entitled "What Happens To Your Twitter When You Die? Creating A Social Media Will," this one talks about the nuts and bolts of things just a little bit more.

The first article talks about similar things to my earlier post (and I'm proud to say that mine came first, so you can't accuse me of thievery), about things like "who will notify your network if you should happen to die unexpectedly?" You've established a presence online, on Facebook and Twitter, or even a blog. You even have a following, friends that only know you from your online personality. I have numerous friends like that, all of whom have never met me. We correspond by email or via our social media sites, but that's it. Without going through my email box (which I guess is something she would have to do), my wife's not going to know how to get a hold of any of these people to tell them. Hopefully there's at least one person that's prominent enough that she would be able to let that person know and the other person can spread it.

As for accounts, the article makes a good point about having logins and passwords. Is your loved one going to be able to even get into your account in order to let those who care online know about your death?

A lot of that I covered in my previous post, but I love this line from Shea's blog:

"This is perhaps a subject that nobody likes to think about, but it’s a reality, and one that can force itself upon us at any moment. Like you, I plan to live forever, but just in case the worst happens, what preparations can you take to ensure that the people who care about you don’t just think you disappeared?

(And if you think this is ridiculous and your followers wouldn’t care, then you need to find different followers.)"

Really, if nobody cares what happens to you, why are they following in the first place?

I think the more recent article is even more interesting, because it talks about the ins and outs of your actual online presence. With identity theft a big problem these days, not to mention the possible pain of seeing your loved one coming up on Facebook searches and the like, it's a good idea to have somebody take care of your online presence when you die.

"Your Twitter is probably where you share posts from blogs that you may or may not own, and it’s likely linked to a bunch of other accounts as well. When you die, someone could potentially gain access to one of these accounts and be able to glean enough info to steal your identity. That’s bad enough when you’re alive, but SUPER annoying for your next of kin to try to sort out when you’re dead."

The blog gives a link to the USA.gov site with tips on not only writing wills, but writing "social media wills," which can include how each of your online accounts should be handled.

Much like a regular will makes your intentions known so that your loved ones don't have to worry about how to deal with your assets, a social media will helps them not have to worry about making decisions regarding things like your blog, your Twitter, and all of that.

Facebook, for example, you can either have your account deleted or they can create a "memorial" page where people can still see you and the stuff you did, but they can't add anything new to it. It also suggests that you actually have a social media executor who will take care of all of this, and it suggests making sure that he/she will get a copy of your death certificate because they he/she might need it in dealing with your various accounts.

This can be even more important if there is money involved, like if you've monetized your blog or if you have Paypal and stuff like that. If somebody gets into there and starts going crazy, your loved ones will have a lot of headaches to deal with that they would rather not have had.

It's all food for thought. I basically have only a couple, so I'm not sure if I'd go the whole formal executor route, but I would definitely think about making sure my accounts are accessible somewhere by my wife in case something were to happen to me.

Because you can never be too careful.

Like Something on Facebook? You Could Get Fired

Oh, how powerful Facebook has become. We all know that doing something stupid and then posting a picture of it on Facebook may affect your future job aspirations. Or even your current ones if you call in sick and then post photos of you living it up on the beach.

The Onion recently did a hilarious piece on how, due to Facebook and other social media, every conceivable Presidential candidate for the 2040 election is already unelectable due to what they've posted on social media sites.

But can you really get fired for just pushing that little "Like" button on a Facebook page, blog, or whatever?

Apparently you can.

A judge in Virginia has recently ruled that "Liking" something on Facebook is not protected free speech. (h/t: CNET)

That's right. If you "Like" something on Facebook that goes counter to your boss or company philosophy or whatever, this judge is saying you have no legal recourse if they fire you for it. You can say "I like stewed clams" and you're fine. But if you find a Facebook page extolling the virtues of stewed clams and click that little button, your clam-hating boss can fire you for it.

This came up when six workers in the sheriff's office in Virginia "Liked" Sheriff B.J. Roberts' opponent in his re-election bid in 2009.

Understandably miffed, he let them all go. The workers sued, and believe it or not, Roberts has won the case. Roberts says that they were fired for other reasons, but the basis of their suit was that their First Amendment rights had been violated. Judge Raymond A. Jackson said "Whoa, Nelly! Hold on a minute."

Actually, he didn't say that (but wouldn't that be funny?)

This is a bit more accurate:

"While public employees are allowed to speak as citizens on matters of public concern, Judge Raymond A. Jackson of Federal District Court ruled that clicking the “like” button did not amount to expressive speech. In other words, it was not the same as actually writing out a message and posting it on the site."

I really find this offensive, even though I'm not a big fan of the "Like" button anyway (I have used it, obviously, but still don't really care for it).

Saying "I like podcasts" is expressing an opinion that you like podcasts. Clicking the "Like" button on a podcast page is expressing an opinion that you like podcasts.

How are they any different? They're both opinions, and last I looked, you're free to have an opinion and give that opinion to anybody else (whether they actually want it or not is a different story).

Obviously, this will get appealed to a higher level, and somebody much higher on the judge food chain than Jackson is going to be making a final decision on this topic. Maybe even the Supreme Court?

Whatever the case, though, I can't believe that the expressing of *any* opinion can be considered "not protected" as free speech. I'm not one to overreact (though this was me and some friends and co-workers when the store ran out of Mountain Dew one time)...

(Thanks to Tennessee Guerilla Women)

but I think this opens the door to some place that we as a society don't want to go. When one opinion is suppressed, no matter what manner that opinion is expressed, where does it end? (Obviously I'm not including ways that are actually against the law, like spray-painting your opinion on your local official's forehead or something)

Next do they rule that your opinion isn't protected because you didn't put it on proper 3x5 index cards and present it on the proper type of soapbox on the street corner?

I really hope this ruling gets overturned.

Twitter is Becoming Even More of a Force

(Thanks to The Dutiee Blog)

Many people follow Twitter to keep up on the lives of some of their favourite celebrities, or to network with others in their chosen field. I maintain a Twitter account for our office that is becoming well-known in the field of educational technology. It's a great way to stay informed on a whole variety of subjects.

It really came into its own during the Iranian Green Revolution of 2009, where the Iranian government blocked mobile phone feeds and other avenues of access to try and restrict what got out of the country. But they couldn't block Twitter without blocking the Internet totally, and Twitter became the place to get a lot of information out about the protests, the violence, the government crack-down, and all of that. I think a lot of people gained a new respect for Twitter after that.

There have been other examples of Twitter becoming prominent in the news cycle, of course. Just ask former Congressman Anthony Weiner.

However, it was only recently where an example came up that showed Twitter to be not only an outlet for the news, but also as a driving force behind some of it. In this case, if you don't follow Twitter, or the blogs that referenced it, you probably didn't hear about it.

I'm not going to get into a political debate in this post, but the example does involve politics. The Obama campaign has been making hay with a Mitt Romney family trip many years ago where the carrier containing the family dog was tied to the roof of the car. The campaign has noticed that whenever this story is brought up, Romney's negative ratings go up. It's pure gold, baby!

But Jim Treacher from the Daily Caller actually read The Audacity of Hope, one of Obama's memoirs, and noticed a line in there that struck him. It was about a time as a child when Obama was living with his stepfather in Indonesia.

"With Lolo, I learned how to eat small green chill peppers raw with dinner (plenty of rice), and, away from the dinner table, I was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy)."

Yes, you read that right. Obama ate dog meat. And didn't seem to mind it.

As soon as Treacher tweeted this, Twitter went on a rampage. Numerous conservative pundits and just regular people on Twitter started joking about it. The hashtag "#ObamaEatsDogs" became so prominent over the next few days that it actually ended up making the ABC news web site among other news outlets. Many "traditional" news outlets ignored it, of course (it didn't make any of the televised news shows, for example. Just perhaps their web sites, like ABC's). If you get your news from the New York Times and that's it, you've still never heard of this (until now, I guess, since you're reading my post).

It reached the point where some Obama staffers were actually fighting this out on Twitter with the other side, trying to keep the Romney meme alive while still trying to dismiss the Obama meme.

It reached so much prominence that Jimmy Kimmel made some jokes about it at the White House Correspondents Dinner last weekend. In fact, Obama himself made three jokes about it in his presentation there.

Can you believe that? Obama himself was making jokes about something that started on Twitter. There were some in the audience, who don't follow Twitter or many online blogs, who only get their news from "regular" news outlets, who turned to their compatriots and asked "why is the President joking about eating dogs?" They'd never heard of this before.

I don't bring this up to make political hay. You know I'm a conservative. Many of you out there are liberals. You know we disagree on a lot politically.

However, the reason I'm bringing this up is because this meme that rose to such prominence that even the President himself is joking about it began on Twitter and stayed online for the most part. In fact, many news outlets that covered the Correspondents Dinner didn't even mention the dog jokes.

Would you have thought something like that was possible even just a few years ago? For a story that reaches the national consciousness to have begun on Twitter?

Even more of a reason to at least know about Twitter, even if you don't have the inclination or the time to actually use it much.

Because it too can become a driving force behind the news.

Getting Into Bars - Show Me Some Facebook

(Thanks to Moncton Blogger)

Would you rather hear that rather than "show me some ID?" Or do you see that as a massive invasion of privacy?

Believe it or not, some clubs in the UK are having their bouncers check your Facebook account on your phone rather than (or sometimes in addition to!) your driver's license.

According to the BBC, "Some bouncers have been demanding people hand over their smartphones so they can check Facebook accounts...". This is ostensibly to verify their age. (h/t: Boingboing)

Never mind the fact that this means that you always have to have an Internet-capable phone with you whenever you go out (believe it or not, some people *still* cling to the idea of just having a phone that's only a phone, though maybe that doesn't apply to people young enough to be carded in the first place).

The most important thing is that this can conceivably be a massive invasion of privacy. I'm just looking at my Facebook account on my phone right now (yes, believe it or not, I actually do research for some of these posts!), and my "About" section has my place of employment, Education, and a bunch of other information in addition to my birthday on it. Do I really want some bouncer at some night club to be looking at all of that? I don't think so! It's none of their business where I work, and if they scroll down enough, there's a phone number there too. Assuming you put it in there, of course. But really, how many young socialites are not going to have their numbers on their Facebook accounts, even if they're on their privately? Probably not many of them.

Of course, the night clubs and bouncers defending this practice fall back on that old canard "If you're not doing anything wrong, what do you have to worry about?" That reasoning is completely specious because it misses the point. Nobody should have to present any part of their private lives to a bouncer just to get into a club. While Facebook is social media, the user chooses who to share that information with. Thus, it is private.

There is one other reason why this is the stupidest policy I've seen in a while for similar situations.

People lie.

Yes, fake IDs exist, and they are getting better all the time. "Chris, a bar owner from Folkestone, told Newsbeat that convincing fake ID was easy to get - and often very hard for door staff to spot."

That may be, but people lie on Facebook much more often than they get fake IDs. The minimum age for a Facebook account is fourteen.

Do you know how many 10-13 year-old kids there are on Facebook? A lot. Many of them with their parents' permission. In other words, you can put any old year down for a "birth date" when you create a Facebook account.

So an 18-year-old girl who wants to get into a club where she's required to show her Facebook account on her phone to the bouncer to verify ID may very well have a Facebook account that shows she's 19 (the drinking age up here in Canada).

Chris in the article says "Checking phones with consent is at least a more certain way." Tell me again how checking Facebook accounts is more certain when they can lie about their age?

Thankfully, there are some people with morals and a brain in the industry.

However, Paul Martin-Beades, the director of Akira Training, which trains about 250 door staff a year, said checking Facebook accounts was unacceptable.

He said all staff approved by the Security Industry Authority (SIA) are taught about the law and human rights and would know it was wrong.

"Only the people involved can say why they do this but they would never have been taught to do it."

This policy is outrageous in its privacy concerns but it's also stupid because it's actually easier to circumvent than the ID requirement.

Hopefully they'll wise up and shelve this policy quickly.

Spreading Blog Traffic - Where to Respond?

With the increase in the number of social media platforms, and with the urge to spread ourselves over as many of them as possible to get our words out to the largest group of people, it sometimes feels like overload. Not an overload of information, but an overload of time and effort, checking the various venues where we hang out to see if somebody has responded to our work. It also has that effect on the reader too, especially if you're following somebody who's on all these different platforms. Where is it best to respond?

Dawn, a friend of mine who often comments on this blog (and vice versa), recently went through a rather frightening experience with an unknown man potentially trying to abduct her, that also has turned into a good lesson in safety for all of us. She posted what happened, as well as what it has taught her, on her blog. She wants to share her insights with the rest of us, and I think it's a very valuable (not to mention gutsy, re-living it in order to write about it, and then share it publicly) post, and I encourage you to go read it when I'm done here (or, if you promise to come back, you can go read it now...but you'd better stick to that promise! I'll be watching.).

It's a powerful post, as well as being filled with great advice and information.

The night it happened, I happened to be on Facebook when she posted it in her status (another cosmic "coincidence", Dawnie?  Since I very rarely see FB status updates?) and was one of the many commenters going back and forth talking about it, advising, or just being there for her.

Since I had already been there on Facebook, the "what happened" part of Dawn's post was already known to me, but the rest of it (the life lessons that can be derived from her experience, following your instincts, etc) was new. So I read the post and greatly enjoyed doing so (Dawn's blog is well-worth following). I wanted to respond, leave a comment.

However, I was reading it on my phone, and responding to Blogger blogs (and blogs in general, I think) can be pretty irritating on the device. I told myself I'd respond later, when I was on my computer.

Then I was browsing the Google+ app on my phone, and saw that she had posted the link there as well. She, like many bloggers, posts the link to the various social media avenues that she inhabits (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and feel free to tell me where else if I'm missing anything). We sometimes, especially on Twitter, have communities that don't overlap with our other communities, and we want to make sure these people see our work as well. I'm the same way.

Since I was already there, I decided to leave a comment on her Google+ entry.

Then it hit me. If I respond there, is there any point in responding on her actual blog? She's already seen my comment. I can't think that my comment on her blog would be any different, though I would like to think, if I did decide to leave one, that I wouldn't copy and paste.

This started me thinking about blogging in general, and how spread out we are, not just as bloggers, but as readers as well. Yes, as mentioned above, our communities in the various social networks can be different, but there is a lot of overlap there. I'm "friends" with Dawn on Facebook, she's in my Google+ circles, we follow each other on Twitter. I subscribe to her blog too (though I haven't looked at my Reader in a while). That's four different places where I can find her stuff, not to mention actually being there on Facebook immediately after it happened.

Where is it appropriate to comment? Should we be consistent, or comment wherever we happen to be when we stumble across a post?

This is mostly a rhetorical question, because the obvious answer is "it's up to you." There is no right answer.

But it does bring to mind how thinly we can be spread sometimes. As a blogger, you have to be keeping an eye on all of these various social networks, or you'll miss a response. Most of us are already doing that, so it's pretty automatic, but it can still feel strange carrying on different conversations in different places. This is especially true if somebody comments in more than one area!

I don't get enough response to be confused, but I can see where higher-traffic bloggers might. I think that if I ever get that kind of traffic, I'd have to wrap my head around it before I became proficient at it.

It's not really a question that I need an answer to. It was just a thought process sparked by what happened this weekend. Something I thought I would explore and see if anybody shares similar thoughts. Even if you're not a blogger, do you find this to be true as a reader? 

Welcome to my Stumbled Brethren

Yesterday, somebody submitted all of my one-hit wonders posts to the social sharing site StumbleUpon. It's a site, like Digg, where you can share stuff that you find on the web with others.

When you create a StumbleUpon account, part of your profile that you create is a series of interests. Then you can submit sites that you think others would find interesting as well. You can find people on there who share interests and follow them, so you can see what they share.

But one thing that's unique (in my limited experience, anyway) is that you can "Stumble" your interests by clicking the "Stumble" button. This will take you to a random site that has been submitted to StumbleUpon by other users, a site that will match one of the interests that you stated in your profile.

I'm not sure how the algorithm works for determining what web site to take you to. I'm sure it's in the back there, silently plotting world domination.

What I didn't know is just how much of an impact that site can have.

My blog usually gets 30-50 hits a day, and many of those are family/friends or image searches.

Yesterday?

6615

My free StatCounter only logs the last 500 page views, so I have no idea whether there were visitors who were not brought by StumbleUpon yesterday. I do know that every time I looked at my StatCounter, every visitor had come over from StumbleUpon.

That's a lot of influence.

I was gratified to see that a number of them at least took a tour through the rest of the one-hit wonders posts, even if they didn't read anything else. And some people did read posts that weren't in that grouping too.

I was sad that it only got me a couple of comments, but you can't have everything.

One thing I did notice this morning is that my Feedburner subscriber count was the highest it's ever been. While it can fluctuate, it's been averaging around 100-110 over the last little while. Today, it was at 126.

It's a start!

So, to those of you who came over here via StumbleUpon, I welcome you! I hope you stick around and check out the rest of the posts. I am a bit eclectic, but I hope you find something that will interest you.

I really should have posted this yesterday. Oh well. Late to the party, as usual.

As always, I'd love to know what you think. Please leave a comment or send me an email.

And the Share button at the bottom of each post does include StumbleUpon, so please feel free to share anything you like.

My ego could use the boost.

Better Facebook - changing your Facebook experience for the better

Are you frustrated with the new Facebook user interface? Are there things you would like to do on Facebook that the interface just doesn't allow you to do?

There's an app for that.

Ok, an "extension," but that doesn't sound nearly as trendy.

It's an extension called "Better Facebook," and I find it works like a dream.

One of the most popular posts on this blog is my "Somebody Unfriended You on Facebook?" post, detailing a Greasemonkey script for Firefox that allows you to see who has dropped you from their Friends list.

(Incidentally, the family member referred to in that post is now on my Facebook friends list, so I hope she doesn't go back to read that!)

Anyway, Amy Vernon, an accomplished social media expert that I've been following on Twitter for a while now, was live-tweeting from a social media conference she was at. She mentioned a Google Chrome extension called "Unfriend Finder" that had been mentioned in one of the panels. I decided to take a look, since I mostly use Chrome now, and it got annoying having to open Firefox to check my friends list whenever I noticed it dropped.

The reviews were not good. (I don't know if you have to be on Chrome to access that page)

I tweeted that back to Amy and we had a short, 2-tweet conversation about it. Then Mei Qing chimed in suggesting Better Facebook.

I checked it out, and all I have to say is "Wow."

It has greatly enhanced my Facebook experience, and I highly recommend it for those of you who use Facebook a lot. It's available on all browsers except Internet Explorer.

Here are some of my favourite features:

1) Unfriend Tracker

The main reason I got it, of course.

2) Tabbed News Feeds

Do you find your News Feed cluttered with all of the game announcements, Astrology announcements, stuff posted from Twitter, feeds from pages you follow, etc? Better Facebook puts tabs on your News Feed so that you can separate all of that out. So far on my News page, I have a "Home" tab that has status updates, videos, photos, etc posted by my friends. Then it has RSS feeds, which has page updates. And finally a Twitter tab, where status updates that were forwarded by Twitter show up. It really cleans it up.

You can have Better Facebook automatically choose tabs, which is what I do. I'm not sure if you can customize the tabs, but it's worth exploring.

3) Remove posts you've already read

Once you've read an update, do you really need to see it again? If your answer is "no," then you can "mark all as read" on a tab and voila! They're gone. However, if somebody comments on an update you've marked read, it will reappear. So don't worry about losing out on seeing responses to it.

The cool thing is, if you don't care about responses, you can "mute" it so new comments will not make it reappear. You can also establish a comment threshold, so if the number of comments goes over, say, 20, it will stop reappearing. You're given total control!

4) Remove "Recent Activity" from your profile page

I don't use this option, but I still think it's a cool thing. You know how your recent activity shows up on your profile? Say you left a comment on your friend's status. It shows up on your profile as "recent activity," including a snippet of what you said! What if you don't want your friends to know that you're commenting on somebody's semi-nude picture?

With Better Facebook, you can make it so these activities don't show up on your profile page.

5) Hitting "Enter" on a comment doesn't actually post the comment.

Many people (Hi, Dawnie!) were extremely annoyed, just like I was, with the latest change in the user interface. It used to be, you had to actually click "send" to post a comment. You could write a couple of paragraphs if you wanted to. The latest change, though, made it so that hitting "Enter" submitted the comment.

Too many times, there are now two comments left by the same person, because they didn't realize that you could hit "Shift-Enter" and have it create a line break in the comment.

Better Facebook can return to the old style of commenting, making it safe to hit the "Enter" key again. If you want. If you are used to the new way of doing things, just leave this one disabled.

It's up to you.

There's so much other cool stuff, but I don't want this post to go on forever. Check out the Better Facebook page for all of the juicy details (see how nice I am? I linked to it down here, too)

The best thing about it, though, is that it lets you turn each option off and on. You don't have to take the whole package if you don't want to. Like I said about the Recent Activity removal, you can implement a feature or leave it turned off. There are a few things I've left off because they aren't important to me.

I love how customizable it is. And you can turn the entire thing off with a click of the mouse if you want to.

My experience with it has been wonderful. I highly recommend it for heavy Facebook users. Explore it! I haven't even scratched the surface of what you can do with the app in this post.

Not only that, but I haven't even explored the filtering options for myself yet. Something I may never do because that amount of filtering may not be important to me.

But it might be to you, and it's there for you to use.

Which is the coolest thing of all.

April Fool's Day

April Fool's Day is a long-standing tradition in world, dating back hundreds of years.

April Fool's Day pranks and hoaxes have been done by multi-million dollar companies, news organizations, even politicians have gone along with the joke.

In fact, there's even a list of the Top 100 April Fool's Day hoaxes of all time.

Some of these hoaxes reflect very poorly on the gullibility of society at large. The Alabama legislature voting to change the value of pi? How do you arbitrarily change a mathematical constant? But hundreds of people from all over the world called in to complain about it.

Or how about 1996, when Taco Bell announced that they had bought the Liberty Bell to help with the national debt, and had rechristened it the "Taco Liberty Bell."

"The Taco Bell Corporation announced it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Hundreds of outraged citizens called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell was housed to express their anger. Their nerves were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed, a few hours later, that it was all a practical joke. The best line of the day came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale. Thinking on his feet, he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold. It would now be known, he said, as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial."

Some things are so close to plausible that many otherwise smart people get taken in by them, and those are the most effective.

And the most annoying.

I just don't see the humour in making people believe something that's not true. We all complain about hoaxes, so much so that there's a web site devoted to debunking them.

So why should April 1st be any different?

Yeah, sometimes I laugh at them, but it's more often that I laugh at the gullibility than at the actual hoax. "You mean you actually believed that?" And then I feel sad for them, and for society if a huge number of people are taken in.

Do you know when April Fool's Day moved from being a minor and sometimes amusing annual event to a truly annoying, pull the sheet over your head and go back to bed day?

The rise of the Internet, and especially social media.

Twitter is often rife with unconfirmed rumours that turn out not to be true. But on April 1, it goes into overdrive, with *intentionally* misleading stuff. It started early yesterday or the day before, with the "Jackie Chan is dead!" meme.

The Internet itself has often been a rumour mill, but you can always count on almost any site that you are a member of, there will be something or someone there doing an April Fool's joke.

It's to the point that, yesterday, I tweeted that I would probably not believe anything I read on Twitter this morning, and probably this afternoon too.

I don't think I'm going to go *that* far, but you know it's bad when the "Breaking News" twitter account posts something horrible and your first thought is "I wonder if that's true."

The truly funny jokes are the ones that don't play on emotions. They might play on your gullibility (the Taco Liberty Bell? C'mon!!!), but they don't play on your heartstrings.

I know it's futile, but I want to lodge my request now.

Can we please just stop with this stuff?

Now, I'm off to my bunker. I'll see you on April 2.

Submitting posts to Digg - Questions and Thoughts

I've been a member of Digg for a while now, but I haven't really used it much. Part of me wonders if that should change, so I'm checking things out a little bit and deciding whether I want to jump into the waters or not.

For those of you who don't know, Digg is a sharing site, where users can share articles, blog posts, and other things they find on the Internet that they think are interesting, cool, or just something they feel their followers should know about. People set up accounts there, and can follow (and be followed by) other Digg users. If somebody follows you, then what you Digg will show up on their home page.

If you've explored the web at all, whether blogs, news sites, or what have you, you've probably seen something at the bottom of an article that says you can "Digg" it. That makes it easy for people to do it, because the only other way is to go to Digg and manually cut and paste the URL. Not fun.

So anyway, back to my thinking. I've got a couple of thoughts/questions to discuss.

1) For those of you who have Digg accounts (or feel free to substitute any of the others), how often do you use it? Do you go to Digg a lot and see what the people you're following are up to? Do you submit a lot of articles to Digg? How often? Just when the spirit moves you, or are you pretty diligent about Digging stuff you like?

I'm going to try and be a bit more diligent about sharing stuff that I like, as I've been pretty lax about it. Those of you following me on Digg (and who are doing it for more than just because we're friends) have been missing out on some good stuff I've been reading. I am going to try and rectify that.

Without spamming, of course.

2) What's your opinion of groups designed to get your posts Diggs? In much the same vein as the "I'll follow your blog if you follow mine," way of thinking, there are groups out there where you submit every post you make to the group, with the design that people in the group will Digg it. In return, you're expected to Digg posts that others submit to the group.

It strikes me as kind of wrong to do this, even with the caveat that you should "only Digg the articles you really like" on the list. What if you don't like any of them? And if the group has 400+ members? Are you really expected to read everything?

I guess I should explain for those who are still reading and don't know how this works. The more Diggs you get, the higher your post moves on the Digg site for other people (people who *aren't* following you) to see. It's a way to judge popularity, and gaming the system like this goes against that idea, I think. I think such popularity should be organic, not manufactured.

Your thoughts?

3) Finally, and kind of along the same lines, what do you think about Digging your own stuff? It may seem hypocritical, but I'm actually a proponent of Digging your own stuff. There's nothing wrong with a bit of self-promotion, as long as that's not your sole purpose for doing things. If you're on Twitter and the only thing you tweet is stuff advertising yourself, then that's lame. But if you're advertising yourself *and* interacting, what's wrong with that?

There has been a lot of discussion on this online over the last few years (I found this article, and its comment string, interesting). Some people consider *any* self-promotion on a site like this (or even Twitter) as wrong, but I have to ask. If you're not going to promote yourself, how else is anybody going to know you're out there?

Again, though, there should be more to you than self-promotion. Or people are going to ignore you.

And rightfully so.

Finally, I have a request for you, my reader(s). You may have noticed the "Digg" button at the bottom of all my posts. That's an example of what I was talking about above, a way that makes it easy for users to Digg stuff without much effort.

I hate those people who, on every post, ask you to Digg their post/article/whatever. Much like Presidential speeches, less is more. If everything's important enough for a speech, then nothing's that important.

The same with Digg requests. If you want people to Digg everything you write, then you're probably not writing anything worth Digging.

But I do want to ask that, if you find something on this site worthy, please consider Digging it. It's another way for you to spread the word that you liked something I wrote.

And I know I'd be happy with any of the extra traffic (if any) it would drive here.

I only ask you to *consider* Digging every post. After reading it, if you decide it's worth it, click that button. If it's ok but nothing special, then don't. And if it's *really* bad, consider Digging it so everybody can laugh at me.

(What, that won't work? Ok, well, I tried)

It would make me happy if you did that.

Also, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this! Please leave a comment if you have anything you want to share.

Facebook Nostalgia

So last night, I got into a nostalgic mood, and this was the result. As I said in that post, one of the things I do late at night when I'm all alone is get a bit nostalgic.

I posted a brief status update on Facebook about writing late at night. And got a quick response from an old high school friend that I've been FB friends with for a while now.

And it hit me.

You know, this Facebook thing is actually pretty cool.

Yeah, I understand all of the "why would you want people you went to high school with to find you? If I wanted to be 'friends' with them, I would have stayed in touch with them! Or them with me" comments. Or even the "all of the people I went to high school with that I'm not still in touch with are losers anyway" ones.

And yes, there are people who you meet up with on Facebook and then realize "you know, we don't really have that much in common and I'm just not that interested in keeping up on your life." I've been dropped by a few high school friends, I assume for that reason (I don't follow up), but I can honestly say I've never dropped anybody that way.

Maybe I'm the different one. Maybe it's the fact that I *wasn't* that social in high school that makes me want to rekindle some of that. Not much, obviously, as we're in far-flung areas of the world. But just a touch, that window into our lives that we provide those we welcome into our Facebook neighbourhood.

That little bit of interaction that stems from comments made on our status updates, or our pictures, or whatever. Playing some of the Facebook games with them, that sort of thing.

I saw that "like" last night on my status update, and I felt a little bit of a kindred spirit. Two people, thousands of miles away from each other, and over 20 years since we last saw each other, just having that little touch of companionship, that shared experience, and I felt a small rush of good feelings, not just toward her, but just in general. Another small stitch added to that social fabric of my life; one that I don't always realize is there until it springs up at me unexpectedly.

Another example was New Year's Eve 2009-10. I was up by myself again, just looking at stuff on the computer: reading blogs, discussion forums, whatever. I decided to do something I rarely do and see who was "online" on Facebook Chat. It was 1:30 in the morning for me, and I saw another high school friend on there, one who also currently lives in the Midwest, so it was 3:30 for her.

On any chat service, I rarely initiate one just because I don't want to intrude (yes, that is my failing, and I admit to it). But something just made me click on her name and wish her a happy new year. We chatted for about 5-10 minutes and it was really nice. I again felt that expanding of my social fabric, a rush of contact with another person I haven't seen for 20 years.

Most of these high school friends on my FB friends list, I will never actually see again, unless I manage to make it to a reunion (I wouldn't be averse to a mini-reunion of a few people, sometime when I'm home, of course). And I will probably never consider them close friends in the sense that I don't think they would help me hide a body, but it's enough to know they're out there. That they remember me (unless they've got so many people on their FB friends list that they might not even remember accepting the request), that they see a small fraction of my life and I see the same of theirs. That we do interact occasionally, even if it's just a comment on some aspect of their life that they decided to put down on their page.

Yes, it's a bit overly nostalgic as well, and it's very possible that they don't feel the same way. We're not all wired that way, and maybe I'm too sentimental for my own good sometimes.

But does that make it wrong?

Should Journalists Engage on Twitter?

One of the cool things about Twitter is the back and forth that can develop between parties, short and punchy discussions about various issues. It can also be a valuable way for companies or organizations to respond to public input and inquiries.

Journalists on Twitter can have it tough sometimes, but most of them do a wonderful job of mixing the personal and the professional.

But is there a grey area when it comes to responding to the public regarding stuff that you've reported or written?

The Washington Post seems to think so.

According to Mashable the other day, the Post has told its journalists not to engage the public on Twitter, especially in answering any critics of their work.

It all started with a "controversial guest article online called 'Christian Compassion Requires the Truth About Harms of Sexuality,' by Tony Perkins."

The article was about the large number of recent teenage suicides that occurred after the teens were being bullied for being gay. It talked about homosexuality as a "mental condition" and stuff like that. GLAAD got into the picture, responding on Twitter and on its web site, criticizing the article. One of the Post editors attempted to defend the article by saying it was attempting to address "both sides" of the issue, and GLAAD responded with a tweet saying that there are not two sides to the teen suicide issue.

Shortly after this, a memo went out stating that Post reporters should not be responding to their critics on Twitter, or really to anybody, via their Post accounts.

This sentence in the memo (reprinted on the Mashable article) is especially striking:

"Even as we encourage everyone in the newsroom to embrace social media and relevant tools, it is absolutely vital to remember that the purpose of these Post branded accounts is to use them as a platform to promote news, bring in user generated content and increase audience engagement with Post content."

How exactly are you "increasing audience engagement with Post content" if you're not allowed to interact with people about it? Sure, you can say "thank you!" if somebody says "hey, what a cool article!" But how many people actually do that? Most responses to a post will be in a questioning or criticizing mode.

Vadim Lavrusik, the Mashable writer, puts it beautifully:

"Sure, it makes sense that they should rein in who manages the Washington Post-branded Twitter account, as that could be seen as an “official” response of the company and not an individual. But putting a stop on engagement and conversation regarding Post stories from journalists will only distance those reporters from the very community they are a part of. Perhaps a clarification to “speak on behalf of the Post,” could clear up what is okay for journalists to engage in dialogue. But it is also likely that some journalists will now avoid it altogether. There also seems to be a disconnect in what journalists are encouraged to increase audience engagement with Post content, and not the journalists themselves."

I'm not advocating that journalists get into wild debates on Twitter about their articles; there's something to be said for letting an article speak for itself. But I think the Post is taking this to the opposite extreme.

If all you want is to advertise your content, then remove your journalists from Twitter completely and just set up an auto-feed. Let boredom ensue.

But if you want your audience to be engaged with your content, then let your reporters be engaged too! Enough of this one-way street, or as Lavrusik says, "It only reaffirms the old model of “we publish and you listen,” and a model that had a disconnect from the news process and the former audience."

Then again, maybe the higher-ups don't want this because they're worried the inherent left-wing bias will come out if there's too much engagement. ("Oh, you did not just go there, did you?" - The Peanut Gallery)

Anyway, I'd love to know what you think. Should journalists talk about their articles on Twitter, especially if somebody criticizes them? Or should they just shut up and let their work speak for itself?

Is social media here to stay?

Saw an interesting article on Mashable today that I thought I would share with you, more to get your opinion than anything else.

It seems that some "technology experts" (who the hell are they?) took a survey, and most agreed that "Gen Y will not grow out of social networking." It seems that, despite all of the privacy concerns about Facebook recently (something which may have slowed Facebook's growth to a crawl last month), the all-out sharing of personal information on social networking sites will probably continue.

Mashable quotes the Pew research study:

"By 2020, members of Generation Y (today’s ‘digital natives’) will continue to be ambient broadcasters who disclose a great deal of personal information in order to stay connected and take advantage of social, economic, and political opportunities. Even as they mature, have families, and take on more significant responsibilities, their enthusiasm for widespread information sharing will carry forward."

I like what one of the commenters on this article said, though.

"I agree that the generation will continue to use social networks to stay connected and play games. What exactly they say publically may change, but I feel certain they will continue to communicate in this way."

I agree that social networking is here to stay, but I think I'm with the commenter that what people share may change as these people get older. It only takes one case of identity theft hitting close to home to make you rethink exactly what you're putting out there.

On the other hand, I've put a lot out there with this blog and my Twitter account, linking to where I work and all that other stuff. So who am I to judge? Maybe that's why I'm not as worked up about the whole Facebook privacy thing as others have been.

I think it's a slam dunk that social media and networking, in some fashion, is here to stay. Considering how many adults now use it, I can't see teenagers who have grown up with it deciding that it's not for them.

Not as a group, anyway.

I also think it will transform in some fashion, as newer trends show up and new ideas become the norm. Just think. Who would have thought something location-based like Foursquare would become as wildly popular as it is?

So what do you think about this?

(I figured you were due a "regular" post too today, one where I'm not whining)

Email or Facebook?

A while back I did a post on social media obsession, asking whether you did things like tweet from the bathroom (25% of people in that survey said yes!).

Mashable has another article asking yet another good question, with some statistics to back it up. What do you check first: email or Facebook?

"If you check e-mail first, the company said, you tend to be more task-oriented and only interact with brands online when you need something, such as researching a deal, getting information about promotions or finding new product information.

However, if start your day with a visit to Facebook, you might welcome “extracurricular” content from brands, such as interaction and entertainment that isn’t directly related to a purchase or business transaction."

I have to say that, when I get up, I find myself checking Facebook, my blog and stats, and then checking my email if I remember. Sometimes I actually forget to check my home email address on work days (though now that I'm mainly using Gmail, I do check that regularly at work). On the other hand, I have to find out if anybody has reached out to me through Facebook, Twitter, the blog, or wherever. So I guess I fall into the latter category.

The study Mashable quotes found that Facebook is the first thing checked for 11% of the US population, and that email still rules at 58%.

Check out the Mashable article for even more interesting stats.

What kind of Internet users are you? Do you go to your email first, or do you hop on the social media wagon and take it for your daily spin?

Or do you go somewhere else?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Edit: What a weird typo on the title! Obviously it's not the Email *of* Facebook. I've now changed that.

Social Media in Our Culture

The wonderful and inspiring Mansi Bhatia asked me to do a guest post at her great blog "First Impressions dealing with social media and how it is affecting our culture.

You can find it here. It's pretty good, if I do say so myself (and I do!).

Many thanks to Mansi for asking me to be a part of her blog. You should definitely check out the rest of her stuff, as it's all top notch.

"The term “social media” is becoming so prevalent that even those who don’t partake in it have some idea of what it means. That’s how you know something has infiltrated the culture.

We are becoming increasingly a world community, where who we associate with online is almost as important Social media infilitration as who we associate with face to face.

Companies that want to succeed need to have an online presence of some kind, and that used to mean just a web site. Now, successful companies need to have a Facebook account or fan page, and it’s very helpful to be on Twitter as well."

This is the third time I've had a guest post on somebody's blog, and it's really gratifying when somebody asks me to do that.

If anybody else would like a guest post on their blog, drop me a line! I'm available for birthday parties, anniversaries, bar mitzvahs and the like. I do draw the line at Stipper-grams, though.

Oh, ok. Even those. Though I may have to demand payment for something like that. The rest I'll do for the fame.

Enjoy the post!

Is Chatroulette losing its already limited appeal?

And I mean "limited" in the sense that you must probably like male genitals if you're hanging around the site for long.

Chatroulette is an interesting concept. Basically, it's totally random, totally anonymous, chatting with people. It appears that it requires a webcam of some sort, though it doesn't require a microphone (though it would certainly help!). There's no way for anybody you hook up with to identify who you are, unless you tell them, so your anonymity is assured. The idea is that this will make people less inhibited to say and do things.

Sometimes that's a bad thing.

If you've heard anything about Chatroulette, you've probably heard how prominent the male sex organ is on it. A lot of guys seem to love the anonymity because it gives them a chance to jerk off in front of somebody and they will never know who it is. It's kinda sad, actually.

If you do a cursory web search, you'll find sites that have the "best chatroulette videos" posted (yes, while you are anonymous, you can be recorded if the person has the right software, so beware). These usually don't involve male genitals, though they do sometimes involve female nudity (for some reason, nobody wants to post male genitals for posterity...I can't imagine why).

But most of the time, these "best" screenshots or videos just involve general weirdness, like somebody dressed up like a cat:

(with thanks to Buzzfeed)

There have been some interesting Chatroulette stories popping up, like Ben Folds doing a concert on Chatroulette (you can see the various videos on Youtube with just a simple search). Some people really love the site (like Katie Baker from Wired).

But it's just so hard to wade through the junk to get to anything even remotely resembling good.

So what made me decide to blog about it today? Mashable has an article up, "Will People Still Visit Chatroulette if They Can't See Penises?"

In the article, they talk about how the 17-year-old Russian founder of the company behind Chatroulette, Andrey Ternovskiy, would like to get some investors involved. Meanwhile, traffic on Chatroulette dropped 7% in May.

"What is Chatroulette really about, though? Is Chatroulette a social utility for people to meet each other through video? Is it an entertainment tool for groups of friends? Or is it just an anonymous network where anything goes?

These are important questions for Ternovskiy to answer before a turnaround becomes possible. Legitimizing the service by weeding out the genitalia may make it more viable to investors, but it could potentially accelerate its decline, not reverse it. It all depends on how people want to use the service. Changing a user’s habits is one of the most difficult things to do. Getting people to buy into Chatroulette as a useful social utility might be a very hard sell."

One thing he is talking about doing is doing something that will filter out all of the male genitals on the site. But will "legitimate" users take their place? Or will traffic plummet?

Sadly, without some kind of change to the service, as well as something that will attract "normal" people to it, I don't see this ultimately succeeding.

It looks to me like a flash in the pan.

Philo - Watch TV with people all over the country!

Do you like watching TV? Do you like the social experience of watching TV with other people? How about discussing shows with your friends? Or with people all over the country?

Mashable's always good to watch for up and coming social media trends, and yesterday's another great example of that. They had an article on a new social media idea called "Philo." Or, as they call it, "Twitter + Foursquare for TV Fanatics."

"A new web and iPhone app called Philo makes watching TV interactive by having users “tune in” to TV programs as if they were checking in to venues on Foursquare or Gowalla, then discuss shows in a Twitter or Facebook newsfeed-like conversation stream while they’re watching."

It's actually quite the interesting concept. One of the cool things about watching your favourite TV shows is discussing them with a bunch of other fans (ok, maybe that's just me, but it is common). Philo gives you that opportunity with that chat-like feature.

Remember when I talked about "live-tweeting" TV shows? That always has a couple of downsides:

1) Annoying your Twitter followers who don't watch the stuff

2) Annoying your Twitter followers who are in a different time zone and haven't seen what you're talking about yet. Spoilers!!!!

I think Philo, if I'm reading Mashable's article correctly, removes both those problems. It certainly removes the first. You would be chatting with those already watching the show. Of course, you can broadcast what you're watching to Twitter and Facebook, but at least it won't be a constant stream of updates (unless you're intentionally trying to piss off your followers).

It doesn't appear to be useful for Canadians, unfortunately, so I can't try it out for you. I tried to join, and it didn't allow me to move forward without selecting a cable provider. It takes the cable provider choices from the zip code that you enter (hence the Canadian postal code not working). I put 90210 in there and got a plethora of Beverly Hills cable company choices.

Thus, I offer this to you just as something you might want to take a look at. You know, if you're a TV addict and your husband/wife is getting tired of you talking to him/her about your favourite show when they couldn't give a shit about it.

Is this the new wave of social media? Maybe more of a side street, but a potentially interesting one nonetheless.

Facebook Exodus - Will you leave?

And will you take me with you?

According to Mashable, a couple of users are trying to organize a mass-deletion of Facebook accounts on May 31, due to the privacy issues that are plaguing the site since its recent privacy policy changes. They're encouraging as many people as possible to leave the site on that date, and (I would assume) never come back.

Oh no, think of the family photos that will go unexamined!

"The purpose of the site is to encourage those 'sick of Facebook’s lack of respect for your data' to quit the social networking site. Users can 'commit to quit' with their Twitter handle or name and join the others publicly pledging to do so in unison."

This is interesting given the fact that deleting Facebook accounts is a very popular Google search right now. Are people getting truly fed up with Facebook's antics? Is this the final straw?

It is for a lot of people. Danny Sullivan noticed that Facebook's growth rate seems to be slipping, which may be at least partially due to these privacy issues. Some people might not be signing up, but also enough people may be canceling their accounts to make up for any other growth that Facebook has.

What will I do? I'm definitely not canceling my account. My feelings are more along the lines of Laurent Courtines:

"Privacy issues are touchy because of humans natural self-centeredness. Folks thing "they have MY information". Yes. Yes they do but they also have many billions of peoples information! You simply aren't that important. Your INDIVIDUAL information is 1. Not that interesting, 2. Not that useful and 3. Not that relevant."

Obviously this doesn't apply to things like credit card numbers, bank account numbers, etc. But the daily ins and outs of what you post on the Web? It doesn't really matter that much. I am concerned enough to adjust my Privacy settings in Facebook, but not enough that I'm going to worry about everything getting out there in the great big world.

In other words, I'm not like Robert Scobie, opening the floodgates totally.

So what do you think? I'd be interested in knowing whether you're going to join the mass exodus on the 31st.





(Thanks to Sheamus for links to the above articles, except the Mashable one)

*Edit*: If you say "Yes," I'd love to hear why in the comments.