Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘facebook’

Nov 18

1 Comment

Does anyone really think Facebook gives a damn about their privacy?

Dislike!

I read this latest article on yet another example that Facebook is going to do whatever it wants, however it wants to do it. And as the big boy on the block, they are going to keep doing it and doing it and doing it because … hold on to your hats for this shocking revelation, folks … Facebook doesn’t care about anybody’s rights.

They have provided a shared virtual space from which they can re-use and re-purpose anything you do, post or share.

Oh, yes - it’s subject to your privacy and application settings so you might feel somewhat safe (assuming you set these properly which most people don’t). And of course, they have changed these privacy and application settings more times than Katy Perry changes outfits during a concert so ultimately they decide what “privacy” is.

 There is a nice little clause in there that the rights transfer back to you if you delete the content or your account. Remember people: while our memories may fade, our lives on the Internet go on forever.  The law offices of Craig Deslack had this to say about it.

That’s just one voice but Google the issue and you will see that it’s not a solitary voice.

And it’s not enough that they want to own and track you while you are on Facebook or logged in to your Facebook account. The point of the article linked in the first sentence is that they are tracking you even when you aren’t logged in to Facebook. The little computer elves are quietly and silently watching and tracking your every movement.

Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. I don’t know. I do know I’m not the only one who feels this way. And I also know that it’s not just Facebook. It’s all of the social networking giants. I’m singling out Facebook because they seem to be the worst and biggest repeat offender and display the biggest lack of concern over their customer rights.

But let’s not kid ourselves – it’s all of them. They are all looking for ways to slice and dice our lives up for better targetted messaging and advertising.

Here’s the very real, very near future, friends. One in which personalized messages target our every waking moment.

The real question is: what are our choices? De-friend Facebook? Un-link LinkedIn? Silence the tweeting? I’m open to ideas.

Nov 17

5 Comments

What exactly is Hoot Suite?

HootSuite is a tool designed to help you manage your various social network feeds and postings. This includes everything from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn among others.

It allows you to organize your various feeds in a few different ways. First you can create custom named tabs as a top-level of organization and then you can create multiple streams within each tab.

As an example, you can create a tab called “Twitter” and then within that tab, you can add a stream for your main Twitter feed, any mentions (where people tweet using your twitter handle), direct messages (Twitter’s version of email), saved searches, etc.

It’s pretty useful to coordinate things this way and it doesn’t end there. You can also bring in your Facebook and LinkedIn feeds – either in the same tab or create new tabs. Pretty handy.

HootSuite isn’t just for organization though. It also allows you to post to any of your different social networks either immediately or via a scheduled post. I haven’t used the scheduling aspect of HootSuite yet personally but I definitely see the value as it helps offset one of the biggest problems with Twitter: the fact that your tweets can quickly disappear from people’s streams as newer tweets drive older tweets out.

(For more on this and other aspects of Twitter and some reasons why you should consider using Twitter, check out this article.)

Most of the Twitterati seem to schedule their Tweets to fire around the clock to maximize their chance to be seen and heard by their followers. I’m going to start experimenting with it over the next few weeks.

HootSuite provides a mobile client to access most of the features via your mobile device. This is a nice, streamlined way to access your feeds from a central source. Most people probably use their specific mobile Facebook and Twitter apps so your mileage may vary.

One final feature that I would like to call attention to is the ability to manage multiple accounts from a single HootSuite account. This is great for businesses that would like to announce their posts across different employee’s accounts. People can save their passwords in the HootSuite account for a central administrator to manage and schedule messages – again, this is to maximize the chance of getting their message heard by their intended audiences.

It probably is already apparent but just to underscore it: I’m a pretty big fan of HootSuite. It’s not perfect though.

The LinkedIn integration is flaky at best and there is no easy way to post to multiple LinkedIn groups at once yet. I’m not sure if this is a condemnation of the HootSuite development team or the LinkedIn APIs though. It seems like a lot of social network add-ons have a problem with LinkedIn integration. (If anyone reading this has more information, please comment below.)

All in all, HootSuite is a great investment. It will take you probably 30 minutes to learn it and the free version delivers most of the features tha the average person needs. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Nov 10

5 Comments

What exactly is Klout?

A lot of people apparently look to me for Academy Awards info

You may be seeing people talking about “Klout” more and more these days. Lately it might be in a negative context as the people behind Klout have apparently adjusted their ranking system recently which caused quite a few people to have a horrible dip in their Klout.

(Kind of reminds me of back in the early Google days when page ranks would swing wildly after a new algorithm but read on … there is no real comparison between Klout and Google in terms of significance.)

What exactly is “Klout” and why should you care? 

First things first … Klout is a company that bills itself as “The Standard for Influence”. They provide a “Klout Score” from 1 to 100 to each person by using a super-duper top-secret formula (they use the 10 cent word “algorithm”) that monitors the individual’s social network traffic (tweets, updates, postings, etc.) and how others respond to that individual across those social networks.

By feeding your tweet machine, your Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media platforms and building your networks and engaging in dialogue and generally being active on social media, you can see watch your Klout go up, up, up! How exciting.

Let me repeat: how exciting.

To make it even more exciting, the powers that be at Klout provide badges for achievement levels reached so you can brag to your friends when you’ve hit a Klout score of 20, 30, 40, etc or are rolling in +K (don’t ask … really … please don’t ask).  It kind of reminds me of computer games that give rewards for hitting certain acheivements. And that’s exactly what they are going for.

They want to create an addicting experience that keeps you coming back for more to feed the beast and “get to the next level”. In my opinion, they do a mediocre job of this and they really need to study Kongregate to learn from the masters. (Do yourself a favor and don’t click the link back there if you have even a semi-addictive personality.)

You might be asking at this point: what is the purpose of Klout? Well, my friend, *that* is the essence of the matter and sadly the answer is ambiguous at best.

According to the Klout FAQ page, Klout “measures influence online” and can be used as follows:

  • Klout helps you understand your influence and how to leverage it.
  • Benchmark your success, understand who you influence, and discover who to trust in the topics you care about.
  • Earn Klout Perks: exclusive access to products and experiences from top brands.
  • Put your Klout Score on your resume to land a sweet job or use it to get better customer service.

(don’t mind the fact the bullet points don’t use consistent style … I guess it’s part of the exciting Klout mystique)

After reading those four fluff-laden bullet points, you might STILL be asking yourself: what is the purpose of Klout?

Are you jelly?

My opinion is that it is primarily a game for professionals to use to brag about how influential they are to other professionals. I don’t know a single person who uses it for anything other than to state the equivalent of “my Klout is bigger than your Klout”.

It’s a silly – and, for some, addicting – game.

For now anyway. It might change as they continue to evolve. I would certainly expect that if the people behind Klout want to make money with it in the long run, they will need to find it a true, value-add purpose fairly soon.

Maybe you disagree and have some examples of how Klout can be used for something valuable? Please post a comment and let me know – I’m sure a lot of folks would love to hear it.

In the meantime, I’m going to go back to interacting with folks on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn that post and tweet interesting things – irrespective of their Klout score.

PS. For anyone applying to a job at my company, putting a Klout score on your resume will get it tossed in the circular file immediately. Consider that a friendly heads up.

Nov 8

12 Comments

6 degrees of separation? Don’t make me laugh

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28481088@N00/2727841188/sizes/z/in/photostream/I received a call from a real world friend the other day (hence forth “Friend”) and the conversation went as follows (cutting out the general chit-chat to save you all from falling asleep at your desks or driving your cars – which, by the way, you really shouldn’t be reading this while driving, but I know how it goes).

Friend: So I have this new prospect, ABC Corporation, and I’m up against some tough competition.

Peter: I feel for you. There’s a lot of that going around these days.

Friend: Yeah [nervous laugh] but you can help here.

Peter: Sure, I would love to help. What do you need?

Friend: I’m wondering if you could provide an introduction for me.

Peter: Uhhh… what now? You want me to introduce you to your own prospect?

Friend: [more nervous laughter] Oh yeah – I was checking them out on LinkedIn and you know their VP of Finance, Anne Accountant.

Peter: [pulling up LinkedIn] You’re out of your mind, I don’t know anyone named … son of a … yeah … I guess I do know her.

Friend: Cool! Can you provide an introduction? We could use the help to seal the deal.

[awkward pause as I'm clicking around furiously]

Peter: Oh man… I know Anne probably as well as you do. She connected with me a while back as a friend of a friend of a friend situation. I can start reaching out but it’s going to take a while. Let me see what I can do.

This exchange got me thinking about the role of social networks in our lives. Each and every week, most of us are acquiring additional connections on Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter and it bears asking “where does it end”?

A typical situation: your world collides with John Doe on one of the networks – maybe an interesting post or exchange or a comment on a mutual friend’s photo, whatever – and you connect. John and you may never speak again. Sure, you see each other’s posts on occasion but there is no real interaction, no real connection.

Are you and John friends? No, not really “friends” friends … although you may be “Friends” with the capital “F” on the network. And if I ask you how you know John, *you* will most likely be the one nervously laughing and come back with a “no idea”. In the meantime, your real friends, the one with the small “f”, will be buried in your Facebook timelines, Twitter streams, LinkedIn streams, etc.

So what’s the answer here? Where does it end? I don’t have the answer but while we’re thinking about it, please feel free to connect with me at:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/peter.a.wolf
Twitter: www.twitter.com/azambainc
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/azambainc

And some day … down the road … when we are talking, I might ask you how we connected and you can refer me back to this post.

Nov 5

Facebook Twitter

Facebook Public Posts Can Now Automatically Update To Twitter

I just noticed this morning that if you login to your Facebook account and then navigate to http://www.facebook.com/twitter you can link your personal profile to your Twitter account.

Previously Facebook allowed this type of updating to Twitter but only from Facebook Pages which are different from your personal profile.

This change means that public updates you make to your:

  • Status updates
  • Photos
  • Links
  • Videos
  • Notes
  • Events

Can now automatically be sent to the Twitter account which you’ve linked to your Facebook. Remember that ONLY those items set as PUBLIC will flow to Twitter – which means that what’s marked as  private on Facebook stays on Facebook.


This change is helpful to those who want to avoid having to visit multiple services to post updates. With the proper configuration as shown above you can now automatically send a tweet for each public update on your Facebook account.
Facebook/Twitter

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 39 other followers