Category Archives: Social Media

Protect your digital identity and information on social networks

Sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace , LinkedIn, Orkut, Zorpia, Flicker, twicpic, yfrog and YouTube.etc, are social media sites designed to share information such as who and where you are and what you are doing, photos and video. This is a comical example of how information is shared using social media sites to tell the Digital Story of the Nativity.

Social media sites are a great way to connect to close friends and family, or even re-connect with old classmates and old co-workers. Also it can be a great way to find and connect to new groups with interests common to your own.

With just a few clicks people can access messages, know where their contacts are, what are they doing. All this makes for an entertaining experience network. The speed and immediacy that characterizes them are useful to inform and share content, true, but it can also jeopardize your own job or worse and compromise your privacy and security. Also the content posted on the site stays on the server even after you disable your account and is searchable.

The trouble starts when it becomes an addiction, if people spend too much time discussing everything that happens in their lives without taking the necessary steps to protect what is shared. It is logical to enjoy safely social media sites, which have the ability to control how visible your information and pictures are on the site as well as any search engines who parses that data.

Below is a series of recommendations to protect the identity information in digital networks and it is up to you to decide how visible you want your contact and profile information, videos, photos, and other posts need to be, and take the time to set the appropriate controls within the media site in question. For each one of us it is important to have a good view of what is published and learn to manage and protect our identity.

Although this presentation is from last year some of the information is still relevant

Exposure Level

The search is an important aspect of social networks. It is up to the users if they want to be seen by all members of a network or just want to be seen only by their contacts.

It should make a conscious choice and set the profile, rather than leave it to the default settings, they usually allow some of the profile information such as name and main photo to be found on page and through Internet search engines.

Personal Data
Be cautious about posting and sharing personal information. Do not reveal passwords, keys, date of birth, home address, phone number and place of birth. Do not put your full resume online, if you must, remove it when you find a job. Protect the answers to secret questions that make social networks. The combination of that publicly available information and your public post about hanging out with friends on Saturday night across town could be enough for someone to take advantage of the situation and break into your house.

Information Policy
Generally every page has a link that explains how to use the information by users and gives tips for safe keeping. Note that when entering a network, it is giving license or right to use any information that is on these sites.

Privacy
All sites have a link to a “Privacy” page that explains how your information is used and provides tips on staying safe. Determine how visible the information is that you post on social networks and search engines (profile, photos, videos and posts.) Each page allows you to select privacy settings, read them and adjust by trial the level of control and privacy you want.

Twitter Safety
There is an option that messages, pictures and videos that can only be seen by their followers, for this you must change the default settings of Twitter.
Think twice before posting or even clicking on a post. Consider what could happen if a post becomes widely known and how that may reflect both on you (as the poster) or your family, friend or workplace. i.e. Jason Manford quits The One Show over sex messages

With a little effort and some common sense you can enjoy and safely participate in social media sites. Ultimately though, it’s up to you to manage your digital identity. You must use good judgment about what you post and learn how you protect your personal data and reputation from the digital networks.

Happy Christmas.

Not delicious at all

So, I write a blog post for the first time for ages and one of the key components is about to go West. The news that delicious, Yahoo’s social bookmarking site is to go to the wall has ruined my Christmas, and I’m not the only one. I’m going home to eat humbugs and kick the cat (I haven’t got a cat – but I like cats – I do – really – if I had one I’d buy a cat tent!).

Still no official announcement from Yahoo, but any regular delicious user is already looking around for alternatives. I remember a couple of years ago that I was enjoying synchronising my delicious bookmarks with Ma.gnolia, but that project appears dead in the water. Maybe this would be a good time to resurrect it.

Mike has already given Pinboard a try. Maurice is giving Google Bookmarks a go. The beauty of delicious was that as a team if we all used the same product, we could use feeds to tie everything in together and share what we found interesting (if we felt like it).

It would be a sad day if delicious went to the wall. So in a journey of sentimentality, I’m going to review my first 10 bookmarks on delicious:

Codestore Possibly the best site for Lotus Domino developers. These days very focused on Flex development, but still an excellent resource for all web development techniques
Simplebits Dan Cederholm, a frontend developer from Canada and author of one of the best html books ever: Web Standards Solutions. The site has also had a very nice makeover recently.
Zedzdead Its mine!…and posts are a little thin on the ground these days.
Acerbia Currently inactive, but some posts available from Wayback machine. Fiction and humour from Dave Frew.
A List Apart A web developer’s magazine, full of design and development best practices
Adactio Jeremy Keith, a frontend developer specialising in HTML and javaScript.
Antipixel An excellent blog/photo blog from Jeremy Hedley, a developer working in Japan, now rarely updated, but still some beautiful images.
Bucket Fountain A developer blog from New Zealand, who I followed because Liverpool too, has bucket fountains.
B3TA Funny, irreverent and rude (some NSF)!
1976 Design Dunstan Orchard’s blog, closed to new entries in 2005, but with the most inspiring banner for many years, and documented in the Colophon.

Dear Santa, forget the Android phone, please can I have my delicious bookmarks forever.

Learn about Social Media

The Social Media has had a major social impact by changing the way we interact by using different forms of online communication, including Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, microblogging, wikis, podcasts. We share what happens to us in real time in Twitter or Facebook, publish our photos on Flickr, Twitpic, see videos on YouTube and subscribe to multiple pages to use RSS feeds rather than searching the internet for information.

Let’s take a look at the following videos to see how social media has become the new form of conversation between individuals, institutions, brands and companies, how it affects communication, and the importance of online conversations through social choices.

What the HELL is Social Media?
This is an interesting way to explain how Social Media marketing has gained enormous popularity and why more companies are adopting it as a part of their marketing strategy.

The effect of Social Media in Europe
There are millions of Facebook users in Europe that spend hours updating their profiles, uploading photos or interacting with friends “Social Media is changing the Communication Industry,” brands such as Nutella, Axe and Adidas, started advertising using Facebook achieving and excellent response by earning millions of followers.

Social Media Revolution
“Social Media is not a fashion”. Surprisingly, the number of users of YouTube, Facebook or Twitter have reached higher numbers for the amount of the population in some countries. Consider the effect of Social Media in figures and percentages:

Social Media Did You Know?
While Social Media increases exponentially, traditional media such as radio, television and print media decline each year. In 25 years the print media have fallen in an amount of 7 million readers, while online readers have increased by 30 million over 5 years.

Social Media Marketing
Jody Underhill and Eric Kurita of Upside Down Iceberg tells us four steps to the success of Social Media and its benefits to become what they call “Top Of Mind”

How Obama used Social Media during his presidential candidacy
James Burnes explains how Obama became president of the United States, showing that their technique was to have a clear goal, implementing strategies, integrating the Internet to all and offer a credible change, not to talk about change, be the change.

Social Media Blues song

After a series of videos about Social Media, its effect on society, how users of traditional media have become social media users as we see a Blues song dedicated to Facebook, YouTube and Linkedln, Twitter.

Social Media will continue to develop and evolve. Who knows… what’s after Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube?