Monthly Archives: September 2011
Everything Changes, Including Facebook
“Social media…
It never changes.Since the dawn of the internet, when our ancestors first created forums and IRC, arguments have been had in the name of everything from God, to video games, to whether or not Batman could beat Superman in a fight.
In the year 2004, after millenia of online conflict, the destructive nature of man could sustain itself no longer. Facebook was created, and its competitors were plunged into an abyss of apathy, and ridicule.
But it was not, as some had predicted, the end of all other social media. Instead, it was just the prologue to another chapter of human history. For Mark Zuckerberg…had succeeded in changing the web.
But social media…never changes.” (reference)
Yes, Facebook is changing. Once it looked like this. It more recently looked like this. Now it looks something like that. Even the most recent changes are fleeting, as soon we’ll be introduced to Timeline. And not everyone is happy. They’re probably the same folks who weren’t happy with all the previous changes either.
Admittedly, there are some more worrying developments with this round of updates. And it’s hard to simply dismiss their complaints with “well, it’s a free service and they can do what they want with it”. People who have been on there a long time feel invested in it. But as new technology becomes available, these companies have to try to make use of the latest and greatest or they risk stagnating and falling behind while another company eats their lunch. (Or if you’re really confident you can always use the changes to pull a George Lucas and rewrite history but you should still expect a backlash). At the same time, you need to remember most of the time Facebook isn’t making the changes for your sake. Neither are they doing it to annoy you, as this article would seem to suggest.
It’s for the sake of advertisers and other partners. Facebook wants you using apps, sharing content, and giving your information to them and their advertisers. The most recent updates are designed to make that easier, especially for app-makers. They’re also designed to increase the amount of time you spend on there.
This article suggests Facebook is becoming more ‘blog like’ and I think that’s a very accurate assessment. Tumblr and WordPress are huge, and growing (of course, there are tons of other formats as well). If Facebook can tap into what makes them so popular, but still keep their existing user-base, there are significant growth opportunities and I think they’re hoping with more users and more content they can keep you on their site longer (which is only to the benefit of their advertisers).
That’s also the reason they’re unveiling Timeline. They want to stop you from leaving by putting the focus on ‘the best content’. Which would you rather watch: a two-hour hockey game that’s already been played out, or just the goals and the big plays? Most will pick the latter. That’s basically what Timeline is; a highlight reel of your best posts, and the best posts of everyone on your list.
What can you do about it? Well, you can remember that your feedback probably won’t accomplish much. I can tell you to email Mark Zuckerberg and give him a piece of your mind, but remember who it is they’re listening to.
"Oh, user feedback. I know exactly where to file this..."
Ultimately, it is important to remember you are getting something out of this deal (the ability to interact with your friends/family/customers/any combination of the above in a simple, easy, mostly secure, free system). You could always delete your account(s), but is that a realistic stance in the year 2012? Jumping networks is a naive approach as well. If Google+ ever supplants Facebook, what makes you think they won’t do the exact same thing in a few years time? Or worse: they could go the MySpace route and sell all your information to advertisers (keep in mind, that was BEFORE an ad company bought what was left of MySpace).
Besides, if you deleted your Facebook, you’d have one less place to gripe about the changes to Facebook.
You don’t have to like the changes, but it’s important to keep in mind that they’re doing it to improve how they make money and that help keeps it free. It also stops it from becoming supplanted by a newer, shinier network. Social networks as we understand them today are still a new idea, and there’s lots of learning to be done before Facebook will know exactly what the future holds. And in a few months time, you’ll forget all about it (or be complaining about the next round of updates).
How do you feel about the Facebook changes? Or, what are some other changes that have annoyed you recently? Leave us a comment!
-PG
Venues and Mayors and Badges! Oh my!
What’s the point of “checking in” or Geotagging, as it is sometimes known? I’m asking this as a former foursquare junkie. What’s really the point? Oh, I know the answer. I’m just posturing at this point.
I was a massive user of foursquare a few months ago. I would check in EVERYWHERE. This is starting to sound like some kind of AA meeting, but let me finish.
Don't you DARE!
Why was I doing this? In all honesty, it was a game. There was about half a dozen of us, and we were all competing to get on the foursquare leader board. We were trying to get badges. We were competing for mayorships. There was no other point than that. I had no intention of letting people know I was having interesting adventures at the grocery store, or every single building at Algoquin College that I happened to be in at any given moment. I just wanted the check-in points and the badges.
I wanted to beat my friends.
Heck, we were making check-ins for separate rooms of buildings or pieces of furniture, just to get more mayorships!
So I don’t check in to places much anymore. Part of it is the nebulous relationship that has formed since college ended. We don’t see each other every day, so that viceral, in-your-face taunting over a stolen mayorship is gone. Part of it was scoring the Super Mayor badge for 10 mayorships and saying, “Okay, I’m done.”
Now, this is something that is relatively unique to foursquare. Facebook Places is a little different, and when used sparingly can be a fun way to let your friends know you’re somewhere new and exciting. But the game-ish side of foursquare encourages entirely pointless check-ins, for points.
YES! I'm Mayor of the house! IN YOUR FACE DAD!
There are great advantages to businesses with foursquare. Give discounts to customers who check-in. Maybe a special bonus for the mayor of your store, you’d have a customer for life (provided they don’t get usurped!). If you’ve got a storefront, foursquare can be an integral part of your social media strategy, letting your customers feel like they’re a part of your business. We chatted about that briefly on our last episode.
But you’d need to establish a policy for your employees, otherwise the people who ARE there every day, because they have to be, will be competing over a mayorship that awards them nothing.
At that point, they’re just checking in.
-Ted.
Talknowledgy for September 24th, 2011
This week’s show is now available!
Our thanks to News Talk Radio 580 CFRA for bringing us on board for the hour!
Remember you can always subscribe to our podcast here.
Today’s episode includes another social media tip from David Hall of DavidHallSocialMedia.com, as well as a new viral video and much more!
Questions? Comments? Tweet us @Talknowledgy, e-mail listeners@talknowledgy.ca, or leave a comment in the comments section below.
Enjoy!
How To React If You Get Hacked
The next generation
This is Part 2 of a Series on Online Safety. Read Part 1.
It’s a terrible feeling, logging in to an account online and knowing someone other than you has accessed it. I’d hate to draw comparisons with having your home burglarized since that’s (fortunately) never happened to me, but it’s the closest online equivalent.
How did it happen? Well, maybe it’s because you clicked a suspicious link. Other times, you may have forgotten to log out of some account on a work or school or friend’s computer. A computer you were on may have had some kind of malware or keylogger on it designed to steal your information. Or a jolly band of hackers stole your information from a company you had trusted it to. Whatever the cause, you now have to take a few steps.
Run A Scan
…for malware, viruses, spyware, keyloggers, etc. etc. Make sure you get the check from a reputable source since it could very well be that trusting something that looked legitimate (but wasn’t) is what got you into this mess in the first place! CNET has a pretty good selection of software that will perform these types of scans for you.
Change Your Password(s)
Note that this is step 2. If you change your password first, but don’t clear any malware, you could just have your account broken into again.
Tally Up The Damage
Figure out what messages were sent out, what was charged to your credit card, or what information might have been taken. If it was something like an email or social networking account, contact those who might have been sent messages and tell them to follow these steps if they clicked on anything. If it’s Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ in particular, delete any messages left behind by the person who broke into your account. Leaving them up there just runs the risk of someone else making the same mistake.
Not quite what I meant by "Tally Up The Damage"
Apologize
This in particular relates to your social media accounts being compromised, and goes double if your account is also used to interact with fans or customers. Remember, these are people who trust you and subscribe to your updates because they feel you have good content to share. If you’ve wronged them and don’t make it right, you can tarnish your online reputation.
Remember
Don’t let this happen again! Think about how you might have reached this situation, and consider what you can do differently next time.
Now, a few prevention tips…
Won't deter hackers, but could deter thieves...
Get Some Protection
There are several decent free programs. I personally use Malwarebytes Anti-Malware but use whatever works for you. Full blown retail anti-virus software can be good, but remember it’s a huge drain on your system’s resources (sometimes, it’s worse than having a virus!) and they’re typically not cheap (granted, the cost is fairly marginal versus the damage someone could do with access to certain accounts).
Always Log Out When You’re Done
…especially if you own a laptop or tablet and are leaving it unattended for any period of time. In some instances, you’ve got to be as worried about strangers on the internet as you do about the ones who are sitting right next to you. And if your classmates or co-workers are practical jokers…
Don’t Use The Same Password For Everything
A no-brainer. If you can’t remember all your various passwords, keep a paper list somewhere safe in your home. Or, if you back up your files externally, consider keeping a password protected document with your account names and passwords. Also, change your passwords regularly! And don’t make them easy to guess!
Question Everything Online
You ever read that old saying an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? Taking the few extra seconds to message someone and ask if what they sent you was legitimate shouldn’t offend them! The one time it turns out to be something harmful, you’ll both be glad you did.
It seems just about every show now we talk about the latest scam spreading on Twitter or Facebook. I won’t say who, but recently I noticed several people I follow on Twitter click on a bad link, and they passed it on to others, and it spread across the city. Most of the people clicking these links were journalists, trusted people who are in the public eye and expected to be critical thinkers who question everything. It’s a serious hit to their brand and trustworthiness, and even worse is when they do nothing about it even as people try to get in touch with them to tell them it’s still going on.
Have you ever had your online security compromised recently? Let us know in the comments!
-PG
The Future of Polling?
As our Ontario readers/listeners know, we’re coming up to an election (as are the Northwest Territories, Yukon, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, PEI, and Newfoundland and Labrador). You can expect to see more and more campaign signs on lawns, more pamphlets in your mailbox, and more phone calls from companies looking to find out how you’re voting.
What if there was a different way for parties to tell how they were doing? What if they didn’t need to pay a research company to call you and several of your neighbours so they can go back to the Rhinocerous party and tell them they can expect 0.005% of the vote?
Enter GeoPollster (there’s an American edition too!).
GeoPollster is a plug-in for foursquare that allows you to register your foursquare account with a specific political party. Whenever you check-in somewhere, you tally a vote for that party (and yes, they allow you to vote for any of the big five even they don’t run a candidate in your riding). Whenever you and those of like-minded political belief get enough check-ins at a given location, it is ‘controlled’ by that party. You can even look at individual shops to see how those who frequent that particular location are likely to vote.
Am I arguing that GeoPollster is ready to replace traditional polling? Absolutely not! For polling to be effective, it must be a large group of people from different backgrounds, socio-economic standing, education levels, and age groups so long as they are of legal voting age (just to name a few of the bigger variables). Obviously, a problem arises with GeoPollster that you need to be a foursquare user, you need to have a smart phone, and you have to be at least a little bit interested in politics. That means the group of users have at least a few things in common and are not a representative sample of the Canadian population. And just by looking at the results following the last election, you can tell it doesn’t really reflect our country’s political landscape (They’ve also allowed users who check-in outside of Quebec to still vote Bloc, which also skews the results as you can see in the Yukon…hopefully that doesn’t reflect actual public opinion!). And finally, we each only get one vote in a real election whereas GeoPollster allows more votes based on how many locations are controlled by a specific party, meaning the opinions of ‘super users’ who use foursquare more frequently hold more sway.
That being said, GeoPollster is a very interesting, unique, and forward thinking idea. People are giving up information on social media that companies would normally pay to have, and this is just one more example of ways to harness it. Further, by turning polling into a game they engage that competitive spirit and I think that will have people paying closer attention to politics and I’m all for anything that helps people stay connected with what’s going on around them. So while it may not be perfect, and it’s definitely not set to replace traditional polling, it’s an interesting experiment and hopefully we’ll hear more out of them in the future.
You can hear my interview with GeoPollster’s Adam Kraft on our next show, available Saturday. Check back soon…we’ll have a new blog post before then! And feel free to leave a comment telling us what your thoughts on GeoPollster are. Did you know about it before this? Are you using it/would you use it? Why/why not?
-PG
