What do they want from you?

How do you think Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube are making the majority of their money? Right now every social networking company wants your information because they are striving to build up their Business Intelligence (BI).

Social Networking sites are making money hand over first from selling your information to third party companies. The more information you type into your profile, tweet or podcast is causing their bank accounts to soar. Even if you have a locked down account, it doesn’t matter because you agreed to each of the social networking site’s legal agreements. They want your information and they can do what they want with it.

Takeaway: Be aware of the information you are typing into your social networking accounts.

Callspark Merges Mobile Contacts

If you don’t have the Palm Pre or Motorola Cliq, then you probably won’t appreciate the feature called Synergy. The concept is straight out of Back to The Future in which all of your contacts are joined into one searchable database.

Callspark creates a searchable database of all your multiple sources of email and social networks just like these devices. Now all you have to do is point your mobile phone to the Callspark website, accept the privacy policy and wallah, you can search email, phone and social media contacts together.

http://search.callspark.com/results

Y2K2

When the ball drops at midnight on the start of 2010 should we brace ourself for the world to grind to halt? 10 years ago the nightmare of Y2k was upon us. Switching the last two digits from 1999 to 2000 was going to cripple the world because legacy computers weren’t programmed for the switch. This event occurred without an issue.

However what if the last two digits were meant to cause an issue this year jumping from 2009 to 2010? Perhaps the issue wasn’t switching from century to century that would cause computer malfunction, but a swtich from a decade to decade in a new century? Is it time to prepare for Y2k2? My answer is “No”, but it’s interesting to look back 10 years ago when a panic was among the population on the switch.

What is a Re-Tweet?

Do you re-tweet? Re-tweeting is the act of taking another’s tweet you enjoy, giving them credit, and then reposting it to your feed. If there is room in the 140 character limit, I also like to add a little comment.

I went to the Cool Twitter conference last August and learned some great techniques regarding re-tweeting. For example one tip is that when you get new followers, take a look at their feedback and re-tweet a post you like as an act of gratitude.

How often do you re-tweet? Do you have any suggestions on re-tweeting? Here is post on the science of re-tweeting.
http://scoopdog.wordpress.com

Second Life Game Over

Second Life was the rage a few back at the same time that MySpace was the king of social networks. Times have changed. A report from BBC news states that Second Life has succumb to the same fate as MySpace.

I think the concept of Second Life is strong however it’s the execution that could be questionable. I tried getting into the alternate virtual social networking website a few years back, but I discovered that it was going to take considerable amount of time to become an expert. This one factor, it’s extended ease of use and learning curve, is the reason for the decline of Second Life’s popularity.

Read the complete report from the BBC on decline of Second Life.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8367957.stm

Classifications of Facebookers

CNN recently did a classifications of the most annoying  Facebookers. Can you relate to any of these listed here? Do you have any to add?

1. The Let-Me-Tell-You-Every-Detail-of-My-Day Bore.  – tell me more?
2. The Self-Promoter. – every link to your blog (I am guilty of this one)
3. The Friend-Padder. – 1000 friends?
4. The Town Crier. – I can’t take who just died.
5. The TMIer. – too much info
6. The Bad Grammarian – I can’t spell
7. The Sympathy-Baiter. – too much bad news
8. The Lurker. – not much participation but they know alot about you
9. The Crank. – complainers
10. The Paparazzo. – constantly tagging posting photos
11. The Obscurist. – not clear updates
12. The Chronic Inviter. – constantly sending out group invites

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/20/annoying.facebook.updaters/index.html

Windows 7

Windows always has a sky background as their default wallpaper in every edition of windows as far as I can remember. Is cloud wallpaper to remind us that it’d be wishful thinking if the operating system worked? This time around Microsoft has done it right with their latest version of Windows, but the question is it too late? Microsoft is keeping an eye on the Google Chrome operating system which is coming soon and will be free.

Windows 7 in a nutshell:

• Launched Oct 22
• Broad hardware compatibility
• Increased security
• Increased overall speed and stability
• Improvements on usability over deep functionality
• Start Menu improvements
• New Taskbar
• Aero Peek- side by side widows
• Quick Display Switching
• Compatibility with past systems is a big issue

http://www.microsoft.com

Mobiles Phones Will Replace Salesman

I saw an interesting post the other day in a forum about mobile phones replacing in-store sales staff. The truth about this situation is that it is bound to happen sooner than you can imagine.

In the book “Don’t Make Me Think”, Steve Krug says there are two types of shoppers, ones that ask a store clerk for help locating a particular item or ones who attempt to find it alone. His analogy attempts to explain there are two types of users that come to websites, ones that will automatically use search to find content or ones who will just try clicking around the navigation to find it.

The point here is that with mobile phones the need for shoppers to ask questions to in-store sales people will decline because they can just look it up on their mobile phones themselves. Way finding is shifting because as time goes by, more and more people are getting used to looking everything up on their phones.

Do you agree the in-store sales person will be replaced by mobile phones?

Tagging Keeps It Fresh

In Facebook you can tag another person in a photo, when that happens the image will appear on your wall and your gallery. I was talking to my cousin the other day and he said he never does any updates to his Facebook account because he is continually tagged in photos which makes his account active.

How many people open a Facebook account and just let tagging keep it fresh? I wish it was that easy for me, I actually have too much say.