I have friend that I have known since she was a child.  We live in the same little suburban town in the Chicago Area. We communicate as friends with Facebook and I really enjoy her updates and posts. She is a personable and pretty young woman now who has a relationship with another friend of mine. They are together raising there combined family with children from previous relationships.Lovely fun couple.

Several days ago Chris (not her real name) posted on Facebook that “Chris is at work, ugh! Glad I am off tomorrow!” Seems harmless, we all feel that way at some point. I’m sure she was just tired from the long holiday weekend. I know from talking to her about her job that she enjoys her position with an Oral Surgeon and is paid well for her efforts.

But what if her employer or manager saw this comment on Facebook? What if there were several like this in Chris’s timeline? All the posts were innocent expressions of fatigue or being too busy on a particular day. But these comments put together out of a time context could irritate a boss who came upon them while in a bad mood or stressed state. Who knows what the consequences would be?

We should also consider our profile when it is time for a new job. Most organizations are going to look at our profiles. Take a peek at this article by Guy Kawasaki from Alltop. He writes about an online service SPOKEO

http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/the-world/article/how-to-figure-out-if-youre-dealing-with-a-nutcase-guy-kawasaki

Be careful what you post.

Happy Posting!

Good morning world,

G33k Girl here with some helpful tips I discovered that may help you with a better social media experience.

1) Tinker.com shows you the top streaming topic on twitter and allows you to pick a keyword to watch and follow. And you can create your own events as well! As Tinker puts it, “Tinker is a simple way to discover what people are Twittering about now. ”

2) #twtbizcard It’s the new era of business cards, and paper stock is so early 2K. Get with the now and invest in a free and easy solution to digital business cards, the twitter way. It’s easy as 1, 2 ,3, tweet!

3) #twtpolls Interested in what your followers think? Want to buya new car but don’t know which one to get? Let you tweet followers help you with the next big decision. Twtpoll not only works on Twitter, but it also works on Facebook and other social media sites. Per Twtpoll, “
Twtpoll is a feedback tool that helps you to create and distribute polls on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites.” Try it with that next burning question you want advice on, maybe your followers know best.

4) Spokeo.com Just when you thought you were safe, Spokeo awakens to spy on you on just about every social media site and outlet you can possibly imagine. You better believe this will be HR Recruiters paradise. Per Spokeo, “Want to see something juicy? Spokeo searches deep within 43 major social networks to find truly mouth-watering news about friends and coworkers.”

That Saturday night when you got wasted and woke up with marker all over your face, you might want to postpone uploading those pics on your facebook or myspace. It just might be printed and posted when you arrive into work on monday. Now that’s juicy!

I hope these were helpful and until next time, think g33ky.

- G33k girl

PC World recently published an article on people search engines. These services (many of which charge) do not actually do anything illegal or dig into protected information (well, as far as we know). For example, they do not get into your personal email or hack their way into password protected accounts. Rather, they just dig deep into the web, looking for publicly available information.  For example, a service might gather up your Pandora radio stations, your Amazon.com wish list, your YouTube videos, your MySpace and Facebook information and so on. They them make this information available to interested parties (such as a stalking ex or an employer). Examples of these services include Spokeo, RapLeaf, and CVGadget.

Since the information is publically available, the services are not doing anything that someone with some basic skills and plenty of time could not do. Essentially, if you pay them, you are paying them to save time and effort.

On one hand, these services (though creepy) can be seen as perfectly moral. After all, they are not violating a person’s privacy because everything they gather is publically available-and made available (in most cases) by the person in question.

On the other hand, it could be argued that the distribution of the material is a form of privacy. While it is available, an individual would have to put in considerable time and effort to gather and assemble it. As such, the services could be seen as a way of breaching that wall of privacy.

My inclination is towards the services being morally acceptable. While they do gather all that information, the mere fact that the information is scattered does not make it any less public. It just makes it a bit harder to find. To use an analogy, if a person writes 100 pages about  herself and puts it in a single box in public with a sign saying “go ahead and look”, then they have no expectation of privacy. Suppose they create 100 similar boxes,  put one sheet in each, and scatter them about town. Then imagine that someone goes through the trouble of finding all 100 boxes. Each one is public, so he never does any action to violate her privacy. It would be odd to say that somehow collecting 100 pages of public information would somehow violate her privacy.

Of course, if you are worried about people finding too much about you, then it is wise to keep your public online presence to a minimum. But, that is your responsibility. If you don’t want someone gathering up your “100 pages”, don’t put them in public boxes. Naturally, information that you have a right to expect to be kept private is another matter.

Another concern raised by such services is that they can provide valuable information to businesses. For example, they can gather useful marketing and demographic data. The concern here is not that the information is being gathered, but that your information is being sold and you are not getting any of the money. While the services do gather the information, you created it and hence it is your property. If it has value as a commodity, then you are entitled to some of that value as well.  to use an analogy, imagine if a company went around the web gathering up stories people had written and sold them without permission or making any payments to the owners.  That would clearly be theft. As such, sellers of such information should provide people with an option to opt out of the sales and give them a cut if they agree to have such information sold.

It isn’t big brother you have to worry about when it comes to your career image (brand) with online social networking sites.  It is your future employer!

One of the most coveted revenue streams in the online social networking industry is Human Resources, specifically recruiters.  Recruiters need information and companies will pay to get it.  According to a report released last year by Forrester Research, a Cambridge, Massachusetts based technology researcher, the U.S. market for Web-based recruiting has mushroomed to $522 million.  Social Networking companies are attempting to cash in on their piece of the pie.

For example, have you heard of Spokeo?  Well, they have heard of you.  Their website tagline is “Want to see something juicy?  Spokeo searches deep within 41 major social networks to find truly mouth-watering news about friends and coworkers.”

Spokeo is an online social network aggregator.  If you are in job search mode then you have probably used Indeed or Simply Hired.  They are aggregators in the job posting industry space.  Wiki.com defines an aggregator as “a Web application which aggregates syndicated web content such as news headlines, blogs, podcasts, and vlogs in a single location for easy viewing.”  While I may be turned off by Spokeo’s branding message, as a recruiter I am actually one of their target markets.  In the middle of the page is a flag that reads “HR Recruiters Click Here Now”. 

For those who believe it’s not fair or it is discriminatory for companies to hold anything you write or post online against you when they are considering you for employment, at this time it isn’t.  As a VP of Employee Relations for a Fortune 50 company said recently when we discussed it, “failing to hire someone for bad judgment is not discriminatory.”

As you participate in online social networking consider the impact it will have on your personal brand.  That favorite picture of you in the bar with your best friend hoisting a beer as you toast to a good life may not be the best choice for your Facebook account after all.

Best Wishes,

Suzanne

www.grapevinegroup.com

There are many ways to research individuals and corporations using web-based tools. However, social media is starting to produce tools that we may use to research, study and learn about others in ways much easier than visiting every blog, post, and video.

FriendFeed is a tool that “…enables you to keep up-to-date on the web pages, photos, videos and music that your friends and family are sharing. It offers a unique way to discover and discuss information among friends.” It has a large user-base.

Mixx is a tool that allows you to tailor your interests–creating your own personalized newspaper that displays only the best of what’s on the web. You can craft this to only follow the people or corporations you want.

Spokeo touts that they “find your friends’ blogs and photos that you never knew about, guaranteed.” It does this by searching through the most used social media tools.

These are just three tools. If you have others that you have used please post them in the comments section with their pros and cons.

Spokeo is a people search service that specifically uses social networking sites to learn juicy details about people.  One of Spokeo’s target audiences is HR Recruiters, who can use Spokeo to get details about job candidates that they may have a hard time getting through a traditional online search.  One of the site’s slogans is “Explore Beyond the Resume”- scary, right?

If you think you’re safe from Spokeo…think again.  It allows people to do in-depth web searches across more than 40 sites, including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, Linkedin, Picasa, LiveJournal, Friendster, hi5, bebo, YouTube, Photobucket, amazon, xanga and many more.

And just check out some of the “testimonials” featured on Spokeo’s homepage:

You can easily find information about ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends without their knowledge…and that’s not all, it even finds out what your friends are doing across tons of websites.–Matt Keller, abc News Reporter

It’s pretty surprising to find out what people (who you think you know) are listening to on Pandora or Twittering about. The best part is they don’t have to know you’re keeping track of them.–Erick Schonfeld, TechCrunch Editor

Spokeo searches people’s activities on sites such as Flickr, del.icio.us, Amazon… sometimes turning up surprising material, from family albums to embarrassing shopping lists.–Vahini Vara, Wall Street Journal Staff Reporter

To me, Spokeo epitomizes why everyone should be incredibly careful about what they put out there online.  I know that branding is important, and it’s important to create a following if you want to be a successful journalist.  But I’m just not sure how much privacy I’m willing to sacrifice, and I definitely think it’s something that needs to be taken seriously.  I suggest you check out Spokeo.  What does everyone else think about it?

Whoa!

I’ve been researching social media networks for an internet bootstrap, and today I came across the creepiest site I could ever imagine: Spokeo. Maybe they should just call it “Spookeo.”

Want to know what this gem of a site does? Give it a whirl and you’ll see how nothing you do is sacred anymore. After entering my email address, a list of my friends’ email addresses whirred down my screen. Along came a detailed list of their personal web surfing activities. Not necessarily everything… just juicy tidbits aggregated from sites where they forgot to edit their privacy settings. Yikes. Note to self.

No. I did not need to know that my very private doctor friend ordered a clingy, see-through lingerie top. (I saw the picture). I also did not need access to the reading list of my sexy, albeit high-ranking military buddy who is apparently considering exploring the joys of Pilates (thanks Amazon). Not to mention the former boss who has a thing for the Temptations and apparently Jim Beam. Thank god my ex-boyfriend believes in protecting his online identity because frankly, I don’t need to know how many times in an average week he logs onto adultfriendfinder, or which porn sites are picking up the slack.

Today for me was what they call in the world of journalism a “chilling effect.”

Hurriedly and with sweaty palms, I looked through my own internet activities… and was relieved to find that the most revealing information was my recent admission on twitter that I’d had more than a small amount of Blue Moon at a midweek get-together, as well as my penchant for questionable cable entertainment featuring a Miami serial killer, a suburban female drug dealer, and a West Coast sex addict. Although I have to admit I was seriously worried about all my late-night googling on nudist resorts and dungeon gear. (Can’t a girl be curious?) But seriously. How’s it going to look if my grandmother runs across that? Not that my grandmother would know a google search from a garage sale. But I’m not liking the visual.

Sadly, we’re not only stuck with Spokeo, we’re about to get more and more invaded by aggregators just like it. During my early days of CBS Big Brother addiction… give me a break I was in my 20s… (oh alright, 30s) I fleetingly thought it would be cool to battle wits with 13 other morons in front of a 24/7 camera. But I couldn’t quite handle the thought of some producer having all the control… portraying me as a delusional banshee or a weepy holy roller at their own personal, ratings-driven, whim. It really bothered me that anything I said could and would be used (and spliced) against me. Well guess what. Thanks to Spokeo, we’re all going to have our own 15 minutes of mashed-up, out-of-context, our-own-fault fame. Unwittingly.

And for a lot of us, probably painfully.

Spokeo is a social networking aggregator for those of you who have dozen’s of social networking accounts, Spokeo works like facebook’s news feed utility but it just don’t limit it to facebook, Spokeo searches your friend’s feeds/blogs/photos across 40 social networks, so you don’t have to visit all of your social networks. Skopeo helps you keep  you connected with your friends across the web.

From Spokeo Site: Spokeo is a friend finder/tracker that automatically brings you friends’ updates across the Web.  Check out people’s accolades.

LinkedIn is being smart, says Mike La Rotonda

With less fanfare than the more boisterous Facebook, LinkedIn open the doors of its site to third-party applications.

The social network for job hunting and business relationships quietly invited its users in an e-mail early this week to use nine applications from developers such as Google, Tripit, the blog site WordPress, Amazon, Box.net and Huddle.

The question is whether this more trepid approach will foster the innovation and excitement Facebook spawned when gave the go-ahead to developers last year.

Clearly, LinkedIn and Facebook have different goals. Facebook is something of a come-one, come-all site for individuals to strike up friendships and trade news with existing pals. LinkedIn has the greater demure of a place for business and has made setting up links with other people more arduous.

In that sense, it doesn’t want the same kind of free-for-all that has been created by Facebook apps, many of which remain frivolous tools with little productive value.

“I really do think LinkedIn is being smart by focusing on the utility of applications,” said Mike La Rotonda, CEO of Votigo, a company that helps corporations write applications for social-networking sites. LinkedIn is said to keep tight control over what gets on board by requiring developers to submit their ideas before an app is approved.

But innovation is unpredictable and difficult to foresee. And it comes through experimentation. From the prospective of growth, “I think they are making a little mistake,” said Harrison Tang, co-founder of Spokeo, an aggregator of social networking sites for consumers. “It’s not very enticing for third-party developers to develop on that platform.”

Clearly no one can tell yet whether the LinkedIn applications program will be a success, or whether a vibrant community of programmers will evolve. But one thing seems to be in LinkedIn’s favor.

The opportunity for an application to sell advertising is attractive on the site given the business demographics of many LinkedIn members, said La Rotonda.

No, I’m not talking about the iPhone.  Spokeo is a radically powerful search tool.  Consider it a modified Google that searches only content about your friends.  In about 10 seconds, I was able to import my entire address book and find a comprehensive online profile for almost everyone in my contact list.  Profiles included some obvious results including:

- Facebook/Myspace/Flckr photos

- blog entries

- Youtube videos

- Digg/StumbleUpon/Delicious/Twitterposts

I was shocked by what also appeared in the profiles:

- items from people’s Amazon wishlists

- my friend’s complete radio station lists on Pandora

Spokeo is significant because no longer can one have a certain identity on one site, and a totally different identity on another site.  It’s no longer possible to appear to be professional on LinkedIn, a beer king on Facebook, and an active college student on Flckr — the site all of your family views to see what you’re up to.  Spokeo paints a portrait of one’s online identity and it doesn’t care if you don’t like it.

In addition, in my view, Spokeo is also crossing a line — I’m comfortable with letting my friends see my photos, blog entries, and Twitter posts, but I don’t like anyone being able to see my Amazon wishlists or have a total insight into my Pandora account.  I thought that information was private — or private until I allow the information to be shared!  Imagine the embarassment of having your friends find out you’re totally addicted to 80’s Austrialian techno or the shear havoc of your parents discovering a book about dealing with abortion in your Amazon.com wishlist.

The worst part about Spoeko is one doesn’t appear to have any control.  The site searches something like 36 websites and there’s no way to keep out information from one website or another.  Anyone who searches you on Spokeo can find you — there’s no way to limit who can view your online collective profile.  The information one thought was private actually isn’t.  Anyone who searched us today would find all of our blog entries here on wordpress, our facebook pictures and wall posts, any videos we’ve uploaded to Youtube, everything in our Amazon.com wishlist, our Pandora radio stations, and other information.  Although the site says information marked private on individual social networking sites won’t be viewable on Spokeo, I’m a little skeptical.  To ensure an online identity as reputable as one’s offline identity, I strongly encourage everyone to be careful of what they do online because you never know who is watching.

I have been so busy lately that I have not kept in touch with what is new in the web and technology areas. Well today, I finally got a chance to look at some new stuff and I got introduced to the following:

Open ID

Pop Urls

I created my page on it at http://popurls.net/Moh

Alltop

Their goal is the “cessation of Internet stagnation” by providing “aggregation without aggravation.” Check some of their pages on animation here and on food here.

Spokeo

Spokeo searches deep within 40 major social networks to get you secrets and whatever you want to find about someone. This is pretty freaky actually.

Scribd

Scribd is the world’s largest document sharing community.

Responsys

Responsys manages on-demand marketing for many companies.

TripWolf

TripWolf is a social site about travelers and travel destinations.

Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, BeBo, Ning, Friendster – there are SO many different social networks out there, how are you supposed to keep track of who’s on what, and which networks include your target audiences?

This is where Spokeo comes in.  Spokeo leverages your existing social network and email relationships to quickly and easily grab your friends’ content across the web.  So for example, you can plug in your distribution list and the site will scan dozens of social networking sites, including all of the ones mentioned above, and let you know who is on what network and a link to their profile page.

This tool is extremely useful when you’re first developing your social media strategy, as you can target your communications to those social networks that have the audience that you’re targeting while filtering out those that do not.

Check it out and use your personal address book for a test run – I bet you’ll be surprised at what you find out on www.spokeo.com.

Here’s another online people search engine I’ve been playing with lately. While I admit I do like Spokeo to help me research and find out more about people, Whozat is another people finder engine I am checking out and playing with.

I use these to help me piece together clues about the talent I am researching to helping me connect friends, peers, and coworkers of theirs also