There’s always discussion as to what is the best way to present your product or services to prospective clients. A company without a web site is rare. Only the smallest of main street businesses can survive without a web site… possibly. As people turn to the web, rather then the phone book to find the service they need, an online presence seems to be necessary to survive. From haircuts to juice bars, unless you are in a great location that guarantees constant foot traffic, you need to be found by other methods.

With newspapers and magazines dwindling, not to mention the cost of ads and television advertising, the web offers free marketing for any firm. The question is; what is the best venue? The answer is; what does your company need?

What Is The End Product/Result?

Recently a friend of mine needed help for an event he was holding. He wanted an eFlyer, web site, Facebook page, Twitter account and anything else I thought would help get the word out about the event and aftermath.

After a discussion of his needs and desired results, I sent him a creative brief that suggested a digital flyer that could be posted to sites, Twitter and emailed to his mailing list. It made sense, as this was a limited, time-sensitive project. It would have the build up to the day it was held, occur and then have some photos and comments. After that, it was a dead issue. I suggested a Facebook page to reach more people within the demographic, a Twitter account to keep people up on the event and undisclosed location as well as reach more of the demographic through the use of hashtags and I told him to forget a web site.

For this need, a static web site, even one updated regularly, including a blog section was just a waste of time and effort vs. what is available through Facebook. He insisted on both but his ability to dedicate the time needed to keep all accounts updated and fresh was limited, so the idea of the web site and blog was dropped.

The eFlyer was designed and he had friends and contacts post it on their Facebook pages, pointing people to the fan page of the event. The eFlyer was also posted to his Twitter account with the appropriate hashtags and the Facebook page garnered close to 4,000 hits in the first week.

It was easy to keep up with the two basic accounts, Twitter and Facebook, for news and blurbs leading up to the event and within the month leading to the event date, the fan page had over 10,000 hits.

Would a web site draw the same attention? Possibly but it would have to draw on the addition of the Facebook page, which would be an extra step in his daily posting schedule. For one person servicing all of the social media needs, it was a time drain he couldn’t handle.

This fit his needs but what fits YOUR needs? If you are a Fortune 100 company, you have a team of marketing/social media people to post all over known creation and that is where you need to be. If you have a small service-oriented company, such as being a freelance designer, hair dresser, house painter, plumber or limo driver, just to name a few, you certainly don’t need both a Facebook page AND a web site. A web site alone will do better for you with the proper SEO so customers will find you easily.

With Facebook…

A Facebook page will allow a small business to update information quickly and has tie-ins with Twitter, Foursquare, Pinterest and Instagram. If you want to announce daily specials to your followers, show new product offerings or encourage inbound marketing and interactive response, a Facebook page is ideal for businesses that don’t have a lot of time for social media management or paying a web master to update a web site.

Facebook also has a “close proximity” factor for gathering and tracking followers.  This means that people are logged in and concentrating on their timelines. If your information is viral on Facebook, you are part of these figures:

• One in every nine people on Earth is on Facebook (this number is calculated by dividing the planets 6.94 billion people by Facebook’s 750 million users).
• People spend 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.
• Each Facebook user spends on average 15 hours and 33 minutes a month on the site.
• More than 250 million people access Facebook through their mobile devices.
• More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook.
• 30 billion pieces of content is shared on Facebook each month.
• 300,000 users helped translate Facebook into 70 languages.
• People on Facebook install 20 million “Apps” every day.

The use of viral images and information, you can grab a part of Facebook users. With the tools that are a part of Facebook, as well as those that have sharing integration with Facebook, you can keep your social media marketing organized with a minimum of time needed to use multiple channels of social media marketing.

An interesting use of Facebook marketing which actually relies on Twitter for the main social media element. A local food truck announces its daily location via Twitter and then Facebook and allows for recommendations and reviews, along with fan interaction via a Facebook fan page. They have no web site and probably won’t need one unless they decide to park in the same place every day.

So, Why Use A Web Site?

There were an estimated 2,459,646,518 internet users worldwide as of February 2012 (representing about 30.2% of the population worldwide), according to Internet World Stats data. The figures grow every day as technology allows more people to gain access to the internet.

Those figures aside, there will always be a need for a company or individuals to have a web site. Again, it depends on your needs.

When you have a web site, aside from the morals and taste factor of society, which isn’t really much these days, Facebook has rules and privacy settings (although no one seems to be able to figure those out) and will place ads on your page which may very well compete with your product or service, so owning your own web site gives you complete control over content (although you need to read the terms of service of your web hosting provider).

©GL Stock Images

When planning a web site, the first thing to consider is how it will be built. Will you use a ready made template, a WordPress theme or hire a web designer to build the site from scratch to your particular specifications. All will cost money but make sure it’s money well spent. When hiring a designer, it’s best to let them use their expertise at understanding your needs and then allowing them to design your site without interference.

If poorly designed and developed, your site won’t work very well with your users and search engines. Getting involved because you believe design is simple or you need to control the process or, worse yet, you want to brag to friends that you helped design your own site, you will end up costing yourself prospects via lost SEO and a site with bad navigation or designed poorly so people surfing the site won’t stay to view your products or services.

A no-nonsense site is best for a business that offers a product and pricing information that is available to the casual shopper, 24/7. In this case, a well designed website will help you sell more. The website can become a powerful visual aid for your business and a knowledgeable, convincing and tireless virtual salesperson who will always be there when your clients want more information to make the buying decision.

Because of this 24/7 digital salesperson, you will save time and money. Your website will be always available online, even after hours, so won’t have to answer the phone as frequently because now people have another way of getting the information they need about your business: through your website.

With a digital presence, you can reduce or even eliminate the costs for printing and distributing flyers, brochures, newsletters, etc. Including a digital PDF on your site allows prospects to download all of these at no cost to you and they can be updated at any time.

With a website, your business can be listed in various online directories including the web directories of Google, Yahoo, Bing and other business-specific online directories. For your customers, these are like on-demand phone books that will come in handy. Specific searches from local prospects can bring customers right to you.

Show Your Work Process And Successes!

Facebook allows for quick updates to show projects and how they turned out. The same can be used on a web site and will boost customer confidence. With a web site, you can place reviews where they will be the most effective. A big project for a big client will bring big SEO for your site.

One way to encourage a new customer is by showing the transparency in your work process. Tough economics, competition between companies and the cost of services has clients worried…not that they weren’t worried before but now it has become imperative to waylay the client’s fears with a lot of “hand-holding,” explaining what will happen when, how, and why. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it makes perfect sense.

By showing the process, in detail on your web site, before a project even starts, both parties should understand the milestones and what can and should be expected by BOTH the client and the supplier. By simply stating, “this is what my company does, and this is what it typically costs,” it eliminates a lot of the needless bartering and wasted time crafting custom proposals for clients. By defining what you do for a client, and what you don’t do, it’s become easier for you to determine costs.

When prospects see examples of your successes, they will also be inspired for their own projects. Often, if they see what they like, they will ask you to repeat the same project. They may see a style or process they like and ask you to provide the same for them as they now have confidence you will deliver their vision without guessing at the end results.

Yes, these can be added to Facebook, too, using the photo album function but, once again, on your own web site, you can control placement and impact.

What Price For Fame?

There’s been endless discussion about price lists on web sites. The internet, technology itself, has changed the way we all do business. The rise of Amazon.com and the effect it has had on certain retail sectors (i.e. retail toy and book sales). We have gotten use to the ease of point-and-click buying. Personally, I prefer to hold the product in my hands before buying. I like looking at the package, flipping through pages, trying on clothes and shoes BEFORE considering the purchase. Unfortunately, that option is disappearing.

Some would say that’s a con and not a pro but apparently society doesn’t agree as evident in the bankruptcy and closing of retail stores and chains. There will always be the projects that need the personal touch. The meetings, the briefs, the back and forth and the negotiations for the fees involved…followed by the arguing and non-payment thereof. With a posted price, the prospective client or buyer knows what the product or service will cost and is more likely to pony up the entire cost up front. If not, payments split into two or more with milestone payments are still acceptable to internet shoppers with a final payment due upon delivery, which, thank goodness, will erase the “30 day” payment period. As a friend once said, “30 days is a jail sentence and not a payment term.”

©GL Stock Images

People argue the notion of price lists on a web site as “too rigid” and “unchangeable.” Companies that post products would scoff at that. If you are in a product oriented or service industry that can post a flat fee or price, they can be changed albeit by a person who can handle the web site and needed changes. You have to ask if there will be frequent changes to your prices and costs. If not, placing prices on your site may put you ahead of competitors when prospects are shopping around the web.

As mentioned in the opening of this article, it’s up to you to know your business plan before jumping into social media. Your business plan has to consider the demographic of your targeted consumer and what will reach their needs when marketing your company. Jumping in blindly is a bad business decision and a savvy businessperson will know that planning is the first step in execution.

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When searching for apps, you will notice that the number of apps available to you is so tremendous, it can be extremely time consuming to just browse through all of the apps that are offered. You will even find that there are over 50,000 different apps to choose from, some of these apps are completely free and some of these apps will cost you a bit of money.

Of the thousands of apps that you will have to choose from, there are certain apps that just stick out from all the rest because of what they have to offer. While each app is good in its own way, some of the apps that you can use on your android phone are just better than other apps. Below is just a short list of the top five apps for the android phone.

Google Sky Map.

http://www.google.com/mobile/skymap/

This is one of the coolest apps for Android especially if you are a fan of star gazing. On a nice relaxing night, when the sky is full of stars, you can stand or sit outside and simply point your phone up toward the sky. Google Sky Map will be able to tell you all about each and every celestial that you see in the sky. This is not just cool; it is also educational for people of all ages! If you love learning about new things and enjoy looking at the stars anyway, this is the perfect app for your android phone.

Google Translate.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.translate

There is an obvious reason why this is a top choice for apps on the android phone. Google translate is a necessity in society today. Google translate will enable you to translate just about any conversation that needs translation. This is definitely important, especially if you find yourself having a conversation with someone who does not speak your primary language. You will also be able to translate your own text into the language of choice so that you can hold a decent conversation in another language.

Beautiful Widgets.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.levelup.beautifulwidgets

A lot of android users love this app and it is definitely an app that you will want to give a try especially if you are a fan of customizing the look of your cell phone screen. This app will allow you to choose what types of features you want to be displayed on the screen of your android phone. You can choose to add all sorts of useful information to the screen of your phone which would include your battery life, a clock, and other cool and customizable features that you will love.

Tiny Flashlight + LED.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.devuni.flashlight

This app can come in handy for all types of situations and is definitely a necessity. If you do not have it on your android phone yet, you should add it as soon as possible. This is, by far, one of the neatest apps you can find for the android. What this app does is, it will turn your phone into a flashlight! This is perfect if you need help finding something or if you are stuck in the dark with no light and need a way to get around. The light will be released through the camera on your android phone. If you are ever stuck in a sticky situation, this app can come in handy for you.

Facebook.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.facebook.katana

Just about everyone has a Facebook page because this is, after all, the most popular social networking website on the Internet right now. Not only does this come in handy for people who love to keep in touch with friends and family members, it is also a free app which means you will never have to pay a cent to use this app. With the Facebook app, you will be able to do everything that you would do on a regular computer. You can upload pictures, like status updates, create your own status update, tag people, and do just about anything you want. You will also be able to state your exact location using this application on your android phone. You will also receive notifications if anyone comments on your status or does anything newsworthy. This is a great app to have because, first of all, it is free and also because it will help to keep you in touch with people from you phone. If you love Facebook, this is an app that you definitely want to have on your android phone.

Conclusion

When it comes to android phones, there are just so many different apps that you will have to choose from. Here are Android market stats from AppBrain:

It can be hard to choose what you want and don’t want to have on your phone. As of right now, there are just about 350,000 different apps that have been created for android phones. When you take into consideration the number of apps available, you will realize how difficult it is to find which ones are the best. These are just a few of some of the best apps that you can find for android phones. Each of these apps is useful in different ways. Google has a long list of apps that they provide for the android phone. And while these apps are some of the best, there are lots of music and game apps that you may have fun choosing from. If you have an android phone, it definitely wouldn’t hurt to add these apps to your phone because they are quite amazing.

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Facebook has not only enabled people to stay in touch with one another, it has also helped many people find family members and loved ones of who them they had lost touch with or never had the opportunity to meet. Facebook is an amazing website for people who enjoy socializing, keeping in touch with friends and family, playing games and much more. There is a lot more to Facebook than just what meets the eye. In fact, there are many features of Facebook that a lot of people do not know about but if they did know, they would certainly enjoy these features as well. Below is a list of the top 10 features of the popular social networking website, Facebook.

Tag your friends in comments.

You might have been used to being able to tag your friends in pictures that included them or pictures that you wanted to share with them. This was always a neat feature that Facebook provided to its users. However, a fairly new feature allows Facebook users to tag their friends in their very own status. So now, if you are hanging out with a friend, you can tag them in the status and let all of your Facebook friends know who you are hanging with. When you tag the friend in your Facebook status, a link to their page will be set on their name so anyone viewing your status can easily click the name of your friend and will be taken to his/her page. This is also a great way for people to find mutual friends that they may share.

Post an MP3 to your status.

This is a cool hidden feature that lots of users do not know about. If you have several music files with URLs that end in .mp3, all you have to do is simply copy and paste the URL into your status update box, press submit, and you will be able to display an actual music player for you and all of your Facebook friends to look and listen to. This is a great way to share some of your favorite music with your friends and family members. If you haven’t yet, you might want to give it a try. It is pretty cool. Click here for FB mp3 upload file app.

Develop your own poll.

Need to find out statistical information for a school project? Interested in finding out which fast food restaurant is most popular amongst your friends? You can create your very own poll on Facebook which will allow all of your friends to answer honestly. This is a great way for you get poll results almost instantly. You won’t even have to leave your bedroom to find the results to your unique poll. To create a poll, go to your status update box. You will notice that when you are writing the status, you have the option to ask a question instead. In the question box, you can ask your question and create multiple choice answers for friends to choose from.

Create groups.

This is a feature that has been around for quite a while now but still, there are plenty of people who are unaware. You can create a group, whether it is for a school program, a favorite television show, or a support group, and invite members and allow members to join the group at any given time. This helps people of the group communicate with one another on a more personal level.

Create events and invite everyone.

On Facebook, you can create an event which will save you a lot of time instead of having to send out invitations to people for the events. In fact, when you create an event on Facebook, you can send the event invitation to your friends on Facebook as well as people on FaceBook who are not on your friends list and people who are not even a member of the social networking website.

Find out how “liked” your pages are.

This is pretty cool statistical information that you can find on Facebook without putting in any effort. You can use the “view insights” button or facebook insights page that gives you more insights on the content that users view on your Page. This will tell you number of total likes, friends or fans and people talking about your page.

Block creepy people.

One of the best features of Facebook allows you to block people that bother you, for good. You can put a creepy or annoying person on your block list and when they log onto their Facebook and go to your page, it will look as if you deleted your page and are no longer a member of Facebook. This will help you prevent and avoid stalkers!

Hide status updates and albums.

If you don’t want everyone to know your business or see certain pictures, you can hide status updates and albums from specific people on your list of friends. This comes in handy when you want to hide your “crazy night out” pictures from your boss or a racy status from your family members.

Create designs with tagged pictures.

On the top of you Facebook, there are about eight different small sized pictures that you have been tagged in. This is called a banner. You can create a custom design or use a pre-made banner to make your Facebook page look unique.

Make the new ticker small and unnoticeable.

The new ticker is annoying to some and you have probably noticed it one the right-hand side of your homepage. If it bothers you, make it smaller so that you don’t have to look at it. Use your mouse, click on the ticker and then pull it up so that it will appear much smaller on the homepage

Conclusion

Facebook has a lot more features to it than what meets the eye. These top ten features are cool and interesting aspects of the social networking website that you can enjoy. Now that you have learned about these different features, you might want to start trying them out for yourself.

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The private goes public

It’s actually more accurate to say that Facebook is becoming the epitome of just about every internet privacy complaint ever lodged.  Their bad reputation began in 2007, when their underlying code was leaked onto the Internet.  This was a gold mine for hackers, showing them all of the backdoors they needed to extract all sorts of personal information quickly and quietly.

Once this issue was fixed, in November of the same year, a project called “Beacon” allowed 3rd party websites to embed a small script onto their pages that would automatically send all sorts of user information and statistics to Facebook.  Facebook was now places that Facebook users didn’t even know about, creating a very creepy feeling.  Astoundingly, this program was allowed to continue for almost two years.

Identity games

Facebook makes it amazingly simple for users to make accounts that are in the likeness of someone else, enabling all sorts of easy defamation.   While this has always been a concern online, Facebook’s construct makes this very easy to do, and very difficult to combat.

In one case, a man who goes by the online handle of “Lefty” has documented the lengths that someone decided to go through to impersonate him.  The way that Facebook’s privacy settings work makes people like his stalker extremely difficult to stop, as someone with a new account can block you the moment they create it, making it impossible for you to know they exist unless someone tells you.  “Lefty” went so far as to drive to Facebook’s headquarters to get answers.  Facebook’s response amounted to little more than a shrug.

A worrisome alliance

That Facebook would use, sell, and allow compromising of a user’s personal information is all bad enough.  Worse was that it wasn’t only to other companies that they’ve proved willing to make these deals.  Facebook showed that it was just as willing to bow down to governmental requests as it was to other businesses.

Buckling under pressure is one thing.  Webmasters who face legal action have to confront this question all the time.  Facebook, though, has shown almost a gleefullness in willing to fork over to just about whatever government agencies just about whatever information they want.  They’ve stated that, all that they require of the requesting agency is a “good faith belief” that they will use the information obtained in nothing more than an honest pursuit of evildoers.  Those of us a bit jaded these days at the notion of any government agency earning such “good faith” would rightly get a chill at this naiveté.

It gets worse.  Facebook announced in mid-2011 the launch of its own PAC (political action committee) that would allow its corporate employees to donate money to their favored political candidates.   This is not an unheard of strategy for large software developers or for large web companies; Google and Microsoft both have PAC.  But combine this with the above kowtowking, and then add into that the assertions that Facebook as a whole leans to one side of the political aisle, and you have the recipe for one gargantuan mess of corruption that would make Richard Nixon proud.

Anti-social Extremes

One more area in which Facebook creates problems for the user concerned with privacy is in their sudden, unpredictable update of entire systems of software.  Now, software updates by themselves are normal.  Facebook, though, takes it to new anti-social extremes, with wholesale layout and information access makeovers with no forewarning.  It’s starting to become commonplace to wake up one day and find your feed looking utterly different than it did before.

On a simple usability scale, this is irritating.  On a privacy level, this is nightmarish.  Users never seem to have any notion anymore of what information is private and what is public.  By all measures, there seems to be more help shared between users than there is between those users and Facebook.  It’s an unbelievable bit of callousness, one that has resulted in an amazing phenomenon: there are half a billion Facebook users, and most of them are conscious of the fact that this is a relationship based on mutual disrespect.

Looking forward

Privacy giant EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) has begun to lead the charge to the Federal Communications Commission to look into Facebook and their privacy statement as well as their practices.  Pardon the obvious pun, but at this point it’s hard to not look at Facebook’s approach to its own user base as, literally, an EPIC failure.

What does this mean for their future?  Right now Google+ is starting to siphon off their user base, and it’s likely that both they and other networks will endeavor to do the same.  On the other side, Facebook has not yet shown anything beyond the barest of lip service that they have any intention of changing course on any of these approaches.

At the same time, Facebook is still the largest social networking web site in existence, and that momentum means something.  Look at, for example, the Occupy movements, or for that matter, any of the major political movements that have sprung up in the last 3 years.  It’s a hard sell to try to tell these people to move to a complete different service when they know full well that all of the people that they want to reach are on this one, and time is of the essence.  Many of them would like to do so, but have to consider pragmatics as well as values and privacy concerns.

This is a hard one to predict.  Unless Facebook changes course, what will most likely determine its future is how well sites like Google+ and other competitors make it easy to jump ship.  If they do, all of the things that Facebook is doing to ignore privacy and other concerns just might soon come back to bite them.  Bigger empires have fallen before.

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Introduction

At first, social networking was an idea that many people had never heard of. When MySpace hit the scene, it became popular in a dramatically short amount of time. There were so many things that you could do on the site that were the catalyst for its primary success. Facebook, on the other hand, started off small when it first came out but, like a planted tree, it has grown and expanded into something amazing. As Facebook continued to grow, it began to outshine MySpace and is now ranked higher than MySpace. There are a lot of differences between the two sites right now as both sites have different features to offer their users.

Applications

Both social networking websites have applications that users can play and have fun with. As of right now, it seems Facebook takes the lead with some of its applications. For example, the game Farm Town has received so many users and a lot of people find the game to be addicting.

Demographics

Facebook may win the race when it comes to demographics. The fact of the matter is both adults and children or teenagers own Facebook accounts. It is a cool website to use for people of all ages. On the other hand, a lot of the users on MySpace are younger. When Facebook was first designed, it was aimed toward college students. MySpace still has that spunky appeal that attracts younger visitors while Facebook seems to have a more mature layout that is easily and openly used by both adults and teens alike.

Privacy

When it comes to privacy, MySpace definitely takes the lead. The news is constantly bashing Facebook for violating the privacy of its users. Facebook can show other people exactly what you do, every move you make. It can also show what type of habits you have when you browse the web. Advertisers also use the information on your Facebook page to target you with advertisements which, let’s face it, can be quite annoying! Myspace offers a better sense of privacy all together.

Design

MySpace takes the lead for design as well. While designing your own page is not important to some, MySpace allows its users to design their profile in a unique manner that helps their page stand out from other pages. Facebook, on the other hand, sticks to a simple layout that cannot really be altered, changed or customized according to your preferences. With that said, the latest version of Facebook, slated to roll out in the coming weeks, is said to minim the design of MySpace in many ways, which truly heats up the batter between these two social networking juggernauts.

Entertainment

Both MySpace and Facebook are perfect for entertainment purposes. You can listen to music, play games, and of course, stay in touch with your family and friends.

Promotion/Business

Both of these social networking websites are perfect for entrepreneurs and artists who are looking to promote themselves or their business. Some find it easier to network on Facebook while other people say it is easier to network on MySpace. One really has to try both and see what works best for them.

Spam

As a member of MySpace, you may notice a bunch of junk e-mail in your messages. This can be quite annoying. When it comes to spam, Facebook is better at filtering through it so that you are not bothered by it as much.

Safety/Security

Very recently, there has been a lot of Facebook hacking taking place. However, this can happen with a lot of different websites and the best way to save your Facebook or even MySpace page from getting hacked is to change your password every now and then. When it comes to your safety and security, MySpace is better with providing you with the security you need to prevent your personal page from getting hacked or from your private information being exploited.

Usability

When Facebook first hit the scene, it was simple to use. Now, they have changed so much when it comes to the format of their page, it can be very frustrating, especially for older users who were just getting the hang of the old Facebook.

MySpace has changed its layout and theme over the years but it is still fairly simple to use.  As of right now, Facebook even rolled out a new feature which is referred to as “The Timeline” and basically outlines your life from birth until now with pictures and everything else that is important and significant to you on your timeline.

Conclusion

With the differences between the two social networking websites, it can be hard to choose which is the better one overall. Facebook obviously takes the lead, according to the existing charts, but there are some people who prefer MySpace anyway. With Facebook, you can find friends, message friends and add new people, use different apps and network with other people. The main issue with Facebook is the lack of security and privacy. It is not right that users have to worry about their private information being handed out to advertisers and other third-party people.

MySpace definitely takes the lead over Facebook when it comes to privacy. Most people, however, choose Facebook, because it easier to use to stay connected with the people they care about. Some people second guess their decision to use Facebook due to the lack of privacy. However, even with a certain lack of privacy, Facebook is still the number one social networking website on the Internet right now. Deciding which one you will use is entirely up to you. If most of your friends are using Facebook, it would be understandable as to why you would prefer to use this social network as well. After all, these websites are designed with the purpose of connecting people with one another. Many people have even been able to find long lost friends and family members through Facebook. What a great phenomenon!

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What does Facebook offer?

The two different websites both have positive things to offer its users. Facebook is much like an online hangout that allows people to keep in touch with one another even after graduating, moving to another state or even across the world. Facebook keeps families, friends, and acquaintances connected with one another. The “like” feature on Facebook allows users to choose things they like along with their friends statuses and picture updates.

Top Notch Privacy Settings

Facebook recently changed their privacy settings and some love the new change while others are not a fan. While your wall was once visible to everyone, you have the option of making your wall private or semi-private to specific people. Don’t want your family members to see what you are saying in your status update? You can simply block them from being able to view your status updates. It’s quite simple and easy to follow. Facebook privacy settings are definitely great for people who don’t want their information available to random people.

Networking and Business Friendly

Facebook is not only a good website for people who want to stay connected. It is also perfect for small business owners. Small business owners have the opportunity to build a fan page for their business on Facebook. This page will allow them to keep in touch with customers, customers can leave feedback and comments, the business owners can post pictures of merchandise, take orders, and use the link for their business page on Facebook to spread the word about the business. Facebook is also network-friendly for people who are into networking themselves.

Not So Positive Things About Facebook

While Facebook has a lot of positive features, there are some negative features as well. Facebook is constantly making changes that most people don’t like. In fact, some users have been so upset with the changes that they started their own Facebook page to express their dislike for the new layout and format of the site. While it takes some getting used to, it is not absolutely terrible.

What is worrisome, though, is the fact that many of the Facebook applications and features can find out a lot of your private information, much more than you would be willing to share. Because your private information on Facebook is not really private after all, it may leave you wondering how user friendly Facebook really is.

What does Google Plus offer?

Google Plus, the relatively new social networking platform, has lots to offer its users as well. Google Plus offers video chat to its users. This feature comes in handy for those who would normally use other video chat programs. Now, users are able to stay in touch and chat through video which is quite cool. Google Plus also has a feature that is referred to as Circles which enables you to choose who is in which of your circles. Once you set up who is in your different circles, you get to decide what those people can see on your Google Plus page. Because the site is new, there are still plenty of features to come.

What are the negative features of Google Plus?

Google Plus users are supposed to use their real name when they sign up. This means your name will be displayed as it actually is. Whereas Facebook gives you the opportunity to use nicknames or fake names, Google Plus wants you to be honest and use your actual birth name. For some people, this is just not good. Google Plus is also relatively new and seems to be a bit too exclusive to some people.

Which Is Better?

As of right now, Facebook is definitely still the better social networking platform out of the two selections. Why is that? Well, as the number one social networking platform, Facebook continues to change with its users. The reason changes are constantly being made on Facebook is because the creators want the website to grow with users instead of users growing out of the Facebook trend. Myspace is another one of the competitors that Facebook is constantly dealing with. At one point, Myspace was the number one social networking platform. Facebook was able to beat Myspace for the lead and is working hard to make sure it keeps that spot and prevent websites such as Myspace and Google Plus from reaching the number one spot.

Facebook is paying close attention to competitors, especially Google Plus, and is making even more changes to keep up with these other social networking sites. It is obvious that Facebook does not want to lose its number one spot on the list of top social networking sites. As Google Plus grows with its new features, Facebook continues to produce new features as well. This benefits the users much more than it benefits either of the sites. With these two websites in constant competition, they will likely work on making the sites even more user friendly and listen to what user have to say about the site.

If these different social networking platforms are willing to listen to your suggestions and make changes based on what you and others have to say about the website, then that is a good thing. That means that the website actually care about their users and not just making business and money. Even more changes are expected to come for both Facebook and Google Plus. It is hard to say if Facebook will have the number one spot in just a few years from now but with the way they operate, it is quite possible.

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There are many platforms that allow individuals to communicate. Of course, the social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace are the most popular; however, forums and web discussions are becoming increasingly popular as well. These platforms allow users to discuss various topics and it is very possible that, depending on the subject you are interested in, there is some type of forum that exists that specifically targets that subject. The process of creating a forum or web discussion is dependent on the skills the person has within web hosting and code. Forums and web discussions are still not quite as popular as other social networking sites, but they have the versatility to become anything the creator wants it to be, which is making it popular among individuals.

Who are social networking sites for?

Almost everyone has some type of social networking site and businesses are now creating their very own which would allow them to connect more deeply with their customers. By creating such sites, businesses are now able to see what their customers truly think in a relaxed, comfortable state. Individuals and businesses alike want a social networking platform that is easy to use and popular.

Here are the top five social networking platforms:

These five social networking websites are in the lead over all other social networking sites online. One may wonder how the rankings for the top five social networking platforms are decided. The decision is based on a number of factors. These factors include:

• Profiles
• Security
• Features for Networking
• Support
• Friend Focus

These few factors are what determine whether or not the social networking platform is a success. Profiles are the most essential factor because this is how a user expresses themselves and who they are to the public and to the people who they know. On a profile, users can talk about their likes and dislikes, hobbies and interests, and literally be themselves. Users value being able to have a profile that is easy to use and allows them to talk about themselves and what they are into. A user profile should be easy to set up and understand, but also decent enough to allow the user to show who they are and their personality through their profile.

The Importance of Security

Security is definitely another major factor on what makes a social networking platform successful. Users value their privacy and security. Who would want to be a user of a social networking website that didn’t value the security of its users? Surely, no one would. Each and every successful social networking platform should have security options for its users. These options include giving the users a block button so that they are able to block anyone they want, especially people who may be bothering them online. Users should also be able to block off certain parts of their profile from other people if they wish.

Available Features

The features for networking are definitely an additional bonus. If a social networking platform wants to have success, it will need to offer tons of features to its users. It is important that social networking platforms remember they are in constant competition with others. Features that should be offered to the users include picture updates, video update, groups, status updates, and tons of other features that the users want.

Support is a necessity especially for those who are new to using social networking platforms. The last thing that a platform should want to do is to leave a user feeling unsure and left out. The platform should offer support and advice to new users and there should always be a section available to users that answers some of the most frequently asked questions.

Connecting with Friends

Last but certainly not least, friend focus is essential and it is the main way that a social networking platform will grow. Users want to be able to connect with their friends and family members. If a social networking platform wants to be successful, they have to make the friend focus easy for users to keep in contact with one another.

In Conclusion

Overall, it seems as though Facebook has mastered most of these features because it is number one on the list of top five social networking platforms. Facebook has received a 4 star rating for security, support and friend focus. Facebook also received a 3 star rating for profiles and 3.5 stars for networking features. Facebook currently takes the lead as the number one social networking platform, but the website does have some fairly stiff competition.

MySpace comes in as a close second. The website received a 4 star rating for all features except for the friend focus feature. When it came to friend focus, MySpace received a 3 star rating, which is what put the social networking platform at number two in the list. MySpace is in constant competition with Facebook for the number one spot. If Facebook wants to keep its number one spot or if MySpace wants to reach that number one spot, changes will need to be made on both ends. The same goes for the other three social networking platforms and all of the other platforms that have not been able to make it within the top five.

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Facebook

Since Facebook is the number one social networking website, this app is an important feature for a lot of people. Most people love being able to log onto their Facebook page and chat with other people as well as update statuses and upload pictures. With the Facebook for Blackberry app, you can stay in touch from your phone on Facebook. The chat on Facebook, although not as smooth, is still an improvement, especially for Blackberry users who are using this app.

Google Maps

The upgraded version of Google Maps for Blackberry has better results than the previous versions. You can filter your searches by using star ratings or distance. You can turn on live traffic and have the GPS lock in quickly. The GPS can get you where you need to go instead of you having to worry about getting lost along the way.

Shazam

The Shazam for Blackberry app allows you to use your Blackberry as a recorder. If you hold your Blackberry around a song that is playing on the radio, this app will recognize who is singing the song and what the song is called. After recognizing the song and the singer, it will allow you to buy the track as an mp3 and will even look up the music album that it’s on. It will also post YouTube videos of the song that you like as well.

Twitter

Most people own a Twitter account as a means of networking with other people. This updated Twitter for Blackberry app shows off a lighter color scheme. It also supports some of the most common growing trends along with support for 0S 6 and a profile icon which features a lighter color scheme too. This version of Twitter also performs much faster than the previous versions that came before it.

App Mobile World Edition

AP Mobile is an award-winning mobile news application. You can find informative news articles about things that are going on locally as well as nationally and worldwide. It provides news on spur of the moment so that you will never have to wait for a certain time of the day, like you would have to for the news broadcasts on the television. You can even send these news articles to other people from your Facebook account. It is quite a cool app, especially for those who like knowing what is going on in their area as well as around the world.

Flashlight

Flashlight app provides a bright flashlight that uses the camera as an LED flashlight. This helps the LCD display which is great because it conserves battery power and memory usage. Most importantly, this app is 100% free and it will not cost you a single penny to use! You definitely cannot beat a free app that can be useful to you.

Amazon Kindle

You can even read books on your phone thanks to this awesome app. The only downside to this app is that you cannot read newspapers or magazines with it. However, anyone who enjoys reading a good book and is a fan of their Blackberry and/or Kindle, will thoroughly enjoy the convenience of such an app.

Slacker Radio

This app allows you to listen to music offline and saves the battery life  on your phone as well. You can get very well-programmed and customized stations which is definitely a convenient function for all Blackberry users. You can create your own customized stations that are ideal for your listening tastes.

Weatherbug

This app is a necessity. It not only lets you see what the weather is, you will also be able to see the live updates for the weather and view touch maps so that you can easily see what the weather is like in other areas aside from the area in which you are in. This app will allow you to keep a heads up on the weather and know what to expect in terms of temperature.

Conclusion

Blackberry did not always have easy and convenient apps at your disposal. However, many improvements are being made to the phone as well as the apps so that Blackberry users can enjoy a lot of entertaining and informative apps.

These apps are just some of the many apps that Blackberry users have to choose from. These apps will allow you to keep in touch with friends, update statuses, find directions, know what the weather is, and read articles about what is going on in the world. All of these apps enhance the functionality and pleasure of using your smart phone.

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The point of the study was to investigate how the emergence of multiple information technologies simultaneously combined to create a synergistic effect in information sharing.  In other words, the study meant to ask this question: with all of the information that exists on the web, combined with the increasing power of artificial intelligence to decipher it, is there any privacy anymore?

Do you really want this answer?

While the study fell short of saying “no” outright, the results are sure to send a chill up the spine of any privacy advocate.  The combination of all three parts of the study showed that, just using publicly accessible data, you can go from a picture of them to private information in a matter of minutes, assuming that the information they grabbed was already publicly accessible.

Let me repeat. If you are walking down the street, someone can take a picture of you using their cell phone and potentially know your Social Security number, sexual orientation, or home address in just a few minutes.

Why isn’t anyone saying anything?

If it seems like this should be major headlines and isn’t, there are two reasons for this, and neither of them have anything to do with the importance of the topic.

1. It’s not that new

No one single technological element of this study is new to us. Facial recognition technology goes back decades, and has been in more frequent open use in the last 10 years following post-9/11 security upgrades.

As for the other side of the equation, illusions of any real privacy on the internet have mostly disintegrated.  FaceBook may make headlines now and then when they do something bone-headed with their accounts, but we’re well aware that they are far from the offenders, and this is likely to continue.

What’s new isn’t any one item, it’s what you get when you combine them all together, something which is much harder to notice until someone does a study like this one.  In that sense, then, we might be the proverbial frog in the pot of water.  Now that we’re starting to see where this is all going, we may be wondering if this is just a bit too toasty warm for us all.

2. Have too many of surrendered?

The other reason that you may not hear too much about this is that there are a lot of people who have assumed these types of developments are inevitable.  Even before “World Wide Web” became a household term there were a number of pop culture fictional worlds in just the 1990′s alone that essentially told the viewer “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”  “The X-Files,” “Enemy of the State,” “The Matrix,” even “The Truman Show” were among the onslaught of movies and TV shows that convinced the user that it didn’t matter what they did: Big Brother was moving in, so you might as well setup a bed for him.  The fact that a TV show by that name (“Big Brother”) premiered in the 1990′s, and people tuned in without seeing or caring about the irony involved might be the strongest proof of this phenomenon imaginable.

So what do I do?

I hate to compound bad news with more bad news, but the simple truth is this: we don’t know.  No one seems to.

Right on this very website are articles about how to get your information more publicly visible through various search engine optimization tricks.  We talk all over the place about how important it is to make it easy for others to find you.  Now suddenly we want to change course.  Can we?

Here’s the problem: all of the advice we can give for you on this you’ve heard already.  Use good passwords, don’t give out personal information when you don’t have to, all of this you’ve been beaten to death over.  This also doesn’t do anything for the fact that your name and information will make it out there in all sorts of ways that you don’t think of.

Anything more secure than that starts to move you towards places where you simply reduce your electronic presence entirely.  Is it that easy, though?  If you are some web-based business, of course the answer is no.  If you are just some artist trying to get by perhaps you can envision this, but that’s a lot easier than doing it.  The internet is sort of like the mafia that way: once you’re a part of the family, trying to remove yourself later from it is a dubious proposition.

I’ll give a few quick tips that can maybe dull the danger a bit:

1. Don’t give out information needlessly

2. Use secure connections at all times

3. Always use your common sense

4. Find other privacy advocates.  If you are really are diehard about trying to make yourself invisible again, there are movements based around this idea that can give you decent advice and support.

The best advice: Just be ready for it

Truthfully, though, I’m wary of giving too many tips because I don’t want to setup the impression that any of these things are magic shields.  I’d rather in turn just get you used to the idea that this is how it is.

Here’s an exercise: when you do anything whatsoever online, start out with the assumption that the entire world is over your shoulder watching you.  Pretty scary, huh?  Let it sink in though.  Once you accept this worst-case scenario, you realize that in the end this is something you can deal with.  It’s a huge life lesson to work into what you probably thought was just a technical article, but it’s true: if you  base less of your life and livelihood on secretiveness, and more of it on “things that can’t be taken from me”, you’ll have less to worry about.

19^th century theologian Søren Kierkegaard said as much, that the man who bases his safety on how secret is his life is doomed to failure.  Maybe coming here for a sermon was not what you had in mind.  As we start to realize that cyberspace is a monster that has long gotten out of our control, though, maybe a word or two from our wise men is not such a bad idea.

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In the Beginning:

It all began with Usenet and the creation of “threaded” conversations held on bulletin board services.  This allowed people to have interactive conversations and keep them organized so that information was easier to find and easier to understand.  To this day, Usenet still exists and is blooming with hundreds of thousands of new messages every day.  Usually grouped by interest, a Usenet group would be listed as, for example, rec.games.computer.quake for discussion of the PC game Quake.  There are Usenet groups on just about any topic you can imagine from fan groups for Janet Jackson to discussion groups about knitting.

Fast forward a few years to 1998/99 and the introduction of Open Diary and LiveJournal.  Open Diary was the first to recognize that there were many people out there who were using word processing software to make online diaries for themselves, which at the time was difficult and often expensive, as web hosting was comparatively more expensive than it is now.  With this knowledge, the founder who goes by the handle “TheDiaryMaster” created a service wherein users would sign up for an account, choose a template and start publishing from the services interface.  It streamlined the process and also added on many other features that would have been difficult, if not impossible, for those who were publishing on their own. Open Diary introduced security levels so that posts could be friends only or public as well as options for changing fonts and allowing visitors to leave comments on your posts, something that until this service was not available anywhere.  Also available on the service was the ability to add friends, so that you would have a type of reading list to keep up with your favorite diary writers. In fact, Open Diary can be seen as the first step that the world took towards social networking.

In 1999, a newer service came to the forefront with even more options available to users called LiveJournal.  At its inception, it was an exclusive club: you needed to know someone to get an invite to sign up.  There was a point where people were selling their invite codes for $25-30 apiece!  LiveJournal offered much in the way of customization of your individual space, ability to host photographs and other multi-media creations as well as also having a friends list and commenting abilities.  The biggest draw to LiveJournal in the beginning was their new “community” feature which allowed a user to create a group journal where ongoing conversations could be held by multiple users (up to 500 at a time).

The dawn of Web 2.0

While it is a hotly disputed topic of when “Web 2.0” became a reality, it is well known that the term was coined at the 2004 O’Reilly Mass Media Web 2.0 convention in late 2004.  What the term has come to mean however, in everyday terms is that the web instead of being a place where a person seeks out information, like in a library catalogue, it has become interactive. People have real experiences through virtual worlds and text-based chat rooms, and even now through video conferencing.  Thanks to file sharing sites and services, people are trading music and books and any other type of media imaginable.  The experience of Web 2.0 has moved to also take place on our cell phones where the new Android, iPhone and other devices are allowing for remote access to email, websites, navigation and news all at the tip of your fingers wherever you happen to be.

Of course, with the invention of ever greater technologies we come face to face with some of the problems of these opportunities. More than ever, privacy and identity protection are at the forefront of everyone’s minds as they use credit cards to purchase items for themselves and their loved ones, subscriptions to online video games and even use online services to send and receive faxes and attend university.  This concern is a very real one as sensitive and private identifying information is shared over the network of the Internet and opens users up to identity theft and fraud like never before.  While the Web 2.0 has made life simpler and more streamlined for the legitimate users, it has also made life simpler and more streamlined for those who would steal your information to use for their own ends.  This had led to a rise in the creation of privacy, anti-virus and other security software.  This has become a thriving occupation all on its own from websites offering virus protection scanning and programs to fix problems found to people who have taken the time to get training to do it manually and will come to your home and fix your computer for a fee.

What you see is what you get:

Thanks to the introduction of Web 2.0, the life blogging that has come with it, we are now seeing the Internet open up to new users at an amazing rate. Anyone who wants a website can pay a few dollars for a domain name of their choice and the majority of web hosts have a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor that requires no programming knowledge whatsoever.  This brings the world of website building to the newest computer user and for fans of the most obscure hobbies.  As time goes by, the World Wide Web looks to become more and more interactive.  Eventually one day, perhaps, a person will not need to leave their homes at all to conduct their daily business.  It is an exciting and uncertain time for people everywhere as regulations are imposed and new ways of communicating are built.  Pull up a chair, dear reader and come along for the ride!

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