I just read an article about a Facebook privacy, which was referring to a girl who found out that someone was impersonating her on Facebook. The girl reported it to Facebook in the way that they want you to report an impostor profile but that she never heard back from them.

I have also reported things to Facebook, smaller things, such as groups who are misleading, such as the fake Facebook pages I wrote about before. But I did not hear back from them either.

Now in my cases, I understand that they cannot report back to each individual, but when it comes to people being impersonated etc, I think they should. Sure they have to make judgments and possibly they get tons of reports daily. But for an individual this does not mater. They still feel mistreated.

However, big companies seem to be too untouchable. I’ve been planning to write share a friends experience with the Apple customer care. He tried to contact them about his account constantly resetting and got the same autoreply 3 times, which did not even relate to his question. But there was not much more he could to about it, and as far as I know the problems still exist.

What is it that makes some companies so untouchable? And what is it that make us want their products even though we know that if we have problems it is up to us?

We all want what we cannot have?

Do you remember all the comments, groups and pages that used to be when every Facebook made any significant changes? With the home feed o the profile? When they moved, added or removed things? Which made the users have the relearn what they knew. There have been quite a few of them.

This time, however, I have seen none. I’m talking about the introduction of the new profile. This could have been because people just got used to not having an impact on the development of the network, but I don’t think this is in. I thing it is because of the changed roll-out logistics. Instead of changing profiles in bulk (And let the swedes wait ;) they let the users decide on when they wanted to update their profile. Which have lead to people actually asking on how to make the change.

This is how twitter did it too a while back when they started rolling out the new layout. But as their changes have rarely (since I got on twitter at least) caused any big fuzz, this way of changing did not make as big of a difference on the reaction.

So what conclusion can we make from this? Quite a few, letting the users make the change have quite a few advantages:

• The geeks (me) that are not in the first bulk change does not feel left out.
• We do not risk any crash by rolling it out to everyone at the same time.
• And bet of all the users that is normally skeptical towards changes, feels like they are the one making the change.

Of course there is other time when this can be applied even when we are not talking about the bigger social networks. It could be a good thing when launching a website or a new product. – Add the new, but have the old one there for a while in the beginning.

A new trend has started on Facebook, where people set up Fan Pages and promote a message that promised some kind of free item; such as an Ipad or a Macbook. This trend seem to have a lot in common with the recent trend where people created Groups with names like “join and you while be able to see who visited your profile.” This issue seems to be going away and now the fan pages is the new problem.

The big difference between the previous group trend and this one with pages is that there is no obvious “gain” from these pages. Since pages cannot be tracked back to a specific user there is not gain for people to use pages to promote their personal FB-accounts, which was one of the reasons for the previous boom of fake groups. Another problem, with the groups was that the administrators changed name to the groups when they reached a certain amount of visitors. To for example “we are pedophiles.”  Damaging the reputation of individuals as many of them don’t receive notifications when groups that they are in change names, and thus, do not realize what groups they were members of. But there has not been any inclines that these is the purpose of the Fan Pages either.

So what is the real problem with these Pages? Is there even a problem? Are the creator breaking against any policies? Who is gaining from these pages?

Groups such as “iPad Research Program – Test It and Keep It!” and “We’re Giving Away Laptops” get tens of thousands of fan and as far as I can understand they are not breaking against any of Facebook’s Privacy Policies, and thus get to stay.

If you access the page “We’re Giving Away Laptops” you can see that it is connected to a website called chooseyourcolor.com. The Fan Page also clearly states that they have no connection to Apple INC, thought they claim to be offering MacBooks to their Fans. Therefore I took a closer look at the site chooseyourcolor.com and realized that the website also gives away laptops, IF you apply for a credit card or a loan and also be accepted before you get your “reward.”

chooseyourcolor.com: “Completion of reward offers most often requires a purchase or filing a credit application and being accepted for a financial product such as a credit card or consumer loan.”

To check this group out I decided to become a Fan to see as they say that you have to become a fan “before the next step is revealed.” Then they say that inviting your friends is the next step and after that you should press a third link to “Finalize the Registration.” In the case of some applications on Facebook you have to invite a few of your friends to see the result of the test that you have taken, but as this is not the case with pages I just pressed step three to see where it took me. The result “Free Lotto,” which if you Google it seems to be a huge scam.
Thus, whether this page is in fact connected to the page chooseyourcolor.com or not, I have not been able to figure out. But according to other sources you are recommended to NOT finalize the step three in the group “We´re giving away laptops.”

So what is the conclusion? Stay away from groups that seem to be recently started and don’t have a connection to a well established company. Whether these groups are breaking against the Facebook policies I’m yet to figure out, but if they are, I truly recommend Facebook to create an “verified account” system such as the one Twitter have to protect their users. Because if we are to believe what they said in the blog post which announced their new partnership with McAfee, user security is one of their Goals!

I’ve read about the earthquakes, the tsunamis and the other disasters and how social networks have been used to keep families and other informed about what is going on. Still, because I have been lucky enough to never know anyone in any of these catastrophes I never really understand how big of a difference they make. Until today…

This morning there was a train crash in Brussels, or actually outside of Brussels (But the initial reports in Sweden did not say so). The current numbers say that 18 people died and over 50 were injured. Because of this my phone started beeping with messages and calls from worried friends and family members who wanted to check if I was okay.

Therefore I put it in my Facebook status that everything was alright and that I was not in the crash. This was very appreciated by others who were concerned. My friends here in Brussels also did the same which gave me less to worry about.

With cell phones many might not find this necessary, but if someone of my Swedish friends did not have my Belgian number, because we mostly speak on Skype they did not have to worry, neither did those who had run out of credit on their phone and could not send me a text. For these and many other reasons the Facebook status update became invaluable.

Thus, now I really understand the importance of using social media to update my family that I’m ok!

But social media helped in other ways too, on Twitter people who were at spot of the accident uploaded pictures that people could follow to see what was going on. Most information was easily available on the hashtags #brussels and #traincrash.

Most bloggers agree that is more fun to write when you get comments and reactions to what they have to say. Because of this, there are lots of different reaction possibilities on most blogs such as; thumbs up, share on Facebook or Twitter, give points to the post or write a regular comment.

While comments themselves are interesting and encouraging, discussions in the comments section between several people are even better. But it is worth remembering that most people today are living with a tight schedule, therefore one particular feature on you blog, might make things easier for them to get into such discussions. Namely, a feed that send you the comments on the blog post via RSS, or even better, the opportunity to receive the feed via email.

Some comments applications, such as disqus gives everyone the opportunity to subscribe to the blog comments for a particular blog via email or rss, whether they are users or not. Those who are in fact users of Disqus can also choose to automatically subscribe to comments from the posts that they comment on.

So whether you have your own domain or use wordpress or blogspot, etc. Make sure to find a application that allows for this functionality. If you have trouble finding one for your blog, you can always send a question here, and hopefully I can help you find one.

They have been going on a while, the viral Facebook status updates. I was first asked to post my bra-color in my status, which has turned into a mystery as no one knows who started it. A day later came the question about the length of my hair, and I’m sure there has been many more like them.

After that came the doppelganger week, where you where supposed to publish a picture of your celebrity look-a-like as you profile picture. This caused some drama as it might violate the terms of service for the network as first published by Cnet. But there is still people participating in this.

Because of these trends I got the question from @Thrimpth on twitter:

At the time the idea that companies, organizations or even blogs could benefit from this hit me right away. But I had not developed my thought more than that at time.

Today the next viral campaign spread and indeed there is a website that is getting a lot of attention for it. Urban Dictionary is the “winner” of being the first to actually benefit from these weekly trends.

Urban Dictionary is the dictionary you wrote. Define your world.

The trend is that people look up their name on the urban dictionary and then post the result for it in their Facebook status. Of course you can also find the word for “To look up your own name on Urban Dictionary, either for definition or myspace useage” which is Urbaning. So technically the latest Facebook trend is called Urbaning, and indeed it is a trend, as the urban dictionary page for Urbaning is in the top ten most popular webpages right now according to the alexa toolbar.

The dictionary’s visitor count changed + 143 % yesterday (Feb 2), according to alexa. Considering the fact that most online media journalists and bloggers just began writing about this trend around 24 hours ago, this is only starting. My guess is that because of this viral trend Urban Dictionary will double their visitor-count five times at least because of this.

Now, an interesting consideration to take here is that there is a big chance that the creators of the urban dictionary did not initiated the campaign themselves, but simply some user who saw the potential it had. Though regardless of who started it, many people will now know about the dictionary.

Many companies might think that they would have a hard time implementing a trend like this, because their message, product or service is not as easy to spread or and interesting to share. But I would have to disagree. There is a lot of successful viral campaign’s that wasn’t too connected with the initiators. Take the fun theory that I wrote about a while ago, I’m sure that people did not think about Volkswagen when they first found out about it. But I would say that most of the people mentioning it to a friend will know who created it. And they did not scream “we did it,” they simply but their logo in the end of the clips.

Thus, sure Urban Dictionary had an obvious “pitch” for starting a trend on Facebook. However, a good idea is a good I idea, and I think any great idea could make it.

What do you think? Could any company, organization, blog or website start a viral trend on Facebook? Have you seen any other facebook trends that I have missed? Do you think that anyone benefited from the previous viral status updates?

A few days ago I had a discussion with a clear Facebook opponent. Actually, she was against all social media. She argued that Facebook was only a place to share photos while I argued that I used it for communications. I guess in a way we are both right, as people tend to use Facebook very differently. Even my use has changed over time.

At one point we started discussing the value of communicating in various channels, especially comparing: Skype, Phone calls, E-Mail and Facebook mail and wall. She said that all the people worth being friend with she communicate with using the first three communication tools, and those she does not contact using this tools, she did not consider friend nor did she have any need to stay in contact with them.

As you might suspect my view was completely different. I use all those tools, and many times I prefer communicating via Facebook as opposed to mail. Primarily because on Facebook all communicating is “person to person” and by that I mean my inbox is not filled with newsletters etc, that might make me forget or lose an email from a friend. I do agree with her that my closest friends are those I communicate in voice with, but that would never mean that I would consider dropping all my other relations. I love the fact that I can stay in touch and updated with some many of the people that I meet and talk with.

So what can we learn from these differences in use of communication tools and value of them?

Basically I have realized that I might want to see the irregular use of Facebook of a friend that this person might prefer me to contact them via the normal email or via phone call. Whereas, a frequent user might love the (1) after the inbox on their Facebook account.

Thus, take the time to look at what communication tools someone is using before you contact them and you might end up with a better conversation. As you are doing it on their terms!

I asked the question: “Do you value a ”normal” mail more than a Facebook mail?” on Twitter and got these responses:

As you see there was some misunderstanding of the term “normal” mail; I should have said e-mail. But I thank @Garthy30 @tomegnome and @mveilenstein for their answers, once again showing me that this is very individual.

Which one do you value more? And how do you go about contacting someone? Which communication tool is your default?

From time to time, I help people fix various problems with their computers. Many of them use Norton Antivirus which at least used to slow your computer down. Therefore I recommended people to switch to another Antivirus software. Now it was a long time since I used Norton, so I do not know if this is the case anymore, especially as they recently released Norton Antivirus 2010, which has got a few great reviews.

However, I still recommend people to switch to McAfee Antivirus, the program that I have personally been using since I bought my last computer two years ago. I really like this Antivirus, because it only “contacts” me occasionally and when it does, I actually understand what it is asking for. Something that I have realized that other Antivirus software fails to do. Sure the program has many other benefits of using McAfee, but that is my personal favorite.

So why am I telling you all of this?

Here is why: In the Facebook blog the other day I found out that McAfee has a special offer on the McAfee Facebook Fan Page, where all fans get a six month complimentary subscription (Yes, that is correct complementary means free). Basically all you have to do is log on to their fan page “become a fan,” go to the tab “Protect Your PC.”

In addition they offer a reduced fee on the subscription after those six months for all the Facebook fans.

Now, they will ask for your credit card information when you sign up, but they won’t charge you anything. All you have to do is sign up for an account, fill in all your details, and download and install the software. (Before you do this, remember to uninstall any current antivirus software: here is why)

Now to the marketing:

Talk about a great offer and marketing campaign at a good time.

The offer is a result of a partnership between Facebook and McAfee, with the goal to:  “Through this partnership, the two companies have jointly created security solutions that include McAfee security software, a custom scanning and repair tool, and consumer friendly education materials that Facebook will make available to its more than 350 million users. In total, this is a first-of-its-kind security offering that represents a major milestone in the fight to secure the Internet and reduce global cybercrime.”

The benefits of the Partnership

1. As almost everyone is a Facebook user today, they manage to reach a big audience.
2. People like me will spread and recommend this offer making the campaign viral, thus even bigger.
3. Facebook shows humanity by giving their users a way to protect their computers.
4. McAfee reaches new potential customers, from which they can earn long term profit.

Now, I hope you believe my words and my phrasing of McAfee and try it immediately and please come back here later to share your McAfee experience.

From time to time, I help people fix various problems with their computers. Many of them use Norton Antivirus which at least used to slow your computer down. Therefore I recommended people to switch to another Antivirus software. Now it was a long time since I used Norton, so I do not know if this is the case anymore, especially as they recently released Norton Antivirus 2010, which has got a few great reviews.

However, I still recommend people to switch to McAfee Antivirus, the program that I have personally been using since I bought my last computer two years ago. I really like this Antivirus, because it only “contacts” me occasionally and when it does, I actually understand what it is asking for. Something that I have realized that other Antivirus software fails to do. Sure the program has many other benefits of using McAfee, but that is my personal favorite.

So why am I telling you all of this?

Here is why: In the Facebook blog the other day I found out that McAfee has a special offer on the McAfee Facebook Fan Page, where all fans get a six month complimentary subscription (Yes, that is correct complementary means free). Basically all you have to do is log on to their fan page “become a fan,” go to the tab “Protect Your PC.”

In addition they offer a reduced fee on the subscription after those six months for all the Facebook fans.

Now, they will ask for your credit card information when you sign up, but they won’t charge you anything. All you have to do is sign up for an account, fill in all your details, and download and install the software. (Before you do this, remember to uninstall any current antivirus software: here is why)

Now to the marketing:

Talk about a great offer and marketing campaign at a good time.

The offer is a result of a partnership between Facebook and McAfee, with the goal to:  “Through this partnership, the two companies have jointly created security solutions that include McAfee security software, a custom scanning and repair tool, and consumer friendly education materials that Facebook will make available to its more than 350 million users. In total, this is a first-of-its-kind security offering that represents a major milestone in the fight to secure the Internet and reduce global cybercrime.”

The benefits of the Partnership

1. As almost everyone is a Facebook user today, they manage to reach a big audience.
2. People like me will spread and recommend this offer making the campaign viral, thus even bigger.
3. Facebook shows humanity by giving their users a way to protect their computers.
4. McAfee reaches new potential customers, from which they can earn long term profit.

Now, I hope you believe my words and my phrasing of McAfee and try it immediately and please come back here later to share your McAfee experience.

Lately, I see more and more of my friends joining groups on Facebook, which promise them that they will get a “dislike button” or that they will be able to see who visited their Facebook profile. So the message I want to send with this blog post is:

Why groups for “A dislike button” or a “Profile watcher” are not legit.

The Profile Watcher

Now, if you want to know why the” Profile watcher” does not work, I’m going to do my best to explain it to you:

1. It is groups not applications. First of all this is groups and not applications that we are talking about. To be able to create this type of service they would have to create an application which can control who visits your profile page. An application that you would have to get and approve.
2. You control what information applications get from you. In the Facebook Privacy Policy you can read that “You can control how you share information with those third-party applications and websites through your application settings.” This means that even if there were an application that was working, you would have to allow that application to show people that you had visited their profile.

Basically this means that to get this application to work both you and the people that are visiting your profile page would need to get this application, and then approve that the application can get this kind of information from your activity on Facebook.

I have read a lot about “visitor counts on Facebook profiles” on various forums and on the applications discussion board, where the general comments are “bullshit” or “Facebook privacy does not allow visitor count.” Ironically, I have to say that the first one of these are more correct from what I have read, as I have not been able to find any kind of statement about this particular issue in the privacy policy. Even though it is technically correct that “Facebook privacy does not allow visitor count” I am still waiting to find out where this is written.

The Dislike Button

First of all: There is a “dislike button” add-on available to Firefox users. Thus, all Firefox users which have installed this add-on can see what others dislike, which means that for them this is not an issue. Read more about this on Lifehacker.com.

Basically the first problem with the numerous “Dislike button” groups is the same as with profile watcher. It is groups not applications. Although this time, there are not any privacy issue that is the reason, it is common sense. Basically, the dislike button won’t appear just because you invite your friends to join the group, the groups are just created to market the person who created the account. There is an example of how on: Kramer’s blog.

Also, I do not know why Facebook have decided on not having a dislike button, because clearly people are interested in one, if you look at the petition group. However, if they did want to create one, it is not that difficult for them. They did the “like” button, right?

Some people still claim that they have heard that it has worked for other people, but I do not know anyone who have said so. Now, I cannot promise that there wont be a “Profile Watcher” or a “Dislike Button” for everyone in the future. But for now, please, think twice before you join one of these groups.

Friendly Reminder: Google or Bing the things that you cannot understand, or are not sure about. That is how I found these results.