Like many of you, I am becoming more and more obsessed with iphone apps and fun sites that interact with my friends, family, colleagues and neighbors. I’m on every social networking site you could imagine, twitter, facebook, myspace, Google BUZZ, linkedIN, Loopt and FourSquare.
Virtually, you could probably figure out where I am at all times. Which means, is my house empty? Am I a target? Could all of my tweets, updates and notifications be aggrigated into one site that informs the world I’m not home?
Pleaserobme.com is a site that is bringing awareness to those naive internet goers who are caught up in the excitement of new applications and are constantly letting the world know, “Hey, I’m not home, Please Rob Me!”
The site was created by three individuals who aren’t really out to get you robbed. Here’s how they describe the problem created by check-ins and the purpose of the site:
“The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the Internet we’re not home. It gets even worse if you have ‘friends’ who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address.. on the Internet.. Now you know what to do when people reach for their phone as soon as they enter your home. That’s right, slap them across the face.”
There are a few things you can do to protect yourself:
Don’t list your address ANYWHERE on the internet. If you even have your Resume posted somewhere online, make sure you blur out your address or remove it.
Don’t connect your FourSquare or Loopt to your twitter or Facebook status. By keeping these social media tools separate you avoid your exact location being broadcasted to 10x as many people.
Avoid including your phone number. This is also a search that is easy to conduct and find where you are and where you live, leaving your vulnerable.
So are Foursquare, Loopt, Google Buzz and all the others just sites that make us all easier targets? Location-sharing is becoming such a popular trend this year that it doesn’t seem likely that the site will do much to curb the behavior. If there is such a thing as safe location-sharing, however, I hope you practice it.
Word of Mouth is one way to gather a following. When you sit down to dinner with family friends and someone mentions these plastic horses they’ve seen on the streets of downtown Portland, Oregon, and you begin to wonder what they are doing there? Why did someone tie these plastic horses on the ground? Then you tell your friend who realizes they’ve seen these horses too and they tell someone else and the cycle keeps repeating… until you have a word of mouth epidemic and Oregonians are still trying to solve the mystery of the toy plastic horses.
These rings are used to tie up horses and carriages in downtown portland. Not many people notice these rings until one local artist, Scott Wayne Indiana started a project, The Horse Project. To participate in the project you must buy a toy plastic horse locate a ring, and tie the horse to the ring. Then take a picture and send it to Scott Wayne Indiana and he will post it on his Web site 39forks.com.
Scott tied his first horse to a ring in 2005, and four years later these little horses are showing up all over town and have inspired many Oregonians and visitors to participate in the Horse Project.
By beginning somingthing as intriguing as finding toy horses tied to the sidewalk it sparks interest and begins conversations. This leads to conversations about tiny horses during coffee, dinner, and drink. And there fore we have word of mouth marketing.
Although, Scott Wayne Indiana was not trying to promote himself and his art, he was simply trying to get people to notice their surroundings, to notice small details such as rings in the sidewalk. And what a great way to do it.
Props to you SWI, thank you for opening our eyes to the small details in our world.
I thought I would share these beautiful, well thought, creative, and inspiring place to work. I think I’d be in heaven every day if I worked in any one of these offices! Enjoy
In our fast pace world it has become harder and harder to meet people through a traditional courtship. And our favorite Web 2.0 sites are making it much easier to show someone you’re interested via their widgets and services. TheFrisky.com blog posted this rundown on ways to flirt online. They say, “Sure, the Web has made many aspects of our lives easier, but it’s also complicated a few things—specifically, how we date, flirt and meet potential love interests.”
Being a twenty-something I still have faith in the traditional ways of meeting people, at a bar, the grocery store, or that mix-up of drinks at Starbucks- He grabbed my triple grande soy latte, and I grabbed his grande americano- you know how it goes. I’m sure it will diminish as my career and priorities shift and I will become more dependent on the untraditional methods of finding a mate. But I find this whole process interesting as my generation has been spearheading this technology revolution.
I love Drew Barrymores line in He’s just not that into you she says, “Now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies- it’s exhausting!” And it couldn’t be more true, you have to check all of these different applications to see if you’ve been “poked” or someone sent you a gift. And the interpretation could kill you. There is no guide book to online flirting, so how are you supposed to interpret a poke? was it friendly or playful?
It is interesting to watch the trends in older generations using dating sites like Match.com increase. Definitely wasn’t somethingn I expected- I have a hard enough time teaching my mom how to turn on her computer, let alone teaching her how to upload a picture and a profile to one of these sites. I would have imagined that this phenomenon would have skipped that generation and hit mine.
It does scare me that younger generations will be more dependent on this way of life- Communicating through Web 2.0 applications more than through human interaction. And does this lead to poor grammar?
Does this form of communication work against our english and grammar teachers, because when you use text messages or twitter, you have to simplify your messages, sometimes reducing the words and removing correct punctuation confusing it’s and its, a simple, but significant differance between the two words just to fit it into the 140 characters allowed?
But then again, does it help to simplify your message. I have found that working to cram my tweets into 140 characters teaches me to be sycnt and percise with my message, like a lead in a newspaper article.
There are pros and cons to both, but what I guess my point is we’re definitely moving quickly to a 2.0 world- especially when our flirting happens online, but what will this do to future generations? Will they become dependent on technology to be the liasion between human interaction? Will children fall into the trance of the online preditors, because they are comfortable online?
How can we as the Web 2.0 crusaiders prevent future generations from using the web and its tools incorrectly? Do we begin to teach classes on online ettiquet and safety?
Time for something new! I was inspired by Jason Calacanis’s blog post “Ten Things I Love” so here are ten things I love right now.
1. Christopher David Ryan – My new obsession. I love it. I love him. He has an eye and I already ordered this print. He posts his favorite prints of the day and they are always great. I’ve never been one for art, but I may have found my muse.
2. Tumblr – I’ve always had a hard time keeping my professional blog from my personal blog. Tumblr allows you to post quotes, links, text in easy to use formats. Took me awhile to catch on but Love it.
3. 2Birds1Blog My new favorite blog. It’s funny cleaver and very relate-able. check-it out! This is my favorite post on 20 facebook photos of guys.
4. Mark Beasly – I’ve been a fan since moment I heard him. He has the most amazing voice!
5. Digg-Took me awhile to catch onto this site, but what a great idea to basically vote on what information on the Internet is deemed interesting, funny and likable.
6. Top Chef Need I say more? I’ve missed this show, and I don’t know why I love it so much, I just do!
7. Etsy Love. Love. Love it. Etsy is a community of shopping & selling. With the most amazing gifts I could browse this site for days and never get bored.
8. Influence by Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen- This book is a collection of interviews and photos of the women who have influenced their lives. I’ve never really liked the two of them, even though I grew up watching them on Full House, but until a recent interview on Oprah and the lack of media presence I find this book a Must buy!
10. Hulu – where would we all be without hulu? Hulu is a website that offers commercial-supported streaming video of TV shows and movies. If you haven’t checked it out… you must be under a rock.
Hope you enjoy my favorite things….What are your favorite things?
And as an extra treat, I have had a request to add the People I love most (all my friends seem to love these crazy people too)
#11 on my I love list, and by popular demand is Mama & Papa Stringer!!!!!
As tomorrow January 19, 2009 marks the United States national celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. I though it would be appropriate to take a minute to Remember Segregation . The agency I work for created this site last year and it helps send a powerful message.
Please take a minute to look around the site, and remember why we have a day off of school, or work. We are celebrating one of the greatest men, who after his death is still inspiring our nation to change the way we view the human race.
I am a very lucky person to still be employed. But in the past two days I’ve receive word that 4 acquaintances have lost their jobs. One of which is a very respected peer and friend from the social media sphere. Today he repeated a comment someone made to him about his current state of unemployment, and my mom said this to me when I got home from my graduation trip in Europe: Your new job is Getting a Job! and it’s so true. Looking for a job can be full time unpaid work, but I guess it does pay off in the end.
The Chicago Tribune wrote a great article titled, The Job of Finding a Job and provide 5 tips for the job search:
5 tips for the hunt:
1. Make finding a job your new job.
2. Tell everybody you’re job hunting.
3. Search online but also press the flesh.
4. Consider jobs outside your field. 5. During phone interviews, stand up to project more energy.
I really think #4 is an interesting tip. Because I ended up taking a job that wasn’t necessarily what I received my degree in. You can look for a job that is outside of your field but maybe dips more into your passion, such as social media, or advertising. Having your job be challenging will make you work harder.
Be patient. losing a job can be tramatizing. But be confident in your self and your skills because the minute you lose that confidence you take a step backwards. Keep your head up and good luck.
I was inspired for this post by a friend and mentors blog PRos in Training. As a new professional I’ve been at my job for almost three months now, and I’ve been trying to find my footing and keep up with the routine that is work and attempting to have a social life outside of work. It’s rough, new city, new job, and trying to change my lifestyle. Things have been sacrificed in the process, the first thing to go, my blog.
At the end of last year I was teaching friends and younger underclassmen about the positives of blogging and engaging in social media and yet I’ve become lazy with it.
I’ve never been one to make New Years Resolutions, but I feel like this is something I was so passionate about not so long ago, I can’t let it die.
So my “Social” Resolutions for 2009 are:
Blog AT LEAST Once a week: I am very busy with work and other obligations in life, but that doesn’t mean on Sunday nights I can’t put aside an hour or two to blog as I’m watching TV.
Make a weekly Dent in my blog reader: I have over 1,000 unread blogs in my blog reader. It adds stress looking at all these unread blogs, if I make an effort to read atleast three aday I won’t have to press “Read All” and feel guilty for it.
Comment More: Enough said.
Tweet things other than personal things: I’ve gotten in the habit of using Twitter as a Facebook status. I got my job through twitter. This can be used as a much better tool than talking about the crazy person I’m sitting next to on the bus or to complain about my headache.
Hopefully I can hold myself accountable for these resolutions, but they will also get me back into the swing of things.
“The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the Internet we’re not home. It gets even worse if you have ‘friends’ who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address.. on the Internet.. Now you know what to do when people reach for their phone as soon as they enter your home. That’s right, slap them across the face.”
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