Digital Biographer™

I rest my case. I’ve still not reactivated my facebook account, because I’m waiting to see what the new terms are before I take any action. Facebook have lost my trust, you see.

But at least they are now using Plain English.

Here’s what I wrote about this earlier.

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Mark, I think you just made one. And I think the word you need to use is MISTAKES.

Mark Zuckerberg is CEO at Facebook, who changed their Terms recently. And then explained a little more after a huge backlash.

Mark, I don’t want my content to be retained and used as your company sees fit after I remove my consent for it to be retained - and I didn’t agree to that when I first signed up to your Old Terms. And now you’ve changed to New Terms - but have not given me the choice to opt in, or out. You just opted my content in to your license, even if, and after, I choose to terminate my agreement with you.

That’s what I call a huge misstep - so I’ve deleted all of my personal photographs, and I have deactivated my account at Facebook.

Your move.

PS: That’s a photo I took of you in London. I’m sharing it on my terms. Anyone can use it as long as they link to this article, and use it unedited, full-frame.

UPDATE 18th February from Facebook:
Facebook is reverting to prior Terms of Service. Article at The Next Web

“Terms of Use Update

Over the past few days, we have received a lot of feedback about the new terms we posted two weeks ago. Because of this response, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.

If you want to share your thoughts on our new terms, check out our group Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.”

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Secrets are analogue: Tim Mannveille - tim.mannveille.com

“I know there’s at least one guy on Facebook who denies his girlfriend access to his wall because it is filled with messages from his ex, whom in turn he denies access to his status updates because they often relate to his current girlfriend.”

In a chapter entitled ‘Secrets are analogue‘ Tim illustrates that powerful information management tools such as social tagging and RSS feeds allow one to filter and manage information, and a key component of Facebook’s success is that it recognises the distinction between people you know, and everyone else.

Granularity of sharing information is key - there are lots of things we will happily share with some, but we would be careful to keep secret from others. Tim makes the point that social networks will have to adapt to ensure we can keep or share our secrets, with just who we want to - even if that changes tomorrow.

>>Read this and 236 other contributions: Buy Age of Conversation 2 today…

David Petherick is one of 237 authors who contributed to the book ‘Age of Conversation 2‘. For the first 237 days of 2009, he is highlighting a chapter from one of his co-authors, briefly discussing their contribution, and linking you to their blog or online presence. All proceeds from sales of AOC2 go to charity.

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Twenty-two percent of hiring managers said they use social networking sites to research job candidates, up from 11 percent in 2006, according to a nationwide survey of more than 3,100 employers from CareerBuilder.com. An additional 9 per cent said they don’t currently use social networking sites to screen potential employees, but plan to start.

Of those hiring managers who have screened job candidates via social networking profiles, one-third (34 percent) reported they found content that caused them to dismiss the candidate from consideration. THAT IS MORE THAN ONE IN THREE.

Top areas for concern among these hiring managers included:

• 41% - information about them drinking or using drugs
• 40% - provocative or inappropriate photographs or information
• 29% - poor communication skills
• 22% - screen name was unprofessional
• 19% - shared confidential information from previous employers

On the other hand, social networking profiles also can give job seekers an edge over the competition. Twenty-four percent of hiring managers who researched job candidates via social networking sites said they “found content that helped to solidify their decision to hire the candidate“.

Top factors that influenced their hiring decision included:

• 48% - candidate’s background supported their qualifications for the job
• 43% - candidate had great communication skills
• 36% - candidate’s site conveyed a professional image
• 31% - candidate had great references posted about them by others
• 24% - candidate’s profile was creative

So, if you’re aiming to be hired, you need to make sure your online profiles match the picture you want a potential employer to see, because there’s a greater than one in five chance that they will check out your profile online, and an even greater chance that if they see something they like there, that fact will help you to get the job you have applied for.

The careerbuilder site gives a number of fairly obvious tips to ensure you are viewed favourably, but I have a few more:

1. Use online profiles to create positive information about yourself, and ask for recommendations or testimonials from others that can be placed on these profiles. LinkedIn is probably the best example where you can receive testimonials from work colleagues, associates and employers.
2. Monitor your own name with a service such as Google Alerts - or if you are really serious about managing your reputation online, try Trackur - it has a 14-day free trial.
3. invest in your own name as a domain name, especially if you have a common name. I own both davidpetherick.name and davidpetherick.com, for example. And add content and commentary there - preferably right in the heart of your area of expertise - but also as a place where you can show diverse aspects of your personality or interests.

The survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder.com among 3,169 hiring managers and human resource professionals (employed full-time; not self-employed; with at least significant involvement in hiring decisions) and 8,785 employees (employed full-time; not self-employed) ages 18 and over between May 22 and June 13, 2008, respectively.

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I was checking my blog statistics just the other day, and found an unfamilar link to a story I’d written in January. I clicked through to find that Koollage, which produces a mobile version of my blog, had linked to my blog from their ‘press’ page, and someone had recently followed the link to my original story

But I was also intrigued to find that the widget version of this blog shows that is has been viewed 12,553 times since January 2008, when it was set up. That’s 12,000 visitors that never showed up on my web stats - rather more than I’d anticipated! The power of the mobile web is getting greater every day - and although this site is already optimised for viewing on iPhones, I see all of those stats through the wonderful Clicky.

The size of our audience is missing…

I think there’s a market for the company who can figure out a way to measure and pinpoint the ‘hidden traffic’ that comes to blogs and news sites through through widgets, RSS feeds syndications, friendfeed references and so on. These figures are not insignificant, certainly for a little blog like this, and knowing where an audience is coming from always helps when you’re working to address that audience - quite apart from simple curiosity.

Koollage Widget for Digital Biographer. Koollage were featured this week at DEMOFall08 in San Diego, and the beta version of their product is now open to the public.

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