It's not a new phenomenon. But is the blocking effort actually picking up steam?

Julie Forster's article cites a survey by the consulting firm Challenger Gray and Christmas who says 22% of companies in the U.S. currently block access to these sites. Nearly one in three employers consider visits to these sites to be a drag on productivity.

The biggest reason for blocking access is if a company feels there's no business value to having their employees even spend one second on them. But an all day block? What about on the lunch hour?

Shouldn't companies at least spend some time monitoring employee Web habits before pulling the plug? If one of your workers constantly goes back to the Web every hour to check a newspaper site for the latest news, should that site be blocked too?

PR and social media guru Shel Holtz (who does one of my favorite podcasts by the way, with Neville Hobson) has been after the blockers for quite some time.

His StopBlocking.org says it all. He's also a big critic of any study that says social networking sites have been a drag on productivity in the office.

Holtz says "...the studies are a load of crap. Not taken into account is the fact that a lot of the time spent on these sites does have a work-related dimension to it. Also not taken into account is the fact that workers put extra time to make up for the time spent online, regardless of whether that time is spent at the office or at home."

I'm sort of on the fence on some aspects of this. I've always felt that my time at the office is not my time. It's not about surfing the net, buying tickets to an upcoming concert, reading blogs that have nothing to do with the reason I'm at work. But blocking Web or social networking access isn't the answer to any alleged lost productivity.

Sure, social networking sites can be abused. But how about managing your employees? Communicate your expectations. Deal with the idiots and leave the productive people alone.

Also, the talented 20-somethings who are moving into today's corporate offices, who many companies desperately need to fill the cubicles, just plain expect social networking to be available in the same way they expect a competitive benefits package. It's how they communicate. They'll take their talent and go work for someone else.

No matter what your age, would you accept in a job in a corporate setting that didn't allow you access to the Internet in general? It's unheard of.

Remember when companies said they'd never use e-mail in their offices?

Nothing says "We don't trust you" to an employee better than blocking them from anything deemed inappropriate by management, on the Web.

Per società dell'informazione si intendono le "nuove tecnologie dell'informazione e della comunicazione". Dall'inizio degli anni '90, tali tecnologie hanno conosciuto un’espansione straordinaria. La generalizzazione dello scambio elettronico di informazioni, la convergenza verso le tecnologie digitali, la crescita esponenziale di Internet e la liberalizzazione del settore delle telecomunicazioni sono altrettante manifestazioni di questa evoluzione. La società dell'informazione offre nuove prospettive in tutti i campi della vita quotidiana, soprattutto in materia di accesso alla formazione e alla conoscenza (insegnamento a distanza, servizi di apprendimento elettronico), di organizzazione del lavoro e di trasferimento delle competenze (tele-lavoro, imprese virtuali), di vita pratica e di esigenze primarie (servizi di tele-sanità) e di tempo libero. Presenta inoltre opportunità inedite in termini di partecipazione, offrendo ai cittadini maggiori possibilità di esprimere liberamente le loro opinioni.

La situazione dell’Europa a 27 è variegata per quanto riguarda la penetrazione, tra le varie fasce di popolazione, di una cultura digitale seppur minima. La media europea si attesta intorno al 50% di utenti Internet regolari. Si passa dalle punte di diffusione massima dei Paesi Bassi – dove l’utilizzo di Internet è ampiamente radicato e supera l’80% – a Paesi più arretrati da questo punto di vista, come ad esempio Romania, Bulgaria, Grecia e Italia, dove la percentuale delle persone che abitualmente navigano in rete è di poco superiore al 30%.

LinkedIn Maintenance: Do This Right Now (or else?)
July 17th, 2008

*** begin quote ***

I got an e-mail from Susan Ireland, at the Job Lounge. She asked me if I knew anything about LinkedIn deleting people’s accounts… I’ve heard a little about this, but mostly just hand-slapping for looking like spammers. Getting an account deleted can be a huge problem, especially as you use LinkedIn more.

*** end quote ***

LinkedIn deleting people's accounts?

Wow, that's news!

# # # # #

LEGISLATION TO COMBAT ORGANIZED RETAIL CRIME INTRODUCED
RILA applauds the “Organized Retail Crime Act of 2008”

Arlington, VA (July 15, 2008) — The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) applauds Congressmen Brad Ellsworth (D-IN) and Jim Jordon (R-OH) for their introduction of the “Organized Retail Crime Act 0f 2008.” The proposed legislation addresses the growing problem of organized retail crime (ORC).

ORC involves sophisticated crime rings that typically steal and stockpile huge quantities of merchandise in a targeted area. They then resell the stolen merchandise through flea markets, swap meets, pawn shops and, increasingly, on Internet auction sites. In many cases, these crime rings use the profits to fund other criminal enterprises.

“RILA strongly supports the introduction of the Organized Retail Crime Act of 2008,” said Allen Thompson, vice president of global supply chain. “This bi-partisan bill will provide law enforcement officials the tools they need to curtail ORC and protect consumers from unknowingly purchasing fraudulent or unsafe consumer goods.”

Because of widely varying state laws and the lack of a clear federal criminal statute addressing ORC, gangs who move from store to store stealing thousands of dollars of merchandise are often only subject to minor misdemeanor charges.

HR 6491 would criminalize the theft and subsequent sale of retail goods and services. Organized retail crime costs consumers and businesses tens of billions of dollars every year. This criminal activity impacts consumers, retailers, and state and local governments. The proposed legislation would address this issue by amending the federal criminal code to make activities involved in furthering organized retail crime illegal. In addition, the bill would also criminalize facilitation of this activity and impose specific duties on online marketplaces to limit illegal activity occurring online involving organized retail crime.

Further, consumers who purchase health and beauty items from flea markets and online auction sites are at serious risk of harm. Items such as Baby formula and diabetic test strips, favorite targets of ORC criminals, can be damaged when not handled carefully and could result in harm to unknowing buyers.

“This is a serious crime issue with real health and safety implications,” said Paul Jones, vice president for asset protection. “Without a secure supply chain and the anonymity of sellers, consumers could easily be exposed to harmful products that have been potentially tampered with.”

For their safety, RILA encourages consumers to rely on traditional retail sources when making these purchases.

“RILA applauds Representatives Ellsworth and Jordon for their leadership on this important issue and their commitment to protecting the health and safety of consumers. We encourage Congress to act quickly to give law enforcement the tools it needs to aggressively prosecute these criminals and protect innocent consumers from unsafe or damaged goods,” Thompson concluded.

###

The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) promotes consumer choice and economic freedom through public policy and industry operational excellence. Its members include retailers, product manufacturers, and service suppliers--which together provide millions of jobs and operate more than 100,000 stores, manufacturing facilities and distribution centers domestically and abroad.

  ]]> http://novascotiagirl.wordpress.com/?p=126 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:31:47 +0000 auroragg http://novascotiagirl.wordpress.com/?p=126 Two popular social networking sites are LinkedIn and Facebook. While both are designed to connect people online, the two sites represent different types of connections with very different options and features.

"The Facebook social networking site is used to connect with a variety of people — your friends, family and those you work with, go to school with, or people you used to be friends or classmates with. In a general sense, where LinkedIn is designed to connect professionals, Facebook is designed to just connect people. When you join Facebook and create a profile, you will enter in key information which can help other people find you on Facebook."

Did You Know... The Difference Between LinkedIn and Facebook?
By Vangie Beal, May 16, 2008

Here they are:

Here are two absolute must-do’s, right now, on LinkedIn - and they will take less time than it takes to read this blog post (so do it now!):

1. Export your contacts. Simply click on Contacts, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click on Export Connections, and follow that process. Just leave everything at default and you’ll end up with your connections in a .csv file, which opens in Excel.
2. Export your profile. You’ve probably put a fair amount of thought into creating your profile, right? What about any references you have gotten? Simply click on Profile, then find the grayed-out icons above your name, and click on the adobe pdf icon. This exports your profile, including recommendations, into a very nice, presentable document (kudos to whoever at LinkedIn did that formatting, it is very well-done!). Here’s an image of where the icon is:

These are the two most important things for me to grab, if I knew my LinkedIn account might go away. (1) Who I connected with, which includes e-mail addresses very every single contact, (2) my recommendations (I can always rethink and recreate a profile, but those recommendations are priceless!).

You can follow the rest of Jason's story about this here.

Social networking sites have once again revitalized the dot com revolution.Sites like Orkut and Facebook target a broader audience, interested in opporunities of Friendship and dating alongwith some High Hoped Optimistic souls I know personally who while surfing these sites are looking for all possibilities of coming across one of those over modern wannabes in small cities as well as metros.These sites have taken the term networking to a more wider perspective.

However there are sites that are cater specifically to the purpose of Networking people for the soul purpose of creating a web of efficient and well connected Social Contact who will be helpful in case of any opportunity that you might want to explore in your professional life- right from college projects, internships, to the process of switchng careers.These contacts which have been fostered by you for a considerably long time through mutual messages, writing on walls, sending scraps, or Poking, or sending cool retro drinks via your computer screens are nothing short of the corporate contacts you make in day to day life and many times the effect is all the more pronounced.This is specially owing to the fact that the web has this incredible option of portraying the most vibrant characteristics only and easily hiding away the non preferred ones.This makes it easier to get the boost out of your old preserved links.

Two such sites I recently came across are Linkedin and Doostang.While Linkedin uses a more open approach of creating your online Resume' like profile and adding connections of people who know you, Doostang a startup by a Harvard and MIT passouts uses a more restricted access design where one can get invited only by people who are already on Doostang.Then starts an ongoing process of giving your important contact to the community and applying for positions in various elite groups on the site.However this site has been associated with strange accusations of STEALING the contacts of its member and then never allowing them to log in again.The evidence in the form of Blog writers is spread all over the net.All you need to do is GOOGLE it.

So next time you are of giving an interview and someone asks for your resume' don't bother printing one. Just pass on your LINKEDIN customizable page name and BANG you can BET you already have made the LINK!

En la imagen de la derecha pueden ver mi perfil en LinkedIn. Llevo poco tiempo en esta red y mis contactos son pocos, pero el chiste es ir conectando a más y más para crear una base de prestigio que te recomiende para conseguir nuevos y mejores empleos, algo que espero busquen todos los días.

Además de mi perfil, generé un grupo de Egresados de la Escuela de Periodismo Carlos Septién García, mi querida alma mater. Si les interesa entrar a este grupo de profesionales, deben enviarme sus peticiones y sin broncas los agrego.

Empresas como Nokia, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! y muchas más ya recurren a LinkedIn para postear ofertas de trabajo, por lo que también es una buena opción para acceder a empresas relacionadas con la tecnología, nuestro tema favorito.

Por supuesto, mi perfil es público y disponible para agregarse al suyo.

Facebook and MySpace, the two largest social networks, eagerly launched new iPhone applications last Friday. Both quickly shot up the top apps list. Apple has since turned off the download count feature, but Facebook is no. 7 on the free list, MySpace is no. 11. But while both applications are useful for heavy users, they won’t drive new users to the services because they failed to leverage the killer iPhone feature - location awareness. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/16/facebook-myspace-ignore-location-on-iphone-at-their-peril 7/16)

Completely agree with Techcrunch on this one.  The location awareness feature is the killer piece of information especially in a social networking environment.

Mobile phones in the United States will surpass the popularity of desktops for teens, according to a report presented by marketing agency Fuse at the YPulse 2008 National Mashup, a conference on teens and technology. Also: "technology platforms will save, not kill, TV networks." (Iwantmedia 7/16, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9991979-93.html 7/15)

That's right, Social NOTworking. This title has a double meaning, which I will get to in a minute.

If you have the internet in front of you, you cannot help but at the very least be aware of the social networking/web 2.0 phenomenon.  Here are some of the more prevalent social networking/web 2.0 sites that you may be a member of:

Linkedin, MySpace, Classmates.com, Facebook, ERE, Flickr, Meetup.com, Twitter, Second Life, Ning, Plaxo, Naymz, Xanga and FastPitch.  And trust me when I tell you, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Used properly in terms of your profession, these sites live up to the "Social Networking" category that they reside in. Used improperly in terms of your profession, they become what I like to call "Social NOTworking" sites.  Check it out:

A.  Are the social networking sites NOT working for you in meeting your professional networking goals?

OR

B.  Are the social networking sites bogging you down so much that you are NOT working?

If you answered "YES" to question A:

The first issue that you may want to address is actually question B.  Beyond that, what you need to realize is that these social networks are great tools ("tools" being the key word here).  The challenge is to utilize all your tools in your workbench, but some recruiters are SO reliant on these sites the same way so many recruiters are reliant solely on online resume databases that nothing much of measure is ever accomplished.  You would not build a swing set with just a Phillips head screwdriver, right?

As a recruiter or HR professional, or even as a hiring manager or staff level engineer always on the lookout for outstanding additions to your team, make sure you are looking on the RIGHT sites.  Chances are you are not going to find a civil engineering professionals hanging out on MySpace or running around on Second Life, but you may find those quality professionals on Linkedin or Facebook (Facebook is very similar to MySpace, but the presentation and the quality of content is much classier and desirable).  For civil engineering, stick with the pioneers in social networking like Facebook & Linkedin - they are conservative and professional and run parallel to the personalities that we associate with the civil engineering community.  Everyone else is trying to develop the next best social networking site, and each time they pull themselves further and further away from mainstream into areas that are unique, but not relevant to your professional audience. Though I am not a civil engineer, I am confident that civil engineers are not following each others' every move on Twitter.

Finally, because these sites ARE all the rage, you cannot deny them.  Develop interesting and exciting company MySpace or FaceBook pages that reach out to the college crowd.  Have your employees blog or answer questions on the corresponding forums, throw up some pictures of completed projects or of your CEO knocking down a strike for the company bowling team, post jobs and publish press releases.  Show up to the college career fairs with a couple of laptops displaying your MySpace of Facebook page and impress the masses.  There is rarely a college student on campus who does not utilize one of these sites in their life.

If you answered "YES" to question B:

First and foremost, if you did answer "YES" to question B and you would like to respond in a defensive manner to this blog entry, make sure you come up with a nifty user name, you do not want your boss to know you are a "Social NOTworker."

I suspect for a lot of people their day goes, or has gone, something like this:  Arrive at the office at 8:30 AM, fire up a hot cup of joe and crank on the computer.  Logon to your Linkedin account and check out the connection updates that occurred overnight, and then the status updates.  But hey, cool, you can expand that list to see ALL of those updates, not just the most recent half dozen. Checking out what your connections did overnight, you click on the people that they made connections with and see if you might know them.  If you do know them, then you make a request to connect, which leads to the frequent clicking of the "Send/Receive" button on your outlook toolbar all day.  Maybe you don't know that person, but you used to work at the company they work for, or maybe your neighbor does, so you click on the company name to see what other people in your extended network may work for them in an effort to connect.  Going to the status updates you see all the completely irrelevant groups (with the exception of course to the Civil Engineering Central Group) that your connections joined, like the Google Group that is for those who use Google as their primary search engine (boy, what a way to really differentiate yourself); or The Open Networker Group which puts you in a group where everyone connects with everyone and you are not allowed to turn down an invitation or you will be booted out. You've requested to join all the groups that you want to join for the day and you anxiously await for the group moderator to approve your admittance into those groups. Along the way you have read and contributed to all the blogs that your connections run and  you finally look up and realize that it is now 10:30AM...not only do you need a refill on your coffee, but you realize that you forgot to logon to your Twitter account before you even came to work this morning so you could let everyone know how you were feeling at that moment, only then to let everyone know that you were eating a bowl of Golden Grahams for breakfast. Time for a break, you've been working hard, so take a 10 minute stroll around the office, refill the coffee mug, sit back down to check your email and you see that your ex-girlfriend, one of your old college professors and the guy 3 cubes down from you have all posted comments on your wall on your Facebook page.  Logon to Facebook, check out your wall, reply back onto their walls, accept invitations from old friends or colleagues who have tracked you down, email them, check out their photo albums, tag people in their photos that you know, and then spend the next 30 minutes using the Classmate Search and People You May Know tools to further expand your network on Facebook.  Take some worthless but fun quizzes, serve up a few electronic cocktails and join a few causes. Time for lunch. Take an hour away from the office, clear your head, have a nice lunch and return to the office refreshed and ready focus on work for the rest of the day.  Work your butt off all afternoon playing catch up on all that you missed during the morning. Your day is almost done, it's nearly 7PM, you are ready to finally go home, and because you can't really NOT do it, you send a tequila booze mail to your new friends that you made on Facebook today, and send one to yourself  in celebration of the fact that you just received an email indicating that your application to join the Overachievers Club, a private membership club on Linkedin for outstanding individuals.

Have you been a social NOTworker?

The fact is, social networking is here, it is relevant, and it can be utilized in so many different ways.  These networks can be a lot of fun, but when it comes to using them for professional purposes, I am in no way suggesting that you abandon  or ignore them, you will be left in the dust.  But learn how to effectively use the well known sites like Linkedin & Facebook to recruit for your firm or for your clients.  Be seen, enhance your visibility and credibility by being active in the forums and blogs that specifically relate to what you do, like the ones you find here at CivilEngineeringCentral.com , they are full of intelligent information that you can really use.  Just be smart about it!

Finally, here is a little 5 minute clip you might enjoy...so sit back, throw back a

compliments of Facebook, and enjoy:

(If you're just coming into this discussion, here is the background: part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4)

When it comes to interacting on-line, I want to stratify. Classify. Layer. There is only so much of my personal information, or my data stream, that I might want to give out in any one instance (or in general). And I'd like to be able to classify and layer and filter how much of what I see from other sources, so that I'm not inundated. Also, I'd like to be able to flexibly group people into categories, and promote/demote them into levels of "friendship" and disclosure. Tweetdeck takes a nice, simple step in this direction by allowing the user to create groups and follow sub-streams. Now take that concept and expand it.

In the graphic above, the concentric circles represent user-defined (via Settings) layers of information to be disclosed, allowing me to tune my I/O (input/output) interactions with the web in a more controlled and defined fashion.

For instance, I might decide to have 4 layers or classifications of "friendship" - intimates (close friends and family), friends, professional acquaintances, and on-line buddies (whose Tweets I like but whom I've never met). So, I subscribe to tweets/plurks from, say, Amber Naslund (and I do, actually). She is classified as an on-line buddy - never really met her, but she seems like a sharp and interesting person. Then maybe we find some common ground for a more detailed exchange and conversation, maybe even help out with a business need. Then perhaps we finally meet at a conference or something. Amber might well be progressively "promoted" toward my inner circle of friendship, and perhaps I've decided to publish some of my media (or other information) only to those in the inner two layers. Isn't this pretty much how we operate in real life?

Philosophically and pragmatically, I think we do this all the time. Now I'd like to have a software tool - a master dashboard - that applies layering to on-line life, before I drown in information!

Since yesterday I’ve been playing with Minggl, a browser toolbar plug-in that serves as a “social interaction manager.” More on what that means shortly.

I’m kinda digging it.

Minggl works with Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Digg, and Flickr. I use five of these six sites. I geek out on the features of each. I like being able to stay in touch with people and receive updates about what’s going on around town (and yes, even if that update is that someone is late for dinner – especially when it’s me they’re meeting for dinner).

But as much as I love my social networking, I do have some issues with it.

For example, every so often I get too busy or too lazy and it might be ages before I log into one of my sites. By the time I get around to it, I’ve forgotten my password. That actually happens more often than I’d like to admit. I have a freakish memory for phone numbers and birthdays, but passwords continue to elude me.

Also, while each site has different “friends” (my Myspace has mostly musicians/bands; my LinkedIn has mostly business contacts, etc.), and some of those friends have made the crossover from one site to the next, there are others who should have made that crossover but haven’t. That’s because I haven’t taken the time to look at one site, figure out who I want to connect to on another, make sure I haven’t already connected to that person on the other site—and if I haven’t, go through the steps to set up the new connection. Or if my friends haven’t done that with me. All in all, it takes more time to do this than I usually have.

I also got pretty bored fairly quickly with needing to check each site individually to catch up with the happenings.

Minggl looks like it might decrease some of the angst I have around my social networking sites. As a “social interaction manager” it functions to consolidate my logins and friends across my various sites. Once installed to my browser toolbar and configured to point to my social networking sites, it has lots of features I like.

First, from the Minggl toolbar I can use a drop-down list of my networking sites to quickly move from one site to the other. When I choose a site from the drop-down, I’m automatically logged into that site within seconds. It’s much faster than going to the site separately and logging in. Plus, because I’ve already configured Minggl with my username and password for each of my sites, I don’t have to remember my password.

Second, Minggl allows me to see, in a sidebar, all my friends across all my sites. I can also choose to see only the friends from one particular site, but at the moment I prefer to see everyone at once. This helps me to see where the holes in my connections are. I can see, for example, that I’ve connected to my friend Kilgore* on Myspace, Facebook, and LinkedIn. He goes by “Kilgore” on Myspace, but as “Kilgore Trout” on Facebook and LinkedIn. So he appears three times in my Minggl friends list, and because the list is alphabetical, I can see all three connections at once. I like this, because when I choose to show all my friends across all sites, I can quickly tell how many different connections I’ve made to any one person. If I need to make more, I can.

Third, the Minggl toolbar also has a pretty cool scrolling update feature. I can choose how often I want to see my friends’ updates (basically, every 1 minute to 30 minutes), and at the appointed time increment the latest updates from across my sites scroll within the toolbar. No more logging into each site and checking out my dashboard or each profile to get the latest news on my connections. Because the updates scroll within the Minggl toolbar itself, they’re not intrusive. Better yet, I don’t have to interrupt whatever I’m working on to visit each of the sites to get the update.

I can also update my status across all my sites using the “Status Blaster” mStream toggle within the Minggl sidebar, and/or see the status of all the folks in my friends list.

There are a few other features of Minggl that I’m still playing with, but so far I like what I see. The UI is rather intuitive, so I believe it’ll be pretty easy to use for even those folks who are uncomfortable with new technologies. I imagine it’ll even promote their usage across their own social networking sites. It’s already done that for me.

This isn’t to say Minggl doesn’t have some problems. Some “cons” I’ve come across so far:

• I got a Grails error when I tried to register, but it looks like the registration went through anyway. Still, I can’t imagine the site has that many folks just yet, and that particular error makes me wonder about scalability.

• Somehow between the error and trying to register again, I got onto a site called “Get Satisfaction”—seems to be a support network site that Minggl uses, but I have no idea how I got there. It’s not where I wanted to be. And I couldn’t figure out how to get back to the Minggl site without typing in the site’s URL again.

• Remember that cool toolbar scrolly update thingy? Not exactly the latest updates, at least the first time around. When my Myspace Comments updates started scrolling, they began with the first comment I ever got on Myspace, back in March 2006. It then went through all my Myspace Comments over the last two years before it stopped. I’d wondered how the app defined “latest updates” anyway – so it looks like some work needs to be done there. Maybe. Maybe what it was doing was scrolling through ALL Comments the first time, logging them, and then that’s how it’s picking up the “latest” updates from now on. All I can say is, I hope it doesn’t do the same thing with Twitter. I’m adding new folks to Twitter all the time, and some folks I know get pretty gregarious with their tweets. I’d hate to scroll through all that each time I add someone new.

• If I want to filter my friends list to just one friend, I have to try all variations of that friend’s name. Using my buddy Kilgore as an example–if I filter by “Kilgore” it returns only the Myspace connection, and if I filter by “Kilgore Trout” it returns only the Facebook and LinkedIn connections. If I type only part of a name, it returns nothing. So the filter needs a little work.

All in all, though—these are things I can live with, and they'll probably get better with time anyway. I’m not a technophobe by any means, and admittedly I'll probably often spend too much time trying to figure out a technology that isn’t friendly in the first place. An intuitive UI is important for me, and this one is looking good. I also like that it’s a clear response to what I don’t like about my social networking sites. Additionally, the Minggl group seems open to suggestions, linking from several places within their site to a feedback area where you can suggest new features.

Pretty cool. Ultimately, I'd recommend that if you suffer from the same woes with your social networking sites as I do, that you give it a try. Let me know what you think.

Have fun,

--AE

*Name changed to protect no one in particular.

Social Networking Attitudes

• 59% don't have a formal social networking policy
• 50% said social networking isn't a problem as long as employees get their work done
• 23% block social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook, Linked-In)
• 10% use social networking for networking, marketing, and sales

Positive Impacts

• New tool for close customer interaction
• Significant networking benefit through sites like Linked-In
• Can be used for internal employee communication
• Generates new business

Negative Networking Impacts

• Loss of productivity
• Sites produce extra bandwidth demand
• Potential security risk (malware source)
• Potential for company data leaks

Take-Away

Social networking is like anything on the Internet. There is a lot of junk, but there are a lot of great applications. To outright ban all social networking is throwing the baby out with the bath water. These types of applications require a more nuanced view that varies with the business.

• Address the problems as they occur with specific individuals
• Regulate hours specific sites can be visited
• Use QoS to limit bandwidth impacts from apps like streaming videos
• Block or limit access to specific sites
• Employ content-inspecting devices to prevent data leaks

I have account with linked and twitter and I tried updating from hellotxt.com and it worked! You also have an option of updating by email and SMS. email option looks good, but the SMS option is an expensive one. Coz, you got to send an international SMS to a +33 number. Wish we also had an option to update using gTalk like we had in twitter. The site also allowing you to read and reply to the tweets you are following on the same page.

Anyways, found this site useful and thought I would share it with you.

Codice Internet è un progetto, che partirà a settembre 2008, per divulgare Internet, con eventi e iniziative in tutta Italia.
C'è bisogno di fare qualcosa. Di fare qualcosa, ora.
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Aiutaci a portare Internet alle persone! Per partecipare, proporre idee, segnalare iniziative, lanciare proposte per divulgare la Rete nel nostro Paese, partecipa al gruppo di discussione.
Per sapere dove saranno gli eventi di Codice Internet visita questo link.
Codice Internet è in fase iniziale e questo sito si rivolge sia a coloro che fanno Internet in Italia (per raccogliere proposte, idee e suggerimenti su come farlo al meglio) sia a chi si avvicina alla Rete per la prima volta e vuole cogliere le opportunità che offre (le due sezioni saranno ben distinte nel prossimo futuro).
Sostieni Codice Internet, metti il badge sul tuo blog/sito, aiutaci con le tue idee e se sei un'azienda contattaci per sostenere il progetto.

Did you just fall off your chair? Send me the Emergency Room bill... (please don't really... I'm broke...). Not sure there is a provision in your policy for "Blog Reading Induced Trauma"...

Let me tell you my little fairytale of great customer service thanks to a damsel named Jacqueline (let's call her Jacky..). As many of you coming got my blog might has seen, I have a "widget" on my site called LIJIT... It's allows users to search on everything DEW. You can my TWITTERS, my LinkedIn, and everything in between...

YAY! Search to your heart's content... (not much to find out)

A few days ago, I deleted the widget off my blog... I didn't see the value... Not mad about it. I thought the technology was cool, but it just took up space. WELL... a few hours ago I get an email from Jacky:

Daniel,

Hello and good afternoon. I want to begin by telling you that I really like your caption under your blog title, “Adversity causes some me to break; others to break records.” Truly inspiring!

I am writing you today on behalf of Lijit in order to ask you why you made the decision to remove the Lijit search application from your blog? As a growing company, it is almost more important to understand why our users uninstall than why they install in the first place. Any feedback that you can provide me with would be most helpful in order to understand how to better serve our users. Personally, I feel that adding the Lijit search application will only add value to your blog.

Please feel free to contact me directly with any questions, comments, and or concerns you may have. Also, be sure to let me know what I can do in order to help you reinstall. Lijit wants to be an advocate for you, the publisher, and provide as much value possible with our search widget.

Thank you and I look forward to speaking with you in the near future. I hope you are having a wonderful afternoon!

Jacqueline Malan
Community Catalyst

lijit networks, inc.
1050 Walnut St., Suite 340
Boulder, CO 80302
303.493.5490 x472 direct
303.493.5495 fax
www.lijit.com

To which I replied:

Jacqueline,

WOW! What an impressive email. I feel well taken care of. Long story short. I don't really know how to use it properly...

DEW

To which she replied:

Daniel,

Good afternoon! Thank you for your email.

I wanted to tell you that you can go to our Lijit homepage. We have a help section that provides information about Lijit and how to get the most value out of your search widget. You can also try our widget on our company blog.

Please let me know if this helps you understand Lijit and our value more clearly.

Thank you,

Jacqueline

Thank you, Jacky for giving me hope in humanity:

• A hope that not every support person in the world is dialing in to me from India...
• A hope that I don't need to threaten suicide bombing to return my unsupported purchases...
• A hope that someone cares enough about their product to care when I turn them off...

Kudos, Jacky! You have given me something to write about and more importantly a classic example of what great service feels like. THANKS!

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(By the way, I am believer in Brad Feld investments... My brother has partnered with him on the EventVue Web 2.0 startup that is changing the social aspects of conferences all over the world...)

Une approche "entreprise" donc, puisque comme vous pourrez le constater les réseaux sociaux professionnels sont utilisés pour la gestion de la relation client (communément appelée CRM), comme outil de prospection commerciale voire même en tant qu'alternative pour le recrutement.

[Source : Le marketing sur le Web..., blog animé par Camille Jourdain]

[slideshare id=296731&doc=reseau-sociaux-mode-ou-opportunite-1204897536183438-3&w=425]

Continue to Network, add your resume to as many websites as possible.

Great News! June 30th the President and Congress have signed an additional 13 weeks of Unemployment for those that exhaust their benefits. Here is an article with all the particulars Unemployment Extension

Here is a link to JobsearchAbout with a complete list of all states and their Unemployment Sites.

Additional Articles can be found on JobsearchAbout.com by Alison Doyle she has added some new sites like JobFox this is a site where you can add an interactive profile, you will be able to see what jobs are out there, who is looking at your resume etc. It's worth a try. I have also seen other bloggers who have tried this site, it's new, but I must warn you, that you will need some time to do this, so you may want to plan it at the end of your job searching for the day.

Don't forget to continue Networking, keep in touch with all of your former co-workers and employers you may find they have an opportunity for you that is not published anywhere, or they may know someone who is hiring. You never know when they might be able to assist you in your job search. Don't forget about LinkedIN.

Here are a couple of articles that might help you revamp your Resume, Cover Letter, Job Search tactics.

How to Manager your career during economic downturn. by Nimish Thakker

How to tap into the unadvertised job market by Nimish Thakker

How to unstick your job search by Alison Doyle

I know how hard it is to stay motivated and to continue looking when the odds seem to be against you, layoffs from major corporations, the recession, gas prices and price of groceries. Keep to your schedule, if you find yourself getting down, take a break go to the pool or the beach for the afternoon, go to the gym. But get back on the horse tomorrow, you need to continue your search for your own mental health. Keep your options open.

I went through the phone book to find all the local Executive Recruiters and sent them my resume unsolicited, what the heck you never know when they might get something that will match your skills and land that opportunity you have been waiting for.

Make a list of people you plan to contact, Recruiter that previously contacted you, friend, co worker, try to make a few calls everyday. You never know when they could refer you to someone who is hiring.

I have found a wonderful inspirational website you may want to look at http://www.boxofcrayons.biz.

I am still actively looking, I had a few interviews these last couple of weeks but again no offers, was contacted today by another recruiter who has a position which may be right for my skills, waiting to hear back.

I have an interview tomorrow in the city so keep your fingers crossed, maybe this will be the one! I am prepared, I spent several hours on their website familiarizing myself with their products and culture, this is necessary so you can ask the right questions during your interview, because you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you.

Will update you again soon, sorry it's been so long between posts.

Trish

The big story is that Facebook saw a nice jump in unique visitors and it continues to grow faster than MySpace and the overall market.

In June, Facebook claimed 37.4 million unique visitors, up from 35.6 million in May. Year over year, Facebook saw its uniques rise 34%, up from 27.9 million last June. By contrast, the total number of Americans visiting social networking sites grew 6% over the previous June to 189.9 million. Meanwhile, MySpace only saw 3% annual growth in its visitors, rising to 72.8 million from 70.5 million.

Clearly, MySpace is still the leader in terms of the U.S. social networking audience. Even if Facebook continues to outpace MySpace at these growth rates, Rupert Murdoch’s prize acquisition is in no danger of losing its billing as the largest U.S. social network any time in the near future. Even so, Facebook clearly has the mojo, and continues to nip at it heels.

The engagement numbers are sort of a mixed bag. MySpace, Facebook, and Orkut are clearly grabbing the lion’s share of attention in the U.S. social networking space. In the second quarter, MySpace saw a nice jump of 15% to 677 minutes spent on the site compared to the year-ago quarter. However, engagement dropped 2% compared to the first three months. As for Facebook, the average minutes per visitor fell 8% in the second quarter to 527 minutes, compared to the year-ago quarter. However, engagement increased 5% over the first quarter of 2008. Bottom line: people continue to spend a lot of their time on these sites.

I asked ComScore senior manager Andrew Lipsman what he made of Facebook’s gains. He said it’s hard to pinpoint exactly, but it’s probably a seasonal bump enjoyed by leisure-type Web sites. “Leisure–oriented sites (gaming, social networking) sometimes have a tendency to see seasonal gains in the summer when people have more leisure time,” wrote the 28-year-old Lipsman. “Anecdotally, it does seem as though my contemporaries have very recently been flooding onto the site. I wonder if there is any increased word-of-mouth effect due to people being out more during the summer? Just a guess, but I suppose it’s possible.”

I have to agree with him on the second point. Since joining Facebook more than a year ago, I have seen a steady increase in my friends. But over the last few months, my friend requests have seemed to spike. I’m getting a lot of friend requests from old high school friends I haven’t spoken to or seen in many years.

This seems to show that Facebook is following the traditional adoption curve. The innovators and early adopter crowd have already joined the party. Now, Facebook seems to be attracting the early majority crowd—the folks who are not the first on the block with the slick new gadget but over time they tend to come around and adopt whatever the early adopters deem cool or useful.

Final notes: Among the other top social networking sites, LinkedIn and Orkut are seeing the highest growth rates. LinkedIn more than doubled its U.S. audience, hitting 4.1 million users in June, up from 1.7 million the previous June. And Orkut, Google’s social networking play, also doubled in size, reaching 1.2 million users, up from 588 million the previous June.

Now we are a little group but I hope to create a centralized place where smart people can share its professional knowledge about XUL.

Bear in mind this is linkedin group so isn't a strictly technical related group.

Anybody using XUL in professional environments can join the group and describes what he/she expects from a professional XUL world.

So I say: "Are you tracking it? Do you already collect stats?"

They say: "stats? what stats? why do I need stats? I have Facebook now".

I change tack. I say: "So are you blogging as well? Do you actually blog everyday and feed your facebook page with your blog?"

They say: "Blogs? What have they got to do with Facebook?". Answer: CONNECTIONS BABY....

I say: " And so are you using YouTube, Slideshare and Flickr as your RSS backend media platforms?"

Now they look confused. Maybe it is the jargon. Maybe they are becoming worried about good old FB. I try something else....

I say: "Have you looked at creating an alumni on Linkedin?, "A group on Facebook?"... "It has a purpose, people will care and engage."

They say: "Huh?"

Yep, you get the picture.... does one Facebook page mean you are up to speed with social media?
I could keep going but I realize it may be pointless. There's social media and then there's the surface of social media....Social media has been likened to an iceberg....it's deep and much of what it can do is completely hidden from you. A good social media program takes time to implement and reap rewards from but it is worth taking a deep breath and considering....Can we get past the basics? Think about why you are using particular tools. What are your goals? Are they measurable? They should be. Do you have a customer list? A member list maybe? Have you thought of actually engaging your current customers? You should have. Because that's where it all starts.

Social Media Marketing is still marketing. The old adage is true "the cost of acquiring new customers is still higher." People won't care more for you because you're on Facebook but people who are already your customers can become FANS on facebook... or a fan on YouTube... This is what drives traffic. Communicate relevant information to people who care. Put your precious dime to work for those most important to you and the others will come. Social Media Marketing is a Mirror. It is certainly more than a tree....and much more like a forest.

Yann