Friday, February 19, 2010

Are you at home?

I had a blog post for today, all nice and neatly prepared.

This one isn't it.

The other one will wait. By now, if you haven't picked up on this, I am a bit of a security-minded person (if you weren't aware of this, go read this then come back.) I ran across a website, pleaserobme.com that I have to blog about. The premise behind PleaseRobMe is to post when people use social media to indicate they're not at home. This means facebooking/tweeting about work, grocery shopping, travel, etc. could be posted on this site as an "opportunity." They claim that they are doing this to make people aware of their postings, and thus their personal security flaws. Potential thieves, revenge-seekers, and other miscreants can then abuse this information.

I will say that, on the tweets I have viewed on this site, they were all on profiles set to let everyone view them. So that is one simple to solve, make your personal profiles accessible only to those whom you approve. But even then, who out there doesn't have someone on their friend list or followers who you are only on so-so terms with? Are you comfortable with them knowing where and when you are home? it certainly makes me re-think my postings. which, according to the PleaseRobMe creators, is part of their purpose.

AddisonTechnologies provides social media/marketing for many of our clients, and we promise we will never be posting your GPS location or intentionally exposing you to harm, physical or financial. But what about business owners who personally manage their own social media? They have to be diligent, especially if their business and personal accounts are one in the same. To make the account private would eliminate its usefulness as a marketing tool. Those owners would be wise to make the decision--business or personal--for their accounts and stick to it.

While I'm not for their methods, I agree with the message--that of security--that these people are trying to convey. There is a notice on the site that states that they are re-thinking their direction, due to all of the press they are receiving. I hope they will be responsible in their new direction.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Google Again...

Google's at it again. Yeah, I know, it seems like we talk about Google a lot around here. But lets face it, as web design/web marketing specialists, we've got to be on top of what the giant is doing, in order to be competitive. And thus, we ponder, we discuss, we muse, we mock. And we pay attention. All to give Addison Tech's clients the best opportunities to maximize their businesses.

Now, that being said, on to the next thing we're keeping an eye on at Google!
This article talks about how Google has further set its sights on competing with Facebook and Twitter for the social media arena. Features within Google chat allow status similar to Twitter and Facebook's status. They are working on real-time streams like the others, also.

The article points out, however, that other forays into this realm have failed for Google. Users are typically unwilling to give up their Facebooking to utilize Gmail's functions. In my personal experience, I understand this completely. I have friends on Facebook that, while I don't mind talking to in that format, I wouldn't want them having access to my email. (These are the chronic "they're tracking this email and will send you $1,000 for every forward!" emailers.) Plus, quite frankly, I'm lazy. I took the time to find all these people on FB. I don't need to find them again on some other network that does the exact same thing.

But, lest we forget, this is how Google got big. They took something that someone else had already done, tweaked it, and did it better. So we would be wise to not discount them entirely yet.