New Google Privacy Policy..

Categories Crazy People, Google, Policies, Social Media

I keep seeing posts about how we should make sure to delete our +Google search  history before midnight tonight…  Seriously, why?  At least, in America, I’m sure that the government is monitoring everything we do anyway…  They love to break wiretapping laws like that.. #lol…

But seriously, are people actually worried about someone seeing their search results?  If you are searching for something that you’d like to hide, why are you logged in when doing it?  Or, for that matter why are you not at elast using a proxie to try and hide behind?

Personally, I welcome the new, improved services that this will eventually provide.  I say monitor my usage +Google, and use them to make my web experience even better.  I’d rather you do it that the American government… 🙂

Helium Provides ‘Refereed’ Content for Local Media

Categories Information Technology, Social Media

via BIA/Kelsey
www.helium.com

Everyone is fighting for better, more cost-efficient way of producing content for Websites. But is the so-called “content mill,” search optimized approach of a Demand Media, Associated Content or Examiner.com the only way to achieve this?

Whether you agree or disagree with the characterization of these companies (we largely disagree), alternatives are out there. One alternative is presented by Helium, a 29 person, Boston-based firm that brings in text articles from 160,000 writers and editors; filters it via peer review to let the best voices rise to the top; and allows media partners to generally choose from multiple entries for the best fit.

Helium was founded in October 2006 and has received $16 million in Series A funding. Most interestingly to us, it is also 20 percent owned by mega publisher RR Donnelly. Indeed, RRD, with 1,200 sales reps, is its principal reseller to local media clients including TV stations, radio stations, newspapers, Yellow Pages and Web pure plays.
Using Helium, media partners can personalize the content for their own purpose.

FTC Puts Social Nets on Notice With Twitter Smackdown

Categories Information Technology, Security, Social Media, Twitter

via E-Commerce News

The FTC has settled its beef with Twitter over the service’s security practices. Twitter will go on a probation of sorts, and some conditions of the arrangement will remain in effect for 20 years. The charges originated when hackers took advantage of weak passwords the site had been using and gained administrative privileges that enabled them to control accounts and read private messages.

Twitter has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived consumers and put their privacy at risk by failing to safeguard users’ personal information, the FTC announced Thursday.

In what was the agency’s first such case against a social networking service, the FTC charged that serious lapses in Twitter’s data security Planning for the next peak season? Ensure your website is fast, secure and available 24/7. Click here to learn how. practices allowed hackers to obtain unauthorized administrative control of Twitter, including access to nonpublic user information, tweets that users had designated as private, and the ability to send out phony message from any account — including one belonging to Barack Obama, who at the time was the U.S. President-Elect…

Twitter Gets One Step Closer to Google

Categories Google, Information Technology, Social Media, Twitter, Web Development

via Website Magazine

It’s no secret that Twitter has been mostly centered on a “push” mentality – throw enough out there and something will stick, and you’ll gain followers in the mean time. Of course, the more followers you have the better chance of something sticking, or being shared. And, the cycle goes on. But things are about to change. Twitter is on its way to becoming a “pull” interaction – just like another world-famous website, Google.

If you think about Google like a social network, the similarities are clear. As a Google “publisher” your goal is to be listed and get the attention of others. When successful, your content is shared via syndication and links. As a Google “user” you’re there to find information, through search. When you find something you like, you might link to that website, bookmark the page or subscribe to the site’s RSS feed or e-mail newsletter. In other words, you become a “follower” of that website. But imagine if you were to “friend” every website as the result of a search … you would quickly become overwhelmed. Now take all of that and apply it to Twitter. It’s not much different….

Facebook envy? Amazon.com patents social networking system

Categories Amazon, Facebook, Information Technology, Social Media, Web Development

via http://www.techflash.com/
Is Amazon.com trying to be the new Facebook? You might think so after reading the e-commerce giant’s new patent for a “social networking system.”

The U.S. patent, granted June 15, “provides a mechanism for a user to selectively establish contact relationships or connections with other users” and “automatically notify users of personal information updates made by their respective contacts.”