Feel free to surf to my blog new mothers

First, I have been hearing some dissatisfaction about Facebook’s privacy changes because of their graph search. I think a lot of people are upset about it. I think privacy is a very important issue, and I think that Facebook’s almost total disregard for people’s privacy actually leaves them pretty vulnerable to a competitor even if it were an almost total Facebook clone.

Second, my sister allows my 12-year-old niece to be on Facebook even though the stated limit is 13 which is which is actually not high enough anyway. Facebook is terrible about safety. Facebook is filled with child pornography, and they refused to block it. I’ve tried to explain to my sister how dangerous Facebook is for children, but she won’t listen. I think that making a network that safe for people to use is very important. Once again, I think Facebook is very vulnerable on this issue. Anyone who creates a network similar to Facebook that respects peoples privacy and safety would in my opinion pose a big challenge for them since they disregard both of these things.

Third, I’ve been looking for a way to make money online, and I thought starting a social network, and then making money by putting advertising on it would be a good thing to do. The model that Mark Zuckerberg has created works well for him, I see no reason why someone else could do the same thing, and at least make some kind of money with it.

Fourth, it would be nice to have a private social network with just my friends in it, and I thought maybe other people feel the same way. For business, sometimes it’s great to be connected to people that you don’t know, but sometimes it can also be very irritating. I know it’s not a nice thing to say but it would be nice to have a social network where you could just keep the bad people out, and yes I know I’m making a judgment, but we make judgments every day, and I say sometimes it’s good to judge people! Some people say change the world. I say I would rather make my own world, and have it just the way I want it! It’s kind of antisocial, but if you ask me, it’s also the American Way!

Here is the link to my choice.

http://www.spruz.com/

If anyone knows of a better platform, please let me know.

In light of all this, I’m still not sure if I want to start my own community or not. Currently, I’m checking with my lawyer to see if I need my own privacy policy, and terms of service. That is yet another issue that needs to be addressed. What legal documents does the community need to display, and what has to be in a terms of service document in order to keep from being sued? As you can see, starting your own community sounds like a lot of fun, but it’s fraught with all sorts of difficulties that most people don’t even think about when they’re considering to start such a venture. I think the conventional wisdom would be when in doubt, maybe would be better to start a blog, or a Facebook group, rather than starting your own community. As Steven points out, if your topic is something worth discussing, is probably already out there somewhere. Perhaps there is no need to start reinventing the wheel. On the other hand, I wish there were an alternative to Facebook. Zurker is an interesting site, but I don’t particularly care for the way that it is set up. If anyone knows of a good alternative Facebook other than Zurker, please let me know. Part of my interest in starting my own community was sparked by Facebook’s recent flagrant disregard for people’s privacy with their new search system, but I’m sure that you could write a whole other blog post about that. As I said, if anyone knows of a good alternative to Facebook, please let me know. I could go into what I don’t like about all the most obvious alternatives, but that would be long enough for a blog post, or possibly even the book. All that could certainly not be covered in one comment on a blog.

Since I’ve stopped eating bread products, I’ve found I can freely treat myself with a favorite ‘goodie’ once a week and indulge on special occasions such as birthdays, etc. and not harm my progress.

Quitting bread products was difficult at first because it had always been a favorite ‘comfort’ food since I was a child growing up in a family of low income. Bread products were used a great deal to minimized the cost of meals and ‘fill us up’ or for quick cheap snacks.

My favorite snacks now? Yogurt, cottage cheese with fruit, Praeventia cookies (150 calories per pack) and Thinsations cookies (100 per pack).

I’ve also found that Crunchmaster multi-grain gluten free crackers are delicious. Gluten free products are a dieter’s salvation.

While I attempt to keep in mind the individual and their background before I do any type of like bomb, Dubie is really right that its the wrong place to be if this is going to irk you. That is a large portion of facebook and even how the edgerank is formulated.

On the flipside though, I myself have also found individuals that appear to like for no reason. They are not an artist and the content does not seem to fit the persona I have come to know. That gets really creepy and I tend to not public post because of this.

p.s. Love the photo you have chosen for this. Makes me wonder if a like bomb is really felt that heavily or is it embraced and lightens someones load from their day; thanks for a thoughtful post

To bomb or not to bomb – I like to peak ahead of a LIKE mission to make sure there is indeed some content that I… like. I might see nothing and pass, no matter how big the reward. I might only see one or two interesting things and make a decision about whether I am going to be able to carry out the request. Other destinations are very easy places to find 10 or 20 LIKES, so I happily blast away at the content I genuinely like.

If the mission is to comment – then be a good sport and say something thoughtful, even if it’s short. There again I like to look ahead and make sure I want to comment before I commit to the mission. There are some eavers who are happy to ask for LIKES while leaving the commenting process up to the individual. Obviously, everyone wants comments, but not many will want “cool page”. I imagine those players with interesting content get some nice results when the comments on their blog or FB page are natural rather than contrived.

Cheap comments – it’s pretty easy to spot a page that’s been pimped up with a hail storm of “nice page”. And it’s no mystery that an inordinant number of two-word comments looks conspicuous and pathetic. I don’t know that it’s even necessary to comment every single time I LIKE a thing. If no words come to mind then I’m happy to simply LIKE what I see. After all – how many ways are there to say “wow, that’s a great looking sunset”? A nice sunset it may be, but there are a million nice sunsets out there. Sometimes it seems more helpful to stay quiet rather than be redundant.

Tagging – there’s another lesson for me. I figured people like to be mentioned, and something like a friend-matrix is a fun and easy way to acheive that end. There’s no denying that it stimulates a few laughs and some social chatter for those who participate. On the other hand, it can be a sneaky way to tease up some traffic. But isn’t that what every single person here is trying to do? Isn’t it simply a case of the crude versus the clever?

One last thing before I zip it – I am not a rocket scientist and I did NOT sleep at a Holiday Inn last night.

Cheers everybody, you’re all amazing

Of course, it may not actually do you any good in either case, but what is the harm?

Anytime we use social media other than the way it was intended, we are out of line. The one facebook spam that I get a little peeved about is the picture tagging… so much so that I wrote a post about it just a couple days ago: http://drhaley.com/facebook-tags/ I think it is quite relevant to this post.

You have raised an interesting question.

For me, the answer is relatively clear-cut: I try to only “Like” things I genuinely like. If I like something, I should comment on why I like it and engage with the others who are posting on that thing, whatever it is.

Activity for the sake of racking up numbers is simply annoying and a waste, in my opinion.

That said, if someone wants to just “Like” any of my social networking sites or blog posts, have at it … just tell me why:)

John

At the risk of stating the obvious: different people use different platforms for different reasons.

For the specific example of EmpireAvenue, my observation is that there are distinctly different reasons for participation. Some people just want to measure their social media presence. Other people use it for networking. Others just use it as a substitute for advertising to generate traffic.

So, if I use it as a replacement for Klout or Kred and you use it as a way to meet people and generate traffic, we have very different expectations with possibilities for conflict.

And, even if we both want to generate traffic, you may be more concerned about getting just the right traffic and I may just want as much as possible (quality versus quantity tradeoff).

Does that make sense?

I’ve turned off all but personal message notifications, so I don’t receive any messages about content that is “liked.” That means I see only salient, personal messages — the ones I most likely care about or need to respond to.

The thing I found more annoying was to be tagged in photos or collages, or having people share things on my wall so their content would get more traffic. It got to the point where I couldn’t find my own content. At the end of the day, since I wanted to control what appeared on my wall, I was forced to terminate the ability for people to share on my wall.

A social media buddy, Dragana Simic, doesn’t pull punches when it comes to explaining to friends and followers where she draws the line. If someone continues to tag her against her wishes, they’re unfriended. Maybe one way of dealing with unwanted “like” bombs is to first let that person know you don’t enjoy them, and if they continue, it may be time to block them.

Here’s hoping life is treating you well!

Cheers and thanks for sharing an interesting post.

Terri

PS. I’m sending you private message on Facebook and hope you see it.

The one place I think a Like Bomb is appropriate is when you have a friend, a friend you know won’t be upset by blowing up their notifications, and you are making a special point to connect with their content. If I truly no someone and take the time to visit their page and acknowledge visiting all of their most recent content, I think that’s a good thing. In fact, given all of the vagaries of Facebook edgerank, it’s also of some (potential) practical value for making their future content more visible to you.

Nonetheless, I think the idea of “paying” for likes (or any other kind of traffic) is counter-productive. It’s fine to “pay” for marketing if it helps your ideal audience find you, but it’s ultimately self-defeating to pay for one-time only traffic.

That said, I know lots of people who have blogs, but find them too difficult to update – even WordPress! They do all their business marketing via FB because it’s easier for them. I think that’s folly. Why put the future of your business in the hands of a third party who could change all the rules tomorrow? Actually I’m not a big fan of these sites. I use them reluctantly because everyone else does.

I think it will be in between the segway and iphone. A success but not as big as the iphone, maybe more profound, but will take a while for it to match the numbers the iphone has produced.