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Your online social network doesnt just keep you connected, it can also help you stay fit, a new study shows.

A team of researchers led byJure Leskovec, PhD, (who recently was named a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator) an Stanford associate professor of computer science, have shown that participating in a social network on a health app can boost physical activity.

The team tapped data from the Argus app which tracks heart rate, steps and daily exercise from 6 million app users over five years. The app gives users a choice whether to join a social network, allowing them to share data, or to simply track their progress.

The researchers showed that users who joined the social network saw a 7 percent (around 400 steps) increase in physical activity, an effect that lasted for around 20 weeks.

We were able to show that network connections influence us to be more active and that social network users are not simply more intrinsically motivated to exercise, said team memberTim Althoff, a graduate student, in a recent Stanford Engineering news article.

Demographics do play a role, however: The researchers found that women were most influenced by other women and that 30 to 45 year olds had the biggest boost in physical activity. The social networking component also proved beneficial for users characterized as obese.

The impact of this research extends beyond exercise, the study authors said. These findings can also be used to design effective support systems to promote healthy lifestyles. Online social networks are a powerful tool to provide social support and influence healthy behaviors, Leskovec said in the release.

See the original post here:
Social networks may boost fitness, Stanford researchers say - ScienceBlog.com (blog)

As an accounting professional, you have a wide variety of choices to help market yourself or advance your career, the most common of which is social media. But being a part of a professional organization has its advantages too.

So which is best?

Well, we know social networks are everywhere now. Social networks are unique to everyone based on friends, family members or a desire to network with similar individuals in your community.

The best examples are of course Facebook or LinkedIn; networks of people that group together to discuss, contribute and share information in closed or open group forums. While social media groups do give different perspectives on topics they can lead to being persuaded to taking a path that could be an opinion rather than fact. The group may or may not contain an expert on the subject matter that is commenting on the post.

The professional organization, however, is a group of individuals coming together for a common purpose with varied backgrounds. A professional community offers a unique perspective as members share information and feel that they can benefit from the cooperation of an alliance.

Typically, the professional organization goal is to give a voice to the members, to protect and guide the profession and create direction for the individuals. There is overlap between the two type of communities above, but understand one is geared towards a mutual interest the other is defined by the person and are unique to that individual.

Excellent examples of professional organizations are the AICPA for CPAs or the American Bar Association for Lawyers and, of course, the ICBUSA for bookkeepers.

Key Items to Look For in a Professional Membership Organization

As a professional joining an organization focused on your community will benefit you to help give direction in a career. Like-minded professionals offer different perspectives and opportunity for knowledge growth based on the common interest.

The professional community can help offset some of the unknown changes that will occur in the future through synergistic information and guidance. Professional groups are excellent training for the future. Look for groups that have physical meetups where you can socialize in person and get to network and create an in-person bond. The live networking is one of the best ways to learn communication and soft skills that will benefit you beyond virtual social networking.

Go here to read the rest:
Social Networks vs. Professional Organizations - Accountingweb.com (blog)

Online advertisers wield immense power.

With any given ad, they can reach the consumers they have in mind by targeting specific groups of people with exquisite detail. Such personalization has serious consequences for civil rights. Its entirely possible for a property manager to show ads for available apartments only to white men who watched the Super Bowl. That could be a very effective way of keeping everyone else out of its buildings.

This kind of discriminatory targeting is illegal in ads for housing as well as in ads for credit and employment opportunities. We have special protections in these areas to ensure that people are treated fairly because access to good housing, loans, and jobs is crucial to achieving the American dream.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits the recruiting of employees in a way that excludes Black or Latino candidates or women or Muslims for that matter from the applicant pool.The Fair Housing Act makes it illegal to advertise housing in a way that keeps members of these groups from knowing when housing is available. And its similarly illegal to keep people from applying for credit by denying them information under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.

Despite these laws, online advertising platforms have given advertisers the power to explicitly target ads by gender, race, or religion, or to exclude members of particular groups from seeing these ads. And not surprisingly, they have also failed to warn advertisers that they may be engaging in illegal targeting in violation of landmark civil rights laws.

Until now, that is.

Today Facebook is taking significant steps forward that we believe place it at the vanguard of the online fight to protect civil rights. Facebook has updated its policies to clearly prohibit using its audience selection tools to wrongfully target or exclude specific groups of people from seeing ads.

Perhaps even more significantly, Facebook has built a system to identify ads for housing, credit, or employment (You can read the details here). For ads in these categories, it will reject any attempt to target by multicultural affinity (formerly called ethnic affinity), and it will require all advertisers to certify compliance both with Facebooks nondiscrimination policies and with laws that prohibit this targeting.

Weve written before about our concern about Facebooks ethnic affinity ad targeting and advocated for Facebook to make changes. Were very pleased to report that Facebook is doing the right thing now. In fact, were urging other players in the online ad ecosystem to take note and build similar systems. Given the applicable civil rights laws, ads for housing, credit, and employment must be treated differently across the internet by all companies.

Facebook is taking the lead, but theres more work to do. All ad platforms should make it impossible to target ads in these categories by any protected class status, including race, gender, and religion. And we need to keep educating platforms and advertisers about the danger of discrimination that targeting presents, even when ads are targeted by zip code or based on what music you listen to.

Facebook, one of the biggest players in online advertising, is acknowledging these civil rights concerns and a deploying its muscle to protect them. The rest of the industry should wake up, take notice and follow suit. Its not only the right thing to do, its the law.

Read the rest here:
Social Networking Powerhouse Facebook Steps Forward to Bar ... - ACLU (blog)

Visit our country and we will spy on you

The US government is promising to spy on the social media accounts of any foreigner who has the misfortune to have to visit Donald (Prince of Orange) Trump's country.

Apparently, the NSA knowing what you ate for lunch and how your kitten is doing is vital for protecting the land of the free from those nasty Muslim terrorists who seem to be a national obsession from a country which tends to grow its own Christian and right-wing based nut-job style terrorism.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told Congress that tourists who want to visit the United States could be asked to hand over their social-media passwords to officials as part of enhanced security checks.

"We want to get on their social media, with passwords: What do you do, what do you say? If they don't want to cooperate then you don't come in."

That puts a bit of a damper on those just wanting to visit the US to go to Disneyland or shop.

After telling Congress that was what he was doing, Kelly, a Trump appointee, stressed that asking for people's passwords was just one of "the things that we're thinking about" and that none of the suggestions were concrete.

He said that under existing vetting processes officials "don't have a lot to work with," relying on the applicant's documentation and asking them questions about their background. Basically admitting that they were there to overthrow the US government.

This was even more problematic when dealing with so-called "failed states" such as Syria or Somalia, where infrastructure and record-keeping has been degraded by conflict.

"When someone says, 'I'm from this town and this was my occupation,' [officials] essentially must take the word of the individual. I frankly don't think that's enough, certainly President Trump doesn't think that's enough. So we've got to maybe add some additional layers."

As well as asking people for their passwords, Kelly said he was looking at trying to obtain people's financial records.

"We can follow the money, so to speak. How are you living, who's sending you money? It applies under certain circumstances, to individuals who may be involved in on the payroll of terrorist organisations."

Of course, you can always say that your financial records are being investigated by the tax authorities and cannot be revealed at the moment. Apparently that is the presidential excuse so it should work for everyone else.

Obtaining visitors' passwords was considered by top officials at the Department of Homeland Security under the Obama administration, but the policy was never adopted. This was probably because it was too silly for words.

Read this article:
US will demand foreigners hand over social networking passwords - Fudzilla (blog)

The Nextdoor app is the ultimate way to network with your neighbours. Neighbourhood landgrab

Back in the UK, Nextdoors growth shows little signs of slowing down. After launching just 4 months ago, this week the company will acquire Streetlife, the current UK market leader.

Social networking is all about scale and competing networks make it harder for people to know which one to use. Its why Facebook worked so hard to become the de facto network for university students andexploded in popularity.

After buying Streetlife, Nextdoor will gain 1m users, cementing its position as the leading local network in the UK.

There are plenty of other smaller networks up and down the country, mostly run by volunteers, using existing platforms like Ning or old-fashioned discussion boards.

But nothing else rivals Nextdoors ambitions when it comes to building a business.

Despite taking over $200m of investor cash, the app has yet to make a penny until now.

Just like local newspapers of the past, Nextdoor is building the ultimate platform with a targeted audience.

More:
Nosey neighbours the next billion dollar social network is on your street - The Memo