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New year, new ideas!: Resolutions, social networking, plans, etc.
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By: JustForGirls101
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New year, new ideas!: Resolutions, social networking, plans, etc. - Video
Facebook continues to extend its global social-networking hegemony, having established itself as the most-used such service in the vast majority of countries surveyed in a recent study.
"Facebook with 1 billion active users has established its leadership position in 127 out of 137 countries analyzed," blogged Italian researcher Vincenzo Cosenza when releasing his most recent World Map of Social Networks.
The Reg rushes to note that Cosenza's most-recent report uses traffic data from Alexa, perhaps not the most unflinchingly accurate global traffic monitor, but one which all things considered does report relatively accurate comparative data, site-to-site.
Previous to his most recent WMoSN, Cosenza used data from Google Trends for Websites, but that source was shut down in September of last year.
In any case, Cosenza's latest map shows that Facebook has vaquished almost all competition, and is now slurping up more social-networking traffic than all but a few sites in all but a few countries.
In Russia, (V Kontakte, or In Touch) is the most popular social-networking site, with its main competitor (Odnoklassniki, or Classmates) now falling behind, holding onto most-popular status in just a western sliver of the former Soviet Union.
The map's Facebook blue, the competitors are few (click to enlarge credit: Vincenzo Cosenza vincos.it
The two other holdouts to total Facebook hegemony are countries that carefully control their citizens' interent access: China, where QQ (QZone) remains number one, and Iran, where social-networkers have to make do with (Cloob, or Club).
Perhaps most interesting in Cosenza's latest study is how many fewer countries now have most-active sites other than Facebook when compared with the same study done in December 2009, and how many social-networking sites have slipped from countries' number-one positions.
Even Brazil, where the relatively freewheeling, Google-owned Orkut social-networking site as recently as June 2011, according to Cosenza, has now fallen behind Facebook. Orkut's other outpost, India, slipped into Facebook's camp between June and December 2009.
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Facebook continues to CONQUER THE WORLD
Google Street Views & Privacy
Google Street Views, a new feature of Google Maps that offers photos of various cities (and citizens) around the country, is raising new concerns about privacy. Edward Jurkevics, Chesapeake Analytics; John Gapper, FT chief business commentator; and CNBC's Erin Burnett take on the topic
Savvy consumers learn fast and have realized limiting access to their data means they have to stay vigilant on privacy settings.
Facebook and Google's social networking arm, Google Plus, have group functions that allow users to selectively share information, instead of exposing data to "the random world", as Polonetsky euphemistically called social network posts. (Read more: Randi Zuckerberg Also Confused About Facebook Privacy.)
In some cases, web surfers are going a step further and downloading additional software and browsers specifically to block advertiser access to their personal data. AdBlock Plus, which is free touts about 42 million active users, is one example.
Unless users are willing to jump through such hoops, "there isn't much privacy from marketers when your sharing your information online," Polonetsky said. "Users should understand that there's not much online that is free, unless they take extraordinary steps."
In the end, the onus is on users to know where and how their data is disseminated.
"I'm often surprised that people are surprised" by user data policies, said Brad McGee, co-founder of iCrowd, a social network for equity crowdfunding. If you post information, always have a clear idea of how the site or company intends to use your data, he said.
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Why Online Privacy Is a Big Oxymoron
Missing Reynella woman Rachael Moritz, second from right, with her mother Corinna Smith and sisters Emmah and Alex. Source: Supplied
PEOPLE running missing persons campaigns on social media risk hindering official investigations if not done in conjunction with authorities, police say.
The warning comes as the Facebook page for missing Reynella woman Rachael Moritz, 20, was shut down on Thursday after it was inundated with critical comments, taunts and false reports of sightings after police revealed a bikie link in the case.
Set up by Ms Moritz's family, the page had more than 14,000 followers and spread news of the search worldwide, but it became overwhelming for Ms Moritz's mother, Corinna Smith.
The page was reinstated yesterday with a message to followers to send any information to police.
Ms Smith made an emotional plea in The Advertiser yesterday for Ms Moritz to send her a coded message to prove she was alive.
Ms Smith said she wanted to ensure any contact made was not a hoax.
The plea came as SA Police revealed Ms Moritz's stolen car was used in the November shooting murder of Jason De Ieso, at Pooraka, which police say involved bikies.
Police media operations manager Brett Foster said social media was invaluable in spreading information rapidly between the public and the police.
However, the rapid sharing of information could be a problem if the social media campaigns diverted information from police.
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Good and bad of social networking
Above, a screenshot of a Nextdoor.com neighborhood map. Homes on the map marked in light green are signed up with the social networking service. IMAGE COURTESY OF NEXTDOOR.COM
Published: Thursday, January 3, 2013, 3:10p.m. Updated: Thursday, January 3, 2013
Social-networking sites such as Facebook allow people to connect with their friends, even if they live thousands of miles apart. Old friendships can be rekindled and users can catch up with schoolmates and out-of-town relatives.
But what about the folks right down the street, whose name you may not know, but who live a lot closer? According to a June 2010 survey by the Pew Research Center, 28 percent of Americans know none of their neighbors by name.
Thats where a website like Nextdoor.com comes in.
Penn Hills is so large that we need every tool we can find to reach people, said Frankstown Estates resident James Beck. On Facebook, people might be friends with someone they already know, but what about the person two houses down?
Beck, who moved to Penn Hills about 13 years ago, started a Nextdoor page for his neighborhood: the site allows users to draw a rough map of their neighborhoods, and people who live within the maps boundaries can not just interact but find out about one another.
The site requests users names and addresses, then looks to see if a Nextdoor site is already established in that area. If not, a new user can create one. Any neighbor with an Internet connection can join up and post information about whats happening in their neighborhood, from community events to help-wanted requests to criminal activity.
After an incident in which a car was broken into (in Frankstown Estates), users were on there describing the small group of kids who did it, Beck said, adding that hes also met several of his neighbors because of his interaction on the website.
As a member of the nonprofit Penn Hills Community Development Corporation, Beck is looking to spread the word to local residents about the free service and has been touting its benefits at CDC functions.
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Social-networking site aims to help unite neighborhoods