Facebook Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Terry White's Tech Blog

August 8, 2011August 8, 2011

Will Google+ Kill Facebook or Twitter?

My initial response to that question is "no." However, If I were taking bets i'd say that Twitter is more at risk than Facebook. I find that people I know that LOVE Twitter love it mostly because they don't like Facebook. Maybe it's the whole "friend" concept vs. "followers". Maybe it's because Twitter is short, sweet and too the point at 140 characters. I'm not sure what the real attraction is of Twitter over Facebook for those users that prefer it, but the one thing I can say is that Google definitely took a hard look at both services and decided to integrate the best of each into their own Google+ network.

Circles instead of Friends

Like Twitter, you don't have to be someone's "friend" to follow them. You can just add them to one of your Circles and you'll see their public updates. However, like Facebook's "lists" (my favorite Facebook feature) the whole Circle concept makes it easy to control what you share and with whom. You can target both status updates and photo albums to specific Circles of users that you create.

Speaking of photos

I would dare say this is probably one of the most used features of Facebook. Facebook users post millions of photos each week! I think it's the photos aspect that makes a Facebook user prefer Facebook over Twitter. While you can share links to photos on Twitter, it's just not the same.

Google+ Hangouts are cool too

Google+ Hangouts is a cool little feature that lets you set up a LIVE video conference chat with up to 10 people. I gave this feature a whirl while I was watching my new studio being painted. Yes, I invited people to watch paint dry 🙂 OK, I was bored and didn't want to be bored alone. I fired it up. Positioned a spare laptop upstairs and we all sat around chatting about photography, Adobe questions, and of course painting. It worked extremely well. The only downside was the limit of 10 people. But hey, it was free!

Who will win?

I think it's way way way too early to say that Twitter or Facebook is going to die because of Google+. First of all Google+ isn't open to the general public just yet. Most "everyday" people I talk to have never even heard of Google+. This is why I think Google+ will have a hard time overtaking Facebook anytime soon. In order to beat Facebook they'd not only have to do just about everything Facebook does and in most cases better, there would have to be a groundswell movement of hundreds of thousands of users away from Facebook and I just don't see that happening. The reason is, most Facebook users I know (everyday folk) like Facebook. They don't see anything (much) wrong with it. They use it everyday to keep in touch with friends/family and for the most part they are happy with the way it works.

Yes it could happen. Look at MySpace. MySpace was king/queen, but you never hear anyone talk about it anymore. Facebook killed it. So yes it could happen, but you'd have to look at the reasons why MySpace has almost disappeared. It had no class! MySpace was all about letting you create and unfortunately "customize" your presence. This lead to many non-web designers creating really crappy looking MySpace pages. These pages were a pain to read and for some reason everyone thought that you wanted to hear their favorite music the minute you entered their page. I absolutely hated using MySpace and the only reason I was on it was to see the pages of people that I was communicating with. I spent as little time on it as possible. I think this is why it was easy to beat MySpace with something "better" or at least more consistent. I don't miss MySpace one bit. It won't be so easy with Twitter and Facebook.

This begs the question, is there room or desire for all three? I certainly don't need something else to do. Having a Google+ presence means that I now have one more thing to feed and maintain. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

I'm inviting 150 of my fans to join Google+

Like I said above, Google+ isn't available to the general public just yet. However, if you're wanting to get in just click this link and be sure to add me to your Circles! Thanks!

Which one do you prefer?

Which Social Network do you prefer? » create a poll
Tags : social networking

February 14, 2011February 14, 2011

Is Facebook the New “.com”?

photo compliments of iStockphoto.com

Facebook has been growing by leaps and bounds and with over 500 Million Users it's no longer just for kids nor can it be ignored. I've noticed that more and more companies are not only staking out a presence on Facebook, but they are even using their Facebook Pages in lieu of their corporate sites when they advertise on TV and in print. All of these screen grabs (Pepsi, Gerber, Carnival, etc.) were from the last frame of their respective TV commercials…

People don't wake up to go your site every day

One thing I came to the realization of last year was that while we may flatter ourselves in thinking that our customers love to come to our sites on a regular basis, chances are the vast majority don't visit your corporate site each day. Think about it. You probably go to most corporate sites when you either have a problem or you're ready to buy something new. It's probably not your daily hangout. You probably don't think to go there to "connect" with the company. On the other hand people go to Facebook EVERY DAY with the sole purpose of connectingt with others. While I definitely appreciate those of you who come here and read my posts, I know that there are millions of people out there that will NEVER come here. In 2010 I had the goal of "being everywhere." What that meant to me was expanding beyond my own .com and placing my content in more places. I was very happy with the results. I now have over 8,000 Twitter followers and over 3,000 Facebook Fans (Likes). I also have over 3 Million views of my YouTube content as well as millions of downloads of my content on iTunes. In most cases many of these users would never see my content on the other/opposite sites.

Why are more companies using Facebook?

Besides the obvious reason of there being a potential audience of 500 million users, Facebook makes it easy for companies to have DIRECT contact with customers without resorting to spam, opt-in policies, building microsites, etc. Also existing Facebook users are more likely to check out their favorite brands on Facebook.com than they are to visit those same corporate sites on a regular/daily basis.

The other benefit is that while many of these companies have their own "forums" for direct communication, users don't have to setup logins for multiple sites. Just log in once to Facebook and visit any company you want and post on their wall. I think that another reason why companies are putting themselves on Facebook is that it's much easier and faster updating a Facebook Page than it is going through the usual red tape, legal, political fronts getting the main corporate site updated. Usually the larger the corporation, the harder it is to get something on the official company website. Sometimes I think the US Congress moves faster! Companies tend to be a little more lax and "casual" when it comes to their social media presence and that's actually a good thing! It feels more "friendly".

You have to be prepared to take the bad with the good

Continue reading “Is Facebook the New “.com”?”

August 20, 2010August 20, 2010

Facebook Adds Places: Time to Update Your Privacy Settings Again!

You might remember my recent post "Are you sharing too much on Facebook?" in that post I gave you some tips on how to control your privacy settings so that only the people that you want to see your status updates and photos are the ones that actually see them. It's time to revisit this again now that Facebook has added "Places".

What's Places?

Places is a new feature on Facebook that allows mobile users to "check in" to the different places they may visit. This is not a new concept as sites like Gowalla and Foursquare have been doing this for a while. It's a social networking thing amongst "close friends" and "family" and of course Facebook wants in on it (I'm sure there's money in knowing the establishments that your customers frequent the most). The concept is pretty simple. You visit a location, business, park, etc. and with a mobile device like a smartphone you either use the Facebook app or the Facebook mobile site to check in. That "check in" is then posted to your wall/news feed for all of your "friends" to see. If you don't want your friends to know where you are every minute of the day then don't use it. It's pretty simple to not tap or click on it. Problem solved. 🙂 However, there's a little more to it than that with Facebook at least for now. The problem is that your "friends" can tag YOU when they check in to a location. This is a plus from a convenience standpoint when a group of friends are hanging out and a big minus for those that don't want to play! Your friends don't need your consent to check you in! I can already hear the privacy groups screaming about this and luckily although it's ENABLED BY DEFAULT, you can turn it off (see below).

Here's another Privacy gotcha according to Macworld.com:

Another problem is that, while new places users create are private by default, they can become public if enough users check into them. Even if such a place is your house or apartment, Facebook will automatically promote the place to being public after an unspecified number of check-ins. For now, there is no way to prevent your home address from becoming a public location on Facebook aside from asking your friends to not check in at your next party. If a sensitive location becomes public, the only way to attempt to remove it is to flag it for Facebook to review, and ask others to do the same.

So the obvious thing not to do here is DON'T use Places to check in to your private residence. I never saw the need to do this on Gowalla, will definitely NOT be doing it on Facebook Places.

Changing your privacy settings – NOW!

Whether you plan to use Places or not, you should adjust your Privacy settings NOW! I already use Gowalla, but unlike Facebook I only have less than 10 Gowalla friends! These are the few people that are close to me that I would want to know my current location at any given time. So the same goes for Facebook! If I do use the Places feature, I don't want my 1,500+ "Friends" to necessarily know where I am. I want those "Close Friends", "Family" and "People I actually know" to know where I am. Again, this is where the Facebook Lists Feature pays off again. You can designate a List of the people that you would want to see your Places' Check Ins.

The default for Places is set to "Friends".

Also don't forget to DISABLE the ability for Friends to check you in to Places if you don't want that:

If you don't want ANYONE to see where you are even if you're tagged, change the setting to "Only Me" and you should be OK for now.

July 19, 2010July 19, 2010

Are You Sharing Too Much on Facebook?

My buddy A. J. Wood alerted us all to the fact that Walmart now has a Facebook Application that allows people to print their photos directly from Facebook to Walmart. Nothing wrong with that right? While on the surface that seems pretty harmless, it does open up photographers who post their images online, perhaps in hopes of drumming up more business to having their images printed by the people that they tag in the photo without their knowledge or consent. There has always been a lot of controversy surrounding Facebook's Terms of Service and Privacy. However, the way I see it is that if you're really that concerned about someone ripping your photo off, then you probably shouldn't put it online in the first place. Nonetheless, A. J. offers a simple way to fix this one issue on his blog.

Control Your Content On Facebook

I actually like Facebook. Although I'm on Flickr, Twitter, and other sites, Facebook seems to be the popular choice of my friends, family co-workers, clients, fans, and just about everyone else I know and that's both a good thing and a bad thing all at the same time. Like I said above, if there is a photo that you don't want someone to steal, then you probably shouldn't put it out there. However, the same kinda thing goes for just about everything else. There's a fine line between what you might feel totally comfortable with sharing with your friends vs. if your employer (or potential employer) were to see it. We joke around, we post funny pictures, we might even make off the cuff comments, and it's all good until it's seen by the wrong person.

I'm actually teaching a class this September at Photoshop World in Vegas, on…. "Why you should be on Facebook." The class is really aimed at Facebook from a business use scenario and how being there can help bring in more new clients. However, one of the things I'll be addressing in that class is how to control who sees what.

So without giving away the whole class here, I will share one tip with you for now:

Use Lists!

I LOVE the Facebook "Lists" feature. When you choose Edit Friends from your Account Settings, you have the ability to create lists and add your friends to those lists. You can create as many Lists as you need to. For example, perhaps you have a list called "Close Friends and Family", or "Co-workers" or "People I actually know" or "Immediate Family", "Classmates", etc. Once you have these lists setup, you can use them to control just about ever aspect of your Facebook page AND YOUR PHOTOS. For example, perhaps you only want your "Close Friends and Family" to see personal pictures taken at your home and of your children. Perhaps you only want the "People you actually know" to see your Wall Posts. Maybe there was a company picnic and you only want your "co-workers" to see those shots. Get the idea? Although you have a mixture of "friends" on Facebook, you can still control who sees what.

Here's how to do it for a photo album: First create the album (or you can use an existing one). Then choose Account->Privacy Settings. The click Customize Settings and from there click Edit album privacy. Now you can go to the Album that you want to change and set the privacy for that particular Album to a specific or multiple lists and only those people will be able to see those photos.

Happy List Creating and I'll see you in Vegas!