Garrett Kelley » Social Networking

twitter hashtags

garrett — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 21:01:54 +0000

I refuse to use twitter hashtags! My reason is simple: twitter posts are limited to 140 precious characters. I’m not wasting any characters on tags to make searching easier. Tagging items slows down my tweeting. Having to stop and think about what the tag should be is a long process compared to simply typing the tweet and posting it. That being said, if hashtags were not included in the character limit I still would be a lot more likely use them.

Back to Facebook

garrett — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 09:32:25 +0000

This post is quite a bit overdue, but as most of you have figured out by now I have returned to Facebook. Why I did is something I have asked myself time and time again. The primary reason I came back was due to my friends. I found myself frequently missing out on happenings in my social circle because they were occurring on Facebook. Facebook can also be a good time waster when I’m bored. I still however feel as I did before. My opinion on Facebook has not changed, therefore I tread very lightly. I limit the amount of information I share and strictly control whom I share it with. For instance I prefer to share my photos on Flickr instead of Facebook. I have now opened up my Twitter feed to the public as a way to share with anyone that cares to follow me. I limit my Facebook friends to people I actually know and converse with on a regular basis.

With MySpace dying a slow painful death, Facebook has a social networking monopoly. I look forward to the next social platform which usurps Facebook’s hold on our lives.

Facebook No More?

garrett — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 02:04:11 +0000

I’m thinking about quitting Facebook and you should consider leaving too. My reason is simple: I do not trust Facebook with my information. More importantly I do not trust Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook have repeatedly demonstrated their disrespect for their users and their privacy. Facebook touts the granular control of their privacy controls. Sure, they are there, but for the average person are almost impossible to use or understand. Furthermore, Facebook on multiple occasions has experienced privacy leaks. For example, earlier this year a glitch caused private messages to go to the wrong users (link). Zuckerberg himself has demonstrated disrespect for Facebook users’ privacy and his own lack of moral standards. For example: when Zuckerberg was building The Facebook, he was also allegedly working on a competing project, HarvardConnection, with other students. Instead of building HarvardConnection Zuckerberg stole their ideas and built his own social network (link). Another example is his instant messaging conversation (link) where he labels Facebook users as “dumb fucks” for trusting him with their private data. More recently a New York Times blogger shared that Zuckerberg does not believe in privacy (link). Clearly Zuckerberg’s interests, company, and money come first. The safety and privacy of Facebook users are of little concern to him.

Facebook needs to restore trust in their company. To do this Facebook needs to make a couple of changes. First, change the default privacy settings for user data from public to private. ALL of my information on Facebook should be private until I expressly change it to become public. Not the other way around. When I delete my Facebook account ALL of my information and data should be COMPLETELY and PERMANENTLY deleted. Rather, Facebook holds onto your data for 14 days in case you change your mind. I can see this as useful for people who are unsure they want to separate from Facebook, but there should also be an option to delete my data instantly. Making the situation even worse is the fact that if you delete your account not all of your data is removed. Facebook Help states “Copies of some material (photos, notes, etc.) may remain in our servers for technical reasons…” (link). What is SO hard about deleting my data? Please, just remove it from your servers!

The one thing we all need to remember is that Facebook’s goal is to make money. To make money Facebook sells advertising space. Facebook uses your information to show you advertisements you might be interested in. While Facebook states that no information which can identify you is used for this purpose, there is nothing stopping them from using identifiable information. Combine that with Facebook’s demonstrated disregard for user privacy and I believe it is only a matter of time.

Do I trust my information with other companies, to some degree I do. Can I actually trust any of them? Maybe, maybe not. The emphasis here is that Facebook and Zuckerberg have repeatedly demonstrated a blatant disrespect and disregard for their users’ privacy. This we cannot ignore.

Facebook

garrett — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:04:24 +0000

After what turned out to be one of the worst weekends I can remember, I have decided to take a break from Facebook. As of Monday (5/25/09) morning at approximately 3:00 AM I deactivated my Facebook account. I ancipate this will not be a permanent action and within the coming weeks I will reactivate my Facebook account. I have not unfriended anyone and my decision was not based on the actions of any one person. I can still be reached via either my FriendFeed or Twitter accounts.

Facebook for BlackBerry

garrett — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:04:17 +0000

Facebook 1.5 for BlackBerry devices is now available. New features include:

Receive instant notifications on your BlackBerry smartphones home screen.
Send/receive message or wall posts, pokes and friend requests.
Update your status, view and comment on your friends’ status.
Share photos from your BlackBerry smartphone with tags/comments and post to Facebook with just one click.
Connect your Facebook friends with your BlackBerry Address Book – including profile picture integration which brings a whole new meaning to caller ID.
Stay on top of your life with birthday reminders and event integration into your BlackBerry Calendar.

One of my favorite new features is Facebook contant integration with your BlackBerry contacts. When the application matches a BlackBerry contact to a Facebook contact, it will keep their picture current on your BlackBerry!

You can get Facebook 1.5 OTA directly from RIM at http://www.blackberry.com/facebook

Source: http://snipurl.com/gg3no (Gizmodo)