I’m not sure why the Facebook Places warning is circulating around Facebook again, but it is. The warning that’s going around this time is written in a rather panic-inciting tone, but as far as I can tell, Facebook places is the same as it was already. The warning makes it sound almost like just using Facebook is enough to give away your location. You actually have to use Facebook Places for it to show where you are. However, your friends can use Facebook Places and tag you (showing that you’re at X location also.) If you don’t want to use Facebook Places and/or don’t want your friends to be able to check you into a place, there are three privacy settings you need to change.
HOWEVER: There’s one more thing that people who are concerned about giving away their locations should know about. And that’s geotagging. Geotagging on smart phones allows people to use apps like Foursquare (and I’m sre that’s what Facebook Places is using.) Geotagging imbeds the actual GPS coordinates of your location to an image taken with your cell phone. Some people use that to upload pics and attach them to a map. However, if you take a picture of something in your home, geotagging is turned on, and you upload that picture to facebook or twitter — that picture includes embedded geotagging, giving away the exact location of your home.
For more information about Geotagging:
That middle news report addressed how you can turn geotagging off, but if you do, your smart phone won’t be able to access maps to help you find the nearest gas station or driving directions. You might choose to only turn the geotagging on when you need GPS assistance. Or you might leave it on and just use discretion about which places you check into and where you upload pictures taken on your cell phone. Either way, it just takes a little bit of paying attention and then you’re not putting yourself at risk.
The very same Hip Homeschool Moms that brought us Monday’s Twitter party also has a Blog Hop list up right now. It’s closed to new entries, but there are 140 homeschooling blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts linked up to browse through. There will be another BlogHop next week, and I’ll try to remind you about it before the linky closes!
Raise your hand if you like spam. Not the meat, the blog kind. What? Nobody?? Me either! Which is why Akismet ROCKS – nothing makes it past Akismet!
Indeed nice blog u have here. It’d be just great to read a bit more concerning that matter. Thanx for giving such material.
Spam! Can you BE any more vague? Wait, don’t answer that…
One again, your article is very nice
Really? Do you think I (or Akismet) am going to fall for this? Spammity Spam!
Just want to say what a great blog you got here!
I’ve been around for quite a lot of time, but finally decided to show my appreciation of your work!
Thumbs up, and keep it going!
Cheers
Christian
Now that one was very clever and almost believable.. til you looked at the domain name and email address… NICE TRY. Spammity Spam Spam Spam!
Another “oooh, so close” comment:
And what about adding some more illustrations? No offence, site is really great. Just as I know humans acquire information much more efficient if there are some useful images.
Nency Mainfield
*Cough*Spam! That was on a How-To post related to Facebook and I’ve been getting spam out the wazoo on that post. The destination site linked to their name was obviously trying to sell something. Spam!
I’ve recently started a blog, the information you provide on this site has helped me tremendously. Thank you for all of your time & work.
The “name” of this commenter was “study abroad scholarschips”…Really? Dear Mr. Scholarships.. SPAM!
And now, for your spam enjoyment:
Sorry for the Monty Python — I guess I’ve been influenced by my Dad. 
“I don’t LIKE spam!!”
Name Your Twitter Addiction…
Twitter Addiction Definition Chart
Twitter:
a free social networking service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets.
Addiction:
1.) being abnormally tolerant to and dependent on something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming
2.) an abnormally strong craving
Twitter Addiction:
1.) the irresistible urge to check and update Twitter repeatedly throughout the day
2.) the sudden onset of writing tweets in one’s head while running errands, sometimes accompanied by a new habit of adding hashtags to other conversations and social media outlets.
Social Tweeters:
Those who only tweet socially. They can quit anytime.
Chain Tweeters:
Moving from one tweet to the next, with hardly a keystroke in between.
Serious Tweeters:
Tweeting on twitter even before breakfast.
Happy Hour Tweeters:
Mainly only tweeting for the few hours after they get off work. (“It’s ok, they have it under control.”)
Hard Core Tweeters:
Tweeting morning, noon, night, in the car, in the kitchen, in the bedroom. Will sneak tweets in through texts and fancy apps when no one is looking. They may have multiple twitter ids hidden around their computer. Those around them may not be aware of how often they are really tweeting, the Hard Core Tweeter is extremely adept at hiding it.
*Disclaimer – Twitter may be habit forming. If you are using other methods of social media, you may need to talk to your social marketing expert before adding Twitter to your daily regimen. Twitter is safe for daily use, but may cause side effects such as Migraines, Insomnia, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and callouses on your fingertips. Other symptoms include burned bridges due to TMI. If you experience these or other symptoms you are probably using Twitter too much. Just sayin. Of course I’m not affiliated with Twitter in any way and this is totally a joke, and any other interpretation is ridiculous. Now if you’ll excuse me,…I need to tweet this.
Photo Credit: Original photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/nathanf/ / CC BY 2.0 Adapted by Amber Oliver under the allowances of the creative commons license.
I enjoy Facebook. I really do. In fact there have probably been too many days where I have spent too much time on that site. (And that’s not necessarily a good thing.)
Facebook helps me:
- stay current with my mom, who – after living ten minutes away my kids’ whole lives – moved four hours away a few years ago.
- keep in touch or get in touch with other family members across the country
- likewise with good friends I don’t see as much as I’d like to in person
On the other hand, Facebook also:
- helps me find people I’d completely lost contact with, who I think I might like to catch up with, who I never spend any time talking to, sharing pictures with, commenting on statuses with and so on.
- allows me to add “friends who are passing through” and then wonder if, when and how I should unfriend them after they are gone.
- sometimes presents the opportunity to add a friend, acquaintance, or friend of a friend who I feel I *should* add out of guilt, peer pressure, not wanting to hurt their feelings or whatever. (Most of the time I don’t give in, I’ve always been very selective about my friends and kept my profile very private.)
Still.
As enjoyable as Facebook can be, something sullies the Facebook sweetness. Three things actually. So here it is.
3 Reasons Why I Purged Over 100 People From My Facebook Friends
1.) Too much input.
Remember the movie Short Circuit? “Need more input.” Yeah. Not so. In this case it was more like TMI, only not necessarily as gross as when someone in the bathroom stall at Wal-Mart talks about what they are doing. No, I’m just talking about information overload. Every single time I logged into Facebook (or nearly so), I would have over 300 recent items in my news feed. THREE HUNDRED. And I log into Facebook at least twice a day. Seriously. And no, I don’t play a ton of games, I don’t join every group and page that comes through and yes, I do hide other people’s game applications. And still: 300+.
As you can imagine, it would take a lot of time to go back through all those updates every time I logged in. Sometimes I do, and I lose a lot of time to Facebook (which my hubby doesn’t appreciate.) Usually I don’t and then invariably someone I am close to asks: “Hey, did you see the XYZ on my wall?” Most of the time the answer is no. So that whole “keeping me connected to my friends and family?” That’s pretty null and void at that point, isn’t it?
2.) Online Safety
Facebook is the only place that I share my kids’ names and pictures. I do this because 1.) as I mentioned before I selectively add friends there and 2.) I have everything on my personal page locked down tight as a bank vault.
Or do I?
Everytime Facebook adds a new feature, a new setting, it defaults to public. Now wait a minute! How much sense does that make?? Sure, I go in and change it. But the bottom line is that Facebook is making me jump through hoops to keep my page private. And in light of some of their recent changes from the last two updates, it seems like the more friends I have, the higher the odds that one or more of my friends is sharing information with their applications. So it makes sense to me to think “less friends = less friends sharing information with applications.” Right?
You could argue that I could just delete my account. I could. And at some point I may have to. For now, I’m happy to cut out people I’m no longer talking to or close with to keep my Facebook friends “close to home” so to speak. In the meantime, I still get to easily share photos and funny things with my mom, my grandmother, my mother in law, and so on.
Another thing, this article “Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook” really got me thinking. You should read it. (And the links within it.)
3.) Real Life Safety
Some friends of ours recently came home from a shopping trip to find their house and been robbed. We have no reason to think Facebook played any role in this but it got me thinking. REALLY thinking. Let’s play pretend for a moment.
Let’s PRETEND that I add a friend of a friend who I know vaguely, or an ex-coworker or some similar kind of acquaintance. Let’s pretend that John Doe Smith is really not a very trustworthy or upstanding character – but I really don’t know him well enough to know this. Let’s then pretend that over the course of a few months I talk about random things, like my new laptop I got for my birthday, the diamond bracelet I got for my anniversary and then to top it all off, lets say husband got a new 60 inch flat screen for Father’s Day. Then let’s pretend that I put up something totally casual like “Off to the parents for the weekend! Yay!” And this is more than John Doe Smith can take because he’s really quite the unscrupulous character. He happens to know where I live and also happens to be removed enough from our circle so as to probably not ever be suspected. (I mean, what are the odds that the police are going to question all 300 people on my Facebook list?) So he goes for it. And I come home to a vandalized and emptied house. And my kids are terrified for their safety when they go to bed at night.
Okay, so I admit that was a lot of pretending there. And most likely our friends’ experience didn’t have anything to do with Facebook. But it did make me stop and think about what I’m advertising on Facebook and who I am advertising it to. DO I TRUST EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN MY FACEBOOK FRIENDS LIST?
Do you trust yours?
So now my Facebook friends list is over 100 people lighter.
And not only that, but I also unliked many groups and pages that no longer meet or serve any of my purposes. How do you do that?
To unfriend a large group of people at one time, you need to go to your profile, click on ‘Account’ in the upper right corner, click on ‘Edit Friends’, click on ‘All Connections’ in the lefthand sidebar of that page. You’ll see all your groups, pages, friends all at the same time. Then just start clicking X’s and confirming! It’s as easy as cake. Or pie. Whichever you prefer. I like pie.
Go ahead. I dare you. Make your friends list a list of real friends. You’ll feel a hundred people lighter. And you might actually be able to keep up will all your real friends. Imagine that.
And for the record, all of my pretend stealable items were in fact pretend. However, if any companies or manufacturers of big screen tv’s want to give me one to try out for them, I’m available.
Also for the record, those are ranked in order of my concern – with number one being my main reason and so on. Just FYI.
