How Clean Is Your Online Life?

 

Admit it. Some of you have been a little sloppy online, especially at the beginning when you didn't really know what social networking was all about. If you didn't post that drunken, half-naked picture of yourself on your wall, your friend sure did. And, in this ever-growing and ever-changing community of social networking, reputations that you form in the digital world are invading more and more on your professional life.

Online services like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, or blogs enable you to post an array of personal information. This information, then, becomes potentially available to anyone, including employers.

Now, you might ask yourself, "Why would an employer be interested in hiring me, look at my Twitter or Facebook page?"

Well, there are two main reasons.

1. Many employers may use these social networks to search for individuals with a certain level of education,  work experience, personal interests, and/or anything else that might be a asset to their company.

 2. Background checking. What better way to find out who you really are than to check out one of your many facebook albums?

Face it, employers want to find out all they can about who's working for their company. Fortunately and unfortunately, some of what you put out into cyberspace is publicly available. It's legal for your potential employer or current employer to take a peek, because on the Internet, you have a lower "expectation of privacy."

So, it's not an invasion of privacy for an employer to view pictures of your wild and crazy weekend on your Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or personal blog. It's not illegal for them to check your statues.

So, what's a good way to find out whether or not you have a blemish on your online life?

Take a look at what I saw on the news this morning.

Socioclean. They say that their mission is to simplify the problem for end-users by allowing them to scan and clean their online profile for various social networks. Socioclean is the first comprehensive solution for managing and monitoring your online social network profile.

Check it out!

Romantic Valentine's Day-themed iPhone apps. Say What?

Happy Valentine's Day!

So, what did you buy your honey this year?

Well, just in case you haven't gotten your sweetie anything yet, check this out! Apple has love-themed iPhone apps!

Can you believe it? 

For $1.99, The Scene it? app could be all yours. 

 

The FingerMingle Valentine's Edition app could be all yours for FREE! 

FingerMingle Valentine's Edition features includes:

* 18 levels for playing with a partner
* Beautifully crafted game surface with lots of love
* Sounds specifically designed to let you know what your mingled 
  fingers are doing
                          
                                                       

For .99 the Build-A-Card: Cupid Edition could be yours.

Build-A-Card: Cupid Edition features include:

*Build and share custom made Valentine’s Day cards by E-mail, Facebook and Twitter
*Create memorable V-Day cards for your loved ones
*Tons of fun options with your design
*Power to edit and personalize Valentine’s Day card with photos and  various Valentine’s Day themed  overlays

For more apps, click here.

Scene It? features include:

*30 distinct quiz sets with 16 puzzle types Dozens of video clips, images and audio clips
*Head to Head Multiplayer via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth (uses multiple devices)
*Group Play Multiplayer (uses a single device)

Twitter Update



So, what has my first week on Twitter been like?


Hmm. It's kinda...interesting.


Okay, how can I put it?


It's kinda like when I was a little kid and I had imaginary friends that I'd talk to. You know what I'm talking about. You had them too. That's what Twitter is like, so far. I'm tweeting and tweeting and I'm almost positive that I'm talking to, well, no one. Lol. Now this was cool when I was seven, but now, uh, I realize when I talking to myself.


This is how I feel after I tweet.


Tweet... tweet ...tweet. No wait! It's more like CRICKETS...CRICKETS...CRICKETS! HELLO, IS ANYONE HOME?!


Ahhh, one is truly the loneliest number in the world. LOL.


The second thing that I've realized is that Twitter really is ALL ABOUT THE CELEBRITIES! Now, I'll keep it one hundred, when I signed up, that was the first thing that I did was look for my favorite A-Z celebs. That's right. I'm a groupie. But, hear me out. Who else would I want to follow? I don't give to snickers about what Joe Blow is doing, but I really do NEED to know when NeNe Leakes of The Real Housewives of Atlanta will be on the next Celebrity Apprentice. I know, I'm a nerd girl.


LOL.


But, I will say this, I do have 4 followers! It's very sad. One's a classmate. Another is a friend of mine and the other two are people I don't know. How'd that happen? Well, naturally, the classmate and friend were  freebies, but the other two were random. I went to my Twitter page and it said that I had two more followers!

Honestly, I got a little excited. Hehehe. "I have followers! I have followers!"


But, wait!


Now, there's pressure! Now, I have to be...EXCITING! Now, I have to pretend that I have a life! Now, I have to pretend that I don't take naps when I get home. Now, I have to pretend that I do more than eat, sleep and...erm...pray all day. Yeah, right. Never that, but, I do have to make myself worthy of being followed...right?


I mean really. I refuse to be the person that tweets my every single move.


"Hey tweeties, I just ate."
"Hey tweeties, I just digested."
"Hey tweeties, I just burped."


OMGeezee. THE PRESSURE!


Stay tuned.

Am I A Twit 'Cause I don't Tweet?

                                                             
I just don't get it. I thought Twitter was for us regular people to follow celebs. I thought Twitter was for me to stay abreast of what my imaginary bff, Khloe Kardashian, was doing. Than I realized that millions of people use twitter everyday. Millions of  "regular" people. What the heck are regular people Twitting about? What the heck am I gonna Twitter about? Or is that Tweet about? Geez, I don't even know the lingo.

Man, I don't even know what I'd say. I'm not that interesting. I work, go to school and take lots of naps. And on a really exciting day, I might eat a whole box of Cocoa Puffs, but that's as cool as I get. So why would anyone wanna follow me? Granted, I know that eating a whole box of cereal is AMAZING but really. I don't think people want to follow me because of my love for carbs


I bite the bullet, go to Twitter.com and sign up. After all, I am trying to explore all things new media.


After several minutes, my self-diagnosed ADD kicks in, and I find myself spending more time designing my homepage than actually trying to Twitter...or Tweet. I look up a few celebrities because, well, who the heck else would I look up? Then, panic sets in! These celebs have millions of followers! Twitter is EXACTLY what I thought it was. A POPULARITY CONTEST! I haven't been popular since Tupac was alive.


How the heck am I gonna attract followers?


Stay tuned.

Did You Know 4.0

What is Knowledge Sharing?

Knowledge sharing is a way in which regular people like me can share what I know (i.e. facts, tips, skills job leads or celebrity gossip) with friends, family, fans of my blogs or people that I encounter on message boards.


One way to make sure that you message is seen is through social networking. Social networking is the practice of expanding the number of one's business and/or social contacts by making connections through individuals.


Another way to spread knowledge is through crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to an undefined, large group of people or community through an open call.

Here are ten clever ways that people can choose to share their knowledge, just to show how every aspect of online commerce, research and even human interaction are changing.

Social Networking

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site that people can use to find job/professional contacts. The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to    maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business.

Twitter  is a social networking/microblogging service that allows its users to send and read messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the user's profile page. Users may subscribe to other users' tweets—this is known as followers and subscribers are known as followers.                          
                         

Facebook is a social network service that allows users to create a personal profile, add other users as friends and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Users may also join common interest groups, organized by workplace, school, or college, or other characteristics.  

Crowdsourcing  

Wikipedia is a web-based encyclopedia written collaboratively by largely anonymous Internet volunteers who write without pay. Anyone with Internet access can write and make changes to Wikipedia articles. Users can contribute annoymously, under a pseudonym, or with their real identity, if they choose.

We Are Hunted is a music aggregation website that ranks the Web's most popular songs based on blogs, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, forums, peer-to-peer file sharing services and more. We Are Hunted aims to help listeners find new music and to help artists reach new audiences.

Crowdspring is a global marketplace for crowdsourced creative services. Crowdspring lets you post design projects or brief copywriting assignments, name your price, then pick from worldwide submitters. 

Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website,users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to host images that they embed in blogs and social media.

YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videosUnregistered users may watch videos, and registered users may upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos that are considered to contain potentially offensive content are available only to registered users 18 and older.


  

Tumblr is a microblogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users can follow other users, or choose to make their tumblelog private.

Blogger is Google’s free tool for creating blogs. You can use blogs for everything from updating your friends and family about your life, giving your own advice column, discussing your political views, or topics that interest you.




Which one of these services do you use?