Senator Urges Facebook to Change Privacy Policies

Congress might be getting more involved in the fight over Facebook’s recent changes to its privacy policies. CNN.com reports that Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) recently sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerman asking him to change the social networking site’s privacy settings. Facebook recently changed its policies to allow third parties to have access to certain user information.

In addition, Senate Judiciary Committee staffers met with Facebook executives on Wednesday to discuss the recent changes to the privacy policy. Schumer is a member of the committee, and he has been joined by fellow Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Mark Begich of Alaska and Al Franken of Minnesota to change their new privacy policies.

“While he appreciates the tremendous value Facebook and other social networking sites provide to their users, the senator feels strongly that these sites should establish an opt-in policy for sharing users private data with third party companies and the default setting should always be more restrictive, not less,” Brian Fallon, a Schumer spokesman, said in a statement to CNN.

College Students Can’t Live Without Social Media

Most college students are functionally unable to be without their media links, according to a new study conducted by the International Center for Media & the Public Agenda (ICMPA).

The study, titled “24 Hours: Unplugged,” asked 200 students at the University of Maryland, College Park to abstain from using all media — including cell phones, iPods, TV, car radio, magazines, newspapers and computers — for 24 hours, according to the blog A Day Without Media.

Among many notable findings, the study revealed that most students used literal terms of addition to characterize their dependence on media. Phrases used to describe their reactions included “in withdrawal,” “frantically,” “craving,” “very anxious,” “extremely antsy” and “jittery.”

“I clearly am addicted and the dependency is sickening,” said one student in the study. “I feel like most people these days are in a similar situation, for between having a Blackberry, a laptop, a television, and an iPod, people have become unable to shed their media skin.”

In addition, students agreed that going without media was the same as going without their friends and family. Of all the media technologies, most students felt lost without their cell phones or the ability to text, tweet and Facebook.

Facebook Used to Organize NJ High School Walkout

Facebook is an extremely popular social gathering point for teens. Meanwhile, the explosion of the “Tea Party Movement” – which involved demonstrations largely organized online – has shown the power of Facebook as an organizing tool for protests. When you combine the two, you get the recent statewide student walkout in New Jersey high schools to protest recent funding cuts.

The Newark Star-Ledger reported that students in New Jersey were planning on walking out of class today to protest educational budget cuts proposed by Gov. Chris Christie. The plan was hatched on a Facebook group called “Protest NJ Education Cuts-State Wide School Walk Out” which had almost 15,000 students who had RSVPed for the walkout by early Tuesday morning.

“It’s insane,” said Michelle Ryan Lauto, an 18-year-old college student who spent her high school years in Bergen County and set up the Facebook page. “I mean, I’m very excited.”

Lauto has family members who will be affected by the cuts but said her aim was to show that students were genuinely concerned for the welfare of their schools.

“I think there’s this general stereotype about high schoolers being very apathetic,” she said. “We’re the ones that are going to be affected by this. So we have to show we don’t like what’s being done.”

Lindsay Lohan Lashes Out at “Ex-Dad” on Twitter

CNN.com reports that actress and celebrity train wreck Lindsay Lohan has taken to Twitter to air her grievances with her father Michael after he convinced a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy to help him enter her home to check on the welfare of her 16-year-old sister Ali.

“I have no choice but to make this public, due to my sister’s safety, as well as my own,” the singer-actress said in a Twitter posting Thursday afternoon. “’My ex-dad’ just WALKED INTO MY APT like the devil’s advocate with officers.”

“When will it ever end,” she tweeted. “It’s been going on my whole life with him — hasn’t he caused enough pain?”

Other recent posts from Lohan on the subject include:

“at least i can laugh at my ex-con father anyone care to join in on the laughter avec moi?? Hehe,” “my mother is AMAZING! not ANYTHING like what Michael is saying. W/out her, I wouldn’t of been able to follow my dreams and be as strong as i am today” and “pathological liar- a person who lies to the point of it being considered a disease or condition, an abnormally habitual liar = MY FATHER.”

Connecticut Mayor Donates Kidney to Facebook Friend

The Associated Press reports that East Haven, Conn. mayor Capone Almon recently used Facebook for more than connecting with constituents or campaigning for re-election. On April 8, Almon donated one of her kidneys to a Facebook friend in need.

Carlos Sanchez, a 44-year-old father who “barely knew” Almon, received the kidney during a procedure at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Sanchez, whose kidneys were failing from the effects of diabetes, posted a Facebook status update at the suggestion of his doctor after not being able to find a match from friends and family. He was surprised when Almon was the first person to reply that she would get tested and stunned when she was a match.

“I thought she was joking. The mayor of East Haven would offer me her kidney?” said Sanchez, an office administrator. “She responded back and said, ‘I am serious, I am willing to get tested.’

“I wasn’t putting too much faith in it,” he said. “I didn’t want to get my hopes high. But at a point she made me feel so comfortable that I started feeling maybe this was meant to be.”

Facebook Adds Features to Connect Users with Interests

On Monday, Facebook announced several changes to its service, including two new features designed to help users more easily connect with their personal interests, affiliations and favorite activities. One feature — Community Pages — is in beta format, but will create Facebook pages similar to Fan Pages based on common interests found in the profiles of users. For example, people who state that they are interested in cooking can go to the Cooking Community Page to find information, related posts and communication with fellow Facebook chefs.

Facebook also announced that users can choose to “connect” to different Fan Pages through certain parts of their profile such as current city, hometown, education and work, and likes and interests. These connections can be managed and removed along with being made private or public.

“We hope Community Pages and your improved profile make it easier for you to learn more about your friends and to express yourself,” Alex Li, a software engineer at Facebook, wrote on the company blog. “We’re rolling both out gradually over the course of a few days, so you may not see them right away. Profiles no longer are a static list of likes and interests. Now, they are a living map of all the connections that matter to you.”

Double Digit Twitter Followers Increase B2C Leads

Business-to-Consumer (B2C) companies with Twitter follower numbers in the high double digits experience a nearly 30 percent jump in monthly lead generations, according to a new report by HubSpot.

Based on statistical analysis of 1,400 customers’ inbound marketing activities, the new report called the State of Inbound Lead Generation reveals that a B2C company with one to 20 Twitter followers produces a median of 11 leads per month. With 21 to 100 followers, the median of leads grows 27 percent to 14 leads per month. But the most significant increase (35 percent) happens when B2C companies achieve 100 to 500 followers.

While the number of monthly lead generations seems to increase with the number of Twitter followers, surprisingly leads begin to drop beyond 500 or more followers. HubSpot analysts suggest this decrease could be “due to the challenge of growing engaged followers.”

The new report also reveals that B2C customers who use Twitter generate two times more leads than B2C customers without a Twitter account. The results are consistent regardless of company size.

“As the data reveals, Twitter can help marketers generate leads by growing followers, but only up to a certain point,” writes Sophie L. Schmitt in a post on HubSpot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog. “Once accounts achieve multiple hundreds of followers, growing reach appears to lose its impact on leads.

“More research will be necessary to confirm and better understand this phenomenon.”

Facebook Testing Questions Products

AllFacebook.com is reporting that Facebook is testing a new feature that is meant as a replacement to the defunct Polls product. Facebook Questions will use crowd sourcing to allow people to get answers to questions such as if their favorite TV show is airing a repeat tonight or recommendations for good local restaurants.

However, Facebook Director of Product Blake Ross posted on a message board that Facebook Questions is not meant as competition to Quora, the recently launched online question and answer compendium.

“Sensationalism notwithstanding, I’m not someone who’s driven by ‘killing’ someone else’s baby,” he said. “There are too many new and exciting things to give birth to. Even if Facebook were led by stoic businessmen (it’s not), a ‘Quora-killer’ wouldn’t make objective sense. Quora is a terrific product built on Facebook Connect. It isn’t competitive with the core use cases of Facebook, which is why Facebook Questions is pursuing different use cases.

“I was one of Quora’s earliest users, and like everyone else here, I’m now an addict. I’m also friends with Quora’s founding team. You can bet I’ll be rooting them on in their inevitable march to success.”

LinkedIn Makes Finding a Job Easier

LinkedIn announced yesterday a major upgrade for job seekers on the popular career networking site: the Job Seeker Premium Account.

According to the company’s blog announcement, the new account allows job seekers to move to the top of the hiring manager’s list when they apply to jobs on LinkedIn; send personalized InMail messages directly to hiring managers; and save profiles, add notes and keep track of contacts from the job search with Profile Organizer. According to LinkedIn, the networking site has tens of thousands of job listings.

In conjunction with the launch of the Job Seeker Premium Account, LinkedIn announced a new Job Seeker Webinar that provides information on how to use LinkedIn to find a job. The webinar features tips for using LinkedIn’s both free and premium tools.

iClimber Victim of Attack by Turkish Cyber Terrorist

The iClimber Website was the victim of a cyber attack this week. The attack appears to be carried out by a hacker who goes by the Internet handle of “Ghost61” from the Turkish Website Turksec.info. iClimber was one of many Websites impacted by cyber terrorism directed at a server hosting several Armenian-themed pages, including Armenian.com, ArmeniaChat.com and ArmeniaSearch.com. The attacks appear to be related to the upcoming commemoration of the Armenian Genocide on April 24.

“Ghost61” recently was blamed for the hacking of more than 600 Swedish Websites after the country’s parliament passed a resolution recognizing the slaughter of more than 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in 1915. Several other Armenian-themed sites have also been the victim of cyber terrorism attacks since March 1, including the home page of the Armenian National Olympic Committee.

iClimber’s staff has worked diligently to repair damages caused by the attacks and take preventative steps to ensure future security.

Next Page »