A new application aims to put users back in control of their private data stored on the increasingly public social networking site, Facebook. With “The Green Safe” app, Facebook users can now export their profile data for off-site storage on Green Safe’s servers. Data can then be purged from Facebook itself, allowing only friends to view profile information by way of a profile page tab labeled “My Info.”

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Privacy Concerns for Facebook Users

With the ever-growing concern about Facebook’s data-sharing policies – policies that are now under attack from several U.S. senators – people are becoming more concerned about how personal information shared with the world’s largest social networking site is being used.

After already having been blindsided with “recommended settings” that automatically publicized previously private data like status updates and photos, Facebook users are now dealing with even more changes that have major privacy implications. Recently announced initiatives include things like “instantly personalized” websites that tap into your Facebook data without prior authorization, revamped profile pages where every interest of yours from bands to books is made public and new terms for Facebook application developers that allow apps to store your data indefinitely.

Despite these radical changes on Facebook’s part, few users are actually deleting their Facebook accounts. Although the privacy concerns are troubling, the social network has become more than a simple pastime for many people. Instead, it has transformed into a communication tool nearly as vital as email for staying in touch with networks of friends, family, co-workers and other colleagues.

Now instead of deleting your Facebook account, The Green Safe app offers a viable alternative: keep Facebook, but remove Facebook’s ability to access your data. And with the data gone from Facebook, application developers and their partners are out of luck too…at least those whose apps you install going forward.

How “The Green Safe” Works

To use The Green Safe, you grant it access just like any other Facebook application, quiz or game, then tell it to “Import Your Data.” After the import is complete, follow the instructions provided to add the app to a tab on your Facebook profile. Here, it will appear as a tab labeled “My Info” which only your friends can see. At this point, you can return to your Facebook profile and delete the information stored there, removing it from Facebook’s control.

This is a somewhat ingenious workaround to the data privacy situation on Facebook – using Facebook’s own application platform against them. However, don’t be fooled into thinking that your personal data is now completely and entirely private, either.

The Green Safe’s homepage clearly states that the app “may use your info to serve up ads that target your interests” In other words, your personal data may be made a marketing tool. However, the privacy policy does assure that the company will not “share, trade or sell your information with anyone.”

So with “The Green Safe,” you may see a few ads in the future, it seems. Still, that’s nothing worse that what Facebook already does. (If you’ve ever wondered why Facebook’s ads are so eerily, creepily personalized, it’s because the Facebook ad platform allows advertisers the ability to very narrowly target users using the information shared on profile pages.)

At least with The Green Safe installed, you’ve turned over your data to a company whose business relies on keeping data safe instead of the opposite: sharing it with the world, as Facebook is doing now. It may not be a perfect solution, but it’s definitely a workaround that’s worth checking out.

The Green Safe’s application developer, LJ Jones, runs a blog here. The most recent post, “My Info is not a Commodity,” is a diatribe against Facebook’s changes.

Discuss

The experimental feature that Marissa Mayer announced last week is becoming available today for everyone to try.  Google Social Search promises to help users "find more relevant public content from your broader social circle."

The premise is simple: people value their acquaintances’ content more than that of random strangers.  So Google Social Search brings content from your social circle to the forefront, perhaps showing a friend’s or coworker’s take on a restaurant rather than (or in addition to) whatever the local newspaper reviewer had to say.

On the Official Google Blog, Maureen Heymans and Murali Viswanathan explained, "The way we do it is by building a social circle of your friends and contacts using the connections linked from your public Google profile, such as the people you’re following on Twitter or FriendFeed. . . .  If you use Gmail, we’ll also include your chat buddies and contacts in your friends, family, and coworkers groups.  And if you use Google Reader, we’ll include some websites from your subscriptions as part of your social search results.

This launch shouldn’t create any privacy concerns, since only public info is included in Social Search results.  The single nuisance/stumbling block relates to Google profiles, since many people don’t have one yet.

All in all, this looks like a very interesting new feature, and a lot of people are likely to join the Social Search experiment.

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Twitter is growing by leaps and bounds as people begin to appreciate its clean and easy-to-use interface. Twitter, at this point, does not look like one of the many flash-in-the-pan Internet applications that we have seen in times’ past.

Twitter’s 140 character micro-blogging platform has gained a lot of traction, as individuals and business people have learned to bring together their friends, family and customers under a communications platform that all users find useful.

Mom and dad find it easier to keep up with the lives of their grown children through Twitter. The fact that Twitter allows people to link to other web pages makes Twitter a simple platform to share thoughts, ideas, and links to stories and pictures. Grandma and granddad find it easy to check in on the kids’ Twitter account and to maintain daily contact with those across town and around the world.

Friends can make plans and share common interests through the Twitter world. One can reply to a message publicly, or if the message is a bit more private, one can send a Direct Message (known as a DM) to anyone who has agreed to follow you also. Through the DM system, lovers can share flirts that no one else can see, but the persons intended to receive the message.

If you let your kids use Twitter, it may be best to set up their Twitter Account Settings to “Protect The Tweets”. In the description of this feature, Twitter says, “Only let people whom I approve follow my tweets. If this is checked, you WILL NOT be on the public timeline.”

The Public Timeline is the messages/tweets that everyone can see. Anything not on the Public Timeline is private, with restricted access.

Business People Are Working To Tap Into Twitter Marketplace

Twitter was born in March of 2006. But most of us never really heard of it or even understood it, until this last year (2008-2009). A few of the Internet gurus started talking about Twitter in 2008, and as 2009 got underway, more online marketers started talking about the Twitter community on a nearly daily basis.

We have accounts in Twitter that are a couple of years old, but we never got involved with Twitter really until about April of 2009. In April of 2009, we had 12 Twitter Followers.

In May 2009, there was not a single online business in the Top 100 of Twitter, but those numbers are starting to change. Through May of 2009, the Top 100 accounts on Twitter were dominated by TV and Movie celebrities, a few media companies such as @cnnbrk, politicians and sports figures.

Most online marketers had never given Twitter much thought until “The Great Ashton Kutcher vs CNN Twitter Race” that ended on April 17, 2009 with Ashton (@aplusk) getting the privilege to declare victory. (http://bit.ly/8Nx55) Even now, three months after the end of the race, Ashton is still the champion – #1 in the Twitter Follower counts with 2,975,032 Followers. Ashton is followed by @TheEllenShow – 2,610,357; @britneyspears – 2,553,668; @cnnbrk – 2,431,783; and @twitter – 1,930,821.

When the Great Twitter Race was concluded, I did a backlink check on Ashton’s @aplusk account. Literally, Ashton had bought a ton of advertising on websites, blogs, forums, etc. Ashton was also getting tons of free press in print and online in the Great Twitter Race.

Of course, we marketers should not feel bad if we are getting on this bandwagon a little late in the game, because @google has only had their account since Jan 09. Google is currently the 23rd biggest Twitter account with 1,244,976 Followers.

A surprise for me was seeing @WholeFoods, an Austin Texas based grocery store, sitting at #38 with 1,094,093 Followers. According to TwitterCounter (http://twittercounter.com/WholeFoods/all), Whole Foods had only 322,820 Followers on April 4, 2009. A quick look at the Whole Foods profile (http://twitter.com/WholeFoods) indicates that they are using the account to share with their customers: company news, customer support, and available specials.

An honorable mention goes to @kevinrose, celebrity and founder of http://Digg.com. Kevin Rose is the 40th most popular person on Twitter, with 1,092,920 Followers.

Once you get into the Top 100 List below #40, you finally start to see a few online businesses in the mix. @zappos CEO is #45. @woot is #46. @TechCrunch is a web media site at #55. @dooce is at #60. To see the full Top 100 List, go here: http://twittercounter.com/pages/100

Who Is In Your Target Market and What Do They Want To Know?

As you look around at those people who are successful building their own little communities on Twitter, you will notice that each one gives people what their Followers want.

For example, @cussy is an online marketer, and he has nearly 10,000 Followers. His secret to growth: quotes. He gives his followers some of the best quotes about business and reaching goals of anyone on Twitter. I follow him and Retweet him often.

@dave_carpenter advertises himself as a Success Partner For High Achievers. Dave shares quotes and tips, and he retweets others who give good advice also. More importantly, Dave encourages the people he follows. He has nearly 9,000 Followers at this time.

@MattLevenhagen is a professional marketer. His 13,000 Followers follow because he runs a mix of marketing tips, links to great articles, and retweets for great advice. He even uses his Twitter account to give his customer’s support.

@SocialMedia411 is a Social Media expert who offers social media tips, links to social media articles and news. With more than 56,000 Followers, you can bet that the advice given here is worthwhile to its audience.

When you learn to talk to the people most likely to buy from you, you have completed the first and most important step to enable you to develop strong Twitter Marketing habits.

Learn How Others Are Successful With Twitter

As always, when you want to learn to be successful, you should look to those who are already successful and try to reverse-engineer the steps that they used to become successful. Once you have taken the time to study many who have been successful in the way that you want to be successful, you may note that success comes from giving people what they want and doing it in such a way that you offer good value to your customers.

Those who have been successful with Twitter have done so, because they put the needs of their Followers ahead of a personal desire to be boring or silly.

The good news is that other business people have started to find success on Twitter and you can too. When you learn to provide the people in your target market with the information that they need and want, you will have started down the path to building a Twitter Follower list to envy.

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Trey Pennewell works for http://www.thePhantomWriters.com/ article marketing service. If you write articles and need to distribute your articles to higher value audiences, you owe it to yourself to try The Phantom Writers’ services. If you want to learn more about how to develop a large list of Twitter Followers, buy the ebook (under $10) at: http://twitusers.com/autopilot/index.php Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/contentmanager

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

%%Twitter Marketing Explored%%

Twitter Marketing Explored

As Twitter continues to grow in popularity at an alarming rate and new users are starting to come on board, it can be hard to figure out where to get started with Twitter. While it is a communication medium like email for example, it is used in an entirely different way. Twitter is more sociable and fun rather than practical and actually understanding the main concepts and principles of Twitter can take a little while.

So in this article I’d like to try and give you a beginners guide to Twitter and in doing so to give you a basic guide to what Twitter is and what Twitter does so you can more easily get involved.

In essence, Twitter is a micro-blogging service. Every Twitter user has their own little tiny “blog” that they can add messages to of up to 140 characters in length. They can also send messages of the same maximum length to other Twitter users and these messages will then appear on their recipients blog. Each of these little messages is known as a tweet.

As well as adding tweets to your blog, sending them to other people or even reading other peoples Twitter blogs, you can also “follow” any Twitter user of your choice. When you “follow” someone, their tweets then start to appear on your Twitter page. In this way you can keep up to date with what all your friends, family and business contacts are doing in one place. By simply following all your contacts and keeping an eye on your Twitter page you can see live what everyone you know is up to.

When Twitter first launched, you interacted with the service using the Twitter website but now you can interact in virtually any way possible. As examples you can access your Twitter feed live from a variety of desktop applications so you don’t have to be logged into the Twitter website. You can also send and receive tweets via text (sms) message directly on your cell phone.

Twitter is part of a movement known as “life streaming” where part of the aim is to simply reveal your actions and thoughts live as you go about your day. Initially this meant that people would add such interesting messages as “Just eating some cereal” or “Paying for gas”. These days such messages are understandably frowned upon though the more interesting tweets are welcomed.

This is a good way of not just staying in contact with people, but also learning about other people in quite a deep way. If you know what movie they’ve just watched or what they’re doing on the weekend you feel more of a part of their life. Twitter is as much about conversations and communication as just sending a practical email to someone.

The general advice for a new Twitter user would be to simply try it out and see if you like it. Some people love it, others loath it and you won’t know until you try it. Just sign up for a free account, find your friends and “follow” them, then get involved with the conversation. When they tweet, tweet back.

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Richard Adams – For plenty more information on using Twitter for fun or profit please visit Life Streaming News

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Twitter For Beginners