Vitamin CH (Chocolate) » facebook

Facebook’s new groups: Why didn’t they make it opt in? (from @bschorr)

CallKathy — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 19:17:56 +0000

With the launch of the new FB groups came a shock to those of us creating them: Adding someone to your group didn’t invite them, it added them… Whether they wanted to be there or not. Whether you meant to add them or not. (After all, when clicking a name from a list it is easy to click the wrong name.)

There have been many pieces written on the new groups. The one linked to in this amp looks at the potential problems with a friend adding you to a group you don’t want to be part of – whether on purpose or as a prank.

I like the idea of the new groups – the option to put comments and content in front of the audience that needs to see it instead of the world. I have even created a group and joined others. Then I found out that the interface is a bit strange, that people are added to groups instead of invited, and that the group content looks different depending on which browser (mobile or regular) you use. Add in the fact that the default is “email me every time someone does anything in the group” and you have a big potential for alienation instead of connecting.

I am still not decided on whether I like the groups. Time will tell. Meanwhile, check out Ben’s full piece for more of his thoughts.

@bschorr is a fellow Microsoft MVP in OneNote. Follow him on Twitter if you aren’t already.

Amplify’d from rstlaw.wordpress.com

Facebook: Welcome to The Group…Whether You Like It Or Not

October 8, 2010

As you may know this week Facebook rolled out it’s new Groups feature. And, like many of the features Facebook has unleashed in the past, this feature shows that the guys at Facebook just don’t get it when it comes to privacy. The problem stems from the fact that anybody who is a Facebook friend of yours (and many of us have “friends” on Facebook that, to be honest, we don’t know all that well) can add you to a group without your permission or confirmation. You’re just in the group.

Now in most cases that’s probably o.k. Your friend from softball adds you to the “Big Sticks Softball Club” group. Your colleague from work adds you to the “Heavy Equipment Engineers” group. But what if your old high school buddy, you know the one who thought it was funny to draw on your face with a Sharpie when you were passed out on the couch after homecoming, decides it would be funny to add you to the “God Hates Jews” group…and your boss or father-in-law, who happen to be Jewish and on your Facebook list, don’t think it’s nearly as funny.

Can you unjoin the group? Sure, but you may have some awkward explaining to do first. Facebook seems to feel that it’s better to let you do damage control after the fact than give you the simple option to opt IN to those groups to begin with.

Read more at rstlaw.wordpress.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/9e1iYG

Facebook sharing phone numbers: Do you want your contact info shared as wide as they are?

CallKathy — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 03:49:16 +0000

My brother-in-law posted the following on his #Facebook wall this evening:

PHONE NUMBER IS NOW ON FACEBOOK!! NO JOKE… Go to the top right of your screen, click Account then Edit Friends. Go to the left side of your screen and click Phonebook. Everyone’s phone numbers are now being published. …

What does this mean? Any of your friends who have shared their phone numbers with Facebook are now sharing those numbers with you as well.And, depending on how your privacy settings are put together, you may have shared your number with your friends or with the world.

The first thing to do is to check that the contact information you are sharing with #Facebook is only getting share with whom you want. Log into #Facebook and go to “Account” (Upper right screen link). From the drop down, select “Edit Friends”. In the left column, you will see “Phonebook”. Click this and you will see whose phone numbers Facebook has shared with you.

What’s the default?

The default sharing for contact information appears to be the same as for everything else: Friends of Friends

Want to stop the sharing?

Go back to the Account drop down. This time select “Privacy Settings”. In the left column, select “Custom”, then “Customize ” at the bottom of the main area. This will bring you to the page where you define what you want to share of your information. Scroll to the bottom of the page and look for the “Contact information”. Change the drop downs for each area to as restrictive of a list as you want.

Which all raises a question

Does it matter if your contact information is available on #Facebook? In today’s world of transparency and openness, does it matter if your #Facebook friends have your phone number? For me, it doesn’t really – My number and contact information is fairly easy to find on the web as it is. BUT if you aren’t in the social media or consulting worlds, you probably don’t want to share your life quite as much as I do.

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/9n8xfC

Looking for more social media monitoring tools? Check out @mashable’s list of FB trend services

CallKathy — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:46:11 +0000

I already use and love Kurrently. I have dabbled in It’s Trending. But the others are new to me. Let me know in the commments if you have tried any of these and what you think of them.

Amplify’d from mashable.com

5 Useful Facebook Trend and Search Services

1. Kurrently

2. It’s Trending

3. Openbook

4. Booshaka

5. Facepinch

BONUS: Like Button

Read more at mashable.com

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/cPWqBy

SnagIt saves the day (again)

CallKathy — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 06:18:05 +0000

Just a quick post to say how much I love Techsmith’s Snagit – especially when it saves me from other software problems.

I just had yet another Facebook (FB) crash. I type too fast for FB to keep up in comments and notes. When this happens, the screen dims and I know that the error message isn’t far behind.

Tonight, it happened while I was putting in a comment on a friend’s note containing travel hints. (Which, by the way, I will be adding as a guest post when this post is done.)

Instead of panicking, I thought “Snagit”! My first attempt was a text grab, but the text was too faded. The second attempt was an image grab – that worked. When my browser re-opened, I just set the two windows side by side and re-typed the text. The image I grabbed was:

If I had been thinking, I would have dropped it into OneNote to grab the actual text. It just takes a few moments to drop the image into OneNote, copy the text from the image, paste it on the note page, edit it, and copy paste it to the note after the browser comes back. OneNote did a halfway decent job of recognizing the text, as you can see here:

Has SnagIt saved the day for you? How? Let me know!

(In the interest of full disclosure: TechSmith takes good care of those who help them beta test and discuss thier products. In my case, that good care includes a few great tchotchkes through the year and a paid account on Screencast.com. I regularly tell Betsy Weber that I would write about and talk about the products even without the extras and that they rock. If you think so, you should tell them too!)

Where are your comments?

CallKathy — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:21:57 +0000

I don’t get many comments on this blog. That isn’t to say I don’t get many comments on the content, I just don’t get the feedback here.

I get responses on Twitter when I first publish. I get LOTS of comments on some topics on Facebook. In fact, I have some people who only comment on my content via Facebook. I will occasionally get a comment sent to me via email.

I have been asked why should one comment on the blog. From the writer’s perspective, I like comments posted on the blog because it is a visible sign that what I wrote connected with someone. But if they comment on Facebook, I see that too. So, why do I expect comments on the blog itself?

I think my desire to see comments on the blog is from an outdated sense that the blog itself is where my audience is. Ironic, isn’t that? I know that much more of my community is on Twitter and Facebook. I didn’t connect that fact with the location of the feedback.

Something on Facebook seems to cause people to not only connect with the content, but also with each other. I linked my blog to my notes today. Immediately, a conversation started on the “Guess the airport!” post. I don’t know if it was the timing of the information or if it was the location of the content. I am guessing that the people who commented felt more comfortable in the Facebook environment. I haven’t yet figured out why, but am hoping they all tell me. (And I don’t care where they tell me!)

I find myself wondering… Where do people comment on your content? Are you looking for the comments actively? Are you finding them all?

Seeing double: Tweets show twice on Facebook

CallKathy — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:02:44 +0000

For months, I have had a problem with my Twitter updates showing up multiple times on my Facebook pages. It drives friends nuts, splits conversations, and makes me a look like a spammer. (Spammer? How? Duplicate content on my news and profile every time I tweet.)

Today, I think I finally figured out (and fixed) the last piece of the problem. I was allowing three Facebook applications to update my page with my tweets:

FriendFeed
Tweeter
Twitter

I had found the FriendFeed problem about a month ago.Today I dug and found Tweeter.

Where did I find it? Let’s step through:

Edit your applications. The easiest way to get there is to click the applications box on the lower left of your Facebook page. At the bottom of the list, you will find “Edit Applications”.
Change the “Show” dropdown to “Allowed to Post”.
Change "Show" setting
Scroll down to the section “Allowed to Post One-Line Stories without Prompting”.
Scroll through that section of the page and find anything that posts your tweets (FriendFeed, Tweeter, Twitter, etc.)
In turn, click edit settings for each of those applications.
Change to the “Additional Permissions” tab and uncheck “Publish to streams”.
Uncheck to stop the double posts!
In turn, click edit settings for each of those applications. Be sure to leave at least one application posting to your feeds, or your tweets won’t ever show.

If you want to dig further, check the “Granted Addtional Permissions” tab. You will see multiple sublists on that page. I found that Twitter was set to publish to my wall, my status, and others. I tried to change it to just my status, but was not successful. It seems to be either on everywhere or off everywhere.

As far as I can tell, this process should fix the double posts for future tweets. It won’t change tweets made before the change. If you find differently, tell me – we’ll keep beating on the problem!

UPDATE:

After much hassle, I decided to go with TweetDeck. I installed TweetDeck and set it up to send to both Twitter and Facebook. The notes about turning off thenotifications from applications still applies, but TweetDeck doesn’t work via the applications. Instead, it runs on your desktop (or iPhone if you are lucky enough to have one). You post from it.

If you want help on getting it set up, let me know!