Protect yourself online

As the Internet use increases, it is almost impossible to avoid revealing the personal information online. Whenever you sign in to some websites, they always require you to put your private data. Typing your personal information means making your information public. Yes, anyone, from anywhere, can access your personal information at anytime, but you never know if its happening. This is SCARY. When you receive ads with your name and address in your mailbox, your information online might have been sold to the company.

I have signed in several social networking websites due to my friend's invitations. I did not even know what the websites' purposes to run this business. Last year, one of my friend, Diggory (i use a fake name since im writing online) told me that facebook is a terrible website. I did not understand what he meant until he told me some suspicions. According to him and a couple of clip that our proftracy showed us in the lecture, facebook utilizes the information that each individual put on his/her own page such as interests, favorite brands, music, films, etc. for marketing purposes. Additonally, they can segment cus by classifying facebook users by the age, gender, locations that are chosen by us on facebook. It also asks you to put your real name, birthday and year, and pictures. It appears to be very useful to have birthday alart when your friend's birthday comes by, however, your bank account, tax management, and other important tasks could include your birthday and year as your own password or something like that. Isn't it very risky? After I heard all these facts, I became very frightened and insecure. I decided to delete some of the social networking sites that I have signed in, and pictures, birth date and year, email address, real name and so on.

After all, I feel so much better. I am not lying, but I need to hide my personal information and put unnecessary information that I do not even care.

If you want to avoid information abuse online, protect yourself by yourself.

SNS

Social Networking Sites does more than you expect. After watching the clips during the lecture today, I felt like deleting all the information or even an account. However, the reason why facebook still survives under such suspicion is that many people already have their connection with other people on facebook so that it is hard for them to delete the account, which means cut off connections with many people on facebook.

Although SNS connects many people, it is crutial for every user to know the policies and understand what SNS's objective is, because it is a business. They do have a purpose: marketing and selling personal information.

- I do not mind if SNS such as facebook, myspace, or mixi gather people's interests as a marketing tool as long as they do not abuse my information. However, important personal information like birthday and year, real name, phone number, address... etc can definitely be viewed by facebook and sold to other companies or government. This is a big problem for me. So I do not put my birthday, however, I put a fake birthday when my real birthday comes by so people can be aware of my birhday and celebrate it lol. I also change my spelling of my name.

-In addition, I strongly hate that facebook bothers what I do in my personal space. Once somebody put pictures which tag me, everyone knows where I was, who I was with, what I was doing, and when I did it. This is none of anybody's business. St. Catharines is such a tiny tiny town. There is nothing to do and people are bored. So they go on facebook and gossip about others. However, I just do not understand why people are interested in others. I cannot accept this fact on facebook.

- I do share my myspace URL, which I put my song on so I can look for band memebrs, unimportant information like my interests, faceborite music, flag, pictures without me in...
- I do not share my personal information, birthday, relation status and stuff, because tehres no point of noting these details online. I can personally tell people if they want to know. I rather prefer face-to-face communication when shareing culture, value, and privacy. My friends and I were actually making fun of each other by hacking facebook and change status and adding random people.

Social networking for jobs

I have tried to post my findings and feedback on "social networking for jobs" on Feb 27, 2009 of http://comm2p26.wordpress.com/. However, I could not post it on it although Ive tried 4 times already. I could not figure it out so decided to post it on my blogger. This is the description:

• This week’s ‘collection of tid-bits’ is themed around work/employment & social networking sites. I’d like you to find some articles/info/blog posts etc that are related to this theme; people finding work via SNS or how to use SNS for employment etc.

Here are the websites that I found...

- http://www.job-hunt.org/social-networking/facebook-job-search.shtml
- http://jobsearch.about.com/od/networking/Job_Search_Networking.htm
- http://www.asianpacificpost.com/portal2/c1ee8c441db66525011db6f5e34200c8_Networking_more_than_a_job_hunt.do.html
- http://www.workopolis.com/work.aspx?action=Transfer&View=Content/Common/ArticlesDetailView&articleId=sr20060926File1Article1&lang=EN&articleSource=SwartzRetorts
- http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=51731
- http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Technology/Universities+turn+social+networking+sites+hook+recruits/1076193/story.html

i never realized that social networking in north ameria occupies much share on employment and job hunting. as i researched about facebook a bit before, i found that facebook is an excellent marketing tool based on what people's interests, age, gender,,, etc. so i think it is easy for companies to segment favorable possible employees in the future as well. i am pretty surprised that, now, job hunting is web bssed and is much easier for students to look for a job through social networking. therefore, as one of these website mentions, we need keep our profiles clean and reliable, because you have no idea how many and what kind of people have visited your profile or viewed pictures of you through other friends' album.

These pictures are...
LinkedIn demographics: an up-market social network and an up-market job site
Both groups contain the sort of people that are in demand, both as consumers and employees. So it’s interesting to see how LinkedIn’s user profile swings against the average for both our Social Networking and Forums and Employment and Training categories in the charts.

Myspace, Facebook, Linkedin, "Social Networking" Job Trends
This graph displays the percentage of jobs with your search terms anywhere in the job listing. Since July 2007, the following has occurred:
- Myspace jobs increased 147%
- Facebook jobs did not change or there is no data available
- Linkedin jobs increased 712%
- "Social Networking" jobs increased 153%

Ainsley's blog

The blog theme she has is the one I selected at first. I like the design. As I emailed proftracy, I could not post my comment on her blog...

Her blog is simple and easy to read because its not as formal as mine. Comparing to hers, I think my blog is boring to read. lol I also liked that she put her own picture on. It makes readers to feel that he or she is actually reading "her" blogs". It feels more friendly.

I Liked LinkedIn

This is my online resume↓
http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=42062753&locale=en_US&trk=tab_pro

I think this is an great tool. In my country, we have curriculum vitae form sold. All we have to do is to fill the form. So I did not know how to make a resume here and I am not quite sure yet. Because I did not know how to make a good resume, I lost an offer, working at a hotel in Niagara falls. I realized the importance of resume and appreciate to know this website thanks to proftracy.

I do not have enough information to fill it up to 100%, but it is useful for not only me but also companies to look for timely, updated easy-to-access kind of resume information at anytime. It is also useful for me to learn what kind of contents I need to put, and I should not include. I found an adobe icon on my page, I curiously clicked it, and received a printable version of my resume. I was fascinated. I need to look for a job for the spring and summer. I will be thankfully use this website for a job.

Blog, blog, blog,,, too many blogs...

There exist so many kinds of blogs today such as moblog, photolog, vlog (videoblog), audioblog, and Wikipedia says that there are erog/elog (adult content), booklog (based on ISBN code), noverog... etc. I am not even close to blogging in my entire life, so i am so confused why there are soo many blogs and why there are many ppl do blogs... there must be certain reasons and demand on blogs, because celebrities in Japan are crazy about updating themselves and communiating with their fans on blogging. I personally like to make phisically existing "diaries" if I want to keep a track on what i do, but in my perspective, people want to obtain feedbacks from others reading their blogs on the internet.

• Moblog - http://moblog.net/home/
  Moblog is very handy and easily manage although it allows users to segment and specify the kind of mobile pics by means of "tagging". I think this is an awesome tool for those who like to update what they do in daily lives. Its main focus is quick updates rather than good quality of pictures.

• Photoblog - http://www.flickr.com
  I think this is very popular among people who love taking pictures. my best friend actually does have an account to post his photo work. he says its more reliable and keeps privacy than facebook. I think the biggest factor of flickr's popularity is that there are only those who are interested in or know a lot about photos whereas facebook, for example, consists many people with different interests.

• VideoBlog - http://www.youtube.com
  I picked Youtube as a videoblog, because it was originally made as an individually uploading and sharing video clips. Today, it is one of the most popular website existing all over the world. It also care about online offense as well. On Youtube, "defamation, pornography, copyright violations, and material encouraging criminal conduct is prohibited by YouTube's terms of service" (wikipedia.org, 2009).

• Audioblog - http://www.audioblog.com/
  On this website, you can not only blog about music, but also create music/videos, and podcasts too. If you want to create a podcasts, you need to spend certain amount of payment everymonth depending on the amount of contents you want to have. This is smart, but it is very obvious that their purpose is business although facebook, youtube, flickr etc do not mention business components.

- Find two corporate blogs; comment, compare & contrast. How effective or successful do you think these two examples are?

• TOYOTA Open Road Blog - http://blog.toyota.com/
• GM FastLane Blog - http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/

I pesronally preffer Toyota's blog design. However, it seems like there are more users on GM one because it has more comments on each post. I am not confident to say this blogging is effective for their sale, but it is definitely helpful for future Toyota or GM buyers. In addition, having blogs for automakers will definitelly makes it easier to advrtize themselfves without any costs and maintainance, because it is basically free and individual updates their posts. I think it is very useful for business.