Adjusting Facebook Privacy Settings For Photos

Rapid changes to social networking platforms have occurred recently that can leave your personal brand a bit naked on the web.  Today’s post focuses on Facebook Privacy Settings and the steps you can take to apply a “digital fig leaf” (thanks Don Sceifers!) to your online brand.  Facebook rolled out some changes in December 2010 that capitalize on the prodigious use of photo-sharing and the interconnections of each person’s social graph.

Facebook users upload thousands of photos/month which are affected by these new releases:

• New Profile Layout
• Facial Recognition Tagging in Photos

The new profile layout for personal pages includes a series of five photos across the top of the page below your name and any personal information you have shared (city, schools, birthday, etc.). While many have seen the new profile in action as the release continues to roll out, what you might not realize is that the pictures selected are the last five tagged pictures of you.  So in other words, one of the first things that people will see, are five pictures that are connected to you that you may not have even uploaded.

Michelle Beckham of C3:Creating Connections Consulting

Facebook is employing facial recognition software to suggest tags (individual names) for people present in uploaded photos. This becomes a feature automatically for all users as the roll out progresses and you must opt-out of the service to prevent friends from using this feature on photos of or about you.

What you can do to edit privacy settings for each of the new releases:

• Go into Account Settings

Facebook Privacy Settings

• Choose ‘Customize Settings Option
• Go To ‘Photos & Videos I’m Tagged In’ and Edit Accordingly
• Choices include: Only Me, Friends, Friends of Friends, Custom Edit by Individual

Facebook Privacy Settings Photos & Videos

Auto-tagging with Facebook Facial Recognition Features

• Next go to ‘Suggest Photos of Me to Friends’ and disable if live on your profile to stop the facial recognition tagging feature

Hope these steps make a difference in decreasing or increasing your level of nakedness on the Web! Remember, we are all brands:  don’t let your brand become tarnished due to lack of knowledge.

Note: Cross-posted at New Media Cincinnati

NMC sponsors monthly 2nd Saturday Events that cover a range of digital media and business topics.  Come join us for the education and remain with us for the community!

Update: NMC 2ND Saturday Event is SOLD-OUT for 1/8/11

Internet Deaths

Quick Post on Newsweek’s great photo-journal piece titled “What the Internet Killed”.  Read the full post here- you won’t regret it!  Made me realize how entrenched into the digital space I truly am as I completely forgot about the existence of a couple of the items mentioned.  Thanks to Matthew Dooley for posting the Newsweek link on Twitter.

Here are the 14 things that have died due to the advent of the Internet according to Newsweek with my own personal comments/observations along side.

• The 9-5 Work Day- I personally live in a 24/7 world with a speedbump sleep of 5 hrs/night
• DVD rentals- Ok I remember beta...
• Concentration- I rock at multi-tasking
• Civility- this is a good one due to the rise of the nasty anonymous internet troll
• CDs- they are taking up space in my family room
• The Telephone Book- what’s that??-
• Letter writing- explains why I am not motivated to do Christmas cards this year
• Vacations- come on who actually unplugs these days?
• Privacy-one of my pet peeves
• Facts-Data never lies, but liars use data- go figure
• Polaroids & Other Film- my old pics are fading in the albums
• Reference Books- remember the public library??
• The Yearbook
• The Peep Show- people are still peeping, but now it’s in private- can you say “Chat-roulette??”

**************

I would add college and high school reunions to the list as it seems Facebook is making the need to see what classmates have been up to in person obsolete.

Do you have any others you would add to the list?

Facebook Friend Pages Privacy Fail

Facebook Friends Reveal ALL

Woke up this morning remembering a post that flew by my radar screen yesterday.  You know the ones, where something catches your eye, but you don’t have time to read it. You keep the tab open on your browser hoping to get back to it and then Mozilla crashes and you can’t do a restore and it becomes lost in the ever-flowing river of new content across your screen.

In this case I was hoping it was just a bad dream from the night before.  Googled the keywords ‘Facebook-New-Friends’ and discovered this lovely post from the Facebook Blog written yesterday (10/28/10):  Telling the Story of Friendships No dream but a potential real-life privacy nightmare!

Writer Wayne Kao states:

A few months ago, I began a small project to build a page devoted to friendships. A few interns and I started a prototype during an all-night hackathon, and then one of our designers jumped in. For all of us, it’s been a labor of love.

Basically Facebook has created a way for all of the interactions between ‘Friends’  including comments, pics, videos, events you have RSVP’d for, etc. to be depicted in one place.  Very similar to the Wall-to-Wall conversations that you could see between friends that you were also attached to.

So I see this as major voyeurism with huge stalker opps and a good reason why you should choose your Friends wisely.  I realize that we are all responsible for the content that we put out and that a basic assumption should be that absolutely nothing is private on the net, but there are still those moments when you are alone with your phone or pc screen and you forget that there is a whole big world out there watching you….

(And don’t even get me started on the teens & young adults who post like they’re in the lavatory….)

So take a look, check out the new Friends Pages and let me know what you think.

Disabling Facebook Places to Maintain Location Privacy

Privacy is still a huge issue making the internet rounds today, especially in reference to location based services. Foursquare, now nearing three million members, has added some privacy measures of its own in advance of their partnership with Facebook Places.  Both foursquare and Gowalla launched their services a little over a year ago at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in 2009.

Fast Company does a great job of discussing the differences between these two geo-location-based start-ups in this post. Location-based services were the main topic of discussion at the March 2010 Cincinnati AMA Interactive Marketing SIG meeting. You can read Rob Bunting’s post here.

Facebook users are already a little suspect of the social networking site’s seeming disregard for privacy measures. Facebook rolled out the location based service, Facebook Places last week with little warning on the site. You may have seen some unusual posts in your news stream in the last couple of days indicating the location from which people are posting their status updates. I saw one from a newly found cousin of mine that stated that he had  checked in from home. Clicking on the link took me to a map of his location. The red balloon seemed to be pointing to a cemetery. Not sure if he lives near one or was just being funny, but it certainly got my curiosity going. It made me wonder whether he knew that his location was being updated into the Facebook newsfeed.

Image via C3: Creating Connections Consulting, LLC

Learning how to set the controls for location-based posts might be a good thing to do as Lifehacker points out in this post, He mentions that your friends can check you into places without your knowledge.  This could make for an embarrassing moment, especially if your friend list includes colleagues or even your boss. Your location can also be shared with your friends’ applications which is another way to lose control over your privacy.

The Facebook Blog states:

“When your friends check you in, it is as if you have checked in at that place yourself. You also will appear checked-in to your friends.“

Take these steps if you would like to disable the location ability on your Facebook account:

Image via C3: Creating Connections Consulting, LLC

Step 1:  Go to Privacy Settings under the Account Tab in the upper right hand corner of your screen

Step 2:  Click on Customize Settings on the bottom

Under Things I Share:

Step 3:  Go to ‘Places I check in to’- and choose the setting most appropriate for you: Everyone, Friends, Friends of Friends, Custom (meaning you can block people) which also includes an Only Me option

Step 4: Go to “Include me in ‘people here now’ after I check in”. This is visible to friends and people checked in nearby. Leave the Enable box unchecked if you don’t want to be included.

Image via C3: Creating Connections Consulting, LLC

Under Things Others Share:

Step 5:  Go to “Friends can check me into places”. You need to actually indicate Disable or Enable with a check otherwise the default option will occur.

That’s it! Now you can update from any place and your whereabouts will be unknown.

Copyright Michelle Beckham-Corbin~  2010~All Rights Reserved

Cross-posted at Cincinnati Social Media Examiner

You Don’t Get To 500 Million Friends Without Making a Few Enemies…

Confession time- It’s Saturday morning and I am supposed to be in a Spinning (i.e. biking) class at my gym, but it’s raining out…Yup, I’m a wimp when it comes to thunder storms! Instead, I’m cruising the social media airwaves for the latest news (doesn’t everyone do this before touching the hard-copy newspaper and grabbing a cup of coffee?). Just found a great post by Mashable that is really making my wheels turn. It is the release of the first poster for the upcoming Fall 2010 Facebook Movie: The Social Network.  What really struck me was the movie tag-line in large white letters covering a full size picture of a very young Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Founder of Facebook, as portrayed by actor Jesse Eisenberg. It reads: “You Don’t Get To 500 Million Friends Without Making a Few Enemies“

Movie poster via Mashable

I don’t know what terrifies me more, seeing the direct stare from my computer screen or what the movie represents. In the first instance, the penetrating eyes, slightly pissed- off look  and the typical teen t-shirt remind me that he is part of a different generation than me.  Zuckerberg grew up with the premise that the internet is the holder of our thoughts, dreams, rants, flames and that all of this “content” should be shared with the world…..and profited from.

As a marketer, I totally understand where he is coming from.  Every second around the globe, humans are posting original content and commenting on friends’ posts and links.  Getting into the behavioral psychology about what is going on and the connections that exist between friends, acquaintances and unknowns is completely fascinating and makes for some great data to help with very targeted marketing.  If I were still at P&G, I would be all over this.  Being that I am a private citizen outside of my former Procter universe, I carry a bit of unease around the whole content vs. privacy issue.

More news that Facebook is opening up additional content to the web:  I saw another post yesterday that Facebook will now submit users’ posts that contain links to public search via OneRiot, one of the world’s largest real time search engines.  It will be interesting to see how this information is viewed by the general public.

No matter what our views are on content and privacy, we have to admit that Zuckerberg has changed our lives.  Social Media is not a fad, but an evolution in how we interact with others.  The final results on this cultural shift will be interesting to see…..

72 Hrs Into Foursquare = ADDICTION!

Watchouts Discovered In First 72 Hours of  Foursquare Use:

Given my Gamer past and competitive nature, I was quite eager to get several check-ins down on my first day.  My first Check-in was at The Pub, the location of the monthly New Media Cincinnati 2nd Saturday Meetups and I made several stops (aka- ‘drive bys’) on the way home following the event.  Love racking up the points for first time visits. The next day gave me an opportunity to add some new venues to the location menu.  Downside- you need to have the full address information for input.  I tried to put in my favorite coffee spot, Luckman’s Coffee and there was absolutely no address anywhere on the front door or shopping center.  Looks like we need a Super User to swing in and clean things up!  Apparently, Foursquare assigns these tech savvy folks to keep the “neighborhood” blight-free.  So here are some things I discovered in my first 72 hours:

• I AM ADDICTED!
• It it is a thrill to be Mayor.
• I spend a lot of time at my church(3 Check-ins already)-looks like I’m praying, but actually I’m involved on quite a few volunteer projects and boards ( but yeah, I’m praying for you between meetings!)
  
• Pushing info out to friends, Twitter, Facebook– make it reasonable, like sharing info on becoming mayor or unlocking a badge
• Be careful who you add or accept as a friend- does said person really need to know your whereabouts?
• DO NOT ADD YOUR HOME LOCATION-even if you call it ‘Heaven’, Foursquare will still pick up your ACTUAL location coordinates
• Being on Foursquare shows you info that  you may not really care to know about other people- for example, did I really need to know that Jon was out pubbing it until 3:00 a.m.? or that Liza is a Baptist, cus she checked into Hyde Park Baptist on Sunday morning?  Even found out who rides the Express Bus from Anderson into downtown Cincinnati for the daily commute.
• Haven’t uncovered any business specials yet; but I am digging the tips that others are leaving behind about each venue.

Warning:  Don’t try to shop and Check-In/Add tips at the same time- you will inevitably run your cart into another human being and risk looking a bit “shiny toy”-obsessed!  Listen to the vid below and answer the question in the comment section underneath.

Thanks!

Update:  Here are some additional great watch-outs from Dave at Systembash:

Don’t Rob Me, I’m Just Checking In…….

Social Media Privacy Panel at NMC- Michelle Beckham, DG Hollums, Daniel Johnson, Jr. photo credit: Christiaan Todd Photography

Life on the Grid:

Discussions on Privacy all seem to be the rage right now. Thinking that this is due to the roll-out of Geo-location apps like Gowalla and Foursquare (1 yr old)  and the introduction of geo-loca capabilities currently with Twitter and soon to be with Facebook next month.  I sense that similar questions will arise from the unitiated as they did with Twitter.

“Why do I care what Adam had for lunch??”

will turn into,

“Why do I care where Adam went to lunch?!!”

Well from my perspective, there are a lot of great reasons to care.  Using Foursquare as an example, I see the following benefits:

• Keeping tabs on where your friends are
• Knowing who the tech-savvy people are when you arrive at a venue (check in list will show this)
• The venue knowing that you are on-site or nearby and having the capability to offer you a discount
• The gaming aspect that strikes at the heart of all us competitive Type A personalities (unlock badges, awards, become Mayor, etc.)
• The stalker aspect- ability to glean info about friends that you might not have known (for example, who was out into the wee hours…)

I participated in a panel on Internet Privacy yesterday at the New Media Cincinnati 2nd Saturday Event and Foursquare was prominently discussed.  Check out the Live Stream HERE.  I personally had been holding off on all of the fun because I had concerns about privacy issues.  After reading up on the applications and attending an American Marketing Association meeting in which Foursquare and Gowalla were featured, I came to realize that this cool tool offers a hot bed of marketing opportunities to the venues who jump on the bandwagon.  By the way, Starbucks just announced that they are partnering with Foursquare which should help to nudge the rest of the retail world into joining the party.

I joined Foursquare about 24 hours ago and am really liking what I see.  Will continue to update this blog with my experiences as I make my way through all of the settings and repercussions that ensue based on my choices.  And for folks who know about the Please Rob Me. com site- I will NOT be checking in/out of my home.

For the record, I have an alarm system and a killer watch-dog, so keep on going when you hit my  ‘hood……..

PRIVACY VS. AUTHENTICITY: CAN THEY CO-EXIST ON THE WEB?

Ever have a nagging thought that is just dying to be dissected and discussed?  The issue that is bugging me today and preventing me from enjoying the uber-nice Sunday spring weather is the issue of Internet Privacy.  Lots of hacker attacks and phishing scams are becoming rampant on Twitter and Facebook and the traditional media is picking up on the stories and spreading the gospel warning.  Recent examples include the 3/4/10 article in USA Today, entitled: “How a Friendly Click Can Compromise a Company” and the Cincinnati Enquirer’s article, “Foursquare Networks into Cincinnati“, on GPS-based applications like Twitter & Foursquare which announce your current location, be it the local Thai restaurant or the local Urban Active. (Local Cincy social media “activists” Kevin Dugan, Daniel Johnson Jr. and Chris Beiting are mentioned in the article.) In fact, a corresponding site has been launched called PleaseRobMe.com that shows how broadcasting your whereabouts can make you a victim of crime.

I recently completed an interview session with a local public radio station, WNKU, in which we talked about Facebook and privacy issues (airing week of 3/8/10). I was also tapped by New Media Cincinnati Founder Daniel Johnson Jr. to be part of a 3/13 panel discussion on privacy use with social media sites.  I am billed as the moderate person on the panel, which is quite ironic given the way I grew up and the current business that I am in.  Can’t go into the details of my upbringing as this is obviously a public venue, but let’s just say the circumstances of my family’s career choice lent itself to the utmost of privacy and secrecy.  On the other hand, my business is Social Media Strategy Consulting in which I advise companies on how to integrate social media applications into their marketing mix.  Trust me, you can’t advise other companies successfully until you have created and lived publicly in the social media space yourself  in a very transparent and authentic way.  As testimony to my experience and Web 2.0 presence, I was recently tapped as a candidate for a Global Social Media Director position for a well-known CPG company (and no, it was not my former company Procter & Gamble!).

Given my family upbringing and my own personal tendency to be uber-private, I work hard at striking the right balance of privacy with my public business presence.  Ironically, the upcoming panel discussion will be recorded, live-streamed, twit-pic’d, live-tweeted and blogged about, thus thrusting my privacy issues into the public.  What a conundrum for me!  Will be interesting to see how I balance what I say from who I am.  In the end, there is a modicum of me that must be protected……or is there?

What is your take on privacy issues?