Facebook announced the new profile, timeline, but the beta version doesn’t won’t come out until at least the end of this month, if not later, and you have to sign up for it in advance — but, there’s a way to activate it right now, without the wait.
Facebook gives developers early access to timeline so they can develop applications for it. However, you don’t really have to be a real developer, just pretend to be one! Here’s how. (more…)
By: Sharon Vaknin
Dubbed “the Facebook within a Facebook,” Ticker shows you what your friends are doing in real time in a box to the right of the News Feed. You’ll see minor updates like new friendships, likes, comments, and other lightweight activities, while more important activities are reserved for the News Feed.
With Facebook’s new apps (see below), you’ll also see app activity, exposing what songs your friends are listening to, what movies or TV shows they’re watching, which articles they’re reading, and more. Just hover over an activity and a box will pop out with more details and the options to comment and like.
As we predicted, Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote at the f8 conference in San Francisco Thursday introduced some of the most profound changes seen on Facebook since its inception. So many changes, in fact, that it can be hard to keep track. So here’s a handy-dandy guide.
Facebook is driven by a single, unique goal. Its priority isn’t to gain more users (it already has 750 million of those), nor does it feel compelled to find stupid ways to increase pageviews. Its primary goal right now isn’t to increase revenue, either — that will come later.
No, Facebook’s goal is to become the social layer that supports, powers and connects every single piece of the web, no matter who or what it is or where it lives. On Thursday at its f8 conference in San Francisco, the world’s largest social network will take a giant leap toward accomplishing that goal.
I have seen what Facebook is launching on Thursday, and it’s going to change the world of social media. And while I won’t talk about the mind-boggling things Facebook will be launching, I will say this: The Facebook you know and (don’t) love will be forever transformed. The news that will come out of Facebook during the next few weeks will be the biggest things to come out of the company since the launch of the Facebook Platform.
Facebook’s new subscription feature is generating a lot of buzz.
The subscribe feature has broad implications unique to public figures–from journalists to celebrities and even elected officials. Because now you can hear from these figures without actually being friends. And, fine tune what you hear from friends and others.
Here are some things to keep in mind about the new subscribe button.
Here are seven all-too-common Facebook personalities you should seek to avoid. At the very least, hide their posts from your news feed.
If I had a dime for every person who complains about privacy on Facebook and doesn’t have any friend lists, I’d be rich. So anything Facebook could do to get more people to create friend lists seems like a win-win for all involved. Only five percent of the site’s membership actually uses this feature.
Now a Facebook spokesperson just told me via email, “we have nothing to announce,” after I asked for confirmation of whether the company is actually testing so-called smart lists.
The phrase smart lists shows up at the top of this new test feature appearing within the privacy settings and the area where you can post content for distribution in the news feed.
Facebook recently unveiled the most dramatic updates to its privacy settings in a year. Out of all of them, there’s one new feature that you really must turn on as soon as it becomes available to you: profile review.
There is such a lot of talk around about social media background checks, where employers check your profile out on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like. But how many do, and how seriously do they take the information they can access, and more to the point, what are they actually looking for?
We were curious so we asked a few questions of a number of employers we interviewed. Here’s what they said:
Employer 1
Q: Do you check people out on social media and what do you think when you do?
A: “This is the big mistake of the younger generation. Everything is fair game and they need to learn that if I saw behavior that I felt didn’t fit with the team, or I discovered things about them that reflected negatively on their employer, or there is a pattern of behaviour that’s likely to lead to work performance issues, then they won’t be getting the job. People should assume that I am checking them out.”
Employer 2
Q: As part of your hiring procedure, do you routinely check people out on MySpace or Facebook?
A: No we don’t check
Q What if you became aware of something that was compromising an employee on a public forum?
A: “If it was a public facing position then we would have to talk to them about it because undoubtedly it could be seen publicly. To a degree what people get up to in their own time is up to them, but when that private persona interferes with that corporate requirement then there has to be an intervention, especially if they are representing the company as part of that corporate persona. Fundamentally I don’t really care. Can they do their job? Are they able to do their job? Will they do the job? Are they in a compromising position? If they are not part of the public face (or they are not seen as representing) the company, then I don’t have a problem with it.”
Q: Do you check people out on social media and what do you think when you do?
Employer 3
A: “I wouldn’t want an employee’s personal life to be reflecting on the business, especially because we are a public company. For me it’s about having the right appearance….We check potential employees on Facebook etc. It’s really important people be aware of this because the internet is so powerful.”
Employer 4
A: “We don’t do those sorts of checks. If something came to my attention of course we would look at it. Then I think you would be bound to take those things into consideration, generally however I think these are a social tool, not a business tool.”
Employer 5
A: “No I have never thought of it, I will normally, depending how long they have been in their previous employment, ring up three of their previous employers.”
Employer 6
Q: What would you do if you found something negative about an employee on social media?
A: “I would put it on the table in front of them and ask them about it. You would at least give this person the opportunity to explain. We haven’t been checking these forums as a matter of course, but we are doing in more often, particularly with contractors or recruitment consultants.”
So what’s the point I am trying to make here? Yes you will be checked out.
Always assume that anyone checking you out is making a subjective judgment– what some people thinks fits with the team, others may think is bad form.
Always assume that whoever is checking as part of a reference check will only have a partial picture of what you’ve been up to, good or bad. They will never know the context until they meet you, and depending what it is, they may not even be able to question you about what they saw to raise their eye-brows.
While by law employers are not able to discriminate, how would you know if you missed out on a job based on something they personally didn’t like?
You could liken this stuff to simple reference checking, but it is reference checking on steroids, given that employers can gather a lot more personal information than they’d ever be able to ask a referee.
On Thomas Shaw’s blog recently, he posted information about an application that will allow you to click to allow employers and recruiters access to your LinkedIn and Facebook profiles. You could soon find them soon on careers sites.
One click is all simple and convenient, but when friends can do things like post unflattering photos of you on the wild night of your high school break up, would you really want your Facebook profile to be your resume?
Source: Interview IQ
by Jolie O’Dell
We know Facebook gets brought up in a lot of divorce cases, but this is ridiculous.
A 29-year-old woman going through a difficult divorce created a fake profile in an attempt to get some dirt on her soon-to-be-ex-husband.
Posing as a 17-year-old girl named Jessica Studebaker, Angela Voelkert contacted her husband, David, 38, on Facebook. The friendship that developed between the husband and the fake profile turned out to be a lot more incriminating than Angela could have imagined at the outset… or so she thought.
In messages with “Jessica,” David predictably asked the girl to run away with him; he also admitted that he had installed a GPS tracking system on his wife’s vehicle — both of which are enough for criminal charges in themselves.
The husband then proceeded to tell “Jessica,” a.k.a. Angela Voelkert, that he wanted his wife out of the picture — and by “out of the picture,” we mean “deceased.”
However, David has been able to prove to prosecutors he knew the fake account was his wife all along. Although he fed his ex quite a line in the messages, the charges have been dropped.
This is the fake profile the wife used to catch her husband supposedly plotting her murder.
Here are some excerpts of the messages from court documents:
“Once she is gone, I don’t have to hide with my kids… I can do what I want and not have to worry about not seeing my family anymore. You should find someone at your school. There should be some gang-bangers there that would put a cap in her ass for $10,000. I am done with her crap!
… See, I am taking care of everything! I will finally be free, my kids can grow up and not be around all the hatred, it will be over. With me gone with my kids, the police can’t pin anything on me as I will be in another state, so I will be fine.
Will you be ready to go with me on the 10th? Let me know, baby!”
There are so many takeaways from this news item. Don’t feed the trolls, especially if the troll in question is your ex. Don’t start drama on Facebook. Don’t get police and criminal courts involved in your petty personal issues.
But if you learn nothing else from this news, please put this piece of advice in your back pocket: If you’re going through a divorce, don’t use Facebook. At all. Ever. Period.
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