Fake Earthquake

Ken AshfordDisasters, Social Media & NetworkingLeave a Comment

If your Facebook or Twitter feed starts going off with buzz about a massive California earthquake in the next few hours, don't worry.  It's only a test.  A drill is planned by natural disaster experts at San Diego State University to test how social media would be used to respond to a crisis. Unless, of course, there is an actual earthquake … Read More

The Outage

Ken AshfordSocial Media & NetworkingLeave a Comment

Apparently Facebook was down for a couple of hours yesterday.  They say it was a database glitch, but I'm betting it's because two people poked each other at the exact same time. The outage apparently caused Facebook addicts to roam the street in tears, shoving photos of themselves in peoples' faces and screaming "DO YOU LIKE THIS?  WELL, DO YOU?!?" There … Read More

Interesting Twist On Keeping An On-Line Journal

Ken AshfordSocial Media & NetworkingLeave a Comment

OhLife is an email-based private online journal site, where you can keep, well, your private online journal. Once you sign up, every night OhLife emails you the question "How did your day go?" Just reply with your entry and it's saved instantly. What's the interesting twist?  After you have accumulated a backlog of journal entries, OhLife will start to send … Read More

America: Where People Are Moving

Ken AshfordSocial Media & Networking1 Comment

An interesting interactive map here shows the migration patterns of people in 2008.  Click on any county, and it shows (in black) how many moved into that county (and from where), and (in red) how many left that county (and to where).  Here's the migration patterns relating to Forsyth County, NC. Looks like this county had more incomers than outgoers, … Read More

Facebook Privacy Settings

Ken AshfordSocial Media & NetworkingLeave a Comment

Kudos to the New York Times for doing the heavy lifting and mapping out all the places on Facebook where there are privacy settings. As they write, "To manage your privacy on Facebook, you will need to navigate through 50 settings with more than 170 options…" The NYT came up with this graphic, which you will have to click to … Read More

Faisal Shahzad’s Online Personality

Ken AshfordSocial Media & Networking, War on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

From NRO A YouTube video claiming  credit for a “successful” bombing in Times Square was uploaded just hours after the failed attempt, to a web site created the day before. The video was uploaded in Connecticut, where Faisal Shahzad, arrested last night at JFK International, calls home. Like seemingly every modern-day terrorist, Shahzad has a Facebook page (I won’t link … Read More

What Does Facebook Publish About You?

Ken AshfordSocial Media & NetworkingLeave a Comment

There's been some controversy about the new Facebook changes, and its impact on your privacy.  I touched on it here in this post. Basically, Facebook made the decision to make some aspects of your Facebook profile available to, well, anything on the Internet — and vice versa.  For example, if John Smith posted a video from Youtube on Facebook — say, a … Read More