We all know the potential dangers of social network sites. Putting personal information online can get you in some serious trouble. Tags in embarrassing pictures can cost you your job and you can’t even complain about your mother in law anymore without risking she might be reading your posts as well. But did you know that even seemingly innocent information like saying you’re leaving on holiday can be dangerous as well?

A couple of Dutch guys did. That’s why they set up a site called www.pleaserobme.com With their website, on which they list people saying on Twitter where they are exactly, they want to make it clear to all of us that tweets like these can make it much easier for burglars to know  when and where to act. Think about it, when you’re telling everybody where you are, they also know where you’re not…

posted by: Jasmijn Nomes

In a world where consumers are overloaded by ads, a scream for a new type of advertising has emerged: targeted advertising.  Targeted advertising uses information such as demographics, purchase history, etc. to place targeted and specific ads.  If you can reach the right person with the right ad at the right time, advertising becomes much more effective!

Well, this is where social network sites can step in: using the information that is online could be a major opportunity.  Since (for example) Facebook-users upload information on their interests, it becomes possible for advertisers to really target and reach their specific target group. 

An example: on Facebook, I’m a fan of Ben & Jerry’s.  This knowledge permits B & J’s to target me with a B & J’s ad.  And do you know what?  I won’t even mind seeing that ad!

Posted by Kelly Desmidt aka a B & J’s fan!

The new media and online social networks have not only become immensely popular, they’ve also become the new scapegoat when it comes to privacy issues and intimacy violations. As Dimitri Martin explains in his sketch about social networking, sites like twitter, facebook, myspace,… are loaded with both sexual predators and pray. This makes it all the more easy to blame SNS for incidents that were triggered through an online forum.

In order to prevent these crises, it’s in the best sake of both creator and user of social network sites to properly educate or get informed about the possible dangers of online networking. Guidelines to how to protect yourself are all over the internet. Sophos, for example, gives an easy five-step prevention guide for using facebook. For example, it advises you to actually read the ‘guide to privacy’ that is on Facebook! Or maybe we should consider reading the ‘Term and Service Agreement” in stead of just ticking it and moving on.

If everyone were to follow these rules, I’m convinced 90% of the internet crises could be solved. But most of all, I believe it’s important to remember that a SNS it merely a medium… it’s the users that choose what they put on their profile and how we conduct ourselves with our online friends.

Posted by:
Kim Merckaert

We all know them: they are the proud ‘owners’ of more than 500, or 600, or even more than a 1000 friends on Facebook. At times, I can’t help myself from wondering where the hell they find all these so-called friends? But then again… my number of friends is rising steadily as well. Can I honestly call each and every one of these people friends? Of course not! If I’m entirely honest, I would probable only use the word ‘friend’ for about twenty to thirty of them. The rest? Acquaintances, or even worse, people I’ve only met once and probably won’t talk to again for the rest of my life!

Apparently I’m not the only person wondering about the number of friends a brain can handle: a study conducted by a professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University reveals that even though we could have up to more than 5000 (virtual) friends, we are limited by a special part in our brain (the neocortex – if you must know) to managing social circles of around 150 friends.
The results of the study will be revealed later on this year, but preliminary results suggest that SNS such as Facebook have not had any impact on the real size of social groupings.
All in all, no need to keep adding those semi-known people, this could only overload your brain!

Posted by Kelly Desmidt

Source: TIMES ONLINE

We can’t deny the fact that Facebook and other social network sites are becoming more and more a part of the way we live. But there is more! This new way of living is also affecting our personality. Our generation is feeling more self-confident and apparently isn’t afraid to show it. Think about all the information and pictures about ourselves we put online! Where is this urge coming from? Why do we want everybody to know what we are doing every single minute of the day? Are we really that full of ourselves? Because honestly, who cares what’s on your mind all day long?

When looking at my facebook profile, I can’t help but wonder: is Facebook turning us into narcissistic attention seekers???

posted by: Jasmijn Nomes

Online diaries are hot! When surfing the web you immediately bump into several possibilities to create your own online calendar. In the hasty world we live in daily planning has become a necessity. Not only for business people but also for students, teenagers, and parents who want to keep track of their household and the activities of their kids. Since everybody is busy all the time, it isn’t always easy to keep in touch with friends and relatives. Having a way to organize your own activities and being able to compare and match them to those of friends and family doesn’t seem a needless luxury, does it? 

But wouldn’t it be even more convenient if you were able to use this online diary without having to make another profile?  Imaging the amount of  time you could win just by combining the success of social network sites with the need of a personal organizer!  This sounds like a real billion dollar idea, doesn’t it?

posted by Jasmijn Nomes

sources: 

http://www.vacature.com/blog/een-online-agenda-iets-voor-jou

http://www.google.com/intl/en/googlecalendar/about.html

A virtual suicide machine that is able to erase energy-consuming SNS profiles and kill virtual friends, is now on the market. This suicide machine promises to give you back your real life easily, and with dignity.  

If you want to get rid of your web 2.0 alter ego, just go to www.suicidemachine.org, choose a SNS like Facebook or Twitter, fill in your user name and password and watch how your virtual friends are killed. Follow the example of the man in the video, and get your actual life back!

Posted by Kelly Desmidt

(Sources: TECH / INTERNET)

When people around the world think about social network sites, most of us name Facebook, Myspace, youTube,… In Belgium and most of Europe, we immediately add another site: Netlog.
Netlog, a SNS just like Facebook but originated in Belgium in 1999, has, according to the Belgian newspaper ‘Metro’, recently become the fastest growing technology company in Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands. Netlog has over 56 million users and is market leader in several European countries and Turkey.

This got us thinking…

A social network site add-on, as we would like to create, does not have to be limited to one SNS in particular; it can be used in several online communities.
A quick search on the web allows you to come up with numerous SNS all over the world. Wikipedia for example gives a nice listed overview of different sites, their purpose and their operating area.  Although certainly not all of the social networks are apt for our add-on, it does give us the possibility of a much broader future.
In our opinion, it is therefore definitely something to consider when thinking about placing an application on existing social network sites.

 

Posted by Kim Merckaert

When it comes to social network sites, there’s no doubt the money is in finding a way to attract advertisers. Studies have however shown that networkers do their very best to ignore banner-adds. In 1999 two researchers investigated the effectiveness of online banner and click-through ads. Their study showed that people are rarily attracted to internet banners and are not inclined to actually click on click-through ads. One can only conclude that new ways of  online advertising are needed, and the research to measure their effectiveness continues. The New York Times credits Google with the best ad system. In a 2003 article, The Times explains that Google gives advertisers the possibility to view the effectiveness of their own online ads: Whether people bought their products, signed up for advertising, …  Although this gives advertisers knowledge about their personal ads, it does not really increases the effectiveness in general. Others have tried to come up with better ways to make surfers click ads, but none of them have really succeded in comming up with something new. So for the moment, websites and advertisers are still stuck putting up banner- and click-through ads, hoping to get the surfers’ attention. Luckily for social networksites, advertisers are still willing to spend millions of dollars on it… 

Posted by Kim Merckaert

These days social networks are hot-hot-hot. Not only can you find interesting topics upon this subject in newspapers, magazines, other blogs,… You can also find a gazillion videos on YouTube. For those of you who don’t quite understand the term ‘Social Network’, here’s a link to an interesting video, I’d like to think of as ‘Social Networking for dummies’…

All kinds of networking sites already exist, we all know sites like Twitter, MySpace and most definitely Facebook. We all like to use one or more of these sites to keep in touch with friends, to make plans, to chat,… But after watching the following video fragment, it’s obvious there is still some room for improvement! I’m sure we all share a little hatred for some of the things mentioned in the fragment. My personal favorite? Number 11…

Posted by Kelly Desmidt