Tag: Facebook

Today (November 26) , a close friend of mine had a very bad experience with Facebook where he was pilloried by one of his Facebook Friends. He had become aware of this through viewing his Homepage and feared that he was going to be embarrassed by the post-writer in front of his other friends who have Facebook presence. This may be the usual reaction of many social-network users, especially Facebook users, when someone else posts something stupid on their Wall or page about the user.

If someone writes a post to their Wall, all of the post-writer’s Facebook Friends can see that post on their Home Pages which they see when they log in, and on the author’s Profile. But this post doesn’t appear on their own Profile. Nor can any of their other Facebook Friends see this post unless they have the post-writer as their Facebook Friend. A different situation may occur if someone writes the remark on someone else’s Wall. This may have it that the friends of both parties may see the remark.

It still is worth checking for mutual friends between the post-writer and yourself, especially if any of the mutual friends have become “sworn enemies” such as through a personal, workplace or business fall-out. A good utility to install on your Profile is the “Friend Wheel”, which allows you to see “who’s got whom” of your Friends in the Friend List. This tool, which I have on my Profile, draws a circle with all your friends as “nodes” and rules lines that indicate Facebook links between your friends. When you click on the “Click to enlarge” option, you will be provided with a dynamic circle where you can highlight a person’s name and it will show just their friends.

Similarly, browsing in the post-writer’s Profile may be of use so you can determine who are their Friends, especially any Mutual Friends. This is especially true where people browse around friends’ profiles to find out if the person they are after is on the social network.

Once you understand this situation, you can reduce the panic that you may feel with yourself in front of your friends if someone says something “off the wall” on their Wall.

This series of short video lessons produced by Telstra gives a very good explanation about social networking sites like Facebook and how to use these sites sensibly. They are mainly pitched at older folk who most likely don’t understand these sites and describe a Facebook profile in a similar way to your home that you had just moved in to.

They talk of the primary concepts such as

• adding online friends such as Facebook Friends to your profile
• uploading pictures to your profile and what pictures you should upload
• use of the social network site’s applications like FunWall, FarmTown, the many Facebook Gifts application and online “love meters”
• joining online groups and “fan pages” within the social network and
• tuning your privacy settings for your needs

If you are viewing the videos from this blog post, there will be a series of video thumbnails at the bottom of the video screen when the videos finish.

This will augment some of the posts that I have put up in my blog about getting the most out of Facebook and other social networks.

 Networking sites help families in touch | The Age (Melbourne, Australia)

My comments on this topic

This article describes how the social-networking site is existing in the context of keeping the family in touch. A common but obvious application may be a teenager who is travelling overseas during “gap year” or a child who is on an exchange-student placement or similar program wanting to keep “home” up to date with whatever is going on during their travels.

Similarly, some users use these services as another tool to keep in touch with long-distance relatives and friends. This can help in reducing the number of long-distance phone calls needed to keep in regular touch.

The article talked of the possibility of parents doing something embarrassing on the teenager’s Facebook or MySpace page such as putting up embarrassing photos best reserved for the 21st or making embarrassing comments about the child’s status updates or photos, which could lead to parents and teenagers not establishing the electronic friendships that are part of the social networking service. It talked of adopting a “look but don’t touch” attitude to these pages and only commenting if you have something witty to say for example. If you do need to contact them directly, use the social-networking service’s direct-messaging function or, if they are online, use the text chat function. These techniques can also be used to set up a VoIP chat session using Skype, Windows Live Messenger or Yahoo Messenger.

Other key factors that I have observed is the technological confidence barrier that exists between the young and the old, especially those didn’t experience computer technology in their younger lifetime. This is often exacerbated through fears of privacy abuse, the shock of others knowing your wider circle of friends and relatives amongst other things when using a social-network site.

Similarly, some of these social networks are now partnering with most application and content-delivery platforms to provide a direct interface to electronic picture frames, smartphones / PDAs, set-top boxes and similar devices. This may be in the form of a “widget” or server-updated slide; direct-link to a suitably-sized Web front; or a client-side application; and can allow a summary view of what is going on with Facebook from these devices. Some of the applications may allow a quick update or photo upload from the device’s user interface. These can be useful for monitoring what is going on with your family at all times without needing to visit the desktop or laptop computer regularly.

Once you can understand what the social network site is all about, you can then use it as another tool for keeping your family circle together.

Through my use of Facebook, I have seen some other users post messages intended for a particular recipient on that recipient’s Wall. Some of the messages are meant to be particularly confidential between the sender and the recipient. There is a way of sending a 1-to-1 message privately between Facebook Friends. What you do is either to go the the Friend’s profile and click on the “Send <Friend’s name> a message” option under their picture; or click on the “Inbox” option and select “Compose New Message”. In the “To” box, type in the Friend’s name or e-mail address – this is made quicker through the use of “auto-complete” data entry based on your Friend list.

When you send your message, the recipient will get a notification of a “new message” with a number beside the Inbox header. As well, if the recipient has it so configured, the recipient’s Facebook account will send the message to their e-mail address.

I have written a short note about this in my Status Update on Facebook so all my Facebook Friends are reminded of this issue, but have updated my Status Update with another Facebook topic. I am sorry that this will appear again on Facebook because I have set up this blog to be simulcast on my Wall and this kind if information may be of use for those who follow this blog through other channels.

The same issue will appear with other social-networking Websites like Twitter or MySpace and you will have to know how to send a 1-to-1 message to a particular member of the site.