Pleaserobme.com is a social media website "listing all those empty homes out there". The website aggregates all Twitter tweets which have location based information or information telling others that the user is not home. The website explains its purpose with this little explanation in their "Why" section:

"The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you're definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we're leaving lights on when we're going on a holiday, and on the other we're telling everybody on the internet we're not home."
 
Here are some recent feeds from the site; although I've protected them by leaving out the tweeter's information:

• @xxx I'm at http://4sq.com/9i…..

NetWitness, a Northern Virginia security firm found that between 2008 to January 2010, over 75,000 computers in 2,500 or so firms across the US and the world were attacked by cyber criminals. NetWitness states that these attacks targeted corporate data, credit card information, and other sensitive information at health and technology companies in 196 countries including the US, Mexico, and the Middle East.

A NetWitness engineer discovered the intrusion last month and learned that the hackers lured employees to download infected emails or software which when downloaded allowed the hackers to take over the computers, scrape the passwords, and use that data to login other systems.

What this report highlights is the need for more robust security software for companies and individuals. The hackers are getting more and more sophisticated and its time for all of us to really get focused on online security.

Have you noticed the #spon hashtag on Twitter? Has it confused you? The first time I saw it, I did a double take but as soon as I read the ad I was able to deduce that it was an ad and that the twitter user was doing his part in disclosing to the general public that it was an ad.

So what's a #spon hastag again? It's a tweet which is or has an advertisement.

This new hashtag was in response to nwe guidelines released by WOMMA, the word of Mouth  Marketing Associaton in response to the Federal Trade Commission's call for bloggers to be more explicit in disclosing their endorsement of a product in exchange for compensation.

I searched on ""#spon" and found a lot of tweets now contain this new hashtag which goes to prove that new taxonomies and trends are easily adopted on social networks; well, especially on Twitter.

I must admit that I had to stifle a chuckle when I first read an article about cyber criminal organization advertising for job opportunities online.

According to a security researcher Kevin Stevens of SecureWorks who presented his findings at a BlackHat conference in VA, two cyber crimininal organizations are seeking individuals who will have to infect computers with malicious code through spamming or online attacks. Basically all an employee would have to do is promote links that are infected with malware to lure users into clicking them and thus providing access to private data.

And get this, each "employee" would get paid $180 for every 1000 infected computers. Employees would be paid using online payment systems such as Western Union, Paypal, and others.

I know the economy is bad and jobs are scarce. But friends, trust me this ain't a job you want to apply for. Look for another opportunity. Please.

Online profiles offer a load of personal information to anyone who knows how to search online. Besides your profile on social networks, have you considered the information you are posting online?

Online users in their need to "connect" and "interact" are sharing so much information only that it's making them vulnerable to criminals. The Digital Criminal, published by a reformed burglar Michael Fraser, provides some very eye-opening statistics which I am sharing below:

• Approximately 38% of users publish their holiday plans on Twitter and Facebook. I used to be one of those 38% until last year.
• 33% of people have posted status updates telling everyone that they were away for the weekend.
• 17% of users can see other people's residential information on totally public profiles

Michael Fraser is correct when he calls social network statuses as "internet shopping for burglars". People are not only telling others that they are out but are also providing coordinates of where they are. Do we even realize what we are doing when we are baring all information for others to see.

Are you connecting with perfect strangers? Is your personal information easily viewable? Are you giving out details about vacation and travel plans readily?

So friends and colleagues, THINK whether you are giving out TMI meaning TOO MUCH INFORMATION.

Here are some other findings from the Digital Report  – remember, a little is a lot on social networks!

• Younger people share more information with perfect strangers – parents beware
• 34% of study participants shared that they seen personal phone numbers on people's profiles
• People are sharing cell phone and home addresses with perfect strangers
• Men are more open with their information than women

 
Next time you tweet or update your Facebook or Buzz status,  think whether the information can make you vulnerable to a criminal activity.
 

Ok, so I'm not surprised that many US reporters and editors use social media sites for researching information for their stories. Research conducted by Cision company shows that Google and Wikipedia make up top sources for reporters researching stories.

Hmm…. Wikipedia? Seriously?

The good news from the same study is that 96% of the reporters go to corporate websites. And interestingly, 89% of journalists use blogs to research their stories.

Thank the lord that "while social media is supplementing the research done by journalists, it is not replacing editors' and reporters' reliance on primary sources, fact-checking and other traditional best practices in journalism" as reported by Heidi Sullivan, Vice President of Research for Cision.

Why do I say "thank the lord"? Well, we all know that microblogging, blogging, and social networking sites are primarily "opinion" driven. If reporters relied on those sources for information for their stories, I would think that accuracy of the content could be in questionable.

But all in all, all these studies continue to highlight our collective dependency on social networks, blogs, and search engines. And even then, businesses aren't making online marketing a priority tactic for the viability of their business. Sigh!

“Unfriend” is a real word now; the New Oxford American Dictionary has “Unfriend” picked it’s 2009 word of the year.

If you play on any social media sites, “Unfriend” has a pretty clear-cut meaning; i.e. to remove someone as a friend. So now you can use “Unfriend” in sentences like “I’m going to unfriend so & so cause he is too nosy” OR “I decided to unfriend all work colleagues cause….”.

Personally I think the New Oxford American Dictionary should have chosen “Intexticated” as the 2009 word of the year. Intexticated means texting while driving (like intoxicated if you still didn’t get it).  I think Intexticated is SO apt and by creating more awareness about it, we can all start de-intexticating!

Corporations will expand social media spend

Did you see Best Buy’s Twitter presence (http://twitter.com/twelpforce)? It leverages their employees to provide collective customer support on Twitter. It’s a cool way for a corporation to participate and still keep track of what their employees are saying on the social networks. Social media is scalable and is a good way for companies to connect with their audience. This trend will grow rapidly as companies uncover ways to manage online content while leveraging it fully.

Social Media promotions will grow fast and furious

There are a lot of sites offering incentives to people for participating and for spreading the word. Retailers will increase their online promotions as they are doing for the upcoming holiday season. Email coupons, free shipping, exclusive online prices, etc. are all expected to grow. And it couldn’t happen fast enough for people like me who want everything “online”.

Going Mobile with Social Media

I do more texting than before. I also find I do more “short” emails from my mobile phone as I try to keep up with my ever growing email box. Since everyone has a smart phone and since many smart phones provide the ability to broadcast to various popular networks, mobile social media will grow faster than any other technological trend.  This also means we can all look forward to more technologically advanced phones than ever before.

(I also think that smart phones would be a great work-around to remain connected for employees of companies who may still block access to social media sites in 2010.)

My kids think that this ad describes me perfectly:

But then what do they know about the power of tweeting. Let me share just a few simple examples:

After visiting a restaurant, when I share any photos taken there; my “friends” on Facebook and Twitter want to know more about the name and location of the restaurant. Some even let me know that they also enjoyed the restaurant thanking me for the recommendation.
 
Recently, I raved about Priceline.com’s customer friendly service after a hotel room purchase when one of their participating hotels wasn’t being quite as cooperative. After the tweet, numerous friends asked me questions like how often I use Priceline, wasn’t I scared about not getting what I wanted, etc. etc. I told each one of them how successful I was at getting great deals on hotels and car rentals.

Still not convinced social media marketing is for you? Then let me tell you what you are missing out on:

Conversations about you AND good or bad experience sharing about you. If you don’t monitor those conversations, how will you know how to proactively improve what’s broken on not working and spread the news about things that are working?

Get engaged today! Don’t worry if the kids make fun of you; social media websites are here to help you grow your brand and customer base.

Say what?

Holy Cow! The Vatican will have some big dog visitors this week; Facebook and Google executives who will talk to the Vatican about spreading the church’s message using digital marketing.

Google, Facebook, Youtube, and Wikipedia representatives will share the importance of using digital media to spread the Vatican’s message in a four day conference at the Vatican.