Archive for August, 2010

Facebook Places – The ultimate stalking tool

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

Yesterday, Facebook announced the release of Facebook Places, a strikingly similar application to that of Foursquare (They even use the same lingo!). Facebook places allows you to share your current location with your friends, and the rest of those people you have added on your Facebook account to look “cooler as ekke”. Once you share your location, you can then add a comment along with it to let your friends know what you think of the place you are visiting.

“Places is a Facebook feature that allows you to see where your friends are and share your location in the real world. When you use Places, you’ll be able to see if any of your friends are currently checked in nearby and connect with them easily. You can check into nearby Places to tell your friends where you are, tag your friends in the Places you visit, and view comments your friends have made about the Places you visit. Use Places to experience connecting with people on Facebook in a completely new way.”

Facebook Places makes use of W3 geolocation functionality thats already built into your iPhone or Blackberry and lets Facebook know where you at any time (and you thought Facebook facial recognition was scary). This opens up a multitude of possibilities both good and bad.

The good.

As I mentioned in one of my posts a couple of days ago, the marketing potential of an application such as this is immense. Your business can run specials that only apply to users that “check in” to your store using Facebook Places. These specials have more of a chance of becoming viral than your average Facebook fan page update. If marketing is not your style, its still cool to know where your friends are at.

The bad.

As with any technology that is released in today’s times, there are those people (if I can call them that) that make use of  it for ulterior  motives. If you havent done so already, enforcing  your own and your family’s correct privacy settings should now be top of your list of things to do.  Not sure on how to set up your privacy settings correctly, check this article.

The “unfortunate”.

Facebook Places has only been launched in the United States for now. When it will become available in South Africa is anyones guess but from previous experience with Facebook, it could be in the next few weeks.

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Posted in SEO, technology | 4 Comments »

Foursquare and seven social sites ago…!

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

If Abraham Lincoln were still alive, he’d probably be making use of this great new social media platform. Foursquare is one of the “newer” social platforms that will be making waves in South Africa in the next few months. So what is Foursquare you ask? As Foursquare puts it, Foursquare will help you meet up with your friends, let you earn points and unlock badges for discovering new places, doing new things and meeting new people. That may sound like many other social platforms but Foursquare has one clear advantage: More effective selling potential to customers near your business.

What does it do?

In simple terms, Foursquare makes use of your GPS location or cell phone tower triangulation (either through your phone or PC’s IP Address) and identifies nearby businesses and establishments. Foursquare then lets you “check in” to restaurants, bars, businesses and other establishments when you visit them. This then notifies your friends of where you are and what you’re up to while at the same time giving “shops” an indication as to how popular they really are. This dove-tails nicely with ORM (Online Reputation Management).

Foursquare’s marketing power

Many South African’s haven’t realised the hidden potential  and marketing prowess that is offered by this semi-unique social platform. In the States, many businesses are running “Foursquare specials” whereby any user that frequents their establishment, will receive special discount for simply “checking in” on Foursquare. What the businesses get in return is a bigger market reach, never mind the fact that there is always the potential of their campaign going viral through Foursquare.

The Business Centre Bryanston

In the States, Foursquare has even started sending out stickers to local businesses to remind users to “check in” whenever they walk through the doors.

What are you waiting for? The Foursquare wave will be hitting you soon enough. Have you registered your company on the social platform yet?

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Posted in social media | 3 Comments »

Cell C : social media blunder or genius?!

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

Cell C recently made tsunami sized social media waves with their Trevor Noah social media campaign. The jist of which is that Trevor Noah, the South African comedian, wrote to his Twitter fans that Cell C was the worst network ever and that they needed to change their attitude or lose him as a client forever! Cell C CEO (the real CEO, Lars Reichelt) then placed a HUGE full page advert in the Sunday Times written directly to Trevor Noah asking for an open conversation as to how they can solve his problem.

Now from the outset, this seems like case study territory. This, wow, the CEO (the real one) of Cell C took the time to realise the power that is Trevor N……. I mean social media and respond to it, repairing the relationship and making Cell C a real social media powerhouse!

This was then followed by Trevor, seemingly, agreeing to be the face of Cell C’s social media campaign and within days (nay hours) you could not turn on the tv or the radio or drive down the street without seeing Trevor’s smiling mug as their new CEO (customer Experience Officer).  This was a onslaught of offline media driving hard at online, pushing people to go online and connect, to respond and to get involved in making Cell C the best cellular provider in the country.

Unfortunately the honesty and openness that is social media has been corrupt. Cell C staged the entire thing. Trevor was approached before the tweet went out! The domains were registered, the campaign planned, the logo changed (nice move that) and the (Im sure lucrative) deal with Trevor was signed and sealed.

Is this what social media has become..?

A place where large brands who have capital (read : cash) clout can monopolise the landsccape once more and write the story before we get to say if it is a story that we want to even read or not?! Are our delicate sensibilities yet again going to be plundered by large corporates?! (I’ll stop with the rhetorical questions now).

I personally believe that this is not the future of social media. This is an example of a large corporate who has based their social campaign on an offline strategy. Some say it is genius, others say it is ludicrous. Whatever your take on it, you have to admit it worked!  Whether it will have legs to continue being so prolific in the media and with consumers is another story which we will have to wait to find out.

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Posted in SEO, business, social media | 9 Comments »

Facebook hackers- they are closer than you may think

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

It’s interesting that when you search “facebook hackers” on the internet, a variety of “how to hack facebook” results are shown. Worrying? Perhaps, but the reality is that this information is probably easier to get your hands on that you initially thought.

Why would hackers want to log into a Facebook account you ask? There are probably many reasons for this. Bored internet users who get a kick out of playing around in other people’s lives or perhaps people are hungry for important information that could help them get their grubby hands on money.

Facebook hackers have become interested in independent applications. It seems that application developers have been putting private user information at risk of exposure. This is due to the fact that they have not applied any security settings to their applications. Application creators or hackers are able to have access to the personal data of anyone who has installed that application. There is information available on Facebook that notifies users who install applications that developers will have access to their personal data. It does not however notify that the developers (potentially the hackers) also have access to that person’s “friends” personal data. As a result of this, Facebook hackers are able to change private information that the user may have on their Facebook profile.

As frustrating as this may be to Facebook users, Facebook as a company has its legal bases covered. The Terms of Service clearly state that Facebook is in no way what so ever responsible for anything that developers may do with personal data.

There are various ways in which Facebook users can make it difficult (but not impossible) for hackers to get hold of data.

▪ Change passwords weekly or monthly.

▪ Use a strong password.

▪ Use an up- to- date browser. (IE6 is not an up-to-date browser)

▪ Use and run antivirus.

▪ Don’t run any javascript in the browser.

▪ Do not click on suspicious links.

▪ Do not provide sensitive information on your profile.

▪ Do not install any third party applications.

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Posted in technology | 2 Comments »