Some people guard the content that they post fiercely, and are the first to complain when they feel that their information is available to a few too many people.  They might love more government oversight on the Internet and have sixteen different passwords that they lock away in a innocuous looking document on their hard drive.

Others aren’t nearly as concerned, and although they may not post their address online, they’re free with photos, emails, contact lists and credit card numbers.  They consider the Internet to be a safe enough environment without government intervention and readily ignore privacy warnings and the latest change in their Facebook security options.  They are easily accessible by Google, and any idiot with a mouse could probably track them down.

The reality is that these two extremes could probably come a little closer to a happy medium.  According to a survey from Javelin Strategy and Research, the number of identity fraud cases is actually decreasing, from around 10.1 million in 2003 to 8.4 million in 2007.  What’s more, the survey actually recommends that you cancel your paper billing and go online instead!  According to tamingthebeast.net, in 2005, the Identity Fraud Report also found the only 12 percent of identity theft cases occurred online.

However, it’s also important to remember that whatever goes up online does have a chance of some one seeing it.  It is important to watch what type of content you’re posting and how you’re posting it, because identity theft and hacking does happen.  It can also be the least of your worries.  Do you really want your mom to see those pictures of you drinking in Cabo?  Change your Facebook settings.  Does it really look professional to tweet about how ugly your ex’s new girlfriend is?  Then don’t do it.  Do you really want your entire address book to have access to your tweets, Facebook and half the activity you do online?  Then change your Google Buzz settings or avoid it altogether.

Be smart here, the same way you would if you were in public.  Because the web is public, and anything you say here reflects you.  That doesn’t mean you can’t be silly, funny or misbehave a little…just keep it to select friends.

Here are some tips for security that are easy, quick and won’t induce severe paranoia.

1.  Check your accounts online regularly.  Not only will you not overspend, but you can keep an eye out for identity theft.

2.  Change your settings on social networks.  Make sure you’re comfortable with who sees what.  Most networks offer a wealth of options for this.

3.  Don’t save your passwords or credit cards on your browser.  As convenient as this tool is, it’s incredibly easy for a hacker to find this information. Use one or two passwords that are easy to remember and memorize them!  Also, all websites have help for you if you forget your passwords.

4.  Google yourself.  See what’s out there and if you want it to be out there!

5.  Keep it professional.  Use the Internet as a tool, not a toy.  If you really need to laugh about your drunken escapades, do it with your security settings tightly locked or over that thing some call a phone.

1.  Track your site.  You can’t understand SEO without understanding how traffic is getting to your site, and what people are looking at.  Most blog management systems, like WordPress, include statistics of the site as part of your dashboard.  If your blog platform doesn’t include this, look for widgets that you can add to your site to track SEO.  Just google SEO widgets or plug-ins.

2.  Know your keywords.  Keywords help search engines find your content.  Use a tool like Google AdWords to find important keywords on your topic, and make sure to include those keywords in your posts and in your headline.

3.  Write good headlines.  There are several tricks, including asking questions and flooding your headlines with keywords, that will help your headlines lure readers in.

4.  Post often.  Keep on a steady and regular posting schedule.  Even if it’s just a short post, Google and the search powers that be like it when you post often.

5.  Add links.  Blogging is a community and a conversation.  If you read some one else’s post, link back to it.  Also include relevant, helpful links within your post.  Readers like new resources!

Fox explains how Twitter is becoming increasingly flooded with spam messages and that it is impossible for ordinary users to compete.  In terms of spreading messages, maybe, but that has already become low on my list of priorities as a user.  On the other hand, just this week I’ve used Twitter to engage in a real-time conversation with fellow writers (who live in separate time zones) that I received lots of great tips from.    Also, Twitter is one of the best ways to catch up on real-time news.

What I do see is a Twitter evolution.  New tools will come along, such as the ‘Super Twitter’ mentioned by blogger Mike Melanson of ReadWriteWeb.  But I like the simplicity that Twitter gives us, which may provide its longevity.

I certainly realize that Twitter isn’t going to give us everything.   It’s impressively simple, and that simplicity means both convenience and limitations.  But you can still use it.  You may not have millions of followers and rise to the level of Twitter stardom, but you may consider…

If you’re a home user…

1.  Catching up on sports teams.  Getting updates more frequently than your boyfriend gets sports-related text messages is a unique pleasure.

2.   Getting a sense of the daily news.  Follow one or two major media outlets and that will be all that you need.

3.  Discovering new bloggers.  I’ve discovered most of my favorites by browsing through my follower’s followers

4.  Indulge your celebrity obsession.

If you’re a writer…

1.  Keeping in touch with other writers.  Real-time chats like #wjchat are great ways to meet other writers and discuss the industry.

2.  Share your blogs or articles.  It may not be the best way to increase traffic, but it helps (Facebook actually is better for this in terms of increasing numbers).

3.  Keeping up with new techs.  Most of the time, I find information on the latest cameras, social media trends, phones and software by watching trending topics or searching for specific tags.

If you’re a small business…

1.  Encourage communication with your business.  Twitter still allows direct communication that is easier and more immediate than anything else with those you care about most: your consumers.

2.  Watch for new trends.  Keeping abreast of current topics is one of the best ways a business can remain current.

3.  Direct users.  Use your Twitter feed to point consumers to specific links on your site as a way to optimize even minimal traffic.

In short, they (or we) want to feel special, personalized, catered to.  At the same time, an article in BusinessWeek points out that they’re not easily exploited.   If an ad doesn’t interest the consumer, they’ll just click right past it.

In Erik Qualman’s book Socialnomics, he explains that advertising was founded on the tradition of selling a product based on sizzle and sheen.  In today’s model, consumers are beyond that.  They want to know what sets products apart, and that it’s important to consider consumer needs.

Marketers aren’t the only ones who have to consider this.  As bloggers and writers, we also need to recognize our public and their needs, or they’ll simply click right past what we have to say.  That’s not just a financial consideration either.  What’s the point of writing stories that are ‘in the public interest’ if it doesn’t reach even one member of the public?  When composing our stories, we need to be able to give the public something too.

Below are a few ways that we can cater to the public.  Let’s face it: we need to.

1.  Be generous: Whether it’s a free product, coupon, or even a useful business tip or funny joke, it’s important to give back to your audience.  In a blog post from copyblogger.com, it is explained that with a little giving, audience loyalty and happiness is easily established.

2.  Be succinct: Keep it sharp, keep it smart, keep it to the point.  As writers, we often want to run around in circles, but readers nowadays almost never want to.  In a presentation used by Pat Lilja from Tunheim Partners used to explain the millennial generation, the primary communication modes of millennials were explained.  They included emails, text messages, social networking and RSS feeds:  all short, quick ways of reading information on the go.  If anyone’s going to catch it, it has to fit into one of these formats.

3.  Be fun: How many YouTube videos are passed around the web purely because they’re funny or amusing?  Have you noticed that the most popular Superbowl commercials (with the exception of Tim Tebow’s controversial ad) were all funny?  Enough said.

4. Be real: Millennials can smell fake from a mile away.  Don’t try to fool them, because the truth is the way to go.  Daniel Burstein for Marketingexperiments.com cited the recent Domino’s Pizza campaign as a good example.  Dominos first admitted that their pizza tasted like cardboard, then created a very open campaign about how they changed their pizza.  Not only is the new pizza pretty good, but Domino’s has a fresh customer base.

5.  Be open: Communicate directly with your audience.  Comments and critiques are the most important tool that you have as a business or a writer, because they show that not only does some one care enough to give you feedback, but they’ll probably also come back to see what you said.  The trick is that you have to respond, and react.  Be open to these critiques and you’ll develop loyalty to your brand because your readers will have an active part in your endeavor.  It’s like going into a restaurant where everyone knows your name: you’ll come back just because you feel at home.

Up until recently, most users loved Google.  Its easy-to-use interface is simple, fun and works quickly, and the fact that Google owns so much of the web only makes its components easy to use.

However, Google’s users are starting to turn against them.  Google has been accused of trying to establish an Internet monopoly, and have even been brought to court for it in Europe.  Many Google users have denounced the brand, even Rupert Murdoch, who has threatened to sue them recently.

Should we be worried?  Sure, it’s increasingly annoying to be flooded with Google Buzz emails or to be forced to integrate Picasa with Youtube with Chrome, etc.., but are our freedoms at stake?

Right now users can be content with the fact that they simply don’t have to use any of Google’s services.  It may be tough to locate and ignore everything that Google owns, but the Internet is still filled with choices.  Although one Microsoft executive once compared quitting Google with quitting smoking, an article from Inside Tech shows that quitting Google is not only possible, but almost easy.

The difficulty will come when Google ventures into broadband.  As any disgruntled cable customer will tell you, a service provider has a lot of power when it comes to the content that you receive.  Depending on how Google broadband works, users may not be able to avoid Google in the future.

And that’s when we should really worry about monopolies.

(c) Renee Perron, all rights reserved.

The problem with targeted ads, and the reason why the FTC is considering placing strict regulations on them, is the way that advertisers collect the information.  Most Internet users are familiar with cookies, which is how most advertising companies grab bits and pieces of data about an Internet user so that they can formulate specific ads.  Regular cookies can usually be blocked simply by changing a setting on the browser.

While many people have been complaining about these types of cookies for years, that’s not the problem.  The problem is cookies that aren’t picked up by normal cookie-blocking software.  These are becoming known as “Flash cookies” or “super cookies”.

Flash cookies get away with it because they’re not really cookies, technically.  Advertisers use the popular Flash plug-in to track users the same way that a normal cookie would.  According to an article from Wired.com, Flash cookies are used in more than half of the Internet’s top websites, although only a few of them actually acknowledge the use in their privacy policies.  What’s more important, Flash cookies cannot be blocked (as of now).  The Wired.com article also reports that advertisers are also re-instating traditional cookies after they have been blocked.

But don’t worry, the FTC knows about all this and is working on regulations.  MediaPost reports that if the regulations are passed, users would be able to opt into all targeted advertising.

Okay, great…right?

Not really.  Advertisers and many media enthusiasts argue that targeted advertising isn’t that big of a deal, and in fact, it’s saving advertising.  First of all, advertisers only target information they need for ads, such as which websites you visit, and typically don’t even know whether you’re male or female.  Secondly, right now targeted ads are the only way many websites are making any money, and limiting those ads would be a major blow to the web economy.  Finally, if no restrictions on personal data are placed on offline ads, why should online ads be any different (if you’ve ever had a telemarketer call your cell, you know that there are very few ways to avoid offline ads)?

Are targeted ads the answer, or just another problem that needs to be blocked?

Created by a 17-year-old, Chatroulette’s immediate popularity was mostly limited to high school students looking for something funny and lots of amateur pornography.  On the other hand, news analysts and bloggers are curious as to whether this site represents the next step in social networking.

We’ve seen webcam use before, most successfully with platforms like Skype, but what sets Chatroulette apart is that its ‘randomness’.  It’s something new for people to try, a new application for the Twitter-bored.  The interesting question is:  what’s next?

Future applications for this type of technology may include an evolution of Aardvark, where users search for a question and actually talk to (via webcam) a real, live human being to get their answer.  Or maybe instead of connecting to others’ LinkedIn profiles, we’ll be having real-live conversations.  Maybe you’ll have a conversation with your next Ebay seller, who knows?

But until that can happen, webcam technology is going to have to establish some ground rules, just like chatrooms did in the early 1990s (don’t give out personal information, don’t meet with anyone you don’t know, don’t enter into certain rooms unless you want to talk about, shall we say, sensitive subjects).  Right now, it’s all too easy to catch some one dressed as a tiger (or worse).

Even though it’s not like we haven’t seen webcams before, don’t rule out Chatroulette.  It’s not the website itself, but, as a recent post by Nytimes blogger Mathew Ingram said, the possibilities of this type of social networking that we need to pay attention to.  We finally have fast enough Internet connections to make web cams regular staples of the Internet.  Which sites will use webcams next?  Is this the web 3.0?

(c) Renee Perron, all rights reserved.

And that’s exactly what Apple wants.

The iPad, consistent with releases like the iPhone and the iPod touch, is selling itself.  Whether or not you actually like the iPad, you’ll be sure to check it out at your nearest Apple store when it’s released in April, simply because you’ve heard so much about it.

And you haven’t heard anything about it from Apple (for the most part, although we all have heard Steve Job’s presentation on YouTube about six million times).  Instead, you’ve been hearing about it from your peers, via Twitter (where the iPad continues to be one of the most common trending topics), bloggers and other social networking sites.

Remember when the iPhone came out?  Despite lack-luster reviews from techies (of course, now we know all of the bad things about the iPhone, yet we still want it), it became one of the most highly anticipated gadgets of the year:  just because everyone was talking about it.

At its release, it was regularly sold out in stores and consumers took to it like bees to honey.  It became the next must-have gadget.  It’ll be interesting to see if the iPad flops or if it follows on the same path.

This is social media marketing at its best:  selling consumers on your product before they even touch it, just because they heard about it on Twitter.

(c) Renee Perron, All rights reserved.

So, why are social media geeks singing Twitter’s praises?  Don’t give up hope for Twitter just yet.  The stats also showed that Twitter users become increasingly more active over time.  It seems that Twitter is addictive, which makes it still a powerful marketing and branding tool.

Because that 17 percent of Twitter users who are ‘active’ are regularly interacting with their favorite brands, from celebrities and politicians, products and publications.  What makes Twitter so powerful is that it’s a direct connection between brands and its consumers.  Even if a company can get a few followers, that direct connection is worth the effort.  After all, it is free.  Check out some easy tips for measuring Twitter success here.  You might be surprised.

Twitter users are also mostly young, in their late teens or early twenties.  Companies can benefit from relating to their group on their terms, which right now mean that companies need to be online, at least a little bit.  Having a Twitter account gives companies a certain cool factor.

And let’s face it:  Twitter is easy.  It’s simple, quick and once again FREE.  So don’t worry about the statistics:  Twitter could still make a difference, one follower at a time.

(c) Renee Perron, all rights reserved.

1.  The iPad: Despite its questionable name, don’t be surprised if the iPad gets big, and if it actually becomes more than ‘just a giant iPod.  It doesn’t support Flash, making it a questionable browsing tool.  It’s cumbersome, its glass screen is bound to break at some point.  However, Jobs might be on to something.  Just like the iPod and, specifically,  iTunes store became a profitable way to sell music, representing around 10 percent of the company’s earnings, the iPad might create a profitable way to sell books, magazines and newspapers.  In short, a revolution for the publishing industry.  Instead of critiquing the iPad, we need to consider the possibility that we’re all going to want one soon enough, or we’re going to want our content read on one.

2.  Aardvark: Google’s acquisition of the search engine Aardvark (which is a search engine that connects queries with real people as opposed to websites) isn’t just an ordinary buy out.  The people who run Google are pretty smart, and they understand that the web is heading towards a strong reliance on human connection.  The popularity of social networking has shown that web users like to personalize, connect and share.  Aardvark allows web users to do that even on a search engine.  Don’t be surprised when other search engines follow Aardvark and Google’s lead on this one.  Companies are finally figuring out that people like to be connected with people, and news companies should follow suit, maybe even by integrating real-people searches on their web pages.

3.  Applications: Applications aren’t new, but they do seem to be multiplying at alarming rates.  Now you can get an application for everything, even avoiding police speed traps.  Consumers are jumping on the opportunity to personalize their mobile experience by adding many different applications, even though it’s estimated that they only use around 15 percent of their downloaded apps.  Despite this, the important thing about applications is what it means for marketing.  Consumers are looking for products that they can customize.  They want to be an active part of what goes into their devices.  Consequently, media companies should concentrate on allowing for more customization in the news process.

4.  Twitter: This is no surprise.  Twitter has already changed media by making it more immediate, breaking stories faster than every before.  But in addition to Twitter’s strengths as a news breaking tool, it is also an amazing, free marketing tool for businesses.  It’s immediate, always in your face, and allows for businesses to get an inside look at what their consumers are thinking while interacting with them at the same time.  In the future, Twitter will most likely evolve further as a marketing and news tool and less as a explanation of some one’s day, giving media increased interactivity with their readers.

5.  Mobile phones: The new mobile journalist is lightening their load.  Instead of carrying around a camera (video and still), notepad, among other things, the mobile journalist just has to carry their mobile.  Phones are capable of almost anything nowadays, and as technology gets better and better, so will the content coming from phones.  Phones aren’t just used by journalists, however, and so it’s inevitable that citizen journalism will be on the rise.  Thankfully, citizen journalism isn’t actually that bad.  Check out this photo essay from citizen journalists in Vancouver this week.

(c) Renee J. Perron.  All rights reserved.