Social Sunday: A closer look at my Facebook settings

December 21, 2009 By

Courtesy flickr: bala_

So, the other day I promised you that I’d go over the settings I’m using within Facebook to manage my privacy. before we get to them, though, a few quick notes:

  1. My settings are not for everyone and this isn’t a “Best” or “most secure” type of guide. I use Facebook in two capacities at the same time (Business and pleasure) and that makes it rather tricky.
  2. I make extensive use of friend lists – something not everyone is comfortable with. People fall into only a single group (Well, for the purposes of privacy settings) and that often puts me into a tough spot when trying to decide where someone falls.
  3. My setting are never ‘finished’. I’ve spent hours refining where they are now, but there’s always one more thing to change here and there.

So – that all said, let’s take a look. It all starts with friend lists.

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Filed Under: Archives, Facebook, Methods

Managing Facebook: New Privacy Settings

December 17, 2009 By
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Courtesy flickr: chant3

So, back in August, I posted a story called Managing Facebook: A World Divided to talk all about how I’d done up my privacy settings, friend lists and so on. It was a set of rules, permissions and walls that I was happy and comfortable with.

And then, Facebook went and changed them all on me.

Now, there were a few major points to their most recent privacy update:

  1. All regional networks are gone. We are now one world, one Facebook.
  2. The granularization (Yeah – I think I made that one up) of wall posts and other privacy settings.
  3. The opening of select information to the public as a whole.

So much as I did back in August, I decided to go through the new bits piece by piece to figure out how I felt about them and how I could tweak them to my liking.

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Filed Under: Archives, Facebook, Methods

The Honour Of Being An Early Adopter

October 6, 2009 By
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Courtesy: @applecrispmusic

Being an early adopter is an exciting game with ups and downs every day. Sometimes, you get yourself into an awesome service before they close the doors and tell you you’re not allowed in. Other times, you end up paying more for a product than you probably should have. And sometimes, you get to see something so early that it you see it start, grow and die before it gets the chance to go mainstream.

As one of people behind the Limestone New Media Group initiative, I’m always keeping Kingston – and Kingston’s businesses – in mind as I browse the web. Fairly early on, I had a feeling that Twitter was going to get pretty big, and I registered a number of account on behalf of local businesses. I did this again earlier this year.

Twitter’s position on these names is pretty clear: Don’t do it. According the the use policy, bulk registrations, impersonating others and trying to sell names back to corporations for profit is a clear no-no and will end in a suspension of the account – as well as potentially other accounts you manage/’own’. I have, twice now, flown straight against this rule and registered a whole bunch (8-10 each wave) of accounts.

I bring this up because I got a wonderful email the other night that allowed me to turn over another account to a local business. I didn’t charge them anything, didn’t have them buy a time share and didn’t even add their email to a mailing list. They wrote to me – and I simply replied with the password.

While it may be that Twitter’s not shutting me down because the haven’t found me, I’ve also been very careful about what I’ve done with the accounts:

  1. I don’t tweet on their behalf. In fact in the second wave, I only post a single tweet that reads “This account has been set up as a placeholder. If you feel you should have it (It’s free!), follow the link in the profile for details.”
  2. The profile links to this page – which is a letter explaining who I am, what the LNMG is, why I’ve ‘stolen’ their account, and what to do to get the password.
  3. I don’t edit defaults: The background, icon and everything else stays to whatever Twitter says it is.
  4. Once I get an email, I check who it’s from. If it’s from the domain I’d expect it to be, I just turn over the account. If not, a few quick Google searches will usually confirm who the person is. In either case, once I can verify the person, I blank out the profile link, delete the tweet and send them the password.
  5. I don’t market them – I don’t want to be seen as ‘that guy’ who’s squatting the names and approaching people with them. Though I’m not asking for money (Or even suggesting they turn to me for a strategy or consulting), I know that “cold-calling” in this way is frowned upon, so I just don’t do it.

My entire first wave of accounts went to their proper owners in just over 6 months. This second wave is taking a little longer to be disbursed - but I crossed the halfway point by turning over @applecrispmusic recently.

It makes me SO excited to see so many Kingston companies beginning to to adopt social media tools – and I’m honoured to be able to play a small role in helping them along.

Filed Under: Archives, Methods, Projects, Twitter

Managing Facebook: A World Divided

August 14, 2009 By

So, over the past week, my Facebook privacy settings have been the subject of conversation in a few places: In person at dinner, then again at a breakfast…On Twitter… On my blog comments and of course, on Facebook itself.

Facebook has always been an odd place for me. It’s the only place, really, where my ‘online’ and ‘offline’ worlds collide. Sure, some people I know from my ‘offline’ life are now on Twitter, or have connected through LinkedIn, but for the most part, Facebook is the place where those people are interacting with me. And I love that. It’s nice to have a place where my ‘offline’ world can gather and interact – pictures, wall posts, notes and everything. All of the people who I get together with for dinners, who my wife and I double-date with… who we go out with and have over… Plus past co-workers from my pre-web life… and old high school friends… It’s my spot for all of that.

But it’s also where a lot of my ‘online’ friends gather, too. While we’re all over Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, FriendFeed and who knows how many other networks, we’re in Facebook, too – so it’s expected that I’d be there for this type of activity, too. And this leaves Facebook right in the middle.

Now, several of my friends are stuck in this same boat… And to the best I can tell, there are three solutions. You either split your list by creating a second profile, you simply accept that the worlds are going to collide, or you try to manage it all under one profile using privacy settings. I chose to do the later and did so using friend ‘groups’. Here’s how:

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Filed Under: Archives, Facebook, Methods, Social Media

Crowdsourcing Glasses

August 10, 2009 By

So, it’s been eight years since I’ve owned a new pair of glasses. Eight. Freaking. Years. That is WAY too long. So, while I’m in need of new glasses, I thought I’d try a bit of an experiment.

I recently discovered an online glasses (and contact lens) store that I’m keen on ordering from, but I can’t make up my mind.

A list of all of their men’s frames can be found here and I’m attaching a recent (rather grumpy, apparently) picture to this post.

Your mission is to pick a (few) pair(s) of glasses, then comment on this post to let me know which you like. While I (And, let’s be honest, my wife) retain veto rights, I’m pretty open to anything, so the pair that seems to gather the most attention has a darn good shot of being my new pair. Also, while I’m not going to say ‘money isn’t an object’, I do have benefits that’ll be covering the purchase.

So spread the word and help me go shopping!

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Filed Under: Archives, Personal, Projects, Social Media

When Good Intent Goes Horribly Wrong

July 28, 2009 By

Let me start by mentioning quickly that I’ve been spending a little time cleaning things up around the site. Just little things, mostly – fine-tuning the sidebar and footer, doing a review of plugins, re-arranging categories, integrating Google Search. That kind of thing. As part of this minor refresh, I decided I’d finally jump ship and add one of the comment systems I’d heard so much about. When you look at this kind of thing, you quickly find that you only have two real choices: Disqus – a system used on dozens of my friends blogs, that I own a t-shirt for already, and have seen nothing but praise for; and IntenseDebate – a system that seems to be far less widely known despite being owned by Automattic. This was an INCREDIBLY hard decision, but eventually my allegiance to the WordPress team won out.

After signing up for and installing IntenseDebate, I had to import my comments from my database to theirs. No problem. I was told that my blog was queued and could be for several hours. Fine. I made myself lunch and returned to find that my import had started (yay!) but that I was at 0%. So I went grocery shopping. Then did some housework. Then made dinner. No change. So I finally turned to Google. Turns out I’m not alone. A search at their GetSatisfaction page reveals piles of threads – very few listed as resolved – and while users are trying to help each other – it didn’t look like the company was around much (I’ll get back to this). I submitted a help request through the website, and went back to trying to figure it out on my own.

Let The Troubles Begin

After several hours of effort I, in frustration, uninstalled the plugin. At the recomendation of the web in general, I also removed the database entries (By hand) and went back to local comments. This seemed like a step backwards to me so after verifying that local comments did indeed work, I re-installed it. Then I removed and re-installed it again. And again. And again using the IntenseDebate Clear Database plugin. Then again. Then – in the interest of experimentation, I removed it and installed Disqus. It was up and running (and working!) in 15 minutes. I sighed. My allegiance to WP shined through, though, and I removed Disqus, and gave ID a few more tries. Nothing seemed to work.

Around 7:20pm, I sent a tweet that read “Having some major problems getting ID set up. Sent a support request no reply. Maybe Twitter help?”. I directed it both at @IntenseDebate and @mkoenig – the only employee who seemed to be active on GS. After not hearing anything for an hour or so, I gave up – left the plugin installed, just in case, and moved on to other things. Eventually, I fell asleep on the couch next to my laptop. Several hours later I was awoken by Seesmic telling me I had a reply. It was from @mkoenig, and came in around 12:45 am. It was now 12:51 am and he was asking me to email him. My email (just a super-quick, lets-get-a-conversation-started-while-you’re-at-your-desk email) was sent at 12:54 am. I waited. Then kept waiting. And waited some more. This post is going live around 4:10 am. I have yet to hear back from them.

Greener Grass – 3 Tips For IntenseDebate

I know it sound like I’m ranting – I am. And I know it probably looks like I’m jumping the gun on wanting this to work – I’m probably doing that too. But I’m frustrated. My beef here, too, doesn’t fall with the fact that it’s still not working on my site – though that would be awesome – but rather with the support I’ve received. I’ve done years of customer service, several of which were online for a startup, so I’d like to reach out and offer some advice to ID here.

  1. I love that you’ve got people on GetSatisfaction. I think it’s an awesome way to connect with your users. But if you’re going to be on there – use it to it’s full potential. There should be lots of threads being marked as resolved, comments from USERS being promoted as solutions, and employees clearly listed and interacting. And this Auston guy – who seems like he was the GS guy – appears to no longer be with you. Or, at least he doesn’t have the employee tag. His ID profile still says he’s a developer for you, so I’m not too sure.
  2. You should be ALL OVER Twitter. Yes, I used caps and bolded that. Sure, you’ve got @IntenseDebate locked down and it looks like @mkoenig is using his personal account for support. But the ‘official’ account is announcements-only and Michael’s has DAYS between tweets. A handful of searches reveals lots of people looking for ID help – not all of which are being addressed – and even more are simply venting. Some generic searches and the competitor reveals lots of outreach possibility too. You’re a community-focused product, Twitter should be KEY for you.
  3. You seem to be lacking follow-through. When I finally did hear from someone (Who told me to email – something I’d already tried), I heard nothing back… Despite replying in mere minutes. I don’t mind waiting until the morning for a reply – but that expectation should have been set. Twitter is INSTANT and moves fast – and I replied both with a tweet and an email pretty quick. If you didn’t intend to reply until the morning, your tweet should have read “@tommyvallier sorry for the delay. please email me at info@intensedebate.com – I’ll check it in the morning.”. If you did intend to reply tonight and got distracted, busy or fell asleep, that sucks. In either case, it’s a screw-up.

Customer service – ESPECIALLY online, can really turn around and bit you in the behind. While I’m probably the last guy in the world to be complaining and passing along a ‘how-to’ (considering my current employment status), I’m hoping this strikes a chord with someone. I probably, too, should throw in the towel here too and just switch to Discus (Who I’m half expecting to find this post before anyone at ID the this point)… But I’m going to give it another shot. What can I say – I’m a sucker for punishment.

Filed Under: Archives, Customer Service, Rambles, Social Media, WordPress
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