Haiku Facebook Status Idea and Challenge

January 14, 2011March 19, 2011Digital Citizen Leave a comment

I have a friend living in Japan who has only updated her Facebook status this year with that most famous of engaging Japanese poetry forms, the haiku. From her first haiku update this year, Sarah Jane Blenkhorn, originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, declared that she intended to keep this up all through 2011.

What a really neat idea! It’s something I can see being on CNN or other sites which posts neat Internet undertakings, especially after a decent body of work might have been done. I would say about 200 haiku status updates should be enough, or about half way through the year, to get the world watching the rest of the year.

I’m sharing this idea because aside from it being neat, I think it’d be a great challenge for those of you out there looking for interesting ways to liven your Facebook status updates. You don’t have to use haikus, although they are easily engaging, or do it for a year. Maybe just do some poetry for a certain time, like National Poetry Month in April. I’m considering that as I am writing. I have a lot of visitors who come to this site for the Facebook tagging memes I’ve created, as well as Facebook safety and advice. I hope some of you will take up this challenge. I think it should be a national movement in Japan!

In practicing good Facebook behaviour, Sarah Jane’s status updates are not publicly available. I have encouraged Sarah Jane to hook up her Facebook status updates to a micro-blog, much the way one can hook up Twitter feeds to WordPress micro-blogs, so the world can share in her entertaining and thoughtful Facebook status updates. Nothing has become of it so far, but she did give me permission to share what she has written so far.

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Which Were the Most Popular and Interesting Cartoons You Saw for the Facebook Campaign Against Child Abuse?

December 6, 2010March 19, 2011Digital Citizen Leave a comment

Snoopy

Last weekend, the first weekend in December, there was a global campaign on Facebook where people replace their profile pictures with their favourite cartoon character/s.

I was happy to see a lot of my Facebook friends took part. It was really interesting to see what everybody chose for their characters.

Being the curious type, the two most obvious question I had were which characters were the most popular, and which were interesting?

For the most interesting, I would have to give that to my friend Dan, who chose Banana Man.

For the most popular, that’s a much harder question to answer with any confidence. I don’t have enough Facebook friends to get a statistically significant result. Fortunately, I have this site which I estimate provided about 20,000 cartoon pictures to people looking for them over the weekend. Talk about suffocating from smog from the traffic from my blog! OMG!!!

Of course, I don’t have all the comic book characters out there, but I probably have about 500, of which 250 were here. That’s a decent sample size variety for me. I also have visitors from around the world.

From stats on this website, from what I could tell, Snoopy from the Peanuts strip was the most popular character (sometimes with Charlie Brown and Woodstock so hard to separate them out.

Comic book heroine Wonder Woman was a close second.

My Melody from the Hello Kitty strip was third.

Wilma Flintsone was fourth.

Homer Simpson was fifth.

Cinnamoroll from Hello Kitty was sixth.

Catwoman was seventh.

Love-a-lot Bear from the Care Bears was eighth.

Pebbles Flintstone was ninth.

Finally, Lucky Bear from the Care Bears was tenth.

I haven’t seen any articles yet which gives a large sample size for the most popular character, but if you do, please do share.

What about among your Facebook friends? Who was the most popular character or most popular cartoon strip?

And don’t forget about the most interesting character you saw.

Over 250 Cartoon Pictures for Facebook Profile Pics Campaign Against Child Abuse

December 4, 2010March 19, 2011Digital Citizen 2 Comments

Until December 6th, there is a global campaign on Facebook where people replace their profile pictures with their favourite cartoon character/s, then encourage their friends to do the same. Now this campaign I like! Too bad it’s way too short but it’s gone viral globally after just a day’s notice!

I’ve got over 250 cartoon pictures made for Facebook profile pics at the bottom, arranged in alphabetical order with names, which include some modern and some old cartoons.

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Tips and Challenges for National (Facebook) Unfriend Day on November 17

November 14, 2010March 18, 2011Digital Citizen Leave a comment

I’ve recently written some posts on purging your Facebook friends list due to the misuse, abuse and harm of Facebook friendships incurred by many people (links below). The issue has recently gotten more attention via talk show host Jimmy Kimmel calling for Wednesday, November 17, to be National Unfriend Day of NUD, and I am here to help with some tips and challenges should you want to take part in National Unfriend Day. This also goes for MySpace, LiveJournal, Bebo and other social networking platforms where you can add friends, but the main focus is on the largest social networking platform in the world, which is Facebook.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Why you would want to take part in Unfriend Day (or do it on another day)

Because Facebook friends can be spies, now or in the future when someone decides to no longer like you, especially people you don’t know well but have as Facebook friends. With Facebook’s new Friendship Page feature that gives everyone creepy new spying capabilities on other people’s profiles, the fact that Facebook friends can be spies has never been truer. Facebook friends have access to everything you have unless you block them from specific things. But let’s be serious. How many people really do that? And even if you did, isn’t that enough of a creep factor to get you to unfriend them? And why are you causing yourself stress in watching your back on Facebook all the time since you might have to block certain friends from potentially every new thing you post?

Jimmy Kimmel talks about unfriending because Facebook has cheapened the meaning of friendship. I have also written similarly about the meaning of friendship versus Facebook friendship. However, there is a real life threat to Facebook friendship and not just an ideology here.

If you missed National Unfriend Day, there’s no reason NUD couldn’t be any other day during the year for you. In fact, I would recommend you purge your Facebook friends list several times during the year.

Facebook activities don’t get you in trouble, Facebook friends who see them do

It seems to me we’ve had enough bad stories of people getting caught on Facebook for everything from cheating to hate statements to inappropriate work comment and other such bad behaviours, but not many people still care all that much. Just remember, those behaviours aren’t what got those people in trouble. It’s the fact they had Facebook friends who saw the behaviours and did something about it, even if unintentional like sharing it in some way, online or in real life.

Which Facebook friends should you unfriend?

This could be tough for some people to do so I have a set of questions you can ask yourself of each Facebook friend you might consider removing. These are for the less obvious choices, but can be for any one on your Facebook friends list.

Will people think you mean for dropping Facebook friends?

Hardly. People seem to think that those with tons of meaningless Facebook friends are the ones who are insecure. Knowing who your friends are, and who are not, is a sign of personal security and integrity, not being mean.

What if the unfriended request being friends again?

If you have common friends with someone you untag, they may notice having been removed if you post something on your mutual friend’s wall and they see it by looking or a notification of others posting on the same post. They’ll probably only realize it because they see your name and realize they hadn’t seen any updates from you in a while. So what if they add you again? Awkward?

Maybe. But you can avoid it by blocking them after you remove them. Or ignore the friendship request. If it means that much to them, and if you have any real friendship in life, they can talk to you about it. If you have any real friendship in life, this Facebook friend stuff shouldn’t matter. Really, it’s not the end of the world.

Need some motivation?

Try my Remove 5 Facebook Friends challenge. This was posted on September 30, by the way, 5 weeks before Jimmy Kimmel asked for National Unfriend Day. 🙂

For those who like to flaunt their life fun on Facebook, especially if there’s a little element of risk to it, how’s about flaunting your Facebook unfriending Facebook tagging style?

Facebook friends dumped tagging meme

I highly recommend you do this after you unfriend the people you tag, of course. Now, you can’t tag a picture with a link to someone you aren’t Facebook friends with, but you can always type in their names instead of choosing from a box listing your Facebook friends. This is like if you were to tag a photo of the Loch Ness monster, Darth Vader, Wolverine, Harry Potter, Bella Swan or anything else. They don’t have Facebook profiles, so far as I know, but you can still tag them in pictures. Same idea for Facebook friends you’ve dumped.

Good luck with National Unfriend Day, Jimmy and the world!

I don’t know how much media clout, or pull, Jimmy Kimmel will have in proposing National Unfriend Day, but it’s good advice. Even if it doesn’t do well, it’s the first year. Things take time to adapt, and more time if it’s a once a year occurrence. But remember what I said above…

Remember this fun Facebook in Real Life video? It needs a seriously creepy update!

Facebook’s Friendship Page Feature Gives Everyone New Spying Capabilities!

November 6, 2010March 19, 2011Digital Citizen Leave a comment

Facebook rolled out a creepy new feature called Friendship on Oct 29, 2010. Good intent, bad results. Lay another brick in the road to Hell that is paved with good intentions! Here is a review and some counter-measure suggestions. This feature is a stalker’s dream! But it’s the same for just the casual “troll” curious about creeping on people… like maybe jealous friends, ex’es, significant others, family, etc.

**What is this Friendship Page feature?**

This creates a page showing all the public wall posts, comments, photos (based on tags) and events that two friends have in common. This goes for any two profiles which have common things to share, not just friends you have in common. It’s all based on what people choose to share in their privacy settings, that they have in common.

In plain language, it’s like being able to ask Facebook to show me all the interactions between person X and Y which is not protected from me, with one click of a mouse, then getting the results in an organized online report, summarized where each result has a link to the full information instead of just thumbnail, first few sentences, etc.

Whoa!!! R U kidding me???

Remember the days when you had to work to be a creep? When you had to browse through all the wall posts, photos, events and such, filtering out all the stuff by people you’re not looking for, to find what you were looking for? That’s all said and gone now. You can just click on a link now and voilà! It’s all there for you, in more details than you could have ever hoped to find in the past, like events two friends RSVP’ed together! I bet the FBI, CIA, MI5, CSIS and other secret intelligence services could only wish they had such a convenient tool to track people! Well, take CSIS out of that list. I’m not sure they’re either secret or intelligent enough to qualify.

Can you imagine your significant other doing this to someone who interacted with you a bit “friendlier” than s/he would have liked? Can you imagine Parents doing this to their kids and one of their kids’ friends? Can you imagine that person you’re dating wanting to know more about another “friend”, or an “ex” via all your Facebook interactions with him/her since you could not tell all, even if you wanted to? You couldn’t hope to have a memory like these Friendship Pages!

Worse, the stalkers, Internet trolls or 5 types of Facebook trolls are just in heaven these days! That include those behind bars who have Internet access!

Even for normal people, this Facebook Friendship page can enhance the 10 Ways Facebook can ruin your relationship (Collegecrunch.org) by making the features that are the reasons all the more accessible and organized.

How do you access this Friendship Page feature?

The easiest way is to go to someone’s profile and look on their Wall for the See Friendship link next to the Comment and Like links on various Wall posts, and click on the link. I’m not sure why some Wall posts have the See Friendship link and some don’t, but it’s there for many posts. However, you can see Frienship Pages for people who are not your Facebook friend, which is the creepiest part of this feature to allow spying beyond just your friends, and vice-versa on you by people who are not your Facebook friend.

After you get to the Friendship Page, to the top right is a more convenient feature where you can type in two friends’ names, aided by Facebook’s drop down menu to guess which friend you’re talking about as you give it more letters in typing out the names. Facebook guesses with people you know, people you have common friends, who live in the area, etc. While this feature limits the people you can input to be just of your Facebook friends, finding the See Friendship link on people’s wall does not!

What can you see on these Friendship Pages?

More than what Facebook says you can! One feature more is the common friends those two friends have in common. Of course, everything that shows up, whether a wall post, comment, photo, event RSVP’ed together, etc. there is a link you can click on for more. The page you initially get is an Overview of what the page fully contains. You can then click on links to the upper left, below a photo (if the two have a photo together) or an icon of two heads, to filter out features like Wall posts, photos, comments, etc. Talk about helping creeps to be organized!!

What can you do to prevent being super-spied on with this Friendship Page feature?

Nothing that would prevent this feature from being enabled. All you can do is minimize its impact on you with these solutions.

Adjust all Facebook Privacy settings to “Only Friends”. If you do this, at least only your Facebook friends will be able to creep on you.
Purge your Facebook friends list. Ask yourself this… who would I want to be able to creep on me with the Friendship Page feature? Anyone you have a strong reaction against, throw them out or take Step 3. Purging your Facebook Friends list is good to do on a regular basis, anyway, to keep people who can view your profile in full to those who know and trust to some extent. The link I provided at the start of this bullet offers some assistance with questions you can ask yourself to determine who you might want to remove, and why it’s no big deal if you’re wrong to get them back. This was before this Friendship Page feature came out.
Customize Facebook Privacy settings to “Only Friends” and Block certain people. If you’re not cool with removing certain people from your Facebook friends list, even though you’re not comfortable with them creeping on you with the Friendship Page, block them in your Privacy setting for whatever you don’t want them to see. That could be pictures, Wall posts or comments. I don’t believe the RSVP feature works, though. It’s hard to check, but that would be the one I would be concerned the most because that person could see future events you RSVP to in common with another friend, and not just past ones. Can you say stalking assistance? I would recommend you make a list of people you keep as Facebook friends who you would not be comfortable with creeping on you, and just add them to your “block” list for each Facebook feature like photos, Wall posts, etc. I’d just sooner take them off my Facebook friends list if I were you, if I’m going through that much trouble.

If this Facebook feature changes to limit access, or you know other ways to counter it, please let me and others know by leaving a comment.

In the mean time, Facebook safely and try not to creep, even if it may be very intriguing. If you don’t like people doing it to you, don’t do it to others.

p.s. I find it interesting Facebook rolled out this creepy feature just before Hallowe’en. Unfortunately, it won’t go away just because Hallowe’en has gone away. Who the hell at Facebook let their engineer Wayne Kao add this to the site anyway???

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