Facebook Wants More Data

Yikes, Facebook recently reached out to major banks including JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup Inc., and U.S. Bancorp to pitch “potential offerings it could host for bank customers on Facebook Messenger.” In exchange for potential features including fraud alerts and checking-account balance checks, Facebook is asking for some of its users’ most sensitive financial information, such as account balances and where they use debit and credit cards. Luckily some banks are reluctant, especially after the recent data breach by Facebook.

Not too long since the data breach by Facebook that found 87 million Facebook users around the world whose details were shared with Cambridge Analytica caused one of the largest data breaches. The majority of those whose information was shared, about 70 million, are in the US.

No wonder that Facebook lost millions of members during 2017 and estimates losses of more millions during 2018. Caveat Emptor!

Snooze Your Facebook Friends

After all that caffeine, maybe you need a snooze. Facebook has a feature that you can shut down a friend's posts for thirty days. They will not be notified. Great for someone who is inundating everyone with the latest adventure, vacation, election, new baby, new car, etc.

When you see a post in your feed from a friend, whom you want to snooze click or tap the three dots in the top right corner of the post. In the menu that opens, click or tap the option that says Snooze [Name] for 30 days. You can also snooze your friend's friends the same way. Think of it as temporary relief. Also, if you change your mind, you can unsnooze. I have not found the option in my feeds, but many say it works great.

You can do the same procedure if you decide to unfollow someone. Unfollowing a friend is permanent, until you go to their page and change it. Also, it does not notify them either way.

Facebook and Artificial Intelligence

Facebook is trying to use artificial intelligence to help prevent suicide. It recently introduced AI to be used a suicide-prevention feature to identify posts indicating suicidal or harmful thoughts. The AI scans posts and their associated comments, compares them to others that merited intervention, and, in some cases, passes them along to its community team for review."

Social Media Explained

Social media is now an essential part of doing business. That does not mean you need to be on every social media platform to get results. Ideally, with one or two focused networks, your message can reach your target audience in no time.
The question is which ones to use and how to maximize your visibility.

If you are clear about your social media goals, it will not be a challenge to determine which channels would work best for your business. Thing to keep in mind when you are deciding - Where are your customers? Before you think of creating your business profile on a site, you need to think: Are my customers here? There is much variation in the demographics of social networks and you need to find out where your customers are so you can reach them effectively.

According to a Pew survey in 2015:

• Facebook has wide, global usage, but fewer young people are staying active.
• Instagram is a favorite among teens and young adults.
• Twitter is home to many information junkies and tech savvy people.
• LinkedIn has higher income, educated professionals.
  
• Pinterest has a user base which is 80% female dominated, most of whom have a higher income background.
• Google+ is a network with a predominantly older male user base.
• Vine is also a youth oriented platform.
• YouTube has an equal number of men and women, but men are more active users with wider preferences.

Instagram — art, food, retail, lifestyle
Twitter — news, gossip, tech updates
LinkedIn — B2B, recruitment agencies
Pinterest — Retail, DIY, culinary skills, art
YouTube — Luxury products, DIY, Home improvement, music,
Google+ — SEO, IT

Opt Out

Many companies drop cookies on our computers and store information about sites we go to, things we 'like' on Facebook, and more. This site link below will check your computer and let you know which companies are looking at your info. It provides an option to opt out. The process just takes a few minutes. If you are like me and hate all the tracking and bombarding me with ads, this is worth the time. LINK

Facebook Ad Opt Out

You can adjust how ads are targeted to you based on your activity off of Facebook. Notice the words "off of Facebook" Yes, it tracks on thousands of web pages, not just your on Facebook activity.

If you do not want Facebook or other companies to collect or use information based on your activity on websites, devices, or apps off Facebook for the purpose of showing you ads, you can opt out from all participating companies through the Digital Advertising Alliance in the USA, the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada in Canada or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance in Europe. You can also opt out using your mobile device settings.

Internet Time

This is what happens every sixty seconds on the internet.
2,635,217 Google searches
204,709,030 emails sent
1,865 new mobile web users
51,763 app downloads
847 new websites created
200,743 people watching porn
$238,651 is spent on web shopping
$89,300 revenues from products sold on Amazon
778,520,485 Gb of global data transferred
1,875,734 new Facebook likes
159,745 new photos uploaded on Facebook
243,040 new tweets
104 hours of video uploaded on YouTube
2,780,653 YouTube video views
About a million Google searches happened while you were reading this tidbit.

Facebook Messenger

Now that Facebook has decided to separate the messenger service from Facebook it might be time to look at whether you want to use it. It only works for Facebook friends, so you still need another messenger service for non Facebook friends.

The new Messenger allows you to message ONLY your Facebook friends using a Wi-Fi connection or your data plan. It lets you include stickers in your messages and new messages will pop up on your screen while you are using other apps. The app lets you send picture and video messages like other mobile messaging services. Like Skype, now you can call your Facebook friends all over the world for free using your Wi-Fi connection. Of course Skype does not limit calls to only Facebook friends. Seems silly to add another messenger service that can only access some of your contacts. Caveat Emptor and absolutely do read the terms of service.

AstroTurf Facts

It was originally named “ChemGrass” before being used by the Houston Astros Major League Baseball team in the Astrodome.

Contrary to popular belief, AstroTurf was not first used or invented for the Houston Astros.  It was originally invented in 1964, two years before the Astros would use it, by Donald L. Elbert, James M. Faria, and Robert T. Wright, working for Monsanto Company.

In 1965, the Houston Astros attempted to use a special type of natural grass on the indoor field, but the semi-transparent ceiling panels did not let in enough sunlight and the grass died within a few months.  This resulted in the Astros organization having to paint the dirt field green, to make it appear more like a normal baseball field.

By the start of the 1966 season, the Astros decided to go with ChemGrass. Due to a limited supply, though, they were only able to get the infield covered for the first half of the season and the outfield was still painted green dirt.  Shortly after the All-Star break, the entire field was covered in ChemGrass and this artificial surface received national attention for the first time.

Soon after other sporting teams began using ChemGrass up for outdoor stadiums, particularly those in colder climates. The product was renamed AstroTurf by John A. Wortmann, an employee of Monsanto.  By 1987, AstroTurf had become so popular that Monsanto made it an independent subsidiary, named AstroTurf Industries, Inc.

AstroTurf eventually became unpopular in outdoor fields, despite the cost benefit, mostly due to the extra wear on player’s bodies. It was typically installed over cement and provided little cushioning compared to real grass and dirt. Currently, over 160 million square feet of AstroTurf is being used on sporting fields and for home use worldwide.

AstroTurf eventually lent its name to the political and business term 'AstroTurfing', where a business or political group will attempt to create an artificial 'movement' to sway public opinion about a topic by making people think 'regular' people are behind the movement.

The US government hired a software company in 2011 to develop special AstroTurfing software, partly by using Facebook, Twitter, and by social engineering that would help the government sway public opinion on various topics. Among other things, the software would scan for online articles written by people with opposing views to what the Administration wanted people to think. It would then create fake accounts and automatically post made up, discrediting information about the authors.

Top Ten Web Facts

There are 14.3 trillion web pages on the World Wide Web.

68.8% of all email traffic is spam. (back in 2008, 53.8 trillion spam emails were sent)

51% of all spam is about pharmaceuticals, the top category of all spam.

30.8% used Internet Explorer in 2012 (in 2008 it was 70%)

43% of the top 1 million websites are hosted in the U.S.

44.8 % of internet users live in Asia

11.4% of internet users live in North America

68.4% of smart phones use Android operating system (introduced Sept 2008) vs. iPhone (introduced June 2007) 19.4%

4 billion hours of video are watched on YouTube each month

In 2012, there were 2.7 billion likes on Facebook each day and 5 billion Google's +1 button  each day.

New Year Resolution

Here is a good resolution for the new year. Consider reviewing your will.

The Internet has complicated things for family and executors of wills. Many of us have multiple online accounts spread across the web and they should be dealt with if something unforeseen happens. If you have multiple online accounts, make sure your online friends are notified of your death and your accounts and email accounts are handled the way you want them to be handled. The best way to do that is to update your will and provide information about your multiple accounts and how you would like them dealt with.

There are many online services now that allow people to register an account, and safely store all their passwords, account information and more so that when they die, a copy of a death certificate to that company will allow all the information to be released to the next of kin or estate executor.

Facebook allows three methods. The first is easy, if you have the account name and password, you can log in and delete it. Second, you can have the account memorialized, meaning it will not change, but specific information will be removed. Third, you can have the account removed by sending a copy of the death certificate to Facebook and ask that it be deleted.

Most other online services offer the same types of options. Too many to get into here, but check the 'Help' files and you can find what you need. Let's hope none of us need to use this info for a long time.

Statistics

6 Million were using Facebook in 2005, now it has over a 1 billion users
67.2 million watched the last presidential debate and 111.3 million watched the Super Bowl in 2012
There are 500 million Twitter users

Talk Like a Pirate Day

The establishment of International Talk Like a Pirate Day took off in 2002 when Dave Barry mentioned us in his nationally syndicated newspaper column, and the date September 19th was based on someone’s ex-wife’s birthday. There is a Facebook page, Twitter account, and much more on the web. The official website provides lingo in English, German, Dutch, and more. LINK

Here are some origins of pirate words: A starboard is a steering paddle or rudder and in England, it was on the right side of the ship, hence starboard side.

The port side of a ship was originally called the larboard side, or loading side, but became verbally confusing, especially in bad weather or battles, so it was changed to port side.

Duffel is a sailor's personal belongings and the bag that carries them. It is named after the Flemish town of Duffel that produced the woolen cloth which the bags were made of.

Avast comes from the Dutch phrase 'houd vast' which meant 'hold fast' or 'stop'. Over time it became 'hou vast' and later 'avast'.

Poop deck originates from the French word for stern, la poupe. The poop deck is technically a stern deck, which in sailing ships was usually elevated as the roof of the stern cabin, also known as the 'poop cabin'. In sailing ships, an elevated position was ideal for both navigation and observation of the crew and sails.

Social Site Facts

Twitter has 901 million users, Twitter has 555 million users, Google+ has 170 million users, and Linkedin has 150 million users. The average user spends 405 minutes on Facebook, 89 minutes on Twitter, 3 minutes on Google+, and 21 minutes on Linkedin.

Every Day Billions

Here are billions of things that happen every day.
5 Billion times: the +1 Google button is served (as of October 2011).
4 Billion views: YouTube video views (as of Jan. 23, 2012)
3.6 Billion dollars: dollar increase of the U.S. national debt.
2.7 Billion likes: Facebook “likes” and comments (as of last quarter 2011).
1.7 Billion drinks: servings of Coca-Cola or branded Coke products.
1 Billion searches: Google searches (as of March 2011).
1 Billion buyers: Number of people who have not bought any of my books, but should.

Google+

Google(plus) is like the new Facebook. It has new and different features, like circles. Circles lets you segregate your friends, family, business associates, etc so that your postings can be sent to one or more groups, rather than everyone sees all. It reached 50 million subscribers in 88 days. Facebook took two years to reach that number. Also, since Google+ has been open to the public, it has been adding about two million new users a day.

Google and Facebook

Google will now begin adding Facebook comments that are public and your comments could end up in a Google search. One more reason to watch what you type on Facebook, especially when you type personal information or names. This stuff lasts forever on the web, so it pays to think ahead before you type.

Internet is Growing

If you ate a doughnut a second for the rest of your life you would not grow as fast as the internet. There was more data transmitted over the Internet in 2010 than the entire history of the Internet through 2009.

There are currently 4 billion connected devices around the world, Intel expects that number to increase to 15 billion by 2015 and 50 billion by 2020.

Wow -  48 hours of YouTube videos are uploaded each minute, 200 million tweets sent per day and 7.5 billion photos uploaded to Facebook each month. Also, think about the billions of spams sent each day and billions of emails.

It used to be that the internet added the equivalent of the entire Library of Congress every fifteen minutes and now it does so in less than half that time, and 24 hours a day. I like to think I am doing my share by adding these postings, just to keep the world from taking itself too seriously.

Facebook Address Book

If you use Facebook on your phone, it is likely that all of the addresses from your phone address book are now on Facebook. This would have happened sometime during the past few months when Facebook changed the software.

Luckily, there is a way to fix it.
1. Visit Facebook.com from a PC and log in

2. in the top-right corner of the screen, click on Account and then Edit Friends

3. In the menu on the left side of the screen, click on Contacts

4. Here, you will see your contacts in Address Book are listed along with their phone numbers

5. On the right side of the screen, click on the “this page” link

6. Follow the instructions on this page — you’ll have to disable contact-sync in Facebook’s mobile app if it’s enabled — Click the Remove button

Some people like phone numbers on Facebook, but I do not. If you don't care one way or another, but my name is on your list, at least please delete it. Thanks.

What You Look Like on Facebook

Many people innocently spend way too much time on Facebook and tell way too much about their personal lives. Now researchers have found a way to determine your personality by your Facebook friends and the things you like. It might be time to think about what you say electronically before your fingers hit the keyboard.

Researchers have created a website that combines the Facebook profiles of fans of companies and public figures with personality testing to create a sophisticated new marketing tool.

Barack Obama, Adam Sandler, and Family Guy all attract the same type of personality on Facebook, according to a newly-launched website, http://www.likeaudience.com , which has been designed by two researchers at the University of Cambridge.

Sarah Palin appeals to a rather different personality type. Her followers are likely to be more traditional in mindset, disciplined, dutiful, and older than the average Obama fan. Unsurprisingly, her typical Facebook followers are not hockey-mums, but men. Long before the internet or Facebook, my mother told me to be careful about the people I hung around with. How prescient she was.