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With the passing of popular 70’s starlet & Charlie’s Angel Farrah Fawcett, and sudden death of  Michael Jackson, it is interesting to read, watch and listen to reactions. Both of these popular icons lives were filled with incredible success and tragedy. Farrah’s publicized fight with cancer and MJ’s legal and personal problems marked the end of two incredible journeys. Both passed the same day. But, how will they be remembered?  Will Farrah be remembered for her famous haircut and poster or for her amazing fight with cancer?  Will MJ be remembered as a boy star then the King of Pop or for his troubling legal battles?

How do you want to be remembered?

A couple of years ago, I attended a funeral of a simple man. He worked in a grocery store all of his life. He started out as a bag boy and over his career he advanced into management of the location. It and of itself, that part of the story is not extraordinary. But here is the rest of the story. For his entire work life at the grocery story, this simple man was determined to help people, give everyone a pleasant smile, thank them for shopping and made all of the customers he encountered feel welcome. Over the years he developed real relationships with his customers, knew them by name and did everything he could do to give a great shopping experience at this local grocery store.  One day, after a long battle with cancer the man’s life ended. I had the opportunity to attend this man’s funeral. I was amazed to find that at the funeral for this simple man gathered over 1500 people to pay their respects. Not just family, friends and friends of family but hundreds of customers and people this man had helped, smiled and been kind to over the years.

The deaths of two famous people yesterday caused me to pause and remember this humble man’s funeral. No, he was not a movie star a pop star or a cultural phenomena. He was a good decent man who in his small world made a difference and effected people in a positive way. In allot of ways, this man was just as successful as the stars that passed yesterday.

It is interesting how we reflect at times like these on how others will remember us after we leave this life. The equation seems to be very simple. The quality of how you are remembered is the direct effect on what you do during your life and how you impact the people you deal with. If your impact is negative, sad as it seems, I believe you will be remembered that way. If your impact is positive, again I believe you will be remembered that way. Please take note I said nothing about the size and scope of your impact. You can be remembered just a fondly as the before mentioned man and have only a handful pay their respects.

So let’s all do something, if only for a little while…Let’s treat others as we would like to be treated. Go out of your way today to be helpful. Show courtesy to everyone you contact and give them a smile.

You never know, if you always do this till the day you pass you just might be remembered as someone who really made a difference.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend Everyone

As we celebrate our long weekend, let’s not forget our troops.

Ok I have to admit something. Yesterday, I almost fell for a hacker’s scam. Don’t get me wrong, I am at the front of the class when it comes to firewall protection and virus-spam-phishing-malware protection. But still, yesterday…I was so so close to getting bit.

Hackers launched an attack on Facebook yesterday and upon the 200 million users therein. The purpose of the attack was to gather passwords. Many speculated the hope of the hackers was identity theft and to solicit fake products to Facebook users.  Considering if Facebook was a country, its 200 million users would make it the 5th largest nation on the planet, I am not surprised the site’s users face these issues from time to time.

Below is a cropped screen shot of a message within my Facebook Inbox, the names and pics have been covered <so someone out there can breath a sigh of relief  >.  The message was sent to a large number of people and Heading was a simple “Hello.”  The message contained a request to check out an obscurely named website and upon clicking the link one was sent to what appeared to be the Facebook log-in page. Sadly it was not the log-in page but the phisher’s site and here is where passwords and information were gathered.  The attack looked like this in my Inbox;

As you can see, many commented on the thread as they attempted to reach the hack site. It appears that everyone in this thread clicked after Facebook cleaned up the mess.

Here is what Ryan McGeehan (of Facebook) had to say on the Facebook blog;

When the latest phishing incident surfaced on Wednesday, we quickly blocked the fake links from being shared on Facebook to stop their spread. We’ve been removing these links from Walls and Inboxes across the site and resetting passwords for any of the compromised accounts we detect. This foils the bad guys, because the login information they collect will no longer work.

Now here is my confession. I had a busy day but noticed several comments to a Facebook Inbox message being dropped into my email. Last night I looked at the message thread and considered clicking the link…but it was late and I did not. This morning, I became aware of the hack and realized how close I was to being a victim. So what does one do? This message was from a trusted source and the sending of links on social networks is very very common? Although not full proof, here are a few simple guidelines to help you stay safe;

• change your passwords often
• never open an email/message from someone you do not know
• always keep your virus-malware-phishing-spam software up-to-date
• turn your firewall on
• back up your data frequently
• update your operating system as asked
• and finally, when in doubt…check it out (ask the source if they sent the email)

My guess is that everyone reading this post knows what to do to protect themselves. You are probably doing what you need to do, I was and still…I almost clicked the link. I guess the one piece we cannot forget is awareness. We get busy, we are busy, we will be busy…and the result is a drop in awareness. That is what happened to me so please, try not to let it happen to you.

This video is so impactful and relative, I had to post it… Watch it and see for yourself, would love to hear your comments.

Help us pick the cover for the upcoming book “The Adventures of Man in the Can.” Helping us is easy, just send an email to “mb at bsmkl dot com” saying your choice of Cover 1 or Cover 2. Everyone who votes will be put into a hat and five names will be drawn and receive a signed copy of “The Adventures of Man in the Can.” Don’t wait, vote now!

Send your choice to “mb at bsmkl dot com” today!

The cover art for the book was done by the amazing David Murdoch. If you have a need for an original and amazing artist you can contact David at “davidmurdoch_art at yahoo dot com” Or go to his website at http://www.dmurdoch.deviantart.com/

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the year 1984 and the 60th anniversary of George Orwell’s epic dystopian novel “1984,” Vernon Coaker the U.K.’s Home Office security minister said the EU Data Retention Directive, under which ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) store communications data does not go far enough. Currently the rules require ISP’s to store data for 12 months. “Social-networking sites such as MySpace or Bebo are not covered by the directive. That is one reason why the government’s looking at what we should do about the Intercept Modernization Program, because there are certain aspects of communications which are not covered by the directive.” said Coaker, speaking at a meeting of the House of Commons Fourth Delegated Legislation Committee. For those that are wondering what is the Intercept Modernization Program, let me explain. The Interception Modernization Program  is a government proposal for legislation to use mass monitoring of traffic data as an anti-terrorism tool. Orwellian indeed…

Ok, so what’s the deal. According to Coaker this change is critical to track terrorist activity in the UK.

It makes one wonder if someone doing something that sinister would use a service like Facebook, MySpace or Bebo to do so? So let’s play what if?

What if…you have a family member currently living in the UK and they use Facebook to send you messages, chat with you and update you. Do you like the thought of someone reading that communication?

What if…you have a business associate that is traveling oversees and sends you a SMS from a text platform, let’s say the text contains confidential business information? How do you feel about that?

What if…someone you love is traveling overseas and chats with you over Facebook chat. Do you enjoy the thought of a government reviewing and saving the chat? Will that change how you behave?

In each case I would be a bit uncomfortable sharing any private, intimate or confidential information and would have some discomfort, but not allot sharing basic small talk.

At the end of the day, the real questions are these…Is this loss of privacy worth a safer world? And do you believe the world will be safer after the loss of privacy? Do you trust a government to keep your secrets a secret when you are not breaking any law?

For those of you that will argue, “why would you feel discomfort unless you have something to hide?” I say “get a life,” that is the same argument that propagated the persecution of people for centuries. I think that argument would fade the second someone starts going through your underwear drawer…

In Orwell’s 1984, we have a vivid picture of a government that has justified the infringement on freedom; one that  used speech codes to limit everyone’s ability to understand and used a powerful media to build unwarranted consensus. This fictional government used technology to nip opposition and the result of was humanity denied its freedom to think. No, I am not saying the sky is falling here and I do believe we need to take steps to keep society safe but when is enough, enough? I don’t have a clue what the answer is but whenever I start to feel uncomfortable and like our privacy may be going away I suspect we may be getting close.

Yesterday, The Nielsen Company released their “Topline U.S. Data Report for February 2009.”  The easy to read news release provides the Top 10 online Parent Companies and the Top 10 online Web Brands. To no surprise Google is the largest Parent Company (133,983,000 unique audience in February) and largest Web Brand (127,142,000 unique audience in February).  For those wondering what the difference is between the two categories Nielsen describes as follows;

• Parent Company: consolidation of multiple domains and URL’s owned by a single company or division
• Web Brand: consolidation of multiple domains and URL’s that has a consistent collection of branded content

The big winners for February, as far as audience is a line-up of “you could have guessed” companies and brands; Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.  So which company was fourth on the largest audience list? Apple? Facebook? eBay? Nope, AOL.  That’s right AOL.  The former king of the net and then fallen son was fourth in company audience and sixth in brand audience, still ahead of Facebook, FOX Interactive (MySpace) and Apple.

But the wins do not stop there for AOL. AOL was the stickiest place on the net with each person spending 3 hours 45 minutes on AOL in February.  More sticky than Yahoo (3 hours 27 minutes) and Facebook (2 hours 59 minutes).  It appears the AOL strategy to add more social and media features to their site. Features and applications such as Twitter apps and Lifestreaming seem to have AOL users staying on AOL longer than any other site user.

Surprised? I was.

So after a big win in the ratings today AOL announced a new CEO, Tim Armstrong; the Google veteran who help build Google into an online advertising behemouth.  So let’s take guess at the future of AOL.  Long user visits+better ad delivery=more revenue.  Could it be that simple?  I don’t know but it will be fun to watch.

A recent thread in a group I belong to was bemoaning the lack of interest in the association’s podcast. It appeared from the stats shared to show February to have the lowest number of downloads for the podcast since mid-2007. This got me thinking, does the economy have anything to do with the success or lack thereof in New Media?

Now let’s flip the coin and look at first hand experience for one of the podcasts I produce. The below chart represents one podcast, total monthly downloads (all episodes) from October 1, 2008 through the end of February 2009.

*source – Mevio Stats, MarkLinder

Now I have to be honest, I picked this particular podcast’s stats because they looked the best.  But results from all other productions, although not having a 99% increase in January over December, had substantial increases and were all up 35% or greater average per month over the same three month period.  This combined with the group thread caused me to consider a cause and effect for such dramatic differences in results.  Ok, there is no doubt the economy is in rough shape right now and the stock market is a great indicator of our current condition.

*Yahoo, 3/3/09

So back to our question, “Do Bad Times = More Downloads/Views?”  Going only on my first hand experience I would say “Yes.”  Going on the collective conversation of the group thread and the results of the association’s podcast I would have to say “No.”  So which is it?

The “Yeses” would argue that more people out of work means more people with more time on their hands thus more downloads.  The “Nos” would argue that tough economic times carries over to “free” New Media productions and that means less money for internet service and more people out doing what they have to do to find a job and listening to a podcast or viewing a videocast is way down on the overall priority list.  So which is right, the “Yes” or the “No?”

I say both.  Because at the end of the day, both are reasonable explanations (however hard to quantify) for seeing downloads go up or down.  Maybe the real question should be “why are some up and others down?”  It is almost impossible to say, without first hand knowledge and all the information, why some are up while others are down, but here is a quick checklist of basic questions you can ask yourself to help you gauge how well you are “executing”;

• Do your listeners/viewers/readers “trust” you? Have you earned their trust by building relationships?
• Is the quality of your productions going up, going down or staying the same.  Many would say if your are not always improving you are simply slowing dying.
• Is your podcast/videocast/blog easy to find in search engines?  Have you done the most basic Search Engine Optimization?
• Are you building a community of like minded people? Have you joined a community of those that have the interests of your podcast/videocast/blog?
• Do you ask for feedback? Especially from your listeners/viewers/readers? Does the thought of honest feedback scare you a bit?
• Is it easy to share your content? Can users share on Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc… quickly and easily?
• Are your comments turned on? If no, stop reading this and go turn them on pronto!
• Are you an active participant in a social network? Are you a part of the conversation? Do you participate or just listen?
• Have you approached someone who does similar work to get their insights and thoughts? Do you learn from your like minded community?
• Are you discouraged? Feel like giving up? Take a break, a vacation, socialize, get out of the forest and regroup…come back energized and ready to go!

If you went through the list and found yourself (if you are really being honest) saying you needed to do this better or that better then you are well on your way to building your audience to new levels or getting your audience back to the levels you experienced in the past.  You see, this post is not just for you, it is also for me as many items on the list are items I can do a much much better job at.  So no matter if your numbers are up or down, whether the economy is up or down it comes down to this; those that execute the basics day in and day out over time experience the greatest success.  Luck hits us all, but never lasts.  Execution wins everytime over time.

No sooner did we all get riled up about Facebook becoming big brother the grand master of the community steps out today and announces reversal of the new controversial Terms of Service back to the old.  In fact Mark Zuckerberg has gone one step farther and opened a new Facebook group called, Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. This will be a place for everyone to voice their thoughts on what should be included in new and improved Terms of Service.

Below is Mark’s blog post from earlier today explaining Facebook’s actions;

Update on Terms

by Mark Zuckerberg Today at 12:17am

A couple of weeks ago, we revised our terms of use hoping to clarify some parts for our users. Over the past couple of days, we received a lot of questions and comments about the changes and what they mean for people and their information. Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.

Many of us at Facebook spent most of today discussing how best to move forward. One approach would have been to quickly amend the new terms with new language to clarify our positions further. Another approach was simply to revert to our old terms while we begin working on our next version. As we thought through this, we reached out to respected organizations to get their input.

Going forward, we’ve decided to take a new approach towards developing our terms. We concluded that returning to our previous terms was the right thing for now. As I said yesterday, we think that a lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective so we don’t plan to leave it there for long.

More than 175 million people use Facebook. If it were a country, it would be the sixth most populated country in the world. Our terms aren’t just a document that protect our rights; it’s the governing document for how the service is used by everyone across the world. Given its importance, we need to make sure the terms reflect the principles and values of the people using the service.

Our next version will be a substantial revision from where we are now. It will reflect the principles I described yesterday around how people share and control their information, and it will be written clearly in language everyone can understand. Since this will be the governing document that we’ll all live by, Facebook users will have a lot of input in crafting these terms.

You have my commitment that we’ll do all of these things, but in order to do them right it will take a little bit of time. We expect to complete this in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we’ve changed the terms back to what existed before the February 4th change, which was what most people asked us for and was the recommendation of the outside experts we consulted.

If you’d like to get involved in crafting our new terms, you can start posting your questions, comments and requests in the group we’ve created—Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. I’m looking forward to reading your input.

OK, with the blogosphere going totally nuts about the new Facebook Terms of Service, I thought I would chime in.  First of all, let me catch everyone up.  Recently Facebook updated their Terms of Service (TOS) and here is the part of the new terms that is causing the rift;

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

So, what does all this mean.  The common interpretation is that Facebook owns whatever you post on their site.  Another wrinkle is they own it even after you leave Facebook.

This change in terms has cause numerous groups to be created with the purpose of demanding change, deleting accounts and more (please note to access the previous links you will need to log into Facebook and by doing so you will need to agree to their Terms of Service .)  That combined with the numerous blogs (including this one) talking about the subject has lead to an explosion of information and misinformation.

So what does the fearless leader of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg have to say about all this?  Yesterday he posted a lengthy blog post on the Facebook blog.  In order to be fair, I have included without edit, in it’s entirety, Mark’s blog post below;

On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information

by Mark Zuckerberg Yesterday at 4:09pm (2/16/09)

A couple of weeks ago, we updated our terms of use to clarify a few points for our users. A number of people have raised questions about our changes, so I’d like to address those here. I’ll also take the opportunity to explain how we think about people’s information.

Our philosophy is that people own their information and control who they share it with. When a person shares information on Facebook, they first need to grant Facebook a license to use that information so that we can show it to the other people they’ve asked us to share it with. Without this license, we couldn’t help people share that information.

One of the questions about our new terms of use is whether Facebook can use this information forever. When a person shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of that information are created—one in the person’s sent messages box and the other in their friend’s inbox. Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message. We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear.

In reality, we wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want. The trust you place in us as a safe place to share information is the most important part of what makes Facebook work. Our goal is to build great products and to communicate clearly to help people share more information in this trusted environment.

We still have work to do to communicate more clearly about these issues, and our terms are one example of this. Our philosophy that people own their information and control who they share it with has remained constant. A lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective of the rights we need to provide this service to you. Over time we will continue to clarify our positions and make the terms simpler.

Still, the interesting thing about this change in our terms is that it highlights the importance of these issues and their complexity. People want full ownership and control of their information so they can turn off access to it at any time. At the same time, people also want to be able to bring the information others have shared with them—like email addresses, phone numbers, photos and so on—to other services and grant those services access to those people’s information. These two positions are at odds with each other. There is no system today that enables me to share my email address with you and then simultaneously lets me control who you share it with and also lets you control what services you share it with.

We’re at an interesting point in the development of the open online world where these issues are being worked out. It’s difficult terrain to navigate and we’re going to make some missteps, but as the leading service for sharing information we take these issues and our responsibility to help resolve them very seriously. This is a big focus for us this year, and I’ll post some more thoughts on openness and these other issues soon.

So there you have it.  The founder of Facebook says they need to own the material to share it properly and they need to own it forever, just in case there is a copy of it in an email or elsewhere on Facebook.  Ok so, the question is…do you buy it?

Every web site has its own Terms of Service and quite frankly, some you are probably using today are much more onerous than Facebook’s.  It’s just that Facebook is sooo big and sooo popular that it receives huge notoriety for each movement it makes.  But does that reasoning give Facebook a pass?  I don’t think so.  As one of the nets largest communities they have a responsibility to keep our information safe and secure, they never should take advantage of us and use caution as they exploit us (yes, exploit us…data mining at Facebook is huge biz in the ad world.)

I produce allot of new media; podcasts, videos, cartoons, audio books, etc… and allot of links to that new media are on Facebook.  Quite frankly, some of that may come down over time or not go up in the first place.  I will have to look at each thing I do and the purpose and decide what is best.  What is at issue is the fact that I have to do that.  I guess on some level I am offended that I need to think through the long term ramifications of placing the media on Facebook, yet at the same time, I understand the legal need for Terms of Service.  Can I have my cake and eat it too?  Is that even possible?

I guess the option of deleting an account is always there but to do so, you need to log into Facebook and by doing so you are agreeing to the Terms of Service and the terms do say that by agreeing to these terms you are granting a perpetual license to Facebook to use your materials…hmmm.  People used to say “do you have a MySpace?” and now the popular term is “do you have a Facebook?”, I wonder what the next catch phrase will be?  Somehow I am guessing it gets here soon.  Maybe it will be “do you still have a Facebook?”