With Facebook, get scene, seen and heard | Bangkok Post: tech

GOBBLEDEGOOK

Lots of people still have MySpace pages. But what the heck are they? Well, they are the vanguard of the "social media" movement. A MySpace page is basically a page where you put out all sorts of personal information about yourself and then you invite your friends to come have a look, and, if they like what they see, to do the same. You can post photos, videos, embedded YouTube videos, and so on.

The greatest social media site of them all—but be careful what you share, and with whom.

It was a good idea and a lot of people got into the game, including Facebook, which has emerged as probably the biggest player in this market.

Facebook does all the above and much more, and, in my opinion, does it better than the others. You're free to post your "status" - a sort of "What I'm doing right now" type of message, or a quote, or whatever take your fancy, which all of your Facebook friends will see.

You can post a picture, and also make photo albums and post lots of pictures to the same place. It's fun to post your own pictures, and be able to look at the pictures of other people, too.

Facebook does so much more than can be said in this small article. It has a bunch of applications such as Farmville, which is a game, or applications that are tests or quizzes, or an application that posts your astrology forecast each day.

You can also join Facebook groups, or become a fan of celebrities and certain causes.

In one sense, the idea is to share all your personal information with those you care about. If they do the same, then it's like a giant lovefest.

But I see trends in Facebook that are interesting and deserve discussing.

Regionalism is one trend that has become most obvious. Facebook is worldwide and there are a gazillion users. With regionalism, smaller versions or variations of the Facebook model make it possible for groups of people in a specified area to connect, which gives it a homier feel (and in many countries, the language can be local, rather than English).

One such site is Living Thai (http://www.livingthai.com), a social networking site for the Kingdom. As of right now, it has 2,368 members and continues to grow. With Facebook making noises that it might start charging its users a monthly fee, it would only make sense for a lot of people to defect from Facebook and move to regional sites like Living Thai. And, as I noted before, having an interface and menu system in your own language can be a huge advantage for certain markets.

Another trend in Facebook - indeed in all these Facebook-like sites - is concerns over privacy. As has been reported in these pages and many others, potential employers often do a Google search on potential employees as well as look up their Facebook pages. All those things that you have posted and said - it's all out there, for all the world to see.

If you think it's funny to post a message on your Facebook page or a blog about how you "got wasted" at work and the boss didn't even know... well, you do the math and calculate your chances of getting a new job.

Privacy is a huge concern. How much do you want people to know about yourself and your activities? How comfortable are you telling complete strangers where you live and what your phone number is? How comfortable are you posting pictures of your children for all the world to see?

Kidnapping, after all, is rampant in places like South America. And not to be sexist, but young women might want to think twice about what they say publicly about themselves and the information they give out - and we won't even get into the subject of kids setting up Facebook pages and the potential dangers that could befall them.

Facebook has been trying to deal with these security measures by giving you greater control over the information you share with others, and if you haven't bothered to look at your security settings, you had better get off your duff and do so. Myself, I've restricted virtually anything I post to "Friends only", which means that you can only see my photos albums and whatnot if I accept you as a Facebook friend.

Last time we talked about Twitter, also a big player in the social media field. Between the two of them, Facebook and Twitter are sending out into the world a lot of information about you - including very personal information like your address.

What's emerging is even greater. Now you can immediately send your blog entries to your Facebook account, as well as your Tweets. News stories now have a bunch of buttons attached to them so that you can tell the world that you "Digg" it, or you want to email it to someone, or you want to leave a comment about it, or you want to get in touch directly with the writer. There are lots of buttons. You can Tweet about the story immediately and a link to the story will be sent out by Twitter as soon as you hit the Enter key. There's the "like" button by which you can tell, by a show of hands, as it were, what other readers thought of the article you just read - or of what you just posted on your blog, for that matter.

But we'll talk about this more next time.