1. The Passive Aggressive Call to Action

 ”I really hate it when you try to be a good friend and then people you  trust stab you in the back.”

If you have not yet graduated from middle school, I may let you off easy here – on  the other hand, if you are over the age of 14 please take the time to realize how  immature statuses such as these can appear. No one is going to look at this and  think that you are a good friend. (Image)

2. The Emotional Tirade

 ”I will never love anyone the way I loved you. Goodbye.”

You just broke up with your significant other, I assume, and this is a public  expression of your undying love and a big, disgusting “please take me back”. If you  attach sappy theme music to this, I hope your friends hack into your computer and  delete your sad rendition of “How Do I Live” by Celine Dion, or that somebody  reports you to Facebook. (Image)

3. The Song Lyrics

 ”Please, please, please let me get what I want this time…”

While it is a great song and every once in a while I see a cool song lyric update,  this is overdoing it. It is probably late and you’re drunk, sad, and alone – log out of  Facebook and go to bed. If you don’t, you will regret this in the morning, also  known as: Facebook hangover. (Image)

4. The Scary

 ”If any of you ladies are looking for a good man, inbox me!”

Just because Facebook gives you the option to be “looking for dating“, and makes  it really easy to stalk people, does not make it a dating site. There is also a sad  level of desperation that come with a status like this, so show yourself some  respect and have a little more dignity. What girl in her right mind would actually  respond to this? (Image)

5. The Rated-R

 ”My boobs look great in this dress! PARTY!”

While it may be the truth, no one needs to know. Any status that discusses body  parts or sexuality, please spare us all. You might as well have just stood in the  middle of a crowded room and yelled, “hey everyone, look at my boobs!” (Image)

Consider this a Public Service Announcement. All previous Facebook status discretions will be forgotten if you never do this again. If you have any completely ridiculous Facebook updates, please feel free to share so more people will know what not to do.

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I have been using the new Google + (G+) for the last two weeks or so and while I enjoy it, it still has not taken the place of my true social network, Facebook. Granted, G+ is still in the works and I have not fully taken advantage of all the features – I still have not fallen head over heels, nor do I think I will. When I first heard through the grapevine that there was a new social network on the block I was intrigued, and when I took the G+ tour, I really believed that Facebook may go the way of Myspace – but now that I have it and have the features, I’m kind of wondering what I need this for. For instance: whenever I hear something cool through G+, my first thought is to run and share it with Facebook, that can’t be right.

Facebook gives me everything I want and more, and it continues to surprise me with amazing innovation and new ways to stay connected. With G+ I have to wait for all of my friends to get on board with it – my friends are used to Facebook. Also, the status updates are awkward and have a few flaws, it just doesn’t seem worth it.

Another thing that is funny to me, is how similar G+ is to Facebook. They have all the same bells and whistles they just call it something different. The difference is that Facebook really does seem to have more to offer me when it comes to features and I’m already really comfortable with it.  I have put together a chart of some of the similarities I’ve noticed between Facebook and G+.

G+ is great, and definitely looks better format wise than Facebook, and I am not just going to delete G+ out of my life. I still have a circle of friends through G+ and I plan to check in every now and again -  but all in all, I have a real connection with Facebook, and that is the social network for me.

In a press conference this morning Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, was asked what he thought of the possibly revolutionary launching of Google+. Zuckerberg admitted that he had used it very little but that he believed it was part of the social networking evolution. However, Google+ is also his competition, it is offering Circles, which basically allows you to label your friends and groups and choose who sees what and which group you publish content to. It also offers Hangouts, which is the video group chat, Sparks, a feed that revolves around you and only videos, articles, and offers you would be interested in, and Huddle which allows you to text as a group. Since the two networks are so similar, but one comes with more features (so far), people will eventually make a choice. There will be resistance at first just as there was when Facebook blew Myspace out of the water, but as of right now, Google+ sounds like the next step and Facebook may not have the technology to catch up.

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Google+ began a beta release for the network last month, giving only a select few people access – this gave off the impression that the network was elite, leaving those who weren’t allowed dying to see what all the fuss was about. Another blow to Facebook’s ego was the group chat offered on Google+ that clearly overshadowed Facebook’s partnership with Skype, who was recently bought by Microsoft for $8.5 billion before they were aware of Google’s innovative software.

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The reason Google+ may not take over Facebook is because despite Google’s Vice President, Vic Gundotra’s belief that they are meeting the needs of the people and their desire to connect, they are really adding a bunch of bells and whistles to a system that was already meeting this need. Also many users may not be ready for the commitment that goes along with another social network.

If Zuckerberg does come out with something innovative or finds a way to at least make group chat available before Google+ is fully launched he may have a shot. However, Zuckerberg recently said they are not focusing on the number of users so much anymore but the features, this was a little unsettling. The fact that Facebook lost around 6 million users in May, may have provoked this comment, and since Google+ is ahead in the feature department it will make a come back even more difficult. The worst thing he could do is reformat the entire network like Myspace did when they saw that Facebook was taking them over – they ended up going beyond their site’s capacity and that helped in everyone’s decision to go full Facebook. Whether or not Facebook survives the war or falls as the social media empire, social networking is evolving right before our eyes and it should be a very interesting change.

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If you were born before 1994 you can probably remember a life without Facebook – what did we do all day? I did an experiment on myself last week to see how many times I actually check Facebook in a day. This was very difficult because I was conscious of it, but the desire to check your newsfeed or update your status does not lie. I became a little angry at myself when I reached close to 50 within the first 3 hours of my work day. That means I checked Facebook around 17 times in an hour and if I stayed on for one minute – I was on for just under an hour of the three hours. Of course my numbers are a bit higher because I work in social media, so Facebook really is a part of my job… but for the most part, I had the desire to see what was going on with my friends and to possibly update a status.

More than likely if there was no Facebook, I would have been more productive in that hour, found something else unproductive to do or been bored. Here’s the thing about this site, it is the epitome of entertainment. It offers: music, videos, funny images, disturbing images, all of your friends and enemies, and the chance to talk about yourself, and build whatever identity you want. It also is the new birthplace of drama and conflict.

It’s no secret that Facebook can make or break relationships,  however this is usually due to one’s own stupidity or sheer  jealousy, nonetheless, Facebook is a legal form of stalking, and  most of us are guilty of it. It’s just too easy. The blog,  AllFacebook published a post last year called The Utimate Guide To Facebook Breakups. It goes through the steps of how people conduct themselves on Facebook after a breakup – you are no longer friends, you need to start posting pics of yourself having fun with someone more attractive, and so on. Cyber Psychology and Behavior did a study in 2009 showing that certain information given on Facebook is given for a reason and there is a distinct connection with relationship status, religion, and status updates. It suggests that there is a psychological process to what people display and don’t display. When someone displays their religion they are seeking a mate who shares these same ideas, when someone displays that they are single, rather than opting to keep their relationship status private, they are looking for some connection through the network. They also looked at the differences in male and female profiles to see how each gender represented themselves. Males are less likely to mention their significant other on their profile page; a female’s page tends to revolve around her significant other. This explains why women tend to think it isn’t official until it’s on Facebook, and men simply do not understand this mentality.

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Facebook has allowed us to share our lives, beliefs, and problems with everyone we know and more. We create an identity online that may or may not be true but it is how we want to be seen. We also follow lives on Facebook, people we haven’t seen for years, we know everything about them and we keep saying “we need to get together”. A life without Facebook would never speak to this person or they would actually get together. I challenge everyone to make a list of people they keep up with on a regular basis solely through Facebook – would you ever speak to these people again if you did not have this outlet?

Without Facebook, people would actually have to have conversations with each other about interests, family, hobbies, what they did that day… instead they can just login to your life. A life without Facebook would be a life that actually takes effort to know anything about, and you would actually have to play tennis, not just put it as one of your activities/interests.

Facebook being in the news isn’t necessarily anything surprising.  Every time the social media giant rolls out a new product, feature, or statistic, the world’s news sites make sure you know about it within minutes.  But there have been two recent Facebook related news stories that are a little more intriguing than the usual report of a new design or functionality change.  These reports have more to do with Facebook’s success and future, or perhaps lack there of.

The first piece of news, released by Inside Facebook, was that Facebook’s use is declining in the United States and Canada.  In the month of May, Facebook lost nearly 6 million users in the United States alone.  The drop was significantly less in Canada, with Facebook seeing a user drop of around 1.5 million.  The cause for the user drop is unknown, but it’s more likely than not a mixture of things.  Summer months are typically a slower for social media sites as college students cram for finals and change into their summer routines.  It could also be that Facebook has finally hit its saturation point.  With a total of 150 million users in the United States, nearly half of the entire country’s population is now a Facebook user.  Could this be the end for Facebook’s growth?  Probably not, these numbers are only for two of Facebook’s many countries around the world.  While they are large, important countries that adopted the social network early on, Facebook is incredibly popular all around the world.  The social network’s overall growth is still increasing, with approximately 687 million active users every month.  These numbers could mean a lot of things for Facebook, but we won’t be able to tell exactly what until we see if the decline in the US and Canada continues or levels out.

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With Facebook approaching 700 million users, there are now reports that Facebook is preparing itself for an IPO that could easily top $100 billion.  Yes, you read that right, $100 BILLION.  This would make Facebook’s IPO one of the largest in history.  Much larger than LinkedIn’s recent IPO of $4.3 billion, and quadruple Google’s 2004 IPO of $23 billion.  CNBC reports that the first quarter of 2012 is the likely time for Facebook to go public.  This timing seems very possible, as Facebook will be mandated to report their quarterly financial statements beginning in April 2012.  This will be required of them due to a 1934 Securities and Exchange Act that requires companies with more than 500 investors to publicly release their financial information.  Facebook expects to have more than 500 investors sometime this year, so an IPO early next year would make sense.

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With a valuable future and decline of users, Facebook’s fate is hard to tell.  Some people believe Facebook will someday go the way of MySpace, while others think Facebook is different and will remain a constant part of our lives.  Only time will tell what truly happens, but these are definitely some interesting figures to think about.  Tell us what you think Facebook’s future looks like in the comments below.  Is a drop in users the beginning of the end, or just a bump in the road to a successful IPO?

RockMelt CEO Eric Vishria and CTO Tim Howes think that the web browsing experience is moving away from page navigation and toward social integration, consuming information, and searching. So, it’s on these three pillars that they’ve built their social browser. Those fortunate enough to get one of the limited beta copies of the Chromium-based RockMelt are getting used to something like this: A left rail for Facebook friends, right rail for sites, and top rail for searching. It’s nothing too mind boggling; instead, it should make it easier to do all the things we’re already accustomed to doing.

The friends rail gives you constant access to status updates, and the option to click to see their Facebook streams. RockMelt also serves as a chat client by integrating Facebook chat into the friends rail. A “share” button is ever-present to distribute any web page among your friends. The “bookmark” bar provides notification of new content added to your sites, and the option to click to see an RSS feed. And rather than using the search bar to go to Google, searches in the top rail are met with instant results pre-leaded into the browser for preview.

It’s clear right away that Vishria and Howes have recognized some major themes in how we use the web. But do these habits require a redesign of Internet browsing? We’ll find out shortly . . . Mark Zuckerberg recently disappointed many when he shut down the rumors of a Facebook phone. But hey, at least addicts will now have a dedicated browser.

So you’re ready to take the plunge into the world of Facebook pages.  Maybe you already have but are looking to be better? Here are some tips that you’re sure to glean something, no matter where you are on the scale:

1 – Make Your Logo Stand Out

Note that the image on the left of the main content area only has a standard width – most people don’t take advantage of how tall to make them.  Facebook lets you make 200×600 images, so take advantage of what everyone else who isn’t reading this post doesn’t know

2 – Create a Custom Landing Tab

Facebook pages have tabs.  By default, the first tab uses see is the wall tab.  You can easily make your Facebook page more engaging by making a custom tab.  Note this is for users that are not yet fans haven’t yet hit “I like this.”  Tamar has a great post on this in further detail.

3 – Get More Fans

If you know your way around Facebook, you probably know how to bring fans to your page.  It helps if you are already an established brand or if you’re showing up in Facebook / Bing search results.  If all else fails just put a quarter in Facebook’s meter and pay up for Facebook advertising.

4 – Keep Your Content Fresh

There are a number of apps that you can feed in content from elsewhere: Ping.fm, Hellotxt, Selective Tweets and Hootsuite all come to mind.  One in particular I’d recommend is RSS Graffiti, as it can parse an RSS feed and still give the fans people that like the page a preview image.  You should also mix in content you manually place on there as well as content from other sources.  Come on, you’re heard this already about Twitter.  The rules apply on Facebook as well.

5 – Get a Vanity URL for Your Page

Many of us remember the Facebook vanity url gold rush of last year, but what was rolled out a bit quieter was the Facebook fan page vanity names.  Simply go to the the Facebook username page and click on pages (note: you’ll need at least 25 fans).

6 – Expand Beyond Facebook

Your presence on Facebook should be known outside of Facebook too and the interactive Fan widget.  The Facebook widgets page offers a variety of widgets and fancy things that include most anything you’d be looking for, regardless of your ability level.   My favorite is the Facebook fan box which offers one-click access to your on-site website visitors to become fans of your Facebook presence.

7 – See What Others are Doing

Here are a couple of Facebook pages I enjoy:

Viperchill

Our friend Glen at Viperchill does a good job showing the user the interactive landing tab, effective logo, fan diversity and varying content and is using RSS Graffiti – keep up the good work, Glen!

SEO Dojo: Before

Our friends at the SEO Training Dojo have just started the process of fleshing out these tips.  We see here that the fan base is only underway and there is no custom landing tab.  The logo could be larger and content needs to be updated.

Update: SEO Dojo After:

The Dojo got a facelift

Bonus Tip: Utilize the Facebook Like Button

Be sure to now use the like button, so you too can be a cool kid

Seriously though, it basically turns any non-Facebook page into a Facebook page using the new Facebook Open graph.  More info here on the Facebook developer page.  There’s a handy code generator there, so no special programming skills are required.

What other tips and tricks do you recommend for Facebook Pages? Let me know in the comments.

Fan page country and language choice

While this may seem like not that big a deal, think of the possibilities.  Users targeting multiple countries and languages can now have multi-purpose brand pages that can reach all, rather than making smaller, localized one-off versions of the brand page.

It will be interesting to see what direction Facebook goes with this functionality – imagine what you could do if it was brought to a city/state/region/mile radius level.  Would this challenge the Facebook Ad network too much? We shall see.

Facebook Share allows a member to post a link/video/image to their wall that they find interesting or useful. Beyond spreading the content around to a broader audience, Facebook Share keeps track of the exact number of times a link has been “shared.” Depending upon the amount of friends that are active on Facebook that the sharer has, the more likely that your content is to be seen by a good amount of people.

Chris Hughes, writing for the Facebook blog, romanticizes the concept of sharing links with your friends. He mentions the ‘old-school’ methods of sending urls to those on your friends lists and even via e-mail… but only for the sake of sharing something really cool that your friend’s coworker just has to see. While it is nice to have an outlook on the digital age as being one of purely good, not-for-profit, motives, let’s be realistic here: The goal is to bring as much traffic as possible to whatever it is you have your hand in – and that’s a good thing.

Mark Kinsey, a Facebook product manager, reiterates in a more recent post that “the Share button enables you to take content from across the Web and share it with your friends on Facebook, where it can be re-shared over and over so the best and most interesting items get noticed by the people you care about.” But will the results really be so substantial for only moderately trafficked sites? Time, along with Analytics, will reveal the true number difference the Facebook Share widget makes; but from inquiring into the traffic as it stands now, most websites are not seeing a significant jump in numbers.

Website administrators and blog owners that wish to add Facebook Share can easily do so by heading to Facebook’s Share widget area. There you’ll be able to optimize the widget to best fit your site. Choose between a nice looking button widget, or just a link. If you choose the button option, there is also the ability to have a counter alongside it, which will display the most recent count of the amount of times that the link has been shared. What is great is that this widget is available to everyone for use, and will make your interface just that much more user-friendly.

So, is this the solution to reaching an unprecedented number of unique views? Likely not, but it will help get the message out there in a more organic fashion… which, ironically enough, is great for almost all social media marketers. Don’t forget to check out all of the other Facebook features and widgets that can help out your blog – or at least make your social life online just a little easier.

Ideally, your username will make it easier for friends and family to distinguish you from a crowd of other “John Smiths.” It will also likely affect the ranking of your Facebook profile in a search, which is especially important for companies that utilize Facebook Pages. The positive is you will now have yet another method to shape your online identity. Negatives include possible exposure of private information if you’re not careful with how you do so. There are services on the web that provide overall online reputation management, and if this is a concern of yours (as it well should be), do check it out.

Facebook is, however, taking measures to prevent online squatting and a sort of online identity theft. The measures include being able to choose only one username per account and page, plus a mandatory wait period for member profiles and pages that have been created after a certain date (May 31st for Facebook Pages and June 9th for Facebook profiles). Will this stop imposters and squatters from doing their misdeeds? Likely not, but at least it seems that Facebook is starting to care about their users’ needs, for now.

Already Facebook is starting to receive lots of inquiries into issues relating to the upcoming added feature. Apparently for every step forward in user interface development, they’re taking about ten steps backwards, mostly in dealing with all of the issues they either didn’t think about beforehand, or just don’t care enough to handle. For example:

The time when usernames will become available is likely one of the most ridiculous times they could have chosen. Forget that it goes against founder Mark Zuckerberg‘s religious laws, but it is also extremely inconvenient for real companies and their representitives to secure their name. The other two questions really show a great amount of inconsideration from Facebook towards their users. They’re not allowing for human error, on a user’s part or their’s.

Despite all of this, are you excited for this long-awaited feature? Check out Facebook’s username countdown page (try it in Pirate English for some fun).

P.S. Doesn’t this remind you of an older social network we all used to use during high school? …

If you’re using social media, or basically anything on the Internet these days, you are really kidding yourself if you think you have true privacy.  That said, Facebook’s latest change to their terms of service states that they own all of your data, even if you delete your account.

We’ve run into things like this before.  Google Chrome had a simlilarly suspicious TOS that was made more reasonable after a similar public outcry.

Question is: will Facebook listen? It isn’t the first time they have come under fire.  Beacon and the new facebook were both a communication faux pas.  Can you blame Facebook though? They need to make money.  Nobody is twisting your arm to be on Facebook in the first place.   I respect that CEO Mark Zuckerberg put out  a post to respond to the situation at hand.  Mind you it would have been nice to see before all the public outcry, though at least they are addressing the situation.

My take on the matter: we aren’t paying anything to use Facebook, so we should be careful what we put out there.  That doesn’t mean that Facebook should be able to do anything that they want with our data though.  Still, I won’t be deleting my account anytime soon, and I won’t be advising clients to drop it from their plans either.

Will these TOS changes make you act differently on Facebook?  Will you drop out? Have your say.

Related posts:

• Facebook Changes Terms Of Services; Owns Your Photos Forever, Even If You Cancel Your Account (takepart.com)
• Zuckerberg Responds to Concerns About Facebook’s Updated Terms of Service (insidefacebook.com)
• Facebook Responds to Concerns Over Terms of Service (mashable.com)
• Facebook is not your friend, take 2 (bigsexymedia.com)
• Facebook: Relax, we won’t sell your photos (news.cnet.com)

We use social networking sites to keep in touch with our friends, business groups, and family. You may be surprised to know that recruiters may leverage Facebook to find new employees for their companies. In the world of the glorious Internet there are so many social networking sites like Orkut, Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin, Friendster, Hi5 and many more. But here are some tips on how to find employees for your company through Facebook.

Creating Your Profile

First things first, you have to create your profile on Facebook and fill it up with things about yourself and your company. It’s also a good idea to update it frequently.

Creating a Business Page/Career Page

To get new employees, it would be helpful to make a business/career page. Be sure to include all the necessary details about your business and always keep your list of openings up and current sor potential employees can see. Click here to create your business pages on Facebook.

Joining a Network

Before you join a network on Facebook you have to think about where you want your employees to come from. I.e. If you want employees from London, it would be smart to join the London network. To join a network click on Account>>Network.

Searching Within a Network:

After you join networks, you have to think about which kind of people you want to find, like SEO, Web Designer, or Web Developer etc. If you want to find SEO in London then enter the keyword “SEO” in the search box; you’ll probably get results of the SEOs in the London area.

Friend Requests and Messaging

Now, it’s time to start adding people as your friend. After searching people from a specific area, you have to send them a friend request with a message. In messages you should mention why you want to add him as a friend, what your company is doing and job requirements, so he/she can understand.

Setting Up an Interview

After getting a reply from those people who are interested in your job, then you have to setup an interview for those candidates. Creating a list of those candidates may also be helpful until you decide on the end finalization of the candidate you chose.

These ways can help you use Facebook for recruiting employees. Big and small companies alike can find employees they need on Facebook.

Straight From the Recruiter’s Mouth

We also had the opportunity to ask a few recruiters to hear their experiences with using Facebook:

Heather Gardner, a Silicon Valley recruiter, comments:

“It’s one of the best forms of true web 2.0 communication you can have with your connections. I have found quite a few folks on Facebook that are NOT on LinkedIn or anywhere else online – Facebook’s user base is still larger than LinkedIn! Facebook offers me ways to be of value to the folks I connect with by offering links to useful information like web links, photo’s, video’s, etc. The IM feature is also a FAST form of communicating with those in my network – it’s far less sterile and web 1.0 – which I find LinkedIn to be.

Facebook is a good branding tool for me. I want to be the recruiter with a personality that builds relationships over time. As much as I want to get to know my “passive” candidates, I also want them to know me right back.. In the long run, people who I form relationships with are more apt to trust me therefore more readily pass candidate referrals, business referrals or approach me before embarking on a new career hunt. I want to be their long term career partner. The only way to achieve this is by offering my network value right back. Facebook definitely helps with that.

Facebook allows me to use third party applications such as the Twitter application. One Tweet that I posted on Twitter was feed into my Facebook profile. This resulted with a Facebook IM producing an order for a Admin Assistant at a large Silicon Valley employer.”

The following diary is not for any particular day. Its just a summary of how many of my days went during my first year at college. This diary chronicles the addiction I like many of my collegiate brothers and sisters live with everyday, FACEBOOK. Millions of college students live with this addiction day to day, I being one of them.

(Image credit: eureekaswindow)

8:00 am
I wake up hit snooze on my alarm. 15 minutes later I pull myself out of bed and stumble over to my desk, open my mac book and open safari. Skip the news, go straight to Facebook. Who knows? In the past 6 hours that I was asleep someone may have written on my wall, tagged a photo of me, requested my friendship, or something juicy may have happened to one of my friends (news feed will be sure to tell me).

8:45 am

I have bathed, dressed, maybe eaten (depends on if I have any more Nutrigrain bars). But I am back on Facebook before I head off to class. Just in case someone had an eventful morning, I need to know.

9:00 am

I have walked up the hill to my first class. I’m waiting outside my classroom with my iPod playing and computer on my lap. Still clicking through mine and other’s profiles trying to catch a glimpse of what new could be going on in their lives. By this time what my news feed is showing is stuff I’ve already seen at least 3 times new relationships, new photos, wall post, same ole’ stuff. I move on to other websites to fill my time for the next 5 minutes until class starts.

1:30 pm

I am out of class and heading to grab some food – by now you get the point.

I am a student living with Facebook addiction. I have admitted I have on a problem and I am on the first step to recovery. But do I want to recover? Facebook has become a value tool in socializing now for many young people. It will never come close to the personal aspect of a face to face talk or for those who are living far away from you a telephone call, but it has made it extremely easy to keep up with them without actually keeping up with them.

I can see how my friends are doing by their status update, if a friend is currently listed a “never been happier” I can assume things or going well. If their status is something along the lines of “… is two steps away from giving up” I may want to give them a call. It’s like knowing exactly what mood your friend is even when you’re not around them.

Facebook also lets you keep up with people who you normally wouldn’t keep up with. Those acquaintances whom if you saw them on the street you would say hi but then have nothing to talk about. With Facebook you will have at least a slight idea of what’s going on in their lives just because of what has been in your mini feed concerning said person.

The world of dating has also been infiltrated by Facebook. You know your friend “Chris” is interested in a girl in his economics class and they have been on a few dates. Well they are not an official couple until its “Facebook official.” Facebook official is something reserved for only the most serious relationships you don’t list yourself as in a relationship with someone on Facebook unless you plan on (or at least are going to try to be) exclusively with the other person. Because once you are linked on Facebook it definitely is serious.

The Facebook addiction is more of an informational addiction its just that Facebook provides that information in an easy way. It keeps things organized and easy to find out. Also the communication aspect of it (wall posts and Facebook chat) gives people the impression of actual communication almost in the sense of actual face to face contact, because you Facebook profile is basically your Internet self.

Coming from a police family, I have always had enormous respect for law enforcement and the job they do, and after having just seen the Facebook application for the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) in Great Britain, I am even more impressed.

This just goes to prove that Facebook CAN be useful. Take away all the pokes, games, fortune cookies and other time-wasting applications and you can actually come away with something useful in the end.

Despite living nowhere near Manchester (and despite being a fine upstanding citizen of the law), I decided to install the application to see what it contained. I was extremely curious to see how Facebook was being utilised to fight crime and maintain law and order. Was it just a publicity gimmick or does it have some real substance to it that other police forces can learn from?

There are four main parts to the application. Two are just direct links to the GMP website and the GMP YouTube page. It’s the other two parts that I found extremely interesting.

The first is a continually updating list of all the recent crimes reported in the Greater Manchester area. Facebook users can then comment if they think they have something to offer that can help the police to solve the case and there is also a direct link for each crime to the GMP website :

Which makes me wonder – is there someone in the GMP who sits there and constantly monitors Facebook for any leads that come in? If so, that must be quite a cushy job.

The second very interestng feature on the Facebook app is the ability to report a crime directly from Facebook to the GMP. It’s an interesting twist on being a police informant or a “snitch”. Instead of the Hollywood stereotype of meeting your police handler in a dark alleyway, you can now log onto Facebook in the comfort of your own apartment and report all of your tips online! Of course, it has a nice name – “Submit Intelligence” – which sounds a lot better than “Rat Out Your Friends And Get Knee-Capped For Your Troubles”. “Submit Intelligence” makes you feel as if you’re James Bond or Jason Bourne doing a great service for your country.

Do you know of any other police forces in the world who use Facebook for fighting crime? If not, why the hell is Greater Manchester Police the first and only police force doing this? This is a fantastic idea.

Repeated calls to the GMP Press Office to find out their Facebook success rate were not returned. I guess they are too busy playing Scrabulous.

Written by Mark O’Neill