1. | Napping

Find beds or an outdoor daybed today!

2. | Inside 5 of America’s Largest Data Centers

Via: Wikibon

3. | History Lesson: The Story of Beer

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4. | Digital Marketing Report

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5. | How the World Uses Social Networking

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1. A Guide To UX Careers

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?

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When Facebook launched in February of 2004, it was not the first attempt at social networking. It did however, give social media a healthy pulse rather than a fleeting heartbeat that most referred to as a “trend.” It would appear that social media is alive and well and the outlook is good that it will see us into the future. Now that most of us have accepted this, another movement is trying to bust through the the trend barriers and take up residence in the land of the norm.

When social media meets gaming, or rather, meets a specific, interactive element of gaming – we call this virtual reality. When I was younger I always thought virtual reality was putting a boxy contraption over your head with a screen over your eyes and your physical movements controlled your movements within the virtual world. Turns out, now that the future is here, virtual reality is not physical at all, but rather, psychological and emotional. (Image Two Credit)

I recently heard about the game Second Life, well I had heard of it before but just figured it was The Sims online or something, I had no idea that for some people, it truly was a ‘second life’. The game is being used not only for social purposes but for business and even education. Jay Vasse, a recent graduate from Bradley University in Illinois and a writer for NowSourcing, actually had a class through Second Life. “I had to meet my partner in a virtual classroom, that was really just a beach shack,” says Vasse, “we would critique each other’s papers and we had to take snapshots of ourselves to prove we were really there.”

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After doing some research on the game I found that as a “resident” of Second Life, you can buy land, go shopping, go on dates, orb to other parts of town if you don’t feel like flying, and the areas are marked with a maturity rating: G (general), M (moderate), and A (adult). Now, let’s be honest, you are probably most interested in what falls under the adult rating – of course you are, this is the 21st century after all. It is pretty simple, it works just like it would in your “first life” except you don’t need a rating to know it’s a strip club. The general and moderate ratings are pretty much light fun, for instance: coffee shop would fall under G and dance club would fall under M. Another fascinating characteristic is that Second Life actually has it’s own currency, the Linden dollar (L$). You can buy L$ with your real money or you can start your own business and make a linden profit and go out and buy your avatar clothes, furniture, weapons, instruments, and anything else you can think of.

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So what would life as an avatar be like? Truly, meeting your boyfriend or girlfriend’s avatar before ever seeing their “first life” face, is that ok? Personally, I don’t think I have quite formed an opinion yet due to my state shock, but though I feel I would never want to meet someone that way, how is it different from Facebook? I have met a few friends through Facebook, and there are some whom I know only through Facebook. My job’s main form of communication is through Skype chat. So I don’t have an avatar chatting for me, and I am not going to meetings in a virtual conference room, but the virtual part is the only difference. The social interaction is pretty much the same.

According to Arnold Brown, writer for The Furturist, “Once humans begin to perceive virtual social interactions as actually having occurred, it will greatly impact individuals, relationships, communities, and society as a whole.” Brown believes that people may actually form an attachment to their avatar identity, and when one feels such a connection, brain research shows that our multisensory perception could cause even sexual interaction to be obtained through this form of media.

Many questions arise when new waves of technology threaten social interaction to the point of almost never making physical contact: Should there be restrictions on sites like these? Will people become bored with it before it becomes a serious issue? Is it a threat at all? Or is it simply a new way of meeting people and socializing? Virtual reality may be throwing the social networking generation off of it’s balance and into a whole new world of possibility and conflict.

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An SEO friend told me about an unfortunate situation that he was facing.  A close pal of his from a popular social networking site he frequented had recently passed away. The site in question, despite this unfortunate death, sent out reminders for the deaceased individual’s upcoming birthday… a birthday he’d never witness.

Which begs the question: should social networks be responsible for the initial or ongoing validity of their data?

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It’s one thing for social networks to ban spamming accounts, but it’s a whole other thing for a network to keep up with the recently deceased.

Facebook gives you the ability to update your name or put a maiden name, but that’s a user controlled update.  No social network I know of is pinging people to make sure they are still living.  Certainly, your friends and family can post memorials, but who’s to stop the deceased’s social networks? You wouldn’t want an imposter stealing their identity.

Now for the answer: create a tool that updates all social profiles for the deceased to either delete or make their accounts inactive.  This will be tricky, and lots of privacy rights will be at stake.  Still, as more and more of our lives are recorded online, we should be careful to protect the lives of those that have already passed away.

Do you think this is possible, or even a good idea? Let us know.

Related posts:

• The Battle for Your Social Status: Facebook Builds Network Around Your Activity (socialmediatoday.com)
• The Battle for Your Social Status: Facebook Builds Network Around Your Activity (briansolis.com)

Week two of the #10in10 experiment was a success. This week’s focus was Kevin Mason, who graciously drove all the way from Nashville, Tennessee!

Kevin runs a music marketing company by the name of Intensity Media.

It’s always fun to learn things about people that you just don’t get from a social networking profile. I soon learned that Kevin has already done a lifetime of experience in radio (and has the radio voice to prove it!), and I was quickly suggesting that he starts up a regular video blog, as I think people would find him interesting to listen to.

Having never heard Kevin’s voice before, I had figured a guy from Nashville would have a pretty heavy southern accent. Turned out that he had been from other points north and east, so that wasn’t the case! I’ve seen Kevin on Plurk and Twitter, but meeting him face-to-face showed me another dimension of who he was and what he was about. You can’t get a full view of a person from a few tweets and links.

Week 3 of 10 in 10 is up for grabs – if anyone is interested, please let me know!

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.

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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.