Saturday, October 20, 2012
College admissions offices are scanning students' social media accounts.
- SCHOOLS
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Saturday, October 20, 2012
Could the posts on your teen's Facebook page hurt his or her chances to get into college? Possibly. According to a report on ABC World News , with annual admissions getting more and more competitive some schools have resorted to skimming social media pages to scope out potential students. "Most kids have no idea how important it is that their profile[s] online -- Twitter, Facebook, other social media spaces -- need to be appropriate for the admissions process," said Dean Skarlis, president of The College Advisor of New York, to ABC World News. "Most kids don't even realize what's appropriate and what's not because they're 16, 17 and their idea of what might be appropriate is very different than that of a college admissions person." The …
Monday, October 8, 2012
Is Facebook overstepping its boundaries by scanning private messages in order to "like" links on a user's account?
- BUSINESS
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Monday, October 8, 2012
Facebook reported last week it now has over a billion users. Is the company now overstepping its boundaries with its new tactics? According to a report on TechRadar.com, the organization has been shown to scan old posts and likes, sometimes of a private nature, in order to "Like" things on a user's behalf. Users have reported "proved" that its been occuring, with one even placing a video of the action on YouTube. The video has since been removed from the popular video-posting website. According to Gizmodo.com, employees proved that the likes do increase, but they say a Facebook spokesman said it is only to bump up an items likes, and that it won't per se show you, the user, liked it. "Although messaging will auto-increase a page or link's …
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Many users complain formerly private messages are now publicly visible. Facebook denies it. Are you seeing this problem?
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
The ubiquitous social networking service has changed the default email on the profiles of all its user accounts to facebook.com addresses.
In an apparent attempt to spur greater use of its messaging service, Facebook has changed the default email accounts of all its users to facebook.com email addresses, NPR and Forbes reported Monday. Facebook launched its email-compatible messaging service, which assigned all account holders new facebook.com email addresses, in November 2010. Though expected in some corners to establish Facebook as a major player in the free email market—employees reportedly referred to the new messaging system as "the GMail killer" when it was launched—the Wall Street Journal notes that providers such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft continue to dominate the space. What happens when external email comes to your Facebook.com account Email sent to your …
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
The social-networking site is apparently mulling over the idea.
Facebook is developing technology that would allow those under the age of 13 to access the site under parental supervision, a move that could help bring in a sea of new users for revenue but that could also increase privacy concerns, according to a report in Monday's Wall Street Journal. The technology being tested would allow children's accounts to be tied to their parents' accounts so that parents would decide whom their children could "friend." New kid-friendly features also could allow Facebook and its partners to bill parents for games and other entertainment accessed by their kids. Currently, Facebook bans those under the age of 13. But several studies show that many children use Facebook despite the ban, often with their parents' …
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Two financial advisers offer their perspective on the Facebook IPO.
You've likely already heard about the financial disaster that is the Facebook IPO, in different amounts depending on who you are. If you're a Wall Street savant, particularly one who purchased shares of the social networking behemoth, you've likely been banging your head against a desk as the price of the stock has slipped from $38 at opening Friday to $31 and change Wednesday afternoon. If you're just a regular, you've likely caught wind of the troubling developments: NASDAQ glitches mucking up sales, accusations of inside favoritism from lead underwriter Morgan Stanley, and most recently a bevy of lawsuits against both that company and Facebook. [Update: Make that a Senate panel investigation too.] Also, didn't, somewhere in the middle …
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Have unwanted items to sell but don't want to hold a yard sale? Montgomery County Sale or Swap Facebook Group to the rescue!
There are two new ways to sell your unwanted items without having to setup a yard sale in your front yard. Elisa Gossger began the Montgomery County Garage Sale or Swap and its counterpart Montgomery County Parent’s Garage Sale or Swap. The parent’s page is exclusively for kids, tweens and teens items, with current items listed including children clothing of all sizes, shoes, toy trains, a high chair and more. The Montgomery County Garage Sale or Swap page is perfect for household goods, gardening and lawn gear, adult clothing, and the like. Gossger told Patch, “I wanted to create a place you could easily upload your pictures, recommend the page to your friends and be able to browse items specifically in Montgomery County.” The sites can …
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Judge William Carpenter's ruling in a case stemming from an alleged 2010 assault puts the county's Court of Common Pleas in the middle of a national debate over the privacy of social media accounts.
A 2010 recreation league soccer game has placed a Montgomery County judge on the cutting edge of national privacy law. Common Pleas Court Judge William R. Carpenter ordered Matthew Urbanovich on February 27 to give his Facebook login credentials to Nicholas Gallagher so that Gallagher's attorneys could look for information that would bolster Gallagher's civil lawsuit against Urbanovich. Gallagher, who, according to court filings, lives in King of Prussia, is seeking damages from Urbanovich after a March 2010 soccer game in Wayne which Urbanovich allegedly punched Gallagher and broke his nose. Urbanovich, for whom court filings list an address in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia, was arrested by Upper Merion police for the assault …
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Posts from Facebook are showing up more and more often in divorce and custody proceedings in Family Court.
According to a story in The Legal Intelligencer, instances of Facebook posts being used as evidence in family court are becoming more and more common. The law journal talked to several lawyers about the phenomenon, including some right here in Montgomery County. "By and large, we haven't had a custody case where something Facebook-related doesn't come up," Jonathan Hoffman, an attorney specializing in family law at Weber Gallagher Simpson Stapleton Fires & Newby in Norristown, told The Legal Intelligencer. Christian Badali, another lawyer with Weber Gallagher relayed the incident of a husband who created a fake Facebook page for his wife complete with racey photos and fake posts and updates. The ruse was uncovered in court and the wife …
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
How much work have you done during the past three months to make your online presence POP?
In my inaugural marketing column here on Patch.com, I asked the business owners out there if you have crossed your "t"s and dotted your "i"s when it comes to making sure that your business has a reasonable opportunity to appear in your prospects' search results when they search on Google, Yahoo and other search engines. It's three months later and we're three months older ... have you done what you needed to get on your prospects radar? (If you're new to Patch ... welcome aboard! You can read the article to which I refer by clicking here.) If not, what are you waiting for? If you're stuck, click on the "Email The Author" link at the top of the page next to my name, and I will help you get unstuck! Let's take a quick look at the business …
Karla Yeager Loughead
10:28 am on Saturday, October 20, 2012
I don't know about colleges, but what was in Facebook and the internet was the difference between my son getting his job and another applicant not getting it. more ›