Waze Is Going To Be Absorbed By Facebook?

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Vinh Nguyen

facebook (Photo credit: sitmonkeysupreme)

If you have an iPhone and I say Waze, you probably know which app that I speak of. I’ve been using Waze for some time already, and it is probably the only free navigation app that I prefer most on iPhone. Waze has many great navigation features and one of them is very controversial. It would be Waze allows users to notify each other of police presence in specific areas. So, Waze is a really great free navigation app for iPhone, and the rumor has that it will be bought out by Facebook. I don’t usually like to write an article based on a rumor, but I have to go on ahead and write about this since Facebook is involved, rumor or not.

We know Facebook has already had a ton of information on its users. Only cave dwellers won’t know Facebook and Facebook won’t know cave dwellers. No offense, but it’s just a figure of speech to magnify Facebook presence on the Internet social scene. Sure, Facebook’s stock does poorly in the market and probably will continue to do so for some time to come unless Facebook can figure out how to build a business model that actually does speak some confidence into investors. As now Facebook stock is at $19.31, way below its IPO price of near $40. In reality, Facebook stock and Facebook are two different concerns altogether. Facebook itself, not the stock, is a giant machine that hold lot and lot of personal data.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Obviously, just like any other web services, Facebook might have lot of fake accounts and spam data to be dealt with. Nonetheless, we cannot disregard the position that Facebook is in. Unlike Google and somewhat similar to Google, Facebook has a way of knowing people’s secrets. The truth is just like how people ask the search engine secrets that even their closest friends and family members won’t necessary know about, some people out of so many people on Facebook do save secrets that would boggle your mind. When I speak of some people on Facebook, some are real people, and some are just machines that pretend to be real people known as bots. Nonetheless, Facebook is a giant machine that harbors around 900 million active accounts. Some of 900 million active accounts do speak tremendous volume. To put it plainly, Facebook is an elephant that carries tons of ants on its body. OK, I lie, this isn’t plain at all.

Since Facebook is like a databank machine, with smart algorithms, that holds valuable, personal data of so many active Internet users, the rumor of Waze acquisition by Facebook might be rather unsettling for some people. Perhaps, some people might just have enough of Facebook being so pervasive in their personal lives, because Facebook will not only know about their secrets but will also know about their bad sense of direction. Hint, Waze is a navigation app after all. And this paragraph is meant to be sarcastic. Anyhow, it’s just so interesting to me to hear a rumor that Facebook wants to acquire Waze. I think Waze has a lot potential as a navigation app, but I fear Waze won’t be Waze if Facebook acquires it. Then again, perhaps my fear is just all smoke and mirror, because Facebook might just add a lot of social features to Waze and leave Waze to be Waze.

In conclusion, the moral of story is there isn’t one. What on earth I’m writing about… Anyhow, I think Waze is awesome and Facebook too. Nonetheless, if you use Waze the wrong way while driving, you will get no where that you need to be. If you use Facebook the wrong way, your secrets will be unveiled to the world. The combination of the two is making my head hurt. Anyway, so far this is only a rumor, and we might know more in the days ahead.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/08/28/facebook-to-buy-waze/

Traffic and navigation app Waze drives past 20 million users (venturebeat.com)
Facebook Looking at Navigation App Waze [Report] (webpronews.com)
Waze for a Free GPS (expresswirelessct.wordpress.com)
Traffic App Waze Doubles From 10 To 20 Million Users In 6 Months (businessinsider.com)
Pulkam Makes Use of Waze App to Help Indonesians Return Home (techinasia.com)
Waze Doubles Its User Base To 20 Million In 6 Months (techcrunch.com)
Mobile Navigation App Waze Updates With Real-Time Fuel Prices [Updates] (makeuseof.com)
How Waze Can Beat Apple and Google at Realtime Maps (pandodaily.com)
Waze to Drive Its Social GPS Software Into Cars This Year – Bloomberg (blog) (go.bloomberg.com)
Supply Chain Innovators (update): Waze Surpasses 20 Million Users (supplychainventures.typepad.com)

Smart Whatever Of The Day — You Can Be Honest On A Blog!

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Vinh Nguyen

You can be a smart-whatever on Twitter, a faceless friend who makes many people feel awesome on Facebook, and an honest person on one’s own blog. Of course, this is my biased, opinionated opinion on all current social trends, and so you should keep yours. Furthermore, don’t forget to look beyond these words as there is a flip side to everything.

10 Tips to Improve Your Business’ Social Media Presence (grasshopper.com)
Facebook And Yahoo Just Declared War On Twitter (FB, YHOO) (businessinsider.com)
RuneScape Combat Update: Playerbase Paradox (doghouseblog.wordpress.com)
The Facebook App Center: An Overview Of The Cool Features You Can Use (makeuseof.com)
Everything You Need to Run a Successful Social Media Contest (hubspot.com)
See what I’m reading on my Twitter and Facebook Page (mikealbano.org)
Blog Post: How to connect EpicMix to your social accounts online (buzz.snow.com)

Can Social Network Aid Hackers? Can Social Network Also Work Against Hackers?

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Vinh Nguyen

Social Network – Copertina (Photo credit: marcomassarotto)

Whether social network phenomenon will stay or fade away in the next ten years, nobody knows, but we do know that social network phenomenon will allow hackers to get to know their victims way easier and better than before. If one is not too careful about keeping secrets off of a social network, then such secrets have to be revealed, right? It does make sense! Especially, the web (e.g., social network, blog) is never a good place to keep secrets away from the world. Even worse, I don’t think hackers need to know your secrets to be able to hack you and more, because sometimes they can analyze your other freely available social network information and might come up with a hacking strategy that might just work against you beautifully. Sometimes, the victims aid the hackers tremendously by making unbelievable weak passwords, and such passwords might be the names of their dogs or cats or whatever that the hackers can peruse through a social network profile. In a sense, it’s a no brainer for hackers to check out social network profiles of their targets for easy luck, because it might be one of the quickest ways to figure out somebody really quick. What worse is that if a social network user is too careless about keeping confidential information of their workplace off of a social network, one might expect hackers will love that. In my opinion, it is easy to expect that some people out there will be too careless and reveal something that they should not reveal about a company that they work for while using a social network. This might be why some big corporations prefer their employees not to be too entrenched within a social network. After all, a social network can be a place where hackers can conduct their social engineering skill. Even the hackers themselves might be fooled by others in a social network, because social engineering does work beautifully against just about anybody who is not too careful. For an example, a lonely hacker might give away their important information such as real name easily to someone who has a sexy picture on his or her social network profile. In sum, I think social network web services have been and will always be teeming with hackers and victims.

Facebook buys retro sign from a true Hacker (mercurynews.com)
Can Somebody Form A Company Through Social Networking Only? (essayboard.com)
Five Easy Steps Detailing What You Must Do If Your FB Account Is Compromised (pharopromotions.wordpress.com)
why bother with new networks – social networks built on social networks? (ceoworld.biz)
The Social Networking Rub (socialmediaexplorer.com)
Facebook’s Hacker Square gets sign from man called ‘Hack’ (mercurynews.com)
Hacker Mitnick may sue AT&T over data breach (news.cnet.com)
Hackers have new resorted to new tactics to get victims (theinformativereport.com)
Is It OK For Social Network Users To Be Forced Into Revealing Their Private Profiles? (essayboard.com)
My NEW 24 letters password (sukalp.wordpress.com)
How to Change a Hotmail Password (tech-faq.com)
Hoax: IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR ALL !!!!!!!!!!!! Watch out for your wall! (zdnet.com)
Facebook hacker comes clean – Computerworld (247infotech.wordpress.com)
Keep Hackers Away (socialwebanalyst.com)
How To Avoid Getting Hacked on Twitter (techburgh.com)
Are you guilty of using ridiculously bad passwords? (bpwebnews.com)
The Dangers of Asking for Social Network Passwords (circleid.com)
SNOPA is a piece of legislation we can all get behind (technologytell.com)
The Rise Of The Visual Social Networks (viralblog.com)
Celebrities You Should Like on Facebook (popsugar.com)
Consumer Reports Roundtable: Who’s To Blame For Rising Privacy Problems on Social Networks? (socialtimes.com)
Which social networks should I use? (fanfaresocialmedia.wordpress.com)
Are we selling our souls to social networks? (newscientist.com)
Pros and Cons of Social Networking for Designers (skyje.com)
Best Practices for Social Networks: Don’t Recycle, Reboot (v3im.com)

Can Somebody Form A Company Through Social Networking Only?

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Vinh Nguyen

Social Network - Copertina (Photo credit: marcomassarotto)

I have a fresh idea or perhaps an idea for an out of this world startup company, but even I think this idea might be too crazy to conceive and explore in the real world. Let me pose this idea in a form of a question OK? Since today world is so connected through the Internet, people profess their love for everything digital, is it possible to form a true company/business through social networking only? That is, people do not need to live in one city, meet up for face to face interview, fill out applications through offline medium, get pay through offline payment systems, form meeting/conference within the same office, have face to face communication, exchange ideas through offline tools and face to face meetings, and so on. I think you get the gist! The thing is, had any real company/business started their business from the ground up through social networking only? The thing is, can this form of practice of starting up a business through social networking only be practical and effective? This whole process of forming a business through social networking only might be a bad idea too since there might be zero to very little real human contact (as in physically meeting up) between the employees and employers. Nonetheless, this idea is intriguing to me since I don’t think there is a company out there that was formed from the ground up through social networking only — and keep it that way. Can you imagine what if Google was started out this way? Of course, we know Google had started out just like any traditional business… What do you think about this very idea?

Don’t Tell Mom the Social Network is Dead (bostinno.com)
Moms use Social Networking Sites more than other Women (buzzom.com)
Klout and Why the Design of Social Networking Matters : The New Yorker (policyabcs.wordpress.com)
Social Networking Groups: Geared Towards Business Efficiency (reubenshome.wordpress.com)
Facebook is the Hottest Social Network (reubenshome.wordpress.com)
Move Over Mobile Gaming, There’s A New App Sheriff In Town And Its Name Is Social Networking (cultofmac.com)
Social Networks: Are They Eroding Our Social Lives? [STUDY] (mashable.com)
Ovation: SNOPA – The Social Networking Online Protection Act. (diatribesandovations.com)
Which Social Network Should Your Brand Use? {INFOGRAPHIC} (edelman.com.au)
Social Networking And Gaming Mobile Apps Are Now Neck-And-Neck For Time Spent On Android, iOS (techcrunch.com)

Is It OK For Social Network Users To Be Forced Into Revealing Their Private Profiles?

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Vinh Nguyen

facebook (Photo credit: sitmonkeysupreme)

Social networks such as FaceBook allow people to make their profiles private so they can have a place online where they hold their private thoughts, pictures, and what not. Obviously, the whole idea of private profiles is to allow social network users to share such private information with people who have close or intimate relationships with the profile owners. Unfortunately, some employers, teachers, and other people who are in authoritative positions are increasingly demanding to have access to private profiles of the people that they’re in charge of. Is this even legal? So, here is the question, is it OK for social network users to be forced into revealing their private profiles?

This is one tough question to answer in my opinion. I think I should say, this is one tough problem to solve! On one hand, I do not like the idea of sharing private information in my private profiles to anyone besides the few people who have really close relationships with me in real life. On the other hand, I understand that employers, teachers, and the likes might want to prevent embarrass situations before such situations take place (i.e., they want to make sure the people they deal with do not post obscene materials online).

Perhaps, we can solve this sticky situation by taking the middle road approach. It goes like this! It’s unethical, and might be illegal for the people who are in charge to force someone into revealing the information within a private profile, but the same people can take appropriate actions against the people that they are in charge of if the private profiles of these people leak obscene materials to the mass. So, the idea is not to take action until indecency materializes!

Obviously, the people who are in positions of demanding access to private profiles of social network users might not like this middle road approach much. They probably hate the idea of not knowing ahead or waiting for a time bomb to explode on their hand, but it’s unethical of them to force someone into revealing the private information — whether such private information store inside social networks’ private profiles or in a bank’s safety-deposit box.

With or without this middle road approach, social network users need to safeguard their private profiles carefully. After all, if their private profiles get hack, their real life can get really messy. This is why I think it’s always best to keep what really private private! By this I mean you should not post anything that is so private onto the web!

Source: http://www.dailytech.com/Michigan+Teachers+Aide+Suspended+for+Refusing+Employers+Request+for+Facebook+Access+/article24365.htm