Connected Well

Tamar Weinberg writes a detailed and extensive blog post over at Techipedia titled: “Quantum Entanglements: The Social Media Scandals” where she discusses a recent scandalous social meltdown.

What can you say about a beautiful girl who died?

I can tell you that when I read this news, I cried off and on the rest of the day. I can also tell you that Kaycee Nicole did not, technically, exist. She was created and portrayed entirely by her “mother”, Debbie Swenson, a middle-aged Midwestern housewife with some serious issues. For nearly two years, thousands followed and supported this fictional construct as she fought a deadly disease, an astonishing run when you consider the challenges involved.

Social media, by definition, pulls at you and draws you in. You *want* to trust, you want to believe, you want to participate… and when someone needs something that you might have (money), you want to give.

The old rule still applies to Social Networks, as well as the Internet at-large… and ANY PUBLIC COMMUNITY (even your neighborhood): “Trust… but verify!”

Be safe out there.

Rahhb Social Networking chipin, Kaycee Nicole, phishing, plurk, problems, scandal, social network, Social Networking, socialnetworks, theft, twitter

I just finished listening to a great podcast (as usual) from Peter Clayton of Total Picture Radio with Shally Steckerl, the guru of LinkedIn gurus.

The cast, called LinkedIn, Reloaded, explores some of the new additional features of LinkedIn since their last redesign. Clayton queries Steckerl about how and why you should connect to people, how to leverage your network in your jobsearching, and compares LinkedIn and other social networks such as plaxo, naymz, ecademy, facebook and one I had not heard of, xing.

One interesting question Shally takes a stab at in a very good way:

How openly do you accept network connections, and why?

Rahhb Social Networking, Tools ecademy, facebook, linked in, naymz, networker, Networking, plaxo, podcast, social network, though leader, total_picture_radio, xing