the world according to schmogel.

Chicken Little: OMG OMG OMG The Sky is Falling!!!!! Facebook is taking all your personal information and sharing it with the world… Hurry! Hurry! Change your settings.

Non-insane Jane: Really? What are they sharing?

Chicken Little: Everything! My mom’s friend’s brother’s sister’s best friend’s cousin posted a link telling me that EVERYONE in the entire world could get my social security number, my home address, my DNA. Quick! Change your settings, what are you waiting for?!?!?!?!

Non-insane Jane: Are you sure Chicken Little? Are you sure that Facebook, a social network, that you are on to be social, isn’t just making the basic information about you available to * GASP * create more social connections? And are you sure they aren’t still giving you control over the information? And are you sure that that hasn’t been the case for years? And are you sure that this is unique to Facebook? are you sure that you don’t give away this information in other place?

Chicken Little: No! Look Look… see ‘they’ told me so on Facebook:

“Worried about search engines? Your information is safe.
There have been misleading rumors recently about Facebook indexing all your information on Google. This is not true. Facebook created public search listings in 2007 to enable people to search for your name and see a link to your Facebook profile. They will still only see a basic set of information.”

Non-Insane Jane: uh-huh…

Chicken Little: uh… oh, it’s just not clear. I am confused. How will I ever know what people can see?!?!!?!

Non-Insane Jane: I don’t know? Click the Preview my Profile button?

Chicken Little: oh. So, it’s just my basic information? information I already allowed people to see? And I can still set it for individual people?

And Scene.

People, and by people I mean anyone that posted in their status:

Facebook will automatically index all your info on Google, which allows everyone to view it. To change this option, go to Settings —> Privacy Settings —> Search —> then UN-CLICK the box that says ‘Allow indexing’

and those that did it without question, simmer down.

Facebook is a social network. If you don’t like your name being shared and don’t like getting and sharing information – get off the internet. Don’t let me catch you searching your friends and friends of friends pictures, don’t get that coupon from a company you like and don’t, under any circumstance, connect with people from your past or that live far away.

And a huge ‘shame on you’ to the people who want nothing more than for people to see and react to their status updates and wall posts that got sucked in like sheep. You know better. Those of you with blogs you promote, Flickr accounts you link to, Twitter posts your whore out, NetFlix reviews you post, FourSquare updates you post every 20 minutes.

There are larger and more pressing things to warn your friends about around security and safety. Save your ALL CAPS, fear inducing, level red, alerts for something you really know and care about.

Thanks, I feel better. Now go about your day.

I like it when things work the way I want them to. I also like when people tell me I am right, I never get enough of that. After spending a considerable amount of time on Twitter and Facebook I have watched updates, changes, complaints, mistakes and promises come-and-go on both properties.

I have plenty of opinions and suggestions, however, because I am going to refrain from making a Top 10 list during the Month of December in the year 2009 (or attempt to refrain– I really do like lists) I will simply offer one improvement suggestion for each brand and why it makes sense. For free. This is valuable stuff people. And I am sure I am the only one who has thought of these, ever. And, I’ll be right… they will be better if they implement my suggestions.

1. Facebook: Give ‘Fans’ the same love you give ‘Friends’
Allow me to see what mutual friends I have that are fans of a brand.

You might say, “that already exists.” I’d then bet you it doesn’t, you would still swear it does and I would win said bet.

To save you the hassle of going to look, see the screen grabs below.

It confuses me why this doesn’t exist. Just today a report came out that 60,000,000 people connect with Facebook connect, 80,000 websites– last week we all learned that there are over 360,000,000 accounts thanks to the blue announcement box that took over our profiles… brands are clambering to make an impact. Paying a lot of money to define strategies, unique approaches, keeping up with changes across Facebook’s policy and running campaigns on Facebook.

Influencer, ambassador, first in the know, generation one, the popular kid, the expert- whatever you want to call it they are the valuable online users brands want to connect with. Facebook brilliantly allows brands to connect with many, many varying degrees of influencers. Perhaps they just influence one friend, but that friend influences 10… no longer do you need to find the one guy that can influence 100 people. Personalized influencers allow for micro-connections to have large impacts.

If the theory of ‘suggested friends’ is that I just forgot to become friends with this person I should know because all my friends know them… why wouldn’t it hold true that, I am easily influenced by my friends to become a fan of a brand and sometimes I just need to be reminded? In grade school I wore ‘skids’ and ‘I.O.U.’ clothing because someone told me it was cool.

I know I can see it for a brief moment on a news feed, or a wall post if they do something they share, but I think it is a missed opportunity. Facebook is a vibrant community that succeeds on interactions. Consumers are more engaged with content, expect to interact with companies and look to express themselves with the assistance of brands.
Connecting your circle of friends with a brand seems like a no brainer. And then, Facebook, you can suggest brands to me, like you do friends. It will give them more credibility– just don’t let brands buy that space, make them earn it.

2. Twitter. Connect conversations. Add a “see the string”

This one is not as easy to implement as the Facebook one, but the folks at twitter are smart. Facebook offers ‘see wall to wall’ – Perhaps Twitter could get rid of that useless ‘retweet’ button and add a ‘respond’ button. That way it would string together multiple tweets and track back to the original. Like an email string. Provide context to the conversations. Maybe it is pretty easy.

Like it or not, conversations happen on Twitter. @s make up a majority of tweets throughout the day. They are used multiple ways. Sometimes they are used to RT something, but a trend right now is to @ someone and just making an open-ended statement with no context. They are more appropriate for text messages, emails, phone calls or even facebook wall posts. On Twitter they are out of context.

If it is a reaction to something someone said, I would like to know what the original post was that you are responding to. For example, “@SomeoneImportant you are sooooo right OMG. That is funny.” Or “@PersonInChicago that was a great tip.”

Wait, what is funny, what was a great tip? I want to know. I try and click on their pages, but lucky me, they tweet a lot and I can’t find anything that is funny or useful. I like to eavesdrop and stalk and share my 2 cents.

It’s like hearing one side of a phone conversation. Not all that interesting. And even worse, if the same person does it over and over, I probably lose interest and tune them out.

In this game of ‘tit-for-tat’ between these two brands, I am surprised they haven’t implemented these features by now.

Anything else?

I love technology and I love TV and I love live sports. Which is why I can’t believe I am about the type this next sentence, really.

I am happy that FIFA is not evolving with technology during the game. And I love that too.

Off the field, use technology to advance away. Better equipment, better training, better players, better fans.

I digress, back to the technology thing. First, it was refusing to use goal-line technology. You know, a microchip in the ball that would signal to the ref if a goal is scored.

Now, and even more pleasing, is the strong stance against instant replays. “It’s a game played by human beings, a game with a human face,” WFA secretary general David Collins said.

“Other sports regularly change the laws of the game to react to the new technology. … We don’t do it and this makes the fascination and the popularity of football.”

I’ve written about what soccer has taught me about life previously. One of the main strengths of soccer is players play and coaches prepare you for a game. There are no timeouts, coaches can’t stop and reset the pace of a game, and shit happens. It comes down to preparation and teamwork. My high school coach gave this advice to his players: “It doesn’t matter if you are one step ahead if you aren’t thinking 3 steps ahead.”

Handballs happen- sometimes intentional and sometimes not. Goalies move before a penalty kick. You take a few extra yards on free kicks and throw-ins. Elbows are thrown, and sometimes hair is pulled. And yes, slide tackles hurt. It is all part of the game. A game that is played for 90 minutes in the sun, rain, wind and snow. All you need are a pair of shin guards and cleats and it’s game time.

My loyalty is with the women’s national team and I am certainly not a fan of the French national team, but the only controversy in the Henry handball over Ireland is that it happened at the end of the game. If you have the time, watch the game second-by-second and report back to me. I will bet you Ireland wasn’t innocent throughout the game. I beat they took a few cheap shots. I’ll bet the ref let the play go on. And more importantly, I will bet they would do a few things differently next time.

Every team has benefited by a missed call.

Don’t get mad at the handball, get mad that the ball made it past your defense with a minute left. Get mad that you didn’t score. Get mad that it came to that. And, for the love of God, don’t beg to be an extra team at World Cup. It is embarrassing. Become stronger players, work harder and score more goals.

Don’t jump on the Ireland bandwagon or applaud Elizabeth Lambert being expelled from her team. I don’t advocate cheating and I don’t advocate playing to hurt the other player – even when some people deserve it. It is not cheating if/when you get away with something that falls outside the rules while on the soccer field. And look, I intentionally made it through this entire post without saying, “if it ain’t broken…” Because it is broken and always has been. Flaws make things beautiful. It is part of the game. The better team will win 8 out of 10 times, the dirty player will get theirs, refs will make mistakes, players will get away with breaking the rules and players will get hurt. And that my friends, is the beauty of soccer.

So, US soccer fans… sit back, enjoy that soccer is making it to ESPN, enjoy that people know the names of players, join the debate and keep watching.

“Let it be as it is and let’s leave (soccer) with errors,” Blatter said. “The television companies will have the right to say (the referee) was right or wrong, but still the referee makes the decision — a man, not a machine.” Amen to that.