Starting Your Own Blog: Three Free Options
As we’ve written numerous times here on the ReputationDefender Blog, starting a blog for yourself or your company is a great way to begin controlling your reputation online and proactively building your professional brand.
We’re not going to spend another post extolling the virtues of creating a blog, however. (If you don’t see the value in having an online presence by now, you probably never will.) Instead, today, we’re going to explain how to actually begin your own blog, highlighting three of the most well-known free blogging tools on the web.
BLOGGER
Blogger is Google’s free blog publishing tool and, somewhat expectedly, it’s pretty great. While we do occasionally criticize Google on this blog when it comes to data privacy and other issues, it is hard to deny the quality of the company’s products and Blogger is no exception.
Offering a blogging experience that is simple and accessible for any user (much like Google’s industry-leading search), Blogger allows users to customize their blogs through a fairly intuitive drag and drop interface. Blogger also allows more advanced functionality for experienced web users who want to add customized CSS. Another advantage of setting up a free blog through Google’s Blogger is that it makes it easier for you to insert certain common Google tools, such as Google Analytics and Google AdSense, to help monitor your blog’s traffic and earn advertising revenue from your website.
When I first began blogging four years ago, I used Blogger. While I have since moved on to a different platform, I found it to be very easy to use and a great way to learn the basics of blogging.
WORDPRESS
Wordpress is my personal favorite blogging platform, and the one that I use in almost all of my professional and personal writing. The thing that I like about Wordpress, besides the fact that it’s free, is that it’s incredibly dynamic and offers a wide variety of customization options. Wordpress is always nice in the way that you can easily set it up so that your blog is hosted under your own domain instead of a subdomain (of course, you’ll have to buy the domain name you want and pay to have it hosted).
While there is a lot of freedom to design your own template from scratch, Wordpress offers a host of good looking pre-designed layouts that are easy to install and offer rich customization. When you factor in how many Wordpress templates are available on the web at large, it’s hard to imagine a beginner blogger having a hard time picking out a look that works for them.
Another great aspect of Wordpress is that it can also be used as a light Content Management System (CMS) for editing and updating other components of your website besides your blog. Using this feature of Wordpress requires a bit more advanced understanding of web design, so if you’re a newbie to the blog world, you may have to ask a friend for help or study up.
TUMBLR
Tumblr is a unique blogging platform that combines some of the traditional functionality of a web blog with the more real-time aspects of other social networking websites such as Twitter. Like Twitter, Tumblr users can follow each other and easily republish content from someone else that they like. While this has made for a very active community of users, it has also led to some problems related to Internet defamation.
In some cases, users will set up Tumblr accounts with the express purpose of reblogging the work of someone they dislike and then mocking their posts. Despite this problem, however, the basic spirit of Tumblr’s reblogging feature is in keeping with recent developments in social media technology.
The ability to easily add diverse content, including images, audio, video, and text, is a big reason for Tumblr’s success. Though considerably younger than the other two blogging platforms we have talked about (Tumblr was founded in 2007) the website has already attracted a loyal and vocal community of users.
Reputation Management, Internet Privacy, and Social Media Quick Hits
Google’s Calculated Super Bowl Ad Scores Points
Google CEO Eric Schmidt talks about Google’s popular Super Bowl advertisement at the official Google Blog. Schmidt explains how the video, which has actually existed on YouTube for over three months, was never intended to be a Super Bowl ad, but received such strong feedback that they wanted to “share it with a wider audience.” The fact that Google had this video out for three months before deciding to buy a Super Bowl ad shows just how analytical the company is. They saw the positive feedback and knew that, generally speaking, it would be a home run with viewers. Nothing happens spontaneously at Google. Everything is meticulously thought out, which is probably why the company has found such great success.
For another opinion on Google’s Super Bowl ad, check out ReputationDefender Chief Privacy Officer Dave Thompson’s analysis.
China Busts Major Hacker Ring / Google Already Heading Back?
China, perhaps to fight off allegations from Google that they are weak on cybersecurity, claims to have busted a major hacker ring. The organization, called the Black Hawk Safety Net, is referred to in this Wall Street Journal article as the “country’s largest distributor of tools used in malicious Internet attacks.” As the Google v. China battle continues to drag on, it will be interesting to see what happens next. Most recently, Google announced a tentative partnership with the Walt Disney Company, and other companies, to buy China’s largest in-bus digital media and advertising company. Hmm…it didn’t take long for Google to wade back into the Chinese waters, did it?
Is Facebook’s Titan Project a Gmail Killer?
On Friday, TechCrunch reported that Facebook is in the process of developing their own e-mail client with full POP/IMAP support. If successful, the project, codenamed Titan, will further strengthen Facebook’s position as the central communications hub for social media users online.
The Baltimore Sun Ponders Online Reputation Management and Job Hunting
The Baltimore Sun asks readers “When employers Google your name, what do they find?” Touching on some of the most common issues related to online reputation management and Internet privacy, the article explains how your digital identity can play a huge part in whether or not you get hired.
Privacy vs. Utility: How Far are We Willing to Go?
In a post for Venture Blog, David Hornik discusses how difficult it is to keep up with Foursquare, and why he expects that at some point in the near future, Foursquare will become a fully automated service. Hornik takes the position that this is a good thing, saying that consumers are willing to “trade privacy for utility.” While this is true to an extent, I believe that what consumers really want is control over their privacy. They will give up privacy for utility sometimes, but they don’t want it to be an all or nothing proposition. Internet companies should make opting into and out of data mining easy. What do you think?
Google’s Super Bowl ad proves that Google knows too much?
Today we were treated to Google’s first Superbowl ad.
It showed the life story of a man, all through his Google searches. He traveled to Paris (“study abroad Paris”), met a woman at a restaurant (“cafes near the Louvre”), fell in love (“how to impress French girls”), seduced her (“chocolate shop near Paris France”), moved to France (flight tracking), got married (“churches in Paris”), and eventually had a child (“how to assemble a crib”).
What’s creepy about this? It’s proof that your Google searches can be enough to reconstruct your life history. All of it. And this was just the highlights. Imagine if our mystery searcher had searched for more personal information — how to deal with grief, the loss of a child, sexual confusion, a disease, a long-lost love, or more? Google knows all of it. Google knows how you feel, what you think, and what you do.
And even if Google itself doesn’t read your search history, it’s still out there and vulnerable to eavesdropping or hacking (remember Google’s allegations that someone in China hacked their servers and stole personal data?)
I think Google meant the ad to show that it is powerful.
Instead, it gave me the heebie-jeebies. It’s an everyday reminder that Google knows pretty much everything there is to know about you. And that this data is stored on servers around the world, where it could be mis-used by nearly anyone. (TechCrunch says that it’s proof that hell froze over.)
Remind me to clear my search history more often.
Reputation Management, Internet Privacy, and Social Media Quick Hits
Student Kicked Out of Honor Society for Criticizing his School on Facebook
A Florida high school student was kicked out of the National Honor Society for creating a critical Facebook page about his school. The student says that the Facebook page wasn’t malicious and that he was “frustrated that he was going to graduate from a school that was lowly ranked because of poor standardized tests scores.” The reason cited for his dismissal from NHS was that he didn’t show “loyalty” to his school. Assuming the student didn’t use the Facebook page to slander anyone, should expressing his opinions about the school make him any less worthy of honor status?
Facebook is King of Social Networking and Teens Don’t Tweet
A new study from the Pew Research Center shows that 93% of youth aged 12-17 use the Internet frequently and that 73% of them use social networking websites. Interestingly, the study also shows that while more teens are social networking, they are not taking to Twitter (only 8% use it) and are also not blogging as much (14% compared to 28% three years before). Is this a sign that teens are wising up to public sharing and trying to keep their communications within a (slightly more) private setting, such as Facebook?
For the full study, follow this link.
Sun Microsystems CEO Tweets his Resignation
Sometimes we see people get fired because of Twitter, but it’s rare to see someone quitting their job on the site. But, that’s just what Jonathan Schwartz did when he announced his resignation as Chief Executive of Sun Microsystems. Tweeting the following haiku, “Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more,” Schwartz bid his farewell to the position he has held since 2006. As we move more and more deeply into a web-based world, is this something we can expect to see more of?
Twitter Explains Phishing Attack
On Tuesday, Twitter was forced to reset the passwords of some of its users after they had become victims of a phishing attack. In this article from PCWorld, Ian Paul examines who was behind the attack and how torrenting sites (a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol) were involved. The article is somewhat technical for a layman, but it’s worth reading anyway. The big takeaway is that you shouldn’t use the same password for multiple web accounts.
Google Partnering with NSA
According to the Washington Post, Google is partnering with the National Security Agency (NSA) for help in analyzing the corporate espionage attack against the company that originated from China. Considering the sheer volume of data that Google stores, this partnership makes sense from a national defense perspective. Nevertheless, the partnership worries some privacy advocates who fear that the country’s largest intelligence agency shouldn’t be allowed too close to sensitive user information.
Meet the ReputationDefender Team – 02/05/2010
Part of what makes ReputationDefender such a fun company is the the great team that we have assembled. Last time on Meet the ReputationDefender Team, we said hello to Customer Support Specialist Cindy Au. Today, we want you to say hi to graphic design expert (and cookie eater) Nathan Lee.
Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Nathan Lee and I am the graphic and web designer working with the marketing team at ReputationDefender. I am responsible for creating beautiful, accessible and enticing online experiences for ReputationDefender.
What did you do prior to joining ReputationDefender?
I graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a major in art and a minor in communication design. I have worked a number of jobs relating to design, including stints at an advertising agency, branding and graphic design firm, and cycling company. Prior to joining ReputationDefender I did a tour of the pacific coast by bicycle and juggled various freelance design gigs.
What attracted you to ReputationDefender?
I feel that the Internet is growing rapidly because more and more of our personal information is becoming a part of it. Social media, online dating, and online banking are some practices that are becoming commonplace. You wouldn’t want any of that information to become public and yet anyone who has the Internet has access to a lot that data. ReputationDefender recognizes this and enables its users to manage and control their personal information.
Why do you think it’s important for people to manage their reputations online?
Online reputations can be quickly accessed by anyone on the internet. Since our online reputations are being viewed for an increasing number of reasons that can impact daily life, it is becoming more and more important that we manage our online reputations.
When you’re not helping individuals control and protect their good names online, what do you like to do in your spare time?
When I’m not designing for ReputationDefender, I love to further my creativity and skills with side projects. Shooting short videos, screenprinting t-shirts, drawing, coding blogs, and so on. However there’s only so much time I can take sitting still and being indoors, so I turn to my other favorite hobby, cycling. Cycling is my way of taking life at my own pace and receding into my own head. It is my way of exploring the world and having adventures that I hope my potential children and grandchildren would want to hear.
What’s your all-time favorite website?
Notcot.org is one of the first sites that I check whenever I sit down at a computer with Internet. It is inspiring in my times of need, but also frustrating, because I often wonder, “Why didn’t I think of that!?”
Analyzing Facebook’s New Layout
As we mentioned in this morning’s Reputation Management, Internet Privacy, and Social Media Quick Hits, Facebook is in the process of rolling out a new design change. As with all things involving Facebook, there has been a mix of excitement and revulsion from users over the new look. Of course, when you have more than 350 million people to consider, there’s no way you can please everybody.
Anyway, we thought we would take some time to look over the changes and point out any potential privacy problems that we notice. Since the rollout has only affected a small number of users so far (my profile hasn’t changed yet), we are turning to TechCrunch, who themselves are using screen caps sent in by readers.
Here’s a look at the main profile page thanks to Laura Watkins. To see a larger version, click on the image.
One of the big and most noticeable changes right off the bat is the prominence of the search bar. Rather than being tucked to the right-top of the profile, it is now positioned more toward the middle of the page, just above the News Feed. I would surmise that this is an effort on Facebook’s part to make search more accessible to users as part of a greater effort to make Facebook the central hub on the web for a user accessing information.
Other noteworthy design changes include moving the notification icon from the lower right hand corner of your Facebook profile to the upper left hand corner. The icon, which is now a globe instead of a signpost, is situated to the right of the Facebook logo alongside icons for messages and outstanding requests for applications and groups.
Beyond those logical changes, Facebook has redesigned how some of the most common features of Facebook (such as pictures and videos) are accessed and displayed. As shown in this image from Matthew Sanders, who has numerous other images of Facebook’s new look at his Posterous blog, when a user goes to open their images, they are displayed in a Dashboard format.
The idea of using dashboards is not new to Facebook (this feature is in place when you click on the photos icon at the lower left hand corner of the Facebook homepage), but making photos open like this from the left hand column is much more logical and efficient than the often indecipherable “News Feed” approach.
Thus far, it appears that there’s nothing egregiously terrible about Facebook’s changes from either a design or privacy perspective. The one problem that we mentioned in Quick Hits was that users can view their friends’ application activity by going to the Apps Preview dashboard. Considering there are some applications that users would rather keep under wraps, Facebook needs to provide an effective tool for hiding application activity from friends.
What do you think of Facebook’s new look? Have you seen it on your profile yet?
Reputation Management, Internet Privacy, and Social Media Quick Hits
Facebook Celebrates Sixth Birthday with Redesign
To celebrate its sixth birthday, Facebook has rolled out some changes to the layout of the site. The changes are geared toward making site navigation easier, but, so far, reaction from users has been mixed. Of course, that’s nothing new. Everytime Facebook changes something about its design, it causes a temporary uproar. Naturally, there are some initial privacy concerns to hash out (such as the one in the next Quick Hit), so we’ll dig deeper into the changes later and explain how they affect your personal data for another post.
Early Problems Arise from Facebook Redesign
One early problem with Facebook’s redesign is that users can’t hide their application activity from their friends. Facebook has addressed this issue somewhat by saying that they will allow users to control how their application activity is displayed. As this article from AllFacebook points out, whatever solution Facebook comes up with can either help developers or help users, but, seemingly, can’t help both. It will be interesting to see how Facebook resolves this issue as the changes rollout to the entire site.
Fugitive’s Social Media Use Leads to His Arrest
Lockport, NY police have a good sense of humor. After tracking down a fugitive through his social media updates, they left the following thank you message on his Facebook wall, “”It was due to your diligence in keeping us informed that now you are under arrest.”
Will Unclear Social Media Policies Lead to a Rise in Wrongful Dismissal Lawsuits?
This article from MediaPost explores the growing problem companies have with regulating social media use among their employees. The article quotes Joseph Rosenbaum, a Partner at Reed Smith and chair of the firm’s global Advertising Technology & Media Law practice, who says confusion over appropriate social media use will lead to many wrongful dismissal lawsuits based on employees saying, “hey, I was just talking about my job on Twitter and they didn’t like what I was saying because I wasn’t touting the company’s line.”
As we explained in a post earlier in the week, companies that prepare intelligent and transparent communications policies will be the ones to reap the benefits of social media technology. Those who don’t are going to struggle.
Will Winter Olympic Athletes be Allowed to Tweet the Games?
As the Winter Olympic Games are set to get under way, athletes are expressing confusion over the IOC social media guidelines. Apparently, athletes can tweet and blog as long as they don’t “act like a journalist” and they can share pictures as long as they don’t include logos of unofficial Olympics sponsors. I imagine there will be some difficulty in properly enforcing these guidelines.
“I Found Something Bad About You Online” E-mail Scams
It’s a known fact that scammers will do anything to get you to click on a phony link. It’s also a known fact that humans are, by our very nature, ego-driven creatures. I don’t mean that in a bad way, I’m just saying that if someone sends you a link saying “Look at this picture of you,” there’s a good chance you’re going to click on it. It’s perfectly natural to be curious about information allegedly pertaining to you online. In fact, it’s a good thing to be concerned about your online reputation. It means that you take your responsibility to protect your identity on the web seriously.
Unfortunately, scammers know that appealing to your reputation preservation instincts is a good way to trick you into clicking on phony links. Recently, we’ve been alerted to an e-mail scheme that takes the “Here’s a picture of you” concept to another level, saying something like “I found something bad about you online,” or “Is this really you?” Any person with a modicum of interest in how they appear online is going to want to know whether these kinds of messages are legitimate. Before you click on them, however, there are a couple things to consider.
- Who is sending the message?
Even if the message appears to be coming from a friend, you can’t always be sure. Social networking has made it easy for scammers to hijack an individual’s account and then use the built-in sense of trust between users to spread their scam. If it looks like it’s from a friend, but the message itself is weird or full of egregious typographical and spelling errors, consider checking with you friend first before opening the link.
- What’s the deal with this short link?
A report from Kaspersky Labs, detailed here at Wired, showed that “as many as one in every 500 web addresses posted on Twitter lead to sites hosting malwar.” The reason that so many dangerous links appear on Twitter is because of URL shortening tools such as Bit.ly, which mask the original URL. As shortened links have become more prominent, they are also being sent through e-mails and a variety of other forms of web communication. Currently, URL shortening services are working on implementing safeguards to catch bad links by identifying their source, but in the short term it is important for users to exercise discretion about what links they open.
Above all else, the important thing to remember about the “I found something bad about you” phishing scheme, and all phishing schemes in general, is that you have to be careful about opening all messages you receive. That may sound like overly simplistic advice, but, unfortunately, it’s the best there is to give. We consume massive amounts of digital content everyday. While cybercriminals are constantly evolving their attacks, by and large, we know what is and is not a scam. That’s why you should always trust your instincts. If you can’t make any sense out of a message, don’t click on the link.
Facebook Turns Six: Considering the World’s Largest Social Network
Facebook, the world’s largest social networking website, turns six today. It’s an amazing accomplishment for the company and a true testament to the staying power of social media. Just look at some of these recent Facebook findings.
- In the last year alone, the site jumped from 150 million users to 350 million users worldwide.
- A recent study from the Pew Research Center shows that 73% of adults over the age of 30 have a profile on Facebook.
- According to marketing research company Comscore, Facebook is on the verge of achieving “technological lock-in,” a phenomena where the usage of a technological tool becomes so great that its users will not give it up, even if a better alternative exists.
Even in spite of overwhelming dissatisfaction with Facebook’s recent privacy policy changes (from both users and world governments) the company is still charging forward and is close to eclipsing Yahoo as the third most visited website on the Internet.
So what does Facebook’s sixth birthday mean for web users? For one thing, it’s a loud and clear broadcast that social networking is not a fad. Some websites may come and go (take pioneering social networking website Friendster for example), but the desire for individuals to connect with one another online isn’t going anywhere.
Second, it means that we all have to take a greater interest in our privacy and security online. As Facebook, and social networking in general, continues to grow, it will become the target of countless cyberattacks. How each Internet company chooses to protect its users, and how users choose to protect themselves, is something that we all need to consider as the world becomes even more dependent on web-based technology.
Dismissing the important role that the Internet plays in our lives, and the dangers that come with it, is short-sighted and irresponsible. Facebook is flat-out enormous. Twitter, while flatlining in growth recently, has captured the imagination of the media and become an important vehicle for disseminating news (and rumors) to the world. Taking proactive measures to protect your identity online is not only the smart thing to do, it’s the right thing to do to preserve the privacy ecosystem of the web.
An Online Reputation Management Glossary
Do you know what an Internet cookie is? How would you avoid a 419 Fraud? If you work in the Internet industry, or you are an avid web user and technologist, you may already have heard of some of these terms. For many individuals, however, the World Wide Web can still be a pretty intimidating place, especially when it comes to online reputation and Internet privacy issues.
That’s why I wanted to take a moment here on the ReputationDefender Blog to highlight some of the most common terms you’ll hear when dealing with a reputation management problem. For a full list of reputation management and Internet privacy-related terms, check out our complete glossary in the ReputationDefender Resource Center.
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Search Engine Optimization – The definition of search engine optimization is the practice of moving positive results to the top of the results list for Google, Yahoo!, MSN Live Search, and other search engines when searching for your brand, name, or company. SEO techniques include link-building and content optimization. ReputationDefender offers services to help you improve your online image and search results, such as MyEdge. Also see SEO.
Trolling – The definition of trolling is the practice of posting inflammatory information on the Internet in an attempt to get a reaction from other users. People who troll are also called “trolls.” An example of trolling would be visiting a Yankees discussion forum and posting a message with no content other than comments about how much superior the Red Sox are. Such a message would serve only to provoke a response from the forum’s users.
Flaming – The definition of flaming is posting personal attacks and barbed insults in an online discussion, or what often happens when an Internet argument grows heated. A “flame-war” is the end result of online flaming. Flaming is strongly discouraged on most internet forums but still happens frequently when politics is involved.
Phishing – The definition of phishing is a form of Internet fraud. Scammers send out emails that look like they are from a bank, credit union, or lender. But, all of the links in the email are actually to a fake website run by the scammers. When the victim enters his or her account information, the scammers use that to empty the victim’s bank account.
Link Equity – The definition of link equity is the value that Google and other search engines give to a website, based mostly on the history of a site, the number of inbound links, and other measures of the site’s authority. Link equity tells you how much power your links have to influence search engine results. Sites with a lot of link equity are more likely to be able to affect Google search results through their links. Informally, it is similar to Google juice.
Google Cache – The definition of Google cache is a controversial function of the search engine that keeps a copy of almost every web page on the Internet. Thus, even if you succeed in to removing information from a website the Google cache copy may still exist for weeks and allow Google users to see the deleted information.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP) – The definition of search engine results page is the website a user is directed to after conducting a search of the Internet. The search engine results page lists the results of the search in order of relevance as determined by that specific search engine’s algorithm.