In today’s Quick Hits, we look into what online marketing experts are saying Facebook Places, why Cameron Diaz is the most dangerous celebrity online, who is being targeted in the latest Facebook scam, and what a new study reveals about students who actively use the social network.

As the first generation to grow up with the Internet, our kids think nothing of revealing the most intimate details of their lives (and ours) online — with little consideration for the consequences.

Over the years, parents have been warned about dangers kids can face online. But, with the surging popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and easy blogging tools like Tumblr and WordPress, a new threat to our kids’ well-being has emerged: Reputation damage.

Stories abound about high school students being rejected from college and young professionals losing out on — or even losing — jobs as a result of content posted on social networking sites.

“In talking with admission officers, we’ve certainly heard some of the scenarios where students may use social networking negatively — where they post photos of themselves drinking alcohol, or in some sort of setting that they wouldn’t want to present to an admissions officer,” Jeff Olson, vice president of Research at Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, tells ParentDish.

…Read the rest of the article here.

“With a new company and new book, Michael Fertik ’00, J.D. ’05, is out to protect Internet users from having their reputations destroyed. The founder of ReputationDefender, and author, with David Thompson, of Wild West 2.0: How to Protect and Restore Your Online Reputation on the Untamed Social Frontier (AMACOM), Fertik believes this an area that requires, if not regulation, then the use of caution and awareness. While clerking for Chief Judge Danny J. Boggs ’65 of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Louisville, Kentucky, he says, he started “hearing in the press about what we now call ‘cyberbullying.’ I saw that it was a growing trend, and I didn’t like the idea that a momentary mistake in judgment could ruin a young person’s future or at least stay like a lifelong tattoo…Then I realized that adults face the same problems in their lives,” he explains. Although the term “cyberbullying” may be unfamiliar to readers—and Fertik’s book may exaggerate the dangers of this new frontier—even a brief perusal of the table of contents can be unsettling.”

…Read the rest of the article here.

“There are some great handbooks on starting your own business (like this and this) which focus on larger questions like “whom to hire” and “how to write a business plan.” But I haven’t seen a short list of hyper-practical tips on starting and running your own company. Since I would have loved one of those back in the day, I’ve put one together here. These are rubber-meets-road recommendations intended to help you avoid wasting time on very basic topics. The point is to get you past the easy decisions so you can focus on the business.

1. Use Quickbooks. It’s easy to use, it will work for several years at least, and the other options are too complicated or overkill.
2. Make it a Delaware C-Corporation. If you’re starting your company in the U.S., and if you’re hoping to take outside investment one day, just make it a Delaware C-Corp from the jump. Other forms of incorporation are distracting or prohibitive to investors, and these disadvantages outweigh potential tax benefits.
3. Put 100% of expenditures on a single credit card. As soon as you can get a corporate card, putting everything on one account makes it easier to keep track of expenses and prepare for eventual audit. Your employees will also have a heightened sense that you are watching the expenses.
4. Practice interviewing. When you post your first job listings, be over-inclusive in which candidates you invite for interviews. You will become a better interviewer fast, learn more about the right requirements for the job, understand the candidate pool, and learn how to sell the role to the best candidate well before you meet her. Four extra 30-minute interviews should do it.
5. Let the law firm handle your cap table Never modify the cap table yourself. There’s just way too much opportunity for human error with outsized consequences.”

For the rest of Michael’s tips, click here.

Reputation Defender

by Alex Beam

“There is a company in Redwood City, California, with the suggestive name of ReputationDefender. According to its Web site, “ReputationDefender was created in 2006 to defend your good name on the Internet. Today, ReputationDefender has grown to be the world’s first comprehensive online reputation management and privacy company. We’re the most experienced and most technologically innovative company of our kind …”

One can only imagine the correspondence they receive:

Dear Reputation Defender:

Things have proceeded from extremely bad to unimaginably worse. I have a problem with unscripted events.

A few years ago I made some unfortunate comments about Jewish people, which I tried to retract, except they appeared in a police log. Now I am again world famous, but not for my dynamic work in the field of motion pictures, but rather as a potty-mouthed Australian cad accused of striking the mother of my child.

Can we turn back the clock to a rosier time? Appreciating your guidance in this matter.

— Mad Mel in Malibu”

Read the rest of the article here.