Crime and Social Networking Sites

Social networkers beware: with the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday quickly approaching it is important to be aware of a growing problem in the world of social networking sites (SNS). Most SNS crime is associated with the solicitation of minors, but a growing trend is very relevant to the holiday season as millions of SNS users will flock home and desert their homes, or other habitats. Because of the seemingly constant and always revealing updates released by Twitter and Facebook users, it is important to remind users to keep some information to themselves. This applies especially to information that reveals detailed accounts about the user's location and plans. With ever-rising number of Twitter followers and Facebook friends individuals update to, it is important to keep in mind that some followers and friends may not always have the best intentions and could use the revealing updates for malice.

For example: if a share-happy Tweeter indicates in his updates (to his 400 followers) that he will be out of town for Thanksgiving visiting family afar, this may be received as an invitation for sinister followers to wreak havoc on the Tweeter's home. This problem of revealing too much information to a sometimes invisible online audience has been around for quite some time, and is becoming more relevant than ever with social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook that flourish with user's constant updates.

I can recall as a teen being apprehensive about a number of my friend's AOL Instant Messenger "away messages" that exposed in detail travel plans for anyone with a screen name to read. An satirical take on this may read: "Going 2 Florida for Christmas! Flight at 5:30 out of Logan... be back in a week from Monday! The key is under the mat! Happy Holidays!" With the ever-present issue of invisible audiences, teens may be putting their messages of holiday cheer out to the wrong people.

As a teen I thought I was being paranoid about the actual threat associated with revealing SNS updates. However a real-life instance of this problem that deals with savvy SNS users utilizing the medium to aid their crime is the recent crime spree against various members of young Hollywood like Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Rachel Bilson. The criminals collectively referred to as the 'Burglar Bunch' by blog TMZ used the constant Twitter and Facebook updates from the starlets to comprise a vast amount of information about their where-a-bouts. The group of teens who make up the Burglar Bunch used this information to find out when the celebrities would be out of town so that they could break into their homes and rob the stars of not only their valuable possessions but also of their sense of privacy and safety.

I realize the average SNS user may not have as many followers as Paris Hilton, but it never hurts to be aware of what you're indicating in your updates and who may have access to them. The impending holiday season makes this advice more relevant than ever.

Sharing Social Networking Sites

As social networking sites gain in popularity, their original devotees almost always have to be open to sharing their beloved SNS with others. Whether the inclusion of other groups is a good or bad thing is up to you to decide, but there is a growing trend in social networking sites as they expand in size, to expand into different demographics.

An early example of this is Myspace, which started out as a niche community for musicians and their diehard fans. The site then exploded, and quickly became the hottest SNS on the web. It seemed almost everyone had a Myspace. At first I'm sure this was aggravating to the diehard fans of Myspace who before did not have to share their intimate community with teenyboppers and their parents. However, many of the original users of Myspace used the site as their lemon and made lemonade in the form of now being able to share their music with the massive and accessible Myspace audience. This audience propelled a lucky few musical talents to fame and fortune, such as Soulja Boy, Lily Allen and Sean Kingston. After Rupert Murdoch's acquisition of Myspace, the site launched its own recording label to further enable the hunt for undiscovered talent on the site. Going "mainstream" and including users from different demographics allowed Myspace to become a juggernaut for advertising revenue and a haven for the prying eyes of advertisers into the minds of users through the collection of user data.

Similarly, Facebook started out as a very tight-knit community of Harvard students created by Mark Zuckerberg, gradually expanding to allow all college students. This first collection of expansions morphed Facebook from a small community of users where mostly everyone knew each other's name to a vast SNS encompassing tens of thousands of coeds. This initial and gradual expansion of Facebook opened the doors for social networking between students across the country. Facebook has since expanded its parameters to allow anyone with an email address to join, letting everyone into what was once Harvard's guilty pleasure.

In Robert Strohmeyer's article focusing on the ever expanding demographic of adults on Facebook he worries that the presence of baby boomers on social networking sites like Facebook will cause a flee from the site in younger users. Strohmeyer's anxiety about this mass exodus from Facebook is ungrounded, as users of social networking sites have always had to deal with their SNS communities expanding and broadening to include different demographics. These original, younger users will somehow find a way to co-exist with their older counterparts, to make the SNS a space for all to flourish and network, that is, until the next big thing in social networking comes along and the cycle starts all over again. Commentators like Strohmeyer maybe overzealous in placing their blame of the disintegration of social networking on the presence of baby boomers. The demise of many social networking sites is in many cases simply because of timing and the arrival of new technologies.

Social networking sites must always expand and accept new demographics of users to join to further their relevance and shelf life. The premise and history of social networking sites has solidified the notion that bigger is better, but will this notion always hold true in the future?

New Media Self Promotion & the Real Housewife

Last night's season five premiere of Bravo's hit reality television show The Real Housewives of Orange County prompted me to to extend my case study on the Web Celebrity, and to show how the stars of the show have used New Media, specifically Social Networking Sites like Facebook and Twitter, to their advantage. For those of you living under a rock, I'll give you a little background on the Real Housewives franchise. The "Real Housewives of.." is a reality television show depicting the lavish and dramatic lives of groups of women in Orange County, Atlanta, New York and New Jersey. The show has garnered record-breaking ratings for Bravo and will continue to expand in the future with new installments popping up constantly. There is even a rumored Real Housewives of Washington DC reportedly being cast right now.

This show has catapulted a number of women from somewhat obscurity to pretty substantial fame. It is important to note that the television show has not been the only vehicle the women have used to achieve this fame, each housewife maintains a Facebook profile and Twitter account to sustain and expand their ever-growing fan bases. The SNS medium has become especially important to the cash-strapped housewives featured in the RHOOC. The medium, specifically Facebook and Twitter, has acted as a new vehicle for the Housewives to attempt to maintain their lavish lifestyles hit hard by economic downturn our nation is experiencing. Here are a couple examples:

Former real estate power-broker Jeana Keough's business has plummeted in the past year. Keough has resorted to Facebook to hawk various endorsement deals with brands like BriteAge, and Duzoxin. Keough constantly updates her Facebook and Twitter statuses promoting her use of the products and encouraging others to try them themselves. Facebook has also proved to be a legitimate medium for re-connecting with old friends, as Keough noted on her Bravo blog that a high school friend contacted her through her page and offered to pay for Keough's daughter Kara's summer classes.

Housewife Tamra Barney's finances have also seen better days, as the Barneys are currently listing their OC mansion at a significantly lower price than what they paid for it. Barney has utilized her Facebook and Twitter accounts to promote her new website to her 5,000 Facebook friends and over 8,000 Twitter followers.

Although housewife Vicki Gunvalson is still flush with cash, she uses her Facebook and Twitter accounts to expand her budding Insurance business, and her line of denim. The accounts are also ways to promote her various public appearances. Gunvalson uses her Facebook account to connect with fans, going so far as to recruit employees and clients.

As our country faces difficult economic times, it will be interesting to see how social networking sites are utilized even more in the future as a sources of income and in ways to promote various business ventures.