www.jacobG.net
web. print and marketing services
On any given day many of the people reading this article will use facebook, youtube, linkedin, twitter and a host of google products for personal or business use. The advantages are legion. Gmail is better than any paid email service I've ever used, youtube is fast, easy and feature rich. Facebook, twitter and linkedin allow for networking that would have been cumbersome or impossible before their advent. But their are some downsides to nearly all of these products.
privacy
Every service has a different policy, and as a rule of thumb you give some of it up, in exchange for the service you sign-up for. These articles and videos give practical and satirical insight on the trade of privacy for service: facebook quizzes, facebook's privacy policy: a timeline, how to rip off facebook for little money down, trust me, can we get some privacy?, facebook glitch brings new privacy worries, facebook’s byzantine privacy controls , south park on facebook, Mark Zuckerberg op-ed and the google village.
the unpaid investor
You are very likely an unpaid investor in any social media site where you spend your time generating content. That content is often resold in the form of ads, freemium or pay models. When you tweet, blog, share or post your latest video, you are increasing the monetary value of their company and they in turn are likely not paying you, with money; for your efforts.
in who's interest?
If you post something that someone with a lawyer does not like, one take down notice later it's most likely coming down with or without your say so. If it's hosted on your server, running your software you have a greater opportunity to fight it.
For example, how do you think this Ralph Lauren take down notice would have been received if it went to a free blogging service and not boingboing.net, when they were pointing out how freakish this ad was? In fact the original post from photoshop disasters, hosted by a free blogging service offered by google, is not longer up; I don't know the underlying reason why.
a few tips
Check your privacy settings on all your accounts. Here is a video for configuring the defaults on your facebook settings, their are many, they are confusing; Larry's video can help.
Avoid a single point of failure. Their are many different free services, offering many different kinds of services, some will suit your needs others will not; try more than one.
If you use social media for your business, own some of your digital presence; owning your domain name is a good place to start. For example my blog is hosted by google, but it can easily be accessed via my site at jacobG.net/blog. I can switch over to a wordpress blog, and many readers might not ever notice, because I own my domain. The same is true for anyone who placed a "find us on myspace" button on their site who might want to swap it out for a "follow me on twitter" badge. Make the thing you own, the hub of your social media.
Are the free services discussed in this article worth their price? The answer, at least for me is a qualified yes. Yes, so long as I realize that:
- my privacy may not be respected
- that my efforts may end up enriching someone else
- If things go badly with the content I post, the host of the content is going to likely act in their own best interests; not necessarily in mine
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