I’m sure many of you have seen the latest wave of tweets, emails, and Facebook updates similar to the below excerpt:

As of today, 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’. Copy and paste onto your status for all your friends to see ASAP.

Now I’d like to dismiss this rumor as being entirely false, but the privacy of your Facebook (and your Twitter, Myspace, etc all) information is entirely up to you and your settings.

Read on to learn more about how to control your privacy, and how Google, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and the others are using your information.

Facebook

First things first, Facebook has had public search listings for Google since 2007; here’s an example:

And according to Facebook:

The Public Search Listing of a profile shows the profile picture thumbnail and links to interact with a user on Facebook. People will always have to log in or register to poke, message or add someone as a friend. A user can also restrict what information shows in their public listing by going to the search privacy page. For instance, if a user does not want their profile picture to be shown, they can uncheck that box under “What people can do with my search results”.

Now the second part of the equation has to do with Facebook’s recent privacy changes. In the past, other Facebook users were only allowed to see your personal information if they were in your list of friends or your network (Facebook had networks for schools, work places, and geographic regions). But in an effort to simply things, Facebook has done away with networks and chosen a much more simplified approach to protecting your privacy.

Here’s the official word from Facebook (link):

The plan we’ve come up with is to remove regional networks completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone.

We’re adding something that many of you have asked for — the ability to control who sees each individual piece of content you create or upload. In addition, we’ll also be fulfilling a request made by many of you to make the privacy settings page simpler by combining some settings. If you want to read more about this, we began discussing this plan back in July.

Since this update will remove regional networks and create some new settings, in the next couple of weeks we’ll ask you to review and update your privacy settings. You’ll see a message that will explain the changes and take you to a page where you can update your settings. When you’re finished, we’ll show you a confirmation page so you can make sure you chose the right settings for you. As always, once you’re done you’ll still be able to change your settings whenever you want.

MySpace

Now MySpace is a different beast when it comes to privacy settings, as they give you three options for most of your information: Anyone can view, Anyone 18 and over can view, Only my friends can view.

It’s great that MySpace allows its users to control their information and privacy, but it all falls on the user’s shoulder to control who they allow in to their circle of friends.  Users also need to remember that anything on your MySpace page can be considered public information (as seen in this instance).

In fact, here’s a related story on adding friends (yes it involves Facebook, but it’s still completely relevant):

According to a recent report by the San Jose Mercury News, Sophos, a Boston-based Internet security company, was able to acquire highly personal information from 40% of the nearly 200 Facebook users who chose to add “Freddi Staur” as a friend in their Facebook accounts. Freddi Staur doesn’t exist, except as a toy on the desk of some Sophos employee. The company created a fictional person on Facebook to illustrate how vulnerable people can be when using social networks.

Twitter

Ah yes Twitter, the hottest new tech trend today (well for those of you just now hearing about it from the major media outlets).

Now the main purpose of Twitter (when it launched) was an online service to let others know “What are you doing”. Yes, Twitter does allow users to protect their updates so that they are only visible by others in their friends/connections list, but with the multitude of APIs and remote access options it is all too easy to get your information.  Twitter was meant to be a public service with public information, and that is what you should expect with any information that you provide through your Twitter profile.

Google

Last but not least, the final piece of the equation involves the new deal between Google and the social networking sites that provides information for real-time search.  Now this section only covers Google and its use of information from social networking sites, but you can expect that they will neither be the first nor the last.

Google’s real time search is still a relatively new service, but already they’ve signed deals with Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook to display their relevant information in your web searches. This means any of your information that is available to the public (based on your privacy settings) will now be available to Google to use in their real time search service.

Here’s a quick video from Google showing their real time search feature:

So the next time you’re using one of these social networking sites, be sure that you know how your information is being used, and that you control what is publicly available, and above all else remember this great tip from Mashable:

Assume what you post will be on the front page of the NY Times – No matter what lengths you go to in order to protect privacy, someone that is truly determined can probably find you out. Thus, even if you’re under an alias, you shouldn’t post things online you wouldn’t want the world to see at some point.

If you’d like to read more on this subject I’ve put together a few links to other sites that have some great articles on the subject of online privacy:

Mint.com – HOWTO: Protect Your Privacy on Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn

The Christian Science Monitor – Ten Ways to Protect Your Privacy Online

PC World – Protect Your Privacy on Facebook and Twitter

All Facebook – 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know

Lawrence Journal-World – MySpace, Facebook Applications can Pose Security Risk

The basic idea behind the article is just like the heating/oil company tries to anticipate your needs and charge you a steady rate throughout the year, we need to anticipate our clients needs and give them a similar option.  Whether you’re offering graphic design, web design, development, or any other of a myriad of services, you should be able to use a subscription-based offering for additional work with your clients.

Web Design is a great example, and one of the easiest ways to monetize this sort of business relationship.  Too often web designers/developers finish their contracted obligations (build/launch a design/website) and then they dump the client like a bad habit.  This tactic not only destroys the relationship with the client, but they’re also throwing away good money!

Too many times I end up working with these clients after the initial website has been launched, and they love the fact that I work with them to come up with a reasonable maintenace plan to keep the site up to date, and the client happy.  There a few very easy ways to keep your client (and your wallet) happy, with simple services that you can offer, including: web hosting, website maintenance, search engine optimization, and more!  There are no excuses why you can’t offer these services to your clients, not matter how large or small your business.

First and foremost, when you work with a client to build/design a website you should ALWAYS offer website and email hosting!  Now that there are reseller plans available it’s easier than ever to get your clients setup and earn a monthly check from hosting there websites, email, and more.  My two recommended reseller hosts are HostGator, and Innohosting.  Both of these are great companies that have been offering reseller hosting for quite some time, and they try to make it as easy as possible for designers/developers to get setup offering their own hosting services.

Next up are maintenance plans.  Maintenance can be a tricky setup to master, and will require some restrictions to protect you and the client, but they can be one of the most lucrative add-on services offered.  I’ve found that the best way to go about maintenance is to first decide on a monthly or yearly term, and then decide on how much of your time you are willing to offer for subscribers.  Many times coming up with the right setup requires some trial and error, but in the end you need to know how much time you will have available, and how much you need to get paid to cover your expenses and still make a profit.

There are 3 different maintenance plans or methods that I’ve worked with, and they are:

1. Pay as you Go – You give the client your hourly rate, and you work together with the client to get their changes/updates completed, and you bill them based on the time used.
2. Monthly Maintenance Plans – You offer a monthly subscription that gives your client a certain amount of time or services that they can use each month for a fee.
3. Time Blocks – This is a newer method that I recently learned about from 720 Media, where they offer blocks of time for marketing and maintenance service at discounted rates.

Now there are also two more services that I’d like to mention (although there are always more than what are mentioned here) that you can use to keep your clients happy and make a steady income.

First up is Search Engine Optimization.  Now I’m not here to debate all of the intriacies of Search Engine Optimization, but simply that it can be a great service to offer your clients for their website(s).  My favorite tool here is WebCEO, which allows you to generate a variety of custom reports for your clients, as well as a variety of tools including site ranking, optimization, keyword optimization, search engine and directory submission, and more!  Plus, WebCEO has a built-in report generator where you can design your own reports and give them to your clients at a set interval of time (weekly, monthly, etc.).

Last but not least are Marketing Services.  With services like Campaign Monitor you can now resell email marketing to your clients!  You specify how much to mark up the service, and campaign monitor offers easy to use list and campaign builder tools, along with pre-designed templates, powerful analytics, and an amazing set of tips and resources to get you started.

I’d like to mention my own freelance business, JB Design and Photo, for those of you looking for Web Design, Graphic Design, or Photography Services.  Also (if you feel like being generous), here are my affiliate links for all of the products mentioned:

• Hostgator -
  
• Innohosting -
  
• WebCEO -
  
  

Ford has launched a new blogging site: www.thefordstory.com built by the direct marketing agency, Wunderman Team Detroit, with built-in social networking capabilities and social media feeds through Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and more.

My favorite part of Ford’s new setup is that they’re actually using all of these great new social media sites, and they’re using them well.  Have a question about Ford or a Ford vehicle?  Send them a quick tweet and they respond promptly with a detailed and helpful response.

Another great thing about the new Ford Story website is that the entire website is built using Wordpress, making it easy to keep the site fresh and up to date with new content.  Wordpress also makes it easy for visitors to comment and give feedback through the website, and check out related stories and social networking activity.

Planigo.de is a leading European hotel booking website owned by the QCNS Group, and built by system integrator Optaros.

The project required significant modifications to the Magento Commerce system, and currently contains more than 60,000 hotels with real time pricing and availability provided through QCNS’ Quad booking engine.  The site is also built with a Content Management System (CMS) and flexible backend interface for easy administration and marketing.

Smashing Magazine

Exclusively available online, Smashing Magazine has grown to be one of the most popular designer magazines today with articles covering everything from blogging to e-commerce, online typography, free graphics, and more.

Layers Magazine

Calling themselves the How-To magazine for everything Adobe, Layers provides everything from amazing tutorials and tips to industry-related news, and not to mention some really great contests.

Grafik Magazine

More of a traditional graphic design based magazine, Grafik Magazine includes a bevy of artwork and creatives showcasing amazing talent in the design industry.

I’ve had the idea for this post in my mind for awhile, but after reading an article over on The Daily Background about Belkin paying $0.65 for each 5/5 review on Amazon from people that had never used/owned the products, I couldn’t resist digging a little deeper into the current propaganda out there.

The majority of this propaganda comes in the form of Astroturfing, as defined by Wikipedia as:

Astroturfing is a form of propaganda whose techniques usually consist of a few people attempting to give the impression that mass numbers of enthusiasts advocate some specific cause.

So just how prevalent is Astroturfing? Well here’s a short list of some of the companies that have been caught Astroturfing:

• In August 2001 Microsoft orchestrated a mailing campaign to pressure state attorneys general to go easy in their antitrust lawsuits against the software giant.  The campaign was organized by the organization, Americans for Technology Leadership, which is partially funded by Microsoft, and included letters the names of deceased people in support of Microsoft.
• In March 2006 video game manufacturers faced over seventy anti-games bills across the country. Embattled, they established the Video Game Voters Network, “a new grassroots political network for gamers” which publicly portrayed itself as a populist effort to lobby state and federal legislators against supporting violent video game-related legislation.
• Working Families for Wal-Mart portrays itself as a grassroots organization, but was started and funded by Wal-Mart. It paid former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young to head the organization.
• In August 2007 Comcast Corporation’s public relations representatives were accused of astroturfing by posing as fans on internet college team message boards in an effort to spread their negative views about the newly created Big Ten Network.  At that time Comcast and the Big Ten Network were involved in acrimonious negotiations.
• Again in February 2008 Comcast paid individuals to take up seats at an FCC hearing into Comcast’s network management practices, including RST packet spoofing. These individuals fell asleep, applauded on cue, and took up so much room that a number of people with anti-Comcast sentiment were shut out.
• In late 2008, in Osaka, Japan, McDonald’s acknowledged hiring people to stand in line for a new hamburger release. The part-time workers were given a stipend for the product that were to be included in the store’s sales figures.
• In November 2008 Motorola was caught posting illegitimate reviews and propaganda supporting their Krave phone under the guise “M Goode”, and through the company DEI Worldwide.
• In January 2009 Belkin was found offering compensation for perfect reviews on Amazon from users that had never even owned their products.

So the next time you’re looking to purchase something (especially online), remember that those reviews and feedback you’re seeing may not be a reliable source.  And if you’re a company considering an Astroturfing or Propaganda Campaign, remember that things can go both ways (ie backfire), including:

• September 2008, Gamers fight back against lackluster Spore gameplay, bad DRM as noted on ArsTechnica
• February 2009, Customers fight back against Fake Amazon Reviews as noted on the Consumerist

Do you have your own story of company propaganda, or know of another business caught in the act that wasn’t listed here?  Post a quick comment and let us know!

This darker side of Wikipedia stems from the fact that the information provided comes from an open group of contributors, resulting in unreliable data lacking proper sources.

Many teachers today prohibit students from using Wikipedia as a source in reports and research due to the anonymity and possibility for unconfirmed (or even falsified) information.

Wikipedia has also been a target for vandalism by unscrupulous individuals and advertisers as a way to gain traffic and increased exposure, or even to discredit and defame competitors.

The other major problem is brought on by the fact that anyone can become an editor, and by contributing to the site even gain administrator status (granting the power to block and ban users as well as lock and remove pages).

Examples:

One such example is that of the Wikipedia bio of  John Seigenthaler, Sr. (editor in chief of USA Today), in which falsified information was introduced and left unchanged for 4 months!

Another great example is that of the so called Wikipedia War on Gaming, in which articles involving traditional (and historical) gaming references and even classical games were defaced, locked, and even deleted in some cases.

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia has even had problems in the past, including a short entry he created about a restaurant in South Africa that was put up for deletion because the restaurant wasn’t “notable” enough.

So the next time you find yourself on Wikipedia, remember that it can be a great resource of information, as long as you keep in mind that these are real human beings writing (and editing!) these articles (the elitist, arrogant, jealous, and spiteful creatures we are).

Comment Spam
One of the biggest problems with even a not so popular blog as my own has been comment spam.  If your blog is out there, the spammers will find it.  Now Automattic (the company behind Wordpress) offers the Akismet spam blocker, and after installing their Akismet plugin, spam comments were definitely reduced and almost completely eliminated.  Disqus does its own spam filtering, and even has the option for other commenters to flag/report a comment that is inappropriate or spam.

Comment Follow Up
Another problem with Wordpress is the inability for comment authors to subscribe to a specific post, or group of comments, to be notified of follow up comments.  This can make it a real pain to try and keep up with your comments (especially if you comment on many different sites), and makes it hard to have a back and forth conversation within your comments on a post.  To achieve this functionality within Wordpress another plugin, Subscribe To Comments, which can send you an email when there are new comments.   With Disqus not only can you follow up with comments, but you can track and view other user’s comments on your blog (as well as others) on the Disqus site.

Comment Rating
Not necessarily a problem with Wordpress’ default comment system (although it can be added with the Comment Karma plugin), but a very nice added feature when using Disqus for comments.  Similar to the functionality you see on Digg and other popular sites, Disqus allows commenters to rate each others’ comments (and even bury comments with too many negative ratings).

Install
The one place where I can honestly say that Wordpress has the edge on Disqus is the install/setup process.  Disqus does require some additional special steps to get everything configured correctly for you blog, but luckily Dale Dietrich has a handy guide on installing Disqus with Wordpress version 2.7.  Following Dale’s guide I was able to have everything up and running without a hitch in a matter of minutes, and once my existing Wordpress comments were imported into Disqus, the new comment system was ready to roll (the comment import process did take about an hour).

The best thing about using Disqus for comments? I was able to delete 3-4 different Wordpress plugins and replace them all using only the new Disqus plugin.

So what do you think of the new Disqus comments?  Would you rather use Wordpress’ default comment system?  Or something else like Intense Debate perhaps?

First off I hope you kept records of your income and expenses, because it will make this process much easier.  As I see it you have two options for preparing your taxes, do it yourself, or pay someone else to do it for you.

Either way there are some basic rules that apply:

• Freelancers without a proper business structure (LLC, Corporation, etc.) will have to file form 1040 schedule C and pay the self-employment taxes (15.3% of your freelance income for social security and medicare just like a real job)
• If you can prove that your freelancing is a business (and not a hobby), you can also claim any additional related expenses.  Do you regularly apply for and do freelance work?  Do you take freelancing seriously, and plan to make a profit?
• Deductions, Deductions, Deductions!  If you can prove that you’re freelancing is more than just a hobby, be prepared to deduct your expenses.  Remember, you can deduct just about any business-related expense, including: supplies, gas, books, hardware, software, phone calls, private insurance, and plenty more.

Alright you’re still with me, armed with your income and expense information you’re ready to go it alone and prepare your taxes, so what’s next?

Personally, I recommend Turbo Tax be your next step.  Turbo Tax is a really great service that I can’t say enough about, when it comes time to prepare your taxes.  Turbo Tax even has a section that can handle your freelance/self-employment taxes, and takes care of filling out form 1040 schedule c for you!

Alright, so you’ve finished your taxes for the year, now what can you do to better prepare for next year?

First things first, make sure that you keep detailed records of your business income and expenses (consider using an accounting program such as Quickbooks – Simple Start is freely available to get you started).

Secondly, as you are tracking your income/expenses, set aside some of your business income to be prepared to pay taxes at the end of the year (or could even make quarterly estimated tax payments).

Last but definitely not least, consider re-organizing your business with a formal business structure (such as an LLC, Partnership, or S-Corporation).  Not only can you get some liability protection and seperate your personal and business endeavors, but the added tax benefits/savings are nice too.

The Impossible Project (www.the-impossible-project.com) has purchased Polaroid’s Factory in the Netherlands (including all equipment), and plans to resume Integral Film Pack production by 2010.

But Impossible’s Mission doesn’t stop there.  They plan not only to resume production at the Polaroid Factory, but also to improve upon the existing integral film pack design, and have brought integral film experts onto their team from around the world.