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I originally wrote this blog for my company, ReputationDefender.
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Have you heard of Foursquare yet? If you haven’t, expect to soon. In November, Pete Cashmore, the founder and CEO of the popular social networking news website Mashable, predicted in a column for CNN that Foursquare would be next year’s Twitter. Cashmore isn’t the only one high on Foursquare either. In a blog post last September, tech blogger and web celebrity Robert Scoble did Cashmore one better saying “I think this lame little location game is going to be bigger than Twitter.”
What’s so special about Foursquare? First of all, it is a location-based application. By this, I mean that it is used primarily on GPS-enabled smartphones that can trace a user’s location. The goal of Foursquare is to use the application while you’re out on the town to check-in to different venues. Secondly, as you check-in, you earn points and, eventually, a variety of badges for your profile. If you check-in to a place more than anyone else, you become its “Mayor,” which, in some cases, gets you discounts on products or services.
The competitive aspect of Foursquare (it’s fun to oust someone as the mayor of a place) combined with its function as a sort of mobile city guide make it a fairly addictive application when you’re out. Since I started using the site myself, I have been focused on Foursquare more than almost any other social networking application I use.
As much fun as Foursquare can be to use, however, there are some natural privacy questions about the service. For instance, is it safe to tell the world exactly where you are every time you go out? If someone was monitoring your Foursquare profile, how easily could they establish your pattern of behavior? Before Christmas, we advised our readers not to share their travel details online to help protect their homes from burglary. If you’re using Foursquare all the time, doesn’t the same risk apply?
As ReputationDefender CEO Michael Fertik shared in a recent interview with the Financial Times, the dangers of oversharing online are plentiful. Truthfully, effective online reputation management can be a double-edged sword. In order to protect yourself from Internet slander and promote your personal and professional brand, you have to maintain a strong presence online. However, the more you share on the web, the more you have to work at preserving your digital identity.
To this end, the key to using sites like Foursquare (and Twitter or Facebook for that matter) is intelligence and moderation. Consider what you’re sharing before you post it. If you’re late to work because you stayed out late, will you be able to explain it to your boss? Not if they can see that you checked into five bars last night and were out until the wee hours of the morning.
Staying on top of the latest trends in social networking is an important part of proactively protecting your reputation online. Foursquare is a useful and fun tool for finding new places and connecting with friends. As long as you commit to sharing responsibly, you shouldn’t be afraid to try it out.
I originally wrote this blog post for my company, ReputationDefender.
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During the Great Depression, one criminal caught the attention of the world like no other before him. I’m talking of course about the infamous bank robber, John Dillinger. Over the course of his criminal career, Dillinger robbed at least two dozen banks and four police stations. He also escaped from prison…twice.
By the time he was gunned down in the alley of Chicago’s Biograph Theater at age 31, Dillinger had captured the imagination of the public and secured a legacy that would last for decades. (Not everyone gets to have Johnny Depp play them in a feature film.) Why do I bring up John Dillinger? Because, I believe that we may have our very own Dillinger for the digital age in the form of British fugitive Craig Lynch. If you are unfamiliar with Lynch, allow me to catch you up.
28-year-old Craig Lynch escaped from Hollesley Bay Prison in southern England three months ago. Lynch was being held at the minimum-security facility on charges of assault. Since escaping, however, Lynch has not followed the typical m.o. of a man on the run. Rather than laying low, Lynch carried on his life like normal: visiting old friends, going out to restaurants and bars, and updating his Facebook profile with regularity. One would think that publicly sharing updates online about where he was would have gotten him caught, but, to the contrary, Lynch has been able to evade police with apparent ease.
When the news broke that Lynch was a prison escapee, rather than closing down his Facebook profile, Lynch began to use it to mock his pursuers, sharing images of him enjoying the “free life” and hurling profanity-laced insults at police. As news of Lynch’s Facebook exploits began spreading, the fugitive turned into an unlikely web celebrity. At last count, Lynch’s Facebook fan page has over 26,000 fans from all over the world. While a number of comments on the page express disgust for Lynch and his arrogant taunts, a surprisingly large number of Facebook users are openly rooting for him.
It shouldn’t be surprising that, despite his lawless behavior, Lynch has caught the attention of the public. For some reason, as a culture, we have always romanticized individuals who fight against authority, even if they most often happen to be criminals. The key to Lynch’s popularity, however, lies in the transformative power of social media. In the days of old media, Lynch would have been a mugshot on the evening news and nothing more. Thanks to social networking tools, like Facebook, he is able to reach out directly to the public and augment how the world perceives him. In a bizarre and somewhat disturbing way, Craig Lynch is engaging in a very successful form of personal branding.
Facebook has already said that it will help law enforcement in tracking Lynch down, which is in keeping with the site’s terms and conditions (“We may disclose information pursuant to subpoenas, court orders, or other requests (including criminal and civil matters) if we have a good faith belief that the response is required by law.”) However, as explained in this article at Media Bistro, Facebook representatives have been asked to not reveal how they are involved in the investigation.
At some point soon, I would imagine Lynch will be caught. I just find it hard to beleive that he won’t slip into some kind of pattern that police will be able to detect. That being said, while I abhor Lynch’s actions, it is pretty amazing that he hasn’t been captured yet. It would seem that, thus far, he has figured out how to to lead a public life on Facebook without interrupting his private life.
I originally wrote this blog post for my company, ReputationDefender.
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“You better watch out, you better not cry.
You better not pout, I’m telling you why.
Santa Claus is coming to town.”
Before I get started with this post, I just want to say that I love Christmas. I love being able to spend time with family, I love giving and receiving presents, and I love all of the cultural aspects of Christmas too (Santa Claus, Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, etc.) Still, when you look back on some Christmas traditions, it really makes you scratch your head.
Think about it. When we were kids, we were told that an old man named Santa Claus, who lived with elves and reindeer thousands of miles away in the North Pole, was silently passing judgment on our behavior, deciding whether or not we deserved to open toys on Christmas morning. What’s more, there was no hiding from Ol’ Saint Nick, because he could see us while we were sleeping and he knew when we were awake. Talk about an invasion of privacy. It’s a good thing most kids aren’t naturally neurotic, or we’d never have been able to sleep.
Anyway, while I was wondering about Santa Claus and his omniscient gaze, I started thinking about Google. Is there a closer proximation of Santa Claus in the real world than Google? For the first time in the history of civilization, practically all of the world’s collected knowledge is at the touch of our fingertips. From Google, you can find out not just whether someone’s been naughty or nice, but where they live, where they work, what they like, what they hate, how old they are, how much money they make, and much more. If Santa did exist, he wouldn’t carry a long list of paper, he’d just bring a laptop with a wireless internet card (wi-fi gets a little spotty north of Greenland).
The truth is that, thanks to the web, everyone can wield the power of Santa Claus, and not just at Christmas time either. Whether it’s a recruiting manager dismissing a job candidate over a nasty blog comment, or a college admissions officer rejecting an applicant because of an unprofessional Facebook page, we’ve seen the story a thousand times over. It’s about time we realized that how we act online is as important as how we act in real life, if not more so. In the digital age, proactive online reputation management is the surest way to personal and professional success. And for those who ignore it? Well, they’ll be having a Blue Christmas indeed.
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