facebook-privacy

Last week’s announcement that four NYU students were developing  a Facebook alternative suggests that they want its global dominance to shift: in the name of freedom. The students have more than raised their needed-for-development goal of $10,000 in 27 fewer days than scheduled.

But before the project, Diaspora*, is launched, we’ve found some articles that can be used in the meantime:

1) A timely article entitled “Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative” which discusses the viral, yet ambiguous, nature of its privacy laws, or lack thereof.

2) ReclaimPrivacy’s tool that allows users to scan their profiles for privacy intrusion.

3) Consumer Report’s Facebook rule of thumb: “7 Things to Stop Doing Now on Facebook”

4) SaveFace: A tool that allows users to reset most user settings back to “Friends Only.”

We aren’t against Facebook; we just want our privacy back.

Writing for the Web – Elizabeth Cawein

DON’T DO THIS!!!!

Really, folks. Typing in all caps is just unnecessary and annoying, and makes people want to abandon your blog as fast as their mice can hit the Back button. But, short of that preference, Elizabeth Cawein’s “Writing for the Web” session was not dictatorial on grammar. After all, the less formal nature of blogs and some websites may lend themselves to run-on sentences, incomplete clauses, and maybe even the SELECTIVE use of all caps for emphasis.

The key, Elizabeth says, is to “establish a style and stick to it.” That might include choosing a particular style manual (like MLA or Chicago), but mainly it’s about your tone and topics. If you write a funny blog about your dog and sudden throw in a cooking post, people are gonna be scratching their heads.

Your style will also determine the proper length of your posts. Shorter is better in general, but depending on your content and how engaging it is, people might be willing to commit to a longer post. Even so, Elizabeth says she tries to keep her posts under 500 or so words.

Elizabeth also emphasized the importance of reading and then re-reading your post to check for misspellings and (unintentional) grammatical errors. Even if you’re writing in a lighter, fun style, there’s still no excuse for errors that make your post difficult to read.
Then, tag tag tag!

Capturing Light

Presented at TribeCamp by Justin McGregor
When the shot matters, you don’t want to miss it because you’re fiddling with your camera’s exposure settings. It’s just got to come naturally, says Justin McGregor, and step one is learning about aperture, ISO, and shutter speed. Then, go play with your camera until adjusting these elements is like second nature.
“Capturing Light” was an exposure 101 course for photography beginners. Justin went over the definitions and basic principles of aperture, ISO, and shutter speed, and then tossed out a few great photography websites and blogs to check out!

• Digital Photography School
• Photofocus
• Strobist
• Within a Click
• Nerboo’s Flickr Photostream

Dave Barger and Roundtable Attendees

Dave was able to share his insight into Social Media, not as something that can be broken down into check boxes with “power tips,” but as a philosophy and a conscious decision made by a business organization to provide transparency where there were once barriers. He discussed the tendency by Social snake oil peddlers to oversimplify and invent formulas for something that should never be reduced to mindlessly executed tasks, but should be a sincere attempt to create relationships with your customer base.

He mentioned that businesses must consider the time investment that it takes to do Social Media well, and start small by finding out where their customers are and creating a presence there instead of trying to do everything at once.

It was a great turnout and plenty of excellent questions from the crowd after the presentation. You can look for the full audio and video to be posted on the Society of Entrepreneurs site in the near future.

Dave Barger of LunaWeb does a great job showing us exactly how these new additions may change the way you use Facebook:

This upgrade, along with Facebook’s recent acquisition of social aggregator FriendFeed (made up of several former Google employees), seems to foreshadow big news in the upcoming months for the site’s search feature and who knows what else…

LaunchMemphis, with Mercury Technology Labs, is hosting the Business Plan Boot Camp, where new entrepreneurs will be given a push towards business success. Experts from several fields will be on hand with hard-earned advice, while attendees can get tailored feedback on their business plans in several break-out sessions.

Covered topics will include:

• Business plan development
• Legal issues for entrepreneurs
• Marketing
• Financial considerations for entrepreneurs
• Gaining funding
• Finding investors

LaunchMemphis’ goal is to foster entrepreneurial growth within the Memphis community. The group is non-profit and the cost for the Boot Camp is $60 for two days filled with insight (lunches included).

The two sessions will take place on August 15th and 22nd from 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. at the Mercury Launchpad located at:

EmergeMemphis, Suite 133
516 Tennessee Street
Memphis, TN 38103

For more information email Chris@LaunchMemphis.com or call (901) 628-4657.

Don’t forget other important dates coming up:

BarCamp Chattanooga
July 25
Chattanooga, TN

Social South (SoSo)
August 21 and 22
Birmingham, AL

SocialCamp Memphis (Organized by LunaWeb through LaunchMemphis)
September 19
Memphis, TN

WordCamp Birmingham
September 27 and 28
Birmingham, AL

BarCamp Nashville
October 17
Nashville, TN

BarCamp Memphis (Organized by LunaWeb through LaunchMemphis)
November 14
Memphis, TN

While things change and people grow up, there are always a few people who manage to hold on to this mindset as they step into their professional lives. The rules are irrelevant to them and the rest of us get left in the dust. Social Media has been riddled with spammers and even legit companies trying to get ahead by circumventing the rules of the platform.

"Don't cheat" by quinn.anya on Flickr

LunaWeb has fallen victim to one of these social delinquients as of late in the flurry of excitement surrounding Facebook’s new vanity URLs.

When the URLs were first released they were only available to individuals and Public Profiles with more than 1000 fans. While we weren’t huge fans at being left out of the loop (we don’t have 1000 fans but we’d love it if you were one) we bade our time until Facebook allowed the smaller pages to start claiming URLs.

This past Sunday night we logged in at the appointed time to claim our vanity URL at long last, only to discover it had been done several days before by an individual profile from a person suspiciously named LunaWeb Agence. Apparently a French company of the same name created a fake profile for the purpose of snagging the URL before anyone else did.

You can bet we’ll be taking this issue up with Facebook and we’ll keep you posted on what happens. Until then… play fair.

"LaunchMemphis Startup Weekend" by LunaWeb on Flickr.

One of our favorite things about last year’s Startup Weekend was that many of the ideas pitched include major online social components – ways to let the audience participate. This, of course, suits our disposition towards social media (we founded Social Media Expedition out of love for the technology) – but it speaks more broadly to the importance of participation in today’s tech and economic environments.

It’s becoming obvious that no single one of us can achieve greatness on his or her own. We live in a world that requires us to work together – and in a world that makes that easier than ever.

It’s no surprise that such a large proportion of ideas presented at last year’s Startup Weekend shared that social element, but it is very reassuring to know that people understand the importance of each other. We hope that the trend continues this year.

Startup Weekend’s challenge – and fun – centers around the deadline. The participants will have 72 hours to volunteer their energies to ideas chosen by other participants to work on. By Sunday night, at least one new business will be up and running.

For more information about (and to register for) Startup Weekend, visit LaunchMemphis and the Startup Weekend blog. We’ll be there to cover the event. To see some nice shots from this year’s pre-event mixer, check out our Flickr set from that evening.

LunaWeb Home Page

Redesign

We’ve changed from the old design completely to include a much more colorful interface, as well as Flash on the homepage to keep things interesting – but if you’re on an iPhone, don’t worry, we aren’t going to leave you with the sad-looking question mark cube. We’ve slipped a nice, pretty static image in there. We’ve created a cleaner, updated, friendlier overall look.

Social Media

Social Media made a huge impact on our new presence. We took advantage of tools which allow us to make the site more interactive and conversational. We’ve brought in a Twitter feed that not only shows our tweets, but shows what others are saying about us. Videos that we switch out occasionally will be featured prominently. We also have links that give you one-click access to several of our Social Networking presences so you can join us in the conversation.

New Pages

You’ll find a few new pages on the site that we’re especially proud of. Primarily, new content reflecting our Social Presence offering (we have the most experienced and largest department of Social Media in Memphis). You will also find a link straight to our blog (this very one), which we update with some regularity with related information. There is also a portfolio page that will give you a quick peek at some of the websites we’ve created for our clients.

There’s a lot more new to be seen. Thank you for taking a look at our new home. We hope you like the changes.

The post “LunaWeb Launches New Site” by lunaweb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

“TechFuel: New Modes” by LunaWeb on Flickr.

C.C. Chapman and Adrian Ho, two of the top thought leaders in the online community, joined us to share their passion about Social Media and the new climate of “online marketing”.  Both men gave insightful presentations that went far beyond the tools and how-to of Social Media.  They also allowed for exhaustive Q&A in which great questions were met with equally strong answers. The real value, as always, was in the conversation.

A great turnout to the event translated into a valuable forum for networking, brainstorming, sharing ideas and meeting the movers and shakers of the Memphis community.  C.C. and Adrian stuck around through the late evening hours, and tirelessly conversed with Memphis’ entrepeneurs.

Check out the Commercial Appeal coverage of the event.

Next for LaunchMemphis is the 2nd Startup Weekend in Memphis.  A wide range of thinkers and creators will be needed to band together in an ambitious attempt to launch a new startup in just one weekend.

The post “TechFuel: New Modes” by lunaweb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.