An Associated Press article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer sounds a warning about applications downloaded in social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. 

When the account holder decides to add an application from a third-party developer to their home page, they have to agree to let the developer “know who I am and access my information” which means everything on a profile, except contact information.   Agreeing to those terms has become a matter of routine for the nearly 70 million Facebook users worldwide who use applications to enhance sharing and communication with friends online.

Even if you always choose to keep your social pages private — only accessible to selected friends — you may have opened the door to privacy and security abuses when you add one of the growing number of applications.

The third-parties developers say they use the information to connect users with similar interests, or to target ads, based on demographics such as gender and age (something Facebook and MySpace also do).  Facebook and MySpace say they hold application developers to strict standards and note that e-mail addresses and phone numbers aren’t made available.

Experts in online security issues, on the other hand, think there’s too much personal information accessible online with few guarantees that it’s safe.  Social networkers may have little understanding where their information goes and have a false sense of security.  After awhile, it is too easy to check those boxes allowing access to your information, especially if you want to enjoy the fun that the apps can provide.

“I suspect that there’s a whole lot of clicking without a lot of thinking,” says Mary Madden, a senior research specialist at the Pew Internet & American Life Project who studies privacy issues. “So much of this sharing happens in a way that users don’t see the consequences. It’s kind of a big, black hole.”

The article offers these privacy tips:

• Provide enough information for your friends to be able to identify you — but not so much that someone could use information to steal your identity. There’s no reason to include your entire resume, from education to work history.
• Consider making your profile private so people you don’t know can’t “scrape” information and images from it.
• Even if your profile is private, remember that your information and photos can be accessed by third parties through your friends — and through application developers on such sites as Facebook and MySpace.
• Remove social networking applications you’re not using and check out the creators of those you do install. If something seems suspicious, report it.

If you are a member of a social network, be sure to examine the privacy options, understand what might happen to your information, and ensure that the settings coincide with your wishes.

WordCat has created a free app for Facebook users, making it easy for them to search WorldCat libraries and monitor favorite WorldCat lists right from their Facebook pages.  Search results are returned from WorldCat.org, which includes the collections of more than 10,000 libraries worldwide.

The application includes a Home screen with WorldCat search box, as well as quick links to WorldCat searches based on personal interests a user has input in his or her Facebook profile.  Also included is tabbed access to:

• a built-in advanced WorldCat search
• a “Something to Read” panel that displays books recently added to other users’ WorldCat lists
• a panel where the user can invite other Facebook friends to install the WorldCat application

On a user’s Facebook profile page, the application adds a custom Facebook “box” with basic WorldCat search. The user can expand or collapse the box’s visibility, and reposition it to a preferred location by dragging its title bar.

The WorldCat app can be added either from the WorldCat plug-ins page or through a Facebook account directly from this link. 

WorldCat also has a blog aimed at end users. 

Accoding to Read/WriteWeb, the Data Portability Working Group is announcing today that key people from LinkedIn, Flickr, SixApart and Twitter are joining the group.  There seems to be a groundswell of new interest in the group since this week’s news that key players at Google and Facebook have joined DataPortability.org.

The new additions include Steve Ganz, Senior Web Developer at LinkedIn, Matthew Rothenberg, Product Strategy and Management at Flickr, David Recordon, the point-person for all things OpenID related at SixApart, and Blain Cook, a developer at Twitter.

Now that “key people have joined, the real work begins.”  Hopefully these big company’s are going to open up and “things in this world are going to get better!”

Online censorship in 2007
in the tradition of the year in review, Mashable recounts “several poignant, backward-thinking moments of the past twelve months in which individuals the world over have had to juggle the existence of Internet blocks; be they government-enforced or leveraged by corporations.”

Some of the sites censored:  MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube.

 GCal scheduling every-which-way
Lifehacker has rounded up a wealth of GCal syncing guides, organizers, and other GCal tools for your desktop, mobile device, Firefox, and even iPod.

Moving from Windows to a Mac
Two of my close relatives (you know who you are) abandoned Windows-based machines to embrace Macs.  If you are doing the same, there are things you need to know and Web Worker Daily lists 16 ways to successfully make the switch.

Tech in review
Lance Ulanoff at PC Magazine focuses on key topics as he reviews technology doings in 2007 and tells us what he thinks is likely to happen in 2008.  Includes Vista, iPod, Google, Facebook, chips, and more.

Another point of (re)view
Grumpy John Dvorak spreads his misery around as he reviews tech in 2007.  He looks at some of the same tech activities as the those listed above.

Tips and tricks to master Gmail
Writer John Brandon at PC Magazine asks you to abandon your old ideas about email and embrace all that Gmail has to offer, giving tips on how even those accustomed to Microsoft Outlook can successfully transition. 

Advantages of Gmail, he says, include never having to download your mail again, using a powerful mail search that doesn’t seem like an afterthought, and having a nearly infinite amount of online storage space. 
 

Many useful Firefox add-ons for librarians
iLibrarian has a three-parter on Firefox add-ons for librarians. It includes categories “for the librarian customizer” “for librarians who code” “for super-organized librarians” for librarian searcher” and more.

Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 .

Get your library into Facebook
A few years ago libraries heeded the call to get a MySpace page. Now that Facebook is open to organizational profiles, it’s time to make a place for your library in this social network.

These examples are Hennepin County Library and the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County. [via Librarian in Black]

Shortly before my friend and associate Jean Kent left on vacation, I mentioned OffExploring travel blog here.   Jean took advantage of the free site and I really enjoyed following her postings, photos and videos throughout her trip.  She was kind enough to review the travel blog service for us below:

     During a recent two week trip to London, England and Uppsala, Sweden, I used OffExploring.com to document and share my travel adventures with family and friends. I really enjoyed the process of blogging my trip – I know I’ll remember more about the places I saw and things I did because I wrote about them every evening.  If you’re planning a trip and will be traveling with a computer and a digital camera, I highly recommend keeping a travel blog.

     OffExploring is a free and easy to use blog service. You can add photos and videos along with your blog entries. Your visitors can leave you messages and send emails to you from the site. Each feature (photos, videos, blog entries, etc.) of your blog is equipped with a RSS feed so family and friends can get automatic updates on your whereabouts. I got good feedback from everyone who visited my travel blog.

     Overall my experience with OffExploring was very positive.  They have unlimited storage space for photos and will automatically crop and resize them for you, too.  I took short videos with my still digital camera (they support most video file formats) but ran into a 50 MB file size limitation the first time I tried to add one to my blog. I ended up converting the videos to WMV using Windows MovieMaker (free but an extra step that might discourage less savvy computer users than I am) before uploading them to my blog. For some reason, a few of my videos didn’t appear after I uploaded them so I had to delete them and try again.

     I didn’t take advantage of a few of the features like making updates with a mobile phone or loading all my email contacts to the site. Out of curiosity I checked into purchasing a printed travel journal which would have been 19 pages and cost £24.99. Too expensive for my budget so I’ll have to hope that the site stays live for a few months.

     OffExploring is compatible with Facebook and doesn’t insert any advertising into your blog. While I haven’t used other travel blog sites, I can say that OffExploring served me well and I would definitely use it again.

     Curious about my travels? Please visit my travel blog here and feel free to leave me a message, too.

     Jean Kent

MySpace and Bebo have joined a Google-led alliance promoting a common set of standards, called OpenSocial, for software developers to write programs for social networks, reports the New York Times.

Facebook’s opening of their site recently led to fast growth of “things to do” on the social network and gained it a lot of press.  We reported earlier on the need for MySpace and Google to follow suit. 

The Times article says Google’s alliance “now presents a powerful counterweight to Facebook.”  MySpace, still the world’s largest social network with 110 million active members, along with Britain’s top site, Bebo, could bring pressure on Facebook to drop its own standard and join OpenSocial.

“OpenSocial is going to be become the de facto standard for developers right out of the gate,” said Chris DeWolfe, chief executive of MySpace, in a press conference at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.  “It will have access to 200 million users, making it way bigger than any other platform out there.”

Others participating in the OpenSocial alliance include Friendster, Hi5, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Ning and the blogging network SixApart, as well as the software makers Oracle and SalesForce.com.  Creators of several of the most popular programs on Facebook, including Slide, RockYou, iLike and Flixster, have announced their intention to write programs conforming to the OpenSocial standards. 

Check out the OpenSocial site for more information and a video.

Meebo Platform Launches
Going along with the crowd, Meebo launched its Meebo Platform yesterday, joining Facebook and MySpace in opening to third party developers to create applications for the popular web chat service.

Meebo Platform consists of a set of APIs to give developers access to certain user features and information.  Developers will be able to include Flash applets and Javascript snippets within the applications, says TechCruch.  But the Platform is opening to only four partners at this time, making way for those who Meebo thinks will make the user experience richer.  The communication based partners are Tokbox (video chat), Talkshoe (conference calls on the fly), Ustream (lifecasting) and Pudding Media (PC to PC VOIP calls).

YourStreet
A map-based news site has recently launched called YourStreet.  It combines Google Maps with local news and comments from your own locale. 

At the site they say, “YourStreet transforms the way you experience local news by indexing and mapping thousands of articles, blogs, and conversations down to the street level… Our algorithm interprets the articles, identifies specific locations in the text, and plots them on an interactive map.”

You can register at the site to join the neighborhood conversation.  Or drag the map or zoom in to get more information about a location, view articles, find out what’s happening around your home, your work, your child’s school, or any other location in the country.

You can also comment on an article, start or add to a local conversation, and create a profile to let your neighbors know who you are.

50 top computing tips
Here are 50 of the most popular tips from the past year from PC Magazine.

They selected 50 of the most popular for this story, “giving you a huge helping of expert advice all at once. Read these tips and follow them—your computer will thank you!”

Top 10 Google products you forgot all about
Reminders from Lifehacker about useful Google apps you may not use every day like you do Gmail or Calendar. 

Includes a few I’ve never used plus others like Google Alerts that are part of my daily life.

Microsoft moves into Facebook
Microsoft is making a $240 million, 1.6 percent stake in Facebook, a social network that doesn’t even have $200 million in annual revenue.  

“Microsoft’s investment underscores the skyrocketing value of online communities like Facebook - a place where Web surfers look for dates, connect with friends and family, and share photos, videos and music,” says AP business writer Michael Liedtke.

Facebook is in a fast growth mode in terms of the number of users it is attracting, the amount of third-party application development it is experiencing, and its plans to more than double its employees to about 700 next year.