Simple Social Security II - Legal / Non legal

Coming up: Flaws in the system that can be misused in a non intended / illegal way. Please subscribe (button on the right).


This post will not touch the "beneficial" sides of data mining in Social Networks. How this part work you can read about here. The sites we like to use needs to generate income and we should accept that.

We can choose to subscribe to, or use sites that we have payed for and which is not based upon ads and commercials. If we want something "for free" we have to accept commercial interests will find as effective ways as possible to reach their target audience. Thereby accepting that they use the information we put in to find products we might be interested in. This is done everywhere now.


To balance this post a little I have chosen one video the shows this in a negative context, but remember to balance this out yourself:




What should not be accepted in that kind of data mining is that it is use non - beneficial for us as users. It should be illegal to use it in a way to gain a particular political interest or political view. The problems here is in the borders between national security and "police work". We have seen historical misuse of other tools under cover of legal work, and this should also be dealt with in the same way regarding social networks. So in basic: Don't do anything illegal, and do not accept anyone (governmental) doing anything illegal with the information you leave behind.

So yes there is easy ways to collect information from you and the point is that you should not be afraid of that until you do something illegal online or off line. Remember to think of what is illegal in your homeland and the land where the server of your social network is situated (this could be viewed upon as political differences but in basic you should just accept this rule).

Simple Social Security I - "beneficial" use of user info

The sites we are using for free needs to generate income. They will use all the information we give to generate this income. The information will be stored and used to find products and advertisements that might generate income. This is called Data Mining. When you are on a social network you should be aware that the site you are on will in most cases share this information with partners (applications, advertisers and others) in any way to generate income.

Touched in next post: Simple Social Security II - Legal / Non legal

In most western countries there are laws that try to prevent the information from spreading, but people might break laws and spread (store & copy) it anyway. That is just something you should be aware of but not accept if it happens.

Most western countries have also personal security laws that prevent use which you as a user didn't understand it could be used for- and again that you should not accept. If you are unsure on where somebody have gotten the information from, most western countries have laws that state you have a right to know. This is more touched in this post.

So then back to the "beneficial" use, it's called "data mining", using the information to find ways that commercial interest can generate an income. This is in broad terms explained in this video:

Global outreach from the Norwegian Prime minister :)

Not true. But it could have been.

The Norwegian Prime minister, as leader of his party and with elections coming up created his own Facebook page / public profile. I am actually working on a small post around Social Ads and other ads on large sites, how easy it is and the effect, reach and so on. Coming later.

The "Global outreach from the Norwegian Prime minister" is an ad- probably directed towards Norwegians and also probably set up to "hit" the profiles of people from Norway.

So what is the message? - "Become Jens Stoltenberg Supporter" :)

This is in fact The Norwegian Prime minister paying an US based company for an add on a social network, to reach Norwegians with the coming election in mind.

No matter the result - it is an better understanding than I have seen from many regarding how this works today. Better understanding on the global, real internet revolution (the use of it) and on how social networks works at this time. Nobody can claim that they exactly know how this work, and what the results will be. But not all can afford to wait and see.

There is alternative channels and people are spending much more time on them today, and not only that, they are interacting in a much broader (masses) and larger scale.

Update McCain vs Obama - Obama sluggish & McCain polarizes

At the movement a small manual check on different social network spots around the net:

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Looking at growth in posts and joiners in social networks. Quick count.

Obama gains around 1% supporters, a sluggish movement, where maybe many already have showed their support. The against side of Obama also appears sluggish

McCain gains 5%+ supporters but also the against side is growing with around 6%+.

So McCain is the one in the spotlight at the moment (and we see that in media). I think I can see more "against McCain sentences" than "for Obama sentences".

3D social

There are many social arenas or if you wish, social networks, connecting people on Internet. Besides the well known, "social network labeled", like Facebook and MY Space - You have all the different games, special interest sites and you have virtual worlds.

This post is about Second Life - is it a Virtual world, garbage dump or maybe a beginning 3D Social Network?

Here is one Image from creating and testing.



Area closed down now.


When I tested Second Life, a while back, I did the test mostly as a developer. Testing out creation & object design, scripting, and integration with other sites. Those parts worked well.

As I experienced, Linden Labs(creators of Second Life) had simply made it to easy to create elements in the environment("The world"), or user interface if you wish. The lack of Quality Control made it, in many ways, a large garbage dump. Some people, some places connecting, but not the large masses. This garbage feeling is a bit like the feeling you get with many of the Facebook applications.

The only parts that could remind of social arenas or network where the different clubs. If you looked at the stats it was the porn- clubs which got the most visits. I see now that Linden Labs have started to work on the controls rather than the content of the arena("The world" or user interface). Looks a bit Wii:



There are galleries, music, photos, videos and areas that might interest people see & visit, but it is simply to far between the quality items which people can relate to in a broad scale.

To make this work as a real social arena or network it will have to be less garbage. Maybe mostly contain things that is closer to the things people like to share with friends. Things people share on other sites.

All of these online social arenas is historically connected to the, text-based, IRC and MUDs. Tools to let people meet, interact and chat. In the MUDs Quality Control was essential. No point in making an environment huge, if it contains and lot of uninteresting garbage which few would see the point of. Lets say, "stuff" that 95% of the people, 95% of the time, wouldn't be interested in. Unless you are going for a niece among people or in peoples time spent on this.

But, I guess we soon will see some use of 3D engines to generate small scaled social networks.



Another thing is the technical difficulties that a 3D world have, today the Second Life still feels a bit like this:



Maybe that will change.

PS! By the way rumors say that there is Barack Obama and John McCain areas on SL:)

Update McCain vs Obama

Well now the polls are showing clearly the trends we have seen online for a couple of weeks. McCain is gaining at the moment. McCain have "recruited" around 3% and Obama only 1% more people since "FaceBook and Google "prediction"- Barack Obama wins?" post here.

Both candidate's "Against"-groups have a more sluggish growth at the moment. Will check in a week or two to see how this will appear at that time.

"This is the Future" - to - "key opinion leaders"

Virginia Tech is planning a campaign where they will try to reach "key opinion leaders" in their focus regions. You can read more about the campaign in this article. They have set up a site "thisisthefuture.com" and are reaching out trough FaceBook and MySpace ads. These ads can be configures, as we all have experienced, towards a specific target group.

But it looks like they are not planning to use, or at least "tend to" some of the basic possibilities which is available within these sites. Mentioning, pages, groups and applications. Instead these functions is filled with individuals remembering the Virginia Tech massacre and showing support to the school team. The largest of those groups on FaceBook contains almost a quarter of a million people paying tribute to the victims.

Hopefully they have this in mind. People will end up on these groups when they search. Maybe the best way to handle this would be to reach out to the groups and people in there. Some would say it's better to let it be; who knows?

Also on YouTube there is much remembering among other this video.

More than 2000 topics and probably 30 0000+ postings with comments from people remembering in just some of the groups.

The world has gotten much smaller and closer with the Social Networks.

Michael Moore "loading his guns" on the Internet - For Obama

Those who watched Michael Moore on Larry King should know that it is no coincidence that he where there at this time.



I am not sure how much the republican PR companies watch what Obama and Obama- supporters are "loading up with" on the Internet. But Michael Moore have been leaving traces of using IT; socially (Social IT) to help Barack Obama. So maybe Lieberman started directing that before Michael Moore could "do his thing".



The Social IT format suites Michael Moore much better than Lieberman and the republicans. As you can see with the above YouTube video the channel on YouTube are "ready to fire", and so will the new free video on this site from Michael Moore be on 23th of September.

You can also find traces in many other social arenas online(here on Facebook), lining up for "Social Network Marketing".

So "enjoy" and remember use your own filters on everything.

FaceBook and Google "prediction"- Barack Obama wins?

This blog post in Norwegian has checked Google Trends and search activity on the two different candidates, and comes out with Barack Obama ahead with a latest trend of John McCain in front in the last week or so. The blog poster points out that the fans of Barack Obama might be more active on Internet. If this is true the same weakness is in this short check on Facebook.

The above mentioned Blog post looks at trends on searches within USA, putting them close, but with Barack ahead until the latest week or so. It remains to see if this trend carries on.

The short manual check comes out with the following; looking at the biggest groups on FaceBook. This is based upon a simple search on candidates names and looking at groups and fan-pages.

	Fan Page	Largest group	New members	Topics	Against group	New members	Topics against
Obama	1 706 138	670 076	8 731	505	148 472	3 138	186
McCain	299 157	50 960	3 563	43	17 520	1 269	12

Some comments looking at this table and having the above mentioned blog post in mind:

If we look at the polls which are presented in main stream media where these two candidates are very close are correct, then we can conclude that Barack Obama followers are much more present on Internet?

We should also remember that many joining these pages are from other countries than USA.

Should we then conclude that Barack is the most popular candidate in the rest of the world?

If the race is close; what do many people in USA look different upon, than the rest of the world?

Could it be that the race isn't as close as the polls?

If the latest trends where John McCain is gaining continues will we see the same in the rest of the world?

Boing doing Social Network Marketing

Currently Boeing is using Social Network Marketing on their own site, on the machinist union sites and other sites to try to convince their employees to vote against the strike proposal in the current conflict.

Maybe it's more organized than I believe. But I believe that they at current level haven't identified this as a Social Network Marketing from their side.

There are many people around internet that could have helped them give this a real push.

But this is already an identified activity, probably open and with good intentions, usually campaigns like that would be difficult to spot or understand the intention behind.

Read more about the conflict.

Marketing guerrillas- Social Network Marketing

This is organized trough peoples contact lists and social networks. It used by some companies/individuals reaching out to groups of people to attack competition or market their own brand or idea. Often connected to smaller companies which has brands close to bigger companies.

The smaller / middle sized region based companies is often the target.

It is organized by some people who are using the Internet in different way to create income. They are often using networks as their main income tool. They have large lists of people and many different spots on Internet to rally campaigns both online or off line. To recruit more people or simply do a payed activity.

Often it is very difficult to see what it is all about, except from discrediting a brand or company. You can come pass this in "Real Life" or on the networks. Directed by maybe 2-3 from start using a multilevel contact- net to reach maybe 10 000 or 100 000 in a region or many more all over the world. We are just seeing the beginning and it will grow. Nothing can stop this except the people on the lists.

I have come passed some traces of direct payment. Sometimes these people just use an attack which they know will gain sympathy to expand their contacts and reach. Then later use the network and reach to market some ideas which will generate income to them.

These "preachers" often call themselves "free mentors". Manipulation isn't a bad word in their word; it's just a prolonged arm of sales. Some openly use this word and thinking while "brain hacking" when in direct contact with their closest level.

Sout-East Asia changing- traces on Social Networks

Today you can spot many trends on social networks. Maybe especially political trends.

In many blog and discussion posts, many in south-east Asia is calling for change. In countries like Thailand and Malaysia people are letting their frustrations come out. There is a clear underlying wish for big change among many. Some are joining the debate as fans of somebody in opposition or earlier heads of state. Some just want to topple the current government.

There is clear raising voices in countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. The Chinese is also more active after the Olympics than before both online and off line. There is some polarization and the usual claims are of corruption and incompetence.



They join forces and strength in groups and find others on different arenas.

Countries like Burma, Indonesia and Vietnam isn't that well represented on the Social arenas on Internet.

So what will happen in these countries. We are now watching what has been traces of in Thailand both off line and online for a while. People from Malaysia have started to voice their unrest and some are strongly voicing big changes. People from Singapore are more silent but the issues are there to.

It comes not as a surprise that democracy isn't the main concern. The main concern is trustworthy competent politicians bringing prosperity. Voicing against corruption and mismanagement. My guess is that within a years time this will grow in all these three countries and that might effect the whole region.

The Chinese posters have exactly the same concerns and dreams as those from the other three countries. But mostly on a local level.

Politicians & Social IT

© Ivonne Wierink|Dreamstime.com

It is obviously happening, opinions is created online, engagement is set online and politics is moving online. So is media's attention.

Why should they continue to watch old channels when it's usually the broad masses people's views and opinions on a issue decides the direction it will take.

That direction you can pick up within minutes on different social networks & sites like YouTube, CNN IReport, FaceBook and others.

So as a news bringer "catch the ball" and "throw it out there" and it will roll all over the internet or just simply deflate within minutes. Then and there the opinions will be formed by large groups of people getting engaged, researching and discussing.

In that context, more or less like the first businesses "threw up a homepage" in 1996-2000 the Norwegian prime minister has opened his page on FaceBook. But I bet they haven't yet decided on any strategy or put some resources on how to REALLY use it. This VG article.

This lack of insight in what is going on has been questioned by one politician from the same party. This VG article.

The prime ministers approach is completely different from Obama which in a large scale have grown to use the Internet in a broad way. More belove video.



In the future it might be that pressure groups will have to move out of the governmental arenas and into the people's arenas.

This is the new situation for commercial interests, media and politics. This has happened in only a couple of years in many countries around the world.

The torch-relay, Olympics, Tibet and Obama is just a beginning.

Personally I have enjoyed the company of many in the middle of this the last half year. I will bring you insight to the research, tools and knowledge from myself and others in the middle of this.

What's coming up

This blog will be dedicated to my blogposts around Internet, IT and social use of it. I will use some of the earlier material and connect it to present happenings and trends. I will try to connect the loose ends in some of the things we see happening as people are personally getting more Global and are more and more able to use technology to expand their social arena.

The politicians and commercial voices has been "going Global" for 10 years or more now. But has been far surpassed in speed by the common user which really have done the revolution in adapting to the Global world in the last couple of years. This might have something to do with "structural slowness" which you don't see human-to-human.

In my views we can see toppling of old hierarchies of media and politics around information bringing and we will see it even more in the future. It will also affect commercial interests in large scale in the future.

Get ready for the real Revolution of Internet; The use of it.