Recent Vacation

I just came back from a cruise along the Eastern Carribbean. We had simply beautiful weather while we were there. One of our stops did have to be cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy that went through the area a few days before we got there. We sailed on an amazing ship called the Ruby Princess with Princess Cruise Lines. The ship was amazing and the staff was also just as amazing. They had a huge video screen on the deck that was the size of a drive in movie screen. We got a chance to watch the last game of the World Series on it and also got a chance to watch Total Rekall on it too. The food, of course was fantastic and so were the cocktails. I have attached a few pics of the my vacation for your viewing pleasure.

Social Media Privacy

The subject of privacy on social media is a huge topic. If you think about the term social media, it references the fact that what you do is social, meaning that it will be shared socially. I believe that Facebook, Twitter and all the other social media sites are making tons of money sharing the information regarding what we do, where we visit on the internet, what products and companies we like and talk about, and about a thousand other types of information with third party companies so that they can market goods and services that we will spend our money on. I also believe that there are criminals also using this social media information to target groups of people in order to scam them out of money or goods. These types of individuals having been doing these types of activities for years. Before the internet was popular, criminals would search the obituaries to look for funeral notices so that they know when the right time to rob the homes of the deceased and their families. Criminals would watch houses (or case them if you will) to see when mail would pile up or when lights would never turn on to find the homes they thought would be good targets to rob. Social media just makes the job of these individuals easier to do. Think about this, would you stand in the middle of a crowded city street and scream out that you are going to be going on a trip for a week? Identifying your name and yelling about how you are going to enjoy your trip away from your home. By posting you are taking a vacation away from home, you are basically doing the same thing. Adjusting your privacy settings on Facebook and Twitter are a good start in protecting yourself, but common sense is also a great way to protect yourself. The bottom line regarding privacy is this, if you don't want it out on the internet, do not post it. If you post it, no matter what your privacy settings are, if someone really wants to get that information, they will get it. Social media is a great way to communicate, to flirt, to play games, to view news, to get support when you need it, but it is also not a private place by any means. For the most part, we do not care who knows we like Tide soap or enjoy the band Third Eye Blind or that we scored a new high score in Slingo. We all just need to apply common sense when it comes to what we post.

Flickr

One of the assignments in this weeks social media class was to set up a Flickr account. My Flickr page url is http://www.flickr.com/photos/pgorecki33/ . Feel free to join me on there. I have only uploaded one picture so far. It was from a Green Bay Packer game that I went to earlier in the season. I am taking a little trip soon and hopefully will be taking a lot of pictures and I hope to share them on my Flickr site so look for them.

Does anybody else use Flickr and if you do, how do you like using it? I have always been a closet photographer, always wanted to take pictures but just never took the time to do it. Hopefully this will inspire me to take more pictures and show them to friends and family.

Blogs

We were asked to look through the Technorati "top 100" blogs as an assignment in my social media class.  Here is the URL: http://technorati.com/blogs/top100 and we were asked to pick 5 to subscribe to. Here are the five that I subscribed to.

http://www.makeuseof.com/

http://filmdrunk.uproxx.com/

http://twentytwowords.com/

http://lifehacker.com/

http://www.commonsensewithmoney.com/

These are a mixture of fun stuff and stuff to help me live better in my skin. Some of the ones I chose are not in the top 100 list but I took a look at other blogs in the directory and found some that I am interested in.

What blogs do you subscribe to and why?

 

The Flight from Conversation

The Flight From Conversation 

Please read the attached article by Sherry Turkel

This article, written by Sherry Turkel, conjures up visions that we see all too often in today’s society. Families are sitting together in the living room, not talking, but texting or tweeting or facebooking one another without a word being said. I have personally witnessed this happening and am ashamed to admit that I have done the same thing a time or two. I remember when I was a kid and my brothers and sisters would be home alone on a Friday night when my parents went out. This was a time we all would talk about the television show we were watching or about the food we were eating and it allowed us to interact in a way most teens or young adults will never experience. These interactions would range anywhere from playful goofing around to all out arguments, but the bottom line was that we connected to one another on a human level. Connecting with someone via Facebook or Twitter can help share experiences and keep in touch with someone who lives far away, but talking, yes I mean physically speaking to one another, can make the rest of the world disappear. I truly believe there is a place for technology in the people equation, but it should not come at the loss of simply talking to another human being.

What do you think?
Click here for article

Are social networking sites good for our society

Social media is everywhere today. You cannot turn around today and not see someone checking their twitter feed or looking at Facebook on their smartphone. They say the fastest growing segment of the population in use of social media is adults over 45. That means your grandma or grandpa probably has a Facebook page or a twitter handle. Makes you wonder if we are all just wasting time or can social media actually be something beneficial. I truly believe it is a great tool for our society as a whole. Sure there are people who are just trying to gain as many friends or followers as they can and do we really need to see another funny cat video posted to someone’s Facebook page? Those types of uses are in the minority of the uses for social media. There are examples everywhere of how amazing and incredible social media can be. Politics is so much more interactive with the use of social media. You can find out so much more about how one candidate stands on an issue as opposed to other candidates. You can find out where your politician’s will be holding fundraisers or where they are going to be appearing. Twitter allows you to “hear” a candidate’s speech without leaving your home. News is another way that social media can be useful to you. By following or friending the local news station in your town, you can find out quickly the breaking news without having to wait for the 5pm news to come on tv. It can alert you to traffic problems that would delay your commute to work as well as news stories that cannot be covered in the short time a news program is on the air. The benefits of following the companies or businesses that you frequent can even be financially profitable to you. Companies regularly post specials or discounts or coupons directly on their Facebook page or even send them out via twitter so you can take advantage of them quick and easy. It can also warn others of a negative experience you had with a company so that they don’t have the same type of thing happen to them. Companies are also using it to turn those negative experiences into positive ones by reaching out to the customers who post their bad experiences and trying to turn those into positive ones. Potential buyers can also find out about new products or even new ways to use current products by checking out a company’s Facebook page or website. Even making dinner reservations can be achieved by making use of social media and getting the gang together for that dinner is also a snap by texting or messaging a group of friends quickly and easily. The use of social media can also make the miles disappear by letting grandparents see the first steps of their grandchildren who live miles away. They can also share the school plays or the winning touchdowns that they would have missed years earlier. Those same grandparents are using social media to get in touch with friends from younger days that they have lost touch with years earlier. I believe that social media in allowing us to enrich our lives in ways that were never possible before. If you sit back and think of all the things that can be done with social media, maybe a cute cat video is not such a bad thing if it makes us smile. Don’t we all need more smiles in our lives today?

Welcome!

Welcome! This is my first post to my new blog. This is a very exciting new adventure for me. I have always wanted to start a blog and now that I am taking this social media class, it has allowed me to do that. Hopefully you will enjoy what I have to say and will talk back. I hope to share all kinds of fun and adventure with you. Feel free to comment and interact with me and together we will make the world a little more fun. There is not enough fun in the world today and I believe if we made more time for fun, we would be much happier people.