Social Media – Privacy, Transparency, and New Metrics

There is a lot written about what people post about themselves on social media, and whether or not that is a good thing. New location based services such as foursquare ramp up that controversy. Letting others know where you are might have social advantages, and has the potential for interesting and useful services based on where you are at the moment.

But looming in the background are the dangers of that personal transparency. Letting apps or friends know where you are is one thing – but how much of that detail do you really want the world to know? For example, my son told me last night about a presentation made at Western’s orientation week about student safety. They showed an actual student’s facebook page that was open to the world, where the student posted her detailed class schedule, and enough information that anyone could tell exactly were she lived. Might as well post a sign saying when and where to take my stuff or stalk me.

And speaking of social media, it has been reported that Justin Bieber uses 3% of Twitter resources, and has dedicated Twitter servers. (BTW — Bieber’s popularity is a mystery to me — it’s clearly not about his singing ability – my son, and others in the Amabile choir could out sing him any day – but I digress). Apparently many large users have dedicated Twitter servers. So is this the new social media metric? Perhaps number of followers, numbers of friends, or number of visits is passe – the new metric: number of dedicated servers.