computers, broadband, and social networking

Facebook’s philosophy could one day harm even the cautious. You might have skipped Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. Or if you read the paper, you might have passed up an article entitled When Deepest of Secrets Get Outed on Facebook. It was purportedly about young people who joined a gay chorus that had an open Facebook group – and as a result, their parents learned they were gay. But this article reflects a much larger issue -- Facebook's default strategy is sharing information -- with companies and through groups that users believe to be private – and the CEO believes that this default strategy is acceptable and appropriate. No need to restate it when Mark Zuckerberg says it so well. In an interview about the rise of Facebook called The Facebook Effect he observes: "The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly." But did we understand this and really, do we all get the picture?

About those ad words – can we outsmart them?  Just read an approving and syndicated Times article about the latest data-driven tech that uses what we access online to present us with more of the same. Given my predilection to write e-mails about the age-related technology space, the all-knowing Google regularly presents me with ads for products based on the messages I send and receive. Some ads are for vendors who are my clients, none of them are my suppliers.  As is typical, I don’t notice for a while and then – in a flash, out of the corner of my eye, I see – duh, there’s a pattern here.  So I do what you all should do regularly – tell Google these not only aren’t relevant, YOU are not who they think you are, you are someone else.  You can opt out – but, sigh, "Google may still show relevant ads based on the content of a web page" that you are viewing. But it will not ‘collect’ your interest-based information to show you more relevant content. Whew. By looking at your ads preference manager page, you can, however, change your demographic profile – making yourself older/younger than you actually are (or what Google thinks you are). This may be a wise move.

Waiting for the Geek or someone like him.  So you probably noticed that Best Buy (in its never-ending cost-cutting downward slide) just laid off 1200 store employees and while they were at it, they also cut 600 Geek Squad employees.  Just when the AARP discount on in-home services was launched! But it is all part of moving the staff from “repair to relationship,” migrating to a smaller store format, away from so-called ‘big box’ and suffering from competition – from Wal-Mart, Costco, and Sears. Yeah, right. From Sears and Costco (only when in-home service is covered by manufacturer’s warranty and the product is not a Dell).  Let us remember that Best Buy’s Geek service charges $49.99 for in-home visits and that they include products you bought elsewhere -- I'm betting your plumber charges more than that.  The annual membership for this service is quite low -- $199.99 per year -- $17/month or $4.25 per week.