Remember when email from a friend was something to trust, a legitimate email worth reading? Sure there was always spam, but emails from friends were safe. Back when an email titled “Clarence Jones has poked you” would be considered offensive; when your friend Sal wanted you to join the real mafia? These were the times back before Facebook.com infiltrated your inbox with useless reminders of computerized farms and narcissistic quizzes. When Facebook was just a social networking website connecting old friends.

But now, unfortunately, we’re now in a reality where “elf tossing” has be considered socially acceptable. Which leaves me with more questions than answers: How does one respond to such action? Is it better to heave the medium-sized elf or the “above average size”? And finally what is the proper retaliation? Sling-shotting a dragon or cannon balling a wasps nest?

Congratulations Mark Zuckerberg, you have managed to take a perfectly respectable social networking website and turn it into the next Myspace; from up-and-coming stalking site to an advertising-hungry has-been. Facebook has sold out to tween girls everywhere through features causing users to self-obsess. The site is also losing credibility via bombarding its members with quizzes, games, and other general wastes of time.

Applications are granted a section where users are allowed to “like” a page or post by clicking a thumbs up; therefore the more “likes”, the more popular the app is, and eventually only adding to the problem. Not only do applications take pages longer to load, they scare users from adding something that might actually be useful, such as the awareness or causes pages. After one encounters so many “Which Beastie Boy are you?” or “What letter does your best friend’s mother’s second cousin’s name start with?” requests, it’s hard to take anything with the name “Facebook” on it seriously. Thanks to the damage of applications, the ol’ FB is becoming about as credible as the National Enquirer’s front page.

However, for those of us still wishing to join or maintain your Facebook page, I have one simple rule for survival: IGNORE. Next time your inbox fills with pointless application invites, simply ignore the request and better yet the “friend” who sent it to you. Eventually they will get the hint, and bother others with their ridiculous requests. However, for those who are still sending the “rate my applications” pages, there’s always the de-friending option. And as for you Facebook … thumbs down. Thumbs down.

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Bethaney Wallace is a English Literature and Creative Writing Major at K-State. When she’s not ranting for The Social Robot, Bethaney is co-copy editor at the K-State Collegian and attempting to finish her last semester of school.

Image courtesy of: http://biobreak.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/a-brief-rant/

The 10-year deal between Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo! to use Bing technology to power Yahoo searches is a big deal for those of us in the marketing world. Even though each company will keep their own display advertising businesses, the SEM side of advertising will now go though Microsoft’s Ad Center for both Bing and Yahoo!

In addition, according to the official press release, Yahoo! will allow Microsoft access to its “core search technologies” and Microsoft will give Yahoo! 88% of all revenue produced from searches on their website. The press release link also offers videos of both Steve Ballmer and Carol Bartz speaking about the partnership and what it means to their customers.

With an estimated boost in cash flow revenue of over $275 million for Yahoo!, it’s certain that both companies are gearing up to provide a brute force in which to challenge He Who Should Not Be Named (in the video, at least): Google, who controls the majority of the search market.

Take our poll to let us know what if you think this will affect SEM and PPC Campaigns.

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Image Courtesy of: http://www.physorg.com/news166768568.html

This is a great post from Mashable and Sharlyn Lauby about how Twitter can help you communicate with your customers better along with educating them about your history, awards, and future plans.

Sharlyn also talks about the importance of asking questions via Twitter in order to get immediate (and usually useful) customer feedback.

I found that companies that have an honest and open company culture are often the best Twitterers. Dell has a social media department and several other companies allow their employees to regularly update their personal (and the company’s) Twitter accounts on the clock during the work day so customers stay continuously updates with what the company and its employees are doing.

You can view the article here.

With the tidal wave of Twitter applications out there, there are two Twitter desktop applications that are good for managing one or multiple Twitter accounts- Seesmic Desktop and TweetDeck. After downloading and using both programs, I’ve compiled a short list of pros and cons about the basic program functionality.

Seesmic Desktop
CONS:

• Manages One Facebook Account: See Friends’ Updates
• Cannot Change Program Colors

PROS:

• Manage Multiple Twitter Accounts
• Has Customizable Windows That Include Replies and Friend Updates for Each Twitter Account
• Windows are size-customizable
• Can Choose Which URL Shortener to Use
• iPhone Application

TweetDeck
CONS:

• Icon Navigation Can Sometimes Get Confusing

PROS:

• Can Customize Program Colors
• Master TweetDeck Account to Access Accounts From Anywhere
• Manage Multiple Twitter Accounts
• Sleeker Interface
• Can Update Facebook Status From Program
• iPhone Application Coming Soon

From a business standpoint, both applications get the job done. However, if you want to be able to personalize the colors of your program, use it on your iPhone or iPod Touch, or want a master account to manage different accounts on different computers, I would definitely go with TweetDeck. Their iPhone application is free and works great!

Does anyone else have any opinions about Twitter desktop applications? I’m sure there are several more out there.

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Image Courtesy of: http://www.arthursclipart.org

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