Facebook Evolves from Friends to Family

This Mother’s Day weekend, Facebook is rolling out a new profile feature that allows you to show your immediate family members in you bio.  There are plans to expand this to extended family members in the near futue as well.

Facebook has come a long way from a college network.  It’s really built itself as a community for classmates, professional networks and family members alike.  In the past six months alone, I’ve seen friends and family that I never thought would join Facebook take on to social networking.

If you missed this a couple months back, Facebook also let’s you create private family groups now.  I think this is a great way to cut down on email invites and links.  Click here to start your family page.

New Zealand Internet #Blackout

Some protests are taken to the streets, others through petition or boycotts.  Today, an issue a half a world away is gaining momentum online through social networks and new media platforms.

The New Zealand Internet Blackout – which I first read about on Read Write Web (@rww) – is an online social media movement that asks Kiwi’s and non-Kiwi’s alike to protest against the Guilt Upon Accusation law ‘Section 92A‘ :

…that calls for internet disconnection based on accusations of copyright infringement without a trial and without any evidence held up to court scrutiny. This is due to come into effect on February 28th unless immediate action is taken by the National Party.

Find out how exactly to update your Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Web site profiles at the Creative Freedom Blackout page.

Here are some images you can use for your profiles. Just right-click to save to your desktop and upload to your profile pictures:

I’ve blacked out Twitter, Facebook and this blog.

25 Reasons Why…

I did my obligatory post on the randomness of me:

1. It did not say that I would have bad luck for seven years if I didn’t do it.
2. The first person that tagged me is someone I don’t know too well, and I felt like I got to look into his soul. So I wanted to share back.
3. Whatever I wrote on this list, I would be remembered for at my memorial service – not the 25 skeletons in my closet, which are reserved for those who I’ve shared those experiences with.
4. And because as much as I’d like to say I’m a trailblazer… I am a conformer.

OK – I’ll end there.  25 Random Things is the only fad I’ll succumb to… Until the next one from a friend – who I may or may not be friends with in real life – tags me in Facebook and inspires me all over again.

Link Twitter to Your Facebook Status

I often get the comment from my Facebook friends that I must be updating my status all day long.  In fact:

Twitter integrates really well with Facebook.  Let your Facebook friends know what you’re up to or what you find interesting by updating your Tweets (hopefully through a third-party Twitter app).  If you’re not already integrating the two, here’s a simple look at how.

1. Search “Twitter” in the upper right search box.  The Twitter App should be the top result that looks like this:



2. Click on “View Application”, then “Go to Application” and “Allow Access”:



3. Sign in at the prompt to your Twitter account from Facebook:



4. Once you’re signed in, “Allow Twitter to Update Your Facebook Status”:



5. Finally, click on “Allow Status Updates:

To see the Twitter App setting after setting up your Twitter feed to Facebook, simply click on “Edit” in your “Applications” window at the upper right of your “Home” page:

The Twitter App will default to the following setting, which I recommend:

That’s it!  If you have any questions, feel free to message me in Twitter @sherrymain or in Facebook.

POW #56 – Censorship

I took a photo of this quote by Margaret Mead at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. because times have changed oh so much…

Thanks to the new Internet, the young are making history and telling the story as it happens…

In some ways, I think we are also now predicting history as we piece together the actions of the masses who post their continuous status – whether it be on Facebook, Twitter or other online social mediums. We document history through blogs, tweets, loopt, etc. and will do so more exponentially as geotagging becomes prevalent over the next few years.

Take the disaster in Mumbai, for example and the microblog buzz about it hours before any major news outlet reported on it this past fall.  Or the story of @jamesbuck who tweeted a single word, “Arrested” from Egypt and ignited action across the globe in Berkeley, CA.  I had just started using Twitter and did not understand it’s power, until I heard the story of @jamesbuck… and I was glued to the story and my Twitter account for days.