Update on SNS and . . .
I was checking out my SNSs when I ran across this post from http://twitter.com/jsarnett and decided to check it out.
It is a bit thought provoking and a bit scary. According to BBC, Face Book has a security flaw. One of the main characteristics in Facebook is the availability of applications that members add to their profiles. These applications tend to reflect the member’s personality and/or the purpose for their presence. There are countless applications associated with this SNS and until I began this Ethnography I had not even thought about adding any of them. When I needed to see this SNS culture I decided to look into some of the invitations that my students had sent me. I was getting several per week but had never even thought about accepting any of them. I began to add a few, as I posted, and decided against it when I saw that I had to allow an outside application to have access to all my information. I think we should always listen to our instincts because I went against my better judgment and added one for UK basketball fans. It seemed to take over the whole page and I had a problem finding a way to delete it. Finally after I posted about the problem, one of our classmates and one of my students told me to look under applications. This did the trick and I was able to delete them.
I am not a fan of any team except the sports teams my students play on. Which are “Blackcats” and “Ladycats”!!! I know that some would call me a traitor or worse because I don’t have UK Big Blue fever when the cats play but I am only a transplanted Kentuckian not a native so you will have to forgive me. My family of men do and they are diehard Wildcat fans!
Nonethe less, back to my SNS, I did not add many more however I did add one that shows a map of the world and it measures where you have lived, where you have been, and where you would like to go visit. It seems that I along with several others who have this application have been to 8% of the world. Funny how we all have been to different places but we all have been to the same percentage of the whole. I also added a Disney Princess application. I guess I am still a little girl at heart.:-)
Nevertheless, watch the video and see what they say about the SNS risk of our digital footprints being followed. One interesting point they made was that MYSpace did not have this risk due to the setup of their applications. Evidently, the way I understand It, Facebook allows outside source applications access to their members whereas MySpace chooses to only allow those who are based inside the network access. This makes safety for identity theft less of an issue.
Something to think about. . .
On another note, I left a message on my profile for anyone who saw it. I asked them to answer a question. I asked them why they use Facebook and that I needed the information for a project for my graduate class. I also asked them to post their answer on my wall. I saw two postings awhile ago. I will keep checking and write more as I see what they are saying.
This morning I was in the site looking at all the different departments and the different types of setting controls there are. I love the “Newsfeed” because it tells you what changes have occurred in anyone’s profiletha is one your list. this is helpful to kow if you want to do something with one of your friends and can’t contact them. You would see what they aer doing if they post on it. I found a blog with many great announcements of good applications being added with suggestions on how they will be helpful. They have also added a live chat. I need to spend a bit more time looking. I seem to be running out of the important commodity (time) as usual. I will return after awhile to write again when I check on my wall for any new postings. For now I will go and try to write my summary and see if I need to write another post in the last discussion in 644. I lost some points in a couple of discussions because I didn’t get to it as often as I needed to or totally forgot until it was too late. Ay ay ay there is just so much to do in addition to teaching and not to mention family who know that I am missing in action still until projects are in.
The wedding is getting closer and closer but I will be done with these classes soon and can then focus on preparations. 
