Reputation Management, Internet Privacy, and Social Media Quick Hits

In today’s Quick Hits, we learn how cyberbullying is like Swine Flu, why Mark Zuckerberg thinks Facebook can crack one billion users, and the role that social media has played in increasing identity theft.

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Study Shows Consumers More Trustworthy of Social Media Savvy Companies

According to the second annual Digital Influence Index, “75 percent of people surveyed said they view companies that microblog — sending short, frequent messages on sites like Twitter or status updates on social networks like Facebook — as more deserving of their trust than those that do not.” This is a compelling statistic that clearly demonstrates how important it is for businesses of all sizes to embrace the social web and proactively build strong online reputations.

Zuckerberg Predicts One Billion Users

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckberg is confident that his company has only begun to grow. Speaking at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, Zuckerberg said “it is almost a guarantee” that Facebook will reach one billion users just as soon as the company begins catching on in Russia, China, Japan, and Korea: the four foreign countries where the site is currently not the most popular social network.

Zuckerberg also touched on privacy concerns saying “There is a real natural tension between people seeing the value of sharing more stuff but wanting control over what they share.” As the site continues to expand internationally, let’s hope he keeps that in mind.

VidMe Promises Private Video Sharing

For all those people that want to share party videos online, but don’t want to subject themselves to the public scrutiny of Facebook, there is a new site called VidMe.com. According to the New York Times Bits Blog, “[VidMe] lets people share videos privately with only a chosen group of friends; the videos cannot be forwarded or downloaded.” VidMe is an interesting example of how the desire for privacy continues to shift the way that Internet companies operate. I will be interested to see whether VidMe users can really keep their videos private or if there is some workaround that hasn’t been discovered yet.

Identity Theft on the Rise and Hackers Aren’t to Blame

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Ben Worthen explains how hackers aren’t the only threat to user privacy online and why personal data exposed by companies or unintentionally shared on social networking websites has led to a rise in the number of identity theft victims in the United States.

Cyberbullying as a Technological “Swine Flu”

BehaviorHealthCentral.com has an interesting two-part feature on cyberbullying. The articles calls cyberbullying a “technological virus” comparing it to last year’s H1N1 outbreak. Part one of the article explores the cause of the “virus” while part two explores the “vaccines” that can be used to treat it, namely parental and school involvement.