Today Facebook held a Privacy conference call to announce new privacy and publishing settings for the social networking site.

Some of the major changes announced were previously covered at the ReputationDefender Blog, and include more targeted publishing options for status updates, and simplifying privacy controls to encourage increased sharing on the site.

Facebook users will be presented with more robust privacy options that they can tailor to their social networking needs. Much like Twitter, Facebook users can blast updates to everyone and have them visible to search engines with these new tools. Users will also be able to tweak personal and professional contact lists in order to better control who sees what online.

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Another twitter like change announced recently includes the ability to follow other people, even if they do not friend you. Regional networks will be eliminated, as these new features are rolled out in the coming weeks.

Adam Ostrow has a well written piece at Mashable that succinctly explains these Facebook privacy changes.

Ultimately, Facebook users that are deeply concerned with privacy can breathe a deep sigh of relief – your profile will remain just as private as before if you want it to. Meanwhile, for those that want to broadcast their updates publicly, have them indexed by search engines, and link to them from their blogs and other social networking profiles, those features are on the way.

ReputationDefender applauds these announced Facebook privacy changes that will engender increased sharing online. Balancing family, friends and professional colleagues online is a challenge for individuals living digital lives. These publishing options will allow people to share as much, or as little as they like and create a meaningful online identity on the process.

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I recently wrote a post at ReputationDefender Blog that examined the fad-like nature of social media.

I would like to look a bit more closely at Twitter in this post and examine why it has experienced such a remarkable cultural zeitgeist. First, we must come to terms with the fact that everyone loves, uses and talks about twitter. And I mean EVERYONE. CNN is tweeting. Politicians are tweeting. Celebrities like Ashton are tweeting. Oprah is tweeting, for the love of fun, and she makes and breaks main stream culture for a living. Read any social media blog or tech news site and you’ll inevitably run into a few twitter articles- per day.

So the question then becomes- WHY? Why have web nerds, tech-savvy students, PR firms, celebrities, politicians and the media complex writ large embraced the micro blogging platform?

The first reason has to do with ease of use. Not everyone has a laptop. The number of smart phones with web capabilities is growing, but still small. But almost everyone has a phone that can send SMS data. That means that Twitter opens the door to global, real time communication to end users who carry nothing more than a cell phone. That fact, in turn, lets more people participate in the twitter-verse by lowering the technological barrier of entry. The results are staggering. From the recent Iranian updates to breaking news via tweeting, the fact that a text message can now be heard around the world is an impressive and important milestone for connective technologies. It is also the primary reason that Twitter is so pervasive at the moment.

But ease of use can not explain the twitter-quake that has sent shock waves across media and culture. There are many reasons for the ubiquitous tweeting now found in the media landscape, but the one that resonates most with me is the overcompensation theory. I believe that the main stream media is overly hyped up on twitter because they were overly harsh on bloggers in the past and are now repping micro-blogging to seem “hip” and “with it.” In the recent past, traditional journalists often scoffed at bloggers and downplayed their journalistic credentials repeatedly. But the blogosphere would not be denied. It knew there was a real there there. And now blogs are seen as real and staying. And the MSM missed that bet completely. From politics to sports to local news, blogs have repeatedly held journalists and citizens accountable. Blogs have fact checked stories and reinvented old notions of the news cycle. Bloggers now routinely meet with Presidents and CEOs.

And now the intertubes are all aflutter with twitter. And this time, THIS TIME the MSM are not going to be left behind in the wake of a great techno shift. So they tweet and they tweet and they tweet. And part of the reason is because the technology is new and brilliant and connective and disruptive. And part of the reason is because they don’t want people to remember how established media cast a death knell for one of the most vibrant forms of media, art and online socializing ever created.

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A recent article in Network World points out how important your online reputation is, especially when looking for a government job. The city of Bozeman, Montana is demanding that, as part of a background check, job applicants submit their usernames and passwords.

“Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.,” the City form states. There are then three lines where applicants can list the Web sites, their user names and log-in information and their passwords.

The move raises significant privacy concerns and, as the article notes, may even violate the Terms of Service for these sites. ReputationDefender advises readers to never disclose their passwords to anyone in order to maintain their online security and privacy.

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Every generation has a fad that is both omnipresent and utterly foolish when viewed through the rear view mirror of history. Whether it was the Pet Rock of the 1970s or the Chia Pet of the 80’s, memories of American youth are littered with these cultural touch stones that seemed like a good idea for a small window of time.

For me and many others coming of age in the 1990’s, the fad that was unavoidable was POGS.

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Remember POGS? The game was ubiquitous for a few years, and even though I remember thinking “Hey, I don’t really see why everyone is playing this game,” I wound up buying some POGS and slammers and participating in POG culture anyway.

Why did I do this? There are many reasons, but mainly I did it because all my friends were doing it and I wanted something to do with them that we could all relate to. But then, before I had mastered the art of slamming the hell out of cardboard milk caps with Smurfs painted on them, the cultural winds shifted. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment in time, but almost as quickly as POGS took over middle schools across the country, they were gone. Replaced by Pokemon or Hypercolor or some other unspeakable fad, the American love affair with POGS was at an end.

Why do I bring this up on the ReputationDefender Blog? There are many reasons, but the main one is that all of the hype over Social Media looks a lot like POGS to me. From the tech sites to the blogs to the MSM, it seems that everyone has a twitter and a myspace and a blog and a facebook these days. Why? I think for the same cultural reasons that drove POGS to such meteoric heights. People want to connect with one another, sure. And these technologies have altered the ways that we connect with one another for the better.

But on some level I fear that social media is just a fad. Or a series of tech fads. In just a few short years friend sites have already come and gone much like the POGS and Beanie Babies of yore. Remember Friendster? That site is just as culturally relevant today as Teddy Ruxpin is. Unless individuals and companies can find innovative and valuable ways to connect people, the next social networking site could be nothing more than a pile of POGS.

Readers are encouraged to share how they derive value from social media in the comments below. They should also opine on the best fads from the past 40 years.

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ReputationDefender founder and CEO Michael Fertik was recently an expert guest on the Dr. Phil show, where he discussed Online Reputation Management and the importance of proactively controlling one’s Google results.

ReputationDefender would like to thank the Dr. Phil program for educating parents, students and professionals about the importance of Online Reputation Management.

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