We hope you had a good time watching the glitz and glamour of the Academy Awards last night, but, sadly, it’s time to get back into the regular grind, which means our daily Reputation Management, Internet Privacy, and Social Media Quick Hits. Check below to get caught up on the latest news that could help you defend your good name online.

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UK Tightens Restrictions on Social Media Marketing

Twitter will begin rolling out its in-stream advertising sometime in the first half of this year. The move has been a long time coming, and is the first real attemp to give the massively popular social networking website a viable business model. Before Twitter ads can become a reality, however, the company must take steps to ensure that its plan falls in line with existing advertising regulations.

This article from The Guardian explains how the UK’s regulatory agency for advertising, the Advertising Standards Authority, will be tightening restrictions on how social networking websites like Twitter, as well as Facebook, can use company profiles for promotional activities.

Could Google Change Copyright Law Forever?

When Google set out to scan millions of old books and put them online, the company faced extreme criticism form copyright advocates, libraries, and scholars. The criticism spawned into a class-action lawsuit, which is currently being debated in federal court. In this article from the San Jose Mercury News, Mike Swift explores the lawsuit and how Google’s settlement offer could potentially allow the company to rewrite a major portion of copyright law.

Conan O’Brien Makes a 19-Year-Old Famous on Twitter

When Conan O’Brien joined Twitter a few weeks ago, it took no time at all for him to earn hundreds of thousands of followers. While he was racking up over half a million fans, however, Conan wasn’t following anyone himself. That is he wasn’t following anyone until he randomly picked Sarah Killen, a 19-year-old Michigan resident. Since selecting Sarah, Conan has directly increased the girl’s follower count from single digits to more than 15,000.

Happily, while the sudden onslaught of pseudo-celebrity could have gone to her head, Sarah appears to be taking her newfound fame in stride. She has even used her Twitter account to promote multiple charities and raise money for a Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Awareness Walk in which she is participating. While Sarah has turned her Twitter celebrity into success thus far, however, there are plenty of pitfalls to being under the social media microscope. We hope that she will continue to make positive decisions and keep her online reputation clean, so that she and Conan can do even more good.

How To Set-Up Internet Filters to Protect Your Kids Online

Enabling filters and other software to keep inappropriate material off your computer is a difficult but necessary step to protect your kids from getting into trouble online. In this column from the San Jose Mercury News, Larry Magid explains some of the free filtering programs built into Internet browsers, as well as options that can be downloaded and customized for more robust protection.

Where Does Your Company Live Online: Your Homepage or Your Facebook Page?

If you’re promoting your business online, do you send your customers to your homepage or your Facebook profile? In an article for Forbes, Steve Rubel, SVP, Director of Insights for Edelman Digital, explains that, increasingly, companies are using their social media presence more prominently in advertising than their dot-com URLs.

While this is good in the sense that social media allows for interaction with customers, Rubel also points out that companies who simply establish a social media presence but don’t use it to communicate in any substantial way are seen as inauthentic by consumers. In other words, while social media is an important and effective tool, it works best in tandem with a corporate web presence.

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Last week on Meet the ReputationDefender Team, we introduced you to Marisa Zuiderweig, our intrepid and totally awesome Human Resources Manager. Today we want you to meet Tom Thompson, one of the members of ReputationDefender’s Client Solutions Management Team.

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Tom Thompson. I advise current and potential ReputatationDefender clients on how to utilize ReputationDefender’s products to manage their online images.

What did you do prior to joining ReputationDefender?

Many things. While earning my degree in Political Science from Texas State University I worked as a legislative aid in the Texas State Senate. Following graduation, I traveled the world helping private and international school students improve their academic capabilities, before working for a firm that houses the world’s largest network of subject-matter experts, Gerson Lehrman Group. There I served in a variety of roles in its Texas and California offices.

What attracted you to ReputationDefender?

Great leadership and innovative solutions that help individuals, families, non-profits and businesses protect themselves online.

Why do you think it’s important for people to manage their reputations online?

People and businesses spend countless hours and dollars critiquing their resumes, building their careers, and marketing their businesses. However, many neglect to manage their reputations online, where information is available 24/7. Monitoring and controlling this information can help our personal and professional lives, as well as to promote and protect our businesses.

When you’re not helping individuals control and protect their good names online, what do you like to do in your spare time?

In my spare time, I run two non-profit organizations; one that helps children with cystic fibrosis discover the joy and health benefits of surfing, and another that helps students learn how to start their own businesses and gives them the resources to do so. I also enjoy any activity that involves being outdoors, primarily surfing and skiing.

What’s your all-time favorite website?

I am a huge fan of aggregated news sites such as, theWeek.com.

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Twitter Hits 10 Billion Tweets

Last night, Twitter reached another impressive milestone: the company’s 10 billionth tweet. So what did it say? Was it something profound about the power Twitter gives us to connect with the world? Ironically, nobody knows. According to Mashable, the 10 billionth tweet came from a protected account, which means that the only people who can see the update are friends of the user. Of course, Twitter can’t be too upset that number 10 billion was anonymous; imagine how embarassing it would have been if it were spam?

Protecting Your Social Media Reputation: A Security Perspective

In a guest editorial for ZDNet, Branden Williams discusses the importance of protecting your identity on the web from hackers, scammers, and other would-be cybercriminals. Focusing on some of the security-related steps you should take to lock down your accounts, Williams advises users to use strong passwords, update their software when prompted, and frequently monitor their social networking presence. Sounds like pretty good advice.

The Sordid Details of Facebook’s Early Years

While investors talk about how many billions of dollars Facebook will be worth when the company finally makes an IPO, the dedicated journalists at Business Insider have been busy snooping into the company’s past. In the most comprehensive investigation on Facebook to date, Business Insider dredges up details on Facebook’s origins, including instant message conversations and e-mail exchanges, that don’t paint founder Mark Zuckerberg in the most flattering light.

American Idol Bans Personal Social Media Accounts for Contestants

In an effort to protect their show, American Idol producers have prohibited contestants from maintaining individual Twitter and Facebook accounts, forcing them instead to connect with fans through an official American Idol account. The general assumption is that Idol producers didn’t want follower numbers to serve as an unofficial barometer for the popularity of certain contestants, thus sucking the suspense out of the program. The fact that is now harder for contestants to tweet something stupid and hurt the show’s credibility is also probably a factor.

High School Student Investigated Over Death Threat on Facebook

In what has become a familiar pattern, a high school student in Brevard County is being investigated for statements he made on Facebook. What did he say?

“Hey, I want to kill Mrs. Bowen. Does anybody want to help?”

While this can be dismissed as a joke (who hasn’t said they want to kill somebody in mock frustration?), school administrators aren’t taking any chances. A death threat is a death threat, and when you make it online where everyone can see, you’re going to have to answer for it.

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This article was originally shared in our ReputationDefender customer newsletter. The newsletter, which is sent to ReputationDefender customers twice a month, includes in-depth analysis of online reputation management, Internet privacy, and social media issues, as well as information about ReputationDefender’s newest products.

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In the age of Web 2.0, it’s practically impossible to not use social media. Whether you’re keeping in touch with friends and family on Facebook, connecting with current and former colleagues on LinkedIn, or sharing your personal opinions with the world on your very own blog, new media tools have changed the way that we communicate and become an integral component of our daily lives.

When it comes to online reputation management, though, social media tools can be tricky. The very things that have made communicating easier have also made defamation and online harassment easier. In order to effectively protect yourself from online attacks, you have to learn how to use social media technology to its maximum potential. To this end, we’re going to share four of the top social networking websites we think you should be a part of for personal branding and proactive online reputation management.

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LinkedIn

With more than 55 million users worldwide, LinkedIn is undoubtedly the most popular and well-established professional social networking website online. Geared toward professionals at all stages of their careers, LinkedIn provides ample resources to promote your good name and make valuable connections with your peers and colleagues. The key to LinkedIn’s success, and the reason why you should be on it, is the inherent perception of quality surrounding the site.

Unlike Facebook, which is often dismissed as a place where anything goes, LinkedIn is associated with professionalism and tightly controlled sharing. When people visit your LinkedIn profile, they are not going to find party pictures, personality quizzes, or esoteric musings about life, they are going to find concrete information about your professional skills, your career history, and affirmations from co-workers and managers expressing how valuable you are as an employee. In short, they will find information that makes you look good.

Generally speaking, Google ranks LinkedIn profiles very highly, so when you sign up for the site, make sure you work on filling out your profile as thoroughly as possible. Here are some quick tips on getting strong Google results from your LinkedIn profile.

• Create a public URL for your profile that includes your name. Also, make sure that you use the name that people will be searching.
• Add a professional headshot to your profile. LinkedIn is not the place for funny Halloween pictures. If you don’t have a professional headshot to use, you can crop a nicer picture of you to fit your needs.
• One of the great things about LinkedIn is there is an internal mechanism in place to award and receive recommendations from colleagues. Having well-written recommendations is an important part of demonstrating your value to future employers and recruiters, so don’t be afraid to ask for them.

For more information on turning your LinkedIn profile into a world-class reputation management tool, check out this How To Guide from the ReputationDefender Resource Center.

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Twitter

Last year, Pear Analytics published a study claiming that 40% of status updates on the popular microblogging website Twitter could be classified as “pointless babble.” So why is it then that we are saying Twitter is a must use tool for online reputation management? Because there is significant value to be had in the 60% of tweets that aren’t pointless.

Before Twitter, the way that people connected with like-minded netizens was through blogs. However, the time needed to create and manage a blog that delivered significant reputation value was too great for some web users. What Twitter has done is remove the technical boundaries that limited some people from starting blogs, thus opening up an easy opportunity for individuals to share their opinions with the world as easily as sending a text message.

The value of Twitter as a reputation management tool depends on how you use it. Here are some quick pointers on proper Twitter etiquette.

• Keep your updates mostly professional. While there’s no law saying you can’t share a cute anecdote about your kids, or mention your plans for the evening, the most valuable Twitter users are those who engage with their followers and offer useful content.
• Don’t follow blindly. In many ways, who you follow on Twitter is as important to your reputation as who is following you. Make sure that you’re connecting with people who offer real substance in their updates, and not any of the thousands of Twitter spammers.
• The 140-character limit is not optional. One of the things that new Twitter users often mess up is fitting their thoughts into the 140-character allotment allowed in a Twitter update. This sometimes causes updates to get cut off halfway through, which makes the user look technically incompetent. Work on condensing your thoughts to fit the character limit.

In addition to personal branding, there are many valuable components of Twitter related to job-hunting. In fact, the New York Times recently reported the development of a new job search application called JobDeck, which is a collaboration between TweetDeck and TwitJobSearch.

Even if you’re not interested in the social aspect of Twitter, it is still valuable to have a presence on the site at the very least to prevent someone from hijacking your name and pretending to be you online.

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Google Profile

If you follow our reputation management advice, there is a good chance you will be in control of the majority of the first page of your Google results. Considering that Google is the first place someone is going to go to look up information about you, however, it makes sense that you should have a guaranteed presence there, just in case. Enter the Google Profile.

To create your Google Profile, log-in to your Google account and then visit www.google.com/profiles. Once you have created a Google Profile, it is easy to fill out. Just add your biographical information, links to your other social networking profiles, and a picture of yourself so that people in real life can distinguish you from others who might share your name. The best part about the Google Profile is that, once a certain amount of information has been included, you have the option of featuring it as part of public searches. When you do this, your Google Profile will appear as an 11th result just below the top 10 organic Google search results for your name.

The benefit of setting up a Google Profile is two-fold. One, it gives you a guaranteed spot on your first page of Google results, and two, it helps distinguish from other individuals who have the same name. Additionally, while the jury is still out on the reputation power of Google Buzz, you need to have a Google Profile to access it. Because the Google Profile holds a guaranteed spot on the first page of your Google results, it is important that you are careful about how you set it up. Here are a couple of tips for making a Google Profile you can be proud of.

• As with your LinkedIn profile (and really every social networking profile you have) you should use a professional-looking headshot for your profile picture. This is important in making sure that the “you” people find online actually looks like the “you” in real life.
• Link wisely. Google Profiles offer a great opportunity to aggregate links to all of your social networking profiles on the web. However, that doesn’t mean you should link to all of them. Consider only linking to sites that give strong reputation value, such as LinkedIn. This way, people searching for you can easily find everything you want them to find.

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Fast Company

Considered one of the leading destinations for business news on the web, Fast Company is unique among websites in that it is also a successful print magazine. For individuals looking to manage their online reputations, this unique blend of old and new media makes Fast Company an especially effective tool for promoting one’s personal brand online.

There are a number of advantages to being a member of Fast Company. For one thing, because the site is a respected source for business news, being associated with it, even peripherally, gives you a reputation boost by default. On top of that, however, Fast Company provides its users with countless tools to engage with the greater business community and demonstrate their superior understanding of their industries. Fast Company members can even write blog posts through the Fast Company platform, which may in turn be seen by hundreds of thousands of potential connections. If you’re planning on flexing your blogging muscle for the Fast Company community, here are some things to keep in mind.

• Don’t step outside of your comfort zone. The best way to get your blog featured on the Fast Company homepage is to write something that delivers real insight and value into the business community. If you’re an IT expert, talk about technology. If you’re in human resources, talk about recruiting tactics. In other words, play to your strengths.
• Focus on feedback. Blogs thrive on generating conversations and the Fast Company community is one of the best on the web at giving intelligent feedback. If you’re writing a blog post, think about who you are talking to and what kind of discussion you want to stimulate.

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Online reputation management is a growing concern for all professionals, and the most effective way of keeping your name looking great online is to actively promote your identity through social media. If you haven’t taken the social networking plunge yet, we recommend you take it soon. We’re already at the quarter point of 2010. Don’t let another year go by without taking full advantage of the personal branding power of the web. For more help on crafting your online presence, feel free to contact one of ReptuationDefender’s trained reputation management consultants today.

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Mobile Social Networking On The Rise

According to comScore reports, in January 2010, 4.7 million people accessed Twitter and 25.1 million people accessed Facebook from mobile devices. Respectively, this is a 347 percent and a 112 percent increase from last year. With the number of people accessing social networking websites from mobile devices increasing at such phenomenal rates, the need for round-the-clock online reputation management solutions will only become more important.

Man Charged With Indecent Exposure Over Nude Facebook Photos

A West Seattle man accused of sending unsolicited pictures of his exposed genitals to a woman on Facebook is facing criminal indecent exposure charges. The defendant is arguing that he sent the photos because he thought the woman wanted was interested in pursuing a romantic relationship, but, according to prosecutors, none of their previous communications were of a romantic or sexual nature. Long story short, if someone sends you a naked picture of themselves on Facebook that you didn’t ask for, it’s harassment.

Beware of Free iPad Scams

Using a time-tested strategy for bilking people out of their money, scammers on Facebook and Twitter are offering a free iPad to individuals if they give their cell phone numbers to participate in a “research test.” Of course, there is no research test, only a scam where victims are signed up for a monthly subscription service.

To make sure you don’t become a victim of one of these schemes, avoid any ads or links that claim you can “Win a free iPad,” “Win a free laptop,” or “Win a free ANYTHING.”

Government Investing Security Technology Into Private Sector

According to CNET, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency are looking at expanding their Einstein security technology to assist companies in the private sector from cybercrime. While this could help companies prevent becoming victims of increasingly complex cyber attacks, it has some privacy experts concerned because it would allow government access to private consumer data.

Gripe Site Given Greater Protection Than Trademark

According to Ars Technica, a US district judge has ruled that a “gripe site” using a company’s name in its URL didn’t violate any trademark law. The case, which was filed by Career Agents Network, revolved around the website careeragentsnetwork.biz, which was created by a former customer who was dissatisfied with the company’s service. Typically, in order to win a decision like this, the company filing the complaint must prove that there is an intent by the cybersquatter to make a profit off of the company’s trademark. Nevertheless, the fact that sites like this are allowed to operate is a legitimate concern for all businesses.

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