Staying connected has never been easier. See something cool? Post the link on Facebook. Going out for dinner? Don’t forget to check-in on Foursquare! Social media enables our global connectivity, but rarely do we ask ourselves the fundamental question “Where can the information we post end up?” Below are just five examples of how information we might casually post could go much further than we think.
WeFeel
FineThis website “harvests” human emotions by searching newly posted blog entries and picking up sentences that include “I feel” or “I am feeling.” The feelings are collected along with the blogger’s age, gender, location and weather in their area and added to a database that grows by 15,000-20,000 names per day. The collected data is cross-referenced to answer questions like, “Do Europeans feel sad more often than Americans?” and “Do women feel fat more often than men?” WeFeelFine.org does not associate the blogger names with their specific feelings and only aggregates from publicly displayed internet content.
PleaseRobMe
Until recently, this website aggregated check-ins from Foursquare and published them on a public content stream, inviting users to post comments. The purpose was to highlight security consequences of putting your location online. According to PleaseRobMe.com, users who broadcast their whereabouts give burglars powerful information by explicitly verifying when they are away from home. The site has removed its live content stream, but continues to advocate against publicizing your location online.
Blippy
Blippy allows users to “share” their online and offline purchases with friends and relatives. The service works by syncing a user’s accounts on iTunes, Netflix (client) and eBay (client) to his or her Blippy profile. When the user swipes their credit card, the purchase is shared on Blippy. Several months ago, four Blippy users had their credit card numbers leaked to Google search results. Blippy called the credit card leaks an “isolated event” and has since taken steps towards additional third-party security checks. However, this incident offers a key insight into the ways in which social media content sharing has some unsavory consequences.
Twitter
Direct Messages allow a user to send personalized tweets to selected recipients without it entering the main Twitter feed. However, there’s a degree of risk that accompanies the use of third-party (i.e. non-Twitter ) apps because they often require users to grant permission to their profiles in the form of “read-and-write” or “read-only.” If an app is “read only,” it can delete or send direct messages on the user’s behalf. Just as users update their privacy settings on Facebook, doing so on Twitter will ensure information is kept confidential. (To see if you have granted apps permission to your account, login to the Twitter main page, click settings and then connections. A link should be provided to revoke access.)
Springwise
Springwise searches the globe for budding trends like promising business projects, concepts and ideas. To determine if something is a trend, Springwise relies on its network of 8,000+ “spotters” who watch users’ online and offline activity. In other words, any social media user could unsuspectingly spark the next Springwise trend by writing, commenting or tweeting about a noteworthy topic.
