The world wide web has brought people and ideas together far better than anyone could have imagined just a few years ago. Being able to communicate with anyone, anywhere at any time has made the world a much smaller place and provided us access to information and ideas no one dreamed possible a couple of decades earlier.

Citizens across the globe can discuss news, politics or any other subject with impunity. Of course, impunity could be part of the problem that I am addressing. Don't get me wrong, freedom to express one's views is a fundamental right in this country.  It is essential to the evolution of our society for everyone to express their views on what's happening in the world. Of course, spreading misinformation can help a group dominate the debate on any issue and this sort of thing happens all too frequently on the web.

On the web, news is gathered continuously and made available as soon as it happens anywhere in the world. Information about ongoing events can spread across the world in a millisecond. In some cases, this sort of thing happens much to the annoyance of governments or business entities that would prefer such information not be made available to anyone. We have seen this during the Iraq War, the Iranian elections and numerous other events across the world.  Social media has spawned a number of i-reporters that call people to action by giving their versions of news or events as they unfold across the world. Some are quite objective and others are not very close to the truth at all.

A recent example is the "death panel" myth that was broadcast both on the internet and television by numerous conservative groups and individuals. The healthcare provision in question was about compensating doctors for consulting with patients about end of life planning so the patient can determine exactly how they would like to be cared for in their final days...not to determine whether they should get life saving treatments. In the past, doctors were not compensated for this consultation and consequently didn't encourage it. Once a patient reaches their final days of life, the conversation cannot take place and hundreds of thousands of dollars can be spent sustaining a condition the patient might not want sustained. Whether you are for or against healthcare reform, misrepresenting the issues detracts from the real debate. Scare tactics have been a staple of both political parties and I am sure will continue to be part of their arsenal.

When the stories originate from a trusted source like CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS  or a myriad of other credible news organizations, it is as good as it gets. Unfortunately, other interpretations of news events and stories as told by so-called internet journalists can vary from being somewhat slanted to downright fabrications of the truth. Of course, when everyone has access to the same medium for reporting, then one would be naïve not to expect exaggerations, misinterpretations or complete fabrications of the truth to be broadcast. Fortunately, there are sites that deal specifically with uncovering the facts and exposing myths or outright lies on the net such as snopes.com, wikipedia.com, truthorfiction.com, smokinggun.com, etc. Major news organizations take part in the debunking as well.

Okay, we agree that biased and inaccurate reporting will always be an issue on the web. What does that have to do with polarizing of America? The polarization has to do with where we congregate when we go online. Most people are attracted to sites that share their ideological, cultural and lifestyle views. In doing this, we are unknowingly choosing sides and drinking the coolaid. The battle lines are being drawn and we are being told to rail against the other side or group. 

Remember not so long ago when we all got our news from the same broadcasts on television and read the same newspapers? At that time, we used our selective perception and intellect to hone in on stories and news that interested us. But we were all drinking from the same well. It was up to us to assimilate the news of the day and come to our own conclusions. With the advent of the internet, we can have someone else to provide us with our point of view based on where we fit in the political and social spectrum.

We draw our own line on the internet when we determine which special interest group to join. It seems to me that we are letting our group, party or lifestyle affiliation determine what we think and how we perceive the news and the current events of the day. We are being spoon fed our take on America and the world. We get calls to action daily on how we should react to these events and how we should feel about them.

Frankly, that doesn't seem much like democracy in action. And yes, I realize that America is not a true democracy, but a republic, so don't get incensed and correct me. It is easier to let our web groups tell us what to think and how to act. But is that a good thing? Are we becoming the lemmings described by George Orwell in his book, 1984, albeit special interest lemmings? Do we need to let someone else interpret the news and draw conclusions for us? Recent town hall meetings would suggest such behavior, as would the left calling for prosecution of the previous administration for war crimes.

I am not suggesting you cut your ties with your favorite sites relating to your political party, special interest groups or other affiliations. I am only suggesting that you look at more than one side of an issue or event and draw your own conclusions.

It seems to me that the best ideas come from spirited intellectual debate not predetermined conclusions made for us by our party affiliation or Facebook group. One of the reasons my partners and I started www.BoomerOpinion.com was to democratize the process. BoomerOpinion.com has no affiliations with political groups and encourages open discussions on every issue. Sure, each of the partners have their own political views, but our polls and discussions do not reflect those views. Our content is all about the collective voice our membership. So if you are a Baby Boomer and you are ready to independently voice your own opinion, and not your party or group's opinion, then please come join us.

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In the past, Americans have always provided for future generations, but our political leaders reversed that trend. Will a new movement emerge with the aim of providing our children with a brighter future or will we just leave them with budget deficits and mounting debt?

In a recent Op-ed column in the New York Times, David Brooks wrote about the failure of politicians to provide for future generations. In his column, Mr. Brooks wrote, "One of the keys to healthy aging is what George Vaillant of Harvard calls ‘generativity' - providing for future generations."

Mr. Brooks went on to write, "The odd thing is that when you turn to political life, we are living in an age of reverse generativity. Far from serving the young, the old are now taking from them." He brought up the fact that the federal government now spends $7 on the elderly for every $1 it spends on the children. Add to that the enormous debt load we are leaving to future generations and the future doesn't look to bright for our kids and their kids.

The federal government and its policy makers have thrown in the towel when it comes to solving America's financial problems and ceded them to our children and grandchildren. It is like continuing to operate your business at a loss year after year, and then hoping your kids will be able to fix it when they get to take over the business. That is just postponing the inevitable. Not smart.

It should be obvious to most people that our current system of government is self corrupting and has become counter productive. Regardless of how sincere our newly elected representatives are, they can't seem to make any real progress towards getting America back on the right track. The lobbyists and special interest groups have a stranglehold on our political process and only want to pursue programs that serve their own greed and self interests.

Add to that, opposing political factions that seem to only want to ensure that representatives from the opposing party don't succeed in addressing the issues at hand, and you have a recipe for no progress. Consequently, our political leaders are getting nothing accomplished. Their best intentions are ridiculed and lambasted by their political opponents and big business interests. America is marching in place, not moving forward.

What's the solution? I believe there is a solution. Spontaneous social movements have been successful in the past. Anti-war and racial equality movements in the sixties ultimately changed America. Gender equality was another. Where would we be today without those movements? Back then they had only the network broadcast media to help them move their causes into the limelight.

With the internet, the playing field has become wide open to anyone with a voice and a web connection. Recently, web campaigns like the Obama campaign and the Tea Party movement have both been very successful in drumming up support for their agendas. The internet created instant traction for those movements in America.

There are a couple of ways we can get the ball rolling? A great many of you have called for term limits. In reality, your vote is an excellent method of enforcing term limits. All you have to do is register and exercise this privilege. If the incumbents are so totally consumed with raising money from special interest groups to get reelected, whose future will they be voting for in Congress. Not ours.

Recent elections have demonstrated that most folks are fed up with their current representatives or party affiliation. In those elections, most prognosticators have said that those elections were votes against the President and his party. I say the voters were just demonstrating that they wanted a change, regardless of party.

Besides throwing out the old guard, it is up to all of us to weigh in on the issues and voice our opinions. Go to the news and opinion sites and let your collective voices be heard. Isn't that how spontaneous social movements get started. If enough of you speak out against the current political shenanigans going on in Washington, maybe some of these guys will get the message and begin actually doing the job for which they were elected. If not, just vote them out of office.

Taking our elected officials to task is not the complete answer. They obviously need our advice. Unless you think that being advised solely by lobbyists is okay for your representative, then we need to speak up. Broadcasting your ideas about how we can best address the critical issues facing America is another way you can help. Particularly those of us 45 and older need to bring our collective wisdom to the table.

Since we are already being blamed for the majority of problems facing America, we should be the first to offer our political leaders advice on how to fix them. Don't you want to help to ensure that our children and grand children have a bright future? Well, if you do nothing, then nothing will change. You can just sit back or you can jump in with both feet and make a difference. It is up to you. 

My web community, www.boomeropinion.com is all about weighing in on the issues and voicing your opinion. The site already provides polls, discussion forums and articles on critical issues facing America. And we are currently redesigning the site so that each and every one of you can suggest your own polls, ask your own questions of the membership and submit your own discussion topics and follow the discussion as it progresses. Why not join today? It only takes a minute to join.

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Just as I was about to write this blog, I remembered that I needed to check my Facebook news feed for new posts from friends and family. I also needed to send a text message to one of my colleagues about an upcoming project and get his feedback. I absolutely had to check my Outlook calendar for any appointments I might have scheduled for today. Oh, and I was going to finish reading that book about Mark Zuckerberg and Social Networking on my iPad. My life has been taken over by technology it seems.

It doesn't seem that long ago when I was bored to death and I would have to find things to do to fill my time. Back in those days, I had 3 network television channels on my TV and the only way I could keep up with my friends and family was by calling them or visiting them. If there was a project, personal or business related, I was able to devote my full attention to it until it was completed. Distractions were few and far between. Today it seems we are all overburdened with technology and communications devices that seem like technology leashes. They pull on us this way or that way constantly.  

Will we ever be able to take control of our lives again, or is it futile to even try? Younger generations seem perfectly happy to stay connected to that leash 24/7. Am I just too old to smell the cappuccino? Am I looking backward and thinking that it would be better to return to the past? Maybe, I should just fully embrace these technologies and take advantage of what they have to offer. After all, I have never had this kind of instant access to my family, my business associates or my world. It's a good thing, right? I think it is a good thing as long as you don't let it completely dominate your life.

If we let technology rule our daily lives, then we aren't really taking enough time out of each day for ourselves or for the ones we really care about. I guess I just need to find the right balance. That is easy to say, but hard to do, right? It is a lifestyle decision. Instead of letting technology run our lives, we need to step back and set some priorities. If you are trying to build the next Fortune 500 company, your time is not your own. You business life and personal life are the same. For you, there is no choice. But, for the rest of us...

Recently I wrote a blog about Mark Zuckerberg's view of social media and why he thought everyone on Facebook should be willing to share the most intimate details of their personal and business lives daily on his social network. One commenter to my blog responded that since Mark could really distinguish between his personal and professional lives, that was easy for him to say and to do. For the rest of us, we probably want to maintain some separation between those two areas of our lives.

So how can we find that balance? When and how can we free ourselves of our technology leashes? First step is to set priorities. Some people would feel completely lost if they had to put away their iPhones, Blackberries or notebook computers. I am sure age impacts those decisions. If you are old enough to have lived without all these gadgets and appliances, it is probably easier to find the proper settings and times to put them away.   

One suggestion for simplifying one's life is to start by stopping. Each day you set your agenda and try to optimize every minute of the day. What if you chose not to set any agenda? What if you just let go and didn't try to be totally productive every minute of the day. You could do whatever you felt like that morning or escape for the entire day. You could go for a walk or take a hike. You could pull out that novel that you have been meaning to read, but just couldn't find the time for.

You could take your kids or your significant other on a bike ride. You could go to the beach or the lake and just take in the natural beauty of the area. If your time is really limited, you could just go outside and watch the clouds roll by. Just remember to unplug. Leave your iPhone or Blackberry in the house or the glove box. If you have to take it with you, at least turn it off.

If you are a list person, then put aside an hour or more each day to do nothing. Write it down on your list. Stephen Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, suggests taking time for yourself on a regular basis to sharpen the saw. Translation: do something to improve your mind or your spiritual being. The metaphor is all about being able to perform at your best. Take time to sharpen the saw because with a dull saw you won't cut much wood or be very productive.

If every day of your life is so busy that you can't get everything done on your list, then re-examine your list. Typically, there are a number of things on your to-do list that might seem urgent, but aren't really that important to your job or personal life. Re-evaluate your activities in order to optimize the ones that really are important to your mission. Remove the ones that aren't really fundamentally necessary in achieving your daily goals and objectives. Your list just might become manageable.  

When it comes to your cell and your computer, you can simplify and declutter those devices. I used to receive 50-100 emails per day. A lot of them I thought I needed for work. You know the ones...Briefings on technology, leadership, management, etc. I have unsubscribed to most of them. If I need to learn the latest on any topic, I just Google it and generally learn more than I ever wanted to know in a short time.

If you have joined too many groups on linkedin and receive daily or weekly email updates, then unjoin them. Getting rid of email clutter will make your life easier to manage. Do you have too many friends on Facebook? You can hide them from view and then the only news feeds you see will be about those people that you actually care about. Don't get me started on Twitter. Unless you have a business connection that requires you posting tweets or reading other's tweets...just say no. How important can information that consists of 170 characters or less really be? Check your news feeds no more than twice a day.

And consider turning off your television set occasionally. I realize that is a lot to ask. A great many people turn on their TVs when they get up in the morning and turn them off when they go to bed. Even if they aren't actually watching, it is like an extra voice in the house to keep them company. Bottom line: Living your life vicariously through your favorite television actors or personalities is okay as long as you don't spend the bulk of your free time doing it. I realize that some of you schedule your lives around our favorite TV shows. If you are that addicted, get a DVR and do something meaningful with at least a portion of your spare time.

One final note. Recent studies have indicated that technology appliances are having an adverse effects on the attention spans of humans across the world. Our attention spans are getting shorter and we are having a more difficult time focusing on anything for extended periods of time. It is no wonder that this is happening given the amount of information we are exposed to each day and the methods we are using to communicate with each other over cell phones, instant messaging platforms, email and Twitter.

The only way to extend your ability to focus and extend your attention span is by practicing. Stop scanning the news or trade sites and start reading full articles. Read entire books. Find projects that require your full attention for extended periods of time and engage. If you want your mind back, you will have to exercise it the same as you would exercise your body to gain muscle tone.

If you want to take your life back, you can do this. It isn't really that tough. I encourage you to tell us about your ideas on unleashing yourself from technology. Inquiring minds want to know.

My web community, www.boomeropinion.com  is all about capturing and broadcasting opinions and viewpoints. We provide daily polls, discussion forums, and news about critical issues facing America and Baby Boomers. If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined us, please consider it. It is free and only takes a minute to join. Coming soon you will be able to create your own polls, initiate discussions on topics you choose and ask questions of the membership. We also have a Twitter page, http://twitter.com@boomeropinion.

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I believe they can. I suspect most of you reading this can't see the connection between the three. I also believe that Web 3.0 hasn't necessarily been defined to everyone's satisfaction yet. That's okay; I have been known to hypothesize with less objective information and data in the past. I'll give it my best shot.

We will start this exercise in reverse order. Web 3.0 has been defined as social media taken to the next level. It has been described as the semantic web with intelligence and learning capabilities; where web sites understand the relationships and ascertain differences in the data they mine. In other words Web 3.0 will allow web browser and various web sites to understand your preferences in everything from news to entertainment to products and present those to you in a format that enhance your experience online. 

I remember watching John Scully, the former CEO of Apple, give a presentation on the future of computing back in the mid eighties. In his presentation, he showed a video of a professor in the future using his Apple notebook computer, aka Knowledge Navigator. The notebook was not dissimilar from today's notebooks with one exception. His personal assistant was imbedded in the computer. This mythical avatar using a woman's voice informed the professor with the details of his schedule for that day, took telephone calls, made appointments, made flight reservations, reminded the professor of his mother's birthday and even ordered flowers for the professor's mother without being prompted to do so. Bottom line, the computer contained an artificial intelligence component, knew what his preferences were and carried out routine tasks for the good professor. 

Social media has provided a platform for people to congregate, discuss social issues, review music, television, books, as well as write about their daily activities, their likes and dislikes and discuss anything else that is on their mind. The primary advantage that social media has offered is bringing people from different geographic areas together to talk about anything they want to discuss. It has removed the barriers of social interaction and allowed millions of people to communicate with each other.

I am sure that a lot of you would agree that it can be a major waste of time and stifle productivity of those people out in the workforce who prefer to jibber jabber instead of doing their actual work. That said, social media also provides an excellent platform for advertisers to reach their audience and/or sell their merchandise online.

Of course, Baby Boomers are a pet project of mine since I operate a web community, www.boomer-insight.com, which caters to Boomers. What does any of this have to do with saving the economy?  Baby Boomers represent one out of three adults in America. They control 70% of the wealth in this country and spend $2 trillion annually on consumer goods and services, which is $400 billion more than any other generation group. According to a McKinsey Quarterly, Boomers will account for 40% of the spending by 2015.

This leads me to connect the dots. The biggest issue with advertising on social networks and social media has to do with the fact that these sites are not a predictive marketplace with regard to demographics and the ability to target specific groups who engage in social networking.  The demographics and interests of these social networkers is all over the map. Once the social networks employ more sophisticated algorithms to identify their target market segments by age, gender, interests, preferences and other specific data within these divergent groups, then social media will become the darlings of the major advertisers.

Social media can provide immense audiences for these ads, but they will have to be target specific. Of course, in the past, the Madison Avenue types have targeted the 18-49 age group demographic. Hopefully they will wake up, smell the cappuccino and crack the code of who has the spending power in America. Once they do that, then they can target the correct market segments within the Baby Boomer demographic and move America's economy back in the right direction.

Finally, I will throw in one more shameless plug for my web community, www.boomer-insight.com. If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined, please consider it. It takes less than a minute to sign up. You can participate in polls, forums and discussions on the most pressing issues facing America and issues specific to Baby Boomers. If you want to air you grievances on any subject, feel free to unburden yourself. We want to take advantage of your wisdom, knowledge and life experiences. Thanks for your support.

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I certainly hope not. My partners and I recently launched a web opinion portal (read social network with a conscience). I will talk more about the purpose and value of our site later in the column.

One of my closest friends has a cell phone and a laptop. He can use the cell phone, but the laptop is currently serving as a paper weight. Ask him about Facebook or if he has been micro-blogging on Twitter lately and the expression on his face resembles that of a person who has just had a frontal lobotomy. Technology is not his thing.

According to a recent New York Times article, dated February 20, 2009, 60 % of Baby Boomers are avid consumers of social media like blogs, forums, podcasts, and online videos. That's up from 40% just one year ago. They also point out that Boomers like to take polls, rate and vote on items, rank favorites, and add critiques on services or news stories. These stats came via a study done by Forrester Research

A Nielsen Co. report shows that Baby Boomers and older Americans make up the bulk of the country's online population. Accenture's 2009 Consumer Products and Services Usage Report points out that while Gen X'ers usage of social networking sites rose 2% last year, Baby Boomers usage of social networking sites rose 59%.

While the growth and usage percentages in these reports don't always correspond exactly, one thing is clear. Baby Boomers are embracing the internet and all it has to offer in very significant numbers and those numbers are increasing daily. And don't forget that there are 10,000 Boomers turning 50 every  day.

One of my favorite viewpoints on the social networking comes from Lev Grossman in a Time Magazine article, titled Why Facebook is for Old Fogies. His logic is both humorous and almost logical. Here are his 10 reasons older Americans should use Facebook:

1. Facebook is about finding people you've lost track of. 

2. We're no loger bitter about high school.

3. We never get drunk at parties and get photographed holding beer bottles in suggestive positions.

4. Facebook isn't just a social network; it's a business network.

5. We're lazy. We have jobs and children and houses and substance-abuse problems to deal with. At our age,  we don't want to have do anything. What we want is to hear about other people doing things and then judge them for it.

 6. We're old enough that pictures from grade school or summer camp look nothing like us.

 7. We have children. There is nothing that old people enjoy more than forcing others to pay attention to pictures of their children.

 8. We are too old to remember e-mail addresses.

 9. We don't understand Twitter.

 10. We're not cool, and we don't care.

This definitely an insightful look at the uses of social media for sure, but we can all identify with one or more of those reasons. Lev shows that social networking has something for every Baby Boomer.

Bottom line is that Baby Boomers are not technophobes. And that is good for a social networking entrepreneur like me and good for America.

My web community, www.boomer-insight.com is all about challenging Baby Boomers to re-engage in the process of helping change America for the better. There are 77 million Baby Boomers out there. One out of every three adults in this country is a Boomer. Baby Boomers control over 70% of the wealth in America and outspend the next closest generation by 400 billion dollars each year. 

I firmly believe that when the Boomers speak, Washington and the rest of America will listen and act on our advice. Every day Boomer Insight provides polls and discussions on the most pressing issues facing America. We also provide compelling content on Boomer specific issues. Come join us.  It takes less than one minute to join.

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The government is bailing out banks, mortgage companies, automakers and numerous other industries, so why not bailout the major newspapers? Some of these news organizations have been in business for a century or longer. They have covered wars, famines, natural disasters, assassinations, depressions and every other story worth writing about since the founding of our country.

Okay, I know what you are going to say. Giving the government any ownership or any involvement in private news organizations is tantamount to government controlled media. That is a dangerous and slippery slope that cannot be in the country's best interest. I won't argue that point, because I know you are right in making that assumption.

On the other hand, I believe we need these newspapers to continue to provide unbiased news on the events of the day, as well as editorial content challenging social, political and business practices that are taking place in America every day. There has to be some way to keep the presses rolling. Isn't there some middle ground, here?

Their revenues have always come from classified and display advertising. Craigslist, Ebay and similar services have taken the classified ad business from them. Between the shrinking economy and declining circulation, their display advertising revenue has been decreasing for sometime.

So, why can't the newspapers just transition to the web and continue to do what they have been doing all along? So far, it doesn't appear that they have come up with a viable business model that will support the cost structure of running a modern newspaper. I know they are trying to crack the code, but since the web came online in the nineties, every one and their brother has become a de facto reporter and news provider. And the newspapers have been slow to adapt.

So what's the answer? Should the government step in and bail them out? Should they become non-profit like PBS and rely on public funding and government subsidies? Should the giant media companies consolidate even further and keep them in business offsetting their losses with profits from their television and internet unit revenues? That trend has been going on for a while, but the powers that be in the media conglomerates don't care for unprofitable business units.

Frankly, I wish I had the answer, but I don't. All I know is that we need to find a way to keep these newspapers afloat until their management can come up with a sustainable business model. I am not so naïve to believe that the content has to be delivered on paper. It is just seems to me that they do a better job of collecting and delivering the news than their internet counterparts. If we lose them, it will be a sad day for all of us.

What do you think? There are polls, forums and discussion threads on my web site, www. Boomer-insight.com. Please join us and weigh in on this issue and other pertinent issues affecting all Americans at Boomer Insight. It takes less than a minute to sign up. Thanks for your support.

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Anonymous Bob commented on my blog, "Are Baby Boomers Technophobes?" and listed the following traits of a technophobe, or paraphrasing Jeff Foxworthy:

You Might be a Technophobe if...

1) When telling time, do use use terms like noon, midday, dusk, o'clock, quarter to or quarter past?
2) Do have a rotary dial phone or mobile phone larger than your shoe?
3) Are you convinced that sound quality of 45's is improved by putting pennies on the tonearm?
4) Does your home computer weigh more than you do?
5) Does your television or stereo have a wood cabinet?
6) Does your computer have a floppy drive and you use the one marked "CD/DVD" as a retractable cup holder?
7) Do you own and use a transistor radio?
8) Are the "Pong" paddles burned into your TV screen affecting your Intellivison game play?
9) Are you annoyed that you can't find 110 film, instant picture film or flash cubes?
10) Do your modem have a phone cradle?
 

He also pointed out that if your digital clock or betamax recorder is blinking 12:00 o'clock as we speak, you might be a technophobe.

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An article in the technology section in today's Washington Post, May 14, 2009, by Michelle Singletary, titled "Be Careful Online: Not Everyone Is a True Friend", brings up some very good points. Can you trust the internet and social networking sites with your personal information?

We are not talking about your bank account number or your social security number, but just random personal information. She points out that even providing information about your age, your friends and your family can expose you to a number of cyber crimes. She believes that cyber criminals are lurking in the shadows of some of the more popular web sites like Twitter, Facebook and Myspace waiting to collect enough personal data about you so they draw you unknowingly into one of their scams.

Ms. Singletary cites a lot of eye opening statistics in her column. Online crime hit a new high in 2008 according to the Internet Crime Complaint Center which is a partnership of the FBI, The National White Collar Crime Center and the Department of Justice Assistance.  According to Ms. Singletary, the center received 275,000 complaints last year which was a 33% increase over 2007. These crimes netted the cyber criminals some $265M. That is a substantial amount of loot.

One example she cited came from a warning made by the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies. They warn that you shouldn't divulge too much information about plans you might be making.  For example, if you twitter about leaving for a two week vacation, one of your followers might just come rob your house while you are gone.

A couple of other caveats brought to light by Ms. Singletary have to do with information you might willingly give out on your favorite social network. Don't provide both your full name and complete birth date, since that is data that can be used to steal your identity or access an account. Since a lot of folks use pet names for their passwords, it is not wise to divulge the names of your pets online. If you don't use your pet's names as passwords, then feel free to blog or tweet about them as much as you like. Derogatory comments about an employer, past or present, can come back to you in spades. It can significantly reduce your ability to be promoted or get that new job. But you know better, right?

She even points out that inflammatory comments about neighbors on social networks have resulted in defamation law suits. Now I realize most of you who are reading this know better and wouldn't make any of these mistakes. I also suspect a number of you have children or older parents, that could get taken in by cyber con artists. So teach your children (and your parents) well.

When I first started writing this blog, I wondered how many of us could be tricked into giving out personal information that a cyber criminal could use against us. I must say that even for an experienced tech guy like myself, my eyes have been opened by Ms. Singletary's article. Good on you Ms. Singletary.

My web community, www.boomer-insight.com is a social network with a conscience. Is it safe? Well, to become a member, the only information we ask for is your nick name, your gender, your birth date (which is of no use to the bad guys if you haven't entered your full name), your zip code, and your email address. I don't think that is too invasive. Our site is all about your opinion on important issues. We provide polls, forums and discussion threads to get your take on these issues.  You can read the latest news on national events and Boomer specific articles. Like a social network, you can blog, or fill in your profile page with photos and videos or not. You can remain anonymous if you like. All we really want is your opinion. Won't you come join us?

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 Will the internet profoundly change our society for the better? I hope it will, but I see examples that would indicate otherwise. Don't get me wrong, the world wide web powers my business. Last fall, my partners and I launched a web opinion portal that is quite social. But I am worried about the state of social networking today and what it might evolve into in the not too distant future?

I am not an old curmudgeon railing against technology. Okay, maybe I am old, but I am no technophobe. I became involved in technology early on selling computers at a Computerland store in Austin, Texas before IBM introduced its first PC. I graduated from personal computer sales to product management, then onto marketing and general management working for mainstream hardware and software companies. So I have witnessed the evolution of the personal computer and the internet in the last three decades.

I believe technology will drive our economy into the future and play a major role in both America's economic recovery and societal evolution. Those things are certain. My biggest concern has to do with the declining quality of social interaction on the internet. I realize that the written word in cyberspace is going to take all forms from the eloquent to absurd just based on the numbers of citizens online at any given moment.  

It wasn't so long ago that there were some limits on what a person could say in public and in their communications to or through the media. Hate, as well as gender and racially biased rhetoric was held to a minimum. That was before the advent of the world wide web. Consequently the dialogue that took place in newspapers, and on the radio or television broadcasts was more civilized for the most part. With the advent of the internet, social networks and public forums have become the Wild West all over again.

Each morning I scan numerous media sites, blogs, and social networking discussions looking for topics to write about and content to add to my own web site. I am amazed at the amount of profanity, racial and gender slurs, and outrageous comments contained in these discussion forums and comment sections of the social networks. I am not talking about the content of web sites like the New York Times, Washington Post, or Wired.com. I am talking about some of the more popular blogs, along with Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace.  Free speech is what makes America great, but a lot of what is posted on these sites is crap, pure and simple.

Of course, the crap factor is a function of the anonymity of the web. Most right thinking, or left thinking people would never talk like this in public. But since you can use a pseudonym on a lot of these sites, your anonymity is pretty much guaranteed. I am also confident that most of these offenders wouldn't use this type of language in front of their family. Of course when you are sitting alone at home, or in your office, staring at your computer screen, you tend to feel both invincible and invisible. So let her rip and tell it like it is.

I am pretty sure the majority of these offenders are under thirty. Sorry, that is my own biased assessment. And I am guessing that most of these offenders have been brought up to be courteous, congenial and to respect others. So what happens when they sit down at their computers? Maybe it's a perfect outlet for venting their aggressions and hostilities towards others. I am quite sure that they also know that this platform is about the only form of social interaction where they could get away with such behavior.

So what are the ramifications of this type of behavior on the web? Will it lead to lowering the bar in all social interactions? Will discourteousness, profanity and bad behavior become the behavioral norm in social situations in the future? I certainly hope not. Can we police the web and set fines and punishment for these miscreants? I don't think so Tim. We take our free speech very seriously.

So how do we raise the bar? It's your turn to tell me. And please try to do it without being profane, culturally biased, politically incorrect or disrespectful. And if you are a Baby Boomer, please take a minute to click over to our homepage and check it out. You should already be on www.boomeropinion.com if you are reading this. You might even want to join our community. We recently changed our web site name from Boomer Insight to Boomer Opinion. If you are a Boomer and have an opinion, we need you. And hopefully, you won't find very much profanity or disrespectful comments on our site.  Thanks for your support.

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First, let me qualify this blog by saying that I manage an opinion portal, www.boomeropinion.com, which is in reality a social media site. We provide polls, discussions and articles on issues facing America and Baby Boomers. We encourage Boomers to visit our site daily so they can weigh in and discuss the critical issues of the day.

I should also mention that I use twitter, but only for business purposes. I post the latest polls and discussion topics on my company's Twitter page. I use Facebook to keep up with my friends, relatives and children. After much persuasion, I got my wife to join Facebook and I haven't seen her since. And I use Linkedin to network with people around the world and to promote my businesses.

That said, I find that a good chunk of my time is taken up by these sites. Could I be more productive if I didn't fall prey to these sites? Absolutely. Is social media just a new form of crack? Quite possibly. Are large numbers of Americans wasting work hours perusing these sites? I am sure that is true.

It should be obvious to every American the loss of attention caused by twitterers across the country. Remember when the President made his first State of the Union speech last year? As the network cameras panned the audience, you could see numerous Congressmen and Senators sending out tweets on their smart phones. How intently can you listen to a speech if you are otherwise occupied tweeting?

A 2008 Study in Britain concluded that workers in that country typically lose 12 hours of work a week logging onto social media sites. That's over 25% of their time at work. If your typical American office workers are sitting at their computers tweeting about what they had for lunch or checking out the latest posts on their Facebook wall, how productive can they be during those periods. How much work are they not getting done each week?

Social media has a number of very positive benefits. Documenting protests and clashes between protestors and police or soldiers in parts of the world where network coverage is not available or not allowed. Documenting major weather events and other catastrophes in remote areas around the world is another benefit social media has brought to the table.

Instantaneous movie, restaurant and concert reviews are becoming the norm. Keeping close touch with relatives or friends in far away places, as well as keeping in touch with relatives or friends who live across town. Synching schedules or inviting people to special events is yet another benefit.

Some companies have initiated firewalls and/or filters to keep employees off social media sites and focused on the job at hand. Other companies have written policies against social networking during business hours. Without technical blocks, policing the usage of social media particularly given the new smart phone technologies will be hard to do for most companies.

There is no doubt that social networking and social media is here to stay, so what can be done to ensure that it doesn't distract the American worker to such an extent that it significantly impacts our national productivity? What do you think? We want to hear your thoughts on this topic. And if you respond from your office computer, just make sure you have completed your work for the day.

If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined our community, www.boomeropinion.com, please consider it. It is free and only takes a couple of minutes to sign up. You can share your viewpoint and voice your opinion on the critical issues facing America. And if we recruit enough of you, we can positively impact business and political policies around the country.

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At the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas last week, Ford Motor Company unveiled dashboard innovations that included being able to use Twitter and Facebook from behind the wheel. Streaming internet audio from behind the wheel is one thing, but social media? Presented as Ford's connectivity strategy, it appears that other auto makers will soon follow suit. Can you say distracted driving?

I have had a love affair with cars since the nineteen fifties. I secretly aspired to be a race car driver. Although, over the past thirty plus years, my racing has been confined to some motocross racing, a couple of years of road racing really fast go karts, and about five years of autocross. The pinnacle of my driving experience occurred when I attended to Jim Russell's race driving school at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma California. We were fitted, literally, into open wheel formula fords and got three days of intensive training on the finer points of open wheel road racing. Too much fun for sure.

I have owned numerous sports cars including an Alfa Romeo Sprint Veloce, an MG-A, a Sunbeam Alpine, an Austin Healy 3000, a Porsche 911, two RX 7's and several turbo charged Mazdas. My first car was a 56 Chevy with a small block V8. I love to drive and I love road trips.

My first road trip with a cell phone took place back in the early nineties. The phone was huge and didn't work all that well. The one thing I remember about using that phone was a conference call I was able to take part in while sitting in the parking lot at Buffalo Bill's Grave just outside of Denver. Talk about an office with a view!

Our cars are our second home. According to the National Highway Safety  Administration, on any day of the week, 800,000 people drive and use their cell phones. In a recently released Pew report, one in three teenagers admitted to texting while driving.  In 2008, 6,000 highway deaths were the result of distracted driving - a great many of which involved cell phone usage.

In the near future we will be able to access social media from inside our cars. I'm sorry, but how smart is this strategy? Given the statistics and the growing use of cell phones in automobiles, do we really want to continue down this road? I understand that some people can't seem to function without talking incessantly, but texting and twittering? Even if you could accomplish interacting with Facebook or Twitter hands free, you still have to look at the screen.

Did you know that sales of in-vehicle gadgets is expected to surpass $9.3 billion for the last year? There are some gadgets that are aimed at reducing cell phone use or at least making it safer. One such product will shut off your cell phone once your exceed 15 mph. There are gadgets that provide traffic alerts and accident reports using cell phone ring tones.

One FCC member, Meredith Attwell Baker, puts her two smart phones in her purse and locks them in the trunk before driving. Transportation Secretary, Raymond Lahood, puts his Blackberry in the glove compartment to ensure he is not distracted. Mr. Lahood has publicly stated that texting while driving has become an epidemic in America.

During one panel discussion at the Consumer Electronics Show, Peter Appel, the Transportation Department's head of research and technology stated that his agency is researching ways to use technology to make driving safer. There is an application that will make the drivers seat vibrate or rumble and alert the driver to an accident ahead on the road. A couple of software firms have demonstrated technologies that block text messages and incoming calls while the car is being driven.   

So what's the answer? Should all cell and internet communication devices be banned while driving? There are states where cell phone usage is illegal. Of course, if the technology is built into the vehicle, how will the troopers and police spot offenders and enforce such laws? Can all such communications be accomplished hands free and if so, does this ensure that the driver is not distracted? Yes, I talk on my cell when I drive sometimes. And I encounter distracted drivers every day who are talking and driving.  

What's the answer? What do you think? What's your view on this subject? Should cell use and internet connectivity be outlawed altogether?

If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined our community, www.boomeropinion.com, please consider it. It is free and only takes a couple of minutes to sign up. You can share your viewpoint and voice your opinion on the critical issues facing America. And if we recruit enough of you, we can positively impact business and political policies around the country.

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Chatroulette is a website that pairs random strangers for the purpose of webcam based conversations. The site was launched in November, 2009 by a 17 year old Russian high school student, Andrey Ternovskiy from Moscow. The site has gone from obscurity, 300 visitors a day in December 2009, to over 500,000 visitors a day in February 2010. In fact, Ben Parr of mashable.com reported 4 days ago that the site is receiving 1.5 million visitors per day. 

Andrey created this site so that he could meet and talk to people around the world. Once the viral publicity began to build, the site really took off. The site activates your web cam automatically when you click start. You are immediately staring at another human sitting or standing at their computer. If you are not young and attractive, expect to be bounced to the next user over and over.

Even though this concept is really interesting and novel, the resulting conversations are not what most people expect.  In fact, in a great many cases there is no conversation at all. In the early days, there was one guy who would play his guitar and improvise a song on any topic that the person on the other end requested and perform it for that person. Another user would speed draw portraits of chat buddies. There were people who put on costumes to get different reactions and so on.

Over time the site has become somewhat unsavory. There are people inserting all types of things into the orifice of their choosing. A lot of masturbation goes on. One thing to keep in mind if you plan to visit this site is that Chatroulette's visitors are currently 71% male, 15% female and 14% perverts on most weekday afternoons. These results were reported by Casey Neistat in a recent article on "Mashable.com" titled, Chatroulette Explained...

John Stewart on the Daily Show did a bit on Chatroulette and basically stated that is was a great place to observe men's appendages (not exactly the terminology that he used). He improvised a session that included Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric and Brian Williams that caused me to fall off my couch.  If you have a minute, watch this bit out on the following link... http://bit.ly/anwnHQ . Disclaimer: you might fall out of your chair laughing.

Despite the perversion, there are a number of people and companies trying to invest in this web site. Many venture capitalists have expressed interest in the site. Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian venture capital firm that has invested $400 million in Facebook, has made an offer to buy a portion of the company. Most investors believe that unless the male genitalia is completely removed from the site, the company is not a terribly smart investment.

Have you gone on this site? What is your take on this concept? Is it just a passing novelty, or do you think it has promise? We would love to hear your feedback on this topic.

My web community, www.boomeropinion.com is all about capturing and broadcasting opinions and viewpoints. We provide daily polls, discussion forums, and news about critical issues facing America and Baby Boomers. If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined us, please consider it. It is free and only takes a minute to join. Coming soon you will be able to create your own polls, initiate discussions on topics you choose and ask questions of the membership.

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Recent surveys indicate that Baby Boomers prefer Facebook 6:1 over Twitter. 50% of Boomers have profiles on Facebook. This shouldn't come as a big surprise to most of you. Facebook is all about keeping up with your friends and relatives on one easy to use page. And with Facebook, you don't have to check your wall/page every hour to see what is happening. Twitter on the other hand is more about ego streaming and requires more frequent engagement. 

I would much prefer to find out what my son or daughter thinks worthy of commenting about than read what they had for lunch or that they had just flossed their teeth. I realize that some of our kids will put some of their more inane activities up on Facebook, but that is a chance we are willing to take if we want to keep abreast of their day to day activities. Hopefully they will provide us with interesting anecdotes on their latest activities and provide some photos to help tell the story.

Twitter has its niche for sure. It's great for companies interested in keeping track of what their customers are saying about them. It is also great for companies launching new products or services. Your followers are your fans. Live streaming will invariably benefit your company's success.

Twitter is a great tool for breaking news like earthquakes or political protests in areas where the state controls the media. It is great for quick summaries of the day's local or national news stories. Our Congressman, Congresswomen and Senators seem to think it is a good way to keep their constituents informed. I wonder if that is the best use of their time given their progress in the past few months.

Most Boomers unlike their younger generation counterparts don't want to be held hostage by technology. I will never forget the day I got my first cell phone and pager. I remember thinking that I didn't want to be found that easily. My personal time was my personal time and having those technologies meant that I could be located and communicated with regardless of how far away from work I was at any given time.

Of course, today I have a notebook computer and an iPhone. I am still debating on whether to put my email on my iPhone. My inbox sometimes has over 150 messages waiting for my perusal. Do I want to access that mail regardless of where I am at any given moment? I am not sure.

So will Twitter stand the test of time? Baby Boomers won't put it over the top. However, the younger generations have gravitated to Twitter in huge numbers, and because of that I think it will do just fine. Soon the Boomers will no longer be the dominant generation and their say in the matter will be of no consequence. Then again, given the speed of technology advancement, Twitter could be displaced by something else by the time Boomers move out of the picture.

Just as with other technologies, I am sure convergence in the social media space will take place and the various forms of social media will converge. If Google has anything to say about, it will happen sooner than later. Google created Buzz to weaken Twitter's position and put it in Google's acquisition cross hairs. We know better than to underestimate the power of Google. 

We already know that the Millennials were born with their thumbs on the buttons and began texting before they could walk. We also realize that Gen X'ers are eager to use technology in any manner that will help them succeed. So those generations will embrace whatever new social media engines arrive in the near term. What's your take on social media and its value to the various generations?

 

My web community, www.boomeropinion.com is all about capturing and broadcasting opinions and viewpoints. We provide daily polls, discussion forums, and news about critical issues facing America and Baby Boomers. If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined us, please consider it. It is free and only takes a minute to join. Coming soon you will be able to create your own polls, initiate discussions on topics you choose and ask questions of the membership.

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In a recent blog, "Technology: In Praise of the Blog Commentariat" featured on Psychology Today's web site, the author, Jim Taylor, took back an earlier assumption that he had made about the uncivil nature of the blogosphere. After condemning the blogosphere as dispassionate and demonizing, the author reversed course and stated that he now saw the blogosphere as a vital force in democracy that has flattened the playing field and given the little guy a platform from which to voice his or her opinions.

Mr. Taylor has come full circle and said that the blogosphere was not the end of civilization as he had concluded in a earlier blog. He had stated earlier that there was enough energy generated by all of the vitriol being spewed from various blogs to make fossil fuels obsolete.  What changed his tune?

His recent epiphany came when he discovered that all of the conversations and comments on the web don't discourage others from joining in, but instead encouraged them to become part of the dialogue. His new hypothesis is that before the internet, we were forced to read or listen to few commentators who made up an "upper class of broadcast and newspaper journalists". Not only did we have fewer opinions to choose from, but the common men and women's voices were seldom heard with the exception of letters to the editor, call in shows, etc.

The internet has changed all of that and we have our own platform from which to voice our opinions. He has chosen to tag those of us out there in the blogosphere with the name "commentariat". And even though there will always be the lunatic fringe spouting off the wall ideologies and conspiracy theories across the web, the millions of common sensers will also provide balance, eloquence and logic to the conversation.

He says that in the past it was all about the unidirectional flow of information and ideas. The upper class, those with journalistic and literary credibility, controlled the information and ideas that were printed or broadcast. Now the ideas and information flow in all directions and from every person with a web connection. Some of you might argue that this information flow is not that effective without filters and channels to categorize and direct it.

Mr. Taylor states, "In this new powerful role, the commentariat participates in ‘mass collaboration' and the creation of new ideas in the intellectual marketplace". So we aren't part of the lunatic fringe after all. Thanks Jim, I was beginning to worry that all my ramblings about life, technology and politics were for naught.

I still believe that until we find better methods to categorize, channel and distribute this information and these ideas, we won't be able to fully utilize the collective wisdom of our countrymen, our global neighbors and harness the power of the internet. What do you think about the commentariat and its role in our society?

My web community, www.boomeropinion.com is all about capturing and broadcasting your ideas and opinions. We provide daily polls, discussion forums, and news about critical issues facing America and Baby Boomers. If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined us, please consider it. It is free and only takes a minute to join. Coming soon you will be able to create your own polls, initiate discussions on topics you choose and ask questions of the membership.

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Today is Twitter's fourth birthday. Whooohooooo! I have an ongoing love/hate relationship with Twitter. I have yet to decide whether Twitter is of any value to most people. Is it a valuable tool when used for its intended purpose? What is its intended purpose? I suppose Twitter is like an adjustable wrench. If you use it to hammer nails then it isn't worth the money you paid for it. However, if you are tightening bolts or nuts with it, then it is a very useful tool.

Being Twitter's Birthday, Mashable.com, the ultimate authority on social media and all things internet, posted an article about Twitter today, "140 Reasons I Love Twitter". It was actually 140 tweets. The categories for these tweets are Finding Love, Finding Fame, Staying Up to Date With Current Events, Stalking Justin Bieber, Stalking Celebrities in General, Making Friends Around the World, Making Friends with Similar Interests, Being Better Than Facebook or MySpace, Decreasing Performance at School, Tweeting on the Go, and Miscellaneous.

Finding Twitter's purpose has always been a mystery to me. In reality, the founders of Twitter are still trying to determine its real value proposition. Twitter's initial question has morphed from "What are you doing?" to "What's happening?" Bing and Google believe that it is a valuable tool for getting real time up-to-date information on events unfolding around the world, ie. instant news feeds. They both paid Twitter millions of dollars to get access to that info and use it in their search results.

To me, Twitter is more like a multi-tool...a Swiss army knife or a leatherman. These are very handy tools indeed if you are out in the middle of nowhere and need a knife, pliers, screwdriver, scissors or leather punch. So, I guess the real question is: How can I use Twitter to make my life or my business better?

Let's start with how the majority of people use Twitter: ego streaming. This is what turns most people off I think. I personally don't care what you had for breakfast or that you are going for a run. I don't care that you found a great deal on toilet paper or monkey chow. I don't care that your kid was just awarded a gold star for potty training at preschool.  I don't care that you just got your oil changed. I have more important information to consider.

Having 500 followers doesn't make you famous. In my best Andy Rooney voice, "Ever wonder why 500 people would think you are interesting enough to follow on Twitter? Ever wonder why those people's lives are so devoid of activities or excitement that following you on Twitter is what they do for fun?" Ego streaming is tantamount to stalking if you ask me. But that's just me.

Since time and common sense dictate that I cannot address every one of the categories listed on Mashable, I will select the ones I believe are relevant to the value of Twitter. Finding Fame is all about following/stalking celebrities and/or believing you yourself are a celebrity because you have hundreds of followers. I can see its attraction to young tweens and teenage girls. They want to know everything about their teen idols. But if you are over fifteen and you follow your favorite celebrity's every tweet, I say, "Get a life!"

I never considered Twitter a dating site, but apparently there a large number of people who have found their true love on this site. I am amazed and somewhat confused about this particular use of Twitter. I am guessing they have common interests and found each other by engaging in tweets about those interests. Examples of these star crossed lovers: @fallwall, "#thankstwitter4 being a good listener and perfect boyfriend substitute now and again..." and @Thick_Maddam: "#thankstwitter4 being eharmony and allowing me and my boyfriend @freakzilla718 to meet lol" Not exactly the boy and girl next door, but online romances are seldom traditional.

The category, Decreasing Performance at School seems to make perfect sense. If the high schoolers and college kids are tweeting instead of paying attention in class, then decreased performance is guaranteed. This category speaks volumes about the commitment and discipline of these students.

Tweeting on the Go provides the user something to do while being driven to school or work or when taking public transportation. I am not sure what they could be tweeting about in this scenario, but then again Twitter isn't always about communicating important or even interesting information is it? Although, they could be tweeting about black holes or nuclear fission...you never know.

Certainly for special interest groups I can see a great deal of value. If you just wanted to keep up with solar thermal energy production or bionic prosthetics, then I am sure there are Twitter sites devoted to these topics. Instant news on these developing fields is just a click away I suspect. Twitter would certainly be a way to stay up to date and get the latest links to studies and information in high tech, biofuels, medicine and any other field that you might want to track.

For businesses, I can certainly see the value in getting immediate customer feedback. I can see the value in announcing new programs or products. The instantaneous nature of Twitter provides value for any business wanting to connect in real time with their customers. Whether it is a movie review, product review, restaurant review, or customer complaint, the value is there for businesses wanting to stay close to their customer base.

When you get down to it, Twitter's most valuable use is instant news. Its real time coverage of unfolding events around the world is second to none. Since Twitter can be used by a smartphone or computer, the news coverage is both pervasive and instantaneous. No other forum provides those capabilities. No wonder Google and Microsoft were willing to pay to get access. If you don't want to scan the headlines of numerous online news sites, you can simply go to http://twitter.com/breakingnews and you will see all the latest news and headlines.

How do you use Twitter? Am I completely off base in stating that in most cases tweets are of little relevance or importance? We want to hear how and why you believe this is a useful social site.

My web community, www.boomeropinion.com  is all about capturing and broadcasting opinions and viewpoints. We provide daily polls, discussion forums, and news about critical issues facing America and Baby Boomers. If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined us, please consider it. It is free and only takes a minute to join. Coming soon you will be able to create your own polls, initiate discussions on topics you choose and ask questions of the membership. We also have a Twitter page, http://twitter.com@boomeropinion .

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The current model for most social media sites calls for free membership. Sites like Facebook make their money from advertising and premium features. The question is: How long will Facebook be free to use? There is a similarity between an addiction to social media and an addiction to drugs. The strategy is to get you hooked and then raise the price.

Most of my family logs on to Facebook several times a day to see what the other family members and friends are doing or saying. It seems like an addiction. Don't get me wrong, I think Facebook is a great platform to keep up with those closest to you. And unlike Twitter, your text is not that restricted and you can add photos and videos easily to your wall. And for the most part, it is not ego streaming about trivial stuff, there are a number of important topics and events that are documented daily.

The Facebook addiction is pervasive throughout the country and the world. So will Facebook take advantage of our addiction? I suspect they will. According to a Piper Jaffray report, "Pay to Play: Paid Internet Services", July 13, 2009, US Paid Social Networking Services will grow more than 25% per year in the next few years.

The big question is: Will social media users be willing to pay for this content? Currently, sites like Linkedin, Classmates.com, and Mylife.com are making as much revenue from fee-based content and services as they make from site advertising. Will Facebook and Twitter follow suit?

Consider the fact that Facebook now has over 400 million active users worldwide. Let's see, if Facebook charged a $5 per per month subscription to each member, then they would make $2 billion per month. Obviously not everyone would be willing to pay for Facebook, but if 20% of their members paid, then they would still make $200 million per month.  They could charge us a dollar a month and make some serious revenue.

Of course, Facebook has to think about the long term. Myspace thought they had taken the market by storm and just as soon as they rose to the top, Facebook came along and took the wind from their sails. Facebook had better features and a better approach. If Facebook were to move to a subscription based model, who's to say that another social media site with a similar model and some additional features might come along and displace FB.

The more likely scenario will be for Facebook to add more premium features that are fee based. What those features will be is pure speculation. They could involve mobile apps. The newest smart phones are providing geo features that will bring restaurants, transportation and shopping tips for your location. Expect a tie in to Facebook for these types of features. These could easily become fee based.

Twitter will probably never charge users a monthly fee, but the site could consider charging businesses for their tweets. After all, the two most important Twitter features are breaking news coverage and business related tweets. Twitter is already charging Google and Microsoft's Bing for using the Twitter database for their search engines. Businesses get free access to customer feedback and can set up their own accounts to tweet about products and services. Businesses would most likely be willing to pay for this exposure.

Do you believe Facebook will ever charge its membership to use the site or will the social network just begin adding more premium fee-based services? Will the site advertising model provide significant revenues for Facebook and Twitter? Do you think an upstart can take on Facebook and take their market share away in the same manner FB took Myspace's market share? We would love to hear your take on this topic.

My web community, www.boomeropinion.com  is all about capturing and broadcasting opinions and viewpoints. We provide daily polls, discussion forums, and news about critical issues facing America and Baby Boomers. If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined us, please consider it. It is free and only takes a minute to join. Coming soon you will be able to create your own polls, initiate discussions on topics you choose and ask questions of the membership. We also have a Twitter page, http://twitter.com@boomeropinion .

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If you didn't care for Facebook's recent site layout changes and policies in the past, you may not like the new features Facebook will be implementing in the coming weeks. Facebook wants to become your web browsing partner and be part of the functionality of every web site you visit in the future.

Facebook's new personalization features and plugins allow users to interact with their favorite web sites and share information about those sites and content with their friends. Your Facebook friends will be able to see exactly the sites you visit and what content you endorse on those sites using Facebook's new plugin features. There are a number of issues that arise when using these new Facebook features.

First of all, you are automatically opting in unless you take the time to tell Facebook that you want to opt out. So instead of asking you if you would like to take advantage of Facebook's new instant personalization features and plugins, you may be locked in and not even know it. Facebook needs to be more conscientious about alerting users to the new feature set and provide its users with a more straight forward method to opt out.

In the past, Facebook only allowed third party sites to store your personal data for 24 hours. They revised that rule saying that eliminating the 24 hour time limit resolved a technical issue for their developers. That means that your data can be stored indefinitely by these websites.

Okay, so you say well I can resolve that issue by opting out. That won't exactly fix the problem. If your friends don't opt out, then the websites that they visit using their Facebook logins will allow those sites to access not only their data, but their friends data as well. That means they will have access to your profile information since you are a friend of that person.

So how do the plugins work? First you must be logged into Facebook for most of these features to come alive. If the web site you visit has employed the new Facebook features, you will see the standard Facebook social bar across the bottom of the web site. When viewing content on that web site, you will be able to recommend that content by clicking on the ‘like' button.

One caveat about the ‘like' or recommend button. When you press the ‘like' button, that web page is now linked to your profile and all of your friends and other Facebook users can see that you like that item - ie. movie, article or other content piece. They will also know that you visited that web site.

With the browser plugin, you will also be able to see a separate box listing the top ‘likes" of all Facebook users along with the content recommendations of your friends. If you are logged into Facebook, you will also see how many of your friends have registered as members of that site.

How does the instant personalization work? When you log into Facebook and visit Pandora, Yelp or Doc.com, those sites will scan your profile data to help you find information that you might want to view or music you might enjoy. For example, Pandora could check your favorite music and offer music selections that match your tastes.

There is an activity stream plugin that will show you a mini-Facebook newsfeed on sites like CNN.com or any other news site that utilizes this plugin. It will show you all the recommendations and ‘likes' that your Facebook friends have posted on that site.

Bottom line. When you open a site using your Facebook login, that site can access the following information: your name, your profile picture, gender, current city, networks, friend list, likes and interests, and your fan pages. Once you have logged in, the site can also access any other Facebook information you've made public. It can even ask you for additional info, but you are not obliged to provide any additional information if you don't choose to provide it. In the past, these sites were only allowed to hold this information for 24 hours. Now they can keep it indefinitely.

The advantages to Facebook and their development partners are obvious. Having access to Facebook user profile information and being able to store that data indefinitely is a tremendous marketing tool. Not to mention, they can sort these people into specific groups or segments for selective advertising campaigns.

What do you think of Facebook's new functionality? Are you concerned about privacy issues? Will you opt out and hope your friends do likewise? Chime in and let us know how you feel about the new features.  

My web community, www.boomeropinion.com  is all about capturing and broadcasting opinions and viewpoints. We provide daily polls, discussion forums, and news about critical issues facing America and Baby Boomers. If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined us, please consider it. It is free and only takes a minute to join. Coming soon you will be able to create your own polls, initiate discussions on topics you choose and ask questions of the membership. We also have a Twitter page, http://twitter.com@boomeropinion.

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Social media is taking over the world. It should be obvious to all of us that there are lessons that we should take away from this phenomena. The question is: What are those takeaways?

Tanveer Naseer, a self described business strategy coach, writer and overall good guy put up a post on his website titled, What Twitter Can Teach Leaders About Effective Communication. The four lessons he lists that we should learn from Twitter are:

•1.    Focus on the message, not the medium

•2.    Praise in public, criticize in private

•3.    Spend more time listening to others so you can learn and engage them

•4.    Put people first and let profits come later

The first lesson applies to not just Twitter or social media, but the internet in general I think. However, sometimes it is difficult to separate the message from the medium. Marshall McLuhan wrote in his 1964 book, Understanding Media: The Extension of Man, that "The medium is the message". He believed that the medium embeds itself in the message creating an inseparable link between the medium and the content it carries.

Mr. Naseer's observes that if a message is relevant and important, the medium used should not impact its validity or discount its value. Given the amount of irrelevant content emanating from Twitter and Facebook, some people immediately discount the content because of its source. Content originating from most social media platforms is routinely discounted because it originates from social media and because most of it is of little value to anyone besides the person posting it. If you are sharing information with your team, the message should be what's important, not the platform you use to communicate it. You do have to ensure that your colleagues regularly access that platform or your message is irrelevant.

His second point relating to praising or criticizing someone in public should be recognized and understood as the proper behavior in any and all personal or business matters. His discussions on Twitter are obviously more civil than a lot of those I have personally witnessed. That said, chastising family members or subordinates should never be done in public. Making examples of your family members or coworkers in public is just wrong under any circumstances. I believe this more common sense than a lesson in leadership.

 Mr. Naseer's 3^rd lesson about spending more time listening is a lesson more managers and leaders should follow. In Stephen Covey's book, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, he lists this concept as one of the seven habits:  "Seek first to understand, then to be understood". Too many of us spend most of our time formulating responses to what is being said rather than actually listening and trying to understand what the other person is saying. How can you truly engage in conversation with someone or get your own points across if you haven't given them your undivided attention when they were speaking? You can't.

Mr. Naseer's final point, "Put people first and let profits come later" is a great point. If BP would have adhered to this lesson, then maybe the oil spill wouldn't have happened. They cut corners to reduce costs and look where it got them. Twitter and Facebook have followed this rule and will ultimately be very profitable. Too many companies make choices and decisions strictly based on the bottom line and not on what's best for their employees, their customers or for their communities.

What lessons have I learned from using social media? I have learned that if your target audience does not regularly log on to your social platform then you posts are exercise in futility. I have also learned that if you can't produce compelling content day in and day out, then you won't develop a following of any consequence. Life streaming will only draw family and friends, unless you have an amazingly interesting life. I have learned that the anonymity provided by social platforms empowers some people to act badly and cruelly in their interchanges and messaging. This is a perverted use of social media, but no one has come up with a solution to this pervasive problem.

Finally, I have learned that following all of the social media streams that you subscribe to can consume most of your waking hours and negatively impact your ability to get your work done or live your life in a meaningful manner. What lessons have you learned from social media? How has social media changed your life? How has social media affected your job or career? Is the medium inextricably tied to the content or messages that it broadcasts?

My web community, www.boomeropinion.com  is all about capturing and broadcasting opinions and viewpoints. We provide daily polls, discussion forums, and news about critical issues facing America and Baby Boomers. If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined us, please consider it. It is free and only takes a minute to join. Coming soon you will be able to create your own polls, initiate discussions on topics you choose and ask questions of the membership. We also have a Twitter page, http://twitter.com@boomeropinion.

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Tech journalist David Kirkpatrick's book, the facebook EFFECT, published this year tells the inside story of the company that he says is connecting the World. In 2006 Kirkpatrick wrote an article for Fortune magazine titled Why Facebook Matters. Since his first interviews with Mark Zuckerberg, Mr. Kirkpatrick has been given complete access to the Facebook operation and its key executives.

Kirkpatrick believes that Facebook is more than just another social networking site. He agrees with Mark Zuckerberg who said in one of his early interviews, "Facebook's primary mission is to help people understand the world around them". According to Kirkpatrick, the Facebook founder is wise beyond his 26 years. Even though, when Kirkpatrick told Zuckerberg in 2006 that he thought the Facebook founder was a natural CEO, Zuckerberg acted as if that was an insult.  

Facebook is closing in on five hundred million users and is one of the fastest growing companies in the history of business. Current valuations put the company value at several billion dollars. Zuckerberg has managed to maintain a major percentage of his company stock and control of its board of directors. Given his age and experience that is an amazing feat. When the company does go public, Zuckerberg's stock will make him an instant billionaire.

So why is Facebook different than other social networking sites? Well, first of all, you have to use your real identity. Second, you can control who gets access to your page and personal information. Myspace can't make such claims. Advertising is unobtrusive on Facebook, unlike other social networks. Application development by third party developers provides users with lots of ways to engage their Facebook friends.

Every month, 20 billion pieces of content are posted on user walls. Facebook is the largest photo sharing site on the web, period. Facebook's major focus is to ensure that the information presented to you is the information that really you care about.  Zuckerberg's own wall lists his interests as "openness, breaking things, revolutions, information flow, minimalism, making things, and eliminating everything that doesn't matter".

It is not just about reading the lifestreams of your family and friends, although that is a major attraction for this site. Important news items, political provocations, holiday greetings, revolutions, viral movements, insults, jokes, wisecracks, thought provoking pronouncements, business news, first hand reports of catastrophic events, stock market results and everything else under the sun is posted daily by Facebook users on their walls and on their group pages.

Kirkpatrick says that not everything posted on Facebook is positive. Is living our lives in public a good thing? He wonders if we are becoming a nation of exhibitionists. Posting commentary on the minutiae of our lives can become tedious and a general waste of time. Will living our lives online take away our ability to experience our lives first hand?  Will we lose our ability to socialize face to face? Does Facebook contribute to information overload?   

Other questions Kirkpatrick attempts to answer in his book include: "How will Facebook alter users real-world interactions? How will repressive governments respond to this new form of citizen empowerment? Should a service this large be regulated? How do we feel about a form of communication used by hundreds of millions of people that is completely controlled by one company? Are we risking our freedom by entrusting so much information about our identity to one commercial entity?" Of course, these same questions could have been asked about America's phone company, AT&T, 50 years ago.

I suspect a lot of you reading this blog believe that Facebook is a harmless social network that has allowed us to find old friends and communicate with them as well as every member of our family. Although Kirkpatrick himself admitted that his high school daughter's circle of Facebook friends didn't include him. So the privacy feature does work. I personally believe it is a brilliantly conceived communication link that will change the world in more ways than we can understand at this point. I am not convinced it was designed with that purpose in mind, but it could conceivably evolve in that direction. One thing is for sure. It will be entertaining and enlightening to see where it goes from here.

Is Mark Zuckerberg the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? He has brought together a team of experienced executives to give him guidance. Members of his Board of Directors include the founders of Paypal and Netscape. He has a grand vision and all the money he needs to guide his company to become the next Microsoft or Apple. He started his company in a dorm room like Michael Dell. He dropped out of Harvard to take his vision to the next level like Bill Gates. Will he be able to maintain control and take his company all the way to the top? Only time will tell.

The Facebook Effect is an interesting and enlightening insider's look at the early beginnings, current operations and inner workings of Facebook and its inner circle of executives. If social media is on your radar or impacts your business, it is a must read.

What's your take on Facebook and how it might impact on human social interaction and global communications in the wired world? Do you think Mark Zuckerberg will become the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates? Let us know what you think?

My web community, www.boomeropinion.com  is all about capturing and broadcasting opinions and viewpoints. We provide daily polls, discussion forums, and news about critical issues facing America and Baby Boomers. If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined us, please consider it. It is free and only takes a minute to join. Coming soon you will be able to create your own polls, initiate discussions on topics you choose and ask questions of the membership. We also have a Twitter page, http://twitter.com@boomeropinion.

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Mark Zuckerberg and his colleagues at Facebook believe that by openly acknowledging who we are and behaving consistently among all our friends and business associates we will help create a healthier society. Of course, his business depends on this philosophy. In his book, The Facebook Effect, David Kirkpatrick says that Zuckerberg believes, "that if we live in an ‘open and transparent' world, people will be held to the consequences of their actions and be more likely to behave more responsibly".

In a recently released Pew Internet and American Life Project survey of 895 "tech experts" and "highly engaged internet" users, two thirds responded that today's millennials will continue, as they grow older, to "disclose a great deal of personal information" in order to stay connected, and to "take advantage of social, economic and political opportunities." Bottom line is that the younger generation who has grown up with Myspace and Facebook have no qualms about continuing to post personal information on social media about themselves and their activities throughout their lives.

These are the same people who have posted embarrassing photos and text about their exploits and bad behavior. Some of these people have lost out on good jobs and/or acceptance into graduate programs because of these disclosures on their favorite social media platforms. Have they learned their lessons, or do they just dismiss these missteps as part of becoming an adult?

Is this transparency a good thing? Will it help you expand your professional network? Will it help you land that promotion or get that next dream job by virtue of the fact that your personal postings impress your current or future bosses as much as your resume and job experiences? Mark Zuckerberg hopes so. Or will these postings stifle your career advancement and ruin your chances at moving up the ladder?

According to Zuckerberg, "Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity". His thoughts on this topic basically point out that "the level of transparency the world has now won't support having two identities for a person". Because of the proliferation of information about individuals on the internet, the possibility of maintaining separate identities on the web are all but impossible. Eventually one's professional image will be overwritten by their personal image regardless of how hard they try to separate one from the other. Zuckerberg believes you only have one identity. Maybe he has a point, but a lot of older users seem apprehensive about combining their professional and personal identities.

One of Zuckerberg's early investors and mentors, Reid Hoffman, the founder of the professional online network Linkedin, has done his best to discourage users from posting personal information on Linkedin. Reid said, "Mark doesn't believe that social and professional lives are distinct". He went on to say, "That's a classic college student view. One of the things you learn as you get older is that you have these different contexts." Of course, Mark developed the original version of Facebook while he was in college at Harvard. And even today, he is barely older than most college students.

A former Facebook programmer Charlie Cheever thinks that Zuckerberg doesn't believe in privacy. Privacy has been, and remains to be a big issue with Facebook and its users. There have been numerous user revolts on this issue. To Facebook's credit, the company has responded to its users and provided better privacy controls on numerous occasions since its inception. Of course, the question still remains, "Should one company, Facebook, have sole control over the personal information of nearly 500 million users?"

What are the pros of combining your professional and personal personas? Exposure, networking, common interests with those you might want to do business with. The cons are exposure, documented misbehavior, negative networking through guilt by association and political stances that might be unattractive to prospective business partners.

Bottom line: if you don't want your personal information to be mixed in with your professional online presence, you should not go on any form of social media or join any online clubs, political groups, or other associations. Google will make your personal info available to anyone who searches on your name. Yes, you can limit what is seen on Facebook, but sooner or later you will be outed by association or your friends. Whenever you post something online, just remember the whole world is watching and reading.

What's your opinion on this topic? Has social media hurt your career or the career of someone you know? Have you missed out on a job because of your Myspace or Facebook postings? Are you active on social media? Do your friends on Facebook tag your wall with photos of your misbehavior or document your outrageous activities?

My web community, www.boomeropinion.com  is all about capturing and broadcasting opinions and viewpoints. We provide daily polls, discussion forums, and news about critical issues facing America and Baby Boomers. If you are a Baby Boomer and haven't joined us, please consider it. It is free and only takes a minute to join. Coming soon you will be able to create your own polls, initiate discussions on topics you choose and ask questions of the membership. We also have a Twitter page, http://twitter.com@boomeropinion.

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