There is no quick fix for online privacy protection.  Unfortunately the internet is not an opt-in universe where the user has the power to check a box of whether or not to allow data tracking companies to track her clicks across the web.

What you’ll realize in reading this article that what most people don’t realize is that a visit to one article on a site like CNN actually allows dozens of companies to track your web browsing activities from that moment on.  Yes, they are doing much more than tracking you on that one website which didn’t tell you that these companies have deals with them to suck your information.

Another little known fact is that the goldmine for these companies is that they can track you because you are a friend of someone else.  For instance, if you are my Facebook friend and a data retrieval company is tracking me, they will be able to reach your information because we are connected.  This is truly the dark side of online connectivity.

Every day we go online, read news, share on social media sites, listen to music, research everything from how to cook a recipe to how the latest health fad can slim our waistlines. Each click of the mouse as we do these things leaves breadcrumb trails of our interests, needs and websites we stumble upon.

We all know that, right? But do you know about Flash cookies that leave an unlimited number of cookies on your computer? These cookies track your web browsing activity for hundreds of companies you don’t even know exist. They may have access to the information you leave about your finances, health, relationships, interests, birthdays, preferences, address, occupation, age and more. This information affects which online advertising you are served up, which credit card offers you are presented with, while also creating a profile of you with both correct and incorrect assumptions based on these connections.

I learned about Flash cookies, or Flash Local Shared Objects (LSOs), while watching a Ted Talk video of Gary Kovacs, the CEO of Mozilla, describe the new free Collusion Firefox add-on. Kovacs’ talk on Tracking the Trackers is a wakeup call to how much privacy we have unknowingly given away as the price of using the internet.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Behavioral tracking, when done with our permission, can help companies we like to connect us to deals, offers, products and services that make our lives better. But the reality today is that the majority of the companies that track us online and collect data on our activities never asked for permission and we never would give them permission if they did ask. As an industry described by Kovacs as being worth over $39 billion, it is safe to assume they will fight regulation and giving consumers the power to choose which companies they allow to track their online information.

Rules and regulations for consumer protection against the darker side of behavioral targeting have not been created. If Lori Anderson, the author of I Know Who You Are and I Know What You Did, has her way, we will eventually create a social networking constitution that may be the first positive step in rectifying this situation.

To protect yourself and your family today you can add Collusion, Better Privacy and No Script to your Firefox browser. If you are a Chrome browser user you can add Keep My Opt-Outs and Do Not Track PlusChrome browser extensions and follow these steps to manually remove Flash cookies from your computer.

This article was originally published in The Huffington Post

Apps are awesome, right?  They’ve changed our lives and some expect computing to move to being completely app based at some point.  But how many do you actually use?

If the stats are correct, you use 10 or less on a regular basis, regardless of whether you’ve downloaded 15 or 150.  In fact, a Pew Research study revealed that 68% of users only use five or fewer apps at least once a week.

I realized after reading that statistic that it was true for me and I started asking others and they have the same experience.  What was interesting to me was how some apps I adopted early and used often, like “Bump” (to share contact information) and Angry Birds (to kill time in line at the post office), are apps I haven’t touched in months and I don’t miss them at all.  So even the apps that were originally sticky ended up not sticking.

Only two-thirds of people with apps on their phones use them.  My theory is that our bandwidth is limited, our choices of what to do with our limited free time are growing exponentially, and we’re choosing to use the few apps that either make our lives easier, save time or entertain us well.

Here are the types of apps that adults download and then do not delete on their cellphones:                            

Type of application                                 % who download

News, weather, sports, stocks                       74

Communications (social)                             67

Learning                                            64

Travel                                              53

Work-related tasks                                  48

Shopping                                            46

Video viewing                                       43

Health management                                   29

SOURCE: Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, July 25-Aug. 26, 2011 tracking survey.

How do these numbers compare to the types of apps you download and use frequently?  Do you use the same apps on your phone as your iPad?   (I could say ‘tablet’, but let’s be honest, that’s like calling Kleenex ’tissue’).  Which apps do you find the most useful?  …inquiring minds want to know.

Technology is amazing.  We do so many things each day that were impossible just a few years ago (like talking on cell phones, streaming movies to TVs and phones, surfing the internet at 30,000 feet, and having Siri at our beck and call) without thinking about them.

At the 2012 Coachella festival no matter how great any of the dozens of bands were, what will be remembered is that a lifelike hologram of 2Pac had him entertaining tens of thousands of concert goers …and performing with Snoop Dogg from the grave.  Watch the video and have your mind blown.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Last week we explored the first five of the Top 10 content marketing tips you need to know.  Today we’ll dive a little deeper, while acknowledging that this is a vast topic.  To keep up on content marketing trends I suggest you follow the Content Marketing Institute blog.

Here are the final five of the Top 10 content marketing tips you need to know:

6.  Listen to what your audience is complaining about.  The best content solves problems.  With this in mind, participate in communities with your peers, prospects and clients to note trends in what matters to them.  Sometimes these topics will be ones that they are excited about, but the hot button topics that they regularly complain about are the topics begging for your expertise, help and solutions …so give it to them.  They’ll love you for it!

7.  Consistently connect.  Delivering your content on a regular basis is crucial. You can have short blog posts as well as long ones, but post at least once a week if possible.  Post and comment on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and relevant blogs to your industry daily.   Regularly post on, and through, platforms like Foursquare, Instagram, Flikr, FoodSpotting, YouTube, etc.  Give people a reason to look forward to each time you’ll share new content, by being a resource that they want to follow.

8.  Make people feel special.  This is the key to a happy life and one of the best ways to ensure that people will care about you and your content – care about them first.  As Zig Zigler famously said, “You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.”

9.  Entertain before informing.  One of the cardinal rules of public speaking is to entertain 90% of the time and inform 10% of the time because no matter how great your information is, no one will listen to you if you don’t entertain them.  This doesn’t mean you have to be a dancing monkey with unending witty comments, but being interesting is what will attract people to interact with, and share, your content.  Think about the content you love and the people who make it.  They make you smile and laugh, don’t they?

10.  Repurpose, repurpose, repurpose.  Content is a dish best served over and over in different formats to multiple audiences to reach as many people as possible.   Once you put your hard work in to creating a live webinar you can also record it to be replayed, transcribe it into an eBook (as well as multiple blog posts, white papers and one-sheets), chop pieces of it into “how to” videos, grab nuggets of wisdom out for tweets and Facebook and Google+ posts, and the entire presentation can be loaded to SlideShare.  Aim to work once and then repurpose your content at least 5 different ways.

Content marketing should be a key ingredient in your social media and digital marketing recipe.  It takes a lot of time, but when it’s done correctly it can be the gift that keeps on giving.  Great content begets great benefits; people – even prospects and customers – will like you more, your employees will be happier to work for your company, more people will talk with you and about you, and even better, they’ll trust and care about you.

How do you become the recipient of such great rewards?  You start by remembering the following Top 10 content marketing tips every time your lightning fast fingers prepare to make a keystroke on that keyboard sitting in front of you right now.

Paste the following words of wisdom on the wall above your computer screen (or on the outside of your laptop to share them with the world) and let them light the way to your content marketing success:

1.  Don’t write a word, share pictures or post videos unless you want to.  In life there are “have to’s” and “want to’s”.  We run away screaming from “have to’s” and wild horses can’t keep us from doing our “want to’s”.  If you don’t want to write, if content creation doesn’t turn you on, if you don’t smile when you finish posting content, then you need to hire someone who does to do create your content.   Otherwise, you’ll create very little content, and what content you do create will carry that feeling of being an uninspired chore rather than an attractive passionate expression.

2.  Focus on giving.  You’ll notice that the content you love to consume has an element of the author giving you something.  It may be inside information, helpful tips, funny videos, infographics that help to explain a complex topic, pictures that make you smile, or stories that you relate to and care about.  The point is that we love content that makes us feel good, so as a content creator, that’s the best kind of content for you to focus on.

3.  Know your business goals.  Not doing this is the #1 problem with online marketing.  You need to develop informed goals for your company and create content to support those goals.

4.  Reach the right audience.  Content marketing is attraction marketing, so post content that will attract the people that matter the most to your business, who care about your expertise, and who will share it with their like-minded friends.

5.  Communicate with a friendly tone and flavor.  Don’t come off like a robot.  The basis of why social media works is that people want to connect and be validated.  That means they want to read, see and hear content that reaffirms that they are in the right place, doing the right things with the right people.  The tone of your content needs to be similar to how you communicate with your closest friends and dearest neighbors, not how you communicate with the customer service robot at your least favorite telecom company whom you feel no connection to.

Digest these ideas, leave comments on how these content marketing tips have worked for you, and come back for the final five tips next week!

This post was originally posted in the Smart Simple Social Blog.

The most current example of government surveillance of citizens is John McCain’s cybersecurity SECURE IT Act. The ACLU’s Michelle Richardson has said of the bill, “This is a privacy nightmare that will eventually result in the military substantially monitoring the domestic, civilian Internet.”

What is new is employers creating their own form of surveillance by forcing employees to give them broad access to personal information, some of which is irrelevant to how well an individual can perform her job.

Demanding Facebook usernames and passwords from employees is only the tip of the iceberg of how some employers are invading the privacy of their employees. This begs the question, when did employees become guilty until proven innocent?

This suspect way of treating people has become pervasive in our society. If you want to use iTunes, social media sites, downloadable apps, search engines or be employed by certain employers, you now need to give away your personal privacy rights. When this aggregated information is shared with marketers to serve you personalized advertising there are some concerns, but when your information is given to the government, credit bureaus, banks and other institutions without even notifying you, the issue grows exponentially.

The fact that most employers treat employees like children that are up to no good is something I’ve never understood. When you treat adults like responsible adults they are more likely to behave that way. When people in management and executive positions instinctively treat adults like preschoolers that should be suspect of bad behavior they are developing a culture of unnecessary fear and resentment. Is it a mystery that no adult appreciates being treated badly by anyone, much less by an employer?

Someone I know recently applied for a commission retail sales position. Once she was chosen for the job the first action she was asked to take was a drug test. The next action was to agree to a background investigation. Not just a criminal background check, but also checks for consumer reporting which:

May or may not include information about your character, general reputation, personal characteristics, and/or mode of living, and which can involve personal interviews with sources such as your neighbors, friends, or associates, including motor vehicle record (or “driving record”) checks, workers compensation records, credit bureau files, employment references, personal references, drug screening, any educational and licensing institution or military branch and to receive any criminal record information pertaining to me which may be in the files of any Federal, State or Local criminal justice agency in any state.

It gets better. This is not a one time allowance. Anyone who signs this document gives consent for the reports to “be obtained at any time after receipt of your authorization and, if you are hired, throughout your employment.”

Does that sound reasonable for a commission sales position at a furniture store? I’m sure that this is not an isolated case, and that is the problem. At some point in recent history while individuals were focused on losing their privacy online, corporations began taking away our privacy offline.

As a counterpoint, the workplace I experience every day is built on a culture of respect and appreciation with employees. The founders of the company chose to have no time off policy or vacation policy and recognize that in the 21st century our work and personal lives overlap and interweave. When you are sick you stay home, when you need to leave early to make it to your kids basketball game you leave early, when you have a vacation you post it on the vacation calendar and make sure clients and coworkers who need to know that you’ll be out are informed, and when you need to work late or put in overtime you simply do it. Great ideas are honored whether they come from an executive or an intern. Everyone is excited to come to work to be a part of contributing to a fast growing company where people are treated the way you would treat a friend.

What will it take for the formerly mentioned draconian big brother policies to give way to the later progressive, innovative ways of regarding employees? How much ongoing access to your personal information, including your online login information, do you want your employer to have?

This article was originally published at Huffington Post

In less than two years since it’s launch, Pinterest has blasted off to be one of the fastest growing social networks of all time.  At the end of 2011 the site was listed by Hitwise as one of the top 10 social networks when it had grown to 11.7 million monthly unique visitors.  This made Pinterest the fastest site in history to pass 10 million monthly unique visitors.  Since the first week of 2012, Pinterest has surpassed YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, Yahoo and Bing in driving referral traffic to retail websites.

This is undoubtedly impressive, but what does this mean for your brand?  Should you be on Pinterest?

The short answer is yes.  Historically, most companies wait a little too long to dip their toes into a new social network to make sure that it’s going to last.  This leaves them playing catch up, and you don’t want to be late this party.  At the very least you should secure your brand username before a squatter does.

The longer answer is maybe.  There are a few key considerations with how to allocate business resources that should always be considered before committing them to developing social media communities:

1.  Is your audience hanging out on this social network?

2.  Is your audience actively participating on this social network?

3.  What are your business goals that will be tied to your activities on this social network?

4.  What is your overall social media marketing strategy and how well does Pinterest fit in?

5.  Are “Pinners” already spreading your brand around Pinterest?  Type the following URL into your browser and replace “yourdomain.com” with your own web site: http://pinterest.com/source/”yourdomain.com” to follow and identify “Pinners” and boards that your brand’s content is appearing on.

Lifestyle brands benefit the most from Pinterest.  Currently 97% of Pinterest’s 1 million+ Facebook fansare women.

The current Pinterest user base is 83% female; 30% of whom are 25-34 years old, and 25% of whom are 34-45 years old.  These women are well educated with over 60% having some college experience, 19% holding Bachelors degrees, and 6% holding Graduate degrees.  They are more likely to live in mid-west states with 35% living in households with incomes between $25,000-$49,999, 34% living in households with incomes between $50,000-$74,999, and 14% living in households with incomes between $75,000-$99,999.

Therefore, if this is your target audience and you aren’t on Pinterest, you should open a new tab on your browser and request an invite.  Yes, Pinterest has had the growth mentioned above as an invite-only website.

If this is not your target audience, consider how your products and services can become attractive and valuable to this active audience.  Think about the lifestyle benefits and attributes of what your company offers and how your customers use your products or services to enhance their lifestyles.  If you’re not sure where to start, there are dozens of resourceful articles that can steer you in the right direction.  It would be a shame to not connect with all of these people who are having fun, sharing pictures and videos, and driving traffic to retailers.

This article was originally published on Room 214 ‘s Capture the Conversation

It’s Valentine’s day.  You forgot to prepare.  You’ll be rushing out to grab one of the last boxes of chocolates and bouquets of flowers left in the grocery store.  Why put yourself through so much stress?

There’s a better solution to this years Valentines procrastination, send your love a sweet tweet that could be read by The Golden Voice – he’ll say it better than you or I ever could.  And besides, just for writing the tweet you’ll be supporting kraft in giving food donations to Feed America.

This marketing campaign for Kraft is a smart mini-copy of the Old Spice social media marketing campaign that everyone loved. The original twist that’s pretty cool is that Kraft employed a man who was recently homeless to help spread the love on Valentine’s Day.  The added charity piece of helping to feed hungry Americans and the fact that you can participate are cherries on top.

…but you should still grab that bouquet of flowers and stay out of the valentine’s dog house.

Click here to view the embedded video.

One of the greatest days of my life was last October when I found a dear friend from my teenage years on Facebook.  I had been looking for Chris on Facebook for over four years.  Through my high school years we had many adventures that were capped off with following U2′s Joshua Tree tour  from Vegas to San Diego over my first college spring break.

It turned out that one of his relatives had told him to travel the world and he would never regret it.  That relative was dying and left Chris a lot of money, so at 19 Chris took off on a world tour and settled in Germany.  We lost touch, but I thought of him often because he was one of my closest friends.

Last October we talked for the first time since he left the U.S. and I was thrilled …until the conversation got to the part where he told me he had been fighting cancer since 2007.  I was bummed, but over the last 5 years I’ve known 4 people who beat cancer and heard lots of stories of more survivors which left me hopeful for Chris.

Then last Friday night as I was wrapping up work I received a message from a mutual friend asking if I knew about Chris’ Caring Bridge blog.  I hadn’t, but she gave me the link to log in to his page where I read a detailed update of how things turned for the worse while his family was visiting him over the holidays.

The post started out with an admission that doctors cancelled a transplant that was scheduled, ended all treatments and told him to prepare for less than a month to live.  A shock went through me and I felt stabbed in the heart.  I’ve had friends die which is hard, but knowing that someone my age who has inspired me, been like a brother to me, and just reconnected with me is having to prepare to leave the planet brought me to tears.

“What would I do if someone told me that today would be my last day?”  It’s been a cliche question all the times I’ve heard it until the question hit me while wishing I’d not lost all those years with Chris and knowing that it’s not an option in the future.  Reality bites and death sucks.

In the last few years I’ve known almost 10 people who died before they turned 50 years old and each time it gave me pause, but then I fell back into life’s routines without feeling the breath of death on my neck and expecting that I’ll have another 40 or 50 years of living to do.  I may, and I may not.

The first time I met death was in sixth grade.  Steven Urioste, the boy who played saxophone next me & gave me tips on how to play better in band class every day, was swinging on bars in the sandbox at lunch.  I was talking to him when he dropped to the ground and never got up.  I don’t remember his cause of death, only that he fell off the bars and no one could help him to breathe again.  I cried at his funeral, despite the priest making lame attempts to tie Steven’s life to football game metaphors, but I was young and moved on.

Chris’ dance with cancer is something no one should have to experience, but especially a person who I’ve known to be so sweet, loving and generous.  His blog posts are filled with his humor and love despite the physical and emotional pain he’s experiencing.

Death hasn’t made his spirit lose an once of joy from how I remember him.  And the comments, which number over 150, are tale after tale of how Chris positively impacted so many people’s lives across multiple continents.  The comments to his posts made me cry even more than his eloquent words (he’s a writer, as well as a great guitarist and singer) because they are never ending stories of his impact on those fortunate enough to have worked with him, played with him and shared wonderful moments of life with him.

So each day going forward as I appreciate the hours and days I have left, they will be in tribute to Chris.  In his dying and how he’s handling it he’s given me the greatest gift of not taking moments, days, weeks, months or years for granted any longer.

Beyond not sweating the small stuff, I’m making the most of every day to enjoy the people I love, do work that fulfills me, and make time for the things that matter most.  And I don’t expect a day to go by where I won’t be thinking of Chris, maybe crying, but always smiling and be grateful for his having been a central actor in the play that is my life.

On a last note, Caring Bridge is providing an amazing service by giving private websites and blogs to people who are ill.  If you know of anyone going through health issues please encourage them to check out Caring Bridge as a way for them to share their stories and love with their personal communities.

I’m very thankful that I was able to discover that Chris is about to die from him, in his own words, and I was able to comment and share my love and appreciation for him with him before he dies, even though he’s 5,056 miles (or 8,137 kilometers) away.

Facebook was a gift in finding him before he died, and Caring Bridge was a gift in loving him along with others who love him while we still had time to connect.  One blog post just profoundly changed my life, therein lies why I love the influence of social media.

Live every moment like it’s your last my friend.  Love the people and animals in your life with every ounce of love in your heart.  Life’s much too short and death is much too unpredictable.

Two bills being voted on next week in the House of Representatives contain language that could censor the Internet in ways you would never imagine.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House of Representatives and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate are well meaning, but if passed, will be destructive to internet freedoms we’ve all come to expect as well as forces that have helped innovation on the internet flourish. Both pieces of legislation greatly weaken theDigital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which for over a decade has helped Internet companies grow and flourish.

The recording industry, movie studios and television studios are the driving forces behind these bills. We are all very aware of how the music industry ‘s slow and regressive response to digital music backfired while not helping recording artists or the music industry.

Instead of creating better ways to legally download music (as Apple did for them by creating iTunes), their solution was to sue music lovers. Imagine the repercussions of this industry, and the Hollywood studios that have not adapted to how digital innovations have affected their industry, dictating policies that regulate the Internet.

Some of the companies and organizations that have opposed these bills so far include American Express, AOL, Creative Commons, Demand Progress, Discover, eBay, Etsy, Facebook, Foursquare, Google, LinkedIn, MoveOn, Mozilla, OpenDNS, PayPal, Twitter, Visa, Wikimedia Foundation, Yahoo! and Zynga. They are joined by web founders, public interest groups, non-profits, advocacy organizations, thinktanks, industry associations, websites, online services, cybersecurity companies, engineers, international human rights advocates, entrepreneurs, founders, CEOs, executives, venture capitalists, academics, experts, educators, editorial boards and student newspapers.

Would you rather have these companies and Internet-related professionals determine what’s best for the Internet and its users? We can probably agree that they are more aware of what’s beneficial for the Internet than the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America.

Reddit has announced a blackout on January 18th to protest SOPA and Wikipedia is considering joiningthem. Thousands of people are changing their Twitter and Facebook avatars to include a Blackout SOPAbadge across their face in protest.

SOPA and PIPA aim to help private corporations shut down unauthorized websites where people download music, movies, and TV shows. Most of these websites are outside of America, so these corporations are looking to combat them in a few ways. 1) Block access to infringing domain names. 2) Sue U.S. based search engines, blogs, websites, directories and forums to remove links to these sites. 3) Stop funding these websites by not allowing advertisers to support them.

The consequences that SOPA and PIPA supporters do not mention include: 1) This will not stop downloaders. History has proven this. 2) It will cripple startups by allowing corporations to sue any company they decide is not filtering to their subjective satisfaction. One of these lawsuits can easily bankrupt new websites and search engines that offer competitive alternatives to their corporate brethren. 3) The ambiguous language in PIPA and SOPA leaves plenty of room for misinterpretation that can make websites pioneering new avenues look like pirates. In the past, this could have affected sites like YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Facebook and hundreds of other social sites where people express themselves, organize protests, share news or make art.

The bottom line and main question to ask yourself is, “Do I trust the U.S. government to censor the Internet and protect free expression of its people? And if I do, do I trust other governments who will probably follow suit?” The next question to ask yourself is, “Is it worth the potential of creating a censored internet that is less innovative and stable in order to possibly help the RIAA and MPAA sell more music and movies?”

I strongly recommend contacting your Senators and Congressional Representatives or visiting American Censorship to make your voice heard on these critical bills that can negatively impact the Internet that you use every day. If online activists could make GoDaddy flip its support on SOPA and PIPA, then it can happen with Congress too.

This article was originally posted in Huffington Post