tokio.dish

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As the web gets more social our privacy does become less ensured too. I am sure you are aware of that; if not this is something you might wanna take a minute and give a small thought to.

First of all, let me start off by saying, “Whatever you don’t want the world to know, don’t put it online.” That should be the first thing in your mind when you’re concerned about your privacy. Doesn’t matter how much control a site gives you over your privacy, but always assume whatever you put out there is public information.

People have lost jobs because of what they had previously expressed online. Now that is very scary, and that should come as a warning to us. Just because we are behind a screen that should not mean that we should feel free to speak whatever we please.

One site where I recommend always staying on top of privacy settings is Facebook. That’s the place where anyone can see what you’ve been upto by viewing your pictures, videos, status updates and wall posts. Do make sure you that you have revoked permissions to 3rd party applications that you no longer have a use for. That is very important because we do not know what these people are doing with our info.

After all, it is your responsibility to be updated on privacy issues and setting on whatever platform you are using. Be smart and be safe as the web gets smaller and more connected.

Whether you’d like to admit it or not, but Twitter has just become another shallow popularity contest. I personally would be very happy if I was on the winning side of it, but as of now I am not… unfortunately. But, I’m not here to rant about that today.

Lets talk about Twitter and celebs. First came Mr. Kutcher with the title of “Twitter King” and then it was Britney Spears who took over the lead. And then Lady Gaga dethrones Britney about 3 days ago. What a competition. Any chance some of us average tweeters could get some spotlight like that too?

Now I’m not mad that celebs are pretty much being the center of attention on Twitter. I understand that after all they are celebrities and they do have fans. They are well-known figures. That’s fine. But, what’s upsetting is how everyone is encouraging this little race of having the most followers. Like c’mon you’re just ruining the whole purpose of a social networking site.

What’s so social about following around celebs on Twitter and pretty much having one way conversations with them? There isn’t a right or a wrong way to use Twitter, but that definitely wasn’t the intentions of the founders when they first came up with Twitter. Correct me if I’m wrong.

I have nothing against competitive environments. I do believe that the best of products and the worst of humans come out in a competition. And there are lots of examples as to why I can relate to that so much on Twitter.

After all, we average tweeters have the right to have a strong voice too, but the celeb buzz is just too much of a loud noise to compete with.

Twitter does give us the ability to know who retweeted us, but what about favourites? They forgot about that one – at least for now. But, that’s why I love 3rd party applications. They add all these nifty little features that the site forgot or didn’t bother looking into.

Right so you wanna know who faved your tweets and what’s your most popular one? Alright I know of two sites, but the one I always use and is my own personal favourite is Favstar.fm.

Not only can you look into the stats of your tweets, but you can also see which tweets are the most popular ones on the timeline right now on Twitter. And to be honest, some of these Tweets on the leaderboard are absolutely hilarious, so no wonder they were faved so many times.

So, head over to Favstar.fm and jump into action by signing into your Twitter via oAuth – no worries, it is safe since oAuth does not give away your password to the 3rd party application, but only allows access to your account.

Pro Tip: If you have a loyal following on Twitter then tweet up something impressive and try to get on Favstar.fm’s leaderboard, and you maybe surprised by the number of new followers you have gained at the end of the day.