Zach Bosch

I just read an interesting article on the differences between Google+ and Facebook. The author, Tony Bradley of PCWorld, discusses these differences on day 27 of his series “30 Days with Google+”. Bradley first highlights the many similarities between the two social media giants and then moves on to highlight the very slight differences.
I got a good chuckle out of Bradley’s comments on the “six degrees of separation” when it comes to social networking. He discusses the feature in Google+ that allows the user to censor which of his Circles sees the content of his posts and how difficult it can be policing which Circles are seeing which posts and who of his friends overlap between different Circles. In the end, Bradley laments, “That six degress of separation thing can be a bitch if you’re trying to keep a secret on a public social network”. As Preston Parker would say, if it’s on a social network, you should never hope or expect it to stay private.
In his article, Bradley discusses something I’ve been thinking (I’m sure with the majority of people using Google+ and Facebook) for quite some time...Google+ needs to set itself apart from the pack, that pack being Facebook. As it stands, there really isn’t much to incentivize the switch to Google+, the similarities far outweigh the positive differences. Additionally, Google has given Facebook a solid head-start in making changes by holding out for so long with their final beta, while Google is busy fixing bugs with their network, Facebook is taking things that Google is doing well and assimilating it into their own site (Bradley).

This next article, written by Wayne Breitbarth of Business2community.com is quite reminiscent of Utah social media guru Pete Codella. The article deals with the proper uses of LinkedIn and focuses on the idea of keeping your name fresh in the minds of those around you in the world of social media, a principle Pete Codella has mentioned is extremely important.
Keeping your name fresh in the minds of your LinkedIn contacts could include simply posting a question about your industry that you’d like help answering or mentioning you are attending job fairs or interviews to spread the word that you are available for hire. What it seems to come down to for Breitbarth is that when it comes to LinkedIn, it is always important to keep your updates pertinent and business oriented.
Breitbarth discusses the unprofessional nature of posting updates that are too “personal” siting the fact that you are essentially telling those in your network “that you don’t really respect their time”. Another example that stood out to me is that of announcing to your network you will be out of town. Breitbarth suggests that more than a few social media users have had their house robbed as a result of telling those in their network that their house was open and free for the looting.
It’s interesting to think about a social media site that stands out from the more prevalent sites, ie. Twitter and Facebook. LinkedIn, while discouraging personal information be shared, can still be a very social and financially beneficial place. LinkedIn is a place of business and, when treated as such, can be a very powerful tool as people look to expand their business network.