Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ll know that Facebook has recently introduced some sweeping changes (with more game-changing things on their way).

I’ve seen a number of my friends post this – a meme, I guess.

I’m struggling with the idea that people are that paranoid about their comments.

Facebook is a social network. Therefore it’s social and, well, a network. Both words indicate you might be meeting people and talking to them. Why would you want to hide your comments?

Honestly the first place my head goes is: what are you ashamed of? What are you hiding?

I can tell you that the friends of mine who’ve posted this to Facebook have nothing to be ashamed of. Which leads me to believe this is a comfort issue – I get asked a lot about privacy when I do speaking presentations so I’m not surprised.

Again, for me, it comes back to the idea that if you aren’t comfortable with people seeing your online activity you shouldn’t be online.

Or you need to get over it.

Nothing you do or say in a social network like Facebook can every truly be concealed.

If you really have a problem with friends of friends seeing your comments and likes ask yourself these things:

1) Am I being offensive?

2) Why do I have social network account(s)?

3) What could be the worse thing to happen to me?

If you’re posting anything which you really think might be offensive or controversial, take it to a Facebook message if you’re unsure. Don’t respond in the comment thread.

I understand that my friends don’t want to feel that Facebook has deceived them in some way by making their comments and likes more public than they thought they would be but there’s no reason for the paranoia.

This is the age of the internet where data is transferred in the blink of an eye.

I think it’s a bit late for for this kind of paranoia.

Nielsen recently issued a report called State of the Media: The Social Media Report detailing the current social media landscape and audiences in the U.S. and other major markets.

Get a copy of the report here.

The key findings from the report are:

- Social networks and blogs continue to dominate Americans’ time online, now accounting for nearly a quarter of total time spent on the internet.

- Social media has grown rapidly – today nearly 4 in 5 active internet users visit social networks and blogs.

- Americans spend more time on Facebook than they do on any other U.S. website.

- Close to 40% of social media users access social media content from their mobile phone.

- Social networking apps are the third most-used among U.S. smartphone owners.

- Internet users over the age of 55 are driving the growth of social networking through the mobile internet.

- Although a larger number of women view online video on social networks and blogs, men are the heaviest online video users overall streaming more videos and watching them longer.

- 70% of active online adult social networkers shop online, 12% more likely than the average adult internet user.

- 53% of active adult social networkers follow a brand, while 32% follow a celebrity.

- Across a snapshot of 10 major global markets, social networks and blogs reach over three-quarters of active internet users.

- Tumblr is an emerging player in social media, nearly tripling its audience.

Access the full PDF of State of the Media.

I would have posted this yesterday had I not been so pissed off about my key snapping off in my bike lock and having to walk home in +30°C … and melting.

You may well have read about the Social Media ProBook (a free ebook) by now – I’ve read at least five posts today from high profile bloggers endorsing this resource.

Thanks – as always – to the ever-insightful Adam Singer of The Future Buzz for bringing this to my attention.

Adam is also one of the people featured in the book.

In fact, Adam took the words right out of my mouth when he wrote: ‘Eloqua [creators of this free ebook] … solicited insightful content on social media with something useful for all digital professionals. Reading through the contributions (including Jeremiah Owyang, Steve Rubel, Sarah Evans, among others) it’s clear this is a must-read.’

Oh yes.

I download a lot of free ebooks and most of them are – to use the technical term – crap.

The Social Media ProBook actually has substance. And contributions from very cool people. And stuff worth reading.

For my Canadian readers: you have the day off work tomorrow. This would make perfect reading in your air-conditioned home/office.

Please read Adam Singer’s blog post which has an excellent digital marketing Q&A and links to the ebook.

Their aim was to understand the size and scope of the Canadian digital economy.

Pixel to Product has released a report of their findings which takes a snapshot of location and growth, workforce size, education and income among other things.

See the report below and download a copy of it.
2011 Report on The State of the Canadian Digital Media Economy

Please do your bit to stop these large media companies charging excessive amounts.

According to OpenMedia (quoted in this video below) it costs these companies a penny for 1GB of bandwidth usage. They want to charge customers up to $4 per GB.

George Stroumboulopoulos explains more in this video below. Please sign this petition to stop the nonsense.

At this time of year everyone is writing their predictions for what’s to come.

Among those prediction posts are genuinely smart, informed people who really DO have a handle on what the future holds.

But I’m not one of them.

Nor will I ever profess to know what we’ll all be raving about six months from now.

Why not?

Because all this guessing stuff sends me to sleep.

The truth is I have no effing clue what we’ll be doing a year from now. And honestly, I don’t care.

That sounds more callous than it’s meant.

I DO care about our evolving world. But to me it’s no fun trying to work out what will change and why.

The impact of digital communication and its effects are so complex and – in many cases – unknown.

If you’re super curious about all-things-future then you need to listen to one of the experts.

Head over to Gerd Leonhard’s website. This man is a futurist. That’s right. It’s his job to predict future trends. In particular, check out the presentations section.

Happy 2011!

You’re a hungry lot when it comes to Twitter and other social media tools.

Let’s look at the 10 most popular posts. They’re listed most popular to least.

1. Ten amazing, minimal WordPress themes

2. Instant Eyedropper for Mac

3. A guide to using Twitter

4. Stuck for tweet ideas? Need a cure for Twitter block?

5. Using Facebook and StumbleUpon to increase traffic to your blog

6. 20+ super cool websites to visit

7. Guest post: Foto Friday and how a Winnipeg photographer used social media as a gift

8. Guest post: Using social media to build your brand online

9. Attend social media seminars in Winnipeg 2010

10. Great links for learning about Twitter

For those of us who live a lot of our lives online, Facebook has become de rigueur.

This post by Brian Solis really brought home to me how integrated Facebook has become with our online lives. Where it was once Google that we referenced, it is now Facebook.

It’s eye-opening to have such a shift laid out on your screen.

I strongly encourage you to read Brian’s post. For those of you not familar with Brian – he’s globally recognized as one of the most prominent thought leaders and published authors in new media. He’s a bit of a demi-God in other words.

He spoke at an event in France early in 2010 to give his predications about the future of television.

He hit on a very interesting point. Could social networks be the new wave of broadcaster? We already use sites such as Twitter and Facebook to broadcast ourselves to each other.

Perhaps it won’t be long before we see a new ‘TV’ show broadcast only on Facebook.

What is this dude on?

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the internet is well and truly not over. In fact, I would posit that the web has only just begun.

But like I said, it doesn’t take a genius to work this out which is why I’m so surprised at Prince.

Here is an artist so entirely out of touch with 21st century communication that I’m astounded he still has an active fan base – I guess we have Purple Rain to thank for that.

His comments left me wondering if dementia had set in.

Honestly.

No rational human could say things like: ‘I really believe in finding new ways to distribute my music,’ and in the next breath completely diss technology. What is he thinking? Carrier pigeons will fly copies of his CDs around the world?

Get with the times little man.