That’s right!  You get not one, not two, but fifteen utterly original completely free status updates.  You don’t even have to pay shipping and handling folks!  This is a limited time offer.  Your status updates are only available to you for the duration of the existence of Triond.  Should the website hosting this article suddenly fold, these free status updates will no longer be available for you to copy and paste.

So what ere you waiting for?  Hurry up!  Scroll down and grab your status update today!

1) …is waiting for you to comment on their witty status…

2) …has not joined the group “Facebook should have a dislike button.”

3) …does not care if your Facebook group aspires to be the largest group on Facebook.

4) …blocked you from my feed…I don’t care how many mobsters you’ve iced, that you found a pink sheep on your  farm, or that you’ve redecorated your virtual apartment.

5) …likes to post politically divisive comments just to read the firestorm that ensues.

6) …is in his/her bunker preparing for the coming age of the zombies.

7) …doesn’t want to poke you, wants to poke (insert name of hot famous person here).

…combing my toes and clipping my hair.

9) …is distracted by the shiny object.

10) …counter-terrorism at the terrorism counter, buy one disgruntled-relighious-extremist voo-doo doll, get one free.  It’s just our way of helping make the world a better place.

11) …googling “awesome quotes” so that I can post something clever and hope you think I came up with it all on my own.

12) …has decided to stop updating my status with anything personal because fame approaches and how often I have a bowel movement should really be reported in the tabloids instead.

13) …should be sleeping but (click, click) must find out which brand of mustard most represents my personality.

14) …aiting-way or-fay acebook-fay o-tay ome-cay out-ay ith-way ig-pay atin-lay.

15) …is going to see how many “friends” I can get to block me from their feed by posting the most incredibly mundane events of my day today…frequently.  First event, get out of bed…scratch ass.

Image via Wikipedia

The growth of Social Networking Games

Simple point and click time management or ‘dash’ games have always held a small percentage of the gaming market. With the growth of social networking, the ability of these games expanded. Social gamers can find free games to play without searching or downloading and they can play with their friends.

The standard MMO requires payment, a download and time to learn the basics at least. These are barriers for new players so they need a real drive to start playing. With a social networking game it only takes a few clicks and you’ve got the basics.

The nature of social networking games gives them free advertising. Players advertise the game and invite their friends to join just by playing the game. Their friends are usually given a free in game gift message sent to them through the network. If a group of friends start playing, others may play just not to be left out. No other genre has that kind of advertising.

The profiting from Social Networking Games

The games are usually free to play but the developers can monetize them by offering bonuses for cash or placing occasional advertising within the game. Zynga, a successful social networking game startup, has profitable two months after their first game. In fact the industry is that profitable bigger groups such as Ubisoft and EA have moved into the market.

Social networking games can be as complicated or as simple as the developer wants. With the massive audience available to them they are bound to find someone it’ll appeal to.

Some social networking games have become so successful that they’ve stretched over different social networks. There is even a demanding underground market for real life cash for in game item trades, guides and cheats.

The future of Social Networking Games

The social networking game industry have also followed the trend towards wireless handheld devices. Some of the more popular games, such as Mafia Wars from Zynga, have produced their own iPhone application.

Social networks have become incorporated into our personal and business lives. With Facebook averaging over 1 billion visits a month and Myspace lagging not too far behind (January 09 compete.com social network rank) social networking games certainly have leg room to grow.

Social networking games have been knocked in the past for being overly basic and childish but a simple enjoyable game is what a casual gamer is looking for. The question is how long will the trend last?

This question is always asked on social networking websites. While some give you the option of seeing who views your profile, Facebook does not offer this service. Let me repeat, there is no way to see who views your Facebook profile.

The question is being asked by those of us who would like to see who keeps checking out our profile, and by those of us who don’t want that certain someone knowing. Some are frustrated by the lack of knowing while others revel in it.

But this app says I can see who views my Facebook if I install it

There are many apps and scams going around claiming they’ll let you see who views your page. They are scams and nothing more. Facebook themselves have confirmed this feature is impossible in an app.

If an application is claiming to let you see who is looking at your Facebook profile you can report them. I found three within five minutes of searching.

There are applications which rate their ‘top friends’ or ‘top stalkers’, these applications, aside from causing a lot of spam, count the amount of comments and game challenges etc… The more you interact with someone on Facebook the more likely you are to come up on these things. They cannot count page views so looking at a profile has no affect on this.

Do any social networking websites allow you to see who views your profile?

Yes, there are several others which allow you to see who views your profile page. Bebo for example has this feature but it only works if both people have enabled the ‘visitor map’. Commonly people turn of their map to view other profiles and then turn it back on.

Will you ever be able to see who views your facebook?

Facebook may decide to change this feature in the future but they’ve been around long enough without the change so far. It’s currently against Facebook’s privacy policy so the only way to see who is viewing your Facebook, is to ask nicely and hope people are honest.

Whatever your reason for signing up, be aware that once done it may change your life forever. I guess the real question has to be; can our discoveries ever live up to our expectations? Will it encourage old grudges to resurface or old romances to rekindle? Can we ever revisit the past and emerge unscathed afterwards? I have cautiously dabbled with mixed results. I found it strangely unsettling to see how some seemed to have changed beyond recognition while others barely looked a day older than I last set eyes on them. It’s funny how old memories resurface, the times we bared our hearts and souls, revealed our most intimate thoughts and secrets. I wonder if they remember any of them now. Do they look back and smile or cringe in horror as I do?

I saw familiar faces smiling back at me now holding children of their own. Some had travelled the world only to return to their home town after discovering that the grass really wasn’t any greener on the other side. More heartbreakingly I heard of the death of two of the class bullies. All memories of their cruel treatment resurfaced but in the larger of scheme of things I saw just how unimportant it all was now. It allowed me to release them and their behaviour towards me, to forgive them and to wish them well.

Then we move into the next stage to meet up or not to meet up? This is a huge step to take; will you both live up to each other’s expectations? Will you pick up conversations as if no time had ever passed or will you wriggle uncomfortably in your seat, gulp down your drink and make your excuses and run? There is much to take into consideration before contemplating this step.

A few years ago I took this very step and I caught up with two of my very best old friends only to find that sadly we had nothing in common anymore; careworn bravely wearing the scars of love, births, death, tragedy, and divorce, forever changed but still yearning to take the chance to escape and revisit the past only to find that too much water had gone under that particular bridge to rekindle the friendship leaving us to drift apart once more.

It has been a bittersweet experience for me. My profile is still active and who knows, maybe one day another face from the past will pop by to reminisce of days gone by.

Image via Wikipedia

Twitter lists are the new gadget for anybody who wants to spend even more time on twitter. There are many advantages in using other peoples’ lists of interest, but so far I only found setting up my own a bother. My lists so far are mainly filled with people who have listed me or who recently had contacted me directly. As an excuse for my laziness I might put forward my follower count.

You are able to create one or more lists. So far, I have created four lists of my own; one is for writers, one for visual artists, on for musicians, and a hodgepodge one with people that are active tweeters. As they contain mainly my followers, they are not (yet) much use to me, but they might help me later if looking for something specific, though I think the search feature on twitter will be faster.

When creating a list, or editing it for that matter, you have a choice of making it a private list accessible only by you, or a public one that may be seen and followed in turn by everybody.

You are able to list anybody on your list irrespectively of whether they follow you or you follow them. You may also put people with private accounts on your lists, but you will only see their tweets if you are an accepted follower, i.e. your request to follow has been accepted and is not pending anymore. But you are unable to list people that have blocked you from following them.

As there are already many public lists out, you in turn might find it useful to follow lists of other users. In following other users’ lists, you may follow the lists of people you follow, who are following you, or with whom you have no connection at all. Again, private accounts keep their lists hidden until you are an accepted follower, and you can’t access any lists from users that have blocked you.

So far, you had the possibility to access the tweets of users who block you by going to their personal twitter page, but as you had no possibility to save them on twitter, that meant keeping a separate list on your pc or laptop. Now you can follow a list in which such users are included and thereby read their tweets easily.

For people who publish original content such as writers, visual artists, and musicians, this is a valuable tool. As there is normally no reason to block somebody, blockers are suspect of using your original content for their own use and keeping you away from that information by making access to their tweets complicated. But no longer, as you may now check their tweets by the simple means of following another user’s list.

And for anybody who would like to be included in one of my lists, please send me an @-message to my twitter account with the information which lists you would like to be included in.

Related article

A Road to Twitterdom

Why not?

They are simply adding their articles, pages, etc to Twitter and leaving them. In fact many have their articles set to automatically feed into Twitter and they think that is all they need to do. They do not participate in the system at all, so the only people who see their Tweets are their friends.

If you use Twitter actively you can retweet (RT) articles and pages posted by other people, and they will do the same things for you.  Then they are shown to their friends too. Their friends will do the same, if the Tweet is a good one and you will get a lot of read from people you don’t even know about.

For some people it is a matter of time and they don’t have a lot available for going onto Twitter to see what has been tweeted@them.  However there is a solution here.

Tweetdeck is an application that sits on your desktop, open or closed, as you prefer, saves lists of new followers, things that have been tweeted by your friends and followers, or forwarded from elsewhere. It is really easy to see who has retweeted your stuff and who has posted new work and to return the favour.

If you participate and help others, they will do the same for you. I downloaded Tweetdeck a couple of weeks ago from www.tweetdeck.com  and I have already found quite a big difference in hits on my articles and my blogs. This really does work and it is much simpler to use that Facebook with all its extras all over the place, or Digg and SU with all their rules that are not made clear, or enforced consistently.

I’m not saying that anyone should only rely on Twitter for reads but I have found it extremely useful and would recommend using it in conjunction with Twitterfeed to get maximum return for the time spent. It has certainly given me more traffic on blogs, websites and articles.

Twitter is sparking a lot of confusion, both for young people and the baby-boomer generation.  Twitter seems to be taking over.  You hear about it whereever you go, almost inevitably.  You hear about it when it comes to celebrity gossip, news, muscians, etc.  Why is something so seemingly simple so popular?

Twitter basically seems to have robbed Facebook of a feature.  Twitter’s whole basis is “status” updates and “following” people and their “tweets”.  All of these terms can be extremely complicated to get a grasp on, and honestly, it is not worth it.

There have been claims in Twitter’s favor that it allows information to be easily obtained for those who are always in a rush.  The brief information is favored by many people.  Since most of us want to inform others of things going on, maybe this is why Twitter is so huge.  The fact that the news programs are even using Twitter is a huge concept.  Twitter is possibly bigger than MySpace and Facebook; perhaps more beneficial.

Twitter is probably useful for the sake of news and whatnot, but celebs using it is not that much of importance.  Neither are your personal updates.  Seriously, no one really cares about what you’re doing every minute of the day, unless you have a stalker you’re tooling with.  Twitter should be avoided if that’s all people are going to do with it; keep that stuff on Facebook.

If this sort of idea appeals to you, getting your news and all other information quick and briefly, then you should give Twitter a look over.  If it’s for you, then great, congrats!  But if not, then steer away from it as much as you possibly can.  Keep in mind though, with the Internet being as huge as it is and only getting larger and larger, escaping may not be a realistic dream.

Image via Wikipedia

My experiences on Twitter have shown me that they let things get out of control, and things become just a bit to wild for my liking or tastes.

Here are some fine examples.

The Fake Charles Manson

A person opened up an account, pretending to be this false Christ, who brainwashed others to kill for him. This story is far from any given secret. This person claimed to be using a cell phone in his prison cell. A woman who had some issues with me personally sent the man to my profile to cause me some personal issues. I contacted the prison, and the prison guards told me this is common and can occur. That prison inmates can receive these objects in prison. Although I was poked at for contacting the prison, this false Manson had 700 followers praying it was the real one. Scary thought to see that occur again. It became so severe with this individual that a woman I had issues with, told the man where I lived. A crazy man pretending to be someone partly responsible for killing a pregnant woman was given the town I live in. It does not take much from that point of locating where I live. I contacted the service team, and the response was as such.

“It was ONLY a fake.” Notice the word ONLY. No big deal, they felt it was nothing to be alarmed about that 700 people were hoping he was real. A possible brainwashing again perhaps Twitter?

The Man Called Satan

This man tweets out best times to pick up your heroin, and justifies that killing people is fine to do. Anything really related to what we associate satan to actually imply. He even sent me a personal note saying, “I now know why people like you are killed.” Again I could see he had many followers, some who now do not leave me alone, and follow me article to article and mock my writing.

This man was reported, however two weeks later I was still seeing his Twitter page online. Not good enough Twitter.

Many other sites, such as Twitter, offer you to post your status updates. Facebook and My Space have status updates.

Please reconsider supporting Twitter, until they throw out the trash.

However, one has to wonder if it’s really worth it….

Digging up from my own personal experience, MySpace was really becoming “the thing” when I was in high school.  I graduated in 2006, and it was between 2005 and 2006 that MySpace was getting a lot of use by myself and my peers.  It was addicting and kills many hours of boredom.  But that seemed to backfire quickly.  It’s easy to add anyone as your friend, and as anyone can tell, MySpace is basically a popularity contest.  If you have less than 1,000 friends, you’re a loser!  This is simply unrealistic.  Who really is good friends with 1,000 people?  MySpace and Facebook may not be about being close friends but it looks a little ridiculous when a person has so many “friends”.  It’s actually quite sad.

To go back to my personal reflection, Myspace started sucking up my own life, and that of my friends.  We become obsessed with adding people, checking out other profiles, updating our own profiles, and of course, taking great pictures to put on the site.  MySpace especially allows people to get a great deal of attention.  People will comment on your stuff simply to get comments for themselves.  But this gets ridiculous and out of control!  People start liking the attention, and this becomes a vicious cycle which eventually gets to be too much. 

Most people seem to quit MySpace and Facebook when drama, fights, and arguments come up.  This was true for me.  Relationships (which may I add, were not worth it) were getting ruined and friends were getting hurt.  Everything that could go wrong, did.  I soon made the decision to leave MySpace, and I have not made one since.

THe computer is a scary thing.  It allows people to be as mean and “honest’ as they want, since they’re virtually protected.  People cross the line though because sure enough this stuff will make its way into reality; it will affect your actual life.  No matter what it will happen.  You may think your “online persona” is safe but it never really is.  Your best bet is to think worst-case senario and make decisions from that.  The online world is not a protected one. 

MySpace is pretty much based around people you don’t really know.  For the most part, it’s easy on that site to add people you don’t know; no one seems to care if it’s odd that a random person wants to be friends.

Facebook on the other hand can be a little different.  It’s turning out to be more like MySpace but it’s not that bad yet; at least in my opinion.  However, Fcaebook can get you into just as much trouble.  Chances are Facebook revolves more around your personal life, so when issues come up, it’s probably really going to hurt you in some way. 

While I do have Facebook, I am careful about who I add as a friend and what I say on there.  It is possible to be a member of these websites without having to deal with any problems.  Caution is key.  If you find problems keep coming up though, and your life is really getting affecting, it may be time to start considered getting off of those social networking sites, at least for a little while.  Maturity is just as important as caution.

My question is…why?

Time was, people liked to keep some things private.  When kids went off to college usually their parents didn’t know all they were up to or they’d have been yanked home in a hurry.  Now, parents are sharing the details, and passing out their own.

Kids would rather not know about mom and dad having sex; mom and dad would probably rather not know the same about the kids.

And the big thing to me is…what is driving people to want to share every aspect of their lives? People are giving up time and privacy to look “cool” or something like that. We wouldn’t want anyone to know we don’t belong to the social networks. It’s like a mortal sin now if you don’t FaceBook, MySpace or Twitter.

Well, I don’t, and I probably won’t. I don’t need 5000 or 50,000 or 500,000 “friends” who aren’t really friends at all. A handful of really good friends is all most of us need in life.  I don’t even attend family reunions because I don’t want to know some of my cousins and what they are doing, and I don’t want them knowing everything I am doing.

Besides…where do people find the time to do this? How many hours a day are spent communicating the details of your life to people who probably don’t care?

It’s like a sickness now…hop on there and  make a comment. Never mind it’s a stupid, rude, crude, unfeeling, uncaring comment…gotta do it anyway.

Social networking has become more of a drug than a diversion.

It’s already led to a lot of dire consequences.  Parents learning things they’d rather not know, kids discovering things about their parents they really would rather not know…neighbors, co-workers, bosses getting ugly surprises…vicious, cruel remarks being thrown around like a handful of snowflakes.

The world as it used to be may be gone but it’s not too late to recover civility…it’s not too late to say goodbye to invasions of privacy that are too painful to be revealed. Maybe in many cases it’s time to push the off button…cut down your list of “friends” to the few you know really are. The game of accumulating friends has become as useless as collecting soda cans, chewing gum wrappers and ticket stubs.

More is not always better and the time given up in pursuit of “sharing” is time lost when you could be doing something you really like from walking the dog to hugging your kids to spending an evening at a club, bar or restaurant with “real people”. Most of us see enough of our relatives at Thanksgiving and other holidays without telling the world Aunt Kate has hemorrhoids, Uncle Bill steals office supplies or your roommate Katie had sex with her boss. Whatever happened to minding your own business?

In the case of many older people I think it would be a good thing if they left some of these sites to the young folks and quit trying to “belong” to a generation they aren’t part of anymore. Young people will always be rebellious, outrageous, daring, shocking and unconventional but it’s not an attractive way for mature, older, maybe retired people to behave.

If your daughter is in college you’d probably rather not know all the facts about her existence…even more than wanting a degree or a future, most young people want to go to college to “escape” parents, home, and constant supervision…and here Mom pops up wanting to know what you meant by THAT comment you made and why are you doing so and so?

Can you remember when, back in school, most of us wanted to crawl under the desk and hide when parents came to your class? Can you remember the holiday dinner when some old aunt would come up and make some remark about how much you look like dead cousin Jane?  It made you feel a little like the kid in A Christmas Story who got the big pink bunny suit.

Lots of people are joining social networks for a small number of reasons…wanting to know things no one has bothered to tell them, wanting to make sales, wanting to look popular, wanting to feel important, wanting to not feel so alone in what is becoming a scary world.

Personally, I prefer real life.