“Ten percent is significantly different; it’s significantly higher compared to five percent,” said Kathryn Zickuhr, Web coordinator at the Washington, DC-based think tank and lead author for the research. “You can say [Hispanics] are more likely to use location-based services than other Internet users…but this area is still in the pretty early and small stages for everyone.”

Zickuhr added, “Among cell phone owners, [Latinos and blacks] are much more likely to take advantage of a wider array of a phone’s data functions when compared to white cell phone users.”

More…

So, when the ability to seamlessly integrate Twitter and Facebook (as well as LinkedIn), I jumped at the opportunity.  Problem was, Facebookers are a different ‘monster’ than the Twitter crowd.

“You are not a normal Facebook user,” I was told “so I hid your status updates.”  !

Twitter is a full frontal social media assault platform, and hardcore Facebook users are not used to the multiple updates Twitter users perform.  That and other reasons – Facebook is more personal – leaves my Facebook followers with a bad taste in their mouths.

Here’s How To Stop Twitter From Updating Facebook

1. Find Applications and Websites in privacy settings, find Twitter and select ‘edit your settings.’
2. Under Applications You Use find Twitter (you may have to select edit if you have multiple programs like I do).
3. Find Twitter and select Edit Settings.
4. At bottom of list there’s a setting called “Post to my Wall.” Remove it.

When you’re done it should look something like the above (I had already removed the setting before doing this post), which I’ll be removing as a whole after this post.

If you do Seesmic, or any other 3rd party application and tied it to Twitter you should do the same for that application as well.  I left one application that can update Facebook, as well as all of my social media sites in one swoop.  There are just some messages that you may want to cover everything.

Did this help?  How do you update multiple platforms?

I’m being cynic with my post title here, but it is true that Facebook is not a specialized site, and the simpler and clearer your language is the better your chances are that your content will be shared. The below picture shows what happens to shareability as the reading difficulty level rises in content.

I’ve been doing something like this with my titles and subtitles in most of my posts. Besides manually, it would be great if I could figure a way of posting to Facebook one title, and to other sites another.

The recent data by HitWise that rated social networking sites, ranks Facebook as #1 with 50% traffic, and Twitter as #5 with a mere 1% is a perfect example of a data presented at a certain level of truth, leaving questions at all other levels.

1.	Facebook	50.15%
2.	YouTube	15.21%
3.	MySpace	15.08%
4.	Tagged	1.16%
5.	Twitter	1.14%

Here are the problems:

1. What counts as a visit on Facebook?  (Ex: If you click through 50 profiles, does that count as 50 visits?)
2. Twitter users for the most part use 3rd party applications to manage their accounts such as Seesmic Desktop and Hootsuite, not to mention mobile device access.  Surely, this type of access is not counted as a “visit.”
3. There are other uses for twitter such as search (again 3rd party apps can come into play), or just sit and watch your custom “lists” or groups and use them as a news feed – “visits” here do not account for this invaluable feature.
4. The specialized niches that each network serves (think LinkedIn), is severely undervalued by presenting this data as meaningful.
5. What type of traffic are going to these sites?  What are they doing there?  How is this important to me or my business?

Each point begs pertinent questions – what is the value of other networks?  Are visits the measure of usefulness?  How are the sites used?  Who is visiting these sites and what are they doing?  Nothing outlined by HitWise, comes close to providing answers.

The web is no different than any terrain – the more you know, the better you can use it to your advantage.  Thinking through what is presented here, we come to important conclusions – this is called being media literate – and can leverage the information in our favor.

Did you initially interpret the data as I did…that is, Facebook rules?

(In a little while, I’ll be posting another piece that uses the same data above. However, the discussion is about why you should not chase traffic, but make it come to you.)

The Mexican government is up in arms against ‘Twitteros’ who use Twitter that warn others against drunk driving checkpoints – “alcoholimetro.”  But what really has those on the good side of the law angered is the blatant use of social networks by drug traffickers and other criminals.  Thus the “Spanish Bill.”

You decide: Is this a fair case to relinquish free speech for the greater cause of justice?

As netizens connect and grow, so do more unsavory individuals look to take advantage of those communications.

Having a background in technology, I’ve seen many cases of users unknowingly causing computer problems which easily could of been prevented if they new more about the computer environment.

With this in mind, imagine what can happen to an individual who unknowing falls prey to a computer virus or a phishing attempt, that could of been prevented if the knowledge of the characteristics of such attacks could of been recognized.

Social Media Literacy (SML), permits us to identify such threats.

SML goes beyond the knowledge of  pushing your content through different social media channels; it involves the critique of received media.  If media literacy broadly applies to digital media,  then SML would be specific to social media platforms.

Tips

Here are some suggestions for Twitter:

- If you see many of your friends sharing the same strange new Twitter icon, or tweeting the same strange message, it’s probably a hoax, or they’ve already fell victim to one.

- Be weary of tweets that contain news or calls to action, without having links.  This may be a prank/hoax, and the joke may be on you.

Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!

- If tweet contains all CAPS or multiple symbols, take heed!

- “Think before you click.”  Is this too good to be true?  Do you know the user?

- Mouseover the link and make sure you can verify the link (enable status bar in most web browsers).  If you can’t see it, or the link looks like bad news (IP number, instead of URL), the WYB!

- Does the persons tweets have a lot of links in many of them?  They have an incessant need to get you somewhere.

I can count on one hand how many times I’ve used the ‘block’ feature on Twitter.  This is because, I spend so much time on the internet that I’ve developed a heightened awareness of what looks right and what looks suspect, so I don’t spend too much time blocking people from my feed…I just unfriend them.

If someone is trying to take advantage of others, and you want to take the extra step then, submit their name to Twitter Help for investigation.

Has anyone experienced, or have more suggestions for Twitter or any other site?

Sometimes studies confirm what we all already know.  As you can tell, I wasn’t surprised by much of the information below, but I know it’s newsworthy for some.

A new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows a “dramatic” rise in the amount of time children and teens spend using entertainment media, “especially among minority youth.” [...] Hispanics and blacks average about 13 hours of media exposure daily compared to just over eight and half hours among whites.

The study is an interesting one, as it breaks down texting, social media, TV, books and more.

What I like about this report is a small portion of added value:  Of course not all use of social media can be lumped as entertainment or recreational. It’s also about communicating and–at times–can be a valuable part of young people’s education and development.

Amen.

Social media and a national road tour are part of the plan to drum up interest. The campaign will stress the importance and secrecy of the count.

This shows the further use and maturity of social media.

(Not that I thought they would succeed, but this further strengthens my belief that those groups who wanted to ban the census will not win.)

People often ask me how I select people or pick teams.  Honestly, with social media so big that when I need help either via volunteers or partners I look to various social media portals by making an announcement of intent and asking if there’s any interest.

So, I haven’t hand picked any teams, but do pick certain portals and trust the power of social networks and individual’s self determination and ambition.

Twitter and LinkedIn  are two of the biggest channels I do this with.  Follow me on these channels if you are looking to get involved…or just drop a note.

Take note of the #vivaviernes and #latism tags.