When Social Media Sites Go Away

I’m just now mourning the loss of EONs, the social media site aimed at Baby Boomers. I didn’t use it all that much, but I loved the groups that talked about the iPhone and the iPad. The people my age and older using those devices were so knowledgeable and so willing to share their advice that I felt that no question was too irrelevant or just plain dumb. 

And some of them were using their iPads for very sophisticated things that I could never replicate. One of the members of the group always put up great videos he edited on the iPad. Another talked about how he used the device for many business applications.

 And one of the members of the group gave me a gift by letting Tech and the Baby Boomer use the story of her mother, severely impacted by arthritis, who could touch the iPad with her knuckles to tap out emails to her family and also to view photos from grandchildren. As you can see, these people made a real impact on me. 

So my question now is where did they go? Where are you OldMike? Louscraps? Techie44? SkeeterThompson1? LBretired? Where did all the posts go? Where are those great discussions? And the photos? I know many of the members of this group uploaded photos and videos to the site. If they were smart, they kept copies.

Officially Lori Bitter of Continuum Crew, who purchased Eons a few months ago, blamed the problem on the company’s service provider. This is what was posted on the Facebook page for the group in early May:

To our Eons members,

We know many you have all been waiting patiently for news on the future of the site. As a team, we have been working to resolve the business issues with our service provider. We have negotiated in good faith to restore the site and move forward. Unfortunately our provider is demanding a financial commitment that we cannot make at this time. We are at an impasse. While we have worked behind the scenes to try to come up with an alternative to get the site restored, none of those have worked out either. For the foreseeable future, the site will remain down.

As Matt stated before, there is no reason to worry about your personal data; it is secure. We will continue to pursue all avenues available to bring Eons back.

Also, the company Crew Media in Texas is in no way affiliated with Crew Media who owns Eons. Please stop the calls to their president immediately, as there is nothing he can do.

Thank you,
Lori and the Eons Team

If you are “into” social media, and that includes Facebook, the people on the sites become if not friends, then people you are looking forward to hearing from. You enjoy their discussions. You like what they have to say. 

Perhaps you’ve gotten involved on a gaming site where the same people play the games you like, and you’ve grown to enjoy playing with them. Or perhaps you like to talk about golf or baseball. In social media, the people who have similar interests to you become closer to you than you realize.

That is: you become close to them until the server is shut down, and all their conversations, past and those you might have had in the future, are unreachable.

For me, this brings up a larger question. What if Facebook went away? What if they closed in the middle of the night with no way for you to retrieve your Timeline? Or see your old status updates? How would all the millions of you who spend time on it day after day feel?

 

They say that nothing really goes away on the Internet. Somewhere in cyberspace those discussions about the iPad and iPhone will exist. Yet finding them will not be easy. So Lori, if you are reading this, and EONs doesn’t return, please at least make your archives accessible in some way and provide a way for the people who liked to hang out on your site to find each other.

 

Related articles

• Baby boomers gaining ground with online social media

  ---

Posting Pictures and Albums to Facebook and Picasa

As you know, since I talked about it in my last post, I recently uploaded some pictures of my children's graduations to Facebook.

For my friends who aren't on Facebook, I uploaded the photos to Picasa. Picasa is the Google photo sharing site, and it is free as long as you don't exceed its limits. Google also has Picasa photo editing software you can use that straightens pictures or sharpens them easily. I find it much simpler to use than Photoshop, although it doesn't offer the tools serious photographers need.

Right now Picasa gives everyone more than a gigabyte of storage. You'd think that would be enough, right? I'm about half way to reaching that mark right now. Buying more storage is cheap, however. Google will charge you $5/year for 20GB.

As it turns out, it's very easy to post pictures and albums to sites like Facebook and Picasa, and to keep them private. Also, don't worry that you are going to lose your pictures should these online sites ever go out of business. You'll still have the photos on your computer. That is, if you've mastered the art of moving pictures from your devices to your hard drive.

Some of you Boomers reading this will laugh at this last line and others will recognize yourself in this. I don't know how many of my friends are waiting for someone tech savvy to "take" their pictures from their cameras and put them on their hard drives. This is easy folks, as long as you remember which cord came with your camera!

Usually all you have to do is attach one end of the cord to the camera and the other end to the USB port on your computer. I know, the place to attach the cord on the camera may be hidden in a compartment. You may have to ask someone the first time you try to find it. Or look at the book that came with your camera. Then just find an empty USB port on your laptop or desktop, and plug the cord in. You might have to turn your camera on to get the process rolling.

Depending on what software you have on your computer, the next steps could be simple or hard. In the best of all worlds, the computer will automatically upload the photos onto your system's hard drive. You'll see them zip by on the screen and into your system. Otherwise you may be prompted to start the uploading process. You also may be asked which one, of a number of programs, you want to handle the transfer. Nothing you click here is wrong. Usually, I let Microsoft handle the transfer process.

You might also be asked where on the disk you'd like to place the pictures. Some people designate a photo sub-folder in their Documents folder on their hard drive and others might prefer to have the photos delivered to a folder on their desktop.

Here's where some people get stuck: The system sometimes asks you if you want to erase the camera's data card after you've uploaded the pictures. That is entirely up to you. If you are afraid of losing the pictures, don't click erase. You just might need to buy a lot of storage cards for your camera.

(There are other ways to "get the pictures off of the camera." You can take your camera card to one of those machines in a pharmacy or Target, put the card in the matching slot, and get your pictures that way. That will create print copies of the pictures on the card, although that's not the primary subject of this post.)

After I've transferred the pictures from the camera to the computer, uploading to a site like Picasa couldn't be easier.  Go to Picasa and sign up. Then you'll be asked if  you want to upload some pictures. It used to be that you could only upload 5 pictures at a time. Now you can upload as many as you want.  This is what the uploader looks like:

Notice that you can restrict access to the pictures to "Anyone with a link." That way, only the people to whom you email a link will see your pictures. Since I don't think my pictures should be made public, I choose to restrict access. Choose a title for your album. I usually choose a descriptive title along with the date.  Here is the folder that includes one of the pictures I sometimes us as my head shot.

Press "Continue" and you'll be confronted with a dialog box which will instruct you to find the folder on your computer that  you want to upload. This is usually the folder that you stored the pictures in earlier.  Find it and select "Open" and the process should begin.

The process for uploading photos to Facebook is easy too.  At the top of your Facebook page you'll see this box. Click on "Photo" and you'll see these options:

If you choose the Upload a Photo tab from your hard drive you get this window:

Click "Browse" to find the photo you want and then click "Open." You've just added a picture to Facebook. Adding an Album is simple too. Just click on Album and Facebook provides this hint:

As Facebook says, you can select multiple photos from your computer by holding down the Control key. Or you can use their "Simple Uploader" which asks you to name the album first. Notice that I only share my albums with my friends.

I named my album : Sample. Click Browse and find the photos you want to upload to Facebook. Then click Upload Photos.

 

And that's about all there is to it. Give it a try yourself, and enjoy sharing photos of your important events with friends and family, without having to send out multiple emails to each.

Why I'm on Facebook, Revisited

With all of the privacy issues that Facebook presents, you may wonder "why bother?" Most Baby Boomers I know do very well with email. They email their pictures and their grandkids' pictures to their brothers and sisters. Maybe they remember that Aunt Sadie might like to see them too and that she has an email address. Most people I know these days don't get around to printing out their pictures and putting them in an envelope to mail, so anyone who isn't "on the computer" is left out of the loop.

Here is a real life example of how Facebook is better than emailing pictures. This week I went on Facebook and checked my friends' status updates. I found that my cousin had posted an album of pictures from his daughter's junior prom. I've kept up with this family pretty well, but really, the time had flown and I had no idea that his daughter was ready for the junior prom! It was great to see the pictures of how this little girl had grown up! It was even better to share her father's mixed emotions about seeing her in her prom dress with her date. Facebook had reconnected me to this part of my family in a way that an email never could. It would have been too much trouble for my cousin to remember to email me.

Facebook was also convenient for my cousin. He was able to upload his pictures once, for all of his friends and family to see. They can comment on those pictures and all the comments are in one place. He doesn't have to remember to post multiple emails.

I also learned that another cousin who lives far away from me was ill. She probably wouldn't have told me in an email, but she broadcast the news to her friends on Facebook so they wouldn't worry if she wasn't online as often as she normally is. I have many things I can do with this information: ignore it, comment on Facebook that I hope she gets better, give her a call if I don't see her online for a long time, or email her. But at least I know.

With Facebook, you can stay in the lives of the people you care about, without losing touch. Maybe a phone call is a little too much. But you can look at what people post, pick and choose what to reply to and know something about their day-to-day lives.  When you actually see them, you have more to talk about because you know what's going on. I mean, what do you say to young members of your family that you haven't seen for a year? Do you fall back on the standard "relative" questions like "How's school?" and "What grade are you in now?" Isn't it much better to be able to ask how that class trip to Disney went or if they enjoyed working on the science project they posted about?

I think Boomers who say they can't be bothered with Facebook are not seeing Facebook as a tool that can enhance their lives. You don't have to invite strangers into your world unless you want to. The privacy settings let you keep your close knit group, close knit. Many boomers probably think they will be "poked" and prodded by people they don't want to know or see. Maybe you really don't want to reconnect with that high school friend who got you in so much trouble. You really don't have to.

On Facebook, you can ignore anyone you don't want to let into your circle. You can "unfriend" people who become annoying or worse, but "unfriending" is a last resort. If you need to make your Facebook experience more pleasant, consider just hiding the posts of people who write crazy status updates. One of my unnamed relatives is young, curses quite a bit and says unsavory things on Facebook. I just hide his posts. When I want to know what he is up to, I go look on his "wall."

For a short course on how to "unfriend" someone on Facebook I suggest you visit this blog post on ROM Cartridge: How to Remove Friends on Facebook or this Brighthub article: Unfriend Someone on Facebook without All the Drama.

A recent NY Times Blog post by Elissa Gootman gave this additional advice taken from Baby Boomers and others interviewed for the article:

• Don’t friend somebody you don’t know.
• Don’t announce on Facebook that you are leaving home, or you may get robbed.
• Only write about the barbecue you’re planning if you want 1,000 people to show up.
• Don’t “poke” people — it’s annoying.
• If you’re 54 years old, don’t post a profile picture taken when you were 17.
• “Remember, there’s malicious people out there.”

I'd add: if you want to keep your privacy, don't "like" a lot of companies or causes. Also beware of spam on Facebook. Mashable recently posted this article on the subject:  HOW TO: Avoid and Prevent Facebook Spam.


Although there are dangers, I think that Facebook is worth it and  I suggest you give it a try. "Friend" people you care about, post a status report that says something about what you are doing, and see how it enriches your life.

Boomers: Your Photos May Disclose More Data than You Think

Recently, an ABC news video has been making the Internet rounds, exposing the fact that newer cameras and phones equipped with GPS chips are embedding location information into photos. This makes it easy for stalkers to find the addresses of the people who posted the photos. A lot of people are worried about this; I received the clip from three people in two days.

The iPhone, for example, automatically embeds the user's latitude and longitude in the "metadata" attached to each photo. If you don't want to be found for some reason, this could be dangerous. I can think of a few obvious examples: a battered woman who has left her spouse; a celebrity who wants to preserve some moments away from the paparazzi; a public official who doesn't want his "niece" found; the CEO of a financial organization that has lost its depositors' money who doesn't want journalists to find his home.

This ABC online story tells the tale of two researchers at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, California who were able to find the private home addresses of a Playboy Playmate and some TV hosts. It was relatively easy to do.

It's always been relatively easy for a motivated individual to find your home address, even before these days of online look-up systems. You could just look in the White Pages. If the person was from out of your local area, you went over to the library and looked through the shelves of White Pages books stored there. Obviously, the White Pages had its limitations. In the past, if you didn't know where someone lived, you might have to go through a hundred telephone books to find them. In other words, you really needed to be motivated. And most people who didn't want to be found paid the telephone company for an unpublished listing.

However, it's now much easier, not to mention quicker, for unscrupulous people to find out where you live.  The New York Times notes that:

By downloading free browser plug-ins like the Exif Viewer for Firefox (addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3905/) or Opanda IExif for Internet Explorer (opanda.com/en/iexif/), anyone can pinpoint the location where the photo was taken and create a Google map.

One article said that people who list items for sale on Craigslist could be setting themselves up for robbery, just by posting a picture of the item for sale on the website. Last year, I posted a photo, taken at my home, of an old TV I wanted to sell on Craigslist. I didn't give out my address; people contacted me through Craigslist's email address, and I only contacted people who were interested and whose identity I could verify.

The TV was purchased by someone who had a business in my local area, and I was able to confirm his identity online and match the phone number he gave me in the email with his place of business. But what if the picture of the TV had been taken by a phone that was GPS enabled and had included location metadata? Then any unscrupulous person could have known where I lived and what merchandise I had. Further, if I had shown the TV in a living area of my home, they would have been able to find out much more about me. This is very unsettling. So if you ever post pictures online --of your cute grandkids, your dog, the tons of snow in front of your house--you should think about the information you are sharing.

There are many good reasons to use GPS metadata in photos. It's very convenient, for example, to post pictures to services like Flikr which then "know" where the picture was taken and label it with the location. Pictures from your trip to Japan will have exact locations attached, which for someone who forgets to record that kind of info, is very helpful when organizing albums. If you post pictures from home, you are not at risk of disclosing your location if you choose to make your photos private (an option most photo sharing sites allow) and only share them with people you know. However, if you take a lot of pictures at home and make your albums public, then you should think about the risks associated with letting everyone who has access to the site know your location.

Prompted by one of the articles I read on this subject, I visited a website called I Can Stalk You, which bills itself as "raising awareness about inadvertent information sharing." This site has hints on how to turn off GPS tracking for photos on the iPhone. Here is what I Can Stalk You has to say about turning off the GPS location information on the iPhone 4:

To see your settings, go to Settings, General, then Location Services. From there you can set which applications can access your GPS coordinates or disable it entirely.

For the iPhone 3 series of phones, users have to jump through some hoops. iPhone series 3 users can turn off ALL location based services by going to Settings, General then set Location Services to Off.  While this is simple, I don't recommend doing this. You will never be able to use Google Earth, for example, or driving direction features that use your present location.

So if you want to turn off location data for the camera on the iPhone 3 series, this is what you'll need to do: Go to Settings, General, then Reset.  The rest of the instructions are borrowed from this page on  the website I Can Stalk You, which I strongly suggest you visit.

Be careful here! We want to select Reset Location Warnings, and then Reset Warnings. This restores all of our Location based warnings for each application to the default, which in most cases is "Ask on first use".

From here, once we enter into the default Camera app on the iPhone, we can select Don't Allow. This will prevent the Camera app from geo-tagging our photos.

Not everyone has an iPhone, and I Can Stalk You has some directions for Blackberry users and some others. Since every manufacturer has different instructions, it may take some digging for you to figure out how to disable your information on your newer camera or on your smartphone, if you choose to do so.

In this day and age it's not only technology that reveals your location, but sometimes your friends want to tag the location that a picture was taken on Facebook. ABC News provides the following information on how to protect your Facebook photos from friends who might want to disclose your location to others.

•  Go to your Facebook account.
•  Click "Account" in the top right corner.
•  Click "Privacy Settings.".
•  In the "Sharing on Facebook" section, click "Customize settings."
•  Scroll down to "Things others share" and make the option next to "Friends can check me into Places" read "Disabled."

So fellow Boomers, enjoy taking and posting pictures. I know you do it. I've seen those pictures of your grandkids! Tell your children about this too, and make them a little bit more aware of what data is hidden in those pictures they take and share.

Ever Hear of Location-based Services, Boomers? How about Foursquare?

Recently I read a post by a marketer who believes that Boomers increasingly will be using location-based services. In case you don't know what these are, I'll try my best to explain. Your cell phone probably has GPS in it, the same kind of GPS that gives you directions in the car. With many cell phones, especially smart phones, you can download geolocation apps such as Foursquare. Foursquare lets you "check in" when you are at a particular location, such as a concert, or even a department store or Starbucks. "Checking in" means letting all of your contacts know where you are at that particular moment, and also letting the establishment know that you are there.

When I first heard about this, I thought, why would anyone want to let people know where they are? That's fine for kids who have time to hang out together and want to find their friends, but why would I do it? Well apparently, according to blogger  Anne Mai Bertelsen, president of  MAI Strategies, Boomers, me included, are going to want to do this for many reasons.

First of all, I'll be able to keep track of all the places I've been. Ever wonder what the name of that great restaurant you went to in San Francisco was? Or where you saw that piece of jewelry you just couldn't decide whether you wanted or not? If you "check in" at the places you go you'll be able to track that information. You'll have a memory jogger, something Boomers can surely use.

Also, I'll be rewarded when I "check in" frequently at one place. So my 5th trip to Starbucks or my 3rd trip to an expensive restaurant will reap some kind of recognition. Perhaps a dollar off a Frappuccino will be in my future, Bertelson says. Or maybe I'll get a free desert at the restaurant.

One of the geo-location apps -- Loopt --that can be downloaded onto a smart phone is a sort of virtual loyalty program. I use my loyalty card to get discounts at the Shoprite near my home. Why wouldn't I want to use a virtual loyalty program? Discounts, without having to clip coupons, are something Boomers can easily understand. Below you'll see what the Loopt iPhone app looks like.

Bertelson says that one of the reasons she uses the services is that her friends use it. When they go to a restaurant they post what they liked eating there, for example. I suppose they also will post what to avoid. Then when she goes to that same restaurant and checks in, she finds recommendations from her own friends. That's kind of cool.

A working woman, Betelson says she is also able to use the services to find colleagues at conferences. Occasionally, she's even been able to locate relatives who happen to be in the same place she is at the same time. Here's how it would work. You are visiting a crowded craft fair and unbeknown to you Cousin Mary is wandering around the same craft fair. Odds are you won't meet. However, if you've both "checked in" to the craft fair, you'll know that Mary is there, and you'll be able to contact her and find her.

There are lots of other location based apps for the iPhone, for Twitter and even for Facebook.  Some other prominent new services include Gowalla, Where, BriteKite, MyTown, PegShot. They are catching on in popularity and my bet is that in another year or so, many Boomers who have never heard of these services will be using them with abandon, just as they use Facebook.

Just remember, if you do decide to experiment with location services, protect your privacy. Make sure that only friends you know can find you. Conversely, please be careful about letting everyone and anyone know that no one is at home.

Some sites are already exploiting the negative side of  geo-location. According to DYP Advisors, these services can let bad people know you are not home. "A website called Please Rob Me links Twitter updates of people who say they are not home to locations using Google Maps," a blog post on the DYP Advisors Inc.web site says. The DYP blog also says if you use geolocation services you might be in for higher home insurance premiums. When you visit Please Rob Me it really only demonstrates the possibility of using location-based services this way. Nevertheless, it's a scary thought how these services could be misused, and like anything else on the Internet, protect yourselves.

To see Anne Mai Bertelsen's complete post called "I Get Around" go to Engage Boomers at http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=130044

There is a New Web Site for Boomers

It seems that Boomers are getting a little respect now --at least for our buying power. Procter &Gamble and NBC just launched a group of web sites aimed at us called Life Goes Strong at http://www.lifegoesstrong.com. Boomers seem to have $1 trillion to spend, so P&G and NBC thought these sites would be a good bet.

One of these web sites, called Tech Goes Strong,  might put this blog out of business.

The site has articles about technology aimed at baby boomers. So far there are only a few articles up on the site, but I urge you to take a look at it. It's a bit different from my take on things, but interesting nonetheless.

In one of the articles, author Erin Joyce gives Boomers some tips about starting out in Facebook. She quotes an expert as saying Boomers tend to be lurkers, who consume their media more than they engage. They read blog posts, listen to Podcasts and watch videos.

However, some Boomers jump in to social media with both feet and share too much. Facebook isn't a place to put up all those old jokes you used to pass around via email. It's more of a place to share what you are doing these days, something that is catching your fancy, or how you are feeling at a particular moment in time. It's also a place for people to interact with you and for you to interact with people.

So if someone posts, "I got a clean bill of health at the doctor." You can post that you "like" this revelation, comment with a wish for continued good health, or continue the conversation with something relevant to your health. This is a way people keep in touch with each other on Facebook.

You might want to post a favorite quote that gets you through the day, or something you recently read that surprised you. These kinds of posts get online conversations flowing.

One of the experts quoted in the article advises new users not to worry about how many followers they have or their level of popularity. I had to laugh when I read that. I don't know any Boomers who go to Facebook to collect new friends. They all are there to connect with old friends and acquaintances or far flung relatives. If you know someone who uses Facebook as a way to enhance their popularity  in this way, let me know, will you?

Another of the experts quoted in this article points out that you can control the level of privacy on Facebook. For myself, I've decided that Facebook is the place where I play, and LinkedIn is my professional network. Therefore, I control my privacy settings on Facebook, vigilantly.  I interact with friends and family there and really don't want anyone else on that page, so I ignore friend requests from colleagues or suggest we link on LinkedIn. However, I'm always careful about what I say and consider Facebook semi public.

Which brings me to another piece of advice in the article. Everything you do online is public and getting more so each day. If you haven't carefully adjusted your privacy settings, you may find something you post on your "wall" found via a search engine. So think before you post.

This was not in the article: Some people I know don't think the lack of privacy is worth the benefits of being on Facebook. I'm not one of them. However, if you ever want to leave, you may run into some trouble Officially Facebook says  you must "deactivate" your account, not delete it.  However all those pictures you posted and conversations stay online. Plus, Facebook gives you a guilt trip on the way out, saying things like "Esther Surden will miss you."

So if  you ever want to sever your ties with the social networking site permanently and without the guilt trip, take a look at this Facebook page. It will tell you how to permanently delete your account.

Boomer Technophiles should Teach Boomer Technophobes now

This blog entry is a little different from most of the ones I've done on these pages. In most cases, I've been trying to help people adopt new technologies that may seem unclear to them or find a great application they may have overlooked. However, I came across Laurie Orloff's recent blog post called Technophiles Should Teach Technophobes Now and felt moved to discuss it. Laurie writes about aging in place, and older people using technology. She is a firm believer that technology enhances people's lives, no matter what the age, and that older people who don't know how to use the Internet are missing out. She especially worries about social isolation. She sees some hope in these news items she recently saw:

Three tiny news items -- three small steps for senior computer literacy. In New York, Microsoft and Self-Help have announced a virtual senior center -- a way that home-bound seniors can share in the activities of a local senior center through video conferencing. In Tuscaloosa, a public library has partnered with Generations Online to offer training in use of computers -- the library has the computers and software already, but is running out of funding to pay the Senior Aides who do the training. And in Rockville, Maryland, the Jewish Council on Aging is seeing a growing number of seniors sign up for computer training, fearful of being left out of connecting with their peers.

So how does all that relate to Boomers? If you know how to use the computer well enough to read my blog, you know enough to teach someone else how to use the Internet and work a smart phone, if they are willing! Laurie is worried that seniors are missing out on the sense of community that comes when they are increasingly isolated. I am worried that if Boomers don't keep up, they will be the ones isolated when they reach old age.

Laurie says that only 66% of middle Boomers seem to be working full time, and she speculates that some of that job loss might be because they are unfamiliar with technology. Not knowing technology can hamper you from finding a job if the employer only advertises online. Everyone these days has to be able to write using a word processor and surf the Internet at a minimum. Many jobs--even hands on jobs like social work and nursing--require updating of materials on the computer.

While I think much of what Laurie has to say in her article is spot on, I would like to broaden her approach. For every Boomer out there who is a slave to their Blackberry and loves Facebook and Linked-In, there's another who hasn't a clue. I know there are those who claim they don't want to have a life online. If you know someone like this, encourage them to give it a try and don't give up. In 20 years, when boomers reach a stage when they can no longer drive well or climb the subway stairs, who do you think will be the happier people? Technophobes or Technophiles?

Boomers can find jobs using Facebook and Twitter

Everyone knows that boomers are flocking to Facebook. They are connecting with old friends and far flung family at record speed. However, did you know that you can use Facebook to find a job? Boomers have to start using the job search tools their younger counterparts are using!

According to statistics from the staffing consultancy CareerXroads, 26.7% of external jobs come from REFERRALS. Certainly offline networking works. But you can also network online.

An article on the Time magazine website by Barbara Kiviat gives a few hints on how to use Facebook to find a REFERRAL source. Another great post at www.thejobbored.com suggests some more strategies. And Sirona Consulting has some other ideas. A Forbes article recounts how some people used Twitter successfully to find work. I've combined their advice into one list, but I'd suggest you look at all the articles.

1. Update all your statuses telling people that you are looking for a job. That means updating all social networking sites you currently use, including Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, Namyz, Google Buzz etc.

2. Keep updating your status as you look for work. Be specific. You never know who is reading your update. Your cousin by marriage might have a neighbor who works at the company you are targeting.

The key seems to be to include details. Don’t just say, “Brian is looking for a job.” Say: “Brian is looking for an accounting job in the Toledo area.” Don’t just say you applied to 3 jobs today, say: “Brian just sent resumes to Proctor and Gamble, Dell and Monsanto.”

3. If you are serious about finding a job, then you should post every day. Persistence is a key part of this process, Brian McCullough, of the jobbored.com says.

4. Use Facebook and Linked-In Groups. Here's what Sirona Consulting says about groups.

Using the search tool within Facebook, search for topical and relevant groups within Facebook. There are literally thousands on Facebook, and they give you a great entry point into groups of people with similar interests. There will definitely be groups on your subject / industry or work interest - you just need to find them. There are many types of networks, and it will take a little time to do these searches, but I guarantee this method will open up new networking opportunitieswith like minded people, more than happy to engage with a focused, professional person like you, that is happy to share information and experiences with others.

5.If you are an alumni of one or more colleges, join those groups. If you were in a sorority or fraternity, join that group. If you worked for a company that has a Facebook or Linked-In page, join that group. Then let that group know that you are looking for a job.

6.Last year, Tara Weiss wrote an article for Forbes.com about using Twitter to find work. The key with twitter is to tell everyone you are looking for a specific job and then direct them to an online source where they can see your profile and resume.

If you've never used Twitter, don't sign up and immediately blast people with a message saying you're out of work. Instead, build momentum slowly. Open an account and include something about your profession in your user name. Since users can search tweets by topic, that's one way of making your feed more visible.

7. Weiss also suggests looking for people on twitter who are in your field and then following them.

Many companies--especially in marketing, public relations and technology--use Twitter to post job openings, and a lot of hiring managers tweet too.

  I'll have more about using professional sites like Linked-In to find jobs in another post.

Facebook's Redesign Changes How to Remove Applications

Facebook redesigned its site this week, and that means that some of the information in last week's post is stale already! It's still easy to remove applications. You just have to know where to look on the page.

Here is the new info about how to remove an application. When you go onto Facebook, look up at the upper right hand corner of your Home Page. There you'll see a tab for Account. Click on the Account tab, and you'll see  a drop down menu that looks like this:

Click on Application Settings and that will bring you to the screen I highlighted before.

Just click the X next to the application you want to remove. And that's it!

Farmville Taking all Your Time? How to Remove Facebook Apps

This is a familiar cry among my peers using Facebook: "I'm spending way too much time throwing pillows and playing Farmville! How do I remove an application from my list so I'm not tempted to play it again?" It seems like a silly thing, but some games are so addictive they consume you, especially if you are a perfectionist. You can spend a lot of time farming out there in Farmville.

So here's the quick and dirty about how to remove Facebook apps. Most of this information comes directly from another blogger at ROM Cartridge, who has written How to Use Facebook --The Complete Facebook Guide, a completely understandable "how too" book about the site. I recommend it.

Log into Facebook. Go to the gray bar at the bottom of the page, all the way in the left hand corner. Click on the part of the bar that says Applications. When you click, a popup page will show all your applications.

Click on the link that says Edit Applications. You'll then get a list of applications.

Clicking on the X next to the Farmville app will begin the removal process. You'll be asked if you want to remove it. Click Remove, and you are done.

So no more excuses, boomers. You know who you are! Take action now and remove those pesky applications from Facebook that eat up your time. Take back your productivity today!

Facebook Privacy--What it means for Boomers

Facebook changed its privacy policy this week, and basically reset everyone's privacy settings so that everyone can see everything you post. And Friends of Friends can see your photos.  If you click here, you will be sent to an excellent blog post by Brian Krebbs at the Washington Post that explains exactly what Facebook did. (Warning: you  may have to close an ad before you can be linked to the blog. It's annoying but worth it.) 

I don't intend to go over the same material Krebbs covered in this blog post. I only want to warn my fellow Boomers, especially the ones who are only occasional users of Facebook, to get in there and check your privacy settings immediately. I think that Boomers have an expectation of privacy that the younger generations who have grown up with social networking don't share. Yet, we have to expect that everything we put on the web will be fodder for some search engine sometime in the future, unless we protect it.

Do you really want Google or Bing pulling up posts you made to update your status? Take something innocent, like a post about a sick member of the family. Once that post is available to be indexed by Bing or Google, it is on the web for posterity, my friends. Your birthday is another example. If you let Facebook make this information public, then you are inviting marketers into your life. This blog article by Kaila Colbin shows how Facebook's decision to pull the privacy rug out from under its users is motivated by the the ability to sell the information it is collecting on us. I understand there are many ways that marketers can get this information anyway, but why make it easy to be a target for them?  The only way to protect your information is to make sure you keep your privacy settings updated.

Like many of my Boomer friends, I use Facebook to keep up with family and friends. I'm not interested in cultivating a vast number of friends of friends. And I am angry with Facebook for resetting my privacy settings --really without much notice. Frankly, I think they should have used my old settings as the default, and asked me to opt in to their new settings, which I would have refused.

Also, there should have been more notice given. While there was a big banner telling me to update my settings when I signed on last week, the keepers of the Facebook community didn't email me, and believe me, they have my email address. We all should have been warned before they made this huge change.

Changing Your Facebook Profile Picture

Recently, a friend of mine asked me how she could change her profile picture in Facebook, so I decide to change mine to see how the process went. It was very easy to do and I think any Boomer should be able to follow the simple instructions in this Yahoo answers.

It's probably best to get the new picture ready (select it, know what file it is in) before you swap out pictures. Then you just go to your profile, move your mouse over your picture, and see the menu that pops up. Click on "Change Picture" and follow the instructions to upload a new picture or get rid of the one you have.  Actually, I liked my friend's old picture. But everyone has the right to change their face to the world any time they want, and Facebook does make it easy.

My friend's difficulty made me realize the tremendous differences we all have in our knowledge of  programs, even ones we use frequently. We may know Facebook enough to use it to update our walls and communicate with friends, but if we let a younger member of our family set up our profile page, we may not know how use some of the other functions.

The Help function on Facebook is really hidden, down at the bottom right corner of the page. It would be nice if the wise people at Facebook put it somewhere people are actually going to look for it.

When I first started using Facebook, I was baffled by the notice that came with  accepting a holiday card (for example) that said "Allowing [Put Application or Game name here] access will let it pull your profile information, photos, your friends' info, and other content that it requires to work. I thought it would make me give Facebook access to my entire email address book. Instead, what really happens is that Facebook looks at the friends and relatives you have on the site, and ASKs you if you want to send something to them. You can send something to all, some or none of them. In other words, the warning sounds scarier than it really is.

Anyway, I hope this information helps my friend swap out her picture. She could have found helpful info in many ways: by plugging in "change profile picture on Facebook" into a search engine, by looking at Yahoo Answers or a similar site, or by consulting the Help function on Facebook.  I'm glad she asked me.

Facebook, the good and bad

Right now, people my age are joining Facebook right and left. It seems as though the boomer generation is taking over this social networking site. Researchers, as noted in this Newsweek blog, are well aware of this phenomina.  In fact, some members of the press seem to find the boomer invasion somewhat subversive!When I joined Facebook, I announced to my young adult children that I was joining and told them they didn't have to "friend" me if they didn't want to. That being said, I was friended by the older two and I have enjoyed the experience.

When my son posts pictures of his various adventures --last year he went abroad for the summer-- I feel as though he is letting me in on a little piece of his life, and I'm thankful for that. I've also connected with a cousin in Chicago that I rarely spoke to before and have more frequent contact with some other relatives who maybe I'd forget to add to the email list when sending out that joke. My nearby friends keep me updated on some of their activities, and I do the same. In this way, Facebook keeps my community of friends and family closer together.

I'm certain that I'm not using the social networking site to its full potential. I haven't tried to reach out to elementary school classmates, for example. One of my friends actually has her gradeschool class pictures posted on the site!

What I don't understand about Facebook are some of the applications. Lately, I've been invited to a "pillow fight" many times over. I guess this is a way people reach out to each other, but is it rude not to respond when someone asks you to a "pillow fight?" The first time is OK, but it seems like a waste of time to keep throwing therapeutic pillows and comfy pillows at friends and relatives. Does anyone have an answer to this burning question?

Welcome

Welcome to my blog, which I hope won't be just another voice out here whistling in the wind. My name is Esther Surden, and I am an experienced journalist who for many years specialized in the business of technology. Now, I want to address the 50ish consumer who is adventurous enough to want to try out Facebook and the Apple iPhone, but is unsure of what to do and how to do it. I also wanted to speak to the manufacturers of phones and the developers of sites, to explain just how many barriers there are to adoption of their gadgets and sites for many of us. While I have a lot of experience writing about the business of technology, this is the first time I've tried to write about my frustrations with using the stuff. I recently joined Facebook; posted my resume and reconnected with colleagues on Linked-In; purchased an iPhone; and now I am using an Amazon Kindle as a part of my publishing course (I'm getting a masters degree in publishing). As part of this experiment at Pace University, I promised the Kindle folks feedback and I will be giving them the same feedback that I give you. Since I come to these gadgets and websites without much user knowledge, I think I can help others in my age group figure out these things out. As they used to say in the world of TV, stay tuned.