We love a social network … they allow us to be “social”, to decorate them to our heart’s content, to accumulate and keep tabs on our friends and colleagues. Some of us use these networks professionally or personally or in a cross-over form. Sometimes to our surprise these open networks are used in unexpected ways — old friends track us down (whether we like it or not), employers get a glimpse into our “private” lives and bosses get a REAL 360 review.
While these could all be considered “problems”, there is another issue that is not often discussed. What happens when our favourite social network — the one that we have spent hours building and cultivating — closes down unexpectedly? What happens to our personal information, our photos, comments, stories and other information? What safeguards are in place? In short … who owns you? This is a question I asked a while ago over at MarketingProfs … but I forgot to post about it here.
And while I am at it, I should let you know about yet another of my rants on Facebook and its use in the workplace which is published today over at the Daily Fix. Now, if I can only stop myself from being such a chatterbox I could get some more blogging done here 😉
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Tags: MarketingProfsDaily Fix
Great point! typepad backs up all of our posts, but only onto their servers. Ultimately, shouldn’t we own our own content?
I love that poster! Definitely evoking Art Deco style; that gold and green is sweet.
On the social networking part, I guess what you’ve pointed out is just an inherent risk which can be mitigated by instreaming/integrating externally managed content, and backing up the important stuff.