With this announcement, many you of avid Facebook users are thinking one thing… “So what does this mean for me?”

In order to answer that question, it is important to first decipher what happens to a company when they go public.

Facebook will have to prove it is a profitable business. As a part of compliance with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Facebook would have to disclose and make public all financial information. Therefore, it would behoove Marc Zuckerberg and the Facebook team to run a very profitable business in order to make money for their shareholders. The more money a business makes, the more valuable the shares of the company are.

So far, Facebook has focused on gaining and retaining users and not focusing on being profitable. Although being profitable and having lots of users go hand in hand, as of yet, Facebook has not made very aggressive attempts to make money from its users. In my mind, there are a few ways for Facebook to start making money from its users:

A) Charge users a fee to use the service – this option seems very unlikely given Facebook’s business model of growing and retaining users

B) Display ads on the network – Facebook already displays ads on the network, but the effect has not yet created the profitability Facebook requires

C) Begin to more aggressively sell user data to marketing firms – this seems like a logical next step in Facebook’s evolution. It seems that users are becoming more and more comfortable with displaying personal information on the site, and with Facebook’s ability to recognize and categorize user’s thoughts, it would be a very easy transaction to sell such data to large corporations.

No matter what Facebook tries to do, it will have to show Wall Street that it can be more than just a popular website, but also a profitable company. In this process, Facebook user will be seen more as a $dollar sign and less as an individual.

Related posts:

1. Facebook Questions First Question Is Why?
2. Checking In With Facebook Places, Who the f*ck does this sh*t appeal to?
3. The Facebook Crash

But First – What Is Reddit?

Many would call Reddit a Content Discovery Network, most would call it a site to find stuff to look at on the web. Though a lot of older Redditors still call it a Social News Aggregator, Reddit themselves now call it a ‘source for what’s new and popular on the web’. Just about anything can be submitted by anybody and users can vote if they approve or not of that link/story/post. If the post is popular it will hang around for longer and more people will see it. The site isn’t new at all, it is 5 years old but is enjoying popularity like never, helped by Digg losing users by proving how not to run a CDN.

Community

One unique thing about Reddit is that you don’t need to build a huge list of friends or followers to get the best out of it, despite it being labelled a ‘social’ site. Though the feature exists to add friends should you find somebody you just can’t cope without knowing their every move, I have zero friends and find absolutely no reason to add any.

The community is very grown up too in internet terms. Though there are the odd childish remarks, spammers and trolls, these are all generally frowned upon by the community. Pointless comments like yelling ‘first’ or being needlessly racist or offensive just doesn’t wash with the Reddit faithful. This is the most beautiful quality of Reddit and something the site’s owners should be thankful for.

Subreddits

Subreddits are similar to categories, or mini-communities centered around a theme and there are thousands. You can subscribe to Subreddits that interest you and unsubscribe from the ones that annoy you. The Reddit homepage features the top/new/controversial posts that are submitted in the Subreddits you are subscribed to. There is little reason for something to pop up that doesn’t appeal to you.
This is what makes Reddit awesome. You can follow subreddits on your town for local issues and news, your favourite hobby or just random themes. Have a look for subreddits that interest you, it’ll probably exist. And if it doesn’t start it yourself.

Despite being owned by a big media organisation, Reddit have a really great attitude when it comes to making money off the site. They don’t sell out to cheap adverts and those who wish to pay for the site can do, even though you don’t really get anything for it, ‘Reddit Gold’ is incredibly popular.

If you aren’t on Reddit, at least give it a go but don’t tell anybody I sent you. It’s a secret organisation!

No related posts.

1. Hit CTRL-F or click Edit > Filter
2. Type your artist/band’s name
3. Double click a song to refresh the playlist

I call this a hack because you have to leave that filter open, i.e don’t click done. I also call it a hack because as I said earlier, there should be an option to hide other artists. That is what you want from an artist’s discography page.

Ironically, if irony is involved here, I emailed Spotify asking if there was a way to do this about 20 minutes before working it out for myself. Hopefully they will get the message that this would be required, along with these features Spotify needs.

Related posts:

1. How To Downgrade Spotify
2. Spotify Invites
3. Spotify Notes; Mini Review

I know I have written about real names before, specifically when Quora kicked me off their shitty question and answer site because they didn’t like my name. More to the point they wanted me to comply with their business plan of providing a name that was linked to industry expertise that people would be searching for, and bringing them traffic. Now, I know I am no expert at anything just because I post the odd website review but the fact I use Anphicle Mononym all over the web suggests it is more of a useful name to them than my legal name.

So Google will probably kick me out of Google+. No big deal I don’t use it. It’s so fucking boring having to establish a new presence on a new fucking social fucking network. I’ve been on for a month now and so far amassed zero contacts. Nobody knows I am on it but meh, I can’t be arsed. Kick me off, I’m not bothered.

There’s no such thing as a fake name on the Internet. How do we know Mark Zuckerberg isn’t called Bill Gates away from keyboard? Providing two or three western-sounding names is so unworldly it’s untrue. Anphicle isn’t a fake name, it is mine whether it is in your baby names book or not. Bieberluvrr92 isn’t a fake name, it is a handle for somebody who respects their privacy. Fake names – what’s next; account verification via social security number?

A few people on Reddit and Google+ have suggested that the Internet is nicer and spam free with ‘real names’ – bullshit. Spammers spam, trolls troll and fraudsters defraud. I get spam emails all the time from people with ‘real names’. And it must be pointed out that about 30% of my Facebook friends have bastardised their names to protect their identity. BULLSHIT to REAL NAMES.

And as for the Facebook success story being down to real names: we chose to use real names on Facebook to reconnect with people who knew us by those names, that’s why it was normal. Yes they had an equally obtuse policy on real names too but we aren’t going to be reconnecting on Google+. We’ve done that and had that chapter of social Internet use. Now we are past it.

OK, most people will choose to use their real name on Google+, most people do in most places on the Web. It’s just a damn shame for all parties that those of us who wish to respect our own privacy are excluded – particularly when Google+ was supposed to be the privacy friendly answer to Facebook.

Related posts:

1. Using Real Names & Personal Privacy on the Internet
2. The Obligatory Google+ Post
3. Google +1 Fail Due To Wiser Internet Users?

Amongst the top high street stores where you can get discounts for are Homebase, Argos, Dorothy Perkins as well as purely online businesses such as Hotels.com and Lovefilm.com. If you are buying tech it is always worth checking the Comet discount codes because they are always big purchases and you should be able to save a fair chunk.

You may not always save something but if there is one site you should bookmark for when making purchases it should at least be one that turns up good offers.

No related posts.

It works well because the Mashtop community votes on each submitted link. You can browse via category and by popularity over various periods of time. Though it sounds similar to Reddit or Digg you can’t downvote or bury links and I can tell you how frustrating it is trying to share links that get buried! You can either be a power browser and view all links to find the best ones or just take the recommendations of others if you are short of time.

What I like about Mashtop is that you don’t have to be logged in to benefit from it. You can still vote anonymously and contribute to the system. Obviously you have to be logged in to comment on links.

So if you are sick of the reposts on Reddit, the lack of news on Google News and hate the new Digg, then try Mashtop. Or try it even if you’ve never heard of those other sites.

No related posts.

I swear by Ghostery and couldn’t live without it. Amongst other things it blocks 3rd party visitor trackers that run behind the scenes that I am most happy about. Not necessarily analytics products, which it does also block, but those ‘market research’ companies that are on so many web sites they can follow so many people from site-to-site and build profiles on them such as what products they buy, what sites they surf and how they surf about it.

OK your browser may have a ‘Private Browsing’ or ‘Incognito’ mode that will block things like that but Ghostery also blocks popular annoying advert networks and ‘Like’, ‘Tweet’ and ‘Share’ buttons. It makes surfing so much more enjoyable and gives you the sense of privacy and surfing freedom of the olden days.

Is it really necessary? Just try it for a few sites with the alert bubble and you will soon see how many people can snoop on you without you knowing. I have just visited a page on MakeUseOf.com and Ghostery blocked 14 third parties that would otherwise have known as much about me as makeuseof, only I wouldn’t know that they were looking at me. Not only is it useful for privacy, it also makes page loading quicker and therefore cheaper if you are paying for bandwidth.

If you do decide to install Ghostery you have to set it up which only takes a few seconds but asks you if you want to send data to them. I don’t know exactly what this is for but kind of defeats the purpose of the plugin in the first place, but it is entirely up to you.

No related posts.

But if you do want a Spotify Invite, just give me a nod in the comments, twitter or Google+. I have 16 to use up on some poor people who want in on the world’s best music streaming service. Priority will be given to those who follow me, subscribe, like me or give me praise. :)

If you are wondering why Spotify are using the tried and tested invite system you may be interested in reading that post. For more of a review of Spotify try here.

Meanwhile let’s hope Spotify launching in the US will help them in their negotiations with labels and we can start listening to some of the few remaining artists and bands that aren’t on Spotify yet. Will we ever see the Beatles? Time will tell.

Related posts:

1. How To Downgrade Spotify
2. Why Websites Use Invites for Private Beta
3. Hide Compilation Albums on Spotify Artist Pages

The Google+ Pluses.

So far the best feature Google have over other social networks is control of your own data and the ability to channel it to the right people. Though not perfect, as the project is still in ‘beta’ there are some still controls missing. I hope G+ heads forward with a user-friendly attitude to privacy. I was a little skeptical at first to open a public profile with an account that already knows so much more about me then I thought it did.

The Google+ Minuses

Basically, it’s just more of the same mindless posts and status updates found on every social network going. ‘Soandso has changed their profile picture’ is apparently still a worthy addition to your stream. And as I’m close to quitting Tumblr because I don’t want dull, uninteresting arty-farty pictures in my stream I worry G+ will be just the same. That’s why Twitter worked, people had to be concise and I had the option to explore further. I don’t have time to scroll past pictures of sunsets, or videos of puppies and the 10′s of comments from people I don’t know – this isn’t good. I know you’re saying ‘don’t follow them’ but I may be friends with people but not care for their shares. What G+ needs is the ability to turn off the stream people kick out, either at contact or circle level.

Who uses Google+

At the moment only nerds, tech head and Googleboys use Google+. In a years time I expect this to be the same case. Kelly the slag behind the bar says ‘Facebook me’ not ‘Google+’ me, because her friends are on Facebook, and her friends are on Facebook because everybody is on Facebook. And most people don’t have a problem with Facebook. Sure Google+ is a bit prettier and easier to use but it isn’t doing anything that can’t be done on Facebook. 500 million, (or 750 million, or 1 billion) Facebook users aren’t going to jump up and leave. People who have quit Facebook have mainly finished with ‘Social’, that chapter in Internet use is dead to them. People want their privacy and lives back.

Google have just announced business pages. I call FAIL! They should have built the network and the audience first before commercialising it. This is why the only people on Google+ will be social media experts, professionals, SEO‘s and people wanting to be your friend.

Twitter Could Grow

Google have stopped using links on Twitter as recommendations for content to include in its search index. For this reason is why so many people Tweet playing the social game to get visitors. If all these people disappear and start using Google+, complete with +1 integration then Google will become a world full of Internet marketeers, bloggers and yet more ‘social media experts’. Meanwhile, the rest of will be enjoying Twitter again minus all the spam accounts.

If Twitter sorted out its obnoxious recommendation engine and made more prominent use of lists like the way circles work then it would be sweeeet.

I probably have a lot more opinions and thoughts on Google+ but as I stated, this post is mainly just fodder to keep Google happy. Because everything on the Internet revolves around Google you know, including social networking.

Related posts:

1. Google+ and Real Names
2. Google +1 Fail Due To Wiser Internet Users?
3. Search Twitter Like A Pro

Filter Bubble

Since Eli Pariser’s Ted talk and publicising of the Filter Bubble I can’t fail to see a mention of filters, personalisation and algorithms in my daily Internet diet. Is the reason nobody is +1′ing because people are getting wiser to the sad fact that one small click will taint their futures forever? The problem is that the programmers who come up with these personalisation algorithms don’t notice that we may like a page but not want to be associated with that topic forever. And ever.

We all learnt from Facebook that every click has consequences and we don’t want to do the same with Google.

Google Social Too

With the exception of Youtube (social tacked on to function), Google social products generally fail. Remember Orkut, Wave, Buzz, Profiles? Google isn’t the social provider of choice and the critical thing that a social network needs is a society. So, we don’t get anything out of +1′ing anything.

I’ve had a +1 button on every page since they became widely available and 4,000 global visitors later – not one single recommendation. This doesn’t dishearten me one bit because I haven’t +1′ed a single page and don’t intend too, just like Facebook likes. The single underlying reason why not? I know the price of clicking these buttons. I think the average web user is beginning to understand the consequences too.

If you disagree with me, click the +1 top right.

Related posts:

1. Google+ and Real Names
2. The Obligatory Google+ Post
3. Does Google Know Where Your Wireless Router Is?