Oh Facebook. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

Recently, an eighteen-year-old young male was accused of posing as a girl on Facebook (named either Emily or Kayla) and convincing at least 31 male classmates into sending him naked photos or videos of themselves and then blackmailing some of them for sex acts.

Eighteen year old Anthony Stancl, of New Berlin WI, was charged in early February with five counts of child enticement, two counts of second-degree sexual assault of a child, two counts of third-degree sexual assault, possession of child pornography, repeated sexual assault of the same child, and making a bomb threat.

The incidents allegedly happened from spring 2007 through November, 2007.  Thirty-one victims were identified and more than half said the girl they thought they were talking to tried to get them to meet with a "male friend" to let him perform sex acts on him, or he on them. If the boys didn’t cooperate, they were convinced that "she" would send the videos and photos to their friends and post them on public sites on the web, according to a report by the Associated Press.

This is just one of the reasons that seventeen social networking sites in Europe, including Facebook, signed a pact on Tuesday, aimed at protecting the privacy of underage users and curtailing "cyber-bullying".

There’s been so many incidents of pure cyber-bulling - from the teen who committed suicide in the US after a woman posed as a teenage boy harassed her, which is at one end of the spectrum, to threatening text messages sent by people I’ve personally met on Twitter, but who won’t tell me who they are, and an incident of pure aggressive abuse aimed at several in the Vancouver social media scene one evening, both of which are far from anything at the level of suicide or sexual assault, but can still have an impact.

The European Commission (the 27-nation EU’s executive arm) said the agreement will cut the risks of children harassing peers online and curb "grooming" — the practice of adults befriending children online with the intention of committing sexual abuse, according to a report from Reuters.

The British Home Office took similar steps to improve online safety last April, while 49 State Attorneys General in the United Sates have signed similar separate agreements with Myspace and Facebook.

Here’s hoping that these agreements and the steps that the individual sites themselves are taking will have a positive impact on cases like the one in Wisconsin.

I can admit it - I geek out over statistics. I pour over my Google Analytics reports, and I ogle Omniture. I also get a little gooshy over seeing compete.com come out with statistics for social networks as a whole… oh, and my hands down guilty pleasure has got to be all of those Twitter statistics measurement APIs floating about like Twitter Grader and Twinfluence. I can’t help it, deep down, I am a dork.

Compete.com recently released their January 2009 statistics for traffic ranks to the various social networks.

I find this endlessly fascinating. Look at Twitter’s skyrocketing hurtle from 22nd place to Top 3. I’m still, and always, surprised that Classmates.com and MyYearBook.com are in 7th and 8th places respectively - I’d always used FaceBook for random connections with classmates I wasn’t friends with then really, and am not now either.

The one thing that is missing from this data, and the thing that would make it of more use is where this traffic is coming from. While these are global sites, the stats only pull from US browser information, and so sites like Orkut and Bebo, whose users are primarily come from continents other than North America, get the short end of the stick with these numbers. 

Like Caroline McCarthy from CNet said, "Still, statistics are like tequila shots. Always take ‘em with a few grains of salt and a slice of lime, and be warned that they may give you headaches." [source] That said, and while I agree with Caroline 100%, I do still love me some tequila.

[image source: Compete]

We’ve all heard the ‘horror’ stories. IT departments who block Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and MySpace. We’ve all got friends who can’t access even personal email until they get home in the evening. Personally, I think it’s silly, because of some of the massive benefits that I, and others I know, have experienced through social networking.

A study completed by the UK ‘think tank’ and research firm, Demos, is trying to convince enterprise bosses to embrace the new technologies.

Any attempt to control employee’s participation on these sites can limit the way staff communicate, as the Demos study said, but also, can limit the firm’s opportunities for new business as well.

“Banning Facebook and the like goes against the grain of how people want to interact. Often people are friends with colleagues through these networks and it is how some develop their relationships.”  said the study’s author, Peter Bradwell. (image source, BBC News & Getty Images) [source]

It’s time for companies to get caught up with the times and not only allow their employees access to social networking tools,  but also look at getting onto these sites themselves!

This evening was Vancouver’s monthly Third Tuesday, where Mhairi Petrovic, the founder of Out Smarts, explained how to sell social marketing to the traditional marketing decision makers. Raul (aka Hummingbird 604) live-blogged the event.

The information was fantastic, and I thought it needed a wider audience. The full post from Raul is here, but the salient points are below.

Some of the primary objections to social media that traditional marketers have to social media include: 

1) “We already use social media” Complete misconception -  having a website or a facebook page is not participating in social media.  

2) Perceived as a tool for only the younger set. This is a misconception. Yes, MySpace was adopted by young music lovers. The over 35 demographic is the fastest growing sector of the users of Internet. Social networks for professionals are the fastest growing social media segment. 

3) Social media does not apply to me. Technorati and its State of the Blogosphere report stated that they have 133 million blogs in 36 countries. 100 million people on MySpace, 140 million people on Facebook, 20 million photos on Flickr. You have to join in the conversation, before you get left behind.

4) Social media as simply a fad. It’s got no long term/staying power. The case of Friendster is commonly cited as the example of social media being a fad. This is only one case, but the first blog is dated 1982 so it’s not a flash in the pan. If you don’t start using these new technologies NOW you, and more importantly, your business, risk getting left behind.

5) The need for transparency and the fear of losing control of your brand. Those that need to control every press release and make sure that what is being said meets the party line think that social media is too risky. Business owners who think that participation in social media makes you vulnerable and means that you lose control of your brand need to learn this is not the case. Participating in social media means that you actually get more control than you may have had previously - you can respond to any negative comments and move the discussion to your corporate blog.

6) The need for privacy. LinkedIn and Facebook have privacy settings. Set appropriate limits both in terms of who to add and what information you put out there. You control the content. Don’t put EVERYTHING if you feel that it may infringe on your privacy. Use these tools appropriately, understand that you’re in control, and limit your risk by using these technologies in the right way.

7) “Social Media is just fluff.”  People say that Facebook is just fluff - all those zombies and bunnies and garden patches! But the sheer volume of people using it, shows that there is relevance in it. There is a lot of fluff in TV but that doesn’t stop companies from spending billions in advertisements in these media. Your company can benefit from social media if you implement the tools appropriately.

“I don’t have time for social media”  This excuse allows people to negate doing something that they have to do. You can’t afford not to at least consider what your competition is doing with social media and to find out what you can do with social media. You can reach your customers more effectively through social media and by building community. Overall, a social media campaign costs less than a traditional campaign. You may need to hire someone to help you navigate the social media waters and to do it correctly, but that cost will only be a positive investment. 

9) “The only professional way of doing it is the traditional way.” Social media tends to be seen as either “for, or by amateurs”. Social media strategists are considered snake oil salesmen still. Social media is NOT only for amateurs, it’s not an appropriate comment at all. For people who only do traditional marketing, they should transfer the budget for those projects to social media for one month to see how it effects it.

10) “Show me the money. Where is the ROI (Return On Investment)”. There is a dearth of information (publicly available - what has been the return on investment in social media?). Wal-Mart episode - got bad marketing. Mazda did a similar thing. Despite their huge presence, they still had to lay off people and cut off costs. Social media-based marketing is not the end and be all, but it is a component that you can use in your marketing arsenal. Traditional marketing campaigns are even harder to measure in terms of ROI.

Mhairi’s main and central example on huge ROI for using social media - a UK company “ WigglyWigglers” that engaged in a great social media campaign. This is a gardening company. They have a podcast, YouTube channel, a blog, a newsletter and they use them actively to share information on the worms for gardening. The result: they now have over 40,000 podcast subscribers, 43,000 newsletter subscribers, more than 800 friends on Facebook, customers in New Zealand and North America, they’ve improved their Google Page Rank massively, online sales 50% of their total sales, and they’ve done this all with a 97% reduction in their advertising costs. That really proves the ROI on these technologies.

The bottom line is that traditional marketers can no longer ignore the benefits of social media. All the results attest to the fact that traditional, old-school marketers need to learn some of these tools, and harnessing these tools can only benefit you. 

There are more and more instances of this popping up all over the interwebs, and mainstream media is starting to shine the spotlight on the good that social networks can have in people’s lives. This is from MSNBC. Hat tip to Jim Long for pointing it out.

Lisa, sometime guest poster, blogger and twit, spotted this on Perez Hilton the other day. We found it interesting that Perez Hilton is starting to report social media news.

Needless to say, I find it interesting that Facebook is now the global leader in the social networking world. The Business Week article that Perez Hilton is using as his source explained how and why Facebook is overtaking MySpace as the number one leader in social networking.

In fact, Facebook is quickly expanding in many regions. The site is the top global social network, according to figures released by comScore (SCOR) on Aug. 12. Of Facebook’s 132 million users, nearly 63% are outside North America. The site, which had been translated into 20 languages including French, Spanish, and Mandarin, has recently added 69 more.