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A Kansas City nursing student recently sparked controversy by posting a Facebook picture of herself with with human placenta in the context of a lab dissection. Doyle Byrnes, a 22-year-old senior, appears smiling broadly and leaning over the specimen while wearing scrubs and a stethoscope, with no visible shenanigans or humorous posing. Despite the innocuousness of the picture her school promptly booted her out, along with three other students who had taken pictures but not posted them on the Internet. Byrnes won the ensuing lawsuit to reinstate her enrollment, but under the grounds that the instructor had given the students incorrect approval; a formal judgment hasn’t been made on the ethics of the case or as to whether publishing a picture of a donated organ was punishable under set-down academic or medical grounds. Although the student’s education will survive intact, she has the story– and all of the ensuing publicity– attached to her name and career record forever.

This is a pretty typical Facebook story, right? Person updates with an ill-advised photo or a slip of the tweet, and it translates to career consequences that can be both severe and long-lasting. (There’s already some fervor about the personal consequences of social media– the cyber-schadenfreude market has been well-cornered by sites like failbook.com or Fix My Facebook.) Contemporary sociality has as much to do with online interaction and sharing as it does with face-to-face time, which has become true for search engines as well– increasingly in online services, social results are accurate results. Essentially, Faceboook has become something like a search engine for people; it’s nearly universal (are you on Facebook? How many people that you know aren’t?), thoroughly multi-faceted in its search parameters and more often than not offers up a wealth of information that isn’t available on a resume or in a professional environment. At the end of the day (and particularly into the evening), it’s crucial to remember the importance of keeping your online life in accordance with your professional one.

I’m of the generation that started using the ‘book when it was in its infancy and still required a college-domain email address for access. Longstanding dorkiness has ensured that my requisite drunken pictures don’t contain anything too scandalous, and I’ve long since stopped using it for anything besides keeping in touch with college friends and the occasional gratuitous plug for my magazine, but it seems that the lesson of online discretion is one that’s missed by many. Moreover, its increased usage in the last few years has proven that one’s online identity is no longer easily separable from the real thing. Online actions can have real consequences. The precise numbers reported vary, but surveys indicate a dramatically increasing number of employers research job candidates on Facebook and aren’t shy about declining employment if the profile isn’t up to snuff. Don’t think that you can hide by simply using a fake moniker — with Facebook’s detailed search parameters (expounded upon by Anthony in a previous post), it’s difficult to make a profile that isn’t searchable, to some degree, by the information that makes you you.

While all this isn’t necessarily a sign that you need to put your online identity on lockdown, de-tag all photographs and limit your tweets to “Eating dinner!” and “Good night!”, it should be a wake-up call for those who have assumed that their online identity was discrete from their real one. Thankfully, privacy settings have evolved along with the intricacy of the service itself, letting users customize what can be seen at different levels of access. And that itself may be the key to the whole thing: a potential employee who doesn’t have the common sense to limit their snapshots of private lab specimens (or illegal shenanigans, or extreme alcohol use, or…) to a small circle of approved personal friends probably doesn’t have the kind of common sense an employer is looking for anyway. Think of your profile page as your personal brand, and the appearance and quality of your profile as SEOing to potential professional contacts. Would you hire a mechanic who rItEs HiS sIneS liKe DIs?!?!??? Would a hair salon gain credibility by publishing pictures of their stylists doing sake bombs while trimming each others’ bangs? Probably not. The best method of keeping your online image safe is to either apply meticulous thought to your privacy settings or simply — as painful as it may be — prune your profile in accordance with professional and social standards.

So after your next photo op with a large chunk of human placenta, no matter how educational or amusing the resulting picture may be, give some thought to its potential audience. Although it started as a free-for-all college kid project, Facebook is, for better or for worse, the home base for online personal information. What goes on the Internet connected with your name is pretty much there for all eternity, so practice smart branding and make your online image as important as your real one.

In attempts to drive more users and create revenue opportunities, foursquare has added comments and photos to their interface. This is a huge development for foursquare, which previously relied on Twitter and Facebook to be truly useful. However, is it too late? I’ve always seen foursquare, a location-based social networking site for mobile devices, as the adult version of Pokemon. The same principle that Nintendo follows with its “gotta catch ’em all” tag-line is the basis of foursquare’s success. Sure collecting badge and becoming the mayor of your favorite establishments is fun (I am the mayor of several Uptown New Orleans bars), but there has to be more than that or the game get old fast. The addition of images and comments allows more options than just telling absolute strangers (and employers) what establishments you visit, it also gives new depth to foursquare that it was previously missing.

Here’s what the foursquare blog had to say about the new features:
“Photos from Instagram pushed to foursquare will now be check-ins with photos (rather than just check-ins). Sightings on Foodspotting will be check-ins with your food photos. And picplz is the first service to allow check-in photos on both iPhone and Android”

This is a win for foursquare and social media marketers, with the inclusion of images and comments, social media marketers can leverage the platform for promotionals and brand awareness for local business similar to the Yelp model.

The foursquare blog continued with “There are a couple features we weren’t able to fit in for this release but we’re working to launch soon. These include sharing photos (to Facebook and Flickr)…”

By allowing photo sharing with Facebook and Flickr, more user-generated content will be produced and more opportunities for branding are created. Having foursquare users take photos of your services saves local businesses the time and effort of doing it themselves.

These updates are great, and certainly can be useful, but I ultimately question whether it’s a little too late. Facebook has already created its own check-in service that has all of the functionality of foursquare. They are also working on syncing business check-ins with Facebook fanpages which allows access to posts, reviews, and business information. Knowing all of this I am hard pressed to not think “is a little colorful badge really worth having the foursquare app on my phone?”

For those businesses that have taken advantage of Facebook Fan pages, brace yourself for some upcoming changes.

Facebook Places, the network’s location-based service, now allows Fan Pages to merge with their “Place” page. This “Place page” is usually generated from information collected from the internet, particularly other location-based services such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Yelp.

What’s the value of integrating your Facebook Fan Page and Place Page? Directly associating your business page with all the people that are checking into your location and commenting about it. People do not have to “like” your location in order to check-in to it, but when they do check-in, they display where they have visited to all their Facebook friends—giving your business visibility to a few hundred people that you may not have reached before.

Change in Design
There are a few challenges with this merge, particularly the evolution of the design, which removes the Facebook “tabs” and any FBML landing pages you may have created to attract customers, like this one:

Once the integration is complete, your page will no longer feature the tabs. However, FBML custom designs can still be displayed on the side, on non-tab spaces with images of about 490 pixels wide. Before you complete the merge with your Facebook Fan page and Place page, make sure that any content and images is adapted to fit the new size specifications.

Once the merge has been completed, the new design also displays the number of people checked in along with a Bing map of your location.

Verifying My Place Page:
Facebook Fan pages and Places pages can only be merged through a phone verification process.

1)    On your computer, log on to Facebook under your Fan Page administrative login.
2)    Search for your business name and the first result should be your Facebook fan page, when you look for more results a blue image icon of a white map pin should appear with your business name and address to the right.

3)    If you cannot find your location, click on see more results. If you still can’t find your location, you may have to add it.
4)    When you locate you business’s Place page – on the bottom left corner there will be an “Is This Your Business?”link.

5)    If you are at your business’s location, be prepared to initiate a phone verification process.

Adding A New Location To Places:
If your location hasn’t been added yet, you can add yourself by visiting http://touch.facebook.com. Once you are logged in, you can click on “Places” on the right and you will be able to check in to a variety of places in your area.

If you do not see your location add it by clicking the “Add” button on the left.

Your location will be added immediately and you can check in. Make sure you “Like” your own location as well!