Some of the major changes announced were previously covered at the Reputation.com Blog, and include more targeted publishing options for status updates, and simplifying privacy controls to encourage increased sharing on the site.

Facebook users will be presented with more robust privacy options that they can tailor to their social networking needs. Much like Twitter, Facebook users can blast updates to everyone and have them visible to search engines with these new tools. Users will also be able to tweak personal and professional contact lists in order to better control who sees what online.

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Another twitter like change announced recently includes the ability to follow other people, even if they do not friend you. Regional networks will be eliminated, as these new features are rolled out in the coming weeks.

Adam Ostrow has a well written piece at Mashable that succinctly explains these Facebook privacy changes.

Ultimately, Facebook users that are deeply concerned with privacy can breathe a deep sigh of relief – your profile will remain just as private as before if you want it to. Meanwhile, for those that want to broadcast their updates publicly, have them indexed by search engines, and link to them from their blogs and other social networking profiles, those features are on the way.

Reputation.com applauds these announced Facebook privacy changes that will engender increased sharing online. Balancing family, friends and professional colleagues online is a challenge for individuals living digital lives. These publishing options will allow people to share as much, or as little as they like and create a meaningful online identity on the process.

I would like to look a bit more closely at Twitter in this post and examine why it has experienced such a remarkable cultural zeitgeist. First, we must come to terms with the fact that everyone loves, uses and talks about twitter. And I mean EVERYONE. CNN is tweeting. Politicians are tweeting. Celebrities like Ashton are tweeting. Oprah is tweeting, for the love of fun, and she makes and breaks main stream culture for a living. Read any social media blog or tech news site and you’ll inevitably run into a few twitter articles- per day.

So the question then becomes- WHY? Why have web nerds, tech-savvy students, PR firms, celebrities, politicians and the media complex writ large embraced the micro blogging platform?

The first reason has to do with ease of use. Not everyone has a laptop. The number of smart phones with web capabilities is growing, but still small. But almost everyone has a phone that can send SMS data. That means that Twitter opens the door to global, real time communication to end users who carry nothing more than a cell phone. That fact, in turn, lets more people participate in the twitter-verse by lowering the technological barrier of entry. The results are staggering. From the recent Iranian updates to breaking news via tweeting, the fact that a text message can now be heard around the world is an impressive and important milestone for connective technologies. It is also the primary reason that Twitter is so pervasive at the moment.

But ease of use can not explain the twitter-quake that has sent shock waves across media and culture. There are many reasons for the ubiquitous tweeting now found in the media landscape, but the one that resonates most with me is the overcompensation theory. I believe that the main stream media is overly hyped up on twitter because they were overly harsh on bloggers in the past and are now repping micro-blogging to seem “hip” and “with it.” In the recent past, traditional journalists often scoffed at bloggers and downplayed their journalistic credentials repeatedly. But the blogosphere would not be denied. It knew there was a real there there. And now blogs are seen as real and staying. And the MSM missed that bet completely. From politics to sports to local news, blogs have repeatedly held journalists and citizens accountable. Blogs have fact checked stories and reinvented old notions of the news cycle. Bloggers now routinely meet with Presidents and CEOs.

And now the intertubes are all aflutter with twitter. And this time, THIS TIME the MSM are not going to be left behind in the wake of a great techno shift. So they tweet and they tweet and they tweet. And part of the reason is because the technology is new and brilliant and connective and disruptive. And part of the reason is because they don’t want people to remember how established media cast a death knell for one of the most vibrant forms of media, art and online socializing ever created.

“Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.,” the City form states. There are then three lines where applicants can list the Web sites, their user names and log-in information and their passwords.

The move raises significant privacy concerns and, as the article notes, may even violate the Terms of Service for these sites. Reputation.com advises readers to never disclose their passwords to anyone in order to maintain their online security and privacy.

For me and many others coming of age in the 1990′s, the fad that was unavoidable was POGS.

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Remember POGS? The game was ubiquitous for a few years, and even though I remember thinking “Hey, I don’t really see why everyone is playing this game,” I wound up buying some POGS and slammers and participating in POG culture anyway.

Why did I do this? There are many reasons, but mainly I did it because all my friends were doing it and I wanted something to do with them that we could all relate to. But then, before I had mastered the art of slamming the hell out of cardboard milk caps with Smurfs painted on them, the cultural winds shifted. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment in time, but almost as quickly as POGS took over middle schools across the country, they were gone. Replaced by Pokemon or Hypercolor or some other unspeakable fad, the American love affair with POGS was at an end.

Why do I bring this up on the Reputation.com Blog? There are many reasons, but the main one is that all of the hype over Social Media looks a lot like POGS to me. From the tech sites to the blogs to the MSM, it seems that everyone has a twitter and a myspace and a blog and a facebook these days. Why? I think for the same cultural reasons that drove POGS to such meteoric heights. People want to connect with one another, sure. And these technologies have altered the ways that we connect with one another for the better.

But on some level I fear that social media is just a fad. Or a series of tech fads. In just a few short years friend sites have already come and gone much like the POGS and Beanie Babies of yore. Remember Friendster? That site is just as culturally relevant today as Teddy Ruxpin is. Unless individuals and companies can find innovative and valuable ways to connect people, the next social networking site could be nothing more than a pile of POGS.

Readers are encouraged to share how they derive value from social media in the comments below. They should also opine on the best fads from the past 40 years.

Reputation.com would like to thank the Dr. Phil program for educating parents, students and professionals about the importance of Online Reputation Management.

“Treat Google like your résumé,” says Michael Fertik, founder of the online reputation management service, Reputation.com. If your first five Google hits highlight your old job as a market analyst it may be hard to sell yourself as a travel writer.

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“Know what you want and who you are,” says Fertik. This may mean you need to choose what to keep online and what to remove. You don’t always show your serious side to your friends or your party side to your boss. The same rules apply online.

If you’re unhappy with your Google hits, there are a few things you can do. Think about using a service like Fertik’s own Reputation.com, which can help you manipulate your Google results, among other things, pushing positive links higher and negative ones lower. Giant sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter will be higher in Google searches, so focus on those sites first.

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“Google is now a utility for every life transaction,” says Fertik. “You have to keep yourself fresh.”

Keeping information about yourself current, updated and relevant will ensure that your online identity is an accurate reflection of who you are.

I know I’m not alone. Chris Brogan told me this morning that this has happened to him a handful of times. But it’s not just people with large Twitter or social networking followings who need to be careful about character assassination via the Web — it’s anyone online. We all have something to lose.

Later, Leggio talks to Owen Tripp, COO of Reputation.com and gets some expert insight on protecting her personal brand online. She even signs up for MyReputation to better protect her online identity.

I wrote last year about a great company called Reputation.com, a personal reputation and privacy protection service. I reached out to co-founder and executive vice president Owen Tripp again today about this situation, and ask some questions that might help folks better protect their brands or their companies’ brands.

“The best protection is prevention or prophylaxis.  Claim your LinkedIN, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace identities before somebody else does it for you and starts to damage your reputation. By establishing accurate information on these key domains you will prevent others from hijacking them from you,” Tripp said. “Also, you need to stay in control of your online brand by monitoring proactively.  You will limit the damage of brand hijacking if you quick recognize that you are under attack.  In my experience, too few people know how to properly set up the personal searches they need to be able to run in order to fully control their identity.”

When I asked Tripp specifically about my situation, or monitoring my brand, he gave me some pretty good insight into how they do what they do:

“Our MyReputation search runs the equivalent of thousands of Google Alerts.  For example, we wouldn’t just scan for ‘Jennifer Leggio’ but ‘ J Leggio’ or ‘Jennifer ZDNet’ or ‘mediaphtyr’, etc. And then we’ll extract additional clues from the content we find (for example, maybe we learn the name of a spouse and then add then on to the cluster of recursive searches we are running for you each month),” Tripp said. “Finally, we make sure we go deeper, seeking mentions of your name and personal details on Web sites that Google can’t reach.  For example, we actively search over 40 social networks, most of which are not indexed by the search engines.”

After this experience, I’m putting my money where my mouth is and signing up for the MyReputation service.

Reputation.com is committed to protecting privacy and identity online and encourages all online users to monitor and protect their digital reputation. Special thanks to Ms. Leggio for bringing this issue to her own security conscious following.

Be careful what you post on Facebook or MySpace, because anything you say or upload can and will be used against you in a court of law.

Last year, for example, an Ottawa court heard that a civil servant had started a clandestine affair with an old friend she reconnected with through Facebook during a messy custody battle involving three kids.

In a Vancouver courtroom last month, defendants in a personal injury case produced photos from the plaintiff’s Facebook profile showing that while Myla Bagasbas was seeking $40,000 in damages for pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment after a car accident, she was still able to kayak, hike and bike post-accident.

The fluid nature of real world identity is then contrasted with the still somewhat stunted world on online relationships:

While we’re able to compartmentalize and separate people in our lives offline by assigning titles to different spheres — co-workers, neighbours, family — the online world fails to recognize those distinctions.

The article then looks at how employers are relying on Google searches and social networking profiles to screen job applicants in the digital age. Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik is quoted as an expert.

“A resume is no longer what you send to your employer,” said Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik. “More people look at Google as a resume.”

But instead of authenticating information found online, people are trusting secondary material and treating Google like God.

“What happens is in a court of law, you have to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt. On the Internet though, many decisions are based on lower standards,” Fertik said.

But is sanitizing a person’s online reputation of unflattering content an infringement of freedom of speech and freedom of expression?

“Only if you believe Google is the best and most accurate source of information,” Fertik said. “But I don’t think Google is God. I believe Google is a machine.”

Reputation.com Blog recently covered the second article that Ms. Song wrote for this three part tech series and we are pleased to be mentioned in this final piece, as well.

Companies such as Reputation.com will scour the Internet and remove unflattering material that could sully their client’s online reputation. For example, when a grad student discovered a picture of her half-naked body posted by a bitter ex-boyfriend, she enlisted Reputation.com’s help. The company’s strategy is surprisingly simple: They ask the site host politely. They’re not a legal team, says founder Michael Fertik, but they’ve seldom had to resort to legal methods in the 10,000 removal requests made so far.

Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik is also quoted in the piece:

“People are alive to the fact that the web is not their enemy,” Fertik said from California. “It’s a fact of life and people want to have as much control over it as possible.”

The Toronto paper looks specifically at how Facebook’s terms of service impact Canadian privacy laws and also delineates how social networking is fundamentally altering how we percieve ourselves online and off. As more people connect with one another online, managing and monitoring one’s reputation will be critical.

Online Identity Issues are getting more attention in the Main Stream Media these days. Recently CNN had a discussion about workers being fired for MySpace comments.

What do you think? Is getting fired for online comments fair? Is it something you think about when you are online? Let us know in the comments below.