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sg-facebook21

So <a href="http://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a> has hit the 500 million user mark - Does that make it social media king? Sure, but it doesn't necessarily mean <a href="http://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a> is the best option for all our social media needs. 
Here's a list of other online tools: 
<a href="https://wave.google.com">Google Wave</a> 
The newest web application from <a href="http://www.google.com/">Google</a> allows a group of people to share the same conversation, and link images, maps and video. 
<a href="http://foursquare.com/">Foursquare</a> 
Uses a mobile phone's <a href="/topics/Global_Positioning_Systems">GPS</a> to enable a sort of scavenger hunt among friends in their neighborhood. People can let friends know when they've "checked-in" to places within the neighborhood and their experience. 
<a href="http://www.formspring.me/">Formspring</a> 
A site where users can ask and answer questions. Want to know what other people think about your new sneakers? Take a photo and ask. Need help deciding who to take to the prom? Let the online world decide. 
<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a> 
Allows users to create a profile of their professional experience to help build business connections. <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a> has more than 70 million members in more than 200 countries. 
<a href="http://www.yelp.com">Yelp</a> 
A site where people write reviews of places from restaurants to spas and add entries to their to-do list. 
- Jose Moreno and 
Aisha Breland-Henry

Long Island

LIMORE22

Other options exist to fulfill social media needs

Navy Beach, a new Montauk restaurant and bar, had a Facebook page even before opening its doors for the summer season.
By this week, 747 users of the social networking site had signed up to receive updates and posts about the restaurant's reviews, upcoming events, photos and comments.
Co-owner Leyla Marchetto, 30, who says she has overheard some customers talking about having learned of the restaurant through Facebook, updates the page often from her BlackBerry.
"You have to keep updating and refreshing if you want to keep people's attention," she said.
Business interest in Facebook is surging along with the number of individuals on the vast social network. Its immediate impact on the bottom line may not be readily apparent, but adherents say it offers other obvious benefits.
A page that gets a lot of views shows up high in <a href="/topics/Google_Inc.">Google</a> searches, quickly gets out the word about deals and discounts, allows an owner to reach out to a dissatisfied customer and spreads praise from a happy one, said Steve Haweeli, president of WordHampton Public Relations in <a href="/topics/East_Hampton%2C_NY">East Hampton</a>.
Haweeli, whose firm helped 50 East End businesses, including Navy Beach, set up and run their Facebook pages, said most small-business owners cannot afford the software that would help them trace Facebook use to bottom-line sales. But, he said, "The return that I see is real interaction with customers - and that is invaluable. "Many people find contacting a business via Facebook "less intimidating . . . than through [the company's] website," said Jaci Clement, executive director of the Fair Media Council in <a href="/topics/Bethpage_State_Park%2C_NY">Bethpage</a>. "It makes you feel like you're talking to a friend, not a corporate suit."
A successfully active and interactive page, however, is a step away from traditional ads that "push information to people" about a product or service, said Charles MacLeod, chief executive of the <a href="/topics/Smithtown%2C_NY">Smithtown</a> advertising agency Sanna Matson MacLeod, which recently won an award for a Facebook page for <a href="/topics/Suffolk_County%2C_NY">Suffolk</a> County's cultural events.
"Social media helps us pull people to our message," he said. "Once trust is established . . . then you can start marketing. Sometimes it's very direct, and sometimes more subtle."
It's important for advertisers using the social web "to understand what the marketplace really wants," said Peter Corbett, chief executive of iStrategyLabs, a marketing agency for Fortune 500 companies with offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., and <a href="/topics/San_Francisco">San Francisco</a>. Potential customers in social media such as Facebook "want to pick your brain, get something free," he said. "And if you provide something valuable, they'll reward you."
Facebook is just one of a number of online and social media options businesses are using, ranging from the relatively old-fashioned e-mail to blogs, Twitter and <a href="/topics/LinkedIn_Corp">LinkedIn</a>.
But businesses need to beware of getting so immersed in those venues that they lose sight of their goal, said social media consultant and speaker David Mathison of <a href="/topics/New_Hyde_Park%2C_NY">New Hyde Park</a>, who has a book and website called Be The Media.
"The big deals happen face-to-face or on the phone, not through Facebook, not through Twitter," he said. "I try to maximize the use of all these platforms always with a goal in mind: to get the reader to do something, to read your article, to read your book, to buy your service."

LIFBIZ22

Businesses use Facebook to interact, attract customers

Some people may watch a little television if they wake in the night. Jim Reed, of Oceanside, reaches for his BlackBerry and posts comments to Facebook. 
He goes back on to the social networking site first thing in the morning. And again when he goes out for breakfast and lunch, when he's killing time before an appointment, or sitting at a traffic light. He checks it, he estimates, 100 times a day. 
Reed, 63, is a retiree, a former <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> County deputy commissioner and tireless volunteer for organizations and causes. And he has over 1,700 names on his Facebook "friends" list - a tiny slice of the site's membership, which Wednesday, according to co-founder and chief executive Mark <a href="/topics/Mark_Zuckerberg">Zuckerberg</a>, reached a major milestone: a half-billion active users worldwide. 
"It's addictive," Reed said of the site he has used for about three years to dispense congratulations, friendly banter and notices of upcoming events. Nothing very personal, he said, but "it's brought a lot of joy to me." 
Reed illustrates the reach and hold now exerted by Facebook, born in a college dorm six years ago as a network for students. Zuckerberg, 26, now sits atop a private company that has doubled the membership it claimed just a year ago. While the majority are young (about 60 percent are under 35), the over-55 category is one of the fastest-growing U.S. segments, up by 922.7 percent, or over 9 million users, in 2009 - and by another 3 million so far this year. 
"It added 300 million [active users] in a little over a year and a half and in this day and age with so many options, to be able to do this is amazing," said Sree Sreenivasan, <a href="/topics/Columbia_University">Columbia University</a> School of Journalism dean of student affairs and digital media professor. "They've changed the way that people communicate." 
Growth hasn't come without controversy: Concern over privacy this past spring forced Facebook to back away from changes that made more user content public. 
But the uproar didn't interfere with Facebook's role as the dominant social network; it has outstripped MySpace and is still ahead of relative newcomer Twitter. It's where friends and friends of friends announce personal news, get messages, post photos, do business, play games, rally for causes, find old classmates and lovers, keep in touch. Time waster or life-changer, for many Long Islanders, Facebook is now simply an unquestioned embed of daily life. 
Helping to map lifestyles 
For Barbara Branca, 62, it was a life-changer. She's a poet and band singer who is communication manager for an environmental program at <a href="/topics/Stony_Brook_University">Stony Brook University</a>, and Facebook has connected her to widening circles of poets, musicians, old friends and environmentalists. "I'll be giving three different poetry readings in the next few months because of Facebook," she said. Because of it, she's writing more poetry, and without it, "I wouldn't have had the audience it looks like I'm starting to get." 
She added: "I find it's a powerful thing. You can reach a lot of people in a very short time." 
But Facebook's appeal goes beyond its utility: It's a place to peer and to preen, a gateway into the lives of others and a platform on which to perform. "You can be a Peeping Tom," said Louise DiCarlo, 49, of <a href="/topics/Stony_Brook%2C_NY">Stony Brook</a>, who has hundreds of Facebook friends and thousands of Twitter followers. "You don't have to be invited into the house, you can look in the window." 
And she can "friend" the kind of people she'd never meet socially. 
'Everyone is a journalist' 
In terms of Facebook as a platform, "everyone is a journalist, a commentator," said Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst with eMarketer, an online site analyzing Internet trends for businesses. " . . . I think people get a sense of self-worth by seeing how many of their friends notice and comment and like what they post." 
She confessed that she occasionally has dreams about her status updates, the pithy posts users write (sometimes several times a day) describing a thought, state of mind, or what's new, that show up automatically in their friends' Facebook newsfeed. "I wake up in the morning and wonder what I'm going to say about myself," she said. 
Facebook's popularity, however, is explained by its utility: for connections, for amusement, and increasingly for business. 
Yet even as adults and companies are making themselves at home on Facebook, some teenagers have begun to look elsewhere. Gabrielle, 16, a <a href="/topics/Locust_Valley%2C_NY">Locust Valley</a> High School student who asked that her last name not be used, said she now prefers Tumblr, a micro-blogging network where users can be anonymous. 
"Tumblr is more of a private thing where you can post what you're really feeling," she said. On Facebook, "people post what they want people to think of them rather than being honest . . . I use it to make jokes with my friends or look at pictures in a group environment, but I really don't use it for anything else. It's kind of tedious. It just gets old." 
But Facebook is definitely not tedious to Melinda N. Laterra, 25, although real life sometimes is. Her friends call her an addict for her 12-hour-a-day habit: She is on Facebook at her <a href="/topics/Northport%2C_NY">Northport</a> laundry job, on the train, in her Selden apartment late into the night. 
She "chats" with friends via instant messaging, plays games, joins fan pages and groups (over 3,000 of them), including the one titled "I like to turn my pillow to the cool side." 
Sometimes, she said, after hours on Facebook she'll think: "I can't look at this any more and I'll walk away from it for a little while. Then I find myself wandering back because I'm bored." 
Facebook gives her a sense of control. "You can communicate with people at your own limits," she said. 
<h4>&nbsp;</h4> 
<h4>Facebook by the numbers</h4> 
-Facebook members as of yesterday:&nbsp;500 million+ 
-U.S. members:&nbsp;125 million+ 
-U.S. members over 55:&nbsp;13.2 million 
-U.S. membership growth this year:&nbsp;21.8 percent 
-Members outside U.S.:&nbsp;70 percent 
-Photos uploaded to Facebook each month:&nbsp;3 billion+ 
-Pieces of content shared each month (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.):&nbsp;30 billion+ 
-Average number of friends:&nbsp;130 
&nbsp; Facebook membership: 
male:&nbsp;43.3%&nbsp; 
female:&nbsp;54.7%&nbsp; 
 Age: 
13-17:&nbsp;10%&nbsp; 
18-24:&nbsp;24.7%&nbsp; 
25-34:&nbsp;25%&nbsp; 
35-54:&nbsp;29.8%&nbsp; 
55-plus:&nbsp;10.5%&nbsp; 
SOURCE: Facebook, iStrategyLabs

Business

Technology

LIFACE22

Facebook extends reach with half-billion worldwide users

Facebook

Nassau Det. Peter Badalucco sees a darker side of what can happen on social networks.
Personal information such as birth dates, school names, cell phone numbers, hometowns - all can be used for identity theft or other scams. "What information you put out there is what's going to be taken," said Badalucco, who handles computer crimes.
He recalled a local case in which a man managed to guess a woman's <a href="/topics/Facebook_Inc.">Facebook</a> password because of a name listed in her tagged photos.
Using the password, the man changed the woman's settings and uploaded nude photos of her that he found in her <a href="/topics/Yahoo%21">Yahoo</a>! e-mail account - which used the same password.
Similarly, status updates announcing that a user is on vacation - or just at a dentist appointment - can be an invitation to those with bad intentions.
"You're telling everybody your house is free," Badalucco said. "It's fun and stuff like that, but people don't see what can possibly happen."
The fast-growing phenomenon of interacting online comes with its own set of pitfalls, from identity theft to cyberbullying. Social media sites are not only altering how people interact - they're also changing how police investigate Internet crimes and how school officials deal with rumors and bullying in cyberspace.
It's not the social network itself that leads to danger, said Parry Aftab, executive director of Wire Safety, a nonprofit New York Internet safety group that's on <a href="/topics/Facebook_Inc.">Facebook</a>'s safety advisory committee. Instead, danger lies in sharing information too widely - without making use of privacy settings to control who sees what. "Anything that can go wrong in the real world can go wrong in a cyber world," she said.
Especially at risk are inexperienced online users unfamiliar with the scope of the Internet. "When you have unsophisticated newbies, they may not know how to use their privacy settings," she said.
Still, even the younger crowd familiar with how to navigate Facebook can experience problems. Nassau Police Officer John Dockwell, who is assigned to brief students about Internet safety issues, said he's heard of a variety of dangerous situations on Facebook, from a football player posting a sex video of him and his girlfriend to accounts of hurtful gossip that spread quickly.
Those experiences have left educators grappling with how to handle them. 
"Facebook is simply the next technology that school districts have to adjust to," said Alan Groveman, superintendent of Connetquot schools.
That's the topic of a doctorate dissertation by his assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, Peggie Staib. She is monitoring how kids use social networking sites to bully and how they readily give up personal information. Even as it's being done outside of school, educators have to deal with its consequences in school.
"We have to figure out a way to teach kids how to use it properly," she said.
Users of all ages get caught up in Facebook's pitfalls because of a basic human need to bond or feel connected, said Fugen Neziroglu, director of the Bio Behavioral Institute in Great Neck and an expert on compulsions and addictions.
"It's a false sense of having friends, of being bonded to a community," she said. "If you really need support, there's really no one there. It's a cyber community."

Nassau

LIPRIV22

Social media's darker side: identity theft to bullying

Just as Facebook users thrill the world with their status updates, Twitter has evolved into a force of citizen journalism that's used not just to share the news, but also to break news. 
From protests in Iran to Justin Bieber to the "Miracle on the Hudson," here are some memorable tweets. 
<hr> 
March 21, 2006: Twitter is born With the tweet "just setting up my twttr", Jack Dorsey (<a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/jack">@jack</a>), Twitter's creator, began the microblogging site's revolution. (<a href="http://twitter.com/jack/status/20" target="blank">Read the tweet</a>) 
<hr> 
April 10, 2008: James Buck tells followers: "Arrested" James Buck (<a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/jamesbuck">@jamesbuck</a>), at the time a graduate student attending the University of California-Berkeley, was arrested while covering an anti-government protest in Egypt. After being apprehended, Buck tweeted "Arrested" to his 48 followers. One of his followers spread the word; less than 24 hours, Buck was free. He now has over 1,000 followers. (<a href="http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/status/786571964" target="blank">Read the tweet</a>) 
<hr> 
October 25, 2008: Army calls Twitter a "potential terrorist tool" A U.S. Army intelligence report identified Twitter as a potential terrorist tool, citing the posting of "extremist ideologies and perspectives" as reason for caution. 
<hr> 
<img align="left" src="http://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.174062.1243474401!/image/2552437013.jpg_gen/derivatives/mugshot_88/2552437013.jpg" style="padding: 15px 15px 15px 0px;" alt=""> 
November 5, 2008: Obama: "We just made history" Recently-elected Barack Obama (<a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/barackobama">@BarackObama</a>) took to Twitter to thank his supporters and announce victory in the 2008 presidential election. Read Obama's post, "All of this happened because of you." (<a href="http://twitter.com/barackobama/status/992176676" target="blank">Read the tweet</a>) The president later admitted it wasn't he who posted that original tweet, but a staffer. His first real tweet came on the Red Cross' Twitter page. (<a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/redcross/status/7915464135">Read the tweet</a>) PHOTOS: <a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/president-barack-obama-1.238">President Barack Obama</a> 
<hr> 
November 28, 2008: Tweeps report from Mumbai Tweeps in Mumbai during the 2008 bombing and shooting attacks posted frequent updates and pictures that showed the drama unfolding over three days. 
<hr> 
January 5, 2009: Justin Bieber's dead? Faux celebrity death reports have been around as long as there have been celebrities. However, the tween uproar surrounding Bieber's alleged early-2009 death - after the pop star hadn't tweeted in 14 hours - was unique, and was the precursor to the current Bieber obsession on Twitter. PHOTOS:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/justin-bieber-1.1642942">Justin Bieber</a> 
<hr> 
<img align="right" alt="" style="padding: 15px 0px 15px 15px;" src="http://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.1653452.1260829047!/image/298692835.jpg_gen/derivatives/carousel_144/298692835.jpg"> 
January 15, 2009: 'Miracle' photo Now known as the "Miracle on the Hudson," the national response to Captain "Sully" Sullenberger's emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 was kicked off by a photo posted to Twitter by Janis Krums (<a href="http://twitter.com/jkrums" target="blank">@jkrums</a>). (<a href="http://twitpic.com/135xa" target="blank">See the original photo</a>) PHOTOS:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/jet-crashes-in-hudson-river-1.322">Jet crashes in Hudson River</a> COMPLETE&nbsp;COVERAGE:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/miracle-on-the-hudson-1.1701599">Miracle on the Hudson</a> 
<hr> 
April 16, 2009: CNN and Ashton race to 1 million At the time Nos. 1 and 2 in Twitter followings, Ashton Kutcher (in second entering the competition, <a href="http://twitter.com/aplusk" target="blank">@aplusk</a>) challenged CNN (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.twitter.com/cnnbrk">@cnnbrk</a>) to see who could reach 1 million followers first. In conjunction with the contest, 11,000 mosquito bed nets would be donated in honor of World Malaria Day. Kutcher won the bet, but he no longer has the most followers on Twitter; that distinction belongs to Britney Spears (<a href="http://twitter.com/britneyspears" target="blank">@britneyspears</a>). 
<hr> 
June 22, 2009: #Neda and Iranian protests The amateur video taken of Neda Agha-Soltan dying in the street of Tehran was spread through Twitter, and helped feed a global response to anti-government protests in Iran. The graphic video's most iconic moment was a close-up of the dying woman's face. 
The importance of Twitter to organizers and participants in the Iranian protests was underscored when the&nbsp;U.S. government asked the company to delay planned service maintenance that coincided with the turmoil, for fear of disrupting communication and coverage. 
<hr> 
<img align="left" src="http://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.1275574.1270050906!/image/2036303115.jpg_gen/derivatives/carousel_103/2036303115.jpg" style="padding: 15px 15px 15px 0px;" alt=""> 
June 25, 2009: Death of Michael Jackson shuts down Twitter When the King of Pop was rushed to the hospital and subsequently died, Twitter was forced to shut down due to the volume of tweets. PHOTOS:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/michael-jackson-year-by-year-1.179650">Michael Jackson, year-by-year</a> 
<hr> 
January 13, 2010: Reports from the Haiti earthquake Pictures from the scene of the quake, updates on family members, fundraisers such as Yele: while so many lines of communication with Haiti were down following the devastation, those with Twitter accounts took to the micro-blogging site to update the world. SPECIAL REPORT: <a href="http://longisland.newsday.com/projects/haiti/">View our multimedia project, Loss and Hope amid the chaos in Haiti</a> MORE: <a href="http://longisland.newsday.com/projects/haiti/">Stories and photos of the Haiti quake and aftermath</a> | <a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/world/how-you-can-help-haiti-earthquake-victims-1.1699324">How to help</a> 
<hr> 
<img align="right" alt="" style="padding: 15px 0px 15px 15px;" src="http://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.1859623.1271146069!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/mugshot_88/image.jpg"> 
March 5, 2010: Conan follows girl, girl becomes famous Conan O'Brien&nbsp;(<a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/conanobrien">@ConanOBrien</a>) was a little late giving into the Twitter wave, with his first post on Feb. 24, 2010. Additionally, he avoided following others, until announcing on March 5 that he would follow one person. That person, Sarah Killen (<a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/LovelyButton">@LovelyButton</a>), would gain social media notoriety, and has continued to enjoy the benefits of being Conan's lone Twitter bud. MORE: <a href="http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/pet-rock-1.811972/conan-twitter-michigan-and-wedding-gowns-1.1805014">Read about Conan's new 'friend'</a> PHOTOS:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/celebrities/conan-o-brien-1.1716389">Conan O'Brien</a> 
<hr> 
April 14, 2010: Library of Congress indexes all tweets Who knew Congress cared what time we were going to dinner, or how hung over we were? Aiming to embrace new media, every tweet ever sent -- and every tweet yet to be sent -- is filed in the historic library. Oh-oh... 
<hr> 
May 30, 2010: 15 billion tweets Twitter hit 15 billion tweets sent - or 2.2 tweets-per-person on Earth - in late May. The landmark came just three months after the 10-billion-tweet landmark. 
<hr> 
Photo of Barack Obama by Getty Images Photo of US&nbsp;Airways Flight 1549 by AP Photo of&nbsp;Michael Jackson by AP Photo of&nbsp;Conan O'Brien by AP

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