What I am going to do is ask you to stop and think before you start creating your page. Ask yourself if your customers are on Google+? If not why would you want to create a profile on yet another network?

There’s a strong case to be made for media businesses seeking to syndicate content and scoop up clicks to be first to Google+. Tech titles eWeek Labs, SlashGear, and TechRadar have already signed-up.

This makes sense. Early users to Google+ are tech savvy. But this isn’t engagement; its syndication.

If your business is anything other than media your customers, for now, almost certainly elsewhere.

There are some reasons for businesses to be on Google+ such as governance, IP protection, future proof your audience, and to explore the integration between Google+ with other services such as Google Places.

This was the rationale raised by people in my Twitter network this morning.

To date Google has failed in its attempts to build a social network and for now Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter dominate. Its challenge is to persuade audiences to move from these existing networks.

My test for a new technology is the speed with which members of my family adopt it. So far I’m the only person on the network.

As Jas Dhaliwal (@jas) said for now at least it’s likely that Google+ will consist of thousands of empty pages.

“Facebook was pissed off with Google for scrapping content from the open web including content from the social network,” he said.

Google has found a way to tunnel into Facebook a grab user data and content the asset on which its business is built he explained. Scrapping Facebook has become possible since the network changed its privacy last year and opened its content to the web.

“Google can scrap your Facebook page and grab the then contacts that are served to the web and then reserve the page and grab the next ten friends. Pretty quickly it can grab your entire social network,” said Lyons.

The new battle ground on the web is closed networks according to Lyons. We are returning to a time when a few large companies are attempting to own the web he said.

Doctorow is the co-editor of Boing Boing and was speaking at the recent TEDxObserver an independent TED event organised by the Guardian and the Observer.

We trade personal information and our personal relationships for pennies in social networks and we’re gamed to provide and share information he said. It isn’t natural because personal motivation almost certainly conflicts with the commercial intent of the network.

This issue has recently come into sharp focus for me as my eldest daughter has asked to create a Facebook account and instances of stalking via location based networks have come to the fore.

Typically our response as parents when faced with new technology is to lock down applications, networks and content, creating an illusion of security and safety.

Doctorow urged us to rethink out relationship with technology and said that user education was the only way to understand the differences between personal, commercial and rogue motivations.

He called on us to encourage our kids to break networks, circumvent CCTV systems and jailbreak devices to push over the limitations put in place by manufacturers. Only then will we truly begin to understand how technology is pervading our lives and how companies such as a Facebook seek to monetise these interactions.

Last week I caught up with Ben Smith publisher of PRmoment.com. His site includes an active job board that connects candidates with prospective employers. His view is that despite the tough market it’s easier than ever to get yourself noticed.

In Ben’s own words here are his suggestions for finding a PR job. Its a long post but all of Ben’s points are easily achieved and, apart from your time, are free.

1. Create a LinkedIn page
As a graduate your CV might be quite short, but a LinkedIn profile will increase your “findability”. It also shows that you are thinking about your career and are switched on enough to think about using LinkedIn. You can also link your blog (see point 2) and your Twitter (point 3) feed to your LinkedIn profile. Again this shows you are current and relevant.

You can also join some LinkedIn Groups. These may help you network. Some groups such as the CIPR’s and PRmoment.com’s also have many job vacancies posted on them.

2. Create a blog
Only do this if you enjoy writing, and do bear in mind that good writing skills are still an essential part of being a PR professional. So if you don’t enjoy writing – maybe PR isn’t for you.

The subject matter for the blog doesn’t really matter. A diary format is fine, but make sure it includes your opinions about what is going on around you. A diary of how much you drank this week or how much you love you new boyfriend is unlikely to impress. WordPress is probably the easiest and cheapest way to set up your own blog.

3. Tweet
No one is expecting you to have 5,000 followers, but if have a presence on Twitter it shows you are on the road to understanding it. In addition, by setting up hashtag search terms like #prjobs, you are opening yourself up to a load of PR Job vacancies.

4. Facebook
Remember, we all now have an online footprint, so only talk about stuff that you a comfortable with a potential employer seeing. We all have personal lives and no-one wants to employ a roomful of saints, so just use your common sense on what content you upload.

There are also some decent Facebook PR groups around, some of these are job specific and others like PRmoment.com’s Facebook fan page offer an insight into PR and post the latest PR jobs.

5. Use jobs boards
PR jobs boards are a great way of keeping track of what jobs are out there. Don’t use them exclusively, but you can quickly and easily search for PR jobs that are relevant for you.

6. Apply on spec
The best job I ever had (before I started my own business) was when I applied on spec. In a graduate market it is unlikely that you will be alone in applying to most PR firms, but applying on spec shows initiative and hunger, both attributes that employers will like. A (non-exhaustive) list of PR agencies in the UK can be seen here.

7. Get work experience
In a competitive market like PR this is vital. It shows that you are keen and will give you some valuable on-the-job experience.

There is a palaver in PR right now about unpaid interns. This is a tricky one, but as with most things in life, common sense goes a long way:

• A full-time long-term (over four weeks) internship without pay means that the employer is taking the piss. Expenses should be paid for any internship.
• Anything that is less than four weeks and pays your expenses is probably acceptable.
• If it’s more than four weeks, but for just around one day a week, this is also fine if you are gaining valuable experience. A long-term internship for two or more days a week seems unreasonable.

8. Sign up with up to three PR recruitment agencies
In the UK, recruitment agencies are still a good way of targeting PR employers. But don’t rely on them and don’t register with more than three. Also, make sure you do your research and find a decent PR recruitment specialist. I would always recommend registering with specialist PR recruitment consultant rather than the generalist one.

Remember that the recruitment consultant you register with will potentially be representing you to your future employer. So it’s important you’ve met them and like them. If they can’t be bothered to spend the time meeting you, I’d go elsewhere.

But a judgement handed down by Mr Justice Tugendhat yesterday saw a plaintiff awarded £10,000 for being defamed on Facebook.

The case concerns Jeremiah Barber who, posted child porn on the Facebook page of Raymond Bryce, after falling out, along with a defamatory comment.

Inevitably we’ll see more of these types of judgements. Its a booming business for media lawyers.

Here’s a related article that I wrote in March for Reputation Online about copyright and privacy in social networks.

I know that I spend a lot of time away from home but I am fairly confident that there isn’t much that Facebook could bring to our relationship of 16 or so years.

Its not uncommon it seems for people to be prompted to connect with their nearest and dearest. Here’s comment from my Twitter networks.

Facebook clearly hasn’t realised that the people with whom you interact least online can be those closest to you.

Tom Scott (@tomscott) has built his Evil app using the Graph API to search public groups about lost phones. The web app randomly displays the private phone numbers of unsuspecting Facebook users.

Scott says that his intention is highlight personal privacy issues on Facebook and has truncated the displayed numbers to make his point.

Evil follows a long line of projects by Scott who describes himself as a geek comedian. Check out and enjoy Breaking the News Salmon in a Dishwasher, The Google Street View Race and other projects on his site.

Image via Wikipedia

The chances are that I’m not your friend on Facebook. But that doesn’t matter. I can almost certainly access personal content that you’ve posted on the network.

With a very simple web script I could mine the comments that you are making to your Friends on your Facebook page – unless you’ve throttled back your security settings to the maximum level of protection.

Speed’s Dan Howe tracks social media developer sites and forums and has spotted a potential security hole in the Facebook applications designers Graph API. An API is a fancy name for how one software application such as Facebook talks to another. TechCrunch also spotted the conversations about the hole and covered the story this afternoon.

The Facebook Graph API can be used to find out what people are posting behind the network’s closed walls.

Here’s an application call for everyone that is making posts about a job interview. If you click on the link you’ll see the code generated by the API-call. Look closer and you’ll see text strings of each conversation that mention the string “job interview”.

Can you see the privacy issues we can?

Of course we could make the presentation prettier by designing an application to manipulate the search data and present it in a more attractive way, but that’s the not the point. This is a very trivial example that demonstrates how easy it is for developer to integrate user data within what we assume to be a closed social network.

I caught up with Dan this afternoon. He’s been working with the API and reckons that unless you have locked down your privacy settings to a friends only setting it is possible for anyone with a web browser to access content that you post on your personal Facebook page.

Facebook has published a list of the type of search queries supported in the documentation for the Graph API. These include individual users (you and me), pages, events, groups and status messages. It’s a marketing wet dream.

I don’t know about you but it makes me very uncomfortable and I’ve locked down my security settings as a result. Privacy and transparency are the two issues that could halt the phenomenal growth of social media.

Facebook must make users aware of the potential of the tools that it’s making available to harness data and content posted within its network if it’s to avoid a backlash.

The report says that earned media, the goal of any PR campaign, is a highly effective way for a brand to generate awareness in a social network such as Facebook – but cannot be guaranteed. Meanwhile, social ads (a form of network endorsement on ads) drive engagement and reach similar to traditional paid-for campaigns.

The Nielsen report is compelling but is flawed by its focus solely on social ad campaigns. It omits an analysis of the impact of standalone earned media campaigns on Facebook, what we’d more commonly recognise as traditional PR or word of mouth campaigns. Its uncountably a vehicle to sell ad campaigns on Facebook but is worth reading nonetheless.

Understanding the Value of a Social Media Impression