Hunter-Tylo.com Fan Blogs

Facebook dot com uses and Facebook tips

I intended on writing an article here last year about Hunter Tylo using MySpace. But something has just happened this month that prompted me to change it to one about another social networking site: Hunter Tylo signed up for Facebook (fcbk). So, now I will publish my thoughts here and this article is about fcbk instead, which I just signed up to use 4 days ago.

Although the article uses the example of Hunter Tylo (HT), who just signed up for a fcbk profile a week ago, there are general tips I have picked up in just a few days of using it. These tips can be useful for any celeb, parent or child that are brave enough to use social networking sites like it. The purpose of this article, however, is not just for tips but to obtain suggestions from any reader about what one can use fcbk for. Let us go through some discussion under different categories.

Control over friends

Probably the best part of using social networking sites is that you can have a lot of control over which friends and fans are in your friends list. If any step out of line they can be told to be careful or just uninvited from private access to the profile for a while.

Although HT said in her fcbk (about her haters): “If I end up hating this Facebook thing, I’m G1″ – which meant ‘G’ + ‘one’ which equals “gone” – it does not have to be that way, of course. You can add a page administrator to get rid of horrible comment posts or just drop anyone from your friends list. Alternatively, one can use the settings in their account to customize who accesses what.

The settings in a fcbk account are for applications, account information and privacy information. Looking at the latter two only in this article, you can join local networks in your area of residence or work or school, or groups about other topics, through the account settings area of your profile (there are several groups devoted to Hunter Tylo, for example – one of which started in recent times and, much to my slight annoyance, “borrowed” many photos from this site, but linked to it in return at least). As I have mentioned, you can also make someone a page administrator and that can be done in the notifications area there also.

Most importantly in the account settings, though, in the privacy part you can block someone (e.g. an employer) from finding you on fcbk and seeing your profile and interacting with you. With this feature you can block your fcbk listing in search engines (Hunter’s fcbk is already listed in Google just a week after she set it up). You can block people from seeing your photos in a public search also. There are options to customize settings to your heart’s content. All this comes in handy for what was mentioned here previously (ditching people from your profile’s access).

Blogging

There is a small suite of features in fcbk that can be useful from time to time. The “Poke Hunter” feature is a little bit of a naughty title in her profile but it means nothing these days in Facebook language (i.e. poking can be used to just say “hi”, nothing specific). Other features include sending a message (an email feature), video, games, photos, links, notes, comments and instant messaging chat (see logo in bottom right corner of each fcbk page). These are the main features of a fcbk profile.

There is not much scope there for blogging, though, but excerpts could be posted there from any articles one writes and publishes in their MySpace blog perhaps. This is probably the best way Hunter Tylo could go about it. In blogging on MySpace, HT could address rumors, to start with. She did this in her fcbk in reference to a rumor I mentioned (and I hope she does not mind me using this example just this once?):

Hunter Tylo at 4:43pm February 12
If the rumor you are referring to was bad and has to do with Corey and I – I can guarantee you it is BS. I could not have survived the loss of my son without him. In fact, he used to help care for Mickey when I went out of town or had long days. As an ex-Marine, and about 6 feet tall, he was able to handle Mick if he had a seizure. He also kept him on a strict medicine schedule.
As always, you have to remember there are ex’es and enemies who enjoy getting a dig in whenever they can.
I don’t even entertain the junk
But thanks for defending me!

In addressing rumors like this one (which I suspect was the assault one that started in a trash magazine in late 2007) Hunter can set the record straight in an article on her MySpace. She could then go a bit further and tell people a bit more about how she coped with the situation. She could probably do this in her fcbk but it is probably better to do this in her MySpace in the blog section.

Facebook advertising

Unlike MySpace, fcbk has a limited amount of advertising cluttering up your profile. It is usually just get rich quick nonsense ads on the right side of each page. Over at MySpace, I swear that I saw and ad last week (see below) in Hunter’s profile that told readers that they could find people in their area with herpes (like anyone is really going to rush in for that). This does not look good on a celeb’s profile at all, but it’s News Corporation’s fault (they own MySpace and profit from the ad revenue from weird ads like that).

General thoughts

Facebook allows one to customize so many options (from privacy settings to ffcbk background layouts and expressions (see bottom of article for more about installing)). I think it is much better than MySpace for the reason of customization alone. Having said that, social networking sites are limited in their usefulness and are a poor substitute for a proper web site. I believe that they should only be seen as an additional feature to a mainstream web site offering. But if you do not have a site then this is a basic way of getting around that on the cheap (that is why kids use it to post photos and video clips of themselves).

Then there are privacy issues, though, to consider. I remember a few years back there was a huge uproar when the kid that started fcbk wanted to release private information. He had to forget about that idea but the damage was done; the reputation of the site sank. But there are still privacy issues today. Your news feed can be viewed by others if you forget to change the settings. This will show up comments, friend additions and so on until you change the privacy options. Added to that is also the data mining problem associated with the information you put on your profile (a reason why I have no personal photo there in mine and only very limited personal information). Then there is the timestamp situation.

When you post any comments in someone’s profile a timestamp is included that will show your local time. What if an employer sees that you posted during work hours? What if your better half sees that you posted somewhere when you said you were not online at the time? Sprung!!! But the real whopper of a privacy issue related to serving a summons.

If you are an Australian fcbk user, you can be served an online summons. This came after last December’s Supreme Court Ruling in the A.C.T. that fcbk is suitable for this purpose and is legally binding when posted. That could really open up a can of worms in the future if everyone else follows suit. And there are other legal problems associated with using fcbk as well (like defamation and identifying underage crime victims in countries where that is illegal, for example).

So, looking at what information I have revealed just in recent days on Facebook, any reader with appropriate access will know: my age; what at least one pet I once had was (and my level of knowledge about that animal species); my affection for Hunter Tylo; that I am “paranoid” about privacy and one or two other topics. Anyone could build up a suitable level of knowledge about me over time (if I keep posting little tidbits of information) that I am not prepared to have people know. Although some positives could be gained by me from that in some ways, I could still open myself up to all sorts of potential troubles in future. It pays to be very wary on social networking sites just as much as it does if you own your own web site (like this)!

If you just want to keep in touch with friends interstate or overseas, then it might be better to install a webcam (and get your friends to) and an instant messaging software program than to use social networking sites. Some people spend more time on those than they do on the telephone with friends and relatives.

Suggestions

Hunter Tylo says in her MySpace that she would like to meet “All my fans & have you get to know the REAL me!” Blogging there is one way to go about that but in fcbk there is always the comments and notes sections for publishing “mini-essays” or the like. But with the comments sections (like under photos for example), I think that celebs that use these social networking sites should consider topic discussion boundaries.

Sure, these sites are good for publicity purposes (about upcoming projects), photos, video clips and more, but if comments are allowed by anyone in the friends list there obviously needs to be some topics that are out of bounds and others that are fine to discuss that are listed. One can even expand from there and post discussion articles about the topics in their MySpace blog or web site if they do not want to use the fcbk notes feature.

Of course, on a side note, Hunter could just come here and get an account for this blog for that purpose, or one in the forum where she can publish her writing about different topics. She could be given moderator status in both the forum and here in the blog (author status). That is what one can do if they have a suitable fan site somewhere for letting people know about the real you (her own official site does not have the appropriate features, so she decided to use social networking sites instead).

But, back to fcbk and what do you think fcbk is useful for? What have you seen people do with it (good or bad)? What do you think celebs like Hunter Tylo could use fcbk for (perhaps in association with MySpace)? Feel free to post a comment below (note that they are moderated).

Related links

Who owns Facebook? How did it start? How popular is facebook? The Wikipedia fcbk page answers these and more.

Facebook help tutorials

You can install the expressions application mentioned above this way:

• Use the search box in fcbk to find the application in the search results for “expressions layouts”.
• Follow the prompts to get the application.
• It will take you to your profile and there will be a box in the left side.
• Press “keep” button. Then click the eraser logo and select “Move to Boxes Tab” (the boxes tab is currently the only place expressions work in fcbk profiles).
• You will then be taken to the Boxes tab where you can click “Get expressions”. Go to step 2 and either enter your email or press “Skip”.
• Then you can replace the default expressions design with up to 3 others by clicking the “Browse expressions …” link. It takes you to fbexpressions.com.
• You can look at facebook layouts while you are there if you like.
• If you need to delete the expression, go to the expressions web page where you choose a layout. Scroll down and near the bottom of that page is a small text link: “Remove current layout from my facebook page” (get rid of ‘Yontoo’ as well if you used that).

More tutorials:

General

Use the Google search box in the sidebar to your right of this article to find other tutorials. There will always be a few around, even in places like Yahoo Answers.

“25 Things” lists floating around

I was reading about the “25 Random Things” list that people tagged each other with to spread the note around fcbk. Others have since started their own. I am new at fcbk and would like to experiment by doing a smaller list of my own (Hunter Tylo seems to be a good topic given that this article concerns her). If I have tagged you in my notes then feel free to join in if you like (it will be a positive list, not one full of negatives).

Once you have been tagged, you are supposed to write a note to add more to the list. At the end, choose more people to be tagged. You should also tag the person who tagged you. Go to “notes” or the “+” sign under tabs on your profile page, type your entry in the list, tag more people (see right hand side of the application for box to list them) and then click publish it. It could go on forever and become quite a large list

Enjoy!

Tags: advertising on facebook, chat on facebook, face book, facebook, facebook account, facebook ad, facebook advertising, facebook application, facebook applications, facebook apps, facebook au, facebook australia, facebook background, facebook backgrounds, facebook chat, facebook com, facebook com home, facebook friends, facebook games, facebook graphics, facebook group, facebook groups, facebook homepage, facebook image, facebook layout, facebook layouts, facebook marketing, facebook members, facebook network, facebook online, facebook photos, facebook poking, facebook problems, facebook profile, facebook profiles, facebook search, facebook site, facebook social, facebook website, http facebook com, hunter tylo facebook, my facebook, my facebook com, my facebook page, myfacebook, social networking, social networking facebook, www face book., www facebook, www facebook com, www facebook com friends, www facebook com people