CRUSH – Your one and only source for juicy social media news in four minutes or less. Don’t forget to join us on Facebook and Twitter, and get your daily crush at www.commonsensenms.com

As promised, we’ve got the latest on the debate heating up over Facebook privacy. U.S. Senator Charles Schumer is adding fuel to the fire, asking the FCC to provide privacy guidelines for social networks. Schumer believes “The default policy should be one of privacy, and users should be in control of how they choose to share their information, not the other way around.” This “opt-out” to “opt-in” transition sounds smart to us, but check out the Senator’s Facebook page to find out what everyone else is saying and to put in your own two cents.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFWAmMXmIiw

Taking a more active approach, a group in Germany expressed their concern over “privacy invasions” by sabotaging a Google “Street View” car. The Google employee returned to find the tires let down and the camera cables slashed. However, the protestors were kind enough to leave behind the informative note, “Please do not drive away, you have a puncture”.

And perhaps these privacy issues are the source of anxiety and worry bringing an influx of users to the site “Blah Therapy”. This new website pairs random strangers together as “venters” and “listeners”, however, when we tried to unload our feelings the site was down due to an overload of users.

But our epic privacy FAIL comes courtesy of Blippy, a social media site that lets users share with friends what they purchase. Several credit card transactions were visible via a simple Google search, exposing detailed information including amount spent, specific location, and full credit card number. While we hate to say it, we predicted this case of “TMI” from the beginning.

In Twitter news, a new report by Edison Research and Arbitron reveals that while the awareness of Twitter among Americans has increased from 5% to 87% in the past two years, the population is still struggling to find a reason to use it as only 7% of Americans are active users.

However, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has now joined the 140-character brigade in hopes of spreading Bolvarian Revolution. And if Chavez, who had recently declared Twitter “a tool for terror”, can be converted to the dark side, maybe Twitter still has a chance.

In an attempt to aggregate all the “Like’s” around the world, Facebook has created the new website likebutton.me. The site operates as a directory of “likes”, showing what your friends and the rest of the world have deemed most important from popular web sites, such as YouTube, New York Times and Pandora.

And that brings us to our CRUSH OF THE WEEK – we are taking on the serious epidemic sweeping the globe, “Internet Valleygirlification”. With Facebook only allowing a “like option” our freedom of expression is confined into a simplistic, 4-letter, click of affirmation. So that’s why we are hitting the pavement for the CRUSH Road Trip 2010. Don’t worry, we will find out what American’s really have to say and of course share all the juicy with you.

Post from: Social Media Vision

CRUSH: Road Trip 2010

CRUSH – Bringing you the latest in social media news in four minutes or less. And in our own exciting news – we’ve gone HD, making our crushing capabilities that much clearer. Enjoy! Don’t forget to join us on Facebook and Twitter, and get your daily crush at www.commonsensenms.com

Facebook took center stage this week with its annual developers conference, F8. What were the biggest announcements? Although Facebook founder Marc Zuckerberg displayed a dozen new tools and widgets, the most significant announcement to prepare for is the “open graph platform”. Open Graph plans to connect all corners in the web in order to “create a Web that’s smarter, more social, more personalized, and more semantically aware”. As one element of this platform, website owners will have a chance to place a “Like” button on their pages, allowing Facebook to then publish whatever a user likes directly to their Facebook profile.

Of course the privacy police have already stated concern over the new development, and with good reason. When does sharing data on what we read, view, listen to, and interact with on the web become invasive as opposed to interactive? Stay tuned to CRUSH for latest in what is sure to be an upcoming battle over personalization versus privacy.

In honor of the recent celebration of Earth Day, we encourage you to fly on over to the “We Love Birds” community on Ning. Hosted by NRDC and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, “We Love Birds” is one of the best uses of Ning we’ve seen yet. View some of natures’ finest yourself with the over 7,000 stunning photos.

While social media sites continue to innovate at a crushing speed, the honorable justices of the US Supreme Court seem to be experiencing technical difficulties. The divide between “the hip justices and hip-replacement judges” was made painfully clear during this week’s court discussion over sexting and privacy rights. Embarrassing highlights from the case:

• Chief Justice Roberts asks what the difference was between email and a pager
• Justice Kennedy wondered what would happen if you were sent a text the same time you were sending one to someone else – “Does it say: ‘Your call is important to us, and we will get back to you?”
• Justice Scalia’s confusion on service providers and concern of whether they can be shared by printing them – “You mean (the text) doesn’t go right to me?”…”Could Quon print these spicy little conversations and send them to his buddies?”

In other online sex news, we would like to commend Apple’s decision to trash nearly 6,000 sexually suggestive iPhone apps. Refreshing to see some leadership within corporate America, and hats off to Steve Jobs for refusing to chose profits over the objectification of women.

And that brings us to our CRUSH OF THE WEEK – Our story this week truly reveals the power of social media, as Mayor of East Haven Connecticut donated a kidney to a Facebook Friend, Carlos Sanchez, after seeing the status update Sanchez posted saying his friends and relatives had all been tested but were not a match. Making the Mayor a hero in our books, and Facebook her loyal sidekick.

Post from: Social Media Vision

CRUSH: The End of Anonymity

I had to share this funny video called “THE NEW DORK – Entrepreneur State of Mind (Jay-Z ft Alicia Keys Spoof) for grasshopper.com with all the readers of Social Media Vision. This is for all us Social Media Geeks out there!!!

Post from: Social Media Vision

THE NEW DORK – Entrepreneur State of Mind – Funny Video

Military Families Connect With Social Media Video TroopTube

Taking the same concept of YouTube, TroopTube is Military focused in helping military families connect and stay in touch with families who are out deployed overseas.

The Military has banned Youtube and other Social Media since May 2007 and military families were trying to find alternatives to video chat.  The ban was intended to prevent military Internet connections from being clogged with excessive bandwidth due to video clips.

TroopTube is accessible to 4 million members of the active military, National Guard, and reserves, as well as their family members.

Social Media has played a major role with soldiers in keeping up with family and friends through networks like myspace,facebook and youtube where share videos, images or stories about their daily lives.

Now the Military has a secure site to once again interact with families and friends through the use of video chat.

Website: http://www.trooptube.tv/home

Post from: Social Media Vision

Military Families Connect With Social Media Video TroopTube