A recent survey by Pew Research and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center of 895 technology stakeholders and critics shows 85% of respondends agree with the following statement:

“In 2020, when I look at the big picture and consider my personal friendships, marriage and other relationships, I see that the internet has mostly been a positive force on my social world. And this will only grow more true in the future.”

I agree too, however you have to keep in mind that with the positives come negatives too. I would keep in mind the following:
- Allocate time for online usage and watch your time carefully.
- Watch your privacy when setting up online accounts and use only trusted and reputable sites.

To find out more about the study, click here.

Regards.

BBC wrote today, after facing increasing criticism from not only US consumer groups, but also European Union data protection officials, who describe the recent privacy changes as unacceptable, facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is pledging easier privacy.

Many have even pledged to quit Facebook. QuitFacebookDay.com, an anti-facebook site is encouraging it’s visitors to quit Facebook by May 31, 2010. Already at the time of this writing over 14,000 have pledged to quit.

I strongly recommend you to visit ReclaimPrivacy.org to take a look and update your privacy if you need to. ReclaimPrivacy.org offers a free and easy to use tool that will scan your Facebook account’s privacy on facebook. Privacy Scanner will display in color coded tags, how secure, (and/or not so secure) your settings are. Even if you are not concerned about privacy, I strongly recommend you to check it out. It will remind you as how the world looks at your personal data.
And while you there, check out the story by Consumer Reports titled: “7 Things To Stop Doing Now on Facebook”

Regards.

Well, a bug can stay forever unless someone uncovers it, right? In this case a Google researcher discovered a utility that allows users of new versions of windows to run old versions of windows software.

This bug goes back to the days of windows 3.1, and has never been addressed by Microsoft until discovered last month. The good news is that this security issue has not been exploited. To read more about it, click here.

France followed by the German government lately warned web users against Microsoft’s IE and advised using an alternative web browser. They knew about the vulnerabilities earlier, but announced the warning after the malicious code that was used on Google was published online.

Even though IE 8 is more secure than earlier versions of IE, Microsoft admitted that it is vulnerable as well. The risk comes only, if you browsed a compromised site and will infect your laptop allowing your sensitive information to be stolen.

I caution using IE for now, until Microsoft comes up with a fix for this issue.

Click here to read more about the story.

Regards.

A recent study by Experian shows that Google searches rose about 1% based on a 4 week period of September compared to August 09.

Despite advertising campains and competition set by Bing, both Yahoo and Bing searches experienced a decline -3% and -5% respectively during the same period.

The study is based on a sample of 10 million US Internet users, also showed that Yahoo Search and Bing fell compared to the same period.

To learn more about the study, go here.

Regards.

This will make it easier for Facebook users to bookmark their profiles. You can also find your friends easier.

Instead of having accessing someone this way:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=123456

Your profile address can look like this:

http://www.facebook.com/yourname

If you are a Facebook user, like many that I personally know, then grab your favorite name before it is gone.

Facebook will suggest some names based on your first name and last name. You can also pick something that is similar to your email, nickname, or other usernames you have used in the past.

Regards.

The popular antivirus software is celebrating this week it’s 75 million user. This software helped me on a couple of occasions identify potential danger.

I recommend it for you!

Most of the 75 million registered users are using their free version. This week they are offering a 25% for their professional edition.
Interestingly they started 2002 and grew to 50 million in six years. Only last year they grew to 75 million.

Check out their press release, click here.

To Download the free non commercial version, click here.

Regards.

A recent study by Pew shows that more than one in ten ( 11% ) of online users in the US say that they used Twitter.

Key findings about the twitter study reveal:

- Twitter users are young, their median age is 31.
- Twitter users are slightly more racially and ethnically diverse than is the full US population.
- Twitter users and status updaters are much more likely to be using wireless and mobile technologies
- Twitter users are more likely to use their cell phones to connect to the internet.

To read more about the study, click here.

Of those who blog occasionally or regularly (26% of the [online] population):

• 53.7% are male.
• Nearly half (44.7%) are married.
• One in 10 (10.4%) are students.
• 28.4% hold a professional or managerial position.

Well, I am not single, but started enjoying blogging here, supporting blog installations and sites for multiple of clients from different parts of the world. Sometimes I even think that my hosting business can turn into a blogging one.

Study also shows that Bloggers have a lower average income than most adults in the US. That explains why you can get a lot of info about free stuff from blog sites.

To read more detail about the study, click here.

Top-ranked video property Google Sites (including YouTube) extended video market share gains and now account for nearly one out of three videos viewed online, comScore said.

Click here to check out the entire press release.