Thoughtpick: A unique perspective of the Web and social media...
A unique perspective of the Web and social media...

January 9, 2010

Nick Shantazio Using Facebook to Locate His Brutal Attackers! [video]

Mr. Nick Shantazio was attacked by TWO men as he was peacefully hanging posters at the local movie theater! His violent attackers, who managed to bruise him badly, are no where to be found!

In order to locate the attackers, Nick chose the police PLUS Facebook! He posted his story, in details, on Facebook and people started responding and circulating the story as well!

Though the police have no possible suspects, Nick seems to have faith that Facebook will do him right!

I wonder now: Is this what social media is going to be in 2o1o: The police helper? Helping the police in catching criminals and attackers just as CSI and NCIS do? I also wonder: If the same thing was to happen with you, would you do the same, especially if the police fail?

December 8, 2009

10 Content Crimes You Should Avoid Committing!

“What is written without effort is, in general, read without pleasure.” Samuel Johnson

First and foremost, allow me to thank Chris Spooner, designer and writer, for motivating me to write this post as, what I would like to call it, a follow up to his recent post: 10 Usability Crimes You Shouldn’t Commit. I highly appreciate the unintentional inspiration!

Content is the Key by www.all-sorts.biz

Content is the Key by www.all-sorts.biz

There are millions of posts out there that provide you with tips and know-how’s for appealing content; stressing how the post should be long sometimes while, at other times, advising you to keep it short. Telling you that you need to have clear headings yet highlighting that they should not be different.

For this post, we will spice it up a bit for you! We will address the 10 content crimes you should avoid committing in efforts to answer the following questions: What kind of content has the power to drive people away from your site? What content related flaws might cause visitors to disregard the mere thought of reading your posts? What are the most annoying mistakes you can do in content writing?

10 Content Crimes You Should Avoid Committing:

1. Avoid Cluttering!

Although you might feel the need to write long posts to convey and explain a certain idea or concept, and despite having to write pages of factual content as times, make sure that your page has a clean clutter-free look!

Cluttered Text!

Cluttered Text!

[read full article >>]

November 25, 2009

NYPD Teaches Criminals a New Way to Fool the Legal System: Facebook Updates!

“The toilets at a local police station have been stolen. Police say they have nothing to go on.” Ronnie Baker

Wild goose chases are constantly going on all over the place: criminals running away from justice and never being caught, criminals playing the law and pinning their crimes on someone else or even more so, criminals being offered the proper tools to commit “perfect” crimes! And here’s where Facebook status updates come in!

A recent article entitled: “His Facebook Status Now? Charges Dropped” describes how the charges on Mr. Bradford were dropped just because his lawyer used Mr. Bradford’s status update as part of the evidence that the defendant was at home the time the crime was committed!

The way I see it, this is ridiculous!

Criminals & Theft

Criminals & Theft

If you really take a moment to contemplate the elements of any crime, you are sure to find that any criminal, despite his/her “experience in the field” would be smart enough to have someone else change the status update in order to establish an alibi! It is as easy as going for a walk through the park for anyone to enter: “Where’s my pancakes” instead of Mr. Bradford!

What I wonder now is how could the judge, and the police, miss that point? Especially that “another robbery charge was already pending against Mr. Bradford”.

John Browning says, “We are going to see more of that because of how prevalent social networking has become.”

Therefore, what is even more intriguing to me at now is the following: Through the way this particular case has come to an end, would criminals have more ideas about how to manipulate the legal system through social media? Will the NY Times, the source of this piece of news, become more of a criminal reference for the tips and how to’s of committing crime rather than being your local newspaper?

Looking forward to hear your arguments about this serious issue.

October 26, 2009

User Manual: What to Expect When Using Social Media?

“Anger always comes from frustrated expectations”. Elliott Larson

Expectations are – simply put – the building blocks and the breaking points of everything in life.

Expectations Only Lead to Disappointment!

Expectations Only Lead to Disappointment!

Whether in the way we conduct our personal lives or business wise, expectations usually have the power to strengthen or hinder efforts and in turn influence any outcomes either positively or negatively.

Hundreds, no, thousands of books and articles were published about various subjects pertaining to expectations all around us. The main reason for these publications is to prepare individuals for what they might face in certain situations or during specific events or cases and how to deal with them accordingly.


Social Media Expectations: The good, the bad & the ugly!

Preconceptions about a certain concept, person, place and so on have the ability to cause confusion. This is because the human mind conditions itself to a certain way of dealing with things based on prior expectations. Thus, if the expectations are not met, the mind usually refuses to change its perceptions and whatever is at play might lose its credibility and attractiveness element.

Therefore, I thought I would prepare a list, divided into 3 categories: the good, the bad and the ugly. The main purpose of this list is pointing out everything one must expect to encounter through his/her use of social media channels, tools and platforms.

[read full article >>]

April 26, 2009

“Social Media Forces” Helping the Police Clean Up Psychos!

Is there a definite end to the world of crime? Sadly but truly, the answer to this question is an equally definite “No”.

Let me ask you something: How many of you spend numerous hours, daily, watching those crime-related series such as NCIS, CSI, Cold Case, NYPD and many others? I for one, used to spend around 2-3 hours on average watching a bunch of these series for the thrill of the chase and hoping that maybe, one day, the psychos they catch on TV will get their share in real life as well!

However, things in real life are not always that simple and criminals are not always caught, except – as social media has proven- for maybe the “stupid” or “overconfident” ones who use the Internet such as Twitter to advertise their evil plans in advance!

Join me, if you may, to the latest news of the new SMF (Social Media Forces) dedicated to fighting crimes!

Through monitoring tweets made through Twitter, the FBI recently captured and detained a man threatening to execute an outrageous bloodbath!

Yahoo’s message board was able to help the FBI trace a Southern California man posting racist threats against President Obama and predicting “he will have a 50 cal in the head soon”.

Montreal police was able to capture and stop a teen threatning to attack Montreal College through a reported threat-loaded online chat.

Through following his blog posts, police arrested a Wisconsin high school teacher after monitoring a blog post that included support for student killers like those involved in the 1999 Columbine, Colo., High School massacre.

I should feel much safer with the SMF protecting me now, or should I really? I mean we all agree that we are entitled to freedom of thought and speech. So who decides in the end, if we are really psychos or not? What really defines someone as a real criminal?

Something for you to think about…

Note: Thanks for Matt Hamm for the original bird picture.. I hope you do not mind putting a hat on its head :)