Facebook has been frought by privacy concerns within the past month.  Some people have deactivated their accounts, or tuned up their skills to keep their profiles more private and restricted.   However this post isn’t about privacy, or how to delete your account.

Personally i feel that you should use the platform (or any platform for that matter) and tools to your advantage instead of worrying about issues that you can’t really control.  What you CAN control is:

• Your privacy settigs. (once you’ve developed those skills)
• You have complete control over what you share or post.  Just make sure you don’t  make anything public that you’ll regret.
• Most importantly you have control over what you’d like to see in your stream.  (Facebook doesn’t offer too many filters, but enough to morph your News Feed into a news aggegator)

Note:  I’m NOT deactivating my Facebook account as the people and content there provide more than enough value for me to stay.  Rather i’ve set up my account to receive news and updates from friends and news sites across the Facebook Platform.

I think you might benefit from this as well, and make Facebook a one stop shop for all your requirements.   This is great for busy people on the go as well.

Step 1:  Setting Your Signal Up For A Funnel Of News

Your first step is to add or as Facebook call’s it “Like” some of the pages you are interested in receiving news from.  For example if i type in “The New York Times” into the search bar i get a return query of just that exact page.  Now all i need to do is “Like” that page after clicking through.  Note that by liking you are becoming a fan of that page.    Similarly you need to repeat those steps until you add about 15-20 pages that are relevant for your news feed.  Here are some pages that i’ve added that might help you get started with your feed.

• CNN International
• BBC News
• Faster Times
• The Guardian News
• Telepgraph News
• Harvard Business Review
• Business Insider
• The Economist

Again go ahead and add what’s relevant for you.  This could be a group of friends / early adopters / musicians et cetera that you’d like to watch closely.

Step 2:  Editing Your Home NewsFeed Options

If you’re reading you should know there is a difference between your Profile and Home feed.  We will concentrate on the Home feed for now.  Navigate over your home feed and on the bottom look for “Edit Options”.  Why you need to do this? Simply because the  Live Feed automatically determines which friends to include based on who Facebook thinks you want to hear from most.

Refer to the above screen -shot for help.  In the “Show More” field start typing in the names of the companies / feeds that you’d like to show and then add them into the list.  I’d recommend adding at least 15-20 for a firehose of content.  Remember: Adding the pages to your profile by liking them in step one is crucial here or Facebook won’t pick them up in the “Show More” field.

Lastly adjust the the maximum number of friends to the positive integer 1.  This will ensure a clean signal of news feeds without the clutter of your friends updates.  Don’t worry you’ll be able to see all your friends updates in the “Top News” section of your Home News Feed.

All you have to do now is save your options and navigate to the “Most Recent items” (there is a difference between most recent items, and top news) in your NewsFeed.  You’ve now  managed to setup a news aggregator successfully on Facebook to track all the relevant news and views that interest you.

Most importantly you now have a clean signal of friends, family and NEWS to start discussing and liking.  Why deactivate your account when @Facebook provides a plethora of content for your benefit?

It’s all upto you to use the tools correctly and benefit from them..

@Facebook and the F8 Conference is causing a stir on the internet the past few days since opening it’s developers and users up to new tools and the open social graph.  These are tools by which Facebook can keep a track on it’s users; ever more so than before.  The clash of the titans is just beginning and it’s very exciting to keep abreast of what’s happening.

While i admire Facebook, especially Mark  Zuckerberg and his company’s insightful strategy to socialize the web outside of facebook there is more that’s at stake to the upper echolon of these companies.  That’s control and dominance over the world wide web.  It’s data that everyone is after, data, data, DATA.  Data in it’s raw form means nothing, it’s what the engineers do with that data is imporant.   The Rumpus has a great interview with a former employee at Facebook; and these aren’t just your average folks, they are total geniuses.

While I remain speculative about the future of Facebook two things are clear to me:   (a) most people think of companies like Facebook and Twitter as benevolent. Users tend to trust these companies to a high degree, like the blind leading the blind.  (b) Developers are going to have alot of cool new stuff to work with, they’re going to have the most fun not us.  The release of new APIs allows these developers to build innovative products and services for cosumers.

However, it’s important for us (as end users) to have both views on the two faces of facebook and judge for ourselves, and that’s essentially what this post is about.  After all without people there would be no social networks.

Aza Raskin points out that our identity is too important for just one company to own, and that’s precisely the point.   Our social graph in it’s entirety perpetuated with the new social plugins (likes, etc) all point back to Facebook database.  With data centers across the US and the world it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s happening.

Referring to a piece by the @thefastertimes it makes you wonder about the real value that Facebook appears to be adding.

But in the process (of adding value to social), Facebook controls our identities with no relationship to our true identities online – that list above from email addresses to blogs to photos. Indeed, I’d argue that Facebook separates us from our trueidentities, for that is in Facebook’s favor; it gives Facebook control.

The obvious privacy issues as well have been a main concern revolving around this titan for many years, remember the Beacon Project which got discontinued?  @MattCutts A Google employee tweets:

I just deactivated my Facebook account using the guide at http://goo.gl/rhpE Not hard to do & you can still revive it later.

Which brings us to another relevant point.  How Open is really Open?  Perhaps not as open as you think as @rizzn reports:

3) Facebook, with the Open Graph API, will force every private silo of data to do what Facebook itself refuses to do: Open up. This is probably the most key takeaway anyone who’s a fan of Open can come away with from this keynote, and probably something that was the most glossed over by everyone I talked to today. In case you missed it, it’s a move by Facebook, using their market-dominant position in terms of the social web and attention, to force content sites like Pandora, IMDB, Last.FM and even basic content developers, to use principles of the Semantic web to expose the data in their silos (i.e., on the profile page for Green Day, tagging and category data is exposed in the HTML on Pandora’s website). By contrast, Facebook exposes some data via their API, but not in a truly Open sense in the way that Google or even Twitter do.

If you dig a little more there’s more to the story.  In reference to Dr. Arnab post @SarahinTampa gives us more insight on the like button and how you can trick people into liking a story, even pages they haven’t visitied.  This could perpetuate a fear users not to use the like button as well as give spammers and content farmers new methods to fuel their deceptive crafts.  @marshallk briefly posts that other companies are onto this, thus giving rise to OpenLike: All-Star Team to Challenge Facebook’s Expansion.

Keeping an open mind and looking at the facts is the best way to understand what’s really going on, and that’s exactly what i’m trying to do here; in spite of all my recent activity on the world’s largest and most dominant social network.

While i’ve cited my own thoughts and perspectives from people whom i admire I ran across this comment just now which gives us a different perspective all together:

Are you saying that Facebook chose new meta tags to make people edit their web pages so they find it convenient to add a Like button in the process ?

I actually think the reverse is going to happen. People will want to add Like buttons and in the process of doing so they will enrich the web with semantics. Publishing compelling information about your site to a large audience is really good motivation.

Any site can read the meta tags. I am sure Google will and MySpace and anyone else wanting to present a richer experience for end users in an ocean of links.

I don’t think Facebook is opposed to using microformats either. There are many microformat lovers inside FB who will be championing this – so far adoption is not too widespread

Also I definitely think its important for people to NOT present this as a standard. Its a just a proposed protocol and we are encouraging a transparent process now that our contribution is announced.. this is the opportunity to work together and enrich the web.

If you look closely enough you’ll see that in many cases what appears to be isn’t what it really is.  Or is it?

It’s been about a year that i’ve been using social media on a consistent basis, and i’ve certainly had my moments – That said my interactions have been overall positive.  However today I briefly wanted to jot down down some of my thoughts that most people don’t like talking about.  If you’re new or “one dimensional” please keep an open mind…

• Connecting: Social media isn’t the connector we think it is.  Meaningless relationships on many social networking sites hold no value when translated into the real world.  Look for people who you’d like to meet in person, and who are genuinely interested in your stuff.
• Volumes: Just like most business is about reaching the masses so is social media.  If you want to make it, target the masses.
• Value: Twitter (in particular) fries your brain, I feel the more you tweet the more you lose your concentration.  Stick to about 5-10 value tweets a day, blog more if you want to participate positively and contribute value to the overall eco-sytsem.
• User Base: If you’re looking to build your brand / name using social media attract the normals, as opposed to the digital early adopters (or) influentials.
• Men Behind The Curtain: Lot of social media is rigged by the men behind the curtain.  Just today i logged into an old Twitter account of mine and i was following people i had never seen before.  Guess what, they were all verified Twitter accounts…
• Noise: Who needs more than 10,000 followers?  I’d say who needs more than 1,000.
• Information: Interesting information is the key to success.  Draw your fans in by posting informative content.  Not regurgitating other peoples stuff.
• Sharing vs Over-Sharing: Don’t over-share, strike a healthy balance between your friends and your stuff.
• Numbers / Metrics: It’s not about the numbers, you’re setting yourself up for the trap if you think that’s what social media is all about.
• Monetization: I’ve thought alot about this. We all like to share, but there comes a point when you think to yourself  ”Am i making any money spending so much time here?”  If you are, great!  If you aren’t try learning a new skill or building something awesome instead.
• Ego: How much butt do i have to kiss to get noticed?  Alot, and what you have to ask yourself is “Is it worth it?”  If it is great!
• How to get noticed quickly: Try getting to content before others (or) share strong opinions on your blog (and) bash news content for more visibility (also known as negative publicity).

Sometimes taking a different perspective can add a new dimension to you as an individual.   That’s what social media should be about, new dimensions, different perspectives and the willingness to embrace multiple strategies.

This post was a simple experiment – every feed here is *categorized* making it easy to just plug and play. The feeds you’ll find below are 85% hand picked while each and every one provides a good amount of value. For newbies this is a great list whilst seasoned veterans are sure to find some real gems.

If you’re into RSS then you know how easy it is to find and curate content to share with your friends using popular feed readers like Google, Feedly and LazyFeed.

Today on a lazyish Friday i decided to share 25% of my feeds here on my blog for you to import into your own reader (I suggest Google Reader, but it’s up to you which reader you choose to import them into).  Note:  The file is exported in the OPML format.  You may import this bundle into any reader that supports the OPML standard.

Right Click and “Save Link As”:  Download the OPML

I’ve hand-picked most of the feeds, but have also subscribed to some of the bundles Google Reader offers, and if you’re curious how that works (in Google Reader) just click on “Browse for stuff.”

Quick Fun Tip for Google Reader Users: Once you’ve imported the feeds (this will also work with your existing feeds) focus on your sidebar.  Locate any category and click on it, you’ll see a list of feeds in the feed/content pane.

From the content pane navigate to Folder Settings and click on View in Reader Play.

This small little tip will take you into a visual playground for the category of feeds you specified.

After all who doesn’t like to be spoonfed?  :-)   I’ll be updating these feeds from time to time so you can always check back.  In the meantime you can always subscribe to my Shared Items for daily links to the best articles on the web (mainly technology)

If you’ve downloaded and imported the OPML file, feel free to add to the list here.  We’re always looking for fresh and engaging new content.  Enjoy.

I’ve been using favorites in the Twitter web app for a while now.   They act as an easy way to bookmark / save tweets for later reference and come in extremely handy.  How many times have you been searching for a tweet that you wanted to reference a couple of days / weeks ago?  :-)

You get my point though.  Here’s some tweets i value and enjoyed:

• Real influence is not in RTs or followers, but in people remembering you if you’ve not tweeted for a while. @ScepticGeek
  (Everyone likes to get Retweeted but seriously it’s not the end of the world if you don’t + 1)
• “The Followers Game Is So 2008. Time for New Metrics.” – http://j.mp/c9rPSV @Jesse @LouisGray
  (Indeed, lists have been helpful – what else ohh Tweetrank!?!)
• TweetRank – Does Twitter Need To Start Penalising Users Who Consistently Break The Rules? http://goo.gl/QYc3
  (Pumpers and dumpers?)
• Ads Drop Dot-Com URLs in Favor of “Facebook Us” http://goo.gl/uHW7 - @SteveRubel
  (Insightful, still corporate urls are here for now)
• “Please Retweet”, “Please RT” & “PLZ RT” please STOP!  http://goo.gl/scpB @webaddict
  (I can’t get enough of this one, old time favorite)
• Cassandra @ Twitter: An Interview with Ryan King http://goo.gl/AoEI
  (Love anything to do with Scaling Twitter)
• Why Everyone Needs a Twitter Follow Policy http://goo.gl/ktiw - @sheamus
  (Ever thought about this, how about being your own filter?)
• Jesse Schell’s mindblowing talk on the future of games (DICE 2010) http://goo.gl/Ayz2
  (One of the most insightful videos i’ve watched in a while, give it a whirl)
• Less Networks.  More Meaning.  http://goo.gl/cYgE @armano
  (Darn cool post, so true – someone i followed after seeing that tweet)
• How Google’s Algorithm Rules Everything http://goo.gl/g4tV @r
  (Who’s that.. hehe)
• Action Streams: A New Idea for Social Networks http://bit.ly/dde9dR @marshallk
  (Interesting idea, remind myself to thoroughly read this post again)
• Rejoice in the prosperity of others. ~Dr. Joseph Murphy @billzl_one @Flipbooks @jeffrago @pramitjnathan
  (+1, no need to hate, just appreciate)
• Enabling A Rush of Innovation — @twitterapi http://goo.gl/OOBh
  (New companies joining twitter.)
• Coming soon: the disruptive molecular age of information http://goo.gl/kL7f @scobleizer
  (Split up two tweets perhaps from different networks into one, very insightful)
• Small Biz Doubles Social Media Adoption http://goo.gl/Ndh1
  (I’m a small business owner, makes sense)
• Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login http://goo.gl/YZ6X
  (FB the beast, AOL playing the right cards)
• Why You Can’t Work at Work http://goo.gl/HAYN
• What Sort of Checklist Should You Be Using? http://j.mp/ascuww
  (Checklist Manifesto on my todo reading list, so is what they don’t teach you at Harvard Business School)
• Why So Many Are Drawn To Social Media http://goo.gl/OrAs
• 10 Types Of People Who Try To Quit Facebook…And Fail — http://bit.ly/bUFHp3
  (At this stage i’m the explorer, probably move into the entrepreneur after i get my content strategy right)
• Here’s what I hate about the iPad http://goo.gl/xAT2
  (Would love to own one first…)
• Interesting piece / *superb doc. by @karaswisher & @Oneupweb on “Gorillas and Their Search for Real-Time Nectar” http://goo.gl/AzyS

As I continue curating and sharing fine content you can bet that i’ll be using my favorites more often.   For now enjoy some of these & feel free to add anything that caught your eye..

ChatRoullette, an addictive new website that links strangers’ webcams is gaining popularity amongst the younger crowd on the web as well as curious individuals from over the web.  Bookmark this site for a later visit when you’re bored or have nothing to do at work as the site is down right now. My bet is that they are trying to scale the web application already, having tons of users getting on and giving it a whirl.

Image Courtesy of BuzzFeed.com

The site is developed by a 17 year old Andrey Ternovskiy from Moscow who created the site for fun and has no preconceived business goals for the future of his product (except that he would like it to be a U.S. based company) At this stage ChatRoulette runs on 7 servers in Frankfurt Germany which hosts about 20,000 hits per day.

For more information and screenshots of Chatroulette.com check below:

The 24 Best Chat Roulette Screenshots [NSFW]
Online voyeurs flock to the random thrills of Chatroulette
Some Interesting Facts About Chatroulette

We’ve all heard about Google Buzz, the new Twitter killer right;  like its supposed to roll out and take control over the social media world.   Personally i think Google has got it right this time around, empowering email  as a “social media” tool.   Google Buzz is more of dig at Facebook and other companies that have a huge user base on their network, especially email users.

Image Courtesy of Campaign Monitor

Like Microsoft and Yahoo aren’t watching, they’ll be soon to follow.  You also wouldn’t want to forget all the mobile devices accessing webmail these days, there’s a goldmine of information and people.

Twitter will always be at the heart of micro-blogging and social media to me and many other folks out there.  That said Twitter still isn’t the end all and b all, its’ the beginning of other social media eco-sytem’s taking inspiration. This time one that has been around a long while – Email.

In terms of privacy Google’s track record is far cleaner than Facebook, they’re a more transparent company providing a very stable platform.  With all the fuss out there about generating followers and privacy issues, I still like the fact that Buzz automatically generates my followers, people whom i email and chat to and most importantly people whose thoughts and insights are an inspiration to me as well.

I’ll be glad to add more than 140 characters to a comment or thread and engage in insightful conversations…

Would love to connect with you on Buzz sometime http://www.google.com/profiles/ahadbokhari.  Do you have a Google Profile yet?  :-)

We are going through some seriously exciting times with everything happening in the Search World. Just today Google Social Search has been born into its experimental phases. What Google Social Search does is help you find publicly available web content from your social circle quickly so you can see what your friends are upto. Take a couple of minutes and watch what Matt Cutts has to say about this exciting new age of Search in the Social World.

If you don’t have the time i’ve briefly outlined the key benefits of using Google Social Search Below, scan through them and start today.

What is Public Web Content?

What Google means by Public Content is simply content that you have published on Twitter, FriendFeed and other various online social services.  The most important item to understand here is that you have control over what you make publicly available to Google Social Search.

What Do I Need To Do For Google To Start Indexing Me In Social Search?

Google Social surfaces social content from 3 different places (Google Profile, Google Contacts and Google Reader) but as Matt Cutts says he believes that Google Profile will hold the most weight -he’s probably right too.

1. Google Profile: Go ahead and create a profile if you haven’t done so yet.  The important part to remember here is that you should add your Social Links (blogs, twitter, friendfeed etc).  By doing this you give Google the signal that you’ve opted in to make your stuff visible to the public, and once Google understands that it fetch your results from the different links you’ve added to your social search results.
2. Google Chat Connections: Another way for Google to add to your social graph is your chat buddies.  Whats important to know that Google doesn’t publish your list of chat buddies, instead it just adds to your Social Circle so you can see their public information.
3. Google Reader: Everyone has a blog these days, and if you subscribe to a particular blog in Google Reader then Google can surface a post from that blog in your social search results.

Remember that the most weight here is on your Google Profile and the social services you have added there.  For example on your twitter account you might be following 1,000 people;  well once you added those various online social services to your Google Profile  Google will now start adding those people within your social circle!!

Bear in mind for the Google Social Search to work for you, you must be logged into Google.  What are you waiting for, head over to Google Labs and start checking out your social search results!

What i love about Gary Vaynerchuk is his ability to paint a picture for “Non Techie” people and clearly explain how they can leverage Social Media today for their benefit. In this short interview with Abc News he briefly explains how he started using the web to his advantage and how the platforms today can help us brand ourselves into the future.

An interesting phrase Gary uses in many of his speeches that caught my attention was a term called “Sweat Equity” which describes the contribution made to a project by people who contribute their time and effort. Though the term “Sweat Equity” is Entrepreneurial in nature Gary strongly believes that the Social Web these days can be used by average individuals to help build and brand their products and services.

If you are looking to get inspired and learn along the way, Gary V. has the ability to put things in perspective for you – he did just that for me!

NOTE: If you want to cash into your passion now, be sure to check out Gary’s new book entitled “Crush It”. You can find it here.

Over the past couple of months I’ve enjoyed reading powerful content from a feed of 100 niche bloggers around the web. What I really like about this particular group below is that the way they attract and align their internet users’ behavior with the content they present.

Whether these great content creators are helping people get something done or reflecting on past and personal experiences, there’s certainly something for everyone in the following excerpts. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Get to know these Content Masters:  Posts included.

Henrik Edberg author of The Positivity Blog writes about improving your social life, health, happiness and general awesomeness a few times a week. He writes a great deal about positivity and wisdom, and his posts are inspirational to say the least. One of my personal favorites from Sweden, Henrik will grab your attention in seconds.

• Stephen King´s Top 7 Tips for Becoming a Better Writer
• Audrey Hepburn’s Top 3 Words of Wisdom
• Mark Twain’s Top 9 Tips for Living a Kick-Ass Life
• Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World

• Google Wave crashes on beach of overhype
• You’re not on Twitter’s suggested user list but you are in good company
• I don’t feel safe with Wordpress, hackers broke in and took things
• RSS: interesting or boring? (Hint @marshallk and @louisgray, we’re not normal)

• 37 Easy Ways to Say “I Love You”
• Six Conversational Habits to Ditch Today
• I’m Sorry, But You’ve Got to Stop Apologizing
• 8 Things to Cut out of Your Life Immediately

• 30 Sentences For A Millionaire Mindset
• How To Create A Habit In 15 Days
• Average Versus Exceptional
• Make Your Blog Sail Like Santa Maria

• Social Service for Success – Simple
• Google Wave 1.0 = RSS, the Sequel. In Other Words, DoA… for Now
• The Next Great Media Company Won’t Have a Web Site
• How To: Backup Your Tweets and Make Them Searchable with Google Calendar

• Could your employees sabotage your social media campaigns?
• Choosing a Killer Avatar for Your Online Profiles
• Creating new hot content for trending topics
• Why Twitter should monetize with advanced features for users

• 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job
• How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes
• How to Make Lots of Money During a Recession
• A Fixed Income Is a Sucker Bet

• Does your company really want to hang out with me?
• And if only 1% of those people…
• How to get on a magazine cover
• Not happy with existing venues? Make a new one.

• How to Get More Twitter Followers: Some Methods That Work
• 20 Quick Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rank
• Twitter Marketing: Why You Don’t Need to Mass Follow Users
• Building Complementary Services: A Powerful Long-Term Social Media Marketing Strategy

• Why We do Dumb or Irrational Things: 10 Brilliant Social Psychology Studies
• Why You Can’t Help Believing Everything You Read
• The Acceptance Prophecy: How You Control Who Likes You
• Why Left to Right Punches Are More Aggressive, Powerful and Shocking

• Balancing Work & Motherhood: the Journey Begins
• How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Twitter
• The Slow Growth is Smart Growth Manifesto
• Women entrepreneurs over 55 are holding strong

Guy Kawasaki is a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. He is a power-tweeter and co founder of AllTop and has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA.

• How to Nurture Your Kids and Employees
• How to Use Facebook as a Weapon
• How to Design for Social Traction
• You’re Not Crazy–You’re an Entrepreneur

• 21 Keys to Magnetic Likeability
• 70 Things To Do Before Having Children
• The 30 Most Satisfying Simple Pleasures Life Has to Offer
• 7 Clever Google Tricks Worth Knowing

• The Three Ds That Will Make or Break Your Blogging Career – Desire
• 30 Days to Become a Freelancer
• Find Your ‘Flow’ and the Money Will Follow
• 5 Content Strategies That Top Bloggers Use + 3 Things That Set Them Apart

• The 17 Conditions Of Lasting Love
• There’re Only 5 Ways To Get What You Want From Others And Most Have Forgotten The First
• 44 Sure Fire Techniques To Overcome Proscrastination
• The 22 Mistakes You Should Avoid Making With Your Goals