Okay before I even go on here, I have to say … NO! I do not need another social network! I especially don’t need another social network that seriously resembles Twitter.

Here’s the deal for me. At times social networking can so get in the way of my biz work. Sometimes I have to force myself to turn off Twitter and force myself to KEEP it off.

I love all my friends and business collegues to death – love ya all! (I also LOVE Twitter!)

But I remember a while back …

You HAVE to get a MySpace account! You just have to! I want to friend request you!

… so, I got a MySpace account …
Luckily with the MySpace account I did not waste too much time. I did waste some but not too much.

It also needs to be made special note here that in between MySpace & Twitter, there were a TON of requests that I had gotten every single day for every new social network on the face of the Earth. And if you remember correctly, there were new ones popping up literally every single day. I got extremely tired of them to be quite blunt here.

Twitter! You must Tweet! You have to Twitter so I can follow you!

… so, I sign up to Twitter …
And again, I *love* my Twitter! And I love how I’ve finally taught myself that I can leave Twitter and still keep up with the important things I want to.

Facebook! Facebook! I love Facebook! This from the people who were begging me to get on MySpace!

I will more than likely get on Facebook but right now I have a site I have to launch and then I’ll be there if I want to.

Am I going to be bombarded soon with Buzz requests? Or whatever they’re called? I have a sneaking feeling I am.

Listen, I’m all about social networking. I think done properly it definitely has it’s pluses on a business-side. Done properly and used within reason. If you’re focusing all your business efforts on social networking only. Buck up cause you’re gonna wish you hadn’t put all your eggs in one basket some day. Don’t believe me now? That’s fine cause if you don’t … that simply means I’m not going to change your mind and I personally don’t have the time to try.

But … that’s a WHOLE other ballpark all together.

Back to Google Buzz …

Now wait, just a second … BUZZ?
Looks like Twitter, Sounds like Yahoo! … Smells like Google??
(Yahoo! Buzz that is.)

Things that make ya go hmm …

Okay, now we’re really back to Google Buzz Are they murdering Twitter? That’s certainly more than I can ever predict. But some of my (own personal) thoughts are …

- Twitter is just fine as is and I’m happy with it.

- Hmmm … nice updgrades from Twitter. But that comes with a but … one of the the main things I like most about Twitter is that it is so quick and easy. Sure, more functions might be nice for some but for me, that’s just more time.

- I do NOT want to start all over in another “Twitter-like” platform or any new social network for that matter.

- And I’m sorry but … Google, get your own idea! Did you really feel that threatened by Twitter? Were they in that much direct competition that you needed to create something just like it but “so-called better”?

And did you really feel the need to rub it in Twitter’s face by saying: “Go Beyond Status Messages”? Sorry but yeah, me personally, I took offense to that.

I could go on and on and on here … but I won’t. I’m sure the big plus many are going to like is the fact that it’s so compatible with Gmail. Works right with your Gmail account. Guess what? I don’t HAVE a Gmail account. wait – back up – that’s wrong. I do have a Gmail account but I don’t use it.

So, am I going to have my Yahoo email account open and my Gmail account open all the time so I can keep up with Buzz. Uh, probably not.

Researching a bit, I also found out about a big boo boo Google did …

According to BusinessInsider.com:
“In other words, before you change any settings in Google Buzz, someone could go into your profile and see the people you email and chat with most.”

Oops! I’m sorry, a Google spokesperson asked them to rephrase their complaint … er, I mean their claim differently. In response, BusinessInsider.com chose this wording instead:
“In other words, after you create your profile in Buzz, if you don’t edit any of the default settings, someone could visit your profile and see the people you email and chat with most (provided you didn’t edit this list during profile creation).”

Don’t panic too badly just yet though, BusinessInsider.com also provides you with instructions on how to immediately make these lists private and then edit them.

I, like Nicolas Carlson of BusinessInsider.com am shocked that Google sees nothing wrong with this. Simply put, Google wanted to make things easier on us so we can “immediately see content from the people they {we} chat with most”.

Thanks but no thanks Google, when it comes to my privacy, I’m fine with clicking a couple more checkboxes.

The fact that I have to sign a Privacy Act everywhere I go – well, almost everywhere. I’m sure the day will come when I have to sign a Privacy Act at my favorite local drive-thru promising me none of their employees will ever share my favorite drive-thru goody. Exaggerating? Maybe, but what do you think? And Google seems to think this is okay?

Click here to have a looksee at their full response …
(Bottom of post)

And FYI – Twitter offers basically the same thing w/ my Yahoo account but guess what? I get to pick and choose who I want!

It’s following the simple steps of:
1. Click Find People
2. Click Find Friends
3. Entering my email and password (over a secure server) and tada!
There’s my email contacts that may or may not be on Twitter that I may or MAY NOT want to connect with and again … I get to pick and choose who I want.

I don’t want everyone knowing everyone I deal with on a regular basis – especially in a business sense.

Do you want everyone to know where you buy all those super-hard-to-find purple polka-dotted widgets – the ones that took you months of research to find at a deeply discounted wholesale price?

Do you want everyone to know you outsource some of your client work? (You know, the work you pay $5 to have done but your client pays you $20.)

Do you want everyone to know you found this great new PLR website that has extremely well-written content about that super hot new niche?

I could go on and on again and of course some of these things in particular don’t apply to me personally but I know a ton of people who these do apply to and in a very big way.

How about the fact that you and your husband are having … uh, shall I say intimacy problems? You ordered a great new “item” online to “spice up your marriage” and you also decided to subscribe to their “52 Weeks of Spectacular Tricks Sure to Make You Feel Like Newlyweds Again” ecourse. Or maybe this ecourse came “free” with your purchase. Not that any company would do something like this to get you on a list – we’d never do this, right? Hello!?!?

What does almost every online newsletter subscription, ezine or ecourse confirmation email request you do? How about something along the lines of …

“To be sure you get your tips every week, please add: business@businessname.com to your contacts list.”

Look familiar? And just what happens when that particular company decides to add social networking to their marketing plans (that is if they don’t already do so – and who doesn’t?)

Maybe your spouse has … uh, shall I say a problem raising the flag to full mast (to be as polite as possible here) …
Maybe you’re losing your hair …

… Or it could go beyond simple embarrassment …

Maybe you suspect your child is abusing drugs …
Maybe you need help with an alcoholic family member, or you’re a victim of domestic violence or abuse??

And with each of these topics, you’re subscribed to online newsletters.

So maybe I’m exaggerating a bit … but really … am I? These are real life scenerios that could easily happen! I’m not completely making things up here!

And what about children? It’s only a matter of time before this COULD BE the next Twitter. How many teen children are using Twitter? MySpace? Facebook?

Remember my complaint above about “You have to join this new social network!” above? Same thing is happening with our children. Do you want your child’s contact list out public like this? Do you want YOUR child listed on someone else’s contact list?

What happens if a child misses the whole “opt-out” process? Most adults will miss it, gosh knows our kids are probably going to miss it more quickly.

I’m no lawyer here but when you’re involving children here, I do believe this goes way above embarrassment, way above public huimiliation … yeah, above and BEYOND …

Here’s a little tip Google … let me OPT-IN … not OPT-OUT

Of course, this is just my two cents. I’ll step off my soapbox now.

It’s been awhile, I know. After some family issues over the summer I went into shut-down mode, and it’s taken me this long just to get back into somewhat of a regular routine. Not that I ever really turned my back on all things business, it was just that I was only taking care of the bare minimum. Well, I’m back in full swing. At least I hope.

What really brought me back was a new business idea (courtesy of a new advertiser on Idea Queen – see her advertisement on the left hand side at the top). This is idea was not really something new for ME as much as it was something for my 7yr old daughter to do. Jillian, my little entrepreneur, is now making her own soaps. She’s even got her own website – Soap by Jillian – which she helped design.

Now somewhere in between making soaps and posting, I got in the mood to blog again. FINALLY. Somehow I found myself on Twitter, and I have no idea why it took me so long. The more time I spend there, the more ideas that come to me, and the more I want to do stuff.

Just today I realized that Valentine’s Day is approaching, and thus creating a lot of twitters on the subject. Jillian has a heart soap mold she’s been favoring, which I thought “hey that makes a good Valentine’s day gift for kids”. Not only did I twitter that, but I did a post over on Idea Queen for others to post their V-Day gift ideas for kids. Which in turn made me think I needed to come over here and post too, since it falls in the category of “business idea”.

So if you haven’t already, go sign yourself up to Twitter even if it’s just to post some random stuff. You never know what you’ll find or who will find you. Oh, and feel free to add me too on Twitter!

Yes, yes, yes – I finally took the time to check it out and join.  Are you twittering?  If so, stop by and say hi!
http://twitter.com/anitadefrank

So sorry I haven’t been around much but wow – I’ve been busy!  But busy is good, right?  Of course it is!  If you’re too busy to blog and you’re making money then busy is GOOD!

I promise to post a little more often!  Have ya missed me?