You love Pinterest. It's the latest trend driving traffic to your blog – more than Google, Facebook and other social media sites. You've jumped on the Pinterest band wagon and use it to upload your images and pin other images that you think are funny or brilliant. Well, be careful. You may get into trouble if you didn't read the user agreement, says Boston Business Journal's Galen Moore.

Haven't your parents told you to read the fine print and obscure clauses at the bottom of pages? Of course they have and if you listened and practiced their wisdom, you won't be surprised at what Moore found out after he began implementing Pinterest, setting up an account and establishing some pinboards for visual appeal.

The following day, he took the pinboards down. 

Moore says, "Believe it or not, Pinterest's service agreement gives it the right to sell images that users upload." Now, I hear you saying so what? Well, it's trickier than so what.

Pinterest operator's terms of service, as presented by Cold Brew Labs begin to seem fuzzy when it comes to "Member Content." This is what is written.

By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services.

You're still not concerned. You have pictures that you post and publish on Pinterest. You still own the rights to those pictures. Yes. But you've just gone into a free partnership with Pinterest FOREVER, THAT MEANS into perpetuity! They are able to SELL, transfer, stream, sublicense, use, adapt, modify, LICENSE and otherwise EXPLOIT your member content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services.

OK. I get it. You are thrilled that you are being presented to the world. All that free publicity with your name posted on your stuff (not necessarily). You tell yourself that for their exploitation, you will eventually be able to sell as users become familiar with your art/work, linking back to your own websites (not always). And you'll make a bundle, so they can help themselves. And yes, Pinterest's presentation is awesome, attractive and you're gobsmacked by it as my Aussie cousins would say.

And that's OK if IT IS YOUR OWN STUFF. BUT! In the age of Megaupload, Pinterest has made sure Cold Brew Labs has done due diligence with this clause:

… you represent and warrant that: (i) you either are the sole and exclusive owner of all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services or you have all rights, licenses, consents and releases that are necessary to grant to Cold Brew Labs the rights in such Member Content, as contemplated under these Terms.

When you upload to Pinterest, you publish a medium-sized version of the related image to the service. Publishers of user-generated content protect Pinterest. You are not protected. Moore's point is well taken Just make sure with everything you post, you have a "worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license." And here's the rub. If you publish something, first asking for permission (and are granted it) does the permission grantor understand that if it's on Pinterest, their images have just been made available to be bought by a third party? Better read them the fine print after you've read it over a few times. There may be a few snafus.

If you are a small business owner with much deeper pockets of course, your lawyers will be sure to check this out thoroughly. If you are somewhere in between, then get some appropriate and sound legal advice.

But Pinterest, concerned about hapless, unwitting copyright violators and extremely concerned about copyright holders has made things easier for holders to protect themselves against wayward and greedy pinners. They have released code which will allow websites to prevent material from being plastered on the Pinterest social pinboard without regard.

The code, accessible through the site's help page, works this way. An unauthorized pinner will see a message stating, "This site doesn't allow pinning to Pinterest. Please contact the owner with any questions. Thanks for visiting!"  The violating pinner will see this when the code has been added to the copyright holder's site.

Pinterest obviously acknowledges that its site could be used to violate copyright holders rights and it doesn't want trouble. Can you blame it? It has also received commentary from site owners who didn't want their material to be shared so it had to do something. Though some were not upset to see material shared, they were upset that attribution sometimes was lost in the pinning; it was as if their work was flying into space and no credit would ever be given that it was theirs, threatening by extension to the most absurd conclusion, the ultimate and ridiculous possibility of a courtroom Solomon's decision.(For some having to go to court to prove one's ownership is worse, especially if they have no up front fees to pay lawyers.)

So Pinterest has introduced this code at the right time, because the members (potential violators) seem to be growing exponentially. Daily users increased by 145pc starting January, 2012. According to reports, Pinterest logged 10m US monthly drop, ins the largest number of any independent website in history. And where there are users, the brands pile on, now over 100 of them in the past three months. The site has raised $37.5 million during that time frame.

With those legs, co-founder Ben Silbermann wants to do everything in his power to make things nicey-nice for site users, especially copyright holders. Come on. It's the savvy thing to do in order to ride the tide out into the deep sea of prosperity. His flexibility and readiness to deal with user issues carries with it good signs that the Pinterest ship is going to be cruising with the wind to its back for a very long time.

Socializing on Facebook is a fantastic way to express yourself within your circle of friends while providing the best opportunity to peer into others’ lives. Facebook also reveals your personality tendencies as either braggarts or complainers. These are persons who use the popular “status updates” for unbridled self-indulgence.

Research reveals that Facebook can be tough on mental health particularly when it involves a large group of friends and is strongly associated with the site’s status update feature. The study was presented by the Society of Personality and Social Psychologists (SPSP) in San Diego, last month.

In its analysis, two self-esteem levels emerged, and it works something like this:

You connect on Facebook, suddenly entering a domain of kindred spirit and immediately feeling a sense of belonging. While socializing, you discover other linked groups that ask to friend them, further boosting your feeling of connectedness. As the threads run, your friends are competing, trumpeting their status achievements and comparing their lives to others on the site. What eventually unravels in your thread is reflective of a self-confident individual, bragging along with competitors or a self-loather, complaining to others about your crappy life.

Mudra Mukesh, a doctoral candidate in marketing says “for people with lots of friends…, the Facebook newsfeed turns into a parade of good news about other people’s lives: promotions, engagements, weddings, and new babies. Even if people know intellectually that people use Facebook to show off, all this information can make them feel worse about their own achievements or lack thereof.”

People use Facebook status updates to pump themselves up or complain. In a study published in the Journal of Psychological Science “people with low self-esteem view Facebook as a safe place to express themselves, than in face-to-face- interactions.” Individuals with low self-esteem vent their feelings with negative posts and are more inclined to depression after Facebooking.

The moral of the story is not that Facebook causes depression or encourages self-esteem issues but that it is a model of real life social interactions. The more circle of friends you have the more likely you will be exposed to ostentatious, self- indulgence from people at both ends of the spectrum. Being mindful of this fact will allow you to take it all in, at face-value only, and become comfortable in your own skin.

Traditionally social media has been seen as a hindrance to ones career ambitions.There have been numerous examples of people having been sacked due to their Facebook antics, whilst earlier this year a manager was dismissed for apparent misuse of Linkedin.

Research last year from Australia suggested that most social media profiles do more harm than good when it comes to getting that top job.  According to the findings, some of the biggest Cyber CV faux pas candidates make include posting inappropriate pictures (with 31 per cent of employers saying this counts against applicants) and posting discriminatory comments (37 per cent),

However, research released recently suggests that our social media profiles can actually be the most accurate way of predicting the success (or otherwise) of a job candidate.

They found that a 10 minute review of a persons Facebook page is a better indicator of personality and character than any more traditional application measure.

Participants were given training on how to rate a Facebook profile, answering specific questions relating to personality.  They would then spend 10 minutes evaluating each profile.

The following excerpt from the study gives an insight into how they went about their task.

“Those high in agreeableness are trusting and get along well with others, which may be represented in the extensiveness of personal information posted. Openness to experience is related to intellectual curiosity and creativity, which could be revealed by the variety of books, favorite quotations or other posts showing the user engaged in new activities and creative endeavors. Extroverts more frequently interact with others, which could be represented by the number of SNW (social networking websites) friends a user has.”

When the candidates were placed in a job they followed up on them six months later to see how accurate their predictions were.  Conversations with their supervisors revealed that the quick Facebook analysis was more conclusive than standard tests in nearly ever instance.

The researchers believed this was because the version of yourself painted on your Facebook page is more realistic than the idealistic version of yourself you paint in standard personality tests.

Thus far most recruiters simply scour social media profiles for reasons why they shouldn’t hire you, but if this research catches on it might not be long before your profile is used for much more than that.

Social media is becoming more and more popular as a way for local businesses to market their brand, products, and services. And it makes sense. With a relatively easy-to-use platform and easily accessible user pool (in the millions on many platforms), social media can be a relatively inexpensive way to target leads and the consumer population. Not to mention, social media platforms are becoming more and more business friendly by providing tools and resources to help support local businesses, such as Facebook’s Ads, Insights analytical tool, and vanity URL creation capability (which can aid in getting found in external search engines), or Twitter’s platform redesign, to help make finding what users are looking for easier. Plus, they’ve already been a few business-focused social networking sites around long before Twitter and Facebook came around (i.e., LinkedIn).

Borrell Associates released a new report Main Street Goes Social: SMBs Give A Big Thumbs-Up To Social Media” offered through Research and Markets that captures social media practices of  more than 4000 Small and Medium Sized businesses (SMBs). Some of the stats and forecasts summarized in the report include:

2011

·      SMBs spent $1.1 billion on social media advertising in 2011

·      Almost 2/3 of SMBs reported having a social media presence last year (primarily on Facebook)

2012 and 2013

·      SMBs are forecasted to spend $2 billion in 2012

·      SMBs are forecasted to spend $3.9 billion in 2013

·      SMBs plan on spending 13.7 percent of online advertising budgets for social media in 2012

·      80% of SMBs are forecasted to have a social media presence by the end of 2012

·      Social media is listed as the 3rd highest category for online spending in the coming year ahead of streaming video, mobile, and banner ads.

It’s obvious that social media has and continues to create an impression on local businesses across the board, and Borrell estimates that SMBs will spend $7.8 billion—a sevenfold increase—in 2016!

The question is: how effective will SMBs be in implementing their social media strategies? Many local businesses tend to jump on board a few too many social media platforms all at once without thinking through their strategy. It’s important to ensure that when you’re looking at social media networks, they fit within your overall goals and marketing strategy. It’s also a good idea to start small and grow; in other words, choose a couple social media networks and fully set up your profile and optimize your sites to grow as quickly as possible. Then, once you’re stable with those, add additional social media platforms that align with your overall strategy and build your networks on them.

I completely agree that business of all size should participate in social media for a variety of reasons. They should just approach the subject and implementation wisely for maximum benefit without wasting time and money.

Used to be they were called “mommy bloggers,” but that was before their Klout scores soared and corporations avidly courted them.

And while I may be exaggerating, I’m not by much. This group of bright, engaged mothers  (and some dads) who travel with their kids and run homes and blogs, now run the family travel market and drive some of the most exciting conversations on line.

While CEO’s of hot start-ups and established web sites are pronouncing and  pontificating, these women bloggers and journalists are running high-profile Tweet chats with impressive prizes, turning out compelling, useful content and run one-of-a-kind Family Travel Conferences.

Anyone who has visited familytravelforum.com or travelingmom.com is quite aware of the electricity generated by  Kyle McCarthy and Kim Orlando, CEO’s of the respective sites.

Check in @familytravel4um and watch the fast-paced  conversations about travel zip by with family travel cohorts like @familyonbikes, @familyadvice, @momaboard, @familiesgo, @hvbabywillrvl, @foreverdaddy and @luxurytravelmom.

These are experienced travelers, sharing and having fun.

They are mostly women, all of whom have a vibrant thing going on with each other about all things travel: destination tips and trips; legal advice about single parents traveling with minors; top cities of the world; funny and touching stories; differing opinions, travel expos, etc.

They’re witty, unfailingly good-willed, and supportive of each other and family travel issues

On a Tweet chat I attended, there were a couple hundred participants, and although about 50 voices dominated, the others had their says too. The discussion went well past the cut-off time.

And you bet these family travel bloggers are  being noticed by big-time companies and corporations.

Why?

In part, as Ypartners points out, experience-based travel involving family and friends is the leading type of leisure travel. That is, visiting friends and relatives accounts for 50 percent of travel. Family vacations account for 42 percent of travel.

Several of these family travel voices recently created the first-ever Family Travel Conference .

Under the leadership of Ms. McCarthy and Orlando, it was  at New York’s classy Omni Berkshire Hotel .

Who sponsored it?  Norwegian Cruise Line, Disney Parks, Atlantis, The New York Pass and Visit Orlando, to name some of the backers.

The 2-day event was in invitation to 30 or so bloggers and journalists,  with family travel content experience. The blend of the traditional writer with Internet content creators was a wise move because the two groups learned from each other and provided differing viewpoints.

What was it like?

First, the Omni Berkshire was a clever choice of venue because it’s a smart hotel. The spacious rooms and cleverly designed spaces with accessible outlets, imaginative use of fabrics and plants is friendly and efficient.

There was a workshop on honing writing skills led by veteran family travel writer and syndicated columnist, Eileen Ogintz,  and Pulitzer prize nominee, Cindy Richards, who teaches at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

Kim Orlando, an indefatigable blogger and entrepreneur drove the Twitter dinner, which was more a live Tweet event than an  actual dinner. But it was more fun than most of  the conference dinners I’ve attended.

After a video workshop (Presenting Yourself: Ledes and Hooks),  participants scattered throughout the hotel, smart phones and video cameras in hand, and created on-the-spot content ranging from an inside look at the hotel’s kitchen, to tips from housekeeping on making a room look like new.

When the dust settles,  we probably were participating in the first of many such workshops about family travel, technology, monetizing content and  community.

What I found refreshing,  more so than conferences with top brass from from Google , Amazon and other legacy companies, was the openness and enthusiasm.

These “mompreneurs” combine humor with a depth of practical, real-world travel knowledge, and they make it all accessible by sharing.

With family travel a huge,  fast-growing niche ( 4.5 trips a year; 67% saying kids are never too old to travel with), this fast-talking cohort may well set the standard for online activity… and enviable sponsorships.

You’ve probably at one point of your life been heartbroken so badly that you can’t get out of bed and are just consumed with thinking about the love of your life–or former love of your life.

Many adults rate relationship breakups among the worst events of their lives. How does a person’s psyche handle that kind of heartache? And is there a secret formula for mending a broken heart?

Trite but true, the only cure for breakups is time. It’s impossible to wrestle a romance-addled heart into submission and silence the echoes of past love at will. Can’t stop calling your ex but know you need to break it off in order to move on?

Enter the Ex-App, an app released from Apple and described as a lover break-up, not down app. The app keep you from breaking down and help you finally breakup and away from your ex.

Further, the Ex-App blocks you from making outgoing calls, text messages, or emails to your ex. It also tracks the number of consecutive days that you have stopped contacting your ex to help you stay motivated and committed to your new awesome ex-free life.

But wait, there’s one catch that you have to follow if you want this app to work, and that is, your ex has to be one of the people listed in your address book or contacts so the app can block him or her.

And the best part? This app is free to download at the Apple App Store. Enjoy!

Happy Valentine’s to all of you. Let the love and peace reign in our hearts and in our minds not only on this day, but always.

• How blogging is intertwined with social media
• Current trends in who is blogging and where there is growth
• The state of corporate blogs
• The average number of blogs bloggers have today
• How brands are blogging
• How brands are connecting with bloggers
• Why probloggers are approached up to a thousand times a week
• What brands need to know before connecting with bloggers
• The average salary of bloggers
• The additional opportunities brands are offering bloggers to make money
• What’s next for Technorati to improve the business of blogging

Everybody knows that at the moment, Facebook is the biggest and the leading social network platform in the world. It is a brand name that needs no further introduction because of its global reach and massive popularity.

However, as popular as it is, Facebook is not immune to controversy. The social giant network has been hit and criticized as of late with its, you guessed it, privacy issues and concerns that’s being echoed by some groups and entities.

A recent report claims that “deleted” photos that are supposed to be deleted by Facebook users on the site still remains accessible through a direct link.

The report is indeed very surprising and downright concerning if you’re a Facebook user. You would think that for a 100 billion dollars company, it shouldn’t be difficult for Facebook to beef up their security and upgrade its servers in a heartbeat.

If you’re a Facebook user, now would be an ideal time to go through each and every one of your photos. Make sure you don’t have any embarrassing pictures there that is going to bite and haunt you sooner or later in your personal and social life.

Lady Gaga knows Social, being the first person on our fair planet to reach 18 million Twitter followers. This is absolutely dwarfed by the over 47 million people who’ve “Liked” her official Facebook Fan Page. Let’s not even get into how many un-official Lady Gaga fan pages there are out there…

With a combined social community larger than the nation of France, why should the Monster Mom simply hand over her content and social data from fan interaction to those other networks? With well over a billion YouTube views, she’s a social media entertainment industry unto herself.

With that in mind, and with a desire for a more personalized interactive fan experience, Lady Gaga has launched her own long-awaited social network, called LittleMonsters.

An exclusive network, you can only get in by invite only. So get your paws up, visit LittleMonsters and give up your email address, then wait for the bouncers at the front door to open the chain for you.

What’s it like in Lady Gaga’s new site? CNN and Mashable have stated that it looks something like increasingly popular social interest-sharing site Pinterest, with those going Gaga sharing images and commentary with their friends, while voting for image popularity. Of course, that’s a pretty easy assumption to have, given the fuzzed out background behind the invitation box.

With LittleMonsters, Lady Gaga’s music machine can make its own advertising deals, fence in exclusive content, and even perhaps hold concerts online for her multitudes. At the least, she can control her online message, while providing a safe place for her Little Monsters to hang out and enjoy each other’s company.

These are heady days, indeed. Rawr!