Entries Tagged 'Social Web' ↓

In case you hadn't noticed, spam and phishing attacks through the social networks has been on the rise. Security company Symantec released a report yesterday detailing socially-engineered attacks to determine where they are coming from and what techniques malware criminals are using to lure victims into their traps.

One of the most interesting trends that Symantec has noticed is that social spam and phishing has been cyclical, moving from network to network (see above graph). For instance, attacks will focus on Facebook for a period of time before falling off, then focus on Twitter or YouTube before coming back to Facebook. In the cat-and-mouse game that is malware verse security, these trends make sense as exploits are closed on one network and found another.

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Symantec says that 53% of social malware is being launched from botnets in the United States. This is an interesting find in comparison with the overall amount of spam that is sent worldwide, with only 2.8% of email spam coming out of the U.S., according to a Symantec's Intelligence Report released earlier this week.

The average lifespan of social spam is between 15 and 20 days, according to Symantec. Of that, Facebook sees the lion's share with 40% of all social network spam, compared with 37% for Twitter and 23% for YouTube. Yet, there are differences in how spam is relayed on Facebook than Twitter. Twitter tends to see large-scale spam attacks that are shutdown by the company relatively quickly, while Facebook sees multiple types of spam threads running through the ecosystem on a persistent basis, according to a recent conversation I had with Sophos security analyst and blogger Chester Wisniewski.

Facebook has been active in protecting its users from "clickjacking" schemes, forming partnerships with security companies like Web of Trust to help protect users. According to Symantec's trends graph, the company's efforts have been paying off. Facebook has been in a decline since late April.

One of the differences in social spam as compared to email spam is the type of message that social spam uses to lure in victims. The big topics are still prevalent - pharmaceuticals, gambling and adult/sex/dating - but spammers are using different types of link-bait on social networks. According to Symantec social spam links are often tied to "unread" messages or fake invites. For instance, a message from Twitter saying that you have three unread messages that you cannot see because your message folder is full. From personal experience, Twitter's DM folder is never "full" (this from a guy who had near 800 DMs in June and several thousand this year).

It is up to the user to protect their computer and exercise common sense with what they click on Internet. If not, your computer or your social network account may be part of the problem, not the solution.

Back in the salad days of ecommerce, I worked for a website that sold cars. Sounds a little odd but it worked, though not well enough to best its competitors, one of whom absorbed it. As the only marcom guy there, I was approached often for the inevitable side-projects my co-workers were launching. One gentleman was leaving in order to start his own company and wanted to hire me to edit his web copy. To this day, I am proud that I was able to master my expression as I looked over his draft. His company was an online dry-cleaning service. Go ahead and re-read that last sentence. It was the dumbest idea I had ever heard and it remains my hallmark for dumb ideas to this day.

Now we are in a new era, that of the Social Web. But just as we take our positive qualities with us through time - intellect, compassion, inventiveness - we also take our dumbness. Today I came across two ideas - one a process, the other a product - that shot me back in time to the moment I first read about online dry-cleaning. Both, horribly enough, are food-related; and both are profoundly dumb.

Photo by Ed Schipul

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The Answer to a Question No One's Asking

A design engineering student at the Royal College of Art in London named Hannes Harms has decided that we need radio frequency identification tags in our food. Technology Review quotes him asking, "What if there were a way to embed data directly into food?"

"What if?" Hannes? Nothing, that's what! No one on God's green earth wants to crap out RFID tags!

Hannes, bless his glue-sniffing soul, believes, "RFID-tagged food would...enable a whole new food system, which he terms 'NutriSmart.' Bar codes on food packaging would become obsolete...and refrigerators...would be able to warn us when our food is about to spoil. Sniff it. You only have to sniff it.

Even if this were not the very definition of The Answer to a Question No One's Asking, the term "NutriSmart" alone would make me cringe.

A Tech Solution that Doesn't Work to a Problem that Doesn't Exist

Seattle recipe software company BigOven has introduced RecipeScan. Initially, it sounds like magic (or very advanced science). You use your mobile phone to snap a photo of a dish and you get the recipe!

Sort of.

Well, not at all actually.

After you take your photo and upload it via the app, BigOven eventually sends you a recipe for something. No, not for that particular bowl of phad thai or that kind of cheesecake, just for a phad thai or a cheesecake. (And here's me thinking its some kind of groundbreaking mobile spectrometry.)

It seems that a company full of grown-ass men and women thought that you needed an app that would allow you to take a photo and then wait while someone else found you a recipe for something else.

This time it was GeekWire asking the completely unnecessary question.

"Have you ever wanted a copy of your best friend's chocolate chip cookie recipe, but don't have the patience to copy down all of the ingredients?"

No. Of course I haven't. No one has.

Let me be uncharacteristically blunt

To quote H.L. Mencken, each of these is an idea "so bad a sort of grandeur creeps into it." We're fair enough here at ReadWriteWeb, I think. But sometimes, you have to call a spade a spade.

That said, if you think I've missed something here, some essential genius in the products, some implication only a mind of great subtly could detect, by all means (to quote Mencken again) administer me "a harsh corrective" in the comments. On the other hand, if you believe you've encountered an idea even dumber, then you just know I want to hear about that as well.

Groupon has had a terrific ride. Since pivoting from a community action site, it has dominated the mindshare of Internet commerce. Its IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission lays out a lot of that success, including growing from 3 million to 83 million subscribers in one year and generating nearly as much revenue in the first quarter of 2011 as it did in all of 2010.

But that, as they say, is past performance. The key question for potential investors is "How will Groupon do in the years ahead?" There, the IPO filing, doesn't provide much guidance.

Here are five concerns I see.

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Email Open Rates

Groupon certainly knows those numbers. It might have left it out of its filling, called an S-1, for competitive reasons, but it might also be because the numbers are declining.

National and Local Deals Split

In my observation of Groupon, it's beginning to skew more toward national deals. That means lower margins as national merchants have the leverage to negotiate a better deal. Plus, there is a limit to the number of photo cards, mugs and custom T-shirts that someone can buy.

High Customer Acquisition Costs

Groupon points out that acquisition costs are a concern, but doesn't provide actual numbers. Doing the math based on other numbers provided, I estimate the cost of a list subscriber at $6.40 and the cost of an actual purchaser at $26.50. That's a big number for a business with few barriers to entry.

For Netflix, this number is $18.03 - but Netflix has a subscription business with recurring revenue. Groupon's numbers should be lower than Netflix'. I estimate that in order for Groupon to be profitable on a customer, they need to sell three average deals.

Decline in Margin From March 2010 to March 2011

Cost of revenue as a percentage of revenue was 54.8% and 58.1% for the three months ended March 31, 2010 and 2011, respectively. I would expect that costs of the deals will go up as Google beefs up competition, the economy recovers and a larger percentage of deals are national retailers who have more negotiating power. This will further reduce Groupon's margins.

Reliance on Competitors For Growth

Google and Facebook are big channels for subscriber acquisition. If these providers choose to stop competitive advertising, it'll constrain Groupon's subscriber growth. Google just launched its Offers product in Portland. (This post was written at the first Google Offers venue.) Based on the initial set of merchants and offers, I believe that Google is aggressively subsidizing these offers. To the extent that Google continues to do this, it will put a lot of margin pressure on Groupon and other deal providers. Google's product now offers merchants significantly more generous payment terms. If Groupon is forced to match those terms, it will put a constraint on working capital."

Question of Value to Merchants

While Groupon clearly provides outstanding discounts to consumers at local businesses, the value to the merchant has been hotly debated. An example in the S-1 cites a business that sold Groupons and "more than half of the Groupons were sold to new customers." That means close to half were sold to existing customers - a roughly 75% revenue hit on existing customers is something that merchants need to figure into their calculations.

In my conversations with merchants, they really resent seeing existing customers coming in with Groupons. If even 10% of customers using Groupon are existing customers of the merchant, that is a serious blow to the economics. (Anecdotally, I've seen some numbers as high as 90%.)

Groupon has had a terrific ride. Since pivoting from a community action site, it has dominated the mindshare of Internet commerce. Its IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission lays out a lot of that success, including growing from 3 million to 83 million subscribers in one year and generating nearly as much revenue in the first quarter of 2011 as it did in all of 2010.

But that, as they say, is past performance. The key question for potential investors is "How will Groupon do in the years ahead?" There, the IPO filing, doesn't provide much guidance.

Here are five concerns I see.

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Email Open Rates

Groupon certainly knows those numbers. It might have left it out of its filling, called an S-1, for competitive reasons, but it might also be because the numbers are declining.

National and Local Deals Split

In my observation of Groupon, it's beginning to skew more toward national deals. That means lower margins as national merchants have the leverage to negotiate a better deal. Plus, there is a limit to the number of photo cards, mugs and custom T-shirts that someone can buy.

High Customer Acquisition Costs

Groupon points out that acquisition costs are a concern, but doesn't provide actual numbers. Doing the math based on other numbers provided, I estimate the cost of a list subscriber at $6.40 and the cost of an actual purchaser at $26.50. That's a big number for a business with few barriers to entry.

For Netflix, this number is $18.03 - but Netflix has a subscription business with recurring revenue. Groupon's numbers should be lower than Netflix'. I estimate that in order for Groupon to be profitable on a customer, they need to sell three average deals.

Decline in Margin From March 2010 to March 2011

Cost of revenue as a percentage of revenue was 54.8% and 58.1% for the three months ended March 31, 2010 and 2011, respectively. I would expect that costs of the deals will go up as Google beefs up competition, the economy recovers and a larger percentage of deals are national retailers who have more negotiating power. This will further reduce Groupon's margins.

Reliance on Competitors For Growth

Google and Facebook are big channels for subscriber acquisition. If these providers choose to stop competitive advertising, it'll constrain Groupon's subscriber growth. Google just launched its Offers product in Portland. (This post was written at the first Google Offers venue.) Based on the initial set of merchants and offers, I believe that Google is aggressively subsidizing these offers. To the extent that Google continues to do this, it will put a lot of margin pressure on Groupon and other deal providers. Google's product now offers merchants significantly more generous payment terms. If Groupon is forced to match those terms, it will put a constraint on working capital."

Question of Value to Merchants

While Groupon clearly provides outstanding discounts to consumers at local businesses, the value to the merchant has been hotly debated. An example in the S-1 cites a business that sold Groupons and "more than half of the Groupons were sold to new customers." That means close to half were sold to existing customers - a roughly 75% revenue hit on existing customers is something that merchants need to figure into their calculations.

In my conversations with merchants, they really resent seeing existing customers coming in with Groupons. If even 10% of customers using Groupon are existing customers of the merchant, that is a serious blow to the economics. (Anecdotally, I've seen some numbers as high as 90%.)

Netherlands-based website monitoring company WatchMouse has created a public website dedicated to measuring performance at social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Del.icio.us, Digg, Xanga and Flickr.

WatchMouse also release uptime statistics for the top 20 social sites for the month of August. The leaders were Orkut, which had no downtime, Flickr with just four minutes of downtime, Del.icio.us with 12 minutes of downtime and the gaming site hi5 with 32 minutes of downtime.

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Digg was in the bottom five with 15 hours and 35 minutes (2.16%) downtime due to issues with its relaunch. Other relatively poor performers included MySpace with a day, seven hours and 27 minutes of downtime (4.36%) and YouTube with a day, five hours and 18 minutes or 4.07% downtime.

Twitter was only down for an hour and 16 minutes total all month, tied with LinkedIn and Yelp.

Uptime for the top 20 social networking sites monitored by WatchMouse:

WatchMouse started monitoring the performance of 26 application programming interfaces (APIs) popular with app developers, including Facebook, Twitter, Salesforce.com and Posterous back in January. Now it's extending its monitoring services to users as well as programmers with Social.DownorNot.com.

"Revealing information frequently and often - both good and bad - is the only way to amass positive impressions, reduce interactions with higher cost-per-contact channels, and directly influence your reputation," Mark Pors, CTO and co-founder of WatchMouse, said in a press release. "Most of the social networking companies we monitor on Social.DownorNot.com do not have a dedicated place where they can broadcast when their services are not working correctly."

The data comes from the companies via WatchMouse's Public Status Pages, the same system that updates Twitter's API status, the Amazon web services Health Dashboard, Apple MobileMe support and the Google Apps dashboard. Public Status Pages let any company announce maintenance, site issues or that the site is functioning perfectly. Users can also see a seven-day history with graphs, a 24-hour snapshot and breakdown by country.

Digg's uptime suffered terribly during a bumpy relaunch.

The idea is that it's better to let users know what's going on than to leave them guessing. Being upfront about downtime will cut down on complaints and generate goodwill among developers and users. What do you think? Will this keep users and developers happy? Or will it just be a frustrating reminder of a site's shortcomings?

Web users are increasingly relying on social media for help in the event of disaster, according to a new report by the American Red Cross.

Many Web users said they would use social media to seek help for themselves or others during emergencies, the report said, and those users expect first responders to be listening. Almost three out of every four responders said they would expect help to come less than an hour after their first tweet or Facebook post.

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The survey showed that 69 percent said that emergency responders such as FEMA and the Red Cross should be monitoring social media sites in order to quickly send help.

But opinion is interestingly divided over the question of whether emergency responders are already monitoring social media. Forty-nine percent said they believe a response agency is probably already responding to any urgent request they might see, and 44 percent answered "it's very likely the organization doesn't even know about this request."

The Red Cross commissioned the survey in advance of an Emergency Social Data Summit set for Thursday, August 12, in Washington, D.C. The meeting will facilitate discussion between representatives of government, social media, emergency response agencies and the non-profit sector about how to handle information that flows through the Web during a disaster.

Social media has proved a fast, reliable way to get information from the ground - exactly what's needed in an emergency. The Red Cross emphasized that the first course of action in an emergency should be to call 911, but that social media is a good backup when phone lines are down or 911 is backed up.

"The social web is creating a fundamental shift in disaster response - one that will ask emergency managers, government agencies and aid organizations to mix time-honored expertise with real-time input from the public," said Gail McGovern, American Red Cross president and CEO. "We need to work together to better respond to that shift."

There's no doubting the impact of social media on our day-to-day lives in 2010. In the western world, most big brands have Facebook and Twitter accounts nowadays, many TV journalists "write a blog" about their beat every day, and services like YouTube are widely consumed. However it's the rise of social media as a tool for social activitism that has really brought these technologies to the fore. Sometime over the past year, it reached the point where some governments became threatened by social media and started cracking down on it. China has been the most high profile example recently.

But does the Chinese government really care about Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as much as we in the west think they do?

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One of the breakthrough moments for Twitter came in June 2009, when people in Iran used Twitter to protest the country's election results. This gave Twitter a lot of exposure in western mainstream media. But more than that, other countries where democracy is tenuous sat up and took notice.

The Chinese government started to view social media services as a way for "subversive" citizens to cause trouble. The New York Times recently reported that a January 24 editorial in People's Daily, the Communist Party of China's official newspaper, blamed "online warfare launched by America, via YouTube video and Twitter micro-blogging" for sowing discord amongst the Iranian people. China currently blocks prominent U.S. social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

However, it's arguable how important those services are to Chinese citizens. As digital consultant Wei Wang guest blogged on ReadWriteWeb in November, "every social media category has a Chinese equivalent that is tuned to the particular needs of the mainland Chinese market."

Kaiser Kuo, a leading commentator about the Chinese Internet market, gave us further context in in a comment on an August 2009 article on ReadWriteWeb:

"Yes, there are some Chinese who use Facebook, Twitter, and other social media services that have been blocked in China. But the overwhelming majority of people interested in SNS will use, say, QQZone, or Xiaonei (recently rebranded Renren), or the very popular SNS Kaixin001, or 51.com. Youtube is blocked, but long before that Youtube was a distant also-ran in the Internet video race, far behind sites like Youku.com and Tudou.com. Microblogging sites like Jiwai.de, Fanfou, and Zuosa -- all of which, lamentably, are now out of service in the aftermath of Urumqi -- all boast(ed) user numbers that dwarf the number of Twitter users in China."

It's clear that the Chinese government really is threatened by the rise of social media, because those services give citizens a voice in media - and that voice can potentially reach a global audience.

But let's be realistic: how much of a threat to freedom of speech is banning Twitter in a country where other types of social media are much more popular anyway.

What do you think - are we in the West making too much of an issue of China banning Twitter, Facebook and similar social media sites? Just because they're popular with us, doesn't mean they're as popular (and therefore dangerous) in a country like China. Are we over-reacting to the Chinese government's moves against U.S. social media?

What are you going to buy this holiday season? Gift cards aren't very personal, but friends' recommendations can be.

Richard MacManus recently covered the trends in e-commerce over the past decade. He noted that Amazon and eBay have dominated the online retail market with their model of using implicit user data to generate recommendations for others. Although this model will surely remain a centerpiece of the online retail experience, it may soon face competition as "social shopping" takes off.

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This guest post was written by Brynn Evans.

What is social shopping? This is similar to the question of "What is social search," which I addressed previously by describing the three flavors of social search: what they are, why they're relevant and how they will help you search better. The Amazon and eBay model of online retail tapped into what I refer to as "collective social search." Social shopping, on the other hand, is more like "friend-filtered social search."

In social shopping, you see recommendations and reviews that your friends have shared. You see items that your friends have purchased or brands that your friends have shopped with. This matters a lot when you're shopping for a digital camera and are stuck deciding between three different models. Of course, the last 10 years' worth of people's purchasing histories and written reviews on Amazon may help you narrow your choice - if you can filter out the noise. But those reviewers are entirely anonymous to you, even though they may use a real name and have a rating history with the site.

The decision you are making, as with most decisions, will carry consequences going forward, which is a part of the reason why collective intelligence can't provide the necessary emotional "spark" in quite the way that a personal recommendation can. Patricia Mejia, a commenter on Richard's e-commerce trends post, explained why she wants this in shopping: "I want to be inspired, intrigued and entertained when I shop online."

Algorithms don't provide that emotion. But a recommendation from a friend just might.

Plus, users increasingly expect this, and the larger and more connected our networks become, the more powerful this social shopping model will be. What are the social shopping services that do this best today? (Hint: not Amazon.)

Sites like ProductWiki are devoted to product comparisons, but their user base is most likely not your peer network. ThisNext and Kaboodle lie closer to the intersection of social media and e-commerce. They are predominantly social networks dedicated to sharing products and personal reviews.

Kaboodle's user profile for "aplyler" closely resembles other social networking sites, and the site provides functionality for creating product lists, commenting on items and, of course, adding friends.

On ThisNext, users' recommendations are featured front and center on their profiles. Here, "rjax" has been promoted to "Expert Maven" because of her extensive collection of recommended items. Unfortunately, the collection's range is so vast that you probably wouldn't care about the Christmas ornaments if you liked her review of the Macbook art decal.

Thus, the limitation with sites like ThisNext and Kaboodle is that you, your friends and the products you're going to buy all exist on those sites. In other words, the sites are social shopping silos.

RunToShop, on the other hand, brings a distributed social networking model to social shopping. A small Finnish startup, RunToShop aims to bring social recommendations to you wherever you may be, and from the friends in your network who you trust.

This means that if you're shopping for golf clubs on Smart Golf, recommendations will be embedded on the site through the RunToShop widget. Currently, all user reviews are shown, but in the next release, recommendations from friends will be prioritized. (You can pull in your friends with Facebook Connect.)

RunToShop also integrates with Facebook. So, if Facebook is where you spend most of your time, you can browse product offerings and friends' recommendations directly through the RunToShop Facebook app.

Finally, its distributed social networking platform allows your product reviews to percolate out to other sites where those products exist. If your long-lost sister, for example, discovers one of these products through LinkedIn, she can view your recommendation right there.

Based on most of the services I've seen to date, including RunToShop, the implementation and user experience around social shopping still has a long way to go. In the meantime, keep this in mind the next time you're shopping for the right social shopping service: will it provide the emotional spark you need?

Guest author: Brynn Evans is digital anthropologist, design researcher and author who studies social interaction design and social search.

China enjoyed center stage this week thanks to President Obama's visit. Naturally, trade relations were on the agenda.

For Internet companies sitting in the US, news reports that chronicled the President's every move in China were a visible reminder of the business opportunity that may seem a click away.

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This guest post was written by Wei Wang.

So, why not export social media to China just like KFC and American Idol? After all, seeing Yao Ming, arguably China's grandest international star, on Facebook and Twitter, one naturally figures, aside from the language and periodic blocking of websites, "What's the diff?"

But Facebook has gained little traction in China (with only 390,000 users), and tweets have virtually ground to a halt since the government started blocking Twitter, and these factors point to the "diff."

Simply flinging an American product into the Chinese market won't succeed, because every social media category has a Chinese equivalent that is tuned to the particular needs of the mainland Chinese market.

One of China's "Facebooks," Kaixin001.com, has already secured over 40 million users since launching only last year. The platform gained its initial popularity through applications that you would recognize from the real Facebook, such as "Friends for sale" and "Parking wars" - but with a Chinese twist.

Take, for example, the application called "Xingming Yuanfen," in which you type in a friend's name to test your "yuanfen" (i.e. your predetermined relationship with that person). Another application explains who you were in your previous life. It turns out I was a bandit, much to the chagrin of my parents.

These "fortune-telling" applications enjoy incredible popularity on computers and mobile phones. While fortune-telling jars Western sensibilities, it remains a part of Chinese culture.

The B-B-what?

But the best example of China walking to the beat of its own drummer is the continued popularity of the BBS.

That's not a typo.

That is the same bulletin board system that went by the wayside in the US with dial-up modems and US Robotics. Chinese students - who, like their counterparts in the US, are more open to experimentation than other segments - established the foundation for BBS' to flourish in China.

All major universities operate their own BBS. Peking University and Tsinghua University (which are the Harvard and MIT of China) host the Weiming BBS (named after Weiming Lake at Peking University) and Shuimu Tsinghua BBS, respectively.

With 10+ years' worth of graduates who grew up on BBS' now driving the Chinese Internet market, these same people have fueled a range of BBS sites tied to their interests and professions. According to the latest CINIC (China Internet Network Information Center) report, roughly 30% of Chinese Web users spend a significant amount of time on a BBS. So, these sites certainly transcend geekdom.

55BBS, for example, is an online community where users share discount information, coupons and other creative ways to land a good deal. Users also share news of what they got from their latest shopping spree, showing off a photo of skin care products as if it were a trophy.

Perhaps the most unique phenomenon in China is Tianya, the #1 BBS, with almost 30 million users.

What is Tianya? Think of it as a gathering place for an eclectic blend of intellectuals, journalists, freelancers, professors, researchers, gadflies, etc. Users write on and comment about sensitive social issues that may be off-limits to mainstream media. People also head to this forum to gossip about celebrities (okay, some things don't change between cultures).

A Chinese word has been coined for BBS evangelists: "Da'rens," which roughly means "people who really know how to do something." We're now starting to see some "Da'rens" parlay their popularity into commercial success. The famous makeup Da'ren known as Arora started out writing about cosmetics on a BBS before launching a blog for the mega-portal Sina.com.

From a Chinese perspective, the fundamental difference between a blog and BBS is that a BBS allows for anonymity, which appeals to the introversion of many Chinese. Blogging is also more of a solitary activity, with readers chiming in with comments later. The BBS, on the other hand, is more of a collaborative undertaking, which also appeals to the Chinese.

This all means that Internet companies from the US looking to crack the mainland Chinese market need to do their homework and tailor their products accordingly.

Here's an easy litmus test when planning your market entry in China: "What's the difference between the US and Chinese version of your product?"

If the answer takes more than 60 seconds to explain, then you've got a fighting chance.

Wei Wang is a digital consultant with The Hoffman Agency, a communications consultancy with offices in Beijing (where Wei is based) and Shanghai, as well as throughout Asia, the US and Europe. She can be reached at WWang@Hoffman.com.

In a blog post this week, U.S. Navy CIO Rob Carey wrote that social media is a resource for the American military that should be used to build trust and collaborate, both within and outside the organization.

In attempts to balance communication, transparency, and operational security, the military has encountered both practical obstacles and general criticism. In a recent podcast, Carey, he said, "Most social networking tools come with no rules of the road. As the Internet moves towards user-generated content, we thought there was a void we could fill... to mitigate some of the security risks associated with social media."

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Beyond risk management, Carey said, "Social media has a powerful collaboration engine associated with it."

Generally, military organizations have the options to reach out directly to large IT companies to configure customized security profiles and inherent OPSEC protection for personnel; traditionally, however, social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have not been particularly receptive to working within that type of culture or framework. From the sharing-and-access social media pole to the security/military pole, both sides are resistant to different approaches to shared and social information. Still, Carey is an advocate for the usefulness of these tools, even behind a military firewall.

"We must remain a learning organization. As the Internet evolves, so must our workforce and its associated skills. To that end, we must be able to embrace change," Carey wrote in his blog post. "Many of our processes are rooted in the Industrial Age and will need to move toward the Information Age to remain relevant in the coming years."

With specific regard to social media and the American military, Carey stated, "Social media is an inherent part of the toolbox for members of the millennial workforce, while baby boomers are just adopting it. Social media tools should become the standard by which we can share and collaborate on information inside and outside the network boundaries."

He also highlighted green initiatives, mobile working, and the use of modern technological tools in recruitment efforts.

To see the Carey's office's Policy and Guidelines for Secure Use of Social Media by Federal Departments and Agencies, click here for a full PDF.

While Carey's optimism is to be applauded, one wonders what our military-minded friends will have to say about OPSEC vis-a-vis social media. The battlefield isn't really Foursquare-compatible, and the military might actually have the last plausible use case for censorship. Every servicemember is probably aware of existing regulations for Internet and social media use; how do you think Carey's goals and statements will affect the state of affairs on the ground, and do you feel such a shift is needed or welcomed? Let us know your opinions in the comments.