Artesia Spotlight: March 9th, 2009

Artesia Spotlight is a bi-weekly review of key news in the fields of social media, user communities and virtual worlds. If you want to be the first to read the news, you can subscribe to receive Artesia Spotlight by e-mail on this page.

News Spotlight

Facebook has announced a major redesign of profiles for public figures and organizations. These profiles (previously called Pages) will be similar to user profiles and will allow public figures and organizations to share status updates and other media, just as regular users can. An important change is that activities from organizations will also be shown in News Feeds of their fans. In addition to that, users will also see a redesigned home page, which will feature real time updates from friends and connections. If you'd like to know more about what to expect from the new company profiles, see Mashable's post New Facebook Pages: A Guide for Social Media Marketers.

Post Spotlight

A new survey from the Security Executive Council has shown that most organizations no longer block access to popular social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Security professionals at the recent CSO Perspectives conference noted that social networking sites have become a standard part of the hiring process and are also becoming a retention tool for many younger employees. On the other hand, companies should also think about establishing policies for employee social media use and about finding the right solutions that allow safe use of social networking sites at work.

Whitepaper Spotlight

Last August Dell launched the Digital Nomads community to connect individuals "that work or play without regard for their physical location". Now they're presenting The First Crowd-Sourced Whitepaper Defining the Digital Nomad. The first part of the whitepaper defines what it takes to be a digital nomad, the second part takes a look at digital nomads from a manager's point of view, and the last part tries to define the ROI of having a remote workforce. The whitepaper provides a good starting point for remote workers and for companies that already are or are thinking about employing digital nomads.

Other news

• A new report by Forrester Research has found out that buyers in the business-to-business sector have a very high level of social participation.
• Linden Lab (the makers of Second Life) and IBM have released a joint case study "How Meeting In Second Life Transformed IBM’s Technology Elite Into Virtual World Believers", in which they present the success and savings of two IBM events that were held in the virtual worlds of Second Life.
• After the recent user uproar about changes in Facebook's Terms of Service, which were reversed just a few days later, Facebook is trying to make its governance more open and transparent. For this reason, Facebook has published two documents: the Facebook Principles and the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, and invites users to vote for or against proposed changes.
• Google has created Tip Jar, a site powered by Google Moderator where people can share effective ways of saving money.