SpeedPlexer Blog

In the age of internet speed and social networking, you may want to be selective about how you quit—that is, if you want to be hired anywhere else.

We’ve lived vicariously through the man who quit his job by telling everyone off and sliding down a plane’s slide/raft, and now we can enjoy the idea of quitting like a girl named Jenny did — with a dry erase board and series of photographed messages, sent by e-mail to the entire office.

Fortunately for Jenny, she’s a figment of someone’s imagination. (Her lack of confidentiality is not likely to get her hired any time soon.) But, as an actress who has just gotten tons of attention online, Elyse Porterfield may just have a career ahead.

TechCrunch tells us the photo shoot was for an image board site called The Chive (which gets around 5.6 million unique visits a month, according to Google). It’s part of a network of viral sites run by brothers Leo and John Resig, who “have a storied history of manufacturing Internet hoaxes”.

They told TechCrunch:

“This story wasn’t primarily done to see how many people in the mainstream media we could hoodwink (though that was fun), it wasn’t done for the publicity, money, nor was it a slapdash reaction to some JetBlue clown; it was done purely for the entertainment of the people first and foremost. The purpose of the hoax was to entertain and inspire, not to inform, so what difference does it make if the story has a single ounce of truth?”

The Chive went from 15,000 uniques to 440,000 uniques in a single hour, and people wanted to share it so much that it got over 238,000 Facebook shares and 31,000 Tweets (and counting, we’re sure.)

Here are some places that Mashable gathered for those who want to help raise money for good causes–either as a giver or an organizer–using internet speed and social media. Either way, you’re a philanthropist!

Facebook Causes - “Whether you are an activist who wants to stop genocide or a nonprofit that promotes literacy, Causes can be your platform. It is a tool to help people go from caring about issues to doing something to make change.”

Razoo  - Non-profits can have their own page, and can also build project specific pages for events or fundraising drives. Razoo’s widget allows non-profits to port their fundraising initiative to other social sites, and also enables donors to share on their Facebook and Twitter networks.

Twitpay - and its RT2Give platform, designed specifically for everyone’s favorite 140 character-based social network, Twitter, focuses on the viral nature of Twitter, creating donations based on re-tweets — and of course, re-tweets equate to more visibility.

Crowdrise- is a grassroots fundraising service that creates fun ways for your network to go and promote, including contests, giveaways and promotions. Kate Olsen of Network for Good said they “are enamored [with their] fun approach…and kitschy call to action messaging on social media outposts’”

ChipIn - A simple widget allows a non-profit to have complete control of funding via PayPal. Non-profits embed the ChipIn widget on a variety of websites or create their own ChipIn page. The widget does integrate a wide variety of social network portability beyond the big two (Facebook and Twitter), including Digg and Delicious.

Ammado - Based in Ireland, ammado’s big differentiator is its international reach, with more than 30 currencies accepted. Individuals can create their own grassroots pages, provide recurring donations, and share their donation or fundraising project via the most popular social networks.

Despite maritime thievery in Somalia or the world of illegal copying and distribution of entertainment, the image of the pirate in most people’s minds remains the one Disney banked on with their recent series of films. Maybe that’s why Pirate Bay, the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker, joined forces with social network Meezoog to create a dating site. 

It makes some sense, we suppose, that if people are passionate enough about movies, music, software and games to download them through Pirate Bay, rather than using the more conventional routes, they might find someone who shares their passions.

The thing about Pirate Bay, of course, is that they are all about open sharing.  Their only real issue with anyone is if they misrepresent what they’ve shared.

Maybe they’re hoping that the many women who love rebels will feel comforted by the same openness, using the social networking component that Meezoog’s technology allows, so that girls can consult with each other, and with internet speed.  The social networking component is supposed to encourage people to be more honest about how they portray themselves. Their social graph is supposed to offer a sort of filter – because if your friend trusts someone enough to connect with them, maybe you can too.

Or maybe Pirate Bay is just moving into territory that will bring them fewer legal hassles, since much of what people want to share is actually stuff that other people would prefer they buy.

So be ye warned: pirates may be exciting, but they’re not known to be extremely trustworthy, nor are they known to spend much money on dates!

In a new report on Reputation Management and Social Media from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, research has shown a definite age gap. At first you might be tempted to think that it’s because young people are more savvy about computers and what can happen with internet speed, which is partly true, but the real world also seems to have forced them to become responsible online as well. 

The study found that people between 18 and 29 were more likely to:
- use and update the privacy settings on their profiles
- delete comments from others that appear on their profiles
- remove photo tags with their names so others wouldn’t identify them

While Mary Madden, the Pew study’s lead author, agrees that young people are more experienced in dealing with the finer points of social networking, she also points out that they’re looking for work in an increasingly competitive market and just starting to develop a name, (or perhaps more accurately, a brand identity), for themselves. Older people are more established and can worry a little less about such things.

The study found that:

25% of online adults have employers with policies about how they portray themselves online.

4% have had bad experiences when embarrassing or inaccurate information was posted about them online.

8% have asked someone to take down photos, videos or other information posted online about them.  Most were successful.

Other ways the real world intrudes:

31% have done online searches about co-workers, professional colleagues or business competitors.

16% of all internet users have looked online for information about someone they were dating or in a relationship with. Among those who use online dating sites, 34% go online to check up on their dates.