In many companies, what you do during work hours is totally their business. For this reason, social media sites have been blocked in the office. Though there have been a lot of differing ideas weather this should be done, many companies agree that it is in the best interests of the company to ban these sites.

You would think that this being so, there is nothing that the company can do if you spend your free time Facebooking your rants and raves. Think again:

Damian O’Keefe, a former employee of The Good Guys in Townsville, was dismissed after using Facebook to post an expletive-filled rant against a manager on his day off.

Fair Work Australia heard that O’Keefe’s employer sacked O’Keefe after interpreting his comments as a threat to operations manager Kelly Taylor.

What do you think? Did Damian deserve to be fired? After all, he was doing this on his day off, at home! The fact is the barrier between personal and company is narrowing and fast. Do companies have the right to use what is done in an employees personal time as ground for dismissal?

There should be clear rules about this or else a lot of injustice will happen. Companies ought to have clear rules and regulations about what is expected of them when it comes to using social media in and out of the office.

Having a clear policy is the only way for there to exist harmony between employee and employer. Everybody should understand what is expected of them.

Read more about this here.

Randi Zuckerberg, who is director of marketing at Facebook and also the sister of CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg — is leaving the company after six years to start a new media firm to help companies become more social.

The question on everyone’s minds now is how will this affect Facebook? Randi-Mark’s sister has made very big contributions to Facebook and can definitely be said to be one of the pillars that has brought the company to where it is.

Randi plans to start her own company focused on the media trends underway. This will allow her to take on many clients but we really hope she doesn’t include Google + on her list or this will be very disloyal thing to do.

What did Mark have to say about all this? Well, no comment was made from Mark so we really don’t know how her brother feels about Randi’s resignation.

Mark better find a good Marketing director to take his sister’s place and hope Facebook keeps its current rank. The fact is, this change may be just what other networks need to get a little ahead of this giant company.

As for the other social networking sites, this new development may be viewed as a golden opportunity to get ahead.

Read more here.

First of all, is can and should you trust anyone when it comes to the internet? I mean, we all know whatever goes on there stays there so why bother? Well, the fact doesn’t change that Facebook and Google are two of the most effective marketing tools a company can use out there. Whether you find them safe or not- if you want to compete, YOU MUST USE THEM!

This being said, the question is which of the two deserves to be trusted more? Well, many would answer Google and I do agree with them. Think about these simple facts that really make you think twice before you trust Facebook.

• The man behind the book. When you compare the men behind Google and Facebook, it’s quite clear who deserves to be trusted more. I mean, how can you compare the ‘college guy’ Mark Zuckerburg to the two MEN who founded Google? It’s discriminating or anything, it’s just that it matters. Facebook is basically a ‘college project’ that happened to become popular. The only reason why businesses seem to flock to it is just because of the audience it’s been able to reach-nothing more.
• The trend in privacy settings. We all heard about the issue that came about because Facebook added the new face tagging thing without informing users first. Now if you ask me, someone who can do those things behind my back really is’t someone I’d like to trust. Compare that with Google, well let’s say they’ve never been any privacy issues.

Whatever happened to being fair, giving the benefit of the doubt and not judging you may ask? When it comes to privacy, you really have to take sides. Your reputation is at stake-that’s definitely not something you’d want to gamble with.

Read more here.

If you’ve already got all the social media sites that you think you need, you may not be quite interested in getting one more. Google +  currently has about 5M users in the short time it has been introduced. Is it just like the other social media sites though? There are a couple of features that make it quite unique.

Circles not Just Friends

With Facebook, we all know how it works- it’s either you’re friends or not. Though you can share specific things with specific people, the process of editing every one of these settings and customizing who gets to see them is really cumbersome.

Google + has come up with a really interesting and practical solution to this problem. You can create your own circles and share different things with each or your circles. With your High School friends, all those party pics would be something to share. For closer friends, you can share your updates, feelings or whatever. Only those in that circle get to see what you share with them!

This is a huge revolution when it comes to how you share stuff with. The good thing is they don’t get to know under what circle you’ve put them in so it really stays personal and is far more realistic.

Keeping Privacy up

With the way Google + works, you can really sift the groups of people you want to share stuff with. Down to  your updates! Instead of having a single status message, you can have several that can be seen by different circles. This will help you keep your ‘private’ information PRIVATE.

Updates with Spark

This is a feature that allows you to get information on whatever things interests you. It as good as brings the power of Google alerts into your site. This is definitely something other social media sites don’t have.

All in One

If you’re thinking Facebook still has an edge with the video thing it’s started-think again! You can both chat and video chat with friends using ‘Hangouts’. And so can you connect your Google+ account to your mobile phone just like all the other Social media sites.

You may have thought that Google+ is a super professional site that will be no fun at all but this isn’t at all the case! It’s everything all your social media sites have to offer and much more. It isn’t JUST another social media site.

Read more here.