How to organize your Facebook

Covered in this post: Cleaning up apps, hiding friends, privacy settings, creating friends lists and super-neat-o tricks.

Once upon a time you joined Facebook and took the attitude of "The More The Merrier." Friends requests? Sure! C'mon in. I barely remember you from middle school and you appear to have joined some kind of cult, but I'm sure you'll behave. Weird applications that take up half my screen? Oh, that'll be no problem.

Now you sign on and its like your trapped in Concord Mills. There's stuff everywhere competing for your attention. Li'l Farm Life and Fishes and Gifts and that middle school friend writing diatribes that seem about to crash your computer.

Have no fear: We're about to clean all that up. Why don't you create a new window and bring up Facebook while also keeping this blog post window on your screen. We can walk our way through together.

First let's get rid of stuff.

Kill off dumb apps

Chances are you don't want about half the applications you've approved for your page. A friend requested you do something, and before you knew it you'd OK'd it. There are several ways to edit your applications. The easiest might be clicking on the Applications link at the bottom left corner of your page. That raises a pop-up box that includes the link Edit Applications. Click there and you'll be taken to your Applications Settings. Let's get rid of some of these. Run through the toggle switch on the top right and look for apps you don't use anymore (or never did). By clicking on the X on the right of them you can delete them. I'd go through each choice on the toggle switch and clean them all up.

Hide annoying friends

Now lets deal with some annoying friends. I don't recommend unfriending people. It leads to drama and hurt feelings. (Been there.) And you might regret it later. Far less emotional is the "hide" option. The easiest way to accomplish this is to do it as people annoy you. (To put it bluntly.) Go to your Facebook Home page. There on the Newsfeed are all the posts and status updates of your friends. See somebody who's been bugging you? Hover your cursor to the right of their post and "Hide" appears. Click it. That friend is now hidden from your Newsfeed. You can also do this with applications. (I highly recommend hiding anything with Farm in the name.) If you ever want to reconsider hiding someone or something, you can click Edit Options at the bottom of your Newsfeed and see who you've been hiding.

Hide stuff from a psycho friend

But wait, maybe you have a friend who has gone pretty psycho -- perhaps temporarily -- and you need to shut them down. This requires a trip to your Privacy Settings. Click on Settings on the top of your page, and then Privacy. Click on Profile. You now can choose how to control who can see different parts of your profile. One problem might be the friend in question posting weird stuff to your wall. Let's stop that right now. Go down to Wall Posts, select Customize from the toggle switch, and add the person's name. They can no longer post to your wall. If you're having problems with a friend, you might also want to perform this same operation on the status and links option, so they can't see what you're doing. Click Customize and type in the name of the peson you don't want to see your status updates. While we're here, it's a really good idea to control who can see photos tagged of you. (Like employers seeing party picks.) Customize the Photos Tagged Of You option, and the Edit Photo Albums Privacy section.

Create "channels" of friends

Still with me? Good. Because we've actually arrived at my favorite section: How To Organize Your Friends. This is a huge time saver. The best thing about Facebook is that it brings so many aspects of your life into one place. That's also the worst thing. You might not want to jumble up work friends, family, high school friends and people from around town. But how can you just see one section of these at a time? Let's create some friends lists. This lets you create "channels," so you can watch the Jen's Friends Channel on Facebook, or the Jen's Family channel.

Click on the Friends link at the top of your Facebook page. Once there, click on Create New List. Lets create a Work Friends list. Name it that and run through your friends, selecting everyone you work with. Click Save List. Now you can click on your Work Friends list on the left side of your home page, and see only that group of people. This might be handy on Monday morning before you head into work, so you can see what everybody's been up to over the weekend. Or if there are changes afoot in the office, and you want the lowdown.

I have a half-dozen lists. It's very helpful for me if I want to see what my "Media Types" are up to, or my "Very Close Friends," "My Family" or "Newsmakers." I just find it very tiring to look through my newsfeed at everyone all together. And if I need to find out very quickly what's going on with, say, people at work, I can click to that "channel," and see right away.

Super neat-o tricks

Want to call one of your Facebook friends, but don't have their number handy? Go to your Friends list by clicking Friends at the top of the page. On the left you'll see the link Phonebook. Click it and you'll see the phone numbers of all your friends -- who haven't hidden that information. Which, actually, is not such a bad idea. But wait: You want some people to be able to call you and contact you, right? So this is where things get super neat-o. If you created friends lists of close friends and family, you can allow them to see your contact info, but not anyone else! How cool is that? Just click on Settings, Privacy, Contact Info, Customize, Some Friends, and type in the name of the lists of intimate connections you created. Now only those trusted friends can see your contact info.

What if you want to see what all your friends are saying about a certain topic, like the Panthers or CMS or health care? Type what you want in the search box at the top of the home page. Scroll down a little on that results page and you'll see what your friends have posted about the Panthers. Click View All Posts By Friends, and you'll see everything your friends are saying about your topic.

Got some tips?

I hope this has helped you clean up your Facebook page some. I believe that "channels" will become more and more necessary to organize our online lives. The better you organize, the more focused and rewarding your experience can be. And you don't have to spend so much time online!

Please let me know your thoughts on how to best organize your Facebook pages. And remember, you can always turn to the Help Page on Facebook with a question.

State giving traffic updates on Twitter

Twitter was just made for car accidents. Well, causing them, yes. But also for alerting drivers to them.

This afternoon the state Department of Transportation issued a press release announcing its new Twitter feeds for drivers. Ten Twitter feeds for different geographic areas and five for specific interstates alert drivers to accidents, construction and other problems. NC DOT's Web page listing the different Twitter feeds is http://www.ncdot.gov/travel/twitter/.

If it seems ironic that a state department responsible for road safety is sending drivers to Twitter, there is a thorough reminder in the release not to tweet and drive.

"Know before you go," Greer Beaty, the DOT's communications director intoned to me seriously on the phone.

Or this could be the perfect co-pilot's tool, I pointed out.

"I hadn't thought of that," she said.

Another thing the state hadn't thought of: Making sure Charlotte was listed on the directory. When the Web site was announced this afternoon, the state's largest city was nowhere to be found. The stream had been created, but somehow dropped off the page, Beaty said. It popped back up again a few moments later.

Texting job offers?

Talked to dozens of people for the Page 1 story tomorrow on LinkedIn. The weirdest little nugget was that some headhunters are now texting job candidates with job offers. They don't want to leave an e-mail on the person's work account, or call them at an inconvenient place, like the office. A few years ago that would've seemed really unprofessional. But I guess I can see the point...

Fun talking with Penelope Trunk this morning. Have always loved her tweets. "You wouldn't believe how much time I spend on them," she confided. It shows. They're really crafted. And this is a new medium that deserves its own language.

One of the main takeaways on LinkedIn is that most people use it very poorly. It's not fun, so they slap up a resume, do a half-hearted effort on the connections, and abandon it by the side of the road. Come job interview time, the people who have put a lot effort in will win. When -- if? -- the economy turns around, that could mean a difference in a lot of hires. We have some very good tips on how to use the site in the paper tomorrow. Hope they help someone.

I like the guy in Charlotte with 26,000 LinkedIn connections. Jay Rao told me that puts him two slots above Obama in the worldwide rankings.

Have heard from several dozen people on their favorite Charlotte causes. Happy to give them a shoutout here.

Here's a video of Stan Gwizdak's LinkedIn class in Concord. It really reminded me of classes at Stanford -- everybody there with their laptops open. His mantra is "give them something." He believes the gift economy comes back around online.

Penelope Trunk and LinkedIn

Man, if you want to get something done on social media, turn to LinkedIn.

I posted a message yesterday on LinkedIn about a story I'm writing for tomorrow's Observer and received 150 messages by the end of the day.

The knock on LinkedIn has always been that it isn't "fun." I have to agree -- unless you consider getting a new job, making more money and improving your career to be fun. I heard Charlotteans talk about headhunters contacting them directly, and landing million-dollar contracts. One guy I spoke with has 34,000 connecting on LinkedIn. If you have a LinkedIn story, let me know.

Also spoke with social media star Penelope Trunk, who has just launched a new professional networking site for Gen Y -- brazencareerist.com. "Gen Y doesn't have a resume, because they haven't done anything yet," Trunk told me. So her site has an "idea stream" like a Twitter feed, that allows users to show off their minds and get noticed.

"Gen X likes Twitter because we're suspicious of organizations and prefer to work from home," she told me. Raise your hand if you're guilty. I know. At some point I have to go into the office and tell me boss that.

Social Fresh Wrap-up

One of the cool things about an edgy conference is collecting all the cool business cards. Here are the best ones I rounded up today.

Spike Jones reminds me a little of Chris Rock -- he comes at you all bombast and challenge and interrogation. But like Rock, he makes you think, and surprises you by making you feel.

Jones is one of the guys behind Brains On Fire, the innovative Greenville, S.C., marketing company known for its empathy-based grassroots approach. His loud -- and very thoughtful -- presentation closed Social Fresh, the social media conference that brought nearly 250 to uptown Charlotte today.

"Everything you've heard today is crap," Jones began, "if you don't have a strategy." The crowd, looking to better use social media for business, heard they should create "movements," not campaigns.

"This past election one guy ran a campaign and the other guy ran a movement," Jones said. Connecting with people's passions beats trying to sell them something, he said. See Jones speak in the video below.

Quotable quotes:

-- "Business on social media right now is like teen sex. Everybody wants to do it, but they don't know how. Then they finally get to, and they're disappointed." -- David Armano, Social Fresh keynote speaker, of of Dachis Corp.

-- "Well, I'm unfollowing him on Twitter." -- Jones, during his talk, when he asked if another panelist was in the crowd, and the person had left.

Live from Social Fresh

Businesses need to outgrow the "gangly teen-age" phase of social media and adopt best practices to best use the booming communications media, said top experts at the Social Fresh conference today in uptown Charlotte.

About 230 have packed the Social Fresh conference at the Holiday Inn, including reps from Bank Of America, Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas and others. Walmart sent three from its Arkansas headquarters.

Keynote speaker David Armano told a spillover crowd that businesses on social media today are like teenagers experimenting with sex: They don't know what to do, and then they're disappointed when they finally get to do it. Armano closed his talk by telling businesses to look beyond this teen-age phase. "It's time to grow up," said Armano, of Dachis Corp., a new social media consulting firm founded with $50 million in venture capital.

Charlotte's Kathleen Hessert -- famous for teaching Shaquille O'Neal to tweet -- told a crowd that knowing how to post on social media and knowing the right way to represent your company are two entirely different things. Below, see a video of Hessert, who runs the consulting firm Sports Media Challenge from her six-person office at N.C. 51 and Carmel Road.

Other highlights:

-- Bank Of America's Andres Echevarria told me he believes social media can help in "flattening the organization" so expertise can be shared throughout. "Tech guys aren't necessarily the most social people. So they can share knowledge and get a little chance to be in the spotlight."

-- Idek.net, a url-shrinking company in Raleigh is getting lots of buzz for the analytics it can provide. One tip they've discovered: Thursday at 2 p.m. is the best time to tweet -- big audience coming back from lunch, but not that many actually tweeting. Want to get rewteeted? Post then.

-- Carey-based David B. Thomas of software company SAS gave tips on using LinkedIn for business -- and specifically getting a job as we emerge from the recession. Use your expertise on LinkedIn to show you are a thought leader in your field, he says. Don't just go hat-in-hand.

Your favorite Charlotte cause?

What's you favorite Charlotte cause? I asked on my Facebook page, and invited new friends to post theirs on my wall. I'm reprinting their shoutouts below. It might just look like a list, but if you read between the lines, you see what really matters to people: Helping people with multiple sclerosis, or mental health struggles, or stray animals.

Connecting with the causes you believe in is a big part of Mission Possible, the community effort The Observer's helping to organize. Social media has been a wonderful bridge between people challenged by hardship. On Facebook, there are 94,000 groups related to cancer.

If there's a Charlotte cause you believe in, post it on my Facebook page, check out Mission Possible, or just mention it in the notes below.

Thanks for caring.

Chris Hawkins

The Batten Disease Support and Research Association is a non profit dedicated to supporting families affected by Batten Disease, a fatal inherited disorder that strikes children.

Sandra Davis Shanklin

DEFINITELY, Battered Women's Shelter!!!

Bo Hussey

When someone is having a hard time finding a job because of lack of skills, experience or education, Goodwill is there to help.

Wanda S Horton

Union County Red Cross - Serves both Union & Anson Counties.

Doug Robinson Animal Adoption League. Non-profit all volunteer organization fostering dogs rescued from shelters in North and South Carolina.

Christine Weber The Friends of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Animal Care & Control (FCMACC) is the only not for profit organization dedicated to raising funds for the city's munincipal, open-door animal shelter, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Animal Care & Control (CMACC)

Jim Mitchem

CMPD Animal Care and Control.

Michael Sealy

my favorite is The Charlotte Rescue Mission.

Marsha Ford

I'm the Community Relations & Fundraising Director for the Women of AT&T. We work with various charities that contribute to the lives of women and girls.

Sherri Bain

Shelter for Battered Women, Shelter for Homeless Women, Crisis Pregnancy, Loaves and Fishes.

Lynn Johnson

The Jingle Bell Ball is Dec. 11th and the proceeds go to the Shelter for Battered Women. They are also sponsoring a fundraiser on Sept. 26 at Dilworth Neighborhood Grill. Live band - Underground Detour - $10 cover. Should be a lot of singles attending!!

Bill Maerkle

My favorite cause is the volunteer unit of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. We are a group of about 600 volunteers who are allowed to work in many areas within the department.

Casey Shannon

Hoskins Park Ministries...amazing group of people...changing lives everyday.

Dianne Chase

Catholic Social Services...dealing with an overwhelming demand..they help anyone who asks... Fun and important wine tasting fundraiser- Vineyard of Hope- on Nov 13- Marriott SouthPark

Jodi Justen McLaughlin The USA is not commemorating the 100th Annivesary of the Boy Scouts of America! As a proud mom of an Eagle Scout I know this is an important program. Please join!

Alina MacNichol My Shoutout goes to Classroom Central! A marvelous resource for the teachers and students of CMS ...

Charlotte International-Cabinet

My shoutout goes to the Charlotte International Cabinet (CIC).The primary role of the Charlotte International Cabinet is to promote Charlotte as an international city and to serve as a resource to foster international relationships.

Amy Farrell

My shoutout goes to Kids Voting - prepares kids for a lifetime of active civic engagement, supports K-12 academic achievement and builds 21st century skills such as critical thinking, decision making and civic literacy.

Jeff Hartlage Catfish Hunter Chapter of The ALS Association - www.catfishchapter.org
serves all of North Carolina.

Charlotte Klopp

My shoutout goes to the World Affairs Council of Charlotte (WACC). We are a regional center for education and discussion of world affairs.

Mike McBride

My shoutout goes to Tiger World. We are an animal conservation and educational center dedicated to rescue, rehabilitation, and preservation of exotic animals.

Aldo Muccia Humane Society.

Shannon Hinson

My shoutout also goes to Thompson CFF! We embrace children who are at-risk for social and academic failure by providing intensive treatment, protection, specialized education, prevention and intervention services and stabilized family environments.

Kathy Catsinas Rowan

My shoutout goes to Thompson Child & Family Focus, a group that builds stronger,healthier families through prevention and treatment.

Alan Taylor I want to give a shout out to Hope Haven, a residential community that assists recovering addicts who would otherwise be homeless.

Video of the day:

I saw "The Hurt Locker" last night, a gritty, realistic, human movie about the war in Iraq. It reminded me of my time in Europe as an editor of The Stars & Stripes. When soldiers are overseas, they can feel very far away from everything they know and love. This is a moving video that reminded me that regardless of the politics of the war, the young people representing our country are an admirable, diverse and very human group.

More firms ban social media than gun sites

Hypocrisy: As more companies use social media to promote their brands -- and screen prospective hires -- more also attempt to control or prevent their employees' use of the sites. Now comes a new study that more companies ban their employees from accessing social media sites at work than weapons sites. I'm the first to admit that Twitter and Facebook can be annoying. But they don't kill people. No disgruntled worker ever walked into the office and tweeted his boss to death. What this points out, once again, is that businesses -- including mainstream media -- want to do two contradictory things:

-- Harness the power of social media to access information and build business.

-- And control the message about their brand, and the use of the sites in the workplace.

You cannot take part in the dialogue and control the message. If you want to talk, you're going to get talked about. If you want to listen, you're going to hear things about yourself you don't want to hear. Go to ScanSafe's site to read more about the study mentioned above. The Web security company looks at a billion Web requests a month. I first read about the study on the social media blog Mashable, which, interestingly, didn't pick up on the weapons tie-in.

Many people are insulated from diverse political views online because of the company they keep. That was one of the main takeaways from my front-page story in Friday's Charlotte Observer on the role Facebook has played in the national debate over health-care reform. Users both for and against the Obama effort reported they believed most people on Facebook felt the way they do. And experts said this was a flaw of online political debate: As we learn to filter better, we better filter out opposing views.

If you have a cause or charity in Charlotte that you'd like to give a shoutout to, friend me and post it on my Facebook page. I'll also post your name and cause here. I'm trying to make a run at 5,000 friends before Facebook lifts that as the cap. If we can tie for the world lead, The Observer, and I suspect other media outlets, will give more attention to the charity chain and everyone's causes.

I'm writing a story about how to best use LinkedIn to rebuild your career as we

(hopefully) emerge from the recession. Please contact me if you have thoughts.

Forgive my delay in sending out my new business cards, which are very, very cool. I will mail them out ASAP, I promise.

The Observer's Twitter directory is gathering steam. To sign up, click here.

Finally, time for the video of the day. The Web can be used to blast those we disagree with and spread hatred. Or it can be used to reach out and to build tolerance and understanding. This is a moving video that does the latter. I think it will put a lump in your throat, if you open your heart to it.

Give a shoutout to your cause

A few days ago I landed at 999 friends on Facebook, and folks started asking what I would do to mark 1,000. Through a discussion on my page, we decided to let each new friend give a shoutout to their favorite local cause on my wall. This could work in concert with The Observer's Mission Possible project. I'll repeat the names of the new friends, and their causes here on my blog. Facebook caps friends lists at 5,000, so if we make it that far, we'll be tied for No. 1 in the world. If that happens, The Observer -- and, I suspect, other media outlets -- will give the new, social media cause train some serious pub. To friend me and give your cause some pub, click here. Not on Facebook? Add your cause in the comments below. It's a lot better than making the world a more unfriendly place, right?

A couple of big stories the past two days. The New York Times put the Southeastern Conference's threat to ban social media from ballgames on its front page Thursday, two days after we had the story in The Observer. And today we have a front-page story on how the health-care reform issue has played out on Facebook. Sarah Palin made her infamous "death panels" comments there, you know.

The Observer's Twitter directory got some national pub yesterday. Media commentator Jim Romenesko noted it in his blog on the latest newspaper tech developments. If you'd like to be followed by local people and get your business some attention on Twitter, you can find the form by clicking here.

Working on a story about LinkedIn, and how people are using it to help their careers during the recession. If you have ideas, contact me here, or better yet, on my LinkedIn page, here.

Finally, here's a hilarious video of the day -- an oldie but a goody featuring a former Charlotte anchorman. I saw it for the first time today, thanks to Facebook friend David Beckwith of Charlotte, who posted it on his page. But this blooper featuring Michael Scott, formerly of WBTV, made the rounds years ago, and ended up on "The Tonight Show." Watch Scott gyrate when the lizard jumps on him!

Charlottean taught Shaq to tweet?

A Charlotte woman taught Shaq to tweet? Who knew?

Shaquille O'Neal is a giant on Twitter, with nearly 2 million followers. He's famous for his playful and frequent posts.

Kathleen Hessert, the same Charlotte consultant who bailed out the Southeastern Conference in its social media missteps this week, put Twitter in the big man's hands.

An impostor was tweeting under his name, and his team, the Phoenix Suns, wanted to bring in legal counsel. Hessert said no, just let the real deal blow the fake away. She helped O'Neal get on Twitter as THE_REAL_SHAQ, and he took to it right away. "The first day he sent out, I think, 17 tweets," she said.

This week, the SEC faced a flurry of fan dissatisfaction over its policy, released earlier this month, banning social media at all athletic events. The aim of the ban was to protect a $3 billion contract with CBS, which could be threatened, the conference believed, by YouTube posts. Fans protested online, questioning why even Twitter would be banned in the stands. Many fans pointed out that the ban was unenforceable.

Facing a PR disaster of grassroots dissent online, the SEC turned to Hessert, who has also advised Penn State, the University of Virginia and ESPN on social media problems. Hessert runs the consulting firm Sports Media Challenge from her six-person office at N.C. 51 and Carmel Road. She advised the SEC to listen to the fans, and answer them -- on social media. Rather than issuing a press release to mainstream media, Hessert posted an interview with the SEC to her blog, and tweeted out the news.

“Issuing the new policy on social media was absolutely intentional,” said Hessert, “If the conversation is fan-generated, you've got to be where they are.”

While blogs commented and fans protested online, The Observer was the only traditional media to cover the story early this week, said Charles Bloom, an SEC spokesman. “Ninety-five percent of the feedback we got was online,” he said.

The new policy only bans broadcasting or recording what could be “a substitute for radio, television or video coverage.” And if a fan does record a game, “nothing will happen in the stadium,” said Bloom. The conference's tech advisers will work with YouTube or another site to pull the pirated material down.

Hessert said in both the case of O'Neal's impostor and the SEC's missteps, all that was really needed was a change in attitude by the organization.

“Everyone is grappling with what to do with this stuff, but it's not the tech that gets in the way,” said Hessert. It's often a matter of embracing the dialogue, she believes. “It's a cultural thing.”

Obama vs. Palin on Facebook; SEC update

It's Obama vs. Palin in an ongoing health care debate taking place on their Facebook pages. The president has 6.6 million supporters, Palin fewer than 800,000, but her attacks on health-care reform are pointed and her followers outspoken, as has been noted in political journals. Both pages are regularly updated with health care posts. Facebook ads, which provide demographic information on the 73 million American adults on Facebook, shows 1.9 million users strongly identify themselves with the Democratic Party and 1.6 million strongly identify themselves with the Republican Party. Are conservative voices crying out elsewhere on the Web? Where? Do you think the online health-care debate is valuable?

How do you know who's on Twitter in your community? Good question. That's why we're compiling a Twitter directory. Sign up here. So you can get the right followers, and you can find the right people to follow. The directory is searchable, so the other knitters in Elizabeth can find you, and readers can find your blog. And you want customers to find your business on Twitter, right? Tomorrow we'll announce who won a free lunch for being among the first 100 to sign up.

The Southeastern Conference has loosened its rules on social media. The verdict: Video is out, Twitter is in. Or actually, any kind of broadcast is out. The new rule outlaws anything that could be "a substitute for radio, television or video coverage." That's what was expected, as the SEC safeguards its $3 billion contract with CBS. But why was the rule -- which prohibited all social media at games -- so strict in the first place? We're in an odd place with social media: Half the establishment (whatever that is) wants to be taught how to "do it right." The other half wants to shut it down. For more on the SEC ruling, see my blog post here, and Mashable's update here.

Facebook has reassured Canada that the giant peephole will strengthen users' privacy controls. Our northern neighbor demanded Facebook demonstrate more attention to privacy rights. Wish this country was more pro-active on that.

The Huffington Post has hooked up with Facebook to aggregate friends' favorite news stories. The New York Times did something similar last year. I like it, but will this create even more of an insular news community in which you hear what you want to hear?

There was just an enormous amount of Panther commentary on Twitter during last night's game. Knew it. The tweeps who vowed they would only watch the game couldn't resist second guessing calls and tweeting high-fives.

The call went out on Facebook and Twitter today when Mark Epperly of Charlotte lost his white German shepherd near The Plaza and Eastway. She's wearing a pink collar. E-mail him at Alifeyoudreamof@gmail. This is what the real-time Web is good for.

For God's sake, hide the Farmville application on your Facebook page. Just look to the right of your friends' posts about it, and click HIDE. Hide anything you don't want to see. Or anyone.

SEC rethinks ban on social media

You're at a South Carolina football game, sitting in the sun at Williams-Brice Stadium. USC scores, and as the fans go wild, you tweet to your buddies, "Touchdown, Gamecocks!"

Oops, there's a flag on that play. All social networking at games is against SEC rules. Gamecocks can't tweet. That's not allowed.

The giant booing sound you hear is SEC fans across the Internet reacting to what some say is college sports' most restrictive social media policy. Way to tweet your protest, fans. Thanks to the reaction on blogs, Twitter and elsewhere, that policy is about to be revised, the SEC told me this afternoon.

"I know what's being written," said Charles Bloom, the conference spokesman, about an outcry online by the media and fans. "The thought process is to get it loosened up a bit." Bloom expects a revision to be finished in a day or two.

The SEC is trying to protect its $3 billion contract with CBS and ESPN, which has video rights to its sporting events. A restriction on fans posting videos is "tougher to move," Bloom told me. "The main concern is videos." That part is staying put, it appears.

So, can fans post photos to Twitter and Facebook from the games? That remains to be seen, he said. Bloom indicated that fans would probably be able to tweet from the stands. But he confirmed that, right now, strictly speaking, that is forbidden. "I'm advocating that we loosen that part up," Bloom said.

According to the policy, ticketed fans can't "produce or disseminate (or aid in producing or disseminating) any material or information about the Event, including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information."

The question is, why was the policy so restrictive in the first place? The Big 10 has a far more open social media policy that seems to embrace different formats and invites fans to take part. Here's more on the SEC controversy.

If you haven't seen the video above, of a guy who marches to the beat of his own drummer, check it out. Go your own way, and you never know what will happen.

In the past 24 hours, six of my friends on Facebook have posted about health care. That's not comments to an existing thread, but unique posts. I did a test this morning, searching Facebook and Twitter to see how many users were posting about health care. From all users, there were eight unique wall posts in one minute on Facebook regarding health care. (That didn't include comments or messages. These were new wall posts by users.) In one minute there were 20 Tweets mentioning health care. To put that in perspective, it took 45 minutes for eight people to post on Facebook about "Mad Men," the wildly popular cable show that had a season premiere the night before. But are all these posts constructive dialogue? Or just blasting?

In case you somehow missed it, this squirrel photo is a sensation online. He took a curious peek at the camera, and became a star of a Minnesota couple's vacation photo. Jackson and Melissa Brandts were on the "Today" show this morning, insisting that the photo is real.

If you want Charlotte people on Twitter to find you and follow you, sign up for our Twitter directory. It will be searchable, so you can list your interests, and find other people who share them. Sign up here.