Image Credit: Masahiro Shibusawa

One thing that has never made sense to me in the world of protecting one’s own privacy is people that don’t destroy paper documents that have their name and address on them. Stop for a moment and think about how many service providers (like your utility company, or your cable company) verify your account with your phone number and your address. Just about all of them do.

Additionally, unless you’ve followed my suggestions in “Protecting Your Privacy # 3: Using PO Boxes or Private Mail Boxes,” then your home address is where these companies will be sending your bills – with your name, address, and account info all on the same document. If an identity thief is bold enough, and you still have an old style, drive-up and open the front flap, mailbox for your mail delivery, they can simply walk by, open the flap, steal your mail and do whatever they want with it. This is why part 3 is so important, however, it is also just as important to destroy any documents that you intend to throw away – because these thieves have no boundaries, and they will just as easily rifle through your garbage as they will steal mail directly from your mailbox. Though your trash is probably legally your property until it is picked up, thieves know that it is a felony to steal your mail, and fewer people are prepared to report someone stealing trash.

Therein lies the problem, however, if you don’t take care to prevent your information from going into the trash. You know all those credit card offers you get in the mail? Those have critical personal information on them, if you simply throw them in the trash without first opening them and taking out the information that reveals who you are and where you live, you’re giving a trash-digging identity thief easy access.

So, what’s the solution?

Many assume that a shredder is the first line of defense in the fight against identity theft, and in many cases, they are right. However, a shredder, even a cross-cutting, confetti-making shredder, still leaves you vulnerable to an identity thief that has the patience and the time to go through an piece the puzzle back together – especially if you throw all of your shredded confetti away in the same bag – something the vast majority of people do.

The best way to protect yourself from identity thieves that use these tactics, is to completely destroy the document altogether. If you have a fireplace, go camping, or otherwise build fires on an at least annual basis, this is easy. Instead of using old newspapers or magazines (recycle these), use your old documents. Grab a box, put the documents in it over the course of the year, and when that first freeze comes around that gives enough reason to build a fire, use your old documents as kindling.

These works perfectly for me, and it starts a fire just as good, if not better than old newspapers. I should note, here, that if you intend on just throwing whole envelopes on the fire (that still have that clear plastic on them that reveals your name and address, you shouldn’t. The plastic used in those can be harmful to your health. You’ve been warned.

Go Paperless

If you don’t have a fireplace, and/or don’t really like the idea of having to use the power of an open flame to destroy your documents and protect your privacy, an even better solution (especially for the environment) is to go paperless. Almost every company that sends a regular bill now provides an option to go paperless. Many of them even offer an financial incentive to you for going paperless. Go paperless and you don’t have to worry nearly as much about paper documents that have your personal information on them coming to your mailbox or having to worry about making sure that you destroy them properly.

There are several tools and options out there, as well, that make it easy to backlog your old paper documents as well. One of my favorite is the Neatdesk scanner.

Receipts

Receipts should be given special attention, as well, as they do display your name and the last four digits of your card number in many cases. I know there are many reasons in the realm of personal finance to hold on to your receipts (that’s a whole other topic). However, when it comes time to get rid of them, or if you’re one of those people that doesn’t save receipts in the first place, make sure you follow the proper steps to make sure they are disposed of in a such a way that your information is protected.

It’s amazing what lengths identity thieves will go to in order to get your information, and create fraudulent accounts in your name and ruin your financial efforts. Take care to protect your information that is printed on paper.

Image Credit: Newsbie Pix

If you’re like me, the idea of giving out your home address, really for any reason, bothers you. It’s bad enough that we get bombarded by people and advertising outside of our homes. We shouldn’t have to deal with all the crap that comes to our personal homes, either.

There are two solutions to this problem: 1) a Post Office Box, and 2) a Private Mail Box. What’s the difference? A PO Box is found at the actual United States Postal Service location in your area. A Private Mail Box is essentially the same thing, however it is found at a local mail service company – like the UPS store, or PostNet, for example.

There are advantages to both, depending on your needs. PO boxes tend to be cheaper and obviously come with the (at least seemingly so) confidence in knowing that the Post Office will always be around. The problem with PO boxes, however, is that they do not allow for you to have packages from UPS, FedEx, or the like, delivered to them. For someone that is trying to not give out their home address for any reason, this doesn’t work. Private Mail Boxes are the solution in this case. They allow for delivery of packages, mail, and just about everything that you would have delivered to your home and many of the things that your PO box will not allow to be delivered.

Private Mail Boxes, however, tend to be more expensive that PO boxes, and they may not be as easy to find in your area. For this reason, and because I really don’t have that many packages delivered to me, I use a PO box. It’s super cheap, and mine is near enough to my house that it really isn’t going out of my way to get to it. Private Mail Boxes have another advantage, however, in that they typically have a more “physical-like” address to use, making it easier to use them in the cases where companies don’t allow you to use a PO box. This same advantage, however, can be a hindrance in some situations. Depending on the service you go with, and the way they require you to represent the address can cause some issues. For example, a standard private mail box may have an address like this:

John Stevens
1234 Main Street, Suite 567
PMB 8910 <- Notice this…
City Name, TX 123456

Now, the 1234 Main Street, Suite 567 doesn’t usually create any issues with address systems, as the Suite is a normal standard in the mailing system world. However, the line 2 PMB part can cause issues. In these cases, I recommend discussing with the PMB provider how they would recommend resolving the issues, but you can typically find some way to represent the address in a way that it follows something similar to this format:

John Stevens
1234 Main Street, Suite 567-8910 <- Notice how I’ve incorporated the PMB # into the Suite #…
City Name, TX 123456

If you have a reliable box provider, and you’ve discussed this format with them, they should get all of your mail delivered accurately. PO Boxes don’t come with this layer of potential confusion, but they aren’t as readily acceptable in as many delivery scenarios.

A note for business owners using this idea: If you use your PMB to list your business address with phone directories and online directories (like Google Business Center – Google Maps), some of your customers that have the mindset of just stopping by whenever they feel like it might be confused when they show up to the Suite number in your address and realize it’s nothing more than a mail center. It’s a small issue, but can cause confusion, and you may even lose customers over it.

Overall, either solution works, depending on your need and your desired layer of insulation between your actual physical address and the outside world. I prefer to use a PO box for cost and personal convenience. Some like the added options that a PMB provides them. Make your own decision, and enjoy the privacy.

Spam, spam, spam. As of January 2010, 183 billion spam messages are sent per day (source: Wikipedia). The question I hear the most regarding spam: “How do these people get my email address in the first place?” Though the answer is there are tons of ways they get access to your email address, the most common is that someone you submitted your email address to sold it to a spammer or email list database company. It could even be a company that you would think you can trust not to do such a thing.

So how do I avoid spam?

The best way is to never give out your email address, but that isn’t realistic. So the second-best option is to have a different email address that you use for anything you sign up for. Whether it is an account with an online store, or a newsletter that you subscribe to, you should use a different email address for each one.

For example, let’s say you shop at the online store www.superawesomeamazingcoolstuff.com. If you follow my method, you’ll setup your account with their online store using the email address superawesomeamazingcoolstuff.com@yourdomainname.com. You then forward this email to your primary email address so that when someone sends messages to the address, you are able to receive them in one place. This follows the same principles as using a forwarding number like I talked about in my previous post.

This does several things for you:

1. It protects your actual email address from being shared with anyone (assuming you don’t give it out).
2. If your email address is shared or sold to a spammer, you’ll know how they got it because the message will be sent to your forwarding email.
3. If you are getting too much spam to deal with and you don’t care about maintaining your account with that online store, you can go to your email hosting provider and delete the forwarder and the spam stops.

There is one caveat to this setup: sending outbound email. If you’re using a forwarder for inbound email, you won’t be able to simply send email out from that same email address. This should be a rare occurrence, but it can happen. There are two possible solutions: 1) just use your actual email address when sending outbound email; or 2) in your hosting provider, setup an actual email address account that will allow you to login to the webmail and send outbound email from.

After doing this with my emails, I have learned that a surprising amount of companies that would normally seem like trustworthy companies share or sell email addresses to third parties. I have since deleted those forwarders and I no longer do business with those companies.

How to get this setup:

1. Setup a cheap hosting account with any of the major companies. Since we won’t be actually hosting a website on this account, just forwarding emails, the hosting service doesn’t have to be expensive, just fairly reliable.
2. Once you’ve setup an account with a hosting company, if the company uses CPanel, you will be able to login to CPanel and select the “forwarding” icon.
3. Here, you will create your forwarding email address and tell it where to send messages (your primary email).
4. And that’s it. You’re done.

We’ve dealt with it for years. Seinfeld yielded a hero’s cheers when he handled it the way we wish we all had thought to handle it. Telemarketers. People we just don’t want to talk to. Blocked numbers. The list goes on. The annoying phone calls that we all get from people trying to sell us something, or trying to get us to do something that we really don’t want to do.

My solution: I don’t give out my real phone number to anyone, especially my cell phone number. Instead, I give out pre-determined “forwarding” numbers. People and telemarketers can still call me, but if a number I give out is obviously sold to a telemarketing database, it is simple to simply turn that number off, and the calls stop. Or if I want to have a little fun with it, I can forward the number to a voicemail similar to the rejection hotline. I save that for those really annoying callers.

The only people that have my real cell phone number are family members and my closest friends. They have all been told not to give out my number to anyone for any reason. If you’re worried that your family and friends aren’t easily “trained” to do such a thing, you can just give them a special number, as well.

So, how do I have multiple forwarding phone numbers without spending a fortune? I use a service called Callfire. Callfire is designed for business advertising, helping them determine which advertising is performing and which isn’t. I use it for that, and I also use it to handle all of my personal calls.

I currently have 4-5 telephone numbers that I give out for specific things. For example, if I want to fill out a survey card at a restaurant, I use one of the numbers. If I want to give out my “cell phone” number (not really my cell phone number), I have another number that I give out. The advantages are numerous. And Callfire keeps the costs to a minimum. There are numerous companies out there that provide forwarding phone numbers, but in my experience, for the money, Callfire is the company to go with.

Simple steps to follow for protecting your phone number with Callfire:

1. Setup an account here >
2. After you setup your account, login, and go to Numbers > Buy Toll-Free or Local
3. Put in your area code, find a number that works for you, and purchase it.
4. After you’ve gone through the number selection/purchase process, you’ll need to setup forwarding to your real number. Do that on the Numbers > My Numbers page.
   1. Find the number you just bought. Select the checkbox next to it, and click Setup Number, put in your real phone number and click Ok.
   2. When you’ve done this, the number should show a “Stopped” under status, select the number again, and this time click “Enable.” (If you get an error here, it might be because you need to add funds to your account as Callfire runs on a pre-paid budget system).
5. Now, when you give out your number, give them your Callfire number instead, and protect your private cell phone or home number from being listed anywhere. Enjoy.

Image Credit: David Berkowitz

I’ve had 3 Facebook accounts. As I write this, I only have one active account remaining – and it’s hanging by a thread. I’ve started, built, activated, deactivated, and deleted multiple Facebook “pages” for businesses or the like. I had a MySpace account before anyone around me did. I was a little later to the show with Facebook. Currently, I use Twitter to connect to everything in my social media world, including Facebook – but more on that later.

Facebook and I have never really had a good relationship. It never was bad, per say, but it never was good. It was a lot like that person you dated because it was convenient to do so. The relationship was nothing special, but until something better came along, there was no really good reason to end it either.

When Facebook showed up, shortly after MySpace became the craze, I was leery. The elitist attitude that boldly proclaimed, “you can’t join our network unless you are a part of this group or that group,” was not one that I really took fondly to. I was a part of multiple social circles, many of which had nothing to do with the schools or groups that were “allowed” on Facebook. If I was going to take the time to join a social network, I wanted it to be one where everyone I knew could take part.

A shifting attitude about your privacy (and not in a good way)

Eventually, as most people know, that all changed. The elitist attitude, however, has not. It is still running rampant, making Steve Jobs and Apple look like a tepid child. This is clearly understood by a quick look at the sweeping changes in their approach to privacy as outlined here by the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Facebook Privacy Policy circa 2005:

No personal information that you submit to Thefacebook will be available to any user of the Web Site who does not belong to at least one of the groups specified by you in your privacy settings.

Facebook Privacy Policy circa 2006:

We understand you may not want everyone in the world to have the information you share on Facebook; that is why we give you control of your information. Our default privacy settings limit the information displayed in your profile to your school, your specified local area, and other reasonable community limitations that we tell you about.

Facebook Privacy Policy circa 2007:

Profile information you submit to Facebook will be available to users of Facebook who belong to at least one of the networks you allow to access the information through your privacy settings (e.g., school, geography, friends of friends). Your name, school name, and profile picture thumbnail will be available in search results across the Facebook network unless you alter your privacy settings.

Facebook Privacy Policy circa November 2009:

Facebook is designed to make it easy for you to share your information with anyone you want. You decide how much information you feel comfortable sharing on Facebook and you control how it is distributed through your privacy settings. You should review the default privacy settings and change them if necessary to reflect your preferences. You should also consider your settings whenever you share information. …

Information set to “everyone” is publicly available information, may be accessed by everyone on the Internet (including people not logged into Facebook), is subject to indexing by third party search engines, may be associated with you outside of Facebook (such as when you visit other sites on the internet), and may be imported and exported by us and others without privacy limitations. The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.” You can review and change the default settings in your privacy settings.

Facebook Privacy Policy circa December 2009:

Certain categories of information such as your name, profile photo, list of friends and pages you are a fan of, gender, geographic region, and networks you belong to are considered publicly available to everyone, including Facebook-enhanced applications, and therefore do not have privacy settings. You can, however, limit the ability of others to find this information through search using your search privacy settings.

Current Facebook Privacy Policy, as of April 2010:

When you connect with an application or website it will have access to General Information about you. The term General Information includes your and your friends’ names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs, connections, and any content shared using the Everyone privacy setting. … The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.” … Because it takes two to connect, your privacy settings only control who can see the connection on your profile page. If you are uncomfortable with the connection being publicly available, you should consider removing (or not making) the connection.

Your data on Facebook (status updates, pictures, etc) is not really yours

The most recent action by Zuckerberg was to make access to your information on the site publicly available, whether you like it or not. The new privacy controls do 6 major things with regard to connections you make using the Facebook “connect” feature (that should piss most people off, though it won’t because they are probably oblivious to them):

1. Facebook will not let you share any of this information without using Connections. You cannot opt-out of Connections. If you refuse to play ball, Facebook will remove all unlinked information from your profile.
2. Facebook will not respect your old privacy settings in this transition. For example, if you had previously sought to share your Interests with “Only Friends,” Facebook will now ignore this and share your Connections with “Everyone.”
3. Facebook has removed your ability to restrict its use of this information. The new privacy controls only affect your information’s “Visibility,” not whether it is “publicly available.”

Explaining what “publicly available” means, Facebook writes:

“Such information may, for example, be accessed by everyone on the Internet (including people not logged into Facebook), be indexed by third party search engines, and be imported, exported, distributed, and redistributed by us and others without privacy limitations.”

1. Facebook will continue to store and use your Connections even after you delete them. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there. Even after you “delete” profile information, Facebook will remember it. We’ve also received reports that Facebook continues to use deleted profile information to help people find you through Facebook’s search engine.
2. Facebook sometimes creates a Connection when you “Like” something. That “Like” button you see all over Facebook, and now all over the web? It too can sometimes add a Connection to your profile, without you even knowing it.
3. Your posts may show up on a Connection page even if you do not opt in to the Connection. If you use the name of a Connection in a post on your wall, it may show up on the Connection page, without you even knowing it. (For example, if you use the word “FBI” in a post).

Zuckerberg’s offer that you can’t refuse

Facebook has become so interconnected with our daily lives (the 400 million of us that are on the site anyway) that the leverage they have to keep us on the site is overwhelming. People are using the site for a lot more than just catching up with old high school friends. They are playing games with their friends, sharing pictures of their life, and so on.

We are all social creatures. We like to be popular, we like to have friends, we like to be able to reach out and connect with someone when we are lonely. This nature of connectivity in humans is a foundational principle on which Facebook’s success is built. And right now, the closest thing to providing a better solution is Twitter – which almost everyone has heard of, but almost no one understands how to use. Because of this, there are 10 main reasons, according to Nicholas Carlson at Business Insider, that you’ll never quit Facebook even if you think you want to:

1. You’re not going to go back to waiting an hour to send an email to 30 people with 40 photos attached.
2. How will you remember anybody’s birthday?
3. How will you stalk your college boyfriend’s new fiancé?
4. Without Facebook what are you going to do when you don’t have a friend’s email address or phone number? Facebook messaging blows. But at least you know you can reach anybody who has a Facebook account.
5. Forget Facebook. 80 million of you are addicted to Zygna’s Facebook game, FarmVille.
6. It takes 2 seconds to “join” a new site through Facebook Connect. It can take a good 10 minutes doing it the old way.
7. How will you hear about parties? How will you remember where and when those parties are? Evite?
8. You don’t care about Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg’s sometimes sketchy past.
9. Sure, Facebook has privacy issues, but you don’t care about privacy anymore. Remember when you wouldn’t use your real name on the Internet?
10. You’ve never quit before. Remember News Feed? Beacon? You didn’t quit then and won’t now, either. Not even if you want to.

You may balk at some of the above suggestions, though I’m pretty sure you won’t say you disagree with all of them. On the chance that you do, and you decide, screw this, I’m going to leave Facebook just in spite, know this: Facebook doesn’t like to be dumped, as a matter of fact, they are kind of Super Ex-girlfriend psycho about it. Read this article describing what happens when you deactivate your Facebook Account.

Oh, and by the way, deactivating your account is not the same thing as deleting it. Your information is still on the site, all you have to do is simply login and it is like you never even left. They don’t make that very clear, and I don’t think many people even realize this fact. If you have decided you really do want to delete your account, use this link to do so, not the “deactivate” link provided by Facebook. Note: even when deleting your account, Facebook, to further portray it’s elitist attitude, tells you that your account will not be completely deleted for 14 days, basically saying, “we know you don’t really want to delete your account, you’ll be back.”

Zuckerberg thinks you’re a moron, and he’s probably right

Ironically, a private IM conversation between a friend and Zuckerberg reveals Zuckerberg’s mentality about the users of Facebook. The naivity of people online is the reason Facebook continues to swell. People simply do not know that they are revealing their information to the world. Take the following story:

I have a close friend who just bought a house. Before he bought the house, he decided to research the seller. He had never met the seller, and all he had to go on was a name. Using that name, he was able to find the seller’s wife’s Facebook profile, which was publicly displaying multiple details regarding their lifestyle and the luxuries they maintained.

Now, my friend is a decent person, and would never use his advanced computing skills (he’s a very talented programmer, with his name on a few software patents) for evil, but he was able to learn more than enough about the person he was buying his house from to feel comfortable with the transaction.

At the closing, my friend did the good deed of informing the seller that he was able to find out many details of his life through his wife’s Facebook profile. Noticeably shocked at the information my friend had about him, the seller was a little more than annoyed that my friend knew so much about him.

People demand privacy, but they don’t even know when their privacy is being violated it. They are oblivious to how openly revealing they are through their own actions. No one really reads privacy policies (Facebook’s is now longer than the United States Constitution). And who would want to? We just want to get online, share some pictures, write some witty ‘status’ updates and stay as permanently connected to our friends, loved ones, and complete strangers as possible.

Marketing is the root of Facebook’s evil

Companies are realizing the massive marketing potential that Facebook provides (which is, of course, where all of this really stems from). They are increasingly gaining insight on how using Facebook for business and marketing is a low-cost, and in most cases, incredibly effective tool.

But, and this is important, we saw this happen with MySpace. Companies were using MySpace URLs in their advertising instead of their own websites. The same thing is happening with Facebook. The difference? Facebook has provided businesses with a platform for interactivity – something MySpace didn’t really ever figure out.

Something will change. The question is what/who?

Facebook has very publicly called an “all hands on deck” meeting to discuss the recent backlash to their privacy policy changes. I doubt anything is really going to change, however. The vast majority of people are not even aware of the fact that Facebook has changed their privacy policies, much less how the changes really affect them, personally.

Some users have organized a “Quit Facebook Day” for May 31, 2010 in an attempt to both educate people about the negative privacy policies Facebook has implemented, as well as to encourage people to boycott the service.

Where do you stand?

Will you keep your Facebook profile? Will you make adjustments to your privacy settings? Will you remove your account all together?

Do you believe that you have a right to privacy when using a free service online? Do you believe those that reveal too much personal information on social networks are the ones that should be blamed for their own information being put out there? Tell me what you think in the comments.

Image Credit: Melissa Wiese

For the past couple of days, there has been lots of buzz around Google’s latest attempt at social media. There have been countless reactions to the new product, from glowing praise to raving anger.

Google has dipped it’s toes in social media before, and has in most cases, completely missed the mark. Google Buzz, however, some felt, had/has promise. At the very least, it has been regarded as Google’s best attempt at social media to date. While this may be true, I think Google is being awfully Microsoft-esque about it.

There were numerous headlines on blogs and news sites that made claims similar to “Google Buzz: Twitter and Facebook Killer.” This couldn’t be further from the truth.

There are three major flaws to Google Buzz, right out of the gate:

1. You have to be a Gmail user. Lame. Admittedly, I’m a Gmail user, but – and this is a big but – I do not give it out freely and I certainly don’t want to just so I can use this service. I’m convinced I’m not the only one that feels this way. One of the greatest things about Twitter, Facebook, and even LinkedIn is that they have established their network around the concept of a profile instead of an email address.
2. Google has completely disregarded people’s desire for privacy by making you follow all of your Gmail contacts automatically as soon as you sign up for the service. On top of the fact that you may not want to follow all of these people right out of the gate, Google ruins it even more by displaying the people you follow on your public profile without so much as a mention that they are going to do so. For more on this read this great article by Business Insider: WARNING: Google Buzz Has A Huge Privacy Flaw
3. Google is exposing your home address. And you probably didn’t even know it. Sure, when you’re on your iPhone or other smartphone and you’re playing with Google Buzz it asks you if you are okay with letting Google Buzz use your current location; but I don’t think most people realize that Google is going to take that location and turn it into an address. I know I didn’t really think of it that way at first; my initial thought was that it would just be a general proximity, whoops. I looked at all the buzz activity that was near me and discovered that I could stalked by just about anyone who wanted to, if they were so inclined and I decided to actually use Google Buzz. That’s just creepy. No thanks.

Definitely not a Twitter/Facebook killer if you ask me. People already fear Google’s overwhelming ability to invade people’s privacy. With Google Buzz and the unfortunate methods by which Google has released it without being more proactive about protecting people’s privacy, I believe Google has yet again proven that it doesn’t know what the heck it’s doing when it comes to social media. Even Yahoo! got the chance to punch the big kid in the nose, stating on Twitter: “Two years after #Yahoo! launched #Buzz, Google follows suit. Check out the original: http://buzz.yahoo.com/”

This is a situation where Google should learn from it’s “evil-doing” nemesis Microsoft, and listen to Business Insider when they say, “Enough, Google — Just Buy Twitter Already.” Microsoft owns a portion of Facebook - smart, especially considering Facebook is giving even Google a run for it’s money when it comes to daily traffic. If Google really wants to stir up the social media world, they’d invest in a platform that has proven successful already – Twitter.

People Don’t Want or Need Another Social Network

I don’t have the slightest clue how many social networks have been started and/or failed in the last 10 years – and I’m not interested in taking any time to do any research on the matter, either. I do know this, though, of all the networks out there, only three really seem to have been successful enough to find their way into smaller communities like Lubbock.

See, in Lubbock, I am given a front-seat view of which trends will stick around and which will die. I consider the local adoption of new technology a good way to read the pulse of the long-term potential of a new thing. Sure, the Texas Tech students jump on the bandwagon early with a lot of things. But the business owners, working professionals, and the stay-at-home parents are usually very late to the party. Twitter has already passed the peak of media promotion, and yet, there are still numerous people in Lubbock that don’t even know how it works or what it’s all about. They’ve heard of it. They’re learning about it, and they are joining the party, but we are well past the curve compared to bigger metropolitan areas. The same goes for LinkedIn. Facebook caught on quite early though.

When I talk to my clients about social media, I can mention companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter (and in that order) and generally get at least an acknowledgement of having heard the names. If I mention Google Buzz, I suspect I won’t find anyone that has even heard of it for at least the next 3 months (unless they are friend or in the industry). To me, that is the measure of a social media success – how fast the normally late-adopters join the party.

People are already worn out by the existing social networks. Google has arrived late to the party, and not in the “guy that shows up just in time to get ready for the after-party” kind of way either. Google has arrived when all the cool kids have already left for the after-party and now they look like a big dork.

Overall, my prediction for Google Buzz: yet another Google social media fail. Unless, of course, they make some drastic changes and/or I’ve completely missed something. What are your thoughts? Have you messed with Google Buzz yet? Do you think it will kill Twitter/Facebook?