Well, hold your horses. There’s a new tool that will scan your Facebook profile and alert you to any settings that should be changed in order to protect your privacy.

Just drag the “Scan for Privacy” button to the top of your browser, log in to your FB profile, and then click on the “Scan for Privacy” button. The rest of the work is done for you!

Visit ReclaimPrivacy.org

Starting today, when you visit a venue’s page on Foursquare you will see a link asking if you are the manager of the business.

If you are, Foursquare makes it easy for you to claim your business and set up a special in just a couple simple steps.

Streamlining the process of claiming your business and special creation is not the only thing that Foursquare unveiled today. Once your business is confirmed, you will also be able to access tracking analytics for any venue that you manage. These analytics will allow you to see detailed information on your most recent and most frequent visitors, what time during the day people are checking in the most, how many unique visitors have checked-in and the promise of “more coming soon.”

To make it even easier for businesses to promote their presences and specials on the exploding site, Foursquare is offering a variety of tools on its site including logos, mobile screen shots and even static window clings for your storefront. You can access these at http://foursquare.com/press.

These changes are undoubtedly pointing Foursquare in the right direction to make an even bigger impact in the social networking world. Usability is key. The site has really stepped up to make its tool even easier for businesses to take advantage of, and through analytics, even easier to see the traffic it is bringing through the doors.

What are you waiting for? Head over to http://foursquare.com, and claim your business!

Want to preview the “Like” button that will soon be sweeping the web? Head to IMDB or CNN.

On IMDB, each movie’s page now includes a “Like” button and lists the number of connections the movie has already acquired. CNN articles include a button that says “Recommend.” In either case, when I select the button, my image and name appear on the page.

The action also creates a story on my Facebook News Feed linking back to the movie or article.

My Facebook friends can visit the movie page or article and see my name and picture, which link back to my Facebook profile. If someone who isn’t my friend visits the page or article, they cannot see my connection, only that “73 people like this.” Additionally, the “Like” or “Recommend” buttons are only available when a user is signed in to Facebook. Otherwise, clicking them launches a pop-up asking for your Facebook log in information.

It’s a simple and lightweight action to “Like” or “Recommend” anything across the web – just as Facebook intended it to be – but the privacy concerns that the new API generates may not be so casual as your Facebook information is shared across the rest of the web.

See other announcements from F8 on Mashable.

While the changes were leaked at the end of March, many users did not see them coming.  As usual, reactions from the Facebook community are mixed. Some find the new terminology awkward, since there’s no easy term for “users who ‘Like’ a Facebook Page.”

Those who support the change seem to be on board with Facebook’s reasoning – “like” is less heavy than “fan” and will no doubt lead to more connections. But as we previously discussed, a lighter affinity for a brand is unlikely to produce the results marketers hope for. The passionate “fan” is out of the picture.

Naturally, the news pushed Facebook to a trending topic on Twitter, with plenty of users threatening to quit among the new wave of changes. But despite threats, Facebook is unlikely to lose their user base, and pages are unlikely to take a hit in their fan group-of-users-who-designate-preference-for-them base. As we’ve seen before, people will get used to the latest switch and settle down until the next change comes along.

After years of speculation, Twitter has finally announced its plans to monetize through a new advertising platform within its framework. Beginning today, users will begin seeing paid listings at the top of certain Twitter search result pages, which will be known as “Promoted Tweets.”

Best Buy, Virgin America, and Starbucks are among the first brands signed on to use this new ad platform. It remains unclear, however, as to when Twitter plans to invite other potential advertisers to participate in the program.

At launch, “Promoted Tweets” will only be served to about 2-10% of Twitter’s population. But it’s likely that these ads will quickly expand to be served to all of Twitter’s users within a matter of months (maybe weeks).

So what are the Twitterati saying about Twitter’s new move? Nothin’ good. That’s for sure.

According to TwitterSentiment (a Twitter analysis tool), 50% of the tweets related to Promoted Tweets have been negative in nature thus far. Scanning through some of the comments, common trends seem to focus on speculation that Twitter plans to roll “Promoted Tweets” into every user’s Twitter stream, as opposed to confining these paid posts to the search results section.

My thoughts:

Twitter has been good to us for years now, and has never asked for anything in return. Like any company, however, it has investors who have shelled out some serious dough expecting to see a return on their faith in the service.  ”Promoted Tweets” are the answer to keeping these  investors happy,  and in keeping our beloved Twitter alive.

Web users are naturally adverse to any sort of changes in their online world. But things do change, and the complainers eventually adjust. “Promoted Tweets” will be hard to swallow up-front, but will eventually benefit all of us who think in 140 characters.

Written by: Ryan Goff, @ryanatmgh

*UPDATED* 4:00PM EST, April 13, 2010

More details have surfaced regarding Twitter’s new advertising platform. Here are some highlights:

• Advertisers will bid for keywords, and the company with the highest bid will be displayed.
• Ads will receive placement based on advertisers’ bids and their “resonance” with Twitter users. This resonance score (similar to Google’s Quality Score) will be based off of the number of people who link, reply, or retweet the ad. If an ad receives a low resonance score, it will be removed and the advertiser will stop paying for its placement.
• Each search page will only feature one advertiser spot.
• This iteration of Twitter’s advertising platform is thought to be just the first phase in its overall monetization plan. It is likely that users will eventually receive ads based on the accounts that they follow. For example, if I follow a number of celebrity athletes, I may begin to see sponsored posts for Gatorade or Nike.
• Here’s a screenshot of the “Promoted Tweets” in action (courtesy of Mashable.com)

More to come as additional details pour in…

Now, if you’re on your couch and you check in to a venue, you’ll still be able to broadcast to your friends that you’re at this location (or at least pretending to be at this location), but you will not earn any of the rewards such as points, mayorships or specials. This cheaters code not only evens the playing field for users competing in the gaming aspect of Foursquare, but it increases the appeal for businesses to tap into the Foursquare space.

One way businesses are able to take advantage of Foursquare is by serving up exclusive specials, which have the ability to encourage customer loyalty. For instance, a restaurant could create a special such as “For every five check ins, you will receive a complimentary beverage.” On the 5^th checkin, the special is unlocked and the user simply shows the message to his/her server to receive their free drink.

In the past, there was concern that users could simply unlock the special without fulfilling the requirements, by checking in at home. Now, businesses can have peace of mind knowing that their specials are not being served up to any user who exploits the system, but rather they’re being used to engage and reward some of their most loyal customers.

Interested in reading more about Foursquare? Read about the basics here, or check-out this video with more information on Foursquare’s business applications.

At first, users may get confused between “Liking” a page and “Liking” a page’s update, since a “Like” function already exists within Facebook. While the change might mean pages will accumulate more connections, it will be difficult for brands to distinguish which users are true ambassadors, and which users subscribed to the page accidentally. But even if users intend to “Like” a page, expect some connections to become much less meaningful.

In an Advertising Age article, David Berkowitz explains what it meant to be a Facebook fan: “Consumers needed to think twice about whether they’d become a fan of a brand because it meant something, even in a small way, to include that as part of their persona. It meant at least as much for brands to know who their real fans were; they already have a sense of who likes them.”

The shift from “Fan” to “Like” weakens the relationship between users and brands. Facebook’s release states: “‘Like’ offers a light-weight, consistent way for users to connect with the things they are passionate about.” Calling the action “light-weight” takes away from the enthusiasm most brands would hope for when users subscribe to their updates. A user’s light-weight connection to a brand won’t produce the kind of results marketers would hope for, rather, it will produce superficial fans who aren’t likely to translate into customers.

Facebook also recently proposed new privacy settings on their blog, introducing the idea of pre-approved partner websites that may access users’ data to create a customized experience. Think Facebook Connect on a much bigger scale, though the blog post claims the feature would only be available “with a small, select group of partners and we would also offer new controls.”

Both changes seem to be in conjunction with rumors that Facebook is developing a “Like” button for content created all across the web. You can already “share” content on Facebook with the click of a button, but rumors speculate that the “Like” feature would go way beyond that. According to AllFacebook.com, “Facebook also intends to allow developers to apply the ‘Like’ button to practically any structured object on the internet, if initial rumors are accurate.”

Regardless of the rumors, marketers should plan to focus on their presence on Facebook as it continues to integrate with content and user experiences on a wider scale. As the social networking site continues to make changes to become the top contender in content sharing and web search, you should prepare your brand to be a top contender in their domain.

Our answer: Foursquare.

Foursquare is what’s considered a location-based social network, meaning that its users connect based on where they are at that current moment.

Users use their mobile phones to “check-in” at certain locations through Foursquare, and are awarded points and digital badges for doing certain tasks.

For example, you’ll receive 5 points if you check in to a place you’ve never been. Or you’ll earn the “Adventurer” badge if you check in to 10 different locations.

Also, if a individual user checks in to a certain location more than any other user, he/she becomes the Mayor of that location.

Once you check in to a location, you receive a notification of how times you’ve visited that place, how many points you earned by checking in, and the name of that location’s current Mayor.

Foursquare users use the social network to compete against one another for points/badges, to find the “hot spots” around town, and to collect tips which others leave at certain locations. For example, if you check in at a restaurant in town, you may receive an alert on your phone that reads, “Try the salmon.” You can also view tips close to your current location.

Foursquare gives you the ability to see tips for locations that are close to you. If you’re in a foreign town trying to figure out where to grab a bite to eat, this tip section could come in very handy.

After a strong showing at this year’s South by Southwest Conference (SXSW), and subsequent media coverage and online buzz, Foursquare is primed to join the ranks of Twitter and Facebook as a top online social network.

So how are businesses taking advantage of Foursquare? We’ll save that for the next entry. And, don’t worry – we’ll be talking about Foursquare for a while.

It’s not because we don’t love it (because we do). We’ve just been really, really, ridiculously busy (which is a good thing). We’re also working on a slight change of direction for the blog’s content, which will ultimately benefit you, our faithful readers.

So don’t forget about us. We’ll be back.

This study also notes that the average US Facebook user spends over 6 hours using the site per month. The only country seeing higher usage rates is Australia, where users are on Facebook nearly 7 hours a month.

-Rusty

@RussWalters