This is a very interesting topic to be discussing as I have a personal story which relates to social networks being monitored by companies for customer compliments or negative feedback.
This past May a few of my friends and I participated in Tough Mudder in Vermont. This is a crazy endurance race which tests your mental and physical grit of being a man. Long story short, 3 miles in on a 12 mile race my friend dislocated his shoulder and was unable to finish the race. He needed to get surgery performed on his shoulder and was very upset he missed out. Besides wasting $130 dollars, he felt as it was unfair and should be able to transfer his registration to another event later this year. Once we returned home, he posted on the Tough Mudder's Facebook Fan page his experience during the race. Within minutes, staff at Tough Mudder contacted him to apologize and wish him luck in his recovery and let him transfers his registration to another event this November. This story has really opened my eyes to the extent of social networks being monitored for customer feedback.
This topic brings me back to a huge discussion I had in my Business Ethics class here at Ramapo. We talked about all the companies monitoring Social Networks for future employees and to get to know them before offering them an interview of some sort. In some cases the company did not like a few pictures of postings on these social network sites (Facebook, MySpace, and twitter) and the eligible prospective employee was not even giving a chance for the interview. How can a picture of partying in college a few years back inter fear with your chance in obtaining the career job? Well, we discussed when is it too much monitoring? When do companies cross the line to obtain the information about certain people? When do you feel your privacy has been invaded because of the social network sites? Everyone thinks Facebook and twitter are so great to communicate with old friends and relatives, but it can also be very harmful for some people trying to start their careers. Getting closer to graduation now, I always notice all my close friends deactivating their facebooks so major companies do not have the ability to search for them to "stalk" out their profile page.
I do look at monitoring social networks as a positive thing, because there are so many positive out comings which overweight the cons (my friend's tough Mudder experience) but there are negatives we must keep in mind. I wonder if the world will come to posting feedback after making a purchase somewhere and if it is negative someone from that company will contact you to resolve your issues. Ten years ago no one had to worry about this stuff, now you have to be careful what you post visible on this social networks in case it comes back to bite you in the butt.
Overall, these social networks are bringing advertising to the next level. I always think its funny Facebook is a billion dollar company but doesn't charge to create a profile on their site? All the amount of money they make is off advertisements and other sources of media. The monitoring of social networks can get out of hand, but I feel these networks should not allow companies to gain access to all and everything about everyone's lives. What if Facebook restricted what information was giving out for protection of their users? It’s going to be interesting to see where the monitoring of social networks goes in the next few years. I think it has helped our economy and style of living very much but can be intruding into someone’s personal life and can cause a bigger head ache then anticipated when someone first signed up to play Mafia Wars. First is was e-mail, then AOL / AIM, now Facebook / twitter what's next? Social networks are very powerful so I would be careful of what you "share" or "post" on these websites, you never know who's watching your page.
**for more information about Tough Mudder visit - www.toughmudder.com (if your man or women enough)
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