Okay Okay.. the title may be a bit extreme but the reality is we do not think about personal information we are putting out on the web. Social websites like Facebook and Google+ are awesome. They allow us to share with friends what’s going on day to day in our lives. Something exciting happens.. “gotta post it on my wall.” Soon after, your friends are messaging you about it and cheering you on with a barrage of thumbs up and +1′s.

But how safe is the information you are sharing?

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Google has announced on their Official Blog that they will revamp the design to its social network site Google+. Some improvements include, a new navigation (now located on the left side of the screen instead of the top) with drag-and-drop elements and actions that appear when you hover over each item, as well as the introduction of new features aimed at making it easier to discover conversations to join, a dedicated page for Google+ Hangouts, new profile page layouts,   and more.

Google stated on their Blog:

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In this blog I will give an overview of what Pinterest is, and then give you a tutorial on how to use Pinterest so you can pin like a pro.

Overview

Pinterest is a fairly new Social Network that is now catching on like wildfire. Pinterest began its inception December 2009 and was launched as a closed beta March 2010. After which, they opened the website to people by invitation only (much like Google did with Google+). Now you can get an account by requesting one on the site and waiting for an email accepting you to the Pinterest club.

The site has now grown tremendously with over 10.4 million registered users (as of Feb 11th). In December 2011, the site entered the top 10 social networks, according to Hitwise data, with 11 million total visits per week. The following month, Pinterest drove more referral traffic to retailers than LinkedIn, YouTube, and Google+. The company was named the best new start up of 2011 by TechCrunch.

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Facebook’s timeline has finally started rolling out to over 800 million users worldwide after originally being announced at it’s f8 developers conference last September. You can blame this delay on Facebook being sued by Timeline.com. Timelines.com alleges that Facebook’s launch of Timeline infringes upon its trademarks.

This new feature transforms the Facebook user profile into a virtual scrapbook that lays out your digital history. I feel this is a huge improvement that strengthens the value of your profile page . With the old FB profile your news feed would just display the newest posts or images you have, giving your friends and family minor fragments of what you have been sharing. Now you can easily scroll back by days, months, or years in a well designed two column layout. Using the timeline sidebar you can click on any year you wish.

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On June 29th Google announced a new social network called Google+. Google+ is another social network platform set to battle Facebook. Taking on a giant like Facebook has proven to be a mountain that no one has been able to climb. Leaving big name websites such as Friendster and Myspace in the dust. But maybe Google is not trying to “compete” with Facebook. I have noticed since I became a member of Google+ that I am using so many more Google features than ever before. Sure I used Google search, Gmail, and floated around on YouTube, but with the newly designed top menu I find myself spending a lot of my “web surfing’ within the confines of Google owned sites. I think it’s because of the ease of the new menu or maybe I am just excited about this new site. I won’t know for a few months when I can asses my daily website habits after the “newness” has worn off. All I know right now is that Google is huge on my radar, and I have been inviting friends to the network daily, only adding to the hype.

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