“Brand ambushing” is seen as a way to cut through the clutter of advertising and shock consumers, and the practice has been used by other brands like Domino’s, which tracked down naysayers and had them taste their new and improved pizza. It works because it’s unusual, it creates a scene, and it really is surprising.

As “brand ambushing” becomes more popular, it’s beginning to show Gen Y that the brands are listening to us. We just want to be heard. Gen Y uses a number of different channels just to have a voice; we tweet, text, blog, IM, comment, and “Like” things on Facebook because we expect someone to listen. Wheat Thins listened; they saw a message that could be easily ignored, but they actually did something about it. When a company does respond, it says “we hear you, loud and clear!” It gives validation to our comments and proves that there are actual people behind the brands we buy. This responsiveness creates a personal connection between the brand and the consumer. As we learned from the response to the recent Old Spice social media campaign, we love when brands talk back to us.

Andy Warhol’s theory has never been more true: our generation wants fame. Because of YouTube, we all have a chance at our 15 minutes (or seconds) of fame. We want to stand out. Getting famous is easier than ever because of social media, and we’re ready for our time in the spotlight. Brands that use an ambushing technique tend to do it for advertising or publicity, which means that for a limited period of time, the person getting ambushed is famous, which resonates with our generation. Right now, the video of the Wheat Thins being delivered to Hancock has over 480,000 views.

Another positive aspect of ambushing is simple: free stuff. Getting something for free is guaranteed to appeal to Gen Y; a lot of us are coming out of college with huge amounts of debt during a recession and an awful job market. With a 17.8% unemployment rate for those of us aged 20-24 as of June 2010, any handout sounds stupendous. The benefit of giving away a few boxes of Wheat Thins (all the attention and brand awareness) far outweighs the cost.

Of course, being ambushed by a brand is a little creepy and has a “Big Brother” feel to it. Brand ambushing can seem invasive, and we feel like our privacy is being compromised. It is a little scary; Wheat Thins found out exactly where this woman lived using social media and the internet (and had some help from her Facebook friends). It’s a little unnerving, but I don’t think it’s a deal-breaker.

We’re accustomed to having less privacy. We still care, but I think we’ve grown used to being out in the open.  We’re the generation that lets the internet know where we are just for fun, on Foursquare, and our use of social media is making our lives much more transparent.

I think the good outweighs the bad in “brand ambushing,” and it’s a great way to reach our generation because it is in-your-face, it cuts through the clutter, it lets us know that we’re being heard, and we get to be famous for just a little bit. So the next time you see a Wheat Thins truck pulling into your driveway, don’t be angry or afraid. Just be hungry!

Your real life social networks don't overlap - on Facebook they do.

The rumor mill is abuzz about Google’s potential “Facebook Killer” after Digg founder Kevin Rose tweeted that Google is preparing to release a social network called Google Me to compete with Facebook.

My reaction? It’s about damn time. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is a notorious figure these days. He’s known for his claim that online privacy is dead,  as well as his shady and indirect explanation of the company’s intentions with Open Graph. Not to mention the leaked IMs from his days at Harvard University in which he refers to his classmates as “dumb fucks” for trusting him with their information. Zuckerberg’s actions have driven me to a point at which I’m about ready to pack my bags and leave Facebook.

But there’s just one small problem. Where would I go?

I know I’m not alone in my frustration with Facebook, but I think I face the same dilemma that many people my age face. We’ve been around since the beginning days of Facebook and we’re used to building our lives around it. It’s how we keep in touch with people. It’s how we network. It’s how we share photos, videos and other important parts of our lives. It’s how we stay connected. If not Facebook, then where else?

The existing social networks, such as MySpace, Friendster, and even Google’s own Orkut, just don’t have what it takes to compete. But if any company out there has the ability to build a rival, I’m putting my money on Google. And if this recent slideshare presentation by Google UX designer Paul Adams is any indication of what Google has up its sleeve, I’m psyched to see what they have planned.

Among the many themes illustrated in this presentation, there are a few key points that stand out. For one, our real life social networks are complex. Think of all the relationships you have: your coworkers, your family, your high school friends, your acquaintances, your current social clique. Very rarely do they all come together, and if they did, chances are it would be pretty awkward. Think about how social networks are set up. You post a status update, and everyone in your social network sees it and can comment on it. Your real life social network is a collection of many circles. Some of them may overlap, but many of them will never touch. Your online social network, however, is one giant circle. If Google Me can design a user interface that caters to the complexity of our real life social networks, sign me up.

Also, Google knows that people care about their privacy. In our real life interactions, we can more or less control what people know about us. But on the Internet, many people misunderstand complicated privacy settings and, as a result, their information becomes public to their whole network of friends, or, even worse, to an entire search engine. And furthermore, our offline conversations are not persistent, meaning that if you said something mean to someone in high school, it ended there. Online, you could make the mistake of posting a status update about how much you hate your boss and end up getting fired for it months later. I try to be smart and tactful with my online presence, but if Google Me can provide an interface that takes privacy concerns seriously, sign me up.

And transparency = trust. If people trust you, they’ll do business with you. And on the social web, people need to trust you with lots of personal, sensitive data. Facebook usage rates are declining due to a lack of trust in the company, because in order for a company to have true staying power, its consumers, patrons, clients, and users must trust that it has their best intentions in mind, and that it is being completely transparent. A lack of transparency leads to doubt, and nobody wants to doubt a social network that is responsible for handling such personal information. If Google Me can commit to a philosophy of transparency, sign me up.

The true challenge for Google will be to create a network for its users that gives them everything Facebook gives them, without all the unwanted crap.

What would it take for you to switch to another social network? Do you think Google Me will have what it takes to truly compete with Facebook?

Graphic by Paul Adams

Then I stumbled upon BPGlobalPR, a Twitter handle posing as British Petroleum to put down the company in a truly witty manner. With tweets like “If you fall off your horse, get back on. If your horse explodes and leaks oil everywhere, try to sell that oil. #bpcares,” @BPGlobalPR attracted thousands of followers instantly.

And then, on Facebook, options to “like” groups such as  “Boycott BP,” “1,000,000 Strong to Boycott BP,” or “R.I.P. Spongebob, who died in an oil spill cause [sic] of BP,” popped up within a few hours of news of the spill.

Gen Y is a protesting generation. We are opinionated and we demand change. Almost eerily similar to the Baby Boomers (they call us Echo Boomers for a reason), we are ready to fight – but not always by using picket signs or sit-ins. With social media and new technologies tightly woven into the fabric of our day-to-day lives, we’ve started to use them as tools for protest.

And the result of tweeting out what we oppose or “liking” a group connected to a current controversy, Gen Y comes together in the millions. With a few characters and the click of the mouse, we unite for a common purpose. It is our large numbers – and the unprecedented ability to easily connect them – that give us more power to influence change than ever before.

The power of the click is undeniable, but the intent behind it might be. Yes, Gen Y is passionate. But, what if we’re clicking away to support this, that, and the other because it means that we don’t actually have to stand up to what we’re against in person? Along with joining groups to put a stop to the world’s many injustices, we also join groups like “Things magically appear when your mom looks for them” or “I hate when you pour a bowl of cereal and there’s no milk.” So yes, Gen Y comes together in protest, but also to acknowledge that they too use their cell phone to see in the dark.

New groups like these flood our home pages and become more and more ridiculous. This brings me to question the difference between drive and following a fad. Perhaps your 15-year-old neighbor you’re now friends with on Facebook is not informed on the BP controversy and is just pressing “like” to seem older or more sophisticated? But I would argue, Gen Y is actively protesting and working towards a brighter tomorrow.

Whatever your take is on how Gen Y protests, we can agree that Gen-Y is causing a stir in cyberspace. For example, when BP discovered the twitter group “BPGlobalPR” they contacted Twitter and demanded for the handle to be deleted. Instead, the handle was required to make it clear in their “bio” section that it was not actually affiliated with British Petroleum. So, of course, they concocted this: “We are not associated with Beyond Petroleum, the company that has been destroying the Gulf of Mexico for 81 days.” And now they’re selling t-shirts, too.

But the oil spill is not the only buzz-worthy story on the newsfeed. When Conan O’Brien was removed as the host for The Tonight Show, there was an uproar and profile pictures sprouted all over the world, appropriately captioned as “I’m with Coco.” And although Conan didn’t get his spot back and had to leave NBC, at least he knew that Gen Y was behind him (and this may have influenced his decision to go to TBS, over another network).

This social media support movement is not specific to the U.S. In fact, social media protests dominated Iran’s 2009 elections as young people across the world banded together against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“Tehran’s authoritarian leaders clearly were caught off-guard. They had managed to take down the telephone system opposition supporters used for texting, but for some reason were slow to  eliminate other social media. As open defiance of the election results broke out, citizen journalists used new media to spread the word. And the whole Web was watching,” wrote The Washington Times.

Media outlets started calling the event Iran’s Twitter Revolution. And although some say that the entire uproar was “exaggerated,” it still received a huge response from Iran’s government, which proves that governments of all nations are reading what we put out there via the Internet. And by blocking certain social networking sites, like Iran did after the Twitter Revolution, says that they fear the voice of Gen Y.

And maybe they should fear us, the way the government feared the Boomers. Because of groups like Anonymous, Gen Y has taken online protesting to a whole new level. Through the usual social networking platforms and discussion forums like 4chan, Anonymous creates online protests like  Project Chanology (a protest against Scientology). But they also have been deemed responsible for declaring May 20, 2009 as “YouTube Porn Day,” when they allegedly embedded family friendly videos with porn in protest against governments that don’t favor net neutrality.

Some refer to Anonymous as “domestic terrorists,” but “terrorism” (in my opinion) is a term that is overused and non-specific at this point. So despite criticisms, Anonymous is simply using their right to protest. They just cause a slightly larger stir. Groups like Anonymous is make Gen Y seem unstoppable, which makes me wonder if it is possible for Gen Y to actually “save the world” through online activism?

We are the generation of the social network, and that means “connection” in the broadest sense of the word. Gen Y updates together, tweets together, and stands up together when the occasion calls for it. We’re not just telling our friends what we think. We’re announcing our views to the world.

Photos by scragz (top) and karen90631 (bottom)

I believe that the latter version of checking in will become how we predominantly think of this verb and will play a prominent part in our social lives as people. Marketers should also take notice, and they have, since this is an important pillar in branding and spreading messages to your audiences.

Marketing is about finding and influencing people to sell goods or services to. Enter the rapid increase of Internet usage and digital devices and the choices of media explode. Marketers are able to data mine terabytes of human activity information to personalize messages for each individual consumer, or so the goal is. That Overstock.com ad you see in Grooveshark for a little black dress that you looked at two weeks ago is no coincidence. Advertising based on behavioral targeting is not a new thing and will only improve. However, the behaviors we are aggregating data on are changing. Online, always-connected technologies like our ever-so-useful mobile devices are leading this change.

At the vanguard of this are those LBS’s. Some of the more common LBS’s are Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, Loopt, CauseWorld and SCVNGR. All of these services let you check in at certain locations and share this message with your friends on that LBS, Twitter, and/or Facebook.

Beyond this shared function, they all differ in their unique value propositions and offer different experiences on their platforms. The key here is that people are beginning to create a database of information which shows where they are going and which places they are actively choosing to show an affiliation with.

This is awesomely powerful from a sociological point of view, and more importantly for marketers, marketing, of course! Marketers are using this information to strengthen their connections with consumers through specials for those who check-in at certain locations, by creating journeys/scavenger hunts through these services, and adding more context to what their brand stands for through tips about cities and places.

Based off the number of advertisers who are exploring this on Foursquare, it is clear that LBS’s are a marketing hit. But is it appealing to Millennials? I believe it is.

My first hunch is based off my own group of friends. My friends’ Facebook walls are becoming more and more populated with 4sq.com location links and this trend doesn’t seem to be stopping. My second hunch is that with major universities being some of the first organizations to create LBS experiences, like Syracuse University and the University of Arkansas, any Millennials not on board will be soon. Most university students will now be introduced to an LBS when going off to school to help explore their new homes.

In two years from now what will checking in come to stand for? Will we be still checking in with Mom? Friends? Your girlfriend? I’d think no. I believe the way we communicate our location will change. We will still call people to say, “Hey, where are you?” as an ice breaking question, but this won’t be the crux of the conversation since this information will be already be known .

Because obviously Facebook is the only true representation of a person’s personality, interests, educational background, physical characteristics and moral code.

Facebook stalking for the purpose of getting to know someone seems silly if you think about it too much. Try this for a litmus test: go look at the Facebook page for one of your friends that you met pre-social media takeover. Is it a totally accurate representation of them? What about your own? Didn’t think so.

Facebook ruined dating. Kind of.

On the one hand, the site causes neurosis, over-analysis, obsession and all things that stomp any fledgling relationship to death. On the other hand, it also makes it harder for lies, cheating and deceit, perhaps forcing stray-prone partners into submission.

Yet despite its drawbacks, I see more and more people running to Facebook to find out if that guy they met at a party on Friday is a Prince Charming or a total d-bag — but you can’t rely too heavily on Facebook.

For example, say you came across my Facebook profile. At first glance, you’d probably think I’m a journalism nerd with a penchant for sarcasm and a love of peace signs — which is accurate. However, did you also know that in between playing mindless Facebook games and reading The New York Times, I also work 16-hour days, teach English to immigrant children and watch a lot of hockey (Go Devils!)?

Even though a first date might seem like a job interview, it’s not. You don’t need to know everything about a person the minute you meet them. Half the fun is finding that stuff out. Relationships can be flexible based on who’s in them; jobs, most of the time, cannot.

Facebook is just the one side of a person they’re comfortable putting in a public domain. My profile most closely represents my journalism interests because that’s what I want to put out there — that’s what I want to do with my life.

You can’t judge a book by its cover, and you can’t judge a person by their Facebook. You’re not an employer. You don’t need to make a rash decision on a date just because that girl down the hall’s favorite movie is “Gili” or the smart guy you met in philosophy class posted a status at 4 a.m. that said, “Soooooooooo hungryyyyy. Gotta get munchiessss.” Maybe he was just hungry, or she thinks Ben Afleck is cute. You never know.

So give that guy or girl a chance. Facebook can’t replace a person-to-person connection, and if you’re Facebook stalking them, you obviously felt something.

That said, I find something very creepy (and potentially un-datable) when someone doesn’t have a Facebook profile. What are you hiding?

Photo by English106

“Three years ago Ben Huh visited a blog devoted to silly cat pictures — and saw vast potential,” says the Times. Around that same time, I found a way to sheepishly waste hours on the Internet, ROFL’ing to photos of cats with silly captions. Anyone who has trolled the Internet as much as the next Millennial knows what an LOLCat is (link to urban dictionary), has found solace in a hilarious and sad-but-true pie chart on GraphJam.com, has chuckled at the epic fails on FailBlog, or pasted a FailBook link on their very own Facebook wall. It’s hard not to be subjected to Huh’s empire of amazingly time-consuming sites. But is it really just time wasting? On the contrary. LOLCats is actually serious business.

As a generation, we’ve got the bad rep of being consistently distracted. I know. It’s not our fault that we were raised on gadgets and can multi-task in ways that other generations can only imagine. But who said that distraction always has to be bad?

I’m a sucker for obscure internet humor sites and memes – spending my nights (and work days) laughing at Hipster Cat and Socially Awkward Penguin or on my favorite blog. I devote these hours to something very important; giving my brain a break from my nine-to-five and lowering my stress level by having a few laughs that may or may not be caused by some furballs and witty captions.

There are so many self-help articles out there on how to stop distraction from ruining your life, especially at the office, like Fast Company’s “Facebook is a Big Employee Distraction, But Is It All Bad?” which describes the vast amount of time that we waste on sites like Facebook at the office. However, I’m on the side of good in this epic battle of using distractions for positive influences in life. Wired magazine recently had a blog that described distraction (through the use of social sites) as necessary for a brain to maintain creativity and help achieve success in projects by giving the grey matter a much-needed break. I double-dog/cat dare you to go to LOLCats or FailBlog and spend 15 minutes without leaving the site refreshed and with a smile on your face.

If I were an employer, I would demand that my employees take a mentally-refreshing break every few hours to get up, walk around the office, and giggle at a witty caption and funny-looking furry animals, perhaps with a Star Wars theme.

Ben Huh, the CEO of Pet Holdings, Inc. which runs The Cheezburger Network, is only 31 this year, and his business has accomplished an astonishing amount. He founded the Cheezburger Network in 2007, and grew it to one of the largest blog networks in the world. According to the Times, “the company will generate a seven-figure sum from advertising, licensing fees and merchandise sales (this year). The company has published five books based on its blogs…Three more books are in production, along with a line of greeting cards and desktop calendars.” He’s been featured in the LA Times and Time Magazine as well.

What’s his mission? Oh, just “to make the world happy for five minutes a day.” He’s one of many young people who have revolutionized the way we function online (or how we distract ourselves online), on par with people like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg (born in 1984). If anything, Huh’s success – and those of other young entrepreneurs – should be an inspiring tale of following your dreams, and that isn’t just “we can do it!” Millennial hype.

Huh and his staff are keeping smart and monitoring cultural trends and Internet memes to make sure the product is constantly evolving to meet the needs of the audience. He’s capitalizing on the user-generated content movement and the need to crowdsource everything. In short, they’re always trying to find the next “inside joke” online. Hard work and determination and chasing ideas should be an inspiration to every young person, even if your dreams include angry-looking cats and white impact font.

Gen Y lifestyles have been impacted by more than just tech and apparel brands, though. Restaurants have begun to use social media to connect with diners, and many other food establishments are following suit.

Boloco, a New England-based burrito chain, has distinguished itself from the numerous other burrito places out there by sharing its green initiatives with customers and playing an active role throughout the Boston community.

The Boloco team has attended local TweetUp events and supports a number of the area’s colleges and universities through food donations and other efforts. They have continued the conversation by inviting customers to share their experiences on Twitter, and even offer perks for the Foursquare mayors of their restaurants.

Not far behind from Boloco’s social media success is Saus, a new Belgian street food restaurant concept, complete with waffles, frites, and dipping sauces. A sauce naming contest on the company’s Facebook page has added to the excitement, and although the restaurant’s grand opening date is still some time away, followers are constantly tweeting and adding new voices to the mix of anticipation.

The Saus blog has given anxious, future customers a peek into the daily lives of Saus’s founders, first time restaurant owners who have willingly shared the tribulations that go along with opening a restaurant in Boston. According to Renee Eliah, one of Saus’s team members, the opening date will hopefully be at the end of June, pending permit issues and completing work on the ventilation system.

The social media tactics Saus has implemented are unique from what other restaurants have done because they are using these new platforms to share their journey and discuss what it takes to open a restaurant in a not-so-great economy. Not many restaurants can claim to have won over an audience before they’ve tasted the food, but Saus has done just that.

Pinkberry, the frozen yogurt phenomenon, has also made its social media presence known by offering Foursquare users 10% off in select stores when they check-in. The more check-ins they accumulate, the more points they receive toward special events. The hub even promotes half-off frozen treats to customers who bring in their receipts from the day before. Pinkberry is arguably the name that started the frozen yogurt craze, so it’s no surprise that this lifestyle brand is doing so well on the social media front.

Another restaurant that’s been in the news recently for social media integration is AJ Bombers, a Milwaukee burger joint, whose owner, Joe Sorge, utilizes Foursquare to up his customer base. Sorge increased daily sales by 110% by using a Foursquare Swarm Badge and promoted a swarm event via Twitter and Facebook.

“Joe paid attention to his customers to learn more about them, discovered their growing interest in Foursquare, then did his research about how he could take advantage of the new trend,” wrote Pamela Seiple on HubSpot.com.  “The result was a carefully and successfully implemented promotion that afforded him new customers and additional buzz.”

Our generation lives on expression and social media, so it’s refreshing to see restaurants catering to our favorite form of communication. As more of them continue to use social media as a primary method for customer interaction, Gen Y customers are likely to talk right back and help spread the news about a new eatery or promotion by word of mouth. In fact, it may be just a matter of time before restaurant brands have a little blue check mark and “Verified Account” on their Twitter profiles.

Photo credit: Saus

According to Steve Garfield, founder of Boston Media Makers, the process of applying for jobs is changing and Millennials are willing to change with it. “You can say Google is your resume because [future employers] are going to just type in your name and find out what comes up. And whatever comes up is what you’re saying about yourself or what other people are saying about you.”

Thanks to the Internet, our resumes are out there for everyone to see. But social media has made sure that our personalities are out there as well. Facebook has been an outlet for me since high school, and before that I was Myspacing. And let’s not forget the (really embarrassing) days of blogging our feelings on Livejournal. But Twitter is turning social media into professional media and it’s revolutionizing our online personalities. Twitter is, simply put, your voice. It is the shortest form of blogging out there and within those 140 characters, it’s easy to get to know what a person is like without reading between the lines of their “about me” or music tastes. There’s no room to fake who you are, and with every update, you let your followers into your day to day life.

John Pepper, the co-founder and CEO of Bolocco, Tweets all the time and thinks it’s a great tool for the job market. “I can think of a number of people who I immediately knew who they were when I met them in person because of their personalities online and in social media. And you either get a sense of if you like someone or don’t, or that you respect what they say or you find them interesting or not.”

And if our online personas interest future employers, we could find ourselves working at our dream job. I recently visited The Hub Spot where marketing manager Rebecca Corliss gave me insight into Inbound Marketing and described how she scored a job at the most popular place to work in Boston. She auctioned off a music video on Twitter that gained a lot of buzz and next thing she knew, Corliss was being asked about it in job interviews. The Hub Spot hired her for her experience, but also for the creativity she showed on the web.

Companies are also seeking out Millennials by holding contests to “win a job” and we rise to the challenge. Constantly, I see my friends trying to win opportunities to go to the Tony Awards, the Oscars, or to seek other job ventures like becoming the next Nike field reporter or a getting three-month fellowship at Ogilvy. These companies know that as Millennials, we can easily market ourselves through our social media networking communities because we have an extensive amount of resources. We “friend,” “follow,” and “add” each other to such an extent that the world has become smaller and opportunity has no limitations.

Now employers will search for us. They’ll find our resume website, interview us through our Tweets, and then we’ll be hired, pay our own rent, and finally get that puppy we’ve been dreaming of. Millennials don’t have to worry about the job market because it’s only a click away. But this doesn’t mean you don’t need to get yourself out there. You can’t expect jobs to find you via your Facebook page. One way to get ahead is to buy your name and get started on what Steve Garfield suggested, putting what you want out on the Internet, instead of waiting for someone else to do it.

And Millennials, if you’re already Tweeting away, great. If not, jump on the bandwagon. Soon enough, the CEO, editor, or founder of where you want work will be following your Tweets. So rest easy, Gen Y. Opportunity isn’t just knocking at your door, it’s in your inbox.

Read another TNGG perspective: Job Search, 2.0

Photo by @thewtb

Once upon a time in school, I remember being taught that all arguments needed to be supported by facts.  Now, I spend a considerable amount of time reading on the web. Much of the content I consume is created by Gen Y, and there’s a visible trend in that content.  You no longer need to craft a careful argument to have an opinion.

A generation ago, Boomers also had opinions.  However, the lack of an easy publishing platform meant that they couldn’t broadcast those opinions to the world.  Now, with web access being ubiquitous in the developed world, every time Gen Y has an opinion on something, it makes sure it’s published for the world, or at least its closest friends, to see.

Opinions, however, are like a drug.  The more you express them, the more of them you have, and the greater your need to express those too.  As such, Gen Y has created a mindset that it must have an opinion on everything from a political debate, to the quality of the pie at the new pizza place down the street.

High levels of education facilitate this fact. In my opinion, university education is rarely about cramming your head full of  facts, instead it’s about creating points of view and crafting arguments.  Thus, we have a generation trained to create arguments, and have opinions.  The problem comes outside of the classroom, where the need to do the hard part of arguing – supporting the argument with facts – disappears and it becomes easier, and addictive, to simply state one’s opinion.

The explosion of broadcasting tools is a great example of this.  Young people have flocked to blogging to express all of the opinions in their heads in written form, or if not writing, then video blogging.  And if those two forms of expressing opinion are too onerous, there’s always updating Facebook or Twitter statuses with one’s up-to-the-minute opinion of everything and anything.

While being opinionated is important, it’s also scary to think of a whole generation of opinionators.  News becomes nothing more than a mass of editorials from people who may or may not be qualified to write them.  This is an important distinction, because while everyone has the right to an opinion, it does not mean that all opinions are created equal. Some people’s opinions on a topic are worth more than others’ because of their backgrounds and their knowledge of the facts. Often, we confuse opinion with expertise, and anyone with enough knowledge to formulate an opinion — in other words, anyone with enough knowledge to formulate a sentence — deems themselves an expert.

Education and the web are both wonderful things that have given Gen Y tremendous advantages.  However, they’ve both also facilitated one of the most obnoxious traits of our generation.  We can’t not have an opinion on any matter, and frankly, it’s exhausting.  Some matters are not worth having opinions on.  Others may well be worthy of opinions, but that doesn’t mean that everyone needs to have one.  I think Gen Y could do with a little more indifference from time to time.

Then again, that’s just one guy’s opinion.

Photo by Obie Fernandez

Image Credit: rpongsaj via Flickr

Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about privacy, especially when it comes to the Internet. The CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, even claimed that he “knows people don’t want privacy“. Uhhh, excuse me? I think everyone (including Millennials) wants at least a little privacy, and I wonder exactly how many people believe we don’t.

As Facebook has grown, it seems as though privacy is becoming more and more non-existent. Back in 2007, Facebook announced that it would make profiles searchable on Google. To opt-out, the process was simple and users were given plenty of notice and time to do so. Over time, profiles are more public and Facebook has become less considerate about users’ desire for privacy. When the new privacy policy was revealed, friends and Information were made public, without a way to change the settings. Facebook even shares your personal information with Third Parties.

In Consumer Reports’s June 2010 State of the Net survey, it turns out that most Internet users are unaware, or just don’t care, about their privacy settings online. 26% of parents on Facebook posted names and photos of their children, but it’s unclear how many of these respondents know just how public that information is. In fact, one in four households with a Facebook account have users who don’t know about or don’t care to use Facebook’s built-in privacy controls.

In order to get a better understanding of how much personal information Millennials are willing to put in the Internet, I created a poll. It was simple, and not meant to be on a large scale, but I just wanted a quick idea of how members of The Next Great Generation feel about Internet privacy. Of the people who answered, they were most willing to put their name, pictures, interests, jobs, and personal opinions on the Internet. Not surprisingly, few people were willing to put their address or telephone number on the Internet. Also, most respondents are willing to make purchases with their credit cards online. Like me, it seems like they don’t think much about online purchases. In fact, there were even a few people who responded that they would use their social security number via the Internet.

Personally, I feel as though I’m pretty comfortable putting a lot of things on the Internet. I use Facebook everyday, post pictures, comments and share personal information. My Twitter is public, and I even have a copy of my resume on my website. However, I make it a point not to include my address or phone number. I really don’t mind having my contact information on the Internet, as long as it’s no more personal than my e-mail address. As I’ve told many friends before, “I live my life on the Internet”.

Also, I think nothing about purchasing things online. Some people are still skeptical about the process, but as long as I’m buying from a reputable company, it doesn’t even faze me. One time, however, my personal information from a purchase I made wound up on a random website and a friend found it. I had no clue how or why my information was out there and it definitely freaked me out. Had I gone too far?

I know that I probably put too much information on the Internet, but it isn’t something I constantly worry about. Even something as simple as my name and birthday can be used to steal my identity. And yet, I barely bat an eyelash when it comes to sharing information via social networks. All of this just makes me wonder, how much personal information is even safe to put on the Internet? Sometimes it seems like no matter what people can find a way to abuse your personal information.

What are your thoughts on Internet privacy?