Would you pass the Bitter Ex test? Twitter launch Vine, an 11-year-old girl writes her own inauguration speech and some London Grammar share some dreamy music.

Facebook’s Graph Search and the Bitter Ex test

Facebook are in the process of rolling out Graph Search, a tool that will allow you to run queries such as find ‘photos that my friends took in New York before 1990’ or ‘family members who like ‘Dexter’.

Tom Scott has been having some fun using the tool to find ‘Single women who live nearby and who are interested in men and like Getting Drunk’, ‘Mothers of Catholics from Italy who like Durex’ and, more scarily, ‘Islamic men interested in men who live in Tehran, Iran’… ‘Places where they’ve worked’.

It’s always a good thing to be reminded of Facebook’s nebulous privacy policy. HOwever, ask yourself if the information you voluntarily submit to sites such as Facebook would pass what Scott calls the ‘Bitter Ex’ test:

Most of the danger online comes not from strangers making half-assed joke searches: it comes from people who know you. A lot of the public data fails what I call the ‘bitter ex test’: can someone who hates you ruin your life with that information?

Actual Facebook Graph Searches

Install This: Vine

Quite a few attempts have been made to launch a “Twitter for video” although none have had anything like the same impact. This week, Twitter have themselves decided to go for it, launching Vine [Free, iOS] which allows users to share video clips of 6 seconds that loop within tweets.

Testing #Vine for the Week in Social write up later. http://t.co/TDWn2ltF

— Enda Guinan (@endaguinan) January 25, 2013

What use is a way of sharing a six-second looped clip? Who knows. However, people also asked why people would want to share updates in 140 characters…

Read This:  Sadie’s Dream for the World

Obama’s explicit reference to Stonewall and gay rights at his inaugural speech delighted many, but 11-year-old Sadie, who socially transitioned from male to female in kindergarten, felt he didn’t go far enough and composed her own speech.

‘Sadie’s Dream for the World’ via transgriot.blogspot.co.uk

Daddy’s Mp3reet: London Grammar

“Imagine the impassioned vocal of say Susanna and the Magical Orchestra over the spacious, restrained backing of the xx and you’re almost there.” I wrote for Groove Loves Melody this week.

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Enda Guinan is a consultant and trainer offering advice on social media strategy for individuals and small businesses. Get in touch to see how you can make the best use of your time and energy as you put together your social media plans.