Google Really Doesn’t Have It Easy With Buzz
The latest hype is all about Google’s new social media platform: Google Buzz. They kicked off very strongly, yet something was amiss. They didn’t start out on the right foot.
For starters, it became very quickly apparent the Google Buzz did away with the little thing we love to call privacy. The first iteration of Buzz exposed every single users contact list to the world. People didn’t even have a choice of it, they were automatically signed up for it with their lists exposed. Business Insider described it very well in their article “WARNING: Google Buzz Has A Huge Privacy Flaw“.
After a short day or two Google quickly ‘fixed’ the issue. It only took two days, 6000+ tweets and 500,000+ complaints JUST from Business Insider viewers. I can’t imagine how many people complained about it, really just have been a significantly larger amount than that. According to Google’s own blog:
We’ve had plenty of feature requests, and some direct feedback. In particular there’s been concern from some people who thought their contacts were being made public without their knowledge (in particular the lists of people they follow, and the people following them). In addition, others felt they had too little control over who could follow them and were upset that they lacked the ability to block people who didn’t yet have public profiles from following them.
At least they acknowledged the problem and tried to fix it (read here). Though it wasn’t enough. Today’s internet culture is especially sensative to privacy and it’s something Google blatantly violated. At least one person decided to take up arms against Google.
Sphere: Related ContentBreaking Into Freelance Writing
Let’s be honest. Freelancing isn’t easy, especially when you’re a writer. Success, which comes as a slow ramp-up from usually humble beginnings, is defined only by the lengths of feasts between famines. Sometimes, work comes in faster than you can handle it. Other times, work comes in a trickle, if at all. To even get to this point, though, you need to jump the first big hurdle and land a client.
For some writers, finding a client seems like an impossible task. You might not know where to look or how to solicit business. For others, finding a client isn’t hard, but landing a job is. It’s the classical catch-22: you need a portfolio to get work, but you need to get work to have a portfolio.
Fortunately, the internet makes this catch-22 irrelevant. If you want to jump right into print-writing, for magazines or newspapers, you almost always need a portfolio of previously published work. For online content creation, you can write your own ticket by showcasing your work on free content repositories. (These repositories have the added benefit of “writer communities,” which we’ll discuss later.)
Sphere: Related ContentHow To Start Freelancing Safely
Filed under: Business, How-to, Personal Development
Want to start freelancing? Great! But are you ready? I mean, are you really ready to freelance? Do you know what you are going to do? What to do? Whom to work for? How about paying off current and immediate future’s bills?
Do you know the answers to each of those questions? If not, maybe freelancing isn’t the right step for you at the moment. But if you want to get a taste for freelancing without quitting your day job that is also very good. Either way, you don’t have to know all the answers right now, you can learn along the way.
Sorry for scarring your earlier, but it’s for your own good. Most people jump right into the deep end of the pool without knowing how to swim. Sadly, it usually is not the case they by being in the deep end they learn how to swim … they give up saying that it’s not for them (or drown).
Freelancing for the first time is a scary experience. It’s something completely new for many of you, out in the world on your own. Only yourself to blame if something goes wrong … it is a big responsibility, but a good one. I hope to give you a good knowledge footing to get you started on the right path.
Hopefully after reading the tips, tricks and articles you will have a good know-how of freelancing. Also, at the bottom of the article I have a list for you for all kinds of great places to find freelance work. Some places you might already know of, some might come as a surprise and some will be new. So let’s get started…