Facebook has just reached over 500 MILLION active users and people spend over 700 BILLION minutes on it in any given month. If you are interested in some more statistics you can go here and Facebook will tell you themselves.

I know you are tired about hearing about Facebook.  It is on national news, it is written about in publications, it is discussed at pubs all over the place and of course it is talked about at most of our kitchen tables.

One thing that cannot be overstated is to remember that you need to always be aware of your Privacy Settings.  AND be sure that your profile photo doesn’t show something less flattering about you. (Friends and non-friends can always see these.) Since we are in the “web business” and social media is all about web and marketing, we are always poking around making sure we know what is “coming down the Pike.”  Our last post discusses privacy and not really realizing who may or may not be aware of where you are and what you (or your kids) may be telling to whom.

There is a blog I read frequently by a man named Peter Shankman.  He recently posted this very cool screen shot step by step instructions  “How to Avoid Being Checked In by Your Friends on Facebook’s Places.”

Peter recounts amusing (because they didn’t happen to me) tales from Gawker.com and the trials of Facebook’s NEW location finder – Gawker always has great headlines, so here is one definitely worth a look.  It is about etiquette and Facebook – not enough posts about that either.

Facebook‘s often makes changes and you really need to make sure you are up to date on your Privacy Settings.  This customized one just slipped in and if you check your account you may find you haven’t disabled it. Just like you may not want the world to see your photo with a beer bottle in your hand, or in a picture where something may be taken out of context, you probably don’t want someone of your 300+ friends tell the Facebook world of 500,000 that you were at the gym, when your office thinks you were at a meeting.   Here is another reminder.