Tech Talk

Let’s face it, it’s often difficult to let go. The same certainly holds true of significant others — past and present. However, it is often critical to do exactly that and let go to stay healthy and maintain a level head — and then find future romance.

It is for that reason Tech Talk applauds YourTango.com, a site devoted to relations, for crafting the first “Break Up With Your Ex” day on Facebook — slated for Feb. 13. Best of all, no cards, candy or purchase of any sort is required.

According to a recent survey conducted for the company, 71 percent of respondents indicated that they think about their ex too much and 48 percent (including 42 percent of married folk) said they look at their ex’s social networking profile too often. If there is a positive side to the results, it’s at least people realize that they are doing it too often.

The site encourages everyone to cut social media ties with former boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses and partners on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and the like.

However, the site doesn’t stop there. To ensure that we’ll all move on, YourTango.com encourages folks to:

• Untag and/or delete photos of yourself and that person online, on your computer and phone;
• Delete songs and playlists that remind you of the person;
• Block or erase the person on Google chat, AIM and other instant messaging services;
• Delete their numbers from your phone and their email addresses from your address book;
• Enlist the support of friends and community to detach and stay detached from your ex;
• Get back into the dating scene to complete the moving-on process.

“The current digital landscape makes it especially difficult to truly break from past relationships. Nevertheless, getting someone out of your head — and your heart — is a necessary part of moving on and finding new love, as well as succeeding in a current relationship,” said Andrea Miller, founder and CEO, YourTango.com in an e-mail to Tech Talk. “With the massive ex-attachment going on, we devised this simple call to action to help individuals digitally untether themselves before Valentine’s Day.”

In the same e-mail, Miller stressed the importance of severing ties with the following disturbing details:

• 57 percent of singles said thinking about their ex prevents them from finding new love
• 60 percent of married people agreed that their ex is on their mind too often
• 36 percent said their attachment to their ex interferes with their marriage

 In an attempt to encourage others to follow suit, and surely to garner attention for the website, participants are encouraged to post “I Broke Up With My Ex,” and use the #DumpYourEx hashtag.

Regardless of why YourTango.com is doing it, it’s a great idea and one that TechTalk endorses.

PETA sent Tech Talk this screen capture of a message its members posted on DKNY's Facebook page.

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals used Donna Karan New York’s own social media presence against it on this, one of the largest online shopping days of the year.

PETA members posted a vertical message that reads “DK BUNNY BUTCHER” for the fashion titan’s more than 204,700 fans to see in the past hour in reference to the company’s decision to sell fur.

“PETA has sent Donna Karan executives detailed information about the suffering of animals who are raised and killed for their fur, and thousands of people have taken action against the designer, who continues to use rabbit fur from China,” a PETA spokesperson wrote to Tech Talk. “Undercover investigations have revealed that animals on Chinese fur farms are hung upside down, screaming and kicking, and are forced to watch those ahead of them die violently before their own throats are cut.”

The 16 accounts posted seemingly positive messages on DKNY’s Facebook wall — with the real message hidden in each user’s profile photo.

Among the wall posts:

• Listen, some bunny loves you!
• Fashion is life and death.
• Can u show us what goes into ur designs?
• Nothing is more important than fashion, right!?!
• Fashion to die for…
• I would kill for one of your fur coats.
• DKNY continually shocks me!
• I’m trying to save something today – can u help?
• What’s the cost of a fur coat?
• Who wouldn’t do anything for a Donna Karan coat!

Of course, after understanding the context of the overall message, the individual wall posts take on a different meaning.

DKNY appeared to be unaware of the messages as it posted at least once after its wall was defaced:

Our Cyber Monday treat: 20% Off of the entire site (both DKNY & Donna Karan New York) PLUS Free Shipping. Happy Shopping! www.dkny.com

Administrators are not notified each time a person posts on a fan page and must monitor comments.

Regardless of one’s opinions on either company, PETA’s strategy is a smart one — and one that will likely be repeated more often as more brands turn to the Web to disseminate their message.

“This is the first time that PETA has used this particular approach on Facebook,” Ashley Byrne, a senior campaigner for PETA, told Tech Talk. “We have, however, used Facebook many times to get our message across. When Brookstone was selling live frogs inside cheap plastic enclosures — misleading customers and causing the deaths of countless frogs in their stores by hiding sick animals in back rooms — we asked our members and supporters to post comments on Brookstone’s page expressing their concern for the frogs’ welfare. It was not long before the company’s Facebook fan page was taken down.”

Byrne said her company believes the use of social media is an effective tool for online advocacy and virtual activism.

“PETA uses social media in a variety of ways to interact with supporters on a personal level and share information,” she told Tech Talk. “PETA members took over Donna Karan’s Facebook page in order to pressure Karan to drop fur from her designs. We knew that Facebook would be an effective platform for letting Donna Karan’s fans know that Karan continues to design with fur even though she’s aware that gentle rabbits endure tremendous suffering because of the fur industry.”

Byrne said PETA hopes that by posting on the DKNY Facebook page, a new audience may be reached.

“Social networks have allowed PETA to connect with supporters on an individual and immediate level,” Byrne said. ”We are able to interact with any one of our 1 million Facebook fans or 100,000 Twitter followers. We can address specific questions and concerns, offer advice, and share in joint victories.”

Byrne said social media allowed PETA to stay in constant touch with supporters.

“By using social media, we can deliver information to our supporters in real time. We are able to update them on developments relating to campaigns and victories as they happen,” she said. “We knew that by targeting Karan’s Facebook page on Cyber Monday, we could convince more people to boycott her designs until she drops fur for good.”

Facebook image

As many colleges and universities encourage their students to sign off of Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare and other social media networking sites while on campus, at least one American institution is encouraging increased usage.

The University of Kentucky has placed a pair of wooden pointers reminiscent of Facebook’s Places logo around campus to remind students to check-in at the school, Advertising Age reported. Curious to see what the larger-than-life signs look like? Click the link and check out a picture.

“We’re encouraging students to check in, so when they do, it’ll show up in their news feed and maybe their friends still in high school will see it over and over again,” Kelley Bozeman, the university’s marketing director told the publication.

The university ought to be commended for utilizing social media to its fullest.

Marketing and advertising costs are passed along to current students. Kentucky has discovered an innovative way to recruit high school students at no cost to anyone — sans the price to produce the giant pointy thingies. Even better, the method that the university has opted to utilize targets high school students in an arena that they are likely to naturally frequent; talk about targeting the demographic effectively. Kentucky is considering less expensive window stickers should the initiative expand.

Concerned about privacy? The university has even thought about that, according to Advertising Age.

“We do think about privacy,” Bozeman told the magazine. “But this is about check-ins during the day, when you’re on campus, in the classrooms and going to athletic events. Adults use good judgment. It’s not about checking in at home.”

It would be beneficial for other universities — and businesses — to consider following Kentucky’s lead. It’s certainly a strange way to market a university, but look at all the press Kentucky received for simply putting up two signs. It’s priceless.

People are influenced by their friends, and having customers, guests and customers brag about where they are getting food, groomed, educated or rest could only help industries across our society. This is the future. Kudos to Kentucky for leading the way.

I started noticing that many of my Facebook friends were posting random colors as their Facebook status. 

My feed quickly became bombarded with statuses like:

• Blue
• Ma-genta
• Black
• Lime
• Purple

And so I began wondering what the heck was going on.  After a little digging, I found my answer: Women are revealing a little bit more about themselves than they usually do in an attempt to raise awareness about breast cancer.

Apparently I am not the only one who was curious.  As of this hour, Google is reporting that “facebook colors” is the fifth most popular search.  It began to spike in popularity just after 10 a.m., according to the search engine giant.

One article I found indicated that part of the mystery of this campaign is that instructions to post one’s bra color was sent only to women via private message:

“Something fun is going on,” the message reads. “Write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. And send this on to ONLY women no men. It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men wonder why the women have a color in their status…..LOL!”

Breast cancer is a serious and deadly issue that deserves all the attention it could get.

Learn more about breast cancer here.