Meet Kickstarter , a website run by a 12-person team mostly based in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Together, they operate a revolutionary funding system where almost anyone can propose a personal project and ask for a target amount of money to fund the endeavor. Following in the footsteps of micro-loan organization Kiva.org , Kickstarter opened up a forum where those who wish to share some wealth can put it directly in the hands of those they wish to give it to, and it’s never been easier with the power of the Internet.

According to the website, all ideas are welcome to be submitted. To that end, the project creator can let their mind run wild. Always been yearning to do that documentary on spider monkeys in Uganda? Want to ride cross-country on a unicycle handing out friendship bracelets for peace? Perhaps a website just needs to get off the ground…it’s all up for grabs. The Kickstarter crew reviews all project submissions and decides whether the idea is a worthy cause to post. However, there are certain guidelines to projects, such as funds not going to charity or business expenses and the requirement of an American bank account. Kickstarter also benefits from five percent of the total project funds.

Applicants are allowed to promote their projects in a variety of ways including multimedia, text, links and social networking. Timelines are assigned to projects, most clock in with under 70 days of face time on the website. Visitors to the site can search by category (of which there are 20 including Film/Video, Community, Journalism and Travel), recently launched projects, projects ending soon, popular projects as well as recommendations from the staff. Viewers can also see how much funding each project has received so far and what percentage of the total needed funds has been met.

Kickstarter is now being mentioned in business and entrepeneur circles as an intelligent consideration for the young go-getter. It’s been featured in both INC Magazine and Wired Magazine and the website flaunts the nods given to them in the New York Times, Pitchfork Media, National Public Radio and GOOD.

In the olden days, this type of organization would be filed in a cabinet under the label of “crowdsourcing,” or a group of people asking for help from a wide range of resources in order to find a solution to a problem as MacMillan so eloquently puts it. However, the more appropriate defintion that’s attached itself to Kickstarter is “crowdfunding,” which puts the organization in a much more exclusive league of definition. Crowdfunding refers to the revamped and digitized process of crowdsourcing, where a group (or a facilitator like Kickstarter) uses the concept of crowdsourcing to gain the necessary funds to solve a problem or carry out a personal endeavor through the channels of the Internet specifically.

Kickstarter still has a way to go, though. The group ran into difficulties when project proposals began coming in worldwide. Some ideas came from patrons who do not have US bank accounts, which Amazon, their payment provider, requires, according to Kickstarter’s guidelines. These hopefuls are still currently stalled in their submissions to Kickstarter, but a message on the website promises this obstacle will be overcome in due time. Kiva.org, though a much larger organization by comparison, skirts this problem by teaming up with Field Lenders in a multitude of countries who faciliate the loan and repayment processes between entrepeneurs and lenders. Whether Kickstarter could grow into something similar is not yet known, but the site’s popularity cannot be overlooked.

A front-page featured project, Mondo 2000: An Open Source History, boasts $11,697 pledged before its July 4 deadline. The project is 156 percent funded.

Try and see Live Aid do that in just over 60 days.

“This is way too hard,” I’ve thought after many a job application went unanswered.

Let’s face it. Finding a job in this economy is tough, but job hunters can apply for any job, anywhere, with a few mouse clicks. Don’t want to spend money on postage? No problem! Just attach your resume to an e-mail and it will be in your prospective employer’s inbox in seconds!

So when I’m scouring dozens of job sites, I can’t help but wonder what it was like to job hunt in that other recession in 1982.  To find out, I asked a man who was searching for a job at that exact time: my dad. Where did he find job listings in those days?

“Newspapers,” he told me.

“That’s it?”

“Yep.”

My dad explained to me that once he found a job he liked in the newspaper, he created a resume tailored to that specific job and sent it on its way. Unlike today when most of us have a few versions of our resumes saved on our computers, my father had to type a new resume for every job he wanted to apply for. On a typewriter. Those don’t come with copy and paste features.

Once the new resume was typed and flawless, it was time to mail it to the prospective employer. With large, brown envelope in hand, he slid the resume in there, slapped some postage on it, and off it went, set to arrive at his dream company in 2-3 days.

And you thought finding a job today was difficult.

It seems in the 1980s there was a lack of options. Newspapers supplied the bulk of job openings, or, if you were lucky enough to know someone in a company you were interested in, you could possibly get hired that way. But today, the many options available to find a job make my head spin. The Internet makes it possible to reach dozens of job sites, post your resume online and network with professionals, and you don’t even need to leave your house. For example, on my LinkedIn account I’m able to connect with the editor of NH Magazine and send him a message to ask about freelance opportunities.  In 1982 I could call him at his office, but through LinkedIn all my career information and goals are there for him to access; it takes less leg work.

Posting your resume online is a big plus to job hunting in today’s market. According to the book, “Make Job Loss Work for You,” employers search databases by typing in keywords that meet the job opening’s requirements. By reading the job description, all a job seeker has to do is add keywords to his/her resume so it is more likely it will pop up in search results. You couldn’t do that in the ’80s.

The recession today may be worse than that of the early 1980′s, but the job search tools available now provide the unemployed countless opportunities for networking and exposure. The key is to take advantage of them, and I spend most of my time doing just that. Despite how many times I’ve been turned down in the last four months, I have to say I am glad to be a job seeker in 2010.

Back in early 1995, when I was studying abroad in Ireland, my friends and I headed down to the movie theater in downtown Cork to see the movie “Interview with the Vampire.” Most of us were excited to a) see a movie since we didn’t even have a television in our house and b) see a movie that included American actors Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise to remedy our homesickness. Little did we know that fifteen years later vampire fever would be spreading around the U.S.A (and the world) and some of us would be getting tired of all of this vampire hype. One of my friends recently commented on his Facebook  page that he “felt old,” but that he just didn’t understand what all the excitement was about Robert Pattinson (star of the vampire movie series Twilight).

My friend is lucky, because he could have set off quite a controversy with that statement with all of the Robert Pattinson devotees. The friends that replied all agreed with his confusion. Who is this Pattinson guy and why all the fuss over vampires? They seem to be in the minority. The Twilight books by Stephanie Meyer are making her almost as famous and as wealthy as J.K. Rowling and millions of fans are salivating at the chance to see the new Twilight movie, Eclipse, on its opening night in movie theaters. The TV shows True Blood and The Vampire Diaries are pulling in countless viewers (True Blood, by the way, is also based on a series of books).  Vampires are everywhere – video games, Twilight beauty products (seriously), Team Edward and Team Jacob t-shirts, jackets, and jewelry. Last fall, People Magazine’s sexiest men issue even included a section exclusively for “vampires to die for.”

Our fascination with vampires is nothing new (see Interview with the Vampire). It can be traced at least as far back as the Victorian era, when Bram Stoker published his novel Dracula in 1897. The Victorian era had so many societal rules, and breaking or bending them was all but forbidden. Readers were able to live vicariously through the titillating novel – a world where these rules were more malleable. More recently, in 1983, Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon starred as bloodsucking babes in the movie The Hunger. I can even remember back to my childhood in the 1980’s when my brother and I would go to the town library. He would check out all of the Crestwood House Monster Series books that he could get his little hands on. They were bright orange, hardcover, and he would get Dracula whenever it was available but he’d also be content with the others, such as Creature from the Black Lagoon and Frankenstein.  

Did you see any of these earlier movies or read any of the vampire books? Are you a vampire enthusiast or getting weary of it like me? Regardless, it seems that people have been going wild for vampires for quite awhile. The fascination is not new, and no matter how many of us are sick and tired of the phenomenon, it doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere soon, so don’t you think we had better suck it up (no pun intended) and just deal with it?

Things weren’t so different in 1985; tight jeans, beyond-ugly sneakers, and the Celtics losing to the Lakers. The first dot.com was registered in symbolics.com, a new car cost $9,000, and, sadly, Dukes of Hazzard went off the air. OK, maybe things were a little different. I’d be writing this post on Windows 1.0, though I could probably have more success with that operating system. My headphones would not be filled with Radiohead’s “Creep,” but more likely Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like a Wolf,” or “We Are the World.” But, while I was pegging my pants and watching “Back to the Future,” there was an important development brewing in the television world.

Twenty-five years ago an educational video producer and network developer named John Hendricks founded the Discovery Channel. In 1985, Discovery had 156,000 subscribers. Today the network has more than 100 million subscribers in the U.S. and 1.5 billion worldwide. What started out as a mission to provide the public with quality documentary programming has ballooned into a culture all its own.

“Discovery has inspired a generation and become a state of mind,” Clark Bunting, the general manager of Discovery Channel, stated on the company’s website.

It seems each week brings a new discovery series. Certainly they can’t all be winners, like Swords or Howe and Howe Tech. Others, however, are some of the most popular shows on television. Discoveries series success began with American Chopper, which debuted in 2003 and is still clinging to life on Discovery’s sister network TLC (The Learning Channel). Today’s popular shows, Deadliest Catch – which is highest rated in its category and regularly catches 5.4 million viewers – Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, Man vs. Wild and Dual Survival follow Discovery’s unique aesthetic and storytelling formula.

With Discovery’s documentary background it might be easy to criticize their intentions as being rooted in entertainment, and certainly there is weight to that. But I think the motivation is still to allow the viewer to experience something or someone outside of themselves. Are the fights between Paul Sr. and Paul Jr. more plentiful with the cameras around? I’m sure they are, and it would be impossible to film any type of series without influencing the behavior or environment in some way. But there is still reality involved, something that might not fit the Jersey Shore or The Real World.

Still, there is one Discovery production that transcends television and sets the network apart from every other, Shark Week. It has truly become an event, and this year could be the funniest as CBS Late Late Show host Craig Fergusson is set to host. Sharks in kilts, perhaps?

I only hope that future Discovery programs remain rooted in the reality on which they are based. After all, there is nothing more interesting.

There isn’t a soul left on American soil who hasn’t spent at least one waste of a mid-afternoon continuously sinking farther into the couch letting the drone of televised talking heads drill into the corners of the mind. As many personas as there are on television today, none reign over re-runs and so-called “brain rotting” material as Jerry Springer and Maury Povich . The two share a daytime love story like no other, feeding the drama-starved masses exactly what they want – a never-ending glimpse into the lives of people who find themselves in much more bizarre circumstances than the average American (a man walking around with no lower body and women who have pickle phobias? Bizarre indeed).

Although grouped together under the same umbrella of “trash tv,” the two shows exhibit a fundamental difference. Springer hinges on its pure hedonism (it even started a special Spring Break spin-off titled after the animalistic behavior in 2001) while Maury attempts to sheepishly sidestep its immoral undertones. In reality, both shows aren’t always depictions of the truth. So, the question arises, which show has more integrity: the one that unabashedly displays mostly fake material but has everyone in America wishing it was true or the one that has inklings of falsity and sensationalism but pretends to be legitimate?

Let’s examine the two individuals behind the madness. Maury comes from a journalism background , he’s the son of a Washington Post sportswriter and is an old veteran in the news field himself. However, he fell prey to the conglomeration of companies when Rupert Murdoch plucked him from a smattering of journalists to host A Current Affair, which was hailed by The New York Times as an early example of “infotainment” or television simply feeding news to people for enjoyment and not news value.

Springer led a much different path , starting out in the political scene and eventually taking on the position of mayor of Cincinnati for a year even after admitting to paying for a prostitute at a massage parlor (guess he had that Average Joe appeal). He got into broadcast journalism during his mayoral career and eventually fell into doing the Jerry Springer Show on the basis of community issues, only to succumb to the ratings game and opt for increasingly lowbrow content.

Springer’s Final Thought, which occurs at the tail end of every episode, may be the saving grace of an otherwise onslaught of profanity, nudity, lewd conduct and other unbecoming behaviors. Springer attempts to bring his audience, fresh from viewing a televised massacre of humanity, back down to a semi-reasonable level. He reminds everyone that acting in such absurd ways is not the norm and to “take care of yourself, and each other.” In a way, you can’t blame Jerry. He let’s the self-proclaimed wackos speak for themselves and then quietly yet effectively warns America about such deviant behavior. Dare I say it, he could be the voice of reason.

You would never hear Maury dish out a final, realistic thought on things. He relishes in pumping up the situation and the audience into a frenzy of judgment and pointing fingers at society’s dastardly deed doers. Ever hear him say “You ARE the father?” There is a definite tone of self-satisfaction in those words. Whether its for the rising reactions from the audience or the rising ratings, we may never know, but there is something sinister about someone who takes personal pleasure in the substantial public humiliation of mostly real people in real situations. At least Springer’s show is so out-of-this-world no one feels any sympathy for the guests, and they shouldn’t because it’s mostly a charade.

When it boils down to basic moral principles, there’s a lot more trust in Jerry Springer than in Maury Povich. They may both be on the bottom rungs of trustworthy careers (politics and journalism) but someone who is honest about bringing up the ugly underbelly of America into millions of homes every day is better than an equally sleazy personality that does it and puts it off as a cleansing experience.

We’ll see you next time.

Who are these rowdy, uptight fans?  The parents. If you didn’t know better you might think you were at an NBA finals game or the Superbowl, but nope, it’s a youth sporting event. When I say youth sports, I mean young childrens’ sporting events,  like tee-ball, 5 year old soccer, and little league. These are sports teams where the children barely understand how the game works and can only stay focused for a few minutes at a time before they get distracted by a butterfly in the outfield. 

These days, it seems as if parents attend every single minute of their children’s games and all of their practices too.  I know some of these children are pretty young, like seven year olds, but they do have one or more adults around in the coaches and I imagine the coaches can handle practices on their own. As for the games? Yes, it would be ideal if parents could attend all games, but is that really humanly possible?  I am not a parent but I wonder if they feel like they are a bad parent if they miss anything.  Now, it is hard to dispute the fact that the Balloon Boy’s Dad is a bad parent, but those moms and dads who miss one or two games? I think they don’t need to be so hard on themselves.

The parents I know are running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to get to multiple sports events per week (or even per day) as well as take care of all of their other responsibilities. One of my friends who has two kids attended three dance recitals and one baseball game in a 48-hour period (yes for just the two kids). I know my friend is a kind and supportive parent and would not be seen on the sidelines of her son’s baseball game hollering criticisms, but how many parents might get so stressed from all of this running around that they maybe they’d lose their composure at a t-ball game and start yelling at the coach or their own child?

These parents will tell anyone that sports should be fun and it’s not about winning, but they certainly don’t practice what they preach. When they blow a gasket on the sidelines, it makes it clear to everyone that they don’t have fun when the kids aren’t winning. Most children will not become professional athletes, so shouldn‘t everyone just relax?  What do you want your child to remember? The criticisms you screamed at them from the sidelines of their peewee football game, or your supportive clapping and encouragement, no matter what the score was? 

Of course we have all heard the frightening news stories about parents who have actually got into physical fights with other parents and coaches.  There are a few cases of parents and coaches who have been hospitalized, arrested, or even died after getting involved in fights about their childrens‘ games. My guess is that these parents didn’t suddenly become critical and aggressive when their kid made the varsity team, but they have been wound up tight and acting like a menace since their child was just learning the sport.

Why do parents get so worked up about their children’s sports experiences? Yes, a few kids will become sports stars, but what is more important – screaming and yelling criticisms on the sidelines or being a part of a positive and supportive experience with your child?

Rico Del Sesto Photo

The other day I found one of those internet radio sites that would not only design my perfect radio station, but continually adapt to my needs and desires in real time. It’s “Weird Science” for the music lover. Your radio partner reads your mind as well, and can tell you why it plays each song for you. For example, I input the name of a heavy metal band I like. As it spins up the ensuing tunes, an explanation is attached: “We chose this song because of it’s fast tempo, aggressive lyrics, and you really are tougher than that guy that just cut you off.”

This radio matchup is brilliant, if you like consistency in music. But many of us have much broader taste in music, as detailed in a previous Verus blog article. It is difficult to convince my virtual radio mate to play some Iron Maiden for me, and follow that up with a David Gray tune or Beethoven symphony. Alas, my match has flaws…even the virtual world isn’t always perfect.
We recently used another matching service, which ended fairly successfully. We had the stats all laid out for our ideal match – Age: less than 10. Sex: either (or neither). Weight: less than 60 lbs. Color: any. Hair: short. Family/species: Canis lupus familiaris – domestic dog. At that time, there was no specific website we could visit (today there is dogtime.com and thepetconnection.com). But there did exist a plethora of information and contacts on the web to help find our match. What we ended up with was our first pet, a 7 year old, neutered (hence the ‘neither sex’), 60 pound hound dog who seemed to fit our lifestyle perfectly – couch potato at home, outdoorsman on the weekends, and believes that the world that revolves around food. What we weren’t told during the matching process was that the latter point was so absolute, with no exceptions. “Feed me now, or I will make your life miserable until I get food.”

What we also learned from our perfect match was that a dog, supposedly a self-sustaining, low maintenance, perfect companion, is much more work than expected. If living with a dog is so much effort and responsibility, then I can’t imagine what parents endure. Fortunately, by not having kids, we will never need to visit some of the other match sites which are likely out there or in the works, such as findmydaughteraniceguyforprom.com, junkercarsforteenagers.org (I see that being a non-profit match site), or, of course, diaper-change-drive-through.com/locations.

And, years from now, we’ll never have to ground our 15 year old son and his friends for recreating a 1980′s Kelly LeBrock with their iHologram, and destroying the house in the process. So maybe it’s ok to ‘settle’ on that almost-perfect, virtual-radio match site. Maybe that perfect someone or something doesn’t exist in the virtual world, either.

In the early 1930s, photographer Lewis Hine photographed the workers that were constructing the Empire State Building. He called them “Greek gods.” I would agree, only gods could build something so spectacular. It was built by Americans with pieces of America – such a feat would be met with great complication today. We used to take pride in what we accomplished, in the things we built. When’s the last time you saw any workers being recognized for what they do – besides the Big Dig, of course.

This spring, Jeep introduced a new commercial, in which is included a manifesto proclaiming that we are what we make, and that the new Jeep Cherokee is made entirely here in the United States. The spot goes on to suggest that what we produce is directly related to our success.

“We do well when we make good things, and not so well when we don’t,” the commercial states. I couldn’t agree more.

Click here to visit a gallery by Verus photographer Julio Del Sesto celebrating the New England worker.

In fact, the statement itself is irritating as it brings the realization of what a half-assed place we live in. We no longer believe in doing it right, just doing it quicker and for less. Pride? Only if it fills the pockets of the proud. Our laurels are dust, but we continue to tout them. How can we be proud when in our own country our students are sent home from school for wearing American flag t-shirts and an Iraq veteran is threatened with eviction from his apartment for flying the American flag? What happened?

There are few of us that are Greek gods, and those of us that are have been replaced by machines or shipped to war. We can make beautiful things again, as Jeep suggest, so why don’t we? Because it’s not profitable enough? National pride would seem to me worth the pay cut. After all, we’ve all seen where greed has gotten us.

Kudos to Jeep for reminding us of where we came from – even if it is a sentimental, nostalgic piece of marketing.
Click here to visit the “New England Blue” gallery, a documentary photography series by Verus photographer Julio Del Sesto.

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Throughout time, various bodies of varying importance and influence have designated official celebratory days for reasons that range from the pointless (World Sauntering Day is coming up on June 19, be sure to drag your feet) to the poignant (June 19 is also “War Is Hell” Day”).

Yet another official “day” has recently joined the ranks – Social Media Guide Mashable has announced that June 30, 2010 will be the first ever Social Media Day, a day to put in your Google Calendar , tell all your friends about in a status update on Facebook and link to using bit.ly in a tweet on Twitter . Do you Digg it?

Creating a day in homage to the likes of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn seems appropriate. The rise in the use and incorporation of social media into the daily lives of people and businesses alike has given the relatively new term a certain air of prestige. It’s holds the same mysterious yet smooth connotation as a pick up line or a way to sound important at a party.

“What do you do?”
“Oh, I work in social media. Ever heard of it? It’s pretty innovative. Just beginning to get big.”
“I think I have heard of it. On a blog somewhere. It must be so interesting. *Swoon*.”

Why not celebrate something that has its roots in the revolution of Web 2.0 ? Communication started out on a small, peer-to-peer level. Then it developed into the communication of one to many through text, film and even the beginnings of the Internet. Now that the Internet is making a huge shift back into the hands of its billions of users, shouldn’t people be ready to go full circle? Mashable thinks so.

That’s why part of their Social Media Day celebrations include worldwide Mashable Meetups , where social media enthusiasts can leave the confines of their computers (or opt for the mobile capabilities of their smartphones, iPads, etc…) and actually make physical contact with each other at predetermined spots. Over 254 Mashable Meetups involving nearly 1,500 people have already been scheduled to happen. Many are in American cities like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Houston and Miami, but international interest is coming from Nairobi, Paris, Hong Kong, Barcelona and Brisbane among others.

The Los Angeles area has gone above and beyond in preparation for the day by setting up a host of activities sponsored by the The Rainmaker Network and The Unicorn Press. Any proceeds will be going to Hollywood Arts , an academy for homeless and foster children, to assist with their media, music and commercial arts courses.

In the spirit of social media, Mashable encourages anyone to organize a meetup in their area. They also want attendees to take pictures of their events and post them to their Social Media Day Facebook group which already boasts over 600 guests.

Although Social Media Day will come and go with most observers perceiving it to be the first holiday of its kind, the reality of the situation is that another, lesser known organization has already taken the title of “First Global Social Media Holiday”.

Foursquare , an Internet application that allows users to share where they are and see where their friends are in order to share information, declared the first official Foursquare Day on April 16, 2010 (four…squared…get it?) after one of their users suggested the idea . Foursquare, which works with social networking sites on getting coupons and prizes for frequent customers and businesses, boasts nearly 275,000 users.

Whether you’re keeping your eyes glued to the screen watching various aggregated feeds of information about Social Media Day, stepping out into the real world to chat with like minds about the finer points of tweeting or think the entire thing is a waste of time there’s one thing about June 30 that rings true. It’s all about YOU.

Tim Pipp Graphic

When I first joined Facebook in 2005, I felt like I belonged to an exclusive club. You could only register if you had a valid college e-mail address, and it seemed that Facebook’s only mission was  to keep college students in touch after high school. Then high school students were allowed to join. Then everyone. Then statuses and news feed followed, and soon you could know everything you did or didn’t want to know about that kid you never talked to in your high school English class.

Scrolling through my news feed one night, I came across an unsettling photo that made me stop my cursor in its tracks. It was a photo of an acquaintance’s four-year-old son, who, for privacy reasons, we’ll call Timothy. He lay on a hospital bed, eyes closed, mouth agape under the oxygen mask strapped around his head. Immediately I clicked on the photo as questions ran through my mind: Is he okay? Is his mother, a fellow 2005 graduate of Londonderry High School, okay? What happened to him? Well, I got my answer, thanks to an exchange via photo comments that went exactly like this:

Concerned Facebook friend: what did he have surgery for??? poor little guy

Timothy’s mother:  On his manhood. He had the hole opened up.

Hmm. I wonder how Timothy would feel if he knew his mother had just shared that little tidbit with 198 Facebook friends.

Facebook has become more than a method of keeping in touch with old friends. It is a virtual form of expression, a way to let people into our lives and share information in ways we never could before. On Facebook’s own page it states that its mission is to “give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” But are some people taking it too far?

You could blame my acquaintance’s over-sharing on a  lapse in judgment, but more and more Facebook users’  status updates are more like a cry for help than a blurb on what they ate for dinner. An old middle school friend of mine typed in her status that she was sick of her husband coming home drunk to their children, and questioned whether or not she wanted to stay married to him any longer. I wondered why she was posting such a private issue on Facebook and not unloading her feelings in the privacy of a therapist’s office. An article on HowStuffWorks offers some insight from psychologists. The theories vary from loneliness to a lack of a “real” social network to talk about personal things. But, the article says, getting attention seems to be the number one reason for sharing too much.

So when we’re posting pictures of our drunken weekend at a friend’s house, or cursing out our spouses via status, it’s because we are the performer and our Facebook friends are the audience. We want people to know how much fun we’re having or not having, and we welcome the “likes” and comments of support. There’s a sense that we’re hidden behind the cover of our Facebook profiles, but over-sharing can be damaging to friendships, relationships and careers.

Despite the anxiety of over-sharing, there is a beacon of hope. A study from the Pew Research Center called Reputation Management and Social Media found young people to be more cautious about sharing personal information online.  According to the study, 71 percent of social media users ages 18-29 set their privacy controls to limit the information they share. This is exciting news to those worried about the future of online reputations.

Matt Gunn, author of Facebook privacy and social networking: use common sense, offers this piece of advice to Facebook users guilty of sharing too much:

“The greatest protection of privacy is understanding that everything you publish online that is stored on someone else’s server has the potential of becoming public information.”