A few stories have been going around the internet lately about Twitter and how some people are tweeting either the wrong thing, or tweeting at times that are by no means appropriate.

The first thing that made this come more to light than it already should are situations dealing with the court system. Apparently jurors in trials have been tweeting about what's going on behind what are supposed to be closed doors. One case dealing with a corruption trial for former PA senator Vincent Fumo. One juror apparently was posting info about the trial on Twitter and Facebook during the trial. In this case, the juror was allowed to stay on and Vincent Fumo was found guilty later, but there's now an added chance for appeal which could cause problems later for Fumo's conviction.

But not all cases end the same way. In Florida, a mistrial was called because jurors were doing research on the case on the internet. This might not have been caused directly by Twitter, or a posted tweet, but even something as simple as that was used as grounds for a mistrial...can you imagine what would've happened if the jurors were posting about it or asking questions? The jury pool would be contaminated and a mistrial would be only fair. I mean sure I want the criminals to be proesecuted, but I want the cases treated fairly. I mean what would happen if it was myself, or one of my friends or family members on trial? I wouldn't want people influencing the jury against someone. People really need to learn that it might be tempting to post about trials, but if you're on the jury, you really have to show some restraint...someone's future is on the line.

The last case doesn't so much deal with trials, but instead, with the job market and finding yourself a good job. A case about an employee or a prospective employee tweeting about a potential job at Cisco ended with another Cisco seeing the tweet and responding to it. Needless to say, I'm pretty sure her chances of working at Cisco are now hurt if not gone entirely.

I guess in the end of the day, you really have to be careful what, when, and where you tweet. As Greg and myself were mentioning in my latest podcast, its easy for people to find you online. It may be the internet, but it's by no means anonymous and people can see what you're doing, so if you post a tweet cursing out your company, job, or boss, you'd be surprised how easily someone could find it. And if it's someone in the company who finds it, don't be suprised if it works its way up the chain to your boss or worse.

I've been thinking of late as to why people seem to get all bent out of shape when websites change their design. Just recently, Facebook, the popular social networking site redesigned their front page and the response from the users seems to be fairly negative. According to a poll, only about 6% actually like the new design.

Now as a disclaimer, I deleted my facebook account a while back after really just getting tired of Facebook as a whole. But my point doesn't really require me to have an account. People seem to be against change. Personally I think the whole redesign will take a little bit to get used to so a poll this early might bring back some skewed results. When a popular site is redone, it takes a little bit for the general population to get used to the new design. I think that this poll, while not so much inaccurate for the Facebook users' general feeling towards the changes, would better be served in a couple months when people get acclimated to where everything is in the new layout. It's at this point that people might start to come around to the new layout and the new design.

But why do people seem to be so against these changes? I can remember back to some previous redesigns of Facebook back when I had an account and remember similar reactions to the change? Are people just so set in their ways that they don't want to deal with changes to what may very well be their favorite site? Now I'm not saying that people can't be upset with change, after all, change isn't always a good thing. But why not give it a chance? Use it with an open mind for a couple weeks and see what happens afterwards, you might find out you actually like it.

Something else I would like to see, as my friend Dave mentioned, is for Facebook to keep this redesign for a couple months, then switch back to the old design and run the same poll...see how many people all of a sudden like the change. So if you're a facebook user, what do you think of the new design? Love it? Hate it? And Why?

Hey for anyone who wants the iTunes RSS Feed for my podcast, here's the link:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=309495434

It should open up iTunes

Social media is taking the internet by storm nowadays with sites like Digg, Mixx, Reddit, Stumbleupon and others, and one of the big staples of social media is the social aspect. People can discuss the story or whatever the topic might be in the form of comments. Often enough though, especially with sites that use a karma system, people want cheap and easy karma and one way to do that is through comments. So now, instead of simply reading the article and sharing their thoughts, they just post something. Take this for example:

Ok...where should I start...It's nice...good...what was nice about it? What did you like about it? Come to think of it, did you even go to the article? Did you even read it? I'd be willing to bet you didn't, so yeah, take your karma and well, go do something with it. This only helps spam get promoted as well as increase the problem with blind voting, but thats another discussion entirely.

Now take a look at this one:

Ok...you can copy and paste...at least we now know you can at least use a computer. But wait, congrats, you actually opened the article, you've done what many don't. The next question I have to ask is did you actually read the article or just copy paste the first paragraph? Again, I'd be willing to bet you didn't. Come to think of it, you couldn't even come up with your own comment.

In the end of the day, a few short comments aren't going to hurt anyone, but constantly commenting with rubbish is not what I feel commenting is about. Commenting is about adding to the conversation around a submission or post. It's about adding your two cents and discussion with others. Random copy-pasting or "nice post" don't do that. It's about adding value, and in reality there's no value in these kinds of comments. Karma's nice to have, but in the end of the day, I'd much rather discuss my thoughts and opinions.