A growing trend on websites and blogs is using social media as a universal login. Seems like a win-win – you don’t have to fill out another form and remember a new password, and the site gets access to your profile information. Often, you get a choice over which social media account to use.
But these choices are not equal. According to one company that provides social login tools, Janrain, there is a great difference in the amount of data shared. You should be very careful about what account you use. Are you prepared to share as much information as Facebook or LinkedIn provide? If you want to use these tools on your own site, are you prepared to use this data in accordance with your site’s privacy statement? Or does the third-party tool you are using adequately protect this data?
Data Disclosed By Social Login Tools
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About You
About Me
Address
Addresses
Birthday
Books
Current Location
Display Name
Emails
Family Name
Formatted Name
Friends List
Gender
Given Name
Homepage
Interested In Meeting
Interests
Last Updated
Movies
Music
Organizations
Photos
Preferred Username
Profile Photo
Relationship Status
Status
Time Zone
TV Shows
URLs
Verified Email
Friends/Contacts
About Me
Address
Addresses
Birthday
Books
Current Location
Display Name
Family Name
Formatted Name
Gender
Given Name
Homepage
Interested In Meeting
Interests
Last Updated
Movies
Music
Organizations
Photos
Preferred Username
Profile Photo
Relationship Status
Status
Time Zone
TV Shows
URLs
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About You
About Me
Accounts
Address
Addresses
Birthday
Current Location
Display Name
Family Name
Formatted Name
Friends List
Given Name
Homepage
IMs
Interests
Job Interests
Note
Organizations
Phone Number
Phone Numbers
Preferred Username
Profile Photo
Photos
Positions
Status
URLs
Friends/Contacts
About Me
Addresses
Birthday
Current Location
Display Name
Family Name
Formatted Name
Given Name
IMs
Organizations
Phone Numbers
Photos
Preferred Username
Status
URLs
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About You
Display Name
Formatted Name
Homepage
Preferred Username
Profile Photo
Friends/Contacts
Profile URL
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About You
Family Name
Given Name
Verified Email
Addresses
Languages Spoken
Friends/Contacts
Display Name
Emails
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Thanks to Webtoolkit4me for the Icons
I just sat through a painful webinar. Well, actually, I made notes for my blog, checked my email, and made some iced tea during a a painfully boring webinar intended to sell me on a particular web-based product through a combination of information and product demo.
What’s sad is that the presenter had obvious experience and was no doubt very successful and engaging when presenting in person. It just didn’t translate well.
Most webinar software is fairly ‘one-way.’ Your interactions may be much more successful in-person because you are getting your audience out of their normal environment and engaging them with minimal distractions. After all, its doubtful that your audience would play solitaire, type on their blackberry, or try to finish their expense report in the middle of your presentation. Unfortunately, they can do any of this in the relative privacy of a webinar.
What may help is to use tools to engage the participants in relatively short intervals. Look at group collaboration tools such as Facilitate Pro, Grovesite, or other web-based training tools rather than broadcast presentation tools. Also, since travel is no longer needed, you may want to break up your material so that the relatively one-way stuff is available on-demand via audio/video streaming or podcast and only the interactive parts are delivered realtime.
Whatever the route, you may need to collaborate with a training or instructional design resource to make sure you translate what you do in-person effectively into the on-line collaboration space.