This post originally appeared on July 28, 2009. It’s our second most popular post to date.

Bill Gates recently quit Facebook because he had too many friends. He had trouble keeping track of who he actually knew and which friend requests were from strangers. Although you aren’t Bill Gates, you may still have a little dead weight in your Facebook friend list. Here are some ideas on how to annoy those connected to you and potentially lose some friends.

Mundane Status Updates
“Joe Smith is tired.” Yeah, we’re all tired, Joe. Is that the best you can do? Continually updating your friends on all the mundane tasks in your life just may cause a few folks to de-friend you. So, keep it up with such snooze-alerts as “is bored” and “is going to the gym.”

Talk Politics and/or Religion
Politics and religion are two touchy subjects. People have their own opinions and it’s very hard to convince them to change sides. Talking about your views is a possible way to offend a few Facebook friends who don’t agree, especially if you trash the other side.

Take Every Quiz and Share Results
There are thousands of Facebook quizzes, and some are even entertaining. However, your friends don’t want to know which “Sex and the City” character you are or your Simpsons IQ score. If you want to lose friends, then take all the quizzes you can and publish the results each time.

Keep Sending Invitations
Mafia Wars and Vampires may be fun to you, but receiving invitations to them over and over again is just annoying. We realize that getting more people to play helps your score. And, we don’t care. Lil’ Green Patch may be a good cause, but we’re tired of it. So, if you want to annoy your connections, keep kidnapping people and passing drinks around.

Be an Over-Poster
Everyone has at least one or two over-posters on their friend list. These are people who update their status WAY too often and share links and photos galore. Appearing too frequently in your network’s News Feed is a good way to cause “friend fatigue” and get yourself de-friended.

Tag Friends in Unappealing Photos
Dig up those dusty old photos and crank up your scanner. Horrify your friends! Embarrass your family! It is especially helpful to find pictures where your targets have bad hair days, closed eyes, or strange expressions. And, make sure to tag the photos so everyone can recognize each other.

There are many other ways to annoy on Facebook (like over-punctuating your updates), so feel free to suggest some of your own pet peeves.

Photo courtesy of Flickr: jurvetson

While we wish we lived in a world where naked, drunken photos wouldn’t affect our job prospects, that’s not the reality for most people. What you say and do online that’s public is…well…public. And, if your online information is deemed inappropriate by a potential employer, you could be eliminated from the running. In fact, a recent survey found that 70% of recruiters and hiring managers have rejected a job candidate because of information found online.

So, what sort of information might be problematic?

“Inappropriate” comments by the candidate; “unsuitable” photos and videos; criticisms of previous employers, co-workers, or clients; and even inappropriate comments by friends and relatives, according to the survey report, titled “Online Reputation in a Connected World.”

Some job recruits are even going as far as to change their profile names. But, this should be unnecessary. On Facebook, you should be able to hide your information from public view. If you don’t know how to adjust your privacy settings, this is a good place to start. And, Mashable’s HOW TO: Clean Up Your Facebook Profile is another great read.

Then, your secrets should be safe.

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We shouldn’t speed, drive drunk, or be aggressive/reckless behind the road. We know it, but sometimes it helps to be reminded–especially in a clever way. Australia has decided to use some off-beat humor in a viral campaign to get a safe driving message across to younger drivers. The tag line: “Don’t be a dickhead.” I must admit that some of these are amusing. You would almost think they’re Saturday Night Live skits.

The ads discuss the possible–yet completely crazy–consequences of unsafe driving. These include: red-headed angels will get their wings, you will live the rest of your life with a giant pole coming out of your stomach, Twitter and Facebook will be turned off, and more.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcIy8-EKW00

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCsPaW3Ghz0

And…wait for it…my favorite:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7CBJr0GReI

It’s great to see a company (in this case, the Victoria, Australia government) doing something out of the ordinary to reach a new audience. Think of how great it would be if someone would roll out the “Don’t litter or you’re a douche bag” campaign. It would make you think twice about littering, wouldn’t it?

All of the ads can be seen here.

[Via AdFreak]

Twitter is great for up-to-the-minute updates and news flashes. But, some tweeters just don’t know when to keep their thumbs in their pants.

Ryan Seacrest caught flack this week for giving away the results of “American Idol” on Twitter before West Coast viewers had seen the show. Seacrest tweeted the name of the contestant who was booted off, spoiling the broadcast for many fans in other time zones.

Now, revealing an “Idol” castoff isn’t the end of the world. But, what if you make an off-handed joke about bombing an airport? In the old days, this wouldn’t be a big deal, either. Now, the terrorism police (that’s the technical term, I believe) take that shizzle seriously. In the UK, a man was just arrested for a tweet he sent after his flight was cancelled due to a snowfall:

“You’ve got a week and a bit to get your s**t together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”

That tweet came back to haunt him when the police showed up on his doorstep. Now, his cell phone, laptop, and desktop computer have all been confiscated, plus he is banned from the intended airport FOR LIFE. Ridiculous, we know. All for a tweet made in jest.

Whether it’s tweeting too often, as in the case of John Mayer and his overzealous tweeting, or tweeting the inappropriate, sometimes it’s better to think before you tweet.

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The fastest growing group on Facebook is the 35-54 set, which can lead to sticky situations with real consequences for many people. Therefore, who you friend is as important as who you don’t. As an example, a survey out this week found that 56% of people believe it’s irresponsible to friend your boss on Facebook. Seems there are more categories to be considered as well. So, here’s our common sense list of “To Friend, or Not to Friend.”

Should you friend…

…your boss? As the survey lends us to believe, it’s probably a bad idea. Not only are you possibly exposing awkward photos, status updates, and Wall posts, but your boss can actually SEE if you’re on Facebook at any given time. (The “Friends Online” feature reveals who is logged into the site.) Unless you plan to do all your Facebooking after hours (ha!), then let the boss actually think you’re working. Also, it’s hard to claim a “sick” day when you post photos of your impromptu trip to Six Flags the next day.

…your parents? This is tricky. It really depends on your parents. Are they the judgmental type? Do they disapprove of your lifestyle, job, or friends? If they’re the easy-going, we-love-you-just-the-way-you-are parents, then you’re probably safe. However, you don’t want to become the black sheep over your online revelations. Plus, if you connect to your folks, you might learn more than YOU want to know. (Be prepared for a barrage of Farmville.)

…your kids? As we just talked about, you might learn more than you want to know. Are you invading your child’s internet privacy? Or, are you just trying to stay more connected? If it’s the later, that is certainly a noble reason. Just don’t expect them to appreciate it. More than likely, you’ll just embarrass them.

…your ex? Before you try to maintain a friendship (albeit an online one) with an ex, ask yourself if you’re ready to hear about his or her new relationships. If you can handle seeing vacation pictures of he and his new girlfriend in Bermuda, then it’s probably OK to be Facebook friends. But, if hearing about how happy he or she is without you sends you over the edge, it’s not worth it. Also, if you friend an ex just to keep tabs on him or her “just in case” (or worse, for some revenge plot), then that’s just wrong.

…randoms? If you can’t remember the person from high school, then why stay connected to them on Facebook? Ditto for a friend of a friend, or someone who was blindly suggested by Facebook. Yes, you can hide friends from your News Feed. But, if you friend someone knowing that you’re just going to hide them, why friend them in the first place?

Facebook isn’t just about collecting as many friends as you can. It should be about interacting with a network of people you’re interested in. Don’t let the friend requests bog you down. When in doubt, IGNORE!

If you’re an avid user of social media–specifically FourSquare and Twitter–PleaseRobMe.com is a site you might want to know about. Done with a sense of humanitarianism (as in not for criminals), this site collects all the location data sent to Twitter and FourSquare and publishes it in a running stream.

For example, on PleaseRobMe.com, you’ll see posts like this:

@USERNAME left home and checked in 4 minutes ago:
I’m at The Computer Corner (99-185 Moanalua Road Suite 101, Aiea). http://4sq.com/….

@USERNAME left home and checked in less than a minute ago:
I’m at acclamation bar and grill (James street north and mulberry). http://4sq.com/….

@USERNAME left home and checked in less than a minute ago:
I’m at Costco Kawasaki (3-1-4 Ikegami Shincho, Kawasaki Ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa). http://4sq.com/….

The creators look to raise awareness about internet privacy and how the information we put out there could be used in the wrong hands. When you visit the site, you will see that most of the entries on PleaseRobMe.com are from FourSquare, a social media site that is practically a continual GPS of where you are. Which makes it kind of obvious where you aren’t.

The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the internet we’re not home. It gets even worse if you have “friends” who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address.. on the internet.

We did learn this week that 30% of Americans are not online either at work or at home. So, there is a small percentage of people not iFollowing your movements. But, do you want the other 70% to know your precise location?

[Via The Consumerist]

AdFreak has a great graphic of what you could buy instead of a Super Bowl commercial. While I don’t like some of the suggestions, the point remains clear: Super Bowl ads are a giant waste of money.

Yes, I know some of them are iconic and some of them are wildly popular. And, the ads are a main reason that people tune into the game. Agencies know the audience numbers are unbeatable on any other day in the modern television landscape. So, the ad dollars makes sense to some companies. (How else would GoDaddy be a household word?) But, most of the ads we’ll see on Super Bowl Sunday will only end up as a blip on our busy, over-programmed, short-attention-span radar.

I don’t begrudge the network for charging the amount they do for the airtime. I’m a firm believer that the free market should decide what the going rate is. If there are companies willing to pay it, then the network should reap the benefits. But, in this recession, does it really seem wise from the company’s perspective to pay $2.6 million for a 30-second spot during the game? Yes, that is over two and a half million dollars!

That’s why Pepsi’s decision to not place Super Bowl ads this year is so great. After almost 25 years of placing ads during the Super Bowl, they have decided to put the money towards a social media campaign. Pepsi usually purchases many 30-second spots during the game, so this is a huge chunk of change the company can use throughout 2010 and beyond. Plus, the announcement has been so startling that Pepsi is now getting more Super Bowl buzz than its rival Coke.

We’ll have to wait until next year to see what effect Pepsi’s pull-out will have on the ad rates. Could this be a trend other companies will follow? Until the economy bounces back and people have jobs again, I sure hope so.

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Sometimes we make it easier on the bad guys.

Many computer users prove themselves easy targets for hackers and identity thieves. First, we learn that “123456″ is the most common password in use today.

Imperva found that nearly 1 percent of the 32 million people it studied had used “123456″ as a password. The second-most-popular password was “12345.” Others in the top 20 included “qwerty,” “abc123″ and “princess.”

Not exactly hacker-proof. Instead, pick a password of a letter and number combination that is at least six characters long.

Second, we learn that many adults put their full addresses in their social media profiles.

In one example, the study commissioned by a unit of credit reporting services firm Experian found that 14 percent of adults – and 20 percent of those age 60 and over – listed their full home addresses in their social media profiles.

Now, I’m not suggesting that putting your address online guarantees a robbery. (See our recent post “Do Thieves Read Twitter, Too?”) But, do you really want anyone, and we mean anyone, knowing where you live? Identity theft, junk mail, stalkers, past girlfriends, Jehovah’s Witnesses… you open yourself up to a variety of ways to have your personal domain invaded.

Don’t make it easy on them. Make the bad guys work harder and perhaps save yourself some aggravation down the road.

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Here are some of our favorite brief Web stories from this week.

Some people had common sense.

• A Nevada brothel will offer male prostitutes. Whoo hoo! Long live equality! Grab your GPS, ladies.
• A Bloodmobile in Washington will give a pint of beer to each person that donates a pint of blood. It’s a win-win! Not surprisingly, the program has been so successful that it’s being expanded.
• Saying it’s better to be honest than greedy, an NYC cab driver returned a purse with $21,000 in cash along with some jewelry to its owner. The Bangladesh native is a full-time college student and surely could have used the money. But, he did the right thing.

And, some did not.

• Suri Cruise’s parents (you know who they are) bought her a $30,000 toy racing car. If they have more money than they know what to do with, I can make a few suggestions. Most involve me….
• People keep talking to Rob Blagojevich. And, he keeps saying incredibly stupid things. Lay off media, and let this moron go away already.
• The genius criminal who escaped from jail and then taunted the police via Facebook has, shockingly, been captured. Way to stick it to the man, dude.

Twitter: you either love it or you hate it. The service appeals to many because it’s a way to carry on short conversations with large groups of people. But, like any conversation, users should be careful not to offend, bore, or just plain suck. The Oatmeal has a comic that is pretty funny and to the point: Ten Things You Need to Stop Tweeting About.

These include: what you’re eating, the conference or event you’re attending, your workout, and your emotional breakthroughs. The main reason is that no one cares about these things. (Well, very few people anyway.) Most of the ten are fairly obvious, especially like tweeting about Twitter. (Does anyone really do this?) But, we still appreciate the efforts made to liven up some of the social media banality.

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