I come from a family of geeks. There is no other word for the members of my immediate and even distant relation. And this is probably no surprise to anyone that’s met them. Or me.

Some of them are tech geeks like me. Others are crafting nerds that genuinely enjoy sitting around a table and throwing cheap beads on a piece of string. Some are nature freaks that can tell you a hundred different facts about a hundred different woodland critters in a region or what each flower is, when it will bloom, and whether or not cold weather has already destroyed a good sight seeing road trip on some gravel road in some remote part of Iowa. Yes, there are Iowans that actively seek out even more remote parts of Iowa.

And many members of my family cross into multiple varieties of geeky-ness.

My family is a very connected family. It always has been. I remember my grandma staring down at the kitchen table where she was sitting and writing letters on what seemed like a daily basis. So many letters. Open communication is something we’ve always been about. Keeping in contact with those we’ve met. Ensuring ties don’t dwindle. Constant check up calls to family in bordering states. Many letters to and from other family many states away. One of the things I most appreciate is how close we are, regardless of the miles between us.

I’m afraid that this may have skewed my perspective on the latest social media buzz in relation to Facebook and their privacy policies, but I honestly think that the media covering the issues are blowing it way out of proportion.

Look, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; nothing you do online is ever safe. Nothing. No matter how many privacy policies you read through, no matter how well you know the terms of the sites you use. Any information you put out there, whether in text, images, video, or audio is like water. If there’s a leak to be found, it’s going to drain out.

If there are things you don’t want someone to see then you had better not put it out there.

I’m a very open person. I actively put out information about myself and what I’m doing or interested in. All the time. Daily. Not everyone’s like that. Some people probably think that’s crazy. I disagree.

I wouldn’t encourage anyone else to do it if they didn’t want to and didn’t know what to be selective about, but I guarantee some of the people that read this and do think it’s crazy have a lot more information about themselves out there than they realize.

You need to be intelligent about how you conduct yourself online. You need to educate yourself on what kinds of information people are looking for to take advantage of you.

Do you need to be worried that you’re some faceless number to some company that knows your favorite band is Matchbox 20? Probably not. That information is being sold for advertising purposes and isn’t likely to be used to target you specifically or maliciously.

You need to be conservative in placing birth dates online at whim.You need to be cautious about providing a full name (first, middle, and last) to just anyone. You need to be careful about what kind of financial information you store on a computer or use on different websites. You need to be aware that a social security number is the most precious piece of information you have and should never be shared.

Does anyone care about the picture of you on Facebook bent over a toilet? Does anyone care about the picture from last year’s Halloween party where you dressed in drag? Probably not. I’d argue that even future employers are unlikely to care.

There’s this notion that these kind of images could have an impact five, ten or even fifteen years down the road should you ever be looking for a new job. The problem with this idea is that if it were to hold true and businesses/organizations were to ever waste their time filtering out every idiotic perspective employee then they would have no one to hire.

Welcome to the digital age. Your drunken night is no more meaningful than the other 400 million active Facebook users. The times, they are a-changin’.

Just a day after Facebook’s announcements the status updates are already rolling in, allegedly attempting to warn other users that their privacy is in danger and explaining how to adjust their privacy settings to prevent their details being exposed and then asking people to repost.

Here’s the problem people. Yes, Facebook’s privacy policies are full of holes. Yes, it appears that with every new reiteration of the site users have less and less control over what information they share and who it’s shared with. But this is the internet and you’re kidding yourselves if you think that any information you enter online is really safe.

The only sure way to prevent your information from being public is to not volunteer that information in the first place.

What people should be aware of when they log in to any website is that information about you is being tracked. Does this mean you shouldn’t participate in social networking? That’s up to the individual. Personally I find greater value in using the web than risk.

The constant online tracking that happens when you visit a website is more or less automated. No one’s sitting behind a control desk. Take Facebook for example — when you created your profile you entered several interests. One of the ways Facebook makes a profit (READ: The reason you can ignore all those threats about Facebook ever becoming a pay site…) is by serving you ads. The companies that purchase advertising space on Facebook are aiming to serve someone advertising that the user will actually click on. Facebook can facilitate this and make more in advertising because they harvest the data you entered pertaining to your interests and serve you ads based on those indications. So is your data being sold to advertisers? More or less, yes. And you probably gave Facebook permission to do so when you signed up and agreed to their terms of service.

I’m not writing this to make Facebook seem like a scary place to enter your information. I’m just trying to make a point that your information is probably out there, that there’s no such thing as privacy when it comes to the internet, and to be aware of what you put online. These are common sense issues that everyone should consider.

If you’re interested in geeking out a bit more on what’s going on with Facebook and how they’re the most intriguing and possibly intimidating force in the web today, I urge you to check out Robert Scoble’s thoughts at http://scobleizer.com.

I’ve decided to use this site to talk about social media and it’s ever-growing grasp on the world around us. I’ll be throwing out my thoughts on news relating to Facebook, Twitter, and any new services I think are cool. You’ll be reading about geo-location, how many new services are just a starting point for new real-world applicable marketing and more. And last but not least (at least as far as I’m concerned), I’ll be sharing updates on my music/life blog Postblink and some of the behind the scenes work on starting a website. So thanks for stopping by. Check back. This domain will finally serve a purpose.