So CNN fired Octavia Nasr for a tweet praising Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah on the 4th of July, the same day of his death.

Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.. One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot.. #Lebanon

So, a CNN editor/anchor using her CNN Twitter account (OctaviaNasrCNN) is telling the world that she respects a leader of a group that is on the terrorist list (in the United States at least). That's right, where CNN is based.

I am not really interested in getting into a debate about whether Hizbullah is actually terrorist or not. I find this to be completely irrelevant. The simple matter of fact is: Someone used a handle with an organization's name on it to express an opinion that is clearly against every fiber of what is CNN.

So, why are people 'outraged' and 'disgusted'? In all seriousness, I have no clue. I think as usual, people like to be angry around here. If anyone should be angry it should be Octavia for doing something very stupid. She should have known better.

As for CNN, I believe they have every right to terminate her on the spot. In fact, I would be very surprised if they didn't. Don't work for someone who thinks your idol is a terrorist and then be surprised when they hit you back when you announce it. That's just stupid.

Eric Schmidt's now infamous quote during a CNBC interview sums up how companies offering social networking services think about privacy, "If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place." Or does it? Facebook has been stumbling with privacy policy changes and now plans to share user data with external sites automatically. That is scary. Very scary.

Is Facebook betting that it has reached such a large size (400 million active users) that users will not retaliate by leaving en masse? Or is it that they are confident that the alternatives are just as bad? Rather, we would like to ask, does this represent an opportunity for someone to compete with Facebook or is this the only way they can achieve the revenue they would like to see?

When I first got my G1 (aka Google Phone) and later N1 (Nexus One) a friend argued that he would never buy such a product as it does not respect his privacy. I paused for a second and wondered, just how much I cared about my own privacy. An American might feel very protective of his/her personal information whereas someone whose constantly searched a little 'extra' and 'randomly' selected for more thorough screening at airports may have a completely different take on it.

Facebook Patent: Facebook awarded major patent by US Patent and Trademark Office

Facebook filed a patent claim on August 11, 2006 for what is now called the newsfeed patent, which was awarded on February 23, 2010. Commentators are calling this the single-most significant patent since the Six Degrees patent, which had its fair share of drama. So, what is so significant in this patent? It is vastly broad and open to interpretation. Twitter's future comes to mind and according to Nick O'Neill Facebook are claiming that this does not apply to status updates, instead it is about implicit actions and stories that a user is engaged in. Implicit actions?

I have seen many Twitter HOWTO's and Guides, but I have yet to come across one that shows consumers how they can get the attention of brands/products. We have all been busy talking about how we can talk to consumers, how we can engage with them.. which is all great, but we seem to forget that just like marketers, a lot of these social media tools are new to consumers as well. After all, we are all consumers.

Being on the monitoring end of things, I hope that I can give some insights to how brands see the world and how you, the consumer, can make your voice better heard. The most important thing you need to know is this: good brands are really trying to listen.

Give your opinion weight

The National is carrying a story on how twitter is yet to lure the Middle East. In his piece, Tom Gara (@tomgara) claims that Twitter will never make it in the Middle East due to a number of reasons, mostly social and cultural.