Tag Archives: social networking

Facebook Surpasses Google As Most Visited Site

According to Hitwise research, Facebook recently passed Google as the top US site visited .  Traffic to both Facebook and Google make up a little over 14% of US website visits.

In your CyBlock or Cyfin product, Facebook is located in the Social Networking category, and you will find Google in the Search Engines category.  If you ever want to monitor these sites more closely, or any other sites for that matter, you can always place them in a custom category.

For more information on social networking in the workplace, read our white paper, “Social Networking or Social Not-Working?”. This white paper will help you determine if you need to block social networking at your workplace.

Few Employers Have a Social Networking Policy in Place

A recent report by Manpower found that very few companies have policies regarding social networking use.  In fact, only 29% of US companies have a formal social networking policy in place.  Social networks are not only time wasters, but they can pose serious security risks or damage a company’s reputation if employees post confidential or harmful material about the company.  No matter what an employer’s stance is on social networking use in the workplace, it is highly recommended to have a policy in place and educate employees on that policy. Joseph P. Paranac, a shareholder in LeClairRyan’s Labor and Employment Group has offered Web-use policy suggestions on what companies should include.

If you’re unsure whether or not you want to block social networking, we have also written a paper that addresses the issues surrounding social networking use in the workplace, the importance of creating a policy, and monitoring or filtering employee’s Web use according to that policy.

White Paper: Social Networking or Social Not-working?

Source: https://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007493

Blocking Unusual Facebook Site Variations

Facebook has set up their site so that if a user types “www.www.facebook.com”, they will be able to access it through any Web filtering proxy blocking www.facebook.com.  Users can even type in variations, such as “www.www.www.facebook.com” or “hello.www.www.facebook.com” to get access to Facebook.

If users are accessing Facebook by using one of these many variations, it will not show up in reports under the category of Social Networking.  Instead, the URL is categorized as “Other” and is displayed this way in reports.

For now, to prevent users from accessing the site using these variations and to categorize these variations as Social Networking, you need to add the URL as a wildcard to the Social Networking category. To do this, follow the below instructions.

  1. Go to Advanced Settings – Category Setup and click on the Edit URLs link.
  2. Use the Select Category pulldown and select Social Networking.
  3. In the text entry area for Custom URLs, type in the wild card URL *.facebook.com.  If you want to block any time the term facebook shows up in a URL, type in the wild card *.facebook.*

The Wavecrest Development Team is currently looking into alternatives to better handle these types of site variations within the Wavecrest Control List while maintaining speed and scalability in our products.

Social Networking or Social Not-working?

Social networking in the workplace is a major dilemma for today’s businesses. Does it help or hurt the organization? While some companies block social networking, some say it helps by enhancing collaboration among employees, partners and customers. Others say it hurts by draining productivity and bandwidth and creating legal liability and network security risks.

A survey conducted by Nucleus Research showed that 77 percent of workers who have a Facebook account use it during work hours. Of those who do use Facebook at work, 87% said they could not define a clear business reason for accessing the site and some reported using it as much as two hours per day.

So, in the face of all the countervailing views, just what is the best approach to the issue? Options include banning it altogether, using it with no restrictions, and employing it for business purposes only.

The short answer is, “It depends.”

That is, for any one organization, the answer really depends on management’s views on a number of issues. Among these are the nature and objectives of the business, organizational culture and managerial style, workforce morale factors, workforce demographics and skills, availability of technological solutions, and the need for external communications.

We are often asked about this issue.  So we developed this paper to share our knowledge and views. It explores various aspects of the issue, cites some relevant facts, and provides several recommendations. Our hope is that this information will help organizations that are struggling today with this contemporary and very important issue.

Read the full white paper: Social Networking or Social Not-working?