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Social networking has become the hip new platform for many professionals such as marketers, musicians, writers, tech evangelists, and a multitude of others. It seems that now the U.S. Government has taken notice of social networks and their recruitment potential.

Specifically, you can add the CIA to the list of those who have jumped onto the social networking bandwagon.

Social networks have been the focus of much speculation, banter, analysis and ire over the past six months, with special emphasis focused on the word-of-mouth marketing and SEO potential (inbound links) that these online communities can offer to both small and enterprise level companies looking to bolster their online presence.

Sites like LinkedIn have given focus to the professional aspect of social networking, providing employers with a new resource to find potential candidates to fill positions in their organizations.

The CIA has taken it a step further though, and is employing Facebook as a method of all-out recruitment.

Chaddus Bruce over at Wired has more on the nature of the positions the CIA is looking to fill and the Facebook group:

The NCS, one of the four directorates of the CIA, was established following 9/11 to gather intelligence from sources both domestic and abroad. In 2004, President Bush directed the CIA to increase the “human intelligence capabilities” of the agency and hire more officers that can “blend more easily in foreign cities.”

The search for better spies led the NCS to set up shop on Facebook, which is used primarily by college students. Every Facebook user has her or his own page, and users can choose to join Facebook “groups,” which can be created by individuals or sponsored by companies as paid promotions. The NCS-sponsored Facebook group was launched on Dec. 19, 2006 and will stay active for two months. The group currently has over 2,100 members, up from around 200 one week after its debut.
According to the CIA’s Facebook profile, the following criteria must be met in order to apply for a position within the organization:

•   Requires GPA of 3.0 or above
•   US Citizenship required
•   Foreign language skills a plus
•   All applicants must undergo several personal interviews, medical and psychological exams, aptitude testing, polygraph interview        and  an intensive background investigation.

One can never quite tell when Big Brother might be watching.

Free speech meets corporate suspicion as the Electronic Frontier Foundation took up the cause of ‘Spocko’, an anonymous blogger who posted audio clips broadcast in San Francisco on ABC Radio to his site.

The clips of KSFO radio hosts making light of the deaths of UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, along with other inflammatory comments, gained Spocko nationwide attention. It also drew the wrath of ABC Radio’s owner Disney, which successfully forced his blog offline for archiving those audio clips.

Disney’s claims of copyright infringement caused Spocko’s original hosting company to shut down the blog, forcing him to find a new host. The situation caught the attention of the EFF, which dispatched a response to Disney regarding what they consider false claims of copyright violation:

“Copyright law is not designed to silence speech that you dislike,” said EFF Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. “ABC and KSFO know that their legal threats were absolutely groundless. Their time and efforts are better spent explaining why they think Spocko is wrong, and letting the public decide, instead of resorting to thuggish legal tactics.”

The commentary retained by Spocko has been brought to the attention of advertisers by the blogger, and some of them have yanked their advertising in response. That loss of revenue has likely been more of an irritation to Disney than the alleged copyright issues.

By acting to suppress a relatively unknown blogger over his archiving of politically-tinged commentary, Disney essentially guaranteed more people would notice what was happening. The political blog Daily Kos is one of the most heavily trafficked on the Internet, and picked up on the story.

InfoWorld also noticed what was happening, and pointed to a YouTube mashup of the content Disney sought to quash when they went after Spocko.

Pushing around the little guy who is using free speech has been a given for years, with companies smacking offenders with SLAAP lawsuits and other tricks. That’s all changed now that a single blogger can find a lot of friends, including some powerful ones, who can stand up to such tactics.

Before taking an extreme step to silence a critic, one who is objectionable but lawfully making points, companies of any size should learn to engage that criticism constructively. Being blown up as a heavy-handed thug could reach well beyond a single person’s blog. On the Internet, the world is a much smaller place, and news travels swiftly and broadly to others.

posted by Dakota Michaels

As a PHP programmer, it will be your responsibility to create out of the box dynamic PHP applications, and integrate websites into turn-key CMS interfaces.

• A firm grasp of PHP is necessary.
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• Experience with Joomla & Mambo is a bonus.
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Please forward your resume & portfolio to:

A website visual artist knows that everything starts at the pixel. You will need to able to take conceptual ideas and bring them to life while utilizing the brand’s fonts, color schemes, and visual elements. The ability to bring this to fruition through an HTML layout will be essential.

• A firm grasp of Adobe Illustrator, and quickly creating vector images is a must.
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• An understanding of HTML and FLASH will be a bonus.
• Must have an advanced understanding of Photoshop.
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Please forward your resume & portfolio to:

jobs@beautifulmindcompany.com

A FLASH animator must be able to take layout designs and incorporate them through a series of images and content to create the site layout and animation structure.

• A firm grasp of creating layouts and incorporating images into multiple movie clips in FLASH is mandatory.
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• Must have a basic understanding of Photoshop & Illustrator and the file standards for importing to FLASH.
• At least 2 years of combined experience in FLASH / web design is mandatory.

Please forward your resume & portfolio to:

jobs@beautifulmindcompany.com