On Thursday night, I attended the Problogger/Text-Link-Ads NYC Meetup. I barely knew anyone, and neither did Darren, apparently, but he was indeed the celebrity. (Can you find me in those pictures?) I also was fortunate to meet Philip Liu who took some nice shots of the event as well.

Tomorrow night, I’m headed southbound to hang with the folks for the Passover holiday. I’ll then be back here to do some work, but next weekend, I’m headed to the in-laws in Pennsylvania for the remainder of the holiday.

The Search Engine Strategies conference in NY will be in full-spin when I return to New York. I’ll be covering some of the SES-NY sessions along with a bunch of wonderful people who I haven’t yet met. If you’ll be at SES-NY, please be sure to introduce yourself.

I just saw interesting report via MicroPersuasion. A recent study showed that Web 2.0 has a very great reach within large companies. A study done by Clearswift did a survey with 827 individuals in large companies (1,000 employees and up) and found the following:

• 43% of office workers access social media sites from their work computers several times a day
• 51% spend an hour or more a week on the sites; 13% spend five hours or more
• 46% have discussed work-related issues on social media sites
• 46% regularly access Wikipedia during work hours
• 50% believe they have a right to use work computers for personal internet access

What do you think of these findings? Do they come as a surprise to you? Are they representative of your surfing behavior?

Awhile ago, I wrote why I am an obsessive compulsive Facebook user. Truthfully, Facebook’s “obsessive compulsive” reach didn’t grab me until recent events that I blogged about earlier this week. As I mentioned in that post, I started a blog to address a problem that seems to be plaguing my high school, an issue that I was alerted to through Facebook. For students without the financial means or know-how to bring an issue to light within a community, the best avenue to promote change within a high school student body is currently Facebook.

I realized that the blog I created did shift gears away from Facebook, but it ended up empowering the students, many who felt helpless. I noticed that other students were continuing to post on the Facebook group’s wall, but not so much as they were on this new site, a site that had a much further reach.

But then I realized something else. When we consider the Facebook as a tool to socially network, we don’t realize that the Facebook can be used as a catalyst for change. The students in the Facebook group are not simply students who want to hang out for a nonsensical reason (like so many other groups I’ve joined). This group was created because the students and alumni felt that they needed to unite on a common front to drive change.

Another week, another bunch of stumbles:

• Google Image Ripper: Nice little site that bypasses the Google Images interface and takes you directly to the large-sized images.
• Instant Eyedropper: I was looking for a plugin on Twitter which could provide me with the hex code of any color on a web page. I’m still looking for the specific plugin that would do exactly this, but shortly after I asked, I stumbled upon this application which does the same thing — just not in plugin format.
• Body-Mass Index, Waist to Height Ratio, and More: I found this calculator helpful and timely, especially since I just wrote about my fatblogging experience.
• Before and After Magazine: How to Design Cool Stuff: A simple yet elegant website with some amazingly useful tutorials on design.
• Top 12 Weird Japanese Inventions: I’ve seen some of this before, but it’s still just silly.
• Fractal Gallery: Wow, this gallery features some beautiful and colorful art.
• PhobiaGuide.com: Did you know that Gamophobia is the fear of marriage? Well, today I found that out. I celebrated my 2nd wedding anniversary on Tuesday, so I don’t think I’m afraid of such a commitment. In any event, here’s a dictionary of all fears.

On Thursday night, an interesting dilemma fell into my lap. I discovered from my youngest sister, who just graduated high school last year, that my high school was literally falling into shambles. After my high school principal passed away in 2001, the leadership of the high school fell into numerous incapable hands. Turnover was high. At the same time, the vision of the school started to change. See, I attended a religious high school, but the school, for whatever reason, started becoming less religious. In the most recent news, the most influential teacher in my entire academic career (which includes college) was fired with a handful of other teachers.

I was brought to the attention of a Facebook group that was formed by current high school students to save the teachers who were canned. The group’s wall has an incredible outpouring of support by the high school students. I graduated high school a long time ago, but I still have a connection to the school — more so, I feel an obligation towards the teachers whose careers I feel were unjustly terminated.