As many college seniors prepare for the job market, it has been said to be weary of what you say and post on Facebook. Such discretion on photos and language is necessary – for it could save you from being fired or from being rejected that glorious job offer. Another way to look at the Facebook profile is to consider it as a chance to shine. As I see it, it is time to remove those privacy settings and set yourself apart from other prospective job hunters. Here are a few ways separate from the pack:

1. Movie Tastes: Make sure you always have those college classics on the list: Fight Club, Donnie Darko, and any Wes Anderson film ever made. Adding the aforementioned movies lets your potential employer know you made the most of your college experience. Such movies let them know your appreciate the “art” of film and are uber “indie.”
2. Pictures from Around the World: Nothing screams transferable skills like picture from the Mediterranean and the Orient. Let them know you are a world traveler. Let them know you can handle customs, odd food, and a foreign language. If you want to earn extra points, make sure your abroad travel was for social good or missions – always a sure sell.
3. Pictures with Friends:  Hey, it is never too bad to let them know there are people who actually enjoy hanging out with you. These pictures can speak volume about your social skills.
4. The Book List: Here is your chance to list books that are classics and you have probably never read. Make sure you come across as cultured and well-read, even though the closest you got to reading The Invisible Man or A Light in Augustis SparkNotes.
5. Picture of Accomplishments:Nothing screams success like the marathon picture: half-passed out crossing the finish line. Another great picture is the Outward Bound hiking photos. Let your employer know you are battle tested.
6. Raise Awareness:Make sure that you list activities and events from campus where you “raised awareness” about world poverty or disease. What would be more indicative of college then talking about a cause and doing nothing about it? This will show them you know how to sit behind a desk and take money for fair trade coffee beans or any other products designed to talk about a problem and not solve the issue.
7. Mention Soccer: Lastly, it is vital that you mention you are a soccer fan. After all, it is the world’s sport. This will show them you are multi-cultural. Along with this, you should have picture of yourself in Euro Champions League jersey (they will know you mean business).

So whoever said Facebook could end your job search? Let your profile be person they want (or you wish you were).

Riddle me this, riddle me that, can Twitter convert itself from a Internet phenomenon to a money making bird? If the facts are any indication, it is an uphill battle. Let’s take the time to consider the issues at hand for this song bird:

• It is a three year old service without a trace of a revenue model
• 3 Months ago it rejected a $500 million takeover from Facebook Inc.
• Recently received $35 million in funding
• Biggest user base is 18-34 year olds

So what do these random pieces of information tell us about Twitter’s future potential for money making success? First off, the company has been around for three years without considering an appropriate revenue model. In such a situation, it is understandable to see why. The company is a young buck looking to see if it will catch on to a formible user base. Consider the task accomplished for Twitter, which has 2.7 million users as of December. Fact two: it rejected a large buy-out from the Big Guys. If this is a sign, it looks like the owners of Twitter have a feather up their sleeve and are looking to play it at a later date. Thirdly, they seem to have no trouble finding more funding by obtaining a substuntial monetary fund just recently – always a good sign.

So far so good on the facts adding up to Twitter being able to turn status checks to gold. All is good, that is, until you consider our last fact – the demographic: 18-34 year olds. What have other online social networks taught us about mixing this demographic and online advertising? Simply put, it is like mixing oil and water – they do not go together.

The other potential revenue stream outside of conventional online advertising would be to charge corporations and businesses for marketing information about what their target market is saying about their product. It appears that this strategy may not sit well with companies that use the site to manage customer relations.

Twitter presents quite the riddle indeed, how do you make money on a user base that has not produced advertising results and companies that may be unwilling to bow to a user fee? According to the people at Twitter, they have some creative ways to make to site profitable, although they are not revealing such plans as of yet. My opinion: there will need to be an online revenue revolution before this bird gets its wings.

Recently, some college students may have encountered a troubling post when the visited the popular music site Ruckus.com. All those who went to their site in order to download their music, legally and free, were met with a simply comment: “Unfortunately the Ruckus service will not longer be provided. Thanks.” Ruckus, the online music service that provided free music downloads to anyone with a .edu email address, was geared towards college students looking for a source of free music. In addition to the free music downloads, there were additional paid for services that allowed for transfer of music to electronic MP3 devices. If you did not have the service, a monthly fee was also necessary.

So, what happened that made Ruckus fall? A number of reasons are being thrown around; ranging from poor business modeling and poor service to influx of better competition. As has been reported, Ruckus was originally a music download website that charged a monthly fee, such as Napster currently does. In attempt to break away from this mold, they drastically switched their service to make it free to all college students. Unfortunately, transferring the music downloads to an MP3 or IPod were not a part of the free service. Moreover, their plan to have the site funded on advertisements failed to produce enough revenue flow.

Ruckus was a good service that lacked the necessary features to separate themselves from companies such as Napster. Combine this with the continued failure of online advertising to produce sufficient results, the company most likely was unable to attract enough investors into the firm. The outcome another company failing to see the fruits of online advertising.

For all those pessimists out there who condemn the Internet for turning a generation of youth into mindless mouse-clickers, StumbleUpon adds more arsenal to their cannon. In a culture driven upon easy access to information and instant access, StumpleUpon is a dream come true to all those looking to cure their boredom through surfing the Internet.

Right in line with all things wasteful on the Internet, StumpleUpon seeks to match the interests of the user with referred to websites under the same categories. At the core of such a model is mindless entertainment – something the millennial generation consumes like Veronica consumed cany in Willy Wonka and the Charlie Factory. Just like children who entered the Wonka’s abundant factory and ended up a victim to their desires, a generation raised on the Internet have their Everlasting Gobstopper in the form of StumbleUpon.

Mindless entertainment is quickly becoming the ethos of modern culture and society. StumbleUpon’s intended good sucks the user into a deeper web of irrelevant information. In one point of time, such thing would have been considered insulting to the intelligence, but nowadays it is common place. In essence, such a website stumble upons our stupidity and feeds it.

For all the  glory that is Web 2.o and the celebrated tech start-ups of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn, their appears to be a darker horizon then originally anticipated. Correlating with the current economic recession, hot tech start-ups are beginning to twindle and their valuations fall. Perceived once as impervious to the economic downturn, tech start-ups of the famous Silicon Valley are facing hard times. It has become increasingly difficult for such firms to gain the necessary funding. Not only that, companies such as Digg, have had their valuation drop like a rock.

But why are the once bullet-proof companies coming on hard times? The answer is revealed beyond the glitz and glamour that is web 2.o. While the platform idea has transformed how the Internet is conceived and the way a generation interacts, the profit-margins have come slowly. When giants such as Facebook and Digg have failed to turn a dollar in the black, something must be amiss. The culprit: venture capitalists looking for the next Google. They want to be apart of the next “Big Thing.” Unfortunately, such zeal for making the quick buck has resulted in investments in”hot idea” tech with little in the way of a legitimate revenue model.

The bottom line is that the economic recession is forcing venture capitalists to rethink where their money is placed, in turn forcing tech start-ups to carefully model a business and company on a solid foundation. Such a benefit will only improve the future of web 2.0 and get it beyond this little bump in the road.