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As always, large multinational public events generate heightened concern for personal security. The 2010 World Cup being held in Rustenburg, South Africa is no exception. The FIFA approved comprehensive security plan is broken into seven phases. The first phase began in 2004 when South Africa was selected to host this year's World Cup Tournament. The plan includes 41,000 Police Officers and $74.5 Million USD in hi-tech equipment. All the planning in the world however, can't insure the month-long event will go off without a hitch.

The committee’s overwhelming focus has been on protecting the attendees against the potential for violent crime, however, even with all the preparations security does not appear to be very tight. Just yesterday, according to the Huffington Post, attendees witnessed several people setting off the metal detectors on their way into the stadium and then being waved in by smiling security guards without being asked to do so much as empty their pockets! For attendees with credentials, people with advanced tickets that have passed 'pre-screening' checks, bag checks are often cursory or are not done at all. Monday the stadium stewards walked out in protest of low pay or their work, leaving the stadium more-or-less unguarded during the Italy-Paraguay match.

This latent security should leave attendees of the World Cup concerned, however, by following certain guidelines you can increase your chances of both enjoying the World Cup and staying safe.

• Be mindful of your surroundings. As everyone knows, beer is a big part of soccer, but that doesn't mean that your entire group should go 'wild' and every game. Sure you don't have to drive, but South Africa can be dangerous and with so many tourists in town for the World Cup, you can bet that prospective criminals will be on the look out for anyone who seems to be enjoying themselves too much.  So drink moderately at the games or, if that doesn't work, elect a rotating DN (designated navigator) to keep you on track to your hotel. Regardless of whether you've been drinking, always keep an eye on where you are, where you're going, and who's around you.

• Try to 'blend in' with the crowd. When you're walking around, either before or after a match, try to blend in with those around you. Be mindful of your personal space, keep any valuables in inside pockets, but try not to call too much attention to yourself by being overly loud, pointing, or by straying out of tourist areas.

• Stay in groups and on the beaten path. Don't go anywhere alone. At the very least bring a buddy, but a group of about 4 or 5 people is probably the safest bet. If your guide book or hotel tells you to stay out of certain areas, stay out of them. If security guards or police are ushering you away from a particular place, obey their instructions. Exercise common sense and good judgement while walking around the city.

• Don't flaunt your wealth. American's are a prime target to a potential criminal because of their suspected wealth. While you can't change being American, you can change how you are precieved as a victim. So keep you money out of sight, and don't spend wildly while you're out in the city. Research tipping culture before you go to a pub or restaurant so you know how much is normal. Leaving too large of a tip can mark you as both inexperienced and wealthy. Also, as hard as it might be to resist, don't give too much money to people on the street - it can attract un-wanted attention.

• If your wallet is stolen, report it immediately to your bank. If you notice that your credit cards or passport are missing report them immediately to the local consulate or your home bank. The sooner you report them the less likely you are to have your identity stolen or to be a victim of monetary theft. Before you go (if you are going for the later part of the month) consider investing in an Identity Protection Service, that way, even if your credit and personal information is stolen you will not be at risk for identity theft or fraud.

• Maintain regular email contact with those back home. This is both for your safety and for the peace of mind of your family and friends back home. Arange to send an email to them on a regular basis - perhaps every 2-3 days. Agree that if you don't check in with in 24 hours of the agreed day, your freind or family member will report you missing to the authorities.

It's more than likely that you'll be safe for the duration of your stay in South Africa, however, the above precautions will give you and those at home some peace-of-mind while you're away. Just remember to respect the cultural and civil environment in which you are now a visitor!

The mass ‘unfriending’ of Facebook has signaled the public’s dissatisfaction with the social networking site’s privacy policies. Social networking sites have provided millions of people with the ability to connect and keep up to date with friends and family around the world. From keeping up with friends from the past to helping you form new ones, social networking certainly has its purpose; as long as you’re ‘safe’.  Even with their ambiguous privacy settings and indiscernible security policies, no matter how insecure centralized social networks become, without a viable alternative the vast majority of users will not abandon sites like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and Bebo. Enter Diaspora*.

Diaspora*, the new craze in social media has already raised nearly $200,000 in pledges via the funding website kickstarter in less than one month. That’s 1792% of what the four guys from NYU requested to help them make it through the summer! But what makes Diaspora* worth $200,000? I mean, do we really need ANOTHER social networking site? No. This is why Diaspora* got our attention—Diaspora* promises to be a “privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all, distributed, free, open-source social network.”

What this means is that, as individuals, we will each be able to download the Diaspora* software (which the Diaspora* team hopes will go live in September) onto our OWN computers and from there, set up our OWN ‘seeds’ (mini social networks). Each user will be in complete control of what they send to whom. There will be no hub and no moderator. Add a user-friendly interface and a sleek design and everyone will want to have their own ‘seed’.  The privacy settings will all be automatic. With heavy encryption and full user control, Diaspora* has the potential to make social media privacy concerns a thing of the past.

As co-founder, Maxwell explains, Diaspora* will allow you to store all of your information (photos, comments, conversation threads) in one place: your seed. From there, you will be able to push pieces of that information out to whichever ‘friends’ you choose to share it with. After all, when we share data online there is no guarantee that, even if we delete it, that information won’t be available on someone else’s computer due to archiving. Since the internet is still relatively new, as far as anyone knows, the information we’ve posted across the social web will exist forever. But, as the Diaspora* project is set to prove, it doesn’t have to be that way. As the guys put it, “Sharing is a human value,” and everyone should be able to share what they like with who they like without fear of identity theft or damaging their reputation.

Have you ever wanted to be a contestant on your favorite game show? Well now's your chance with the Intelius DateCheck Baggage Contest!

This contest offers entrants the opportunity to win a trip to LA to visit the set of GSN Live and to audition for a GSN show.

In order to be eligible for the prize, entrants must submit an original video (no greater than one minute in length) that lays their baggage on the line to demonstrate why they would be a good Baggage contestant. After initial judging (based on creativity, originality, and explanation of why you want to be on Baggage) the winners will be decided by public vote.

Two prizes will be awarded: one for best submission by a male and one for best submission by a female. The total prize package, worth approximately $2000 each, will include an autographed picture of Jerry Springer, a visit to the set of GSN Live, an opportunity to meet GSN Live talent, roundtrip airfare to and from Los Angeles, California, two nights hotel accommodations, $200 to cover transportation to and from the GSN studios, and an opportunity to audition to be a contestant on a GSN show.

On April 14^th the Library of Congress sent out an official tweet that would stir the masses: "Library to acquire ENTIRE Twitter archive - ALL public tweets, ever, since March 2006! Details to follow." Twitter's millions of users send out more than 50 million tweets each day, all 140 characters or less. These snap-shots into everyday life are about to become part of human-kind's cultural history. The Library of Congress, whose goal has long been to preserve the "universal body of human knowledge", intends these posts, from Obama announcing his presidential victory to the musings of a teenager in the American Midwest, to provide insight to future generations about our culture.

The web-capture will include every public tweet since March 2006. Private tweets and direct messages will be exempt since they were never meant for public viewing. There will also be restrictions on the use of archived tweets. According to the Twitter blog, archived tweets will be available for internal library use, non-commercial research, and public display only after a six month delay.

For Tweeters this means that your every tweeted-thought will be available for future generations to study. But is this an invasion of privacy? The library of congress says ‘no', it is a preservation of culture. It will highlight only those tweets that it believes have strong cultural significance. The tweets are expected to capture a moment in history, similar to the letters and journals of the past, which the Library has been archiving for 210 years. Besides, each twitter user agreed to the terms and conditions of Twitter which means that Twitter, rather than the authors, own every tweet on the network. Twitter is therefore well within their rights to donate the tweets to the Library of congress.

As of now, there is nothing that can be done to have your tweets removed from this web-capture project if you, for whatever reason, want your tweets excluded.  However, you can set your profile to private to prevent any future tweets from being archived.

One possible effect of archiving all public tweets: Maybe people will start thinking before they post. "After all," as Fred R. Shapiro, associate librarian and lecturer at Yale Laws School notes, "your indiscretions will be able to be seen by generations and generations of graduate students."

Each year the Puget Sound Business Journal's Corporate Citizenship program recognizes Seattle area companies for their support of philanthropic causes. The program highlights companies through a special publication and an awards ceremony.

This year, Intelius was awarded the #9 spot in the medium-sized business category by the PSBJ's Corporate Citizenship Program based on its 2009 giving. Intelius moved up in the rankings three places from last year after increasing its giving by nearly $160,000 from 2008. With total donations totaling over $360,000, we at Intelius are proud that we were able to increase donations so significantly despite last year's troubling economic climate. The donations were split amongst more than a dozen local and national charities, with over $260,000 staying in Washington State. A few of the charities supported include Bellevue Schools Foundation, Boys and Girls Clubs of Bellevue, CRY America, YouthCare, and YWCA.

Our employees have been an inspiration by donating hundreds of volunteer hours to support education, basic needs, and family services. We hope to increase these donations in the current year through our employee match program and through our new ‘dollars for doers' campaign which will donate cash to the employee's charity of choice for each hour he or she volunteers.

We at Intelius are committed to giving back and to being a good neighbor. Since our inception in 2003 we have increased our annual contribution each year and it is our goal to break our giving record again in 2010.

Intelius is actively pursuing this goal: last weekend Intelius employees assisted Hopelink and the ‘Stamp Out Hunger' Letter Carriers food drive by sorting and packing food (look for pictures early next week at InteliusGal's new blog).

For more information about Intelius and its commitment to philanthropy, click here.

The wait is finally over! Voting has closed, hundreds of votes have been tallied, and the winners of the $1000 DateCheck Dream Date contest have been determined! After narrowing down our list to 16 video and 16 essay finalists we turned the voting over to the public. Here's who you picked to be the grand-prize winners:

Grand Prize Male Video Winner: Mark Taio Kines

Mark's video, "A Very Animated Date", features hand-drawn depictions of himself and the lucky lady on their dream date. Mark's date would include brunch in the forest, riding the rollercoaster on the Santa Monica pier and getting the best seats in the house for a show in downtown L.A.

Grand Prize Female Video Winner: Angela Heine

"A Whale of a Date", Angela's stop-scene video, details how, for her dream date, she would buy round-trip tickets to Seattle to go kayaking in the San Juan Islands with Orca Whales. Her video cleverly ends with, "And the next morning...back to peanut butter sandwiches."

Grand Prize Essay Winner: Elizabeth Williams

Elizabeth's essay, "Love Finds a Way," lays out some very clear instructions to her long-distance boyfriend: fill her apartment with vases of tulips, a new dress for their special evening, and an ultra-romantic dinner for two at the restaurant where they had their first date.You can read Elizabeth's entry here.

Each winner will receive a $1000 giftcard to be spent on their dream date and a private relationship analysis worth $750. Each entrant received a FREE Intelius DateCheck coupon code, a comprehensive relationship report from MatchMatrix & a Fleurish Hat Chocolate Box from Seattle Chocolates.

Again, congratulations Mark, Angela, and Elizabeth on winning the Dream Date contest grand prize!!! Thank you to everyone who submitted an entry!

President Obama's announcement last week of his new plans for space exploration has stirred the American imagination. Obama has predicted that these new plans will lead American astronauts to land, first on an asteroid, and then on Mars, all by the mid 2030's. According to the fact sheet distributed on the President's address in Florida, this new plan advances America's commitment to human spaceflight and exploration of the solar system, with a bold new vision and timetable for reaching new frontiers deeper in space.

"We want to leap into the future," Obama said in his speech to at NASA headquarters in Cape Canaveral.

Following President Obama's bold predictions, Naveen Jain, Founder and CEO of Intelius will speak at the Churchill Club's Space Commercialization event today, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Palo Alto.

"As we come to grips with our planet's finite resources, we will look to outer space to address our burgeoning needs and to sustain and further mankind," said Naveen Jain in a recent press release, "Space commercialization is not about tourism for the rich, but about uncovering new solutions for some of biggest challenges facing our world today, including conducting advanced medical research, enhancing solar energy and tapping potentially limitless natural resources."

Jain will join Peter Diamandis, president, chairman and CEO of X PRIZE Foundation; William G. Gregory, former astronaut STS-67; Bob Richards, Odyssey Moon CEO and International Space University co-founder, and Dr. David Livingston, founder and host of "The Space Show" at the Churchill Club event. The distinguished panelists will explore the present and future of space commercialization, including the economics, future trends, and potential for public-private partnerships.
Check back soon for video from the Churchill Group panel discussion.

Intelius founder and CEO Naveen Jain was recently interviewed by Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal. In the interview Naveen discusses his plans for the future of Intelius, his successes and what he attributes them to:

• Passion - You must be passionate about what you are trying to achieve. It must mean something to you and you must be willing to sacrifice a large part of your waking hours to this purpose. Your passion will ignite the same intensity in others who join your team and help the same cause. Your team members and your customers are more likely to believe in what you are doing because of your passion.
• Focus - Great entrepreneurs see many opportunities where others see nothing; this is a gift but without focus can be the downfall. We can only focus on things that we can control and that means we need to stay focused on our efforts and let the results be what they will be. You have to always remember that most companies die from indigestion rather than starvation i.e. companies suffer from doing too many things at the same time rather than doing too few things.
• Hard Work - Success comes from hard work; there is no such thing as overnight success. Behind every overnight success lies years of hard work and sweat. Even the luckiest people will tell you that there is just no easy way to achieve success. Luck comes to those who work hard. Successful entrepreneurs always give 100% of their efforts to everything they do. There should never be any regret in the outcome if one knows that they are giving it their best effort and leaving no stone unturned. - Search Engine Journal

Read the full article at SearchEngineJournal.com