March 28, 2008 by Greg Meares

I have been a member on Facebook The-New-Faces-at-Facebook for sometime now and I’ve had the honor of meeting so many inspiring people. People that make a difference. This is a short post about a son of one of those people.

Although I have not met Chris, I’ve had the opportunity to become acquainted with his father Eric Levi.

Several weeks ago I met Eric on FaceBook and we seemed to have similar beliefs and goals and it was a natural networking fit.

Then all of a sudden I didn’t hear from him.

Yesterday he reached out to me with terrible news. His son was injured in Iraq.

Now I don’t care what your political views are and this it’s not about that. This is about helping a fellow America, a son and a brother that has sacrificed for his country.

A true Hero!

There’s a group on Facebook that you should now about., 10,000,000 Strong for our Troops!

Right now as of this post the group is 157,086 members and growing. Upon joining the group there is a short passage that reads…

Specialist Chris Levi just lost both his legs and part of his arm, on St. Patty’s Day. While many of us were out drinking Green Beer at our nearest bar in town, he was off serving us bravely.

“I vowed to use this group to HELP people, rather than just to make it another ploy for the greatest membership count on Facebook”.

He currently has a Paypal donate button on his MySpace website.
http://www.myspace.com/chrislevi_support

“Most who see this will NOT donate. Under the veil of secrecy that the internet presents, I can’t blame anyone for thinking this is some scam or an incredibly shifty way to extort money”.

“Sadly, it is not. His wounds, and struggles, are very real, and are representative of the great sacrifices that thousands of Americans have made”.

“But, to those who have the means to donate, we cannot thank you enough. So, also, does Chris”.

………”we currently have several hundred to several thousand Americans joining this group daily. I would be remiss in my obligation to a fellow soldier, and countryman, if I were not to use Facebook, as a tremendous resource, to help him raise funding for his operations”.

He is a hero.

After chatting with Chris’s father Eric, I decided that the least I could do was to write an article on my blog and highlight this brave soldier. Please visit the myspace link and do what you can. It will mean a lot for Chris and his family.

Also if you could please Stumble or Digg or any bookmarking or social networking site of your choice. You’ll see a share it button below. We need to get the word out and that will do it.

Many Thanks!

Greg

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Most notable about the new privacy controls is the fact that Facebook members will now be able to choose how much of their profiles are visible to those on their friends list. Facebook fires up IM, ratchets up privacy.

Posted by Caroline McCarthy

CNET News.com’s Dan Farber co-wrote this report.

Social network Facebook will roll out more extensive privacy controls Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, as well as an instant-messaging service soon after, representatives from the company announced during a press briefing at the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif.

The new Facebook friend-adding interface, integrated with privacy controls.
Naomi Gleit, Facebook’s product manager for privacy and internationalization, previewed the updated options, which include a new “Friend of Friends” option based on social proximity–not unlike LinkedIn profiles, in which profile information is visible to second- and third-degree contacts rather than the site’s members as a whole. Facebook members will also be able to include or exclude certain friends from having access to information.

In December, Facebook added the ability to create custom groups of friends, but aside from sending out group messages, there’s not much that can currently be done with them. With this week’s update, Facebook will integrate this function with its privacy controls. For example, a user could hide or show private information, such as e-mail address and phone numbers, from friends or groups using the classifications “Friend of Friends,” “All Friends,” “Some Friends,” or “Only Me.” This means that individuals on a friends list can have specific privacy settings, Gleit said. Whenever a Facebook member sends or confirms a friend request, he or she can assign privacy settings.

read more about: Facebook Privacy | digg story

Facebook has been testing a new instant messaging service and will be launching it to the public soon, perhaps in the next week. Our understanding is that the service will be built in to user’s Facebook pages and allow them to web chat with their Facebook friends.

read more | digg story

An utter from my cell phone that posts on automatically on twitter, Facebook, and various blogs.

read more | digg story