This week, it was reported that Dallas is looking to put the kibosh on Facebook use by city employees.  The Associated Press reported that more than 20 employees at Dallas City Hall were reprimanded or forced to attend counseling following a probe of Facebook use during work hours.

City officials are working on new employee guidelines for social media use. Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm says employees aren’t allowed to do personal business when they’re being paid by taxpayers.  Dallas attorney, Travis Crabtree says, "Computer equipment belongs to the company and technically your time belongs to the company too, while you’re there.” 

Many in the social media community are up in arms about the "right" to use social media sites, like Facebook at work.  Jim Ryan at WBAP News/Talk 820 AM and 96.7 FM  asked for our two cents. Click on the mp3 file to hear a snippet of our conversation.

What are your thoughts about employees being able to have access to social media sites while they are on the clock?

Cynthia Smoot of Gangway Advertising talks about her favorite new app for the iPhone, Dragon Dictation. Dragon Dictation is an easy-to-use voice recognition application powered by Dragon® NaturallySpeaking® that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text or email messages. In fact, it’s up to five (5) times faster than typing on the keyboard. best of all... it's FREE!

Tom Martin of Converse Digital visited Dallas on April 21, 2011 to talk to the Social Media Club about the power of mobile. Cynthia Smoot caught up with him and asked him why this was the topic he chose to address this savvy group.

Even though last year's Google Buzz experiment was a bust, Google is not giving up on getting into the social game.  You might have seen or heard some talk about Google +1.  In essence, it's the equivalent of the Facebook "Like" button.

You will begin to see the Google +1 button on Google Ads and search results. It will eventually be available for publishers to add to sites as well. 

So, what do you think. I mean, someone has to give Facebook a run for their money... Google is the logical choice. Will you give Google's +1 a try?

The one constant about Facebook, is that it is ever changing. Tonight I went to type the name of a company into the Search box and the drop down menu was completely different. Instead of one long list of places, Facebook now has the options broken into categories, making what you are looking for easier to find. Sweet!

Is your alarm set? Are you waiting to see if Apple releases an iPhone 5 this Summer or is the lure of an unlimited data plan too much for you?

Facebook’s new introduction site for Deals, its location-based promotions service, helps users discover nearby Deals and teaches business owners how to offer them. The locator displays a list and Bing map of local promotions, while the instructional videos and downloadable Deals Guide for Businesses .pdf explain best practices for creating Deals campaigns.

Previously, there was no aggregated list of Deals, making discovery cumbersome. Users could only see if any of the closest businesses offered Deals. This meant they’d often miss Deals that were in their city, some within a mile of them. The Deals locator will help those specifically hunting for promotions to find and claim them, exposing their network to the Deals feature as a whole. This exposure could snowball into widespread awareness, which would inspire more businesses to offer Deals.

In my area, there are currently only 3 "Deals" being offered (our client, the Quarter Bar being one of them). I hope that more businesses will catch on to this great way to encourage traffic and reward customer loyalty through Facebook's new check-in feature.

To read this article in its entirety visit insidefacebook.com