Admittedly, I was late to the game.

When I finally created a Facebook account +/- one month ago, I was shocked to see all of the people from various phases of my life who’d beat me there. There were childhood friends, high school and college friends, colleagues from all of the different professional positions I’ve held, even family members. I was hooked right away. I know it’s not a competition, but my 86 Facebook friends definitely make me more invested in the site.

What’s more, my job as community manager of OpenDNS is to do just that - have a hand in everything that touches our awesome community. Imagine my surprise to find the group OpenDNS is the Stuff with forty-something members and a moderator whose name I didn’t recognize. (No doubt the coolest Facebook group. If you haven’t yet joined, you really should.) The fact that the group was born outside of our doing is great, but just because I didn’t build it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to be a part of it. I scanned the members, got familiar, intro’d myself to the moderator. And these things take time.

This is all ironic, of course, since I work for a company that blocks Facebook for thousands of businesses, organizations and households around the world. We did a survey recently and found that Facebook was the No. 2 most blocked domain on OpenDNS-using networks. (I’ll give you three guesses what the No. 1 most blocked domain was.) Since I’ve been using Facebook I’ve seen that the site is not unsafe for adults like me. No, not at all. But it does make me unproductive. Someone in my position, with my enthusiasm for Facebook, could easily pass a few hours during the workday tending to their account.

When we launched Web content filtering we weren’t sure who, besides parents and network admins at schools and libraries, would use it. Not everyone wants to be a censor. But I think my Facebook fixation and my acknowledgement that [me + work + Facebook = work not done] is pretty representative. When you’re on the clock, sites like Facebook can be a serious distraction. What you do on your own time, off the clock, is up to you.

Does this sound familiar?

You labor, with the best of intentions, to keep everyone on your network safe and their comings and goings secure, only to be met with successful attempts to bypass your efforts? Well, we have a new feature for you today, and it might make some 14-year old kids cry a little.

We now let you block Web-based proxy sites.

We added a new category to our Adult Site Blocking functionality called “Proxy/anonymizer.” This category, like the other adult site categories, is provided by our friends at St. Bernard.

Here’s how we describe the new category:

Proxy/anonymizer

Sites providing proxy bypass information or services. Also, sites that allow the user to surf the net anonymously, including sites that allow the user to send anonymous emails.

If you are blocking most adult sites, you probably want to block Web-based proxies too. Like Adult Site Blocking, this is free, too.

As usual, this was added in response to your awesome and helpful feedback. Thanks for using OpenDNS.

There’s no reason anyone should have to deal with flaky DNS. The students at Brown University went without Internet connectivity for 3 hours (!) yesterday because their DNS was less than reliable.

Brown University, if you can hear us: use OpenDNS!

The San Francisco CBS affiliate, KPIX, aired a segment yesterday about OpenDNS and how it makes the Internet faster. We were even the teaser before the commercial! John Roberts and our much-appreciated local customer, Sean Cullen, were interviewed for the piece. Sean is a busy film editor and it’s not easy for him to get away mid-day, which he did for the filming.

The segment was great because it not only explained what a fantastic service OpenDNS is, but also explained what the Domain Name System is - not easy!

Thanks to producer Julia Madden and reporter Jeanette Pavini (who you may remember from the PhishTank segment last year) for helping spread the word.

If you saw the segment, what’d you think?

If you noticed some changes to the Web site today, thanks for paying attention.

We’ve talked about how people use OpenDNS at home, but lots of people use OpenDNS at work too. We wanted to create a place on the site to talk about them and show people how great OpenDNS is for office networks. Thanks to Tim, Dean, Fred, Nils, Michael and Chris for being the first to stand up and tell their stories.

If you’re using OpenDNS at home, set us up at work. If you don’t control your office network, tell the person who does that you want OpenDNS.