Today we’re talking about snow days – Elizabeth apparently got out of school for rain once.

"Snow Elvis Statue" by mrbrent62 on Flickr

We’re also talking about something you might do during your day off – the Facebook’s Community Council – helping to police for offensive content on Facebook through crowdsourcing.

You might also want to drink something warm, like coffee – and Google’s new Caffeine search engine algorithm may or may not be released, but it’s certainly going to affect the way social activity reflects in your search engine rankings.

But what’s kind of lame about snow days is that they make it difficult to get out and mingle with friends – say, at tweetups like the one we had Tuesday at South of Beale, welcoming Jeremiah Owyang to Memphis for a brief stay, or to our Social Expedition Breakfasts, like the one Wednesday, where Eric Mathews presented.

Rather than drive to events like that in snowy weather, it might be safer to just call a good friend. Thom Rigsby, for example, joined us on the phone from Huntsville, Ala., where he lives and works as a blogger and social media strategist.

We talked with him about the importance of getting out and meeting people in meatspace, and what he thinks 2010 will bring to the social sphere.

Don’t forget that the Core Conversation call-in podcast will start back up on Friday – We’ll be talking about the rise of the Mobile Web.

You can download the podcast, listen by clicking the player below, or subscribe in iTunes by clicking on the logo below.

It’s that time of the year where we dust off our latent soothsaying skills and make predictions about the coming trip around the sun. We’ll be eyeing the future ourselves and hope you’ll join us.

If you can’t call in, we’ll be conducting the conversation simultaneously on Twitter. We hope you’ll join us!

Changes to Facebook’s Publisher

Facebook is changing the way their ‘publisher’  works – that’s the section of your home page where you change your status message and upload photos and video to your wall – but they’re only changing it slightly.

They’re offering you a great deal more control over who sees what you post. on your publisher, there will be a little lock button, that, when clicked on, will ask you the question “who do you want to tell?” This will give you the option to let only your family see the baby pictures you’re uploading – and only your friends to read the comment ab0ut their party last night.

Expect to see some accidentally public posts that were meant to be private as people get used to the new control they have over their announcements.

Changes to Facebook’s Name Display

One of our staff members recently got married. Both he and his wife decided to hyphenate their names. This raises a somewhat silly question: what happens to their Facebook profiles when their names change? Our colleague and his wife went ahead and just changed their names on their profiles.

The thing is, people aren’t used to new husbands changing their names. Even though his “Bachelor name” is still part of his last name, some old friends have asked to make sure they were friending the right person before approving.

Facebook has announced on their blog a new way around his problem – and the problem of many immigrants, wives who took their husbands’ names, and people who go by less intuitive nickames – if you go into your profile’s account options, you’ve been able for some time to add an alternate name, so that people looking for you can still find you in a search. What’s new is that Facebook is granting the option to display that alternate name alongside your real name in your profile.

So, while a search for “Reginald Dwight” would have always turned up “Elton John,” Elton’s name in his profile can now read “Elton John (Reginald Dwight).”