Software » Social Networking

Could Facebook be the next AOL?

Last week, Facebook announced that it had amassed 500 million users, a formable portion of the global Internet audience. But even as Mark Zuckerberg and company celebrates, others are busy trying to uproot Facebook's popularity by establishing a set of open standards to share Facebook-like features across the Internet.

By Joab Jackson | 30 July, 2010 03:05

Tags: AOL, Facebook, internet, Internet-based applications and services, mail, open source, social media, social networking, software, Status Net

Are you a social networking mutant?

Have you ever tried to get an older person to use Facebook?

By Mike Elgan | 08 June, 2010 01:28

Tags: Facebook

Google over-promises and under-delivers with Buzz

Google prides itself on releasing products early and improving on them quickly, but this philosophy sometimes does a disservice to the company and to its users, as illustrated by this week's ballyhooed release of Buzz in Gmail.

By Juan Carlos Perez | 11 February, 2010 06:22

Tags: Facebook, Google, google buzz, social networks, twitter

In Iran, cyber-activism without the middle-man

Anthony Papillion says he just wants to give Iranians a voice, but the word on Twitter these days is that he's not to be trusted.

By Robert McMillan | 19 June, 2009 04:48

Tags: cyber activism, iran, social networks, twitter

Should Facebook, Twitter follow IM providers and block access to U.S. 'enemies'?

Facebook and Twitter should join instant messaging (IM) services and block access to U.S.-sanctioned countries in order to avoid running afoul of the government's trade embargoes, say legal experts.

By Eric Lai | 11 June, 2009 10:34

Tags: Facebook, Google, instant messaging, iran, Microsoft, social networking, twitter

Cyberbullying? No, it's just bullying.

I really, really want to believe that our representatives in the government are smart and always try to make good decisions and behave rationally, but time and again I'm disappointed. And when it comes to the pols dealing with technology and the Internet, it seems like clear thinking will be part of their agendas about the time that Hell freezes over.

By Mark Gibbs | 11 May, 2009 08:12

Tags: cyber bullying, MySpace

Ashton Kutcher and Twitter: the new CNN?

Ashton Kutcher claims his triumph over CNN in the race to have a million followers on Twitter is changing the way we consume media.

By Davy Adams | 19 April, 2009 15:54

Tags: ashton kutcher, cnn, social networking, twitter, web 2.0, new media

To Tweet or not to Tweet, that's not an option

I'm writing this column for one simple reason: Once I get it written then the next time someone says to me "I don't get Twitter, it seems kinda stoopid to me. What is it all about?" I can direct them to this polemic and save my breath.

By Mark Gibbs | 12 March, 2009 09:21

Tags: twitter

Social networks all over the map on reliability

That Twitter had more downtime last year (84 hours) than any of 15 social network sites measured by an uptime monitoring service should surprise no one: The site's "fail whale" is so famous it was just featured in the New York Times.

By Paul McNamara | 24 February, 2009 08:53

Tags: social networking, twitter

Five Years of Facebook: A Retrospective

It doesn't seem like five years since Facebook appeared on the scene. I was slow to join the throng--my friends list numbers only 242 of the 110 million people who have joined the site since its inception.

By David Coursey | 06 February, 2009 08:44

Tags: Facebook

Just how much is Twitter's burn rate?

Relentless biz-blogger Kara Swisher is pushing again for Facebook to acquire Twitter. Twitter will never IPO on its own, she says, and Facebook is Twitter's most natural fit as a parent company.

By Paul Boutin | 27 January, 2009 09:35

Tags: Facebook, social networking, twitter

Was Facebook or Burger King right about user privacy?

Few Facebook applications manage to attain the level of viral adoption and mainstream stream press coverage that Burger King's Whopper Sacrifice application have received. By offering users a coupon for a free Whopper in exchange for deleting ten friends, the application saw 82,000 users delete over 230,000 relationships on the social networking site, according to Inside Facebook.

By Cyndy Aleo-Carreira | 17 January, 2009 11:04

Tags: Facebook, internet privacy, social networking

Five Twitter tools I use

I wouldn't call myself a power Twitterer, but I've been using the brevity-focused social network site since last April, largely via auto-posted headlines from my Alpha Doggs network research blog. More recently, I've gotten into the habit of posting other comments. As a journalist, I find Twitter especially useful for tracking hot topics.

By Bob Brown | 19 January, 2009 09:40

Tags: social networking, twitter

Twitter limits searches on site ... why?

Two Twitter questions have been nagging at me: Why on Earth would Twitter limit the number of searches a user may conduct -- a typical, relatively new user, such as me, not some piggy third-party app or bot?

By Paul McNamara | 17 January, 2009 04:50

Tags: social networking, twitter

Why you can't trust 'friends' on Facebook

Every form of communication, from snail-mail to e-mail, chat and others, is subject to fraud and scams. But social networks like Facebook are subject to new, more dangerous opportunities for fraud.

By Mike Elgan | 27 November, 2008 09:06

Tags: Facebook

Post on Twitter by talking into a phone

Microblogging on Twitter is great. But sometimes you're just too busy to sit down and type that 140-character tweet. Maybe you're climbing a volcano, sprinting through the airport or running a marathon and just can't stop to type. Here's how to post on Twitter using only a voice phone call.

By Mike Elgan | 17 November, 2008 10:12

Tags: twitter, speech recognition

FWIW -- The origins of 'Net shorthand

Leetspeak, Internet shorthand, computer jargon for instant messaging -- whatever you call them, initialisms like BRB, LOL and BTW have now entered the public lexicon. (I know a few teenagers who actually say LOL to each other in person!)

By John Brandon | 10 November, 2008 08:01

Tags: instant messaging, internet language

Get more work done with less e-mail

Here's a statistical downer: there will be around 40 trillion inbox-clogging spam e-mail messages delivered this year. Experts know this because there were 30 trillion spam messages last year. With this much hay in the stack, it's hard to find those message needles, and that's why some smart companies are looking beyond public e-mail.

By James E. Gaskin | 24 October, 2008 08:41

Tags: antispam, email, wikis

I want my mobile social address book

Business cards are as obsolete as fax machines. And like fax machines, business cards have us still using paper to move electronic data from one digital system to another.

By Mike Elgan | 22 September, 2008 09:12

Tags: Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Skype, social networking

Social networking hype 2.0

Clever social networking-related startups with obscure taglines -- including Causecast ("Change your world, and the world will change"), Qik ("See what happens"), and Joongel ("Internet the easy way -- we have chocolate") -- line the showroom of TechCrunch50 in San Francisco. If you want to find out what these companies do, you'll have to ask the one of the beautiful people manning the tables.

By Tom Kaneshige | 12 September, 2008 10:14

Tags: social networking, social networks

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