Facebook's Graph Search may face some profound challenges and risks, first, because Facebook users haven't been thinking of their posts as product reviews; and second, because Facebook will now have to contend with the social-network equivalent of SEO "gaming" of results.
A recent release of the popular TweetDeck app for Twitter power-users gives new life to software that had previously taken a wrong turn. Here's a quick walk-through of the new TweetDeck, to show you why it should be at the top of your Twitter toolkit.
A growing number of HR managers are suspicious of individuals who do not take part in social media and view them as anti-social in real life as well as online.
We need to establish some framework for cultural harmony and tolerance in the Internet community to prevent the best global forum that has ever been becoming a locus of ill will.
Michael Brutsch, a.k.a. Reddit's Violentacrez, is a creep who posted borderline kiddie porn to the Internet anonymously, and got fired when outed by a media outlet. It's a cautionary tale even for people who aren't jerks and predators.
On the occasion of Internet Evolution's 5th anniversary, Editor in Chief Mitch Wagner and Editor in Chief Emeritus Nicole Ferraro reminisce about how business on the Internet has changed over five years. Also, Mitch tries to remember what "Enterprise 2.0" means.
"Social Enterprise" is an increasingly trendy term, and Salesforce.com has been leading the way. At its Dreamforce conference last week, the theme was clear: From here on, enterprise applications must have social capabilities built in.
Twitter's changes are clearly aimed at being more Facebook-like, and this is because both companies are vying to serve the mobile social network market. But can that market work for anybody, given how difficult it is to push ads to social-update readers?
Since the early days of television, Nielsen has reigned supreme in the ratings business. With the advent of the Internet, ComScore has emerged as a legitimate competitor. So, game on.
The Internet has changed the way that companies market products. Now "Likes" and thumbs up carry a lot of weight. So perhaps it's not surprising that a black market technique has emerged whereby some Websites offer to boost ratings in exchange for cash.
There's a trend underway to make employee performance reviews everyone's business – letting peers, customers, and direct reports in on rating people's daily doings. Mary gives this a thumbs down.
Introducing Shopycat, a Facebook app for sort of maybe determining what to buy your friends and family for the holidays. Analytics at its finest? Not so much.
Facebook has more than 5 million deceased members and policies for how to handle their accounts. But, one problem: After people pass away, it's too late for them to decide whether they want their social media accounts preserved, "memorialized," or deleted.
Google Maps 6.0 helps users navigate indoor locations like IKEA and airports. While this sounds good, Nicole fears it will also breed dumber humans who bump into each other a lot, or something.
Latest data shows we're separated by 4.74 degrees, rather than six. But do social connections online really count as connections? Or are we creating, via social networks, more loose and trivial relationships that inhibit the creation of real ones?
Famous musicians claim the Internet's ruining their royalties. But given time, signs indicate that the Internet will make peace with the music industry.
Congrats to the best-selling author who persuaded Facebook to allow him to register an account as Salman, rather than under his "real" but never used name, Ahmed Rushdie.
Steve and Nicole are at HCL's Unstructure conference at Disneyworld where Malcolm Gladwell and his hair gave a fascinating keynote on the advantages of being an "outsider."
The US government is funding controversial projects to collect daily Internet activity, including Web searches, Twitter messages, Facebook and blog posts, and the digital location trails generated by billions of cellphones. Its goal is to map these interactions to predict social behavior, such as protests.
We the People: Is it a fantastic petition tool for citizens? Or is it a Web 2.0 toy designed to distract people while Obama allows extraterrestrials to take over the federal government? Hmmmm...
Based on reactions in Nicole's Newsfeed, everyone hates this version of Facebook. This should matter to Facebook now that there's a real competitor on the scene named Google+.
Allowing users to share music and video on Facebook might sound like good news, but is this part of a coherent strategy, or is Facebook just stumbling from idea to idea?
Facebook's "Improved Friends Lists" are rolling out, but they're very different from Google+ Circles. The latter are like private labels; you're the only one who sees them. The former are like rooms you can invite visitors to, where they see you and each other. Google's approach is better.
While the publishing industry reels from the pressure of digital books and freely available content on the Web, one branch of the industry, the publishers of academic books and journals, remains above the fray. How is this possible and how long will it last?
Mozilla has a bold strategy to create a new model of mobile OS by making HTML5 essentially a part of the operating system, creating an open developer framework for future apps. The question is whether they're sincerely trying to elevate HTML5 or to get back at Google for Chrome's success.
With Google+ about to be added to the multitude of online platforms governing your life, virtual living is starting to feel overwhelming – and it's creating online widows (and widowers!).
President Obama conducted a town hall via Twitter this week by giving long-winded, spoken responses to Tweets. Kim thinks he should have just Tweeted back – and he demonstrates it can be done!
Wag.com, a pets products retailer just launched by an Amazon subsidiary, says it can avoid the fate of one of the most famous debacles of the first Internet bust.
The US boasts a commitment to "Internet freedom," but in practice that commitment falls short. What Internet freedom really means is freedom of the mind.
Microsoft's early comments about Windows 8 suggest that its real focus is tablets. The tablet features would have to compete head-to-head with Apple and Android.
President Obama appoints a Twitter CEO to an advisory committee; Rep. Anthony Weiner sends a racy, career-damaging Tweet; and Nicole and Steve laaaaaugh and laaaaaugh.
Pandora.com has released 10,000 comedy clips on its site and developed an algorithm to find the ones that will make you laugh. Kim, however, is not amused.
Forget about where social technologies are today. We need to look at where they're going and be prepared for the dawn of future concepts like "outboard brains," online reputation management, and social standards.
Between the regular shuffling of executives and the death of #NewTwitter, it’s clear the microblogging company is in trouble. Watch Nicole and Steve gloat about this rapid death spiral.
Twitter has produced some great results for the world of bloggers: It's cleared the inter-sphere of those 600-word posts that always only contained 140 characters worth of content.
Many employees are now using social networking sites during work hours and realizing the benefits. Now that social nets have been accepted, what's the next big innovation to hit the enterprise?
A decade after the dotcom boom, the Internet continues to dramatically change the way that business gets done and individuals communicate. More than a trillion email messages traveled over the Net last year, and dramatic changes loom on the horizon.
For users with large numbers of Twitter followers, the service has become irrelevant. Is this the beginning of the end for the short message service we have allegedly loved?
Google's replacement of CEO Schmidt by founder Page has a lot of Valley types agog with expectations of a renewed 'startup' mindset. But the Google of today can't be a startup, and it may well be that chasing the next Internet fad is the wrong approach for the company.
Internet companies have the dubious distinction of comprising about half of the Top 15 Hated Companies in the US. Poor products and mediocre customer service are the reasons for the notoriety.
Google's Chrome and Web Store for Chrome are illustrating a new model for online services, a model based on payment and not just on ads. That may be critical for the Internet’s expansion, but will people really pay?
As organizations use more social media, business users are clamoring for access, and we’re faced with an age-old question: Who should set policies on access and content?
Individuals rant and rave on a daily basis about products and services on social networking sites. Cisco's Social Miner enables companies to monitor these conversations and respond.
Again we learn the hard way that making remarks about one's employer on Facebook is a bad idea and that Facebook, unlike the office watercooler, is a public broadcast medium.
MySpace is reinventing itself by focusing on content, but it's too late, and other social networks should learn from its example by looking toward a telco payment model if they want to sustain user commitment and their own revenue.
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