Published by rwatstein July 26th, 2008
in social networking and Facebook.
Facebook rolled out a major redesign of its social networking site late July 20 featuring a cleaner interface that links feed technology with user forums. Company officials said the updated site will give users more control and ownership over their profiles. The new version, now in limited use, will be rolled out gradually to Facebook’s 80 million users. The new look is all about the Wall, the blank space on a profile page that users can fill in with stories, photos, links, and the ever-popular Status Updates.
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The largest mobile phone social network, MocoSpace, has passed the three million mark in registered users. The milestone follows a May report by browser company Opera ranking MocoSpace as the third most trafficked mobile site in the U.S. after MySpace and Google. The rapid growth of MocoSpace is being fueled by word of mouth mostly from younger consumers that prefer the ubiquity of mobile phones and the easy meet-and-greet social experience the site offers. Member can create and browse profiles as well as send messages, upload and share photos, and more. MocoSpace’s success demonstrates the value that users place on real-time mobile communication and photo sharing. The average MocoSpace member comes to the site more than once a day and the site now generates over 1.5 billion pageviews per month.
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Published by rwatstein June 29th, 2008
in education and social networking.
In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers have discovered the educational benefits of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. The same study found that low-income students are in many ways just as technologically proficient as their counterparts.
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Social networking technologies, web mashups, multicore and hybrid processors, and cloud computing are among the 10 most disruptive technologies that will shape the IT landscape over the next five years, according to research and advisory firm Gartner, Inc. David Cearley says that business applications will start to mirror the features found in popular consumer social software, such as Facebook and MySpace, as organizations look to improve employee collaboration and harness the community feedback of customers.
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Published by rwatstein June 21st, 2008
in social networking, Mozilla and Flock.
The Mozilla code-based browser Flock has picked up the prize for Best Social Networking at the 12th annual Webby Awards. The California-based company, whose software aggregates all of the user’s social networking needs, beat the likes of Bebo and Facebook with its understanding of the fact that people find it hard to keep track of all their web 2.0 sites at once. Flock was founded in 2005, launched just last year and its user base has multiplied by a factor of 250 since January. It brings together sites like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, Photobucket, Picasa, Livejournal, and Blogger all in one browser and altogether, unlike Firefox where you have download each as a plug-in. It runs on the same business model as Firefox with revenue coming from Yahoo as the browser’s default search engine and even automatically picks up your RSS feeds for you.
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Published by rwatstein June 21st, 2008
in social networking.
UK etiquette experts, Debrett’s, have created a new set of rules for how to behave on social networks. The rules were created after research by telecoms company Orange found that 62 percent of social networking users are confused or frustrated by online etiquette. It found that 26 percent were unsure about how to respond to unwanted pokes or messages. Eighteen percent said they were confused on “how to respond to my ex when in a relationship with someone else.”
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Published by rwatstein June 21st, 2008
in demographics and social networking.
Less than one-quarter of US Internet users ages 40 and over use social networking Web sites, according to the JWT BOOM/ThirdAge “Boomers, Healthcare and Interactive Media” study conducted last month. The JWT BOOM/Third Age figures on social networking usage by those 40 and older generally agree with a study by ExactTarget conducted last month. Instead of using one large category of older Internet users, ExactTarget divided users who were ages 35 and older into 10-year increments, with 65 and over being the oldest cohort. Although 39% of 35 to 44 year-olds used social networks, use fell sharply with age: Only 13% of 55 to 64 year-olds were social networkers, and only 4% of those ages 65 and older. In comparison, three-quarters of Internet users ages 15 to 24 use social networking sites.
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Published by rwatstein June 21st, 2008
in social networking and children.
June is Internet Safety month. With hundred of millions of teens, pre-teens-and adults-around the world using social networking sites, there’s no better time for parents to be aware of the fun, the benefits, the powerful attractions, and the potential risks that MySpace, Facebook and other similar sites offer their children.InternetSafety.com, a leader in Internet safety solutions, has assembled a list of practical tips parents can use to ensure a safe networking environment for kids: 1. Show Interest - Ask questions about how your child’s preferred social networking site or sites work. Kids are generally happy to demonstrate their knowledge if you show genuine interest. You can even ask your teen to show you how to set up your own social networking site-a great way to visit your child’s page and see what’s been posted there.
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Published by rwatstein June 1st, 2008
in education and social networking.
There has been a lot of recent debate on the benefits of social networking tools and software in education. While there are good points on either side of the debate, there remains the essential difference in theoretical positioning. Can social networking both as an instructional concept and user skill be integrated into the conventional approaches to teaching and learning? Do the skills developed within a social networking environment have value in the more conventional environments of learning?
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Published by rwatstein June 1st, 2008
in social networking.
Online social networking today is more about hanging out with friends behind gated communities than exploring the World Wide Web. Visit another site and you’ll have to rebuild your profile from scratch. That’s like having to get a new driver’s license for every state you drive through.
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Published by rwatstein June 1st, 2008
in social sites and social networking.
Epitaph or cruel reminder? Your Facebook fixture poses interesting questions after your death, writes Nomfundo Xulu. Lately I have been pondering what I would like done to my very active Facebook profile if, God forbid, I were to die today. A part of me wants it to remain online until the powers that govern the site see that I have not logged on in a while and maybe get rid of it. Another part of me wants it to disappear as quickly as possible so that my friends and family don’t have to deal with the very blatant memories of me. Yet a very big part of me wants it to remain for as long as Facebook is in operation. And sometimes I don’t care what happens to the profile on which I have documented a series of events for the past two years of my life.
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Published by rwatstein June 1st, 2008
in social sites and social networking.
Despite the rise of social networking websites and e-mail more people prefer communicating face to face now than ten years ago. BT has carried out a new study with Ipsos MORI into people’s usage of and attitudes towards technology. Three quarters of us now use the internet to keep in touch compared to 44% ten years ago, and the number of people who favor e-mail as a way of communicating has risen by 6%. More than 2,000 people were interviewed as part of the study, which revealed the popularity of using the phone has halved. Just over two-thirds of those polled preferred speaking face-to-face rather than using any technology to stay in touch, compared to 51% ten years ago.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in demographics and social networking.
A new study across a wide range of social networks sheds more insight into the ways men and women approach these service. As it turns out, women are more likely to be in it for the socializing, while men are more likely to use these sites for business. Social web search company Rapleaf performed a study of over 30 million users across sites like Bebo, Facebook, Friendster, Hi5, LiveJournal, MySpace, Flickr, and more. Each user included in the study had at least one friend on one of these services, and Rapleaf broke its results down according to the number of connections users had: “Social Networkers” have 1-100 friends, “Connectors” have 100-1,000 friends, “Super Connectors” have 1,000-10,000 friends, and “Uber Connectors” have 10,000 friends or more.
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Close to half of all people in the UK will be members of a social networking site within four years, a new report indicates. The study found that the UK has the highest number of users in Europe who are members of sites such as MySpace and Facebook. At least 9.6 million people in the UK use these sites and that is expected to increase to 27.1 million by 2012. The report by Datamonitor, an independent market analyst, predicts that the UK will see healthy growth in numbers in Europe over the next five years. The growth is not only being driven by the young, but increasingly, older people are showing interest in social networking.
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US Internet users ages 10 to 15 flocked to social networks last year as if getting a MySpace account would increase their allowances. Harris Interactive said in its April 2008 issue of Youth Trends that more than half of US girls ages 13 to 15 used social networking Web sites in 2007, roughly the same as in 2006. Social networking jumped among other boys and girls surveyed: more than twice as many children ages 10 to 12 reported using social networking sites in 2007 as did in 2006.
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According to a February 2008 Orange study, 21% of UK parents have created a social networking profile for their newborn bundle of joy within minutes of delivery. Babies are also apparently expected to strike a pose. One out of five responding UK parents said they snapped and sent photos of infants to family and friends within the first 10 minutes of life. Nearly half did so within an hour.
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Yahoo employees tend to land at rival Google for their next job. The median age for Facebook employees is 27. And Hewlett-Packard draws as many graduates from India’s Bangalore University as it does from California’s San Jose State and Stanford. In a new feature introduced last week, LinkedIn, the Mountain View, Calif., professional social networking site, has produced 160,000 corporate profiles, from Microsoft Corp. to Apple Inc., detailing information such as common career paths, top schools and popular employees for each company.
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Published by rwatstein March 29th, 2008
in social networking.
If you’ve ever wanted to know just exactly how much DNA you share with your ridiculously tall brother or doppelganger best friend, you’ll soon be able to find out. 23andMe, a personal genomics startup in Mountain View, CA, is about to unveil a new social-networking service that allows customers to compare their DNA. The company hopes that the new offering will encourage consumers to get DNA testing, potentially creating a novel research resource in the process.
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Google, MySpace , and Yahoo recently said they have agreed to form a non-profit group that would govern the development of a standard application programming interface that developers could use in building software for supporting online social networks. The three Internet companies expected the OpenSocial Foundation to launch in 90 days, and asked for others in the industry to rally behind the OpenSocial API, which was developed by Google to foster development across emerging social-network development platforms.
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Published by rwatstein March 29th, 2008
in China, social networking and Google.
Google Inc. disclosed recently it has invested $1 million in Chinese online social-networking technology provider Comsenz Inc., a start-up originally backed by former Google board member and venture capitalist Michael Moritz. Google inc. said in a regulatory filing that it made its investment in Comsenz in July, as part of Series B round of funding for the closely held firm. Moritz, a general partner at venture capital firm Sequoia Capital who announced his resignation from Google’s board roughly one year ago, has a more than 10% interest in a Sequoia fund invested in Comsenz, Google said. Reports of Google’s investment in Comsenz surfaced in Chinese media last year, though the speculation had it that Google was putting roughly $5 million into the Beijing-based company.
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Published by rwatstein March 23rd, 2008
in education and social networking.
While many professors have rushed to meet the age of social networking, there are some who think it is symptomatic of an unfortunate trend, that a professor’s job today is not just to impart knowledge, but to be an entertainer.
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Published by rwatstein March 23rd, 2008
in social networking, Facebook and MySpace.
In the two-horse race of social networking in the United States, it doesn’t have to be an either-or proposition. A recent study of Americans between the ages of 13 and 42 found that 62 percent have accounts on both Facebook and MySpace, and most don’t plan on giving up one site for the other any time soon. The study was commissioned by Fuser, the Web communications aggregator that launched to the public last June, with the stated mission to simplify people’s digital lives. With a new social networking widget, Fuser believes it’s doing just that.
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Published by rwatstein March 23rd, 2008
in social networking, privacy and Facebook.
Facebook Inc. is tweaking the privacy settings on its popular online hangout to let users exert greater control over which of their friends are allowed to see personal details they post. The Palo Alto-based company said it would add features that will give its 67 million active users the option of selecting individual users who can or can’t access certain parts of their pages.
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Published by rwatstein March 23rd, 2008
in social networking.
You know social networking has jumped the shark when Starbucks gets into the act. Starbucks has launched My Starbucks Idea, an electronic suggestion box where people can offer up their best ideas for making the already ubiquitous coffee retailer even more successful. You could say the company is as aggressive with its Internet campaigns as it is with its prices. There is Wi-Fi in the stores, they let you log onto iTunes to see what song is playing in the store and download it, let you use text messaging to find the nearest store, and they gave away free digital songs for a month last year. You can offer up ideas, vote on other peoples’ ideas, and get feedback from Starbucks employees. The company says it will consider implementing the most popular ideas.
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All those hours spent watching videos about cats with 1000 faces have obviously paid off, with YouTube now the most popular social networking site in Britain, knocking Wikipedia off the prestigious perch. During the month of January, YouTube had a 56% increase in traffic compared to January 2007, with 10.4 million unique users from the UK, and Wikipedia managing to attract a paltry 9.6 million. Nielsen Online claims that Facebook had 8.5 million from the UK, as well.
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Since the 1990s, educators have been focusing on access to Internet as a means of engagement, concerned about the digital divide; now that the divide has been bridged, we are concerned about access to education. Cause and effect here correlate. Rising costs of a college degree at our wireless colleges and universities have resulted in increasing public scrutiny, student debt and budget models based on marketing rather than pedagogical concepts. Academe’s insatiable investment in virtual worlds, social networks and other consumer applications is a benchmark of how far we will go and how much money we will spend in the name of engagement.
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Published by rwatstein March 16th, 2008
in social networking and Facebook.
When Mark Zuckerberg was 19 and a student at Harvard University, he wanted to find a way for his fellow Harvard colleagues to connect with each other. Today, the social networking site has more than 60 million active members, roughly the same population as the U.K. These users can now upload photos, have group discussions, and even play games on their individual profiles; they can also add one another as “friends” and connect with users who share similar interests, regardless of where they are in the world. Nowadays, more businesses and corporate folks are joining Facebook too, adding their pages to the Facebook network. Advertisers are even turning their attention to this growing market for good reason—there is strength in numbers. So what should you know about Facebook? Here are 10 things for starters.
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Published by rwatstein March 16th, 2008
in social networking and Facebook.
A French-language Facebook site went recently hot on the heels of German and Spanish versions of the Internet social networking giant. US-based Facebook produced the site with the help of 4,000 French users, who suggested ways to translate the network’s jargon and voted for the best choice.
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Published by rwatstein March 3rd, 2008
in social networking.
Spokeo is a new kind of profile aggregator. It gathers information from social networking sites, but instead of aggregating info from your various profiles, like MySpace, Last.fm or Ma.gnolia, it scoops up info on all of your contacts from a wide variety of sites. The people at Spokeo call their service a friend tracker. Here’s how it works: You provide it with your AOL, Gmail, HotMail or Yahoo Mail address and password. In mere minutes, Spokeo finds recent updates and items from the people on your contact list on all kinds of social networking sites.
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Published by rwatstein March 3rd, 2008
in social networking and Facebook.
Facebook has a new look and this year it seems tabs are all the rage, with the social network rolling out its redesign over the next few weeks. According to Facebook, the redesign was prompted by a need to better organize the fast-growing explosion of information now available on the site. “As more and more information is available on Facebook — more photo albums, more applications and more history — we’ve realized that profiles have become cluttered and slow as a result,” a Facebook statement read. “We’re trying to make profiles more simple and relevant, while still giving you control over your profile and how you express yourself.”
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College students still can’t get enough of Facebook. According to Youth Trends’ February 2008 “Top Ten List Report,” Facebook was students’ favorite Web site for the seventh straight quarter.
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The idea of a social graph–a representation of a person’s network of friends, family, and acquaintances–gained currency last year as the popularity of online social networks grew: Facebook, for example, claims to have more than 64 million active users, with 250,000 more signing up each day. It and other sites have tried to commercialize these social connections by allowing outside developers to build applications that access users’ networks. Facebook also advertises to a user’s contacts in accordance with the user’s online buying habits. The push to understand the nature and potential value of links between people online has led to imaginative ways to represent such networks. Here, we look at some of them.
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Published by rwatstein February 25th, 2008
in social networking and Facebook.
Barbara Fister writes, “My corner of the Internet has been abuzz over a muckraking article that recently appeared in The Guardian on the subject of Facebook. Tom Hodgkinson, the highly principled slacker behind The Idler and author of How to Be Free, makes some familiar complaints: online friends are a pale imitation of face-to-face relationships, Facebook encourages high-schoolish obsession with popularity, it prompts its members to reveal too much about themselves, and it uses that information for commercial gain. But the article goes further. Facebook is not just an American-owned company with global ambitions. According to Hodgkinson, it’s highly influenced by a “neocon activist” board member and funded by a venture capital firm that has ties to the CIA. Their ultimate aim: “an arid global virtual republic, where your own self and your relationships with your friends are converted into commodities on sale to giant global brands.” Ironically, The Guardian helpfully provides a “share” link so you can send the article to all of your Facebook friends.
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From politicians to film stars, anyone who was anyone had a Facebook profile. But the social networking phenomenon may have peaked now that the number of British users of the site has fallen for the first time. Analysts are speaking of “Facebook fatigue” after figures showed a 5 per cent decline from 8.9 million unique visitors to the website in December to 8.5 million last month. The fall could be a seasonal dip - Facebook’s audience is still 712 per cent higher than it was a year ago and 9 per cent higher than three months ago.
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