Well, “Nelson”… If you really did take a passenger’s iPhone while working on a Disney cruise ship, it was silly of you to take photos of your stolen phone shenanigans, because now you’ve been caught. [More]
Investment Firms Warned Off Facebook IPO In Advance While Small-Timers Lose Big Money
By 5.24.12
In the days leading up to last Friday’s initial public offering for Facebook stock, the company raised the IPO price by several dollars a share, leading many small-level and amateur investors to wonder if maybe there was something more to the company than a place to post photos of you and your friends waiting in line to see Men In Black III. But at the same time, large investment firms were reportedly bailing on sinking their money into the social media site. [More]
Facebook Settles Lawsuit That Claimed "Sponsored Stories" Turned Users Into Marketers
By 5.23.12
Tapping into the power of social networks to market to their users has always been an appealing goal for advertisers, but figuring out exactly how to do that has been tricky. Facebook recently settled a class action lawsuit from users of its network who said “Sponsored Stories” turned them into marketing machines, without the fun part of being compensated. [More]
Zynga-Branded AmEx Prepaid Card Lets You Earn FarmVille Cash In The Real World
By 5.22.12
This site does not, in general, approve of Zynga’s freemium addiction-based gaming model or fee-laden prepaid debit cards. So we are amused and slightly dismayed to bring you the news that AmEx and Zynga have teamed up to bring a Farmville points rewards card into the world. Fill up your card, spend the money, earn points to buy in-game stuff. How could this product possibly go wrong? [More]
Facebook IPO Makes Billions For Company But Stock Price Doesn't Go Up
By 5.18.12
Skeptics that thought Facebook’s IPO price of $38/share was perhaps too high a jumping-off point were proven partially correct today, as stock in the world’s social network finished its first day of trading only about $.23 above the offering price. [More]
What The Facebook IPO Could Mean To Consumers
By 5.17.12
Tomorrow, a very small group of people — many of them already incredibly wealthy — will be super incredibly wealthy when shares of Facebook start trading on Nasdaq. But while only a few folks will reap a direct, immediate benefit from the IPO, the decision to take Facebook public with such huge dollar amounts attached to the deal will definitely have a long-term impact on consumers. [More]
GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work
By 5.15.12
GM spends about $40 million dollars on its Facebook presence, but only $10 million of that goes to Facebook itself, in the form of ads. Unfortunately for Facebook, it turns out that their cut will soon be zero. [More]
Probably You Should Log Out Of Facebook Before Robbing An Internet Cafe
By 5.15.12
Oh, you silly criminals. You’ve got it all planned out — the guns, the demands for money, the getaway vehicle. But when it comes to social networking, even the best laid plans for doing dastardly deeds can come unraveled. Such was the case for two men who allegedly robbed an Internet cafe in Colombia. [More]
Half Of Americans Think This Whole Facebook Thing Is Just A Passing Fad
By 5.15.12
Perhaps Facebook isn’t here to stay — at least based on the reactions of half of the country toward the seemingly super pervasive social network. About 50% of Americans think Facebook is just a passing fad, according to a new poll. It follows, then, in the build-up to its initial public stock offering, that half also say its expected asking price is too high. [More]
Great, Soon People Will Be Paying To Promote Annoying Posts On Facebook
By 5.11.12
There are already enough posts we don’t need to see on Facebook “Going to the bank and then the gym and wow isn’t this day great oh by the way I’m breathing and I have 23 pairs of chromosomes lol,” and now the social network is going to go ahead and let people pay to promote or highlight what they’re yakking about. Get ready for an onslaught of too much information and an army of baby updates, everyone. [More]
Judge Says Your Facebook "Likes" Are Not Protected By The Constitution
By 5.4.12
Go ahead and click “like” on whatsoever you please on Facebook, but if you get into hot water because of it, don’t expect a judge to let you hide behind the First Amendment and the right to free speech. A federal judge ruled recently that liking something on the social network isn’t constitutionally protected speech. [More]
Facebook Humbly Sets Its Value At Up To $96 Billion
By 5.3.12
Facebook, a clever little startup that lets people “friend” each other or something like that, is set to go public on May 18. In advance of its initial public offering, the company led by a plucky, big-dreaming college dropout announced today that it’s worth as much as $96 billion. [More]
Study: 13 Million People Haven't Touched Facebook Privacy Settings
By 5.3.12
There are more than 150 million Americans using Facebook at this point, and that number is growing. But do you know everything you need to about your privacy when it comes to social networking? Maybe not, as a new exhaustive study from Consumer Reports on social networking privacy found that 13 million American Facebook users have never touched their privacy settings. [More]
The U.S. Government Wants To Make Sure You've Written Your Social Media Will
By 5.2.12
The United States government is hip to social networking, and because it knows all about the Facebook and the Twittering, it wants you to be prepared with a social will in the event of your demise. After all, there have been reports of the families of deceased people having trouble gaining access to those kinds of accounts. [More]
Federal Lawmakers Introduce Social Networking Online Protection Act
By 4.30.12
While some states are taking steps toward protecting workers against current or potential employers from snooping around in Facebook accounts, federal lawmakers are also pushing similar legislation. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and and Rep. Eliot Engel, of New York, both Democrats, have introduced a new bill to Congress regarding the matter. [More]
Facebook Is Not Interested In Your So-Called 'Privacy' Preferences
By 4.18.12
If there’s anything we should have learned about Facebook by now, it’s that “privacy” is an essentially meaningless word to the company, and any privacy settings that you have now will be undone in the next update. Jeff, who is a writer, uses Facebook but keeps his profile pretty locked down in order to keep his personal life separate from his public persona. (We empathize.) He set up his account so that his list of friends wouldn’t be visible to his other friends in order to prevent people he knows from adding virtual strangers who happen to be on Jeff’s friends list. [More]
Maryland Legislation Tells Employers To Stay Out Of Your Social Networking Business
By 4.12.12
Maryland lawmakers are moving forward on new legislation aimed at keeping potential or current employers from asking for access to your social networking accounts. Because really, no one wants their boss snooping around in their lists of friends and peeking at their personal information — even Facebook has a problem with that idea. [More]
Facebook Loves Instagram So Much, It's Buying The Company For $1 Billion
By 4.9.12
Since it seems like most everyone’s Instragram photos end up in their Facebook stream, it just makes sense for the huge website to snap up the company behind the photo-sharing app for the princely sum of $1 billion. [More]
