Perhaps realizing it was a bit overzealous in enforcing its mandate that Google+ users affix their real names to accounts, the social network altered its policy of account suspension for violators. Instead of giving suspected fake-name users an immediate heave-ho, Google+ will now give them four days to comply with the policy. [More]
social networks
Appeals Court Denies Twins' Case Against Facebook
By 4.12.11
An epilogue to the film The Social Network took place in a U.S. appeals court, with twin Harvard classmates of Facebook CEO/president Mark Zuckerberg — who accused him of ripping them off — being forced to stick with their 2008 settlement of $65 million. [More]
Debt Collectors Exploit Facebook To Embarrass You To Friends And Family
By 11.17.10
A woman has filed suit, the first of its kind, to get a debt collector to stop harassing her, her friends, and her family through Facebook and other social networking sites. [More]
Amazon Offers To Connect With Your Facebook Account
By 8.2.10
Remember Beacon? This is not Beacon, Amazon wants you to know. The retailer has launched a new program where you can connect your Amazon account to your Facebook account, but it promises it won’t broadcast your purchases or bug your friends. Instead, the connection seems designed to funnel all the likes and favorites on your Facebook account (and those of your friends as well) into Amazon’s giant brain, so it can refine its shopping recommendations. Oh, and it will remind you of upcoming birthdays. [More]
Girl Uses iPod, Facebook To Catch Sex Predator
By 7.23.10
A tech-savvy 12-year-old Minnesota girl reported a sexual assault by her mom’s ex-boyfriend by using her iPod to contact a friend through Facebook. [More]
How Do I Stop My Facebook Doppelganger?
By 7.12.10
Katie says he friend has been attacked on Facebook. Someone has copied her profile, befriended her contacts and sent them terrible messages in a frame job. She says Facebook has been unresponsive and wants your advice on how to handle the situation. [More]
Consumers Have More Trust In Companies That Tweet
By 6.23.10
A new survey shows that 75% of consumers think companies that tweet or post Facebook updates are more deserving of their trust than companies that don’t. The CEO of Fleishman-Hillard, which conducted the survey with Harris Interactive, says he thinks it shows that companies need to respond to crises much more openly and quickly than in years past: “Not in a 24-hours news cycle, but in minute-to-minute monitoring.” [More]
Manufacturers To Market To You Via Messages Hidden In UPCs
By 6.22.10
Stickybits is a social network that combines your phone’s camera, a web connection, and UPCs to leave virtual notes and images scattered all around you like invisible sticky notes. The important question, as always, is can it be used to sell stuff? Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Campbell’s, Frito-Lay, and Ben & Jerry are all planning to find out in social media campaigns this summer, reports Brandweek. [More]
Facebook Announces Simplified Privacy Settings
By 5.26.10
Faced with a steady stream of criticism from users, privacy advocates, and more recently members of the government, Facebook has announced today that they’re simplifying how privacy settings work on the site. The WSJ is liveblogging Facebook’s conference call right now. CNET’s coverage is coming in faster, though, and offers more detail. Below is a quick summary of what Facebook is changing. [More]
Waitress Disses Customers On Facebook, Gets Fired
By 5.18.10
Brixx Pizza in North Carolina takes social media pretty seriously, because it fired a waitress after she complained on her Facebook page about a stingy couple who occupied a table for three hours and only left a $5 tip. [More]
Diaspora: The Facebook Slayer Where Protecting Your Privacy Is Their Killer App
By 5.13.10
Instead of just kvetching about Facebook, these four self-described “talented young nerds” are doing something. They’re constructing a new kind of open-source distributed social network called Diaspora, and protecting all your information is at its core. Instead of handing over your bits to a central hub, it goes into your personalized server or “seed.” You own the server, you own your data. Everything is private and encrypted by default. It’s up to you to decide how much or how little you want to reveal. Sound crazy? There’s plenty of people who don’t think so. In just 20 days, the NYU students have raised $93,068 on Kickstarter. [More]
Paper Company Plans Campaign To Encourage Kids To Print Things Out
By 5.12.10
If John Williams, the CEO of Domtar Corp., has his way, kids all across North America will be asking for printers this holiday season. Somehow I doubt he’ll have his way, but here’s his plan: his company is about to launch a “Put It On Paper” campaign via print, Facebook and YouTube that will encourage people to print out things like emails and web pages. [More]
Facebook Kills More Of Your Privacy For Cash
By 4.20.10
Yesterday, Facebook announced an awesome new feature that lets anyone see your current city, hometown, education, work, likes, and interests, even if you’ve set your profile to private. Will this benefit individual users and their friends? Not unless the only thing you remember about your dear friend is that they enjoy leather-play and you’re willing to scroll through reams of headshots to find them. No, this new privacy erosion is for the real clients of Facebook: advertisers, and the data-mining minions that toil on their behalf. However, there are two ways to be totally private. [More]
Latest Facebook Gift Card Scam Nabs 37,000 Victims In One Day
By 4.12.10
When you see a free gift card offer on Facebook, just stay away. Last Friday a fake IKEA gift card scam attracted over 37,000 eager Facebook users, and it’s at least the third one to successfully go viral on the site since late March. [More]
AOL Plans To Sell Or Shut Down Bebo
By 4.6.10
Bebo is a social network a few rungs down from Facebook, which for all practical purposes means it may as well be someone’s WordPress blog. That’s why AOL is finally admitting it missed the window for social network dominance and will sell it or close it “soon,” according to an internal memo. If you’ve been hanging on to a Bebo account and hoping the tide would turn, you might want to start checking out the other more popular social networks out there. [More]
Google Says It Will Ask Early Buzz Users To Doublecheck Their Privacy Settings
By 2.23.10
Wired reports that Google will offer a do-over to early users of Buzz, the social network service that has earned the company criticism and a class-action lawsuit. [More]
Anonymous Facebook Employe Says Network Keeps Track Of Whom You Stalk Most
By 1.12.10
In an interview with an unnamed Facebook employee, the Rumpus revealed some disconcerting revelations about the privacy, or lack thereof, in the social network. The most eye-popping of these is that Facebook keeps track of the profiles you click on the most. [More]
Are Your Friends Making You Fat?
By 9.16.09
A new book out by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler—Connected: The Surprising Power of Social Networks…— looks at the way personal relationships affect your life, including everything from your weight to whether or not you smoke or drink bad beer.
