Social Media

Last year saw an increase in identity theft incidents when compared to 2010. According to a fraud report from Javelin Strategy & Research, there has been an increase of 13 percent in ID Theft for 2011, and some of the blame can be pinned on the rise of social media and smartphone use. In 2010, roughly ten million adults were victims of ID fraud; that number is now up to 11.6 million adults in 2011. Javelin Strategy & Research's… Read More

Announced on the Microsoft Bing Community blog this morning, the team handling feature development on Bing  just rolled out a beta test of Linked Pages. After connecting through a Facebook profile, the new feature allows users to link associated pages like a LinkedIn profile, Twitter feed or personal website. This feature builds on the function launched during 2011 that allows users to bring Facebook data into the search feed. Once the URLs… Read More

We live in a post-Timeline era. The redesign of the profile page has been formally introduced and whether we like it or not, it’s here to stay. Facebook introduced Timeline back in the fall of 2011 at f8, and it quickly became clear that this would replace the profile page as we’d known it. The user backlash has been swift and lasting, and there are still stifled cries of dissent even though Facebook has taken its sweet time entirely rolling out… Read More

It's been a while since Flickr made any major changes to its user interface after social media and mobile computing became an integral part of everyday life. To combat these lifestyle shifts, Flickr is finally getting a site makeover to make the user experience more slick, seamless and mobile-friendly. The new design goes against everything we've learned in photography: less white space, more content. It seems to work for blogs like… Read More

With Facebook making new updates with or without our requests and Timeline looming over those who are waiting till the last second before the switch is mandated to their profiles, the social network giant is adding another technology to help confuse users even more. With its partnership to Finnish startup ThingLink, ThingLink Tabs for Facebook will allow users to create a page with interactive tags from any photo they've uploaded.… Read More

Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake has announced her new app Pinwheel, which even she admits could be thought of as Flickr for places. The app is now in private beta and Fake decries it as “a way to find and leave notes all around the world.” Between now and its official launch, the Pinwheel team will be working on filling out the community so users aren't participating in an empty app post-beta phase.  While Pinwheel is still… Read More

Pinterest has taken the Web by storm while simultaneously introducing a host of copyright issues. The entire model of pinning and repining means that artists' work has the potential to get lost in the mix and original sources can be difficult to find. We examined this incredibly messy situation recently, and found that users are generally quite torn over the problem. While they admit it's been a huge interest generator for their… Read More

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but can it also reveal the location of your hometown? According to a recent study by the University of Victoria in Canada, your photos on Flickr can help science to make such an educated guess. The study, They Know Where You Live!, by the computer science department of the university state that by using the geolocations of the photos uploaded to Flickr, an algorithm can determine an… Read More

Remember Google Latitude? The little Google feature that comes alongside its Maps application which allows you to see the location of your friends and how to get to them by public transportation, walking or bicycling? The app was quickly forgotten under the radar of iOS 5′s Find My Friends, and even though it added a check-in function much to the likes of Facebook Places and Foursquare, it never became quite as popular to do so. So was… Read More

Whereas half of the UK population can say they are on Facebook, British hacker Glenn Mangham was, for a period of time last year, in it. And on Friday a court sent him to jail for his actions. Prosecutors described Mangham’s security breach in April and May of 2011 as “the most extensive and grave incident of social media hacking to be brought before the British courts.” The court refused to buy his defense that he was an “ethical hacker” and… Read More

Pinterest is many things to many people. For some it’s a collection of things you aspire to own, for others a source of DIY inspiration, or even a way to pitch an advertising campaign. While it definitely appeals more to some than others, you can’t deny its overwhelming command of the social market and its incredible growth. But while we’re all trying to wrap our heads around what exactly this stunning new platform is and does, it’s becoming… Read More

Twitter’s path to profitability has been a notorious one. And considering how tightly woven it is into our digital lives, it’s been rather slow to generate real revenue. Its first attempts at marketing models, however, have been relatively successful for the company. But now Twitter is ready to step into the big leagues with a self-serve advertising platform. The new application is part of a partnership with American Express, and early adopters… Read More

Facebook is well regarded as the main hub for social gaming; the company's top gaming partner, Zynga, makes up 12 percent of the networking site's revenue. However, while Zynga seems content to make 90 percent of its own revenue through Facebook, one social gaming publisher, Kabam, is looking to move beyond its Facebook beginnings. Kabaam, founded in 2007 as Watercooler, is the company behind The Godfather: Five Families, Dragons of… Read More

So much for a quiet period? Even though Facebook recently filed its S-1, the updates just keep coming. We recently learned that brands would be getting the Timeline treatment at the end of the month, and now TechCrunch says Facebook has taken a page out of Twitter’s book and will introduce verified accounts as well as the ability for users to create pseudonyms for those accounts. The site has long championed a “real name” policy, although… Read More

The Facebook Timeline, introduced last fall at the f8 conference, is still slowly but surely being implemented. Facebook has done its very best to avoid the unavoidable – user outrage – by cautiously rolling users over to the new profile format. Which is–just to emphasize this once again–a necessary step to avoid massive blow-back. There have been plenty of questions and concerns along the way, including what’s going to happen with… Read More