social networking - News, Features, and Slideshows

Features

• Why privacy concerns are ruining Facebook

  Facebook was built as a powerful social connector, allowing users to befriend others with similar interests, locations, schools, and more.

• Facebook invasion: Beware of new 'smart' worm

  Hot on the heels of a reported hijacking of hundreds of Facebook groups, a new variation on an old worm is crawling its way into the social network's walls.

• Twitter's revamped retweets: The good, the bad, the missing

  Twitter's new retweet function is slowly rolling out across its network. If you don't see the new feature yet, you will soon, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams said in a recent blog post.

• Miley Cyrus quits Twitter, world ends

  In what's certain to become the most devastating news your 8-year-old daughter has heard in her short life, Miley Cyrus has ... gasp! ... quit Twitter. Details on the pop star's last-minute ditch are scarce, but celebrity blogs are scrambling to fill in the blanks, seating most of the blame with Cyrus' male love interest. Or something.

• 8 free Twitter clients for better tweeting

  If you want to keep up with your friends, support political campaigns, gossip about your favorite celebrities or find out about new technologies, your best bet in today's digital culture is Twitter. Twitter has also become a necessary part of every business's marketing plan. You want people to visit your Web site? Buy your product? Talk about your CEO's philosophy? You need to be tweeting about it.

• Facebook unveils Twitter-like '@' tagging

  Facebook is taking another step toward Twitterfication with the introduction of a new "@"-based tagging system for status updates.

• Facebook to tighten privacy after Canadian investigation

  Facebook will enhance its social-networking site's privacy features over the next 12 months as a result of a set of recommendations from the Canadian government.

• Facebook, Twitter provide sensitive info for criminals

  Social networking services like Facebook and Twitter foster a false sense of security and lead users to share information which can be used by cybercriminals and social engineers. The very concept of social networking is based on connecting and sharing, but with who?

• The opposite of Twitter: new site requires 1,400-character minimum

  For anyone who complains that Twitter posts are too short to be meaningful, we present you with Twitter's exact opposite: Woofer.

• 3 reasons I won't use Twitter's geolocation feature

  Twitter's upcoming geolocation feature is a nifty idea -- but mainly in theory. A quick look at the applications of Twitter geolocation could give those close to you, and not only those people, some ideas of taking advantage of the service to your detriment.

• 3 reasons why Twitter's geolocation feature is cool

  Twitter gets even better with the introduction of a new opt-in geolocation feature that will allow you to identify where you are tweeting from. Attaching your location to a tweet is nothing new to smartphone owners, but having the location-aware feature baked into Twitter opens the floodgates to hosts of cool new Twitter tricks.

• Twitter etiquette: How to tweet politely

  Because it's just a messaging platform, Twitter is far less complex than Facebook. Nevertheless, misuse and abuse seem at least as common on the former as on the latter. Some of our favorite Twitter etiquette rules follow.

• Facebook etiquette: 10 rules for better socialising

  What's okay on Facebook? On sites like MySpace, anything goes (or seems to), but the rules of etiquette on Facebook seem to be a little more refined--not a lot, mind you, but a little. Keep these tips in mind, whether you're making your first friend or your 1000th.

• Why attack Twitter?

  Twitter and Facebook were hit today with denial-of-service attacks that can knock a site offline, but don't steal information or cause permanent damage. The question is, why?

• A closer look at INQ Mobile's new colorful handsets

  INQ Mobile stopped by PC World's offices last week to show off their new Chat 3G and Mini handsets. INQ Mobile is a relatively new mobile company based in the UK and previously only had one phone on their roster, the INQ 1. But this is a company to watch: INQ phones offer smartphone-like features at an inexpensive price point. And, according to Co-Founder Jeff Taylor, the new INQ phones will be available in the US in 2010.