social networking - News, Features, and Slideshows

Tutorials

• Simplify Facebook, Twitter with Brizzly

  Brizzly provides a clean, simple, ad-free interface for Facebook. Twitter, too.

• Facebook tips and tweaks

  I like using Facebook to keep tabs on my friends, but I don't like the endless stream of "so-and-so took this quiz" and "Joe became friends with Jane" messages.

• Stream your social life on your smartphone

  Though your mobile phone keeps you more connected, it can also make things more complicated. Using a cell phone to track e-mail, text messages, instant messages, voicemail, Facebook, and Twitter can be a burden--after all, these social networking applications attempt to shoehorn Web 2.0 resources onto small devices that weren't designed with Web 2.0 in mind.

• Build a social network for your business

  Upgrade from the break-room bulletin board and one-way customer e-mail lists--your business can take advantage of its own Facebook-like social network.

• Avoid TwitViewer phishing: use OAuth-friendly apps

  It came across my Twitter feed in the early morning, a sea of users all sending the same message: "Want to know whos stalking you on twitter!?: http://TwitViewer.net."

• Mobile social networking tips

  In the past few months, I've reconnected with friends from kindergarten through college and beyond. I've discovered thought-provoking online articles and videos I probably wouldn't have found on my own. I've also read meaningless updates from friends, such as "I'm getting in the hot tub," or "just received a special gift from a special friend."

• Avoid Twitter disasters

  The use, and uses, of Twitter seems to grow daily. Its role as a source of news on Iran during that country's current unrest has been widely reported, for example. For most people, however, Twitter is simply a convenient social networking tool, but as such, it is even more open than Facebook--which is all the more reason to employ what safeguards you can on its network. (Note: This article doesn't cover such issues as the growing problem of spam on Twitter or reports of its use in phishing-like attacks.)

• Avoid Facebook disasters

  Ignoring Facebook's privacy options--some of them fairly new and not well known--can trip up the social-networking site's users in a number of ways. Here are some that everyone who has a Facebook account should be aware of.

• 10 Twitter tips for the workplace

  Having trouble convincing your boss that Twitter isn't a waste of time? Then you might find it interesting to learn that social media evangelists across the U.S. federal government are blasting out Tweets several times a day to their constituents. Here are their suggestions for how to integrate new media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Flickr into a large, old-fashioned bureaucracy: