social networks

social networks - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

  • Top ten most influential of 2010: Twitter

    While 2009 was the year Twitter took off in Australia, 2010 cemented its place in our social psyche. Once deemed a site where people shared only the mundane (and too much of it at that), or a repository for faceless marketing from public relations firms, Twitter has transformed into an all-too-valuable tool for everyone in the last 12 months.

  • Skype and Facebook: UC on a shoestring

    With the launch of Skype 5.0 this week, the PC-based voice over IP (VoIP) and messaging service is now integrated with the Facebook social network. While neither Skype, nor Facebook are typically considered business platforms, the combination of the two offer many of the benefits and features of unified communications on a budget that small and medium businesses can appreciate: free.

  • Facebook tightens security with one-time passwords

    By its very nature as a social network, Facebook is a veritable gold mine for cyber criminals. Recognizing the threat of account hijacking and compromise, Facebook has implemented new security features to protect Facebook accounts, including a one-time password via mobile phone text message.

  • Think your Twitter DM is private? Think again

    Twitter has established itself as a means of broadcasting information to wide group of people all at once. But, for those times where you want to talk more intimately, Twitter also has the ability to send a Direct Message (DM) that is private between the two parties. Well, it's supposed to be private, but the reality is perhaps not as secretive as one might expect.

  • Study: 90% of US kids have online presence by age 2

    It's increasingly common for children to have an online footprint before they're born, and most kids in many developed countries have some sort of digital profile by their second birthday, according to a new study by AVG, an Internet security firm.

  • Google gets serious about social networking

    After purchasing handfuls of social networking-centric companies -- including socialDeck for online games and Jambool for virtual currency -- Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the company's social networking project will debut later this year.

  • Why Twitter's redesign is a big deal

    Make no mistake, Twitter was perfectly justified in hyping its redesigned Website as a major announcement. The new version of Twitter.com, which will roll out to all users over the next few weeks, is more important to Twitter than any mobile app or previous Website tweak to date.

  • Privacy in iTunes Ping

    Ping is Apple's <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/204734/ping_on_itunes_not_so_hot.html">music-centric social network</a> that is integrated into <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/204645/apple_announces_itunes_10.html">iTunes 10</a>. From a privacy standpoint, it's pretty straightforward--as opposed to Facebook's multitude of privacy settings--but then again, Ping is also very limited as to what services it offers. In either case, here's a quick run-down of the privacy features present in Ping.

  • The next Facebook: Scoop?

    Imagine a social networking site geared specifically toward connecting college students with their on-campus academic and social communities. Sound familiar? Those are Facebook's roots -- before the site ballooned into a worldwide phenomenon with half a billion registered users. They're also the roots of Scoop<, a forthcoming mobile social app.

  • iPhone gets a social news app

    Flipboard broke new ground when it launched its flashy iPad app last month that "socialized" the news by turning feeds from Facebook, Twitter, and such into a slick electronic magazine. Now Blancspot Media is promising to bring the pizzazz of social news to the iPhone with its new Blancspot software.

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