Technology News: Social Networking

Salesforce.com Pumps Up Volume of Workplace Chatter
November 19, 2009

Salesforce.com is marrying its cloud computing bona fides with its growing expertise in collaboration in Salesforce Chatter, a new application and development platform. The company introduced the product at its Dreamforce tradeshow and conference under way in San Francisco.

Breaking Out of the Pink Ghetto
November 19, 2009

The Pink Ghetto is a largely invisible, often unmentioned and unacknowledged place littered with impediments to womens' upward mobility in the workplace. Women in the Pink Ghetto do not get equal pay for equal work, are not offered the same opportunities as their male coworkers, are not promoted as quickly as men -- or promoted at all.

Clicker Charts the Seas for Online TV Surfers
November 12, 2009

Clicker Media on Thursday publicly launched Clicker.com, its programming guide to Internet television. This comes less than a year after the company began building what it describes as the "ultimate programming guide for Internet television." Clicker catalogs the broadcast-quality movies, music videos and Web videos available online on more than 1,200 networks.

Finding Out What They're Saying About You Is Worth Every Penny
November 12, 2009

Social media monitoring is a new business endeavor, with relatively few companies able to boast a significant track record of achievement. In fact, according to the new Aberdeen benchmark report, "The ROI on Social Media Monitoring," only 27 percent of Best-in-Class companies have engaged in social media monitoring activities for more than two years.

Google Latitude Lets Users Follow Their Own Footprints
November 11, 2009

Users of Google's location-aware mobile software can now track their whereabouts over time and receive alerts when contacts are nearby, thanks to two features added to the software on Tuesday. The free application, Google Latitude, was introduced earlier this year for a variety of cellphones.

Cisco Adds New Technologies to Collaboration Tool Chest
November 09, 2009

Cisco has introduced new technologies to its collaboration platform -- a product portfolio that encompasses its telepresence, unified communications and WebEx solutions. Among the additions are new hosted email offerings and integration with enterprise social software.

Study: Internet Doesn't Cause Introversion
November 05, 2009

A new study confirms what your 130 Facebook friends and scores of Twitter followers may have already told you: The Internet and mobile phones are not linked to social isolation. Online activities such as e-mail, blogging and frequenting Internet hangouts can even lead to larger, more diverse social networks, according to the study released Wednesday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Chorus Should Sound Great Once More Singers Join In
November 05, 2009

The iTunes App Store became 100,000 applications strong this week, and it took less than a year and a half to get there. Would it surprise you to know that not every last one of those apps is a perfect work of art? Yes, believe it or not, many of the apps that compete for your attention in the App Store are pretty worthless.

Ancestry.com to Take IPO Plunge
November 04, 2009

Genealogy Web site Ancestry.com hopes to raise about $100 million when it goes public this week. With more than a million paying subscribers, little competition, a small debt load and a record of increasing revenues, it may fare better than other IPOs that have recently priced below their filing ranges.

Social CRM: Size Matters
November 03, 2009

There's no longer any debate about whether social media's going to have a huge impact on CRM. Social media's a little different than the usual emerging business technology, mostly because it didn't begin as a business technology. It started with consumers -- and how they use it varies dramatically.

For Web Search, the Time Is Now
November 01, 2009

We all contribute to the news cycle when we post timely content online, even if it's 140 characters or fewer, and recently we learned that our little bits of information have substantive value when search giants Google and Microsoft announced that they will index our tweets and status updates. But the sheer volume of content that we produce could be a problem.

Is Facebook's $711M Spam Award Just Monopoly Money?
October 30, 2009

Social networking site Facebook has been awarded US$711 million in damages from prolific spammer and social network scammer Sanford Wallace for bombarding its users with spam, Facebook attorney Sam O'Rourke reported in a blog post. Judge Jeremy Fogel of the U.S. District Court in Northern California also banned Wallace from accessing Facebook.

The Audacity of Droid
October 30, 2009

The Android mobile operating system is graduating soon to 2.0 status, and Google gave it a pretty nice present to celebrate: a free turn-by-turn navigation app called "Google Maps Navigation." It'll run on Android 2.0 phones with GPS, and it'll use the phone's cellular Internet connection to get live map information.

Facebook: Too Big to Care?
October 30, 2009

A tweet and a status update tell Facebook's story after a week of very unsociable social media slip-ups for Mark Zuckerberg's company. The tweet: "Dear Facebook: Stop sucking, you're making Twitter look reliable." The status update: "[Name withheld] knows FB has its downside, but I just got friended by somebody that, to me, makes Facebook totally worthy [sic] it!!!" And there you have it.

Top 9 Web 2.0 Drivers for E-Commerce Success
October 28, 2009

Is social media/Web 2.0 for retail just hype or an essential part of doing business in the 21st century? Web 2.0 includes leveraging social commerce on Web sites, blogging/podcasting and participating in social networks like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and anywhere a retailer or its customers can create and share content.

Keeping Your Secrets Safe in a World Gone Social
October 28, 2009

Social networking platforms allow both anonymous and open communications with the world, giving us a voice and a forum to share our thoughts publicly and privately. However, with the growing threat of identity theft and other cybercrimes, social networks also present a new set of risks.