Category: Social Networking

Digg is like the Roman Colosseum of public opinion, a place where Web content jostles for votes in the hopes of becoming "popular," and making the vaunted front page. In theory, it's a pretty democratic system. Occasionally, though, one group of like-minded users may stuff the ballots, and push an otherwise obscure article into the spotlight. Or, in some cases, they may even kill stories with ...

A sign that you might be losing your mind: You've created a Facebook profile for your cat. Don't get us wrong. We don't mind a little anthropomorphism every now and then. Hell, who doesn't get a hearty chuckle out of slapping a bow tie on a dog, and playing the Ginger Rogers to his Fred Astaire? But creating a Facebook profile for your dog? And writing in his non-existent voice? A little weird. ...

To nobody's surprise, a recent study claimed that more couples are finding evidence of marital infidelity via Facebook. After all, if somebody's doing something, no matter how innocuous or unsightly, it's probably going to get posted on the social networking site. According to the AP, Lynn France, of Westlake, Ohio, learned this the hard way when she discovered that her husband John had a second ...

Twitter's new recruiting video may not make you feel like working, but, if you're in your 20s, are sort of nerdy and remember the time you snuck into the indie-cinema to see 'Rushmore,' you will feel a nostalgic twinge. In the video (after the break), Twitter headquarters are transformed into something of a yearbook, with various teams of employees posing for the film as you would a picture. ...

When recent Twitter convert Kanye West chose to follow the account of a kid named Steven Holmes, everyone struggled to comprehend why Mr. West would want to follow a relatively anonymous student -- and no one else. Surely this kid must be the world's most rabid Kanye fan, right? Or perhaps he's another struggling musician who's been chomping at the bit for his one shot at fame? Well, not ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/08/04/the-farmville-ruse-how-zyngas-creation-ruins-gaming-and-stea/'; FarmVille is a very smart game. It was developed by Zynga, the company founded by serial entrepreneur Mark Pincus, which is on track to pull in $500-million dollars in revenue this year. As of July, FarmVille was hosting the digital homesteads of 61 million users. But you probably ...

Last Tuesday, Leigh Fazzina was racing her bike through the woods in Connecticut when she suddenly drifted away from the rest of the cyclists competing in the mini-triathlon. As she was furiously riding downhill toward the main bike trail, her front wheel ran into some gnarly tree roots, and she crashed in a grand fashion. The 36-year old from Philly wasn't familiar with the Connecticut ...

As we've reported before, thieves, scammers and other charlatans sometimes find their targets on Twitter and Facebook, especially when the soon-to-be victims post innocent status updates like, "My 18 HDTVs will be so lonely in my unlocked house while I'm on vacation for the next month," veritably inviting criminals to track them down. Now Brazil's favorite crime-sport of kidnapping has been thrown ...

As India's middle class has swollen in recent years, so too has its share of untrained drivers. As a result, the country now endures more traffic-related fatalities than any other nation, and weaving through any of its major cities has become a feat of Herculean proportion. Police in Delhi, though, recently stumbled upon an entirely new approach to controlling the city's roadway pandemonium: ...

Ever wonder what Americans are doing during those countless hours that they sit in front of a computer screen? Turns out that, more than anything else, they're getting their Facebook and Twitter on. According to Nielsen, a good 22.7-percent of time online is spent on social networking sites. That's a drastic increase from June of last year, when a reported 15.8-percent of time online was spent ...

Last week, Twitter unveiled a new feature, called 'Suggestions For You,' which suggests accounts you might want to follow. Located as a tab on the 'Find People' page, the new feature uses an algorithm that examines the Twitterers you follow, and, based on several factors, suggests folks that might interest you. Basically, it's the same thing Facebook has been doing for some time with its equally ...

A new Facebook-based start-up called Cameo Stars is hoping to turn itself into the next viral craze by having celebrities wish you a happy birthday. Cameo Stars features A-list football players Reggie Bush, Tony Romo and Drew Brees -- along with the perpetually irrelevant Carmen Electra -- shot on green screen and expressing generic platitudes for you to post on your friends' Facebook pages. ...

Bad news, Evil Corporations: Twitter tweeps aren't your shills! A study by digital marketing agency 360i reveals that only a sliver of consumer tweets forward branding messages. It notes that "more than 90-percent of tweets originate from consumers -- and only 8-percent are authored by marketers." Conversely, only 12-percent of all tweets mention a brand. (Click here for the full PDF report.) ...

Back in April, we reported that Facebook would introduce a Q&A feature that would compete with sites like Quora, Aardvark and Yahoo! Answers. According to The Facebook Blog, the social-networking site introduced Facebook Questions to a limited number of beta testers today. When the public feature (yes, everybody can see what you ask) becomes available, an 'Ask Question' button and text box ...

On July 12th, an armed vandal broke into a hotel room in the city of Angeles, Philippines, and murdered a Canadian man and his Filipino girlfriend. In the following days and weeks, seven more people in the city would fall prey to the killer, including five Filipinos, an American and a Briton. As police investigated, they began drawing connections to 28-year-old Mark Dizon, a computer technician ...