As social media becomes more mainstream, we still lack effective ways to figure out who we should pay attention to, and so the race to continues to try and measure online reputation. Should it be based on activity? Number of followers? A voting system? Read more »
After initially celebrating Quora, social-media maven Robert Scoble has changed his mind. It might seem as though this is of interest only to Silicon Valley insiders, but it has focused another spotlight on some important hurdles that Quora has to face as it tries to grow. Read more »
As it was during the recent uprisings in Tunisia, the role of social media in Egypt has been the subject of some debate. In the end, it’s not about whether to give credit to Twitter or Facebook: it’s about the power of real-time networked communication. Read more »
We are all concerned about online privacy, but not enough to do much about it, according to a new survey. Which raises the question: browsers like Firefox, Chrome and IE9 are adding support for a “Do Not Track” feature, but will anyone actually use it? Read more »
Google justified its CEO swap by saying the company needed to become more flexible. But what if the search giant’s biggest problem isn’t a lack of flexibility, but a fundamental inability to create new lines of business? What if it’s just a gargantuan one-trick pony? Read more »
In another attempt to undo the Internet, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Gannett chain today launched a new service that they hope will convince readers to pay for their content, even though much of it is already available online for free. Read more »
The New York Times is working on a digital tip-line that will allow leakers of confidential documents to deal directly with the newspaper rather than having to use WikiLeaks, said executive editor Bill Keller, and Arab news service Al-Jazeera just launched a similar tip-line project. Read more »
Foursquare says it signed up its 6 millionth user last week, and that the location-based network has grown by more than 3,400 percent over the past year — and the company’s co-founder said it is worth $250 million. But it is still far from mainstream. Read more »
Twitter could finally see its recent moves into advertising and other promotional tools start to pay off this year, according to new estimates from eMarketer. The consulting firm estimates the network’s ad revenue could top $150 million, more than triple what it made last year. Read more »
Google has responded to criticism about the declining quality of its results by saying it plans to come down hard on so-called “content farms” that try to game its algorithm with low-quality pages. That could mean pain for Demand Media, which is planning a closely-watched IPO. Read more »
So Google is launching Groupon-style discount program for small businesses known as Google Offers. But does Google have what it takes to build up that kind of service on its own? Probably not. Which is why the company should still think about buying a Groupon clone. Read more »
Google CEO Eric Schmidt is stepping down to become executive chairman of the web giant, and Larry Page is taking back the chief executive position he had until Schmidt arrived in 2001. But does the Google co-founder have what Google needs right now? Read more »
Techmeme, the news aggregator that is like CNN for geeks, says individual tweets will now be highlighted on the site if they are newsworthy enough. But will this new feature give the site more news to choose from, or just more produce more noise? Read more »
The way that NPR uses its Facebook page to connect with listeners and build community around its content has a number of lessons for other media entities, including the fact that they should focus more on engaging with their users and less time worrying about ads. Read more »
Thanks to incidents like the revolution in Tunisia and the recent shooting of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, most people have come to grips with the fact that Twitter is effectively a real-time news network. But what happens when that real-time news network is spreading mis-information? Read more »
New York City has launched a “crowdsourcing” effort aimed at getting ideas from city employees to help the city function more efficiently. The program, called Simplicity, is being powered by Spigit, which makes a software platform that companies and governments can use to crowdsource ideas. Read more »
Groupon may be getting all the headlines lately, but competitor LivingSocial launched a gift-card promotion with Amazon today that shows the kind of marketing power the group-buying company now has at its disposal, as a result of the recent $175-million investment from the online retailing giant. Read more »
A study from the Pew Research Center found that Internet users are much more likely to be socially active offline as well as online, and that those who use social media and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are even more likely to be so. Read more »
Cheezburger — the blog network that brought you I Can Has Cheezburger, the Fail blog and many other similar humor-oriented sites — today announced that it has closed a $30-million round of funding from a group of venture capital firms including Foundry Group and SoftBank Capital. Read more »
The news that Steve Jobs is taking another leave from Apple to focus on his health is almost certain to rattle investors, and could put continued pressure on the stock as the markets try to figure out what Apple might be like without its charismatic leader. Read more »
Even as protesters were still cheering the downfall of the government in Tunisia on Friday, the debate had already begun over what role social media had played in the event. Was it the first real Twitter revolution? The correct answer is probably yes and no. Read more »
Hashtags on Twitter occasionally take off and become trends that dominate the network, like the recent #lessambitiousmovies tag. The Twitter media blog did a forensic analysis of that trend, but the interesting thing is just how random — and short-lived — these Twitter storms can be. Read more »
The web continues to disrupt the media business, both in terms of distribution and monetization, and publishers are desperately trying paywalls, iPad apps and anything else they can think of to cope. Bradford Cross wants to help change all that with his new startup, Woven. Read more »
Wikipedia, which turns 10 this weekend, has taken a lot of heat over the years. But it has become a crucial aspect of our lives, and in many ways it has shown us what all information online is becoming: social, distributed, interactive and (at times) chaotic. Read more »
Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a member of the Icelandic parliament and an early supporter of WikiLeaks, said that despite having had a falling out with leader Julian Assange, she is willing to “stand up and stick my neck out for him,” and believes everyone should support the organization. Read more »
A study that looked at the use of social media, text messaging, interactive maps and other online tools during the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake says they helped co-ordinate rescue efforts and aid, but that more work needs to be done to make them fully effective. Read more »
The Verizon iPhone has finally arrived, after much hype and years of rumors and speculation — we even included it in our roundup of 10 geek dreams that might never come true last year. So is it everything that iPhone users were hoping for? Not quite. Read more »
MySpace today confirmed that it is shedding close to half of the company, or about 500 employees, including virtually the entire international operation, in a dramatic restructuring that is aimed at saving the ailing social network. But the reality is, Facebook has won. Read more »
Google has come under increasing pressure from those who believe the government should investigate the company for antitrust violations, just as it did Microsoft and AT&T. But would doing so help make the tech sector more competitive? A recent study suggests that it would not. Read more »
As expected, Groupon announced today that it has completed a gigantic financing of $950-million from a group of high-profile funds, including Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins. Now all it has to do is prove that it can carve out a long-term business amid escalating competition. Read more »
Klout — one of a number of services that are trying to measure influence in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter — has closed an $8.5-million funding round from Silicon Valley powerhouse Kleiner Perkins, and adding Kleiner partner Bing Gordon to its board of directors. Read more »
The US government’s move to order Twitter to disclose information about users involved with WikiLeaks confirms the network’s status as a real-time information network, but also makes it obvious how much we have come to rely on it, and the implications of that dependence. Read more »
A chorus of complaints about spammy results in Google searches highlights a growing problem the search company is going to have to solve — and doing so will inevitably bring it into conflict with Demand Media, currently planning a high-profile IPO for later this year. Read more »
The story of homeless radio announcer Ted Williams became an Internet sensation this week. But the video that started it all is no longer available on YouTube, in yet another example of a newspaper that can’t see the forest for the dead trees. Read more »
Quora, the red-hot Q&A startup, depends on high-quality answers — and has deliberately kept things small in order to cultivate a knowledgeable community. But can it keep those virtues when its membership base is exploding and not everyone wants to play by the site’s rules? Read more »
As Goldman Sachs lines up investors for its Facebook fund, numbers are beginning to leak out about the social network’s finances. Based on the growth in revenue and in the bottom line, Facebook could stand to pull in close to $1 billion in profit this year. Read more »
Imagine what the police could find out about you if they had the ability to search your phone and all it contains, from your browser and photo history to your Foursquare check-ins. Police in California now have the right to do this — without a warrant. Read more »
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster says Google has “given up on social,” because it doesn’t stand a chance of competing with Facebook. The problem with doing this, he says, is that as advertisers continue to chase the social graph, Google will have little to offer them. Read more »
A brush fire has been swirling through the blogosphere of late over whether RSS is dead or possibly dying. But is it actually doomed, or even ailing? Not really. Like plenty of other technologies, it is just becoming part of the plumbing of the real-time web. Read more »
Firefox has taken the number one spot in browser market share in Europe, pushing past Internet Explorer for the first time, according to StatCounter. But the real battle for Firefox is with Chrome, the Google browser that continues to gain market share at a rapid pace. Read more »
