Social Media

It's been more than a week since Facebook's blockbuster acquisition of Instagram, and many people are still confused about the deal. It's understandable -- the $1 billion acquisition happened in the span of 48 hours between two CEOs rather than over the course of weeks between two armies of lawyers.

Facebook and Instagram consistently defy convention though, and that's one of many things you need to understand about both companies -- they are anomalies rather than the norm, even in the fast-paced world of tech startups.

I've seen countless reporters and bloggers question the valuation (… Read more

A fair number of consumers in the United States are relying on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to help them with medical and health care issues.

Polling 1,060 U.S. adults in February, PricewaterhouseCoopers found that a third use social media to find medical information, research and share symptoms, and offer their opinions about doctors, drugs, treatments, and heath plans.

One in four of those surveyed said they've used social-media services to track down reviews from other consumers about treatments and doctors, while one in three have searched for information about medical ailments related by other … Read more

UPDATE - MONDAY, APRIL 16: Two days ago, I wrote this post, and in point #5, I pointed out a problem with Bubba Watson's Twitter profile photo at the time. It featured the "General Lee," a car I loved as a kid watching the "Dukes of Hazzard," not caring about the Confederate flag painted on the roof. As I say below, no one can object to Watson owning the car or displaying it at home. It's displaying it online and with every tweet that would cause a controversy. Yesterday, Watson swapped out his profile … Read more

Sometime in the next 12 months, Google Chrome will become the world's most popular browser, knocking Microsoft's Internet Explorer off the mountain it has ruled for more than a decade.

This fact should scare the pants off of Facebook.

In July 2008, IE controlled 68.5 percent of the market, according to Statcounter, while Chrome wasn't even on the market. Now Microsoft's browser is down to 34.8 percent market share while Chrome controls 30.9 percent of total browser usage. Chrome has grown by a percentage point the last few months, while IE has dropped … Read more

STANFORD, Calif. -- One of the tricks of building a successful company is identifying new markets. So while you might never have known you wanted a digital scent delivery system, a startup called Scent Sciences thinks that's exactly what you desire.

Scent Sciences and dozens of other companies flocked to Stanford University yesterday for the annual Cool Product Expo, a showcase of some of the, well, coolest gadgets, toys, electric cars, and oddball beauty items around. Among the most interesting items on display were 3D Systems' Cube, a personal 3D printer that costs just $1,300 and is being … Read more

"Memes really do come true."

For Adam Smith and Stacy Lambe, it's been a week of seriously whirlwind proportions. But after seeing their mega-hit Tumblr blog, "Texts from Hillary", get international attention and even inspire a submission from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself, the two Washington, D.C., men are shutting it all down.

If you haven't followed this phenomenon, picture LOLCats crossed with pictures of Hillary Clinton texting. Add tens of thousands of viewers around the world, some hilarious captions, and a surprise invitation by Clinton to Smith and Lambe to meet … Read more

How much fun can you have adding funny text to someone else's photograph? If you're the U.S. secretary of state, apparently quite a lot.

It's already been proven that if you let the general public add their own cute sayings to pictures of cats, you can build an entire empire on top of it. And now, thanks to the Tumblr blog Texts from Hillary, you too can create your own snarky narrative involving, yes, pictures of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton texting.

It started as a quirky site where random people can make submissions … Read more

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--It's nearly 10 a.m. in the City Council chambers here, and 43 people are waiting for their turn to speak.

These are not citizens with civic matters on their minds; divided into two lines that stretch out from either side of the podium in the center of the room, these veterans of Google, Cisco, NASA, Hewlett-Packard, Yahoo, Microsoft, Boeing, Sun, and others, are here looking for a new lease on their professional lives.

One by one, they lean into the microphone to introduce themselves. They mention where they've worked in the past, list their skills, … Read more

Another week has flown by in social-media land, which means, you -- and I -- have missed a lot of developments, new products, and so on. Most of them, of course, don't matter, but these Week in Review posts (March 27; March 19; March 12; March 5; February 26; February 19) are meant to help you catch up with the ones that do. Wherever I can, I insert Twitter handles so you'll have some new folks to follow. Each week, you can help by posting links in the comments section or e-mailing me or tweeting with @sree&… Read more