Social Media

Why the coming patent crisis is inevitable

A week isn't complete in the tech industry without somebody suing somebody else over patents.

This time, Facebook is countersuing Yahoo, charging that Yahoo violated 10 of its patents. This move, of course, comes less than a month after Yahoo sued Facebook for allegedly infringing on 10 of its patents.

Facebook's countersuit shouldn't surprise anybody; it was always going to fight fire with fire, especially since Yahoo started this unnecessary fight. It's the same reason Facebook purchased 750 patents from IBM last month -- it needed more ammunition in a patent arms race that is quickly … Read more

Zite launches platform to highlight partners' stories

Aiming to work more closely with top-tier publishers, the popular news reader Zite today unveiled a platform that will prominently highlight stories from its media partners.

Zite, which works on iOS and Android devices, is built around the concept of giving people personalized news in discrete subject sections like "technology," "politics," "sports," and so on. People can choose as many sections as they like, and stories are algorithmically curated at least in part based on people's feedback about whether they do or don't like stories, publications, and even individual authors.

Now, with … Read more

Silicon Valley has Facebook's back in Yahoo knife fight

This much is clear about the patent showdown between Yahoo and Facebook: Yahoo is losing friends left and right.

Last month, Yahoo sued Facebook, claiming the world's largest social-networking company had infringed on 10 of its patents. And yesterday, Facebook countersued, arguing essentially that it hadn't done anything wrong, but hey, as long as we're on the subject, Yahoo violated 10 of our patents.

For many in the technology business, this is just the latest chapter in a battle that most would like to see wrap up -- and quickly as possible, please. But since Yahoo was … Read more

Assessing apps for the blind

This blog is meant to examine the world of social media, but sometimes I will stray into the world of apps because so many of them are inherently social, even if they aren't technically of or about social media itself.

When I review and critique apps, I plan to ask, on occasion, for experts with specific knowledge to share their insights with all of us.

So when I heard about an iPhone app aimed at the blind, I turned to someone better suited to the task than anyone else I know. More on her in a minute.

Since the … Read more

The ten patents Facebook claims Yahoo infringed

Last month, Yahoo set off a bomb when it sued Facebook for alleged patent infringement. Today, Facebook fired back, denying that it violated any patents and claiming that ten of its own were infringed by Yahoo.

Here's what Facebook alleges.

Facebook says a wide variety of Yahoo services infringe its patents, including its Flickr photo sharing system. According to Facebook's countersuit, those servies include:

the Yahoo Home Page, Yahoo's Content Optimization and Relevance Engine ('C.O.R.E.'), [Flickr], and advertisements displayed throughout Yahoo Including on My Yahoo, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo News, Yahoo Games, Yahoo … Read more

Filmmaker Kevin Smith blasts MPAA ratings in online-porn era

For certain types of people, finding out that fantasy writer Neil Gaiman likes their work could be considered the cherry on top of a career. So for filmmaker Kevin Smith, seeing that Gaiman once tweeted "I suspect @ThatKevinSmith is what all gods and demons aspire to be" had to make for one terrific day.

@ThatKevinSmith, of course, is the man who made such cult hits as "Clerks," "Mallrats," and "Chasing Amy." More recently, he's moved on from wry humor to darker stuff like "Red State." And he's even … Read more

Current TV plugs wrong Twitter ID for Olbermann replacement

In its haste to make it look like it had everything in hand following its firing of high-profile anchor Keith Olbermann today, Current TV made a fairly embarrassing faux pas: It promoted the wrong Twitter ID for the mercurial Olbermann's replacement, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.

It would be one thing if the Internet TV channel had simply given out an incorrect Twitter ID. But according to Mediabistro, Spitzer doesn't even have a Twitter account. Current TV has been suitably red-faced in the aftermath of the ID mishap, telling Mediabistro, "Our apologies that this was incorrect … Read more

Report: Foursquare shuts off API for Girls Around Me app

The tagline is "In the mood for love, or just after a one-night stand? Girls Around Me puts you in control! Reveal the hottest nightspots, who's in them, and how to reach them..."

For a lot of people, this sounds like an app made in heaven, but the fact that the service used Foursquare and Facebook data to automatically pinpoint the location of specific women near users has even more people freaking out, writes Cult of Mac.

Now, in response to the uproar about the app, Foursquare has apparently shut down the app's access to its … Read more

Wikidata to provide structured data for all Wikipedia versions

With more than 280 different language editions of Wikipedia often sharing data elements like people's birth dates and definitions, there has never been a single central data repository from which each version could pull such information. Until now.

Today, the German chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation pulled back the wraps on Wikidata, a project that is aiming to be a single common source of structured data that can be used across all versions of Wikipedia. By December, that should allow editors of each individual language version of a Wikipedia article to pull data from that repository rather than adding … Read more