Social Media

Next Tuesday, I officially begin Road Trip 2008, my reporting journey through the U.S. South.

As I've written here, I'll be doing stories and photo packages from some of the most interesting destinations and attractions in the region, many of which I've already planned. But I am also very keen on seeing what you might suggest for various locations along the way.

My first stop when the trip begins on June 10 will be Orlando, Fla. As you can imagine, that means I'll be stopping in on Disney World.

But I've never been there … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--When you're one of the earliest adopters of a new technology, or one of the first companies into a new space, you tend to be very bullish on its future.

That energy was very much in evidence Thursday at InterPlay, the first-ever conference solely devoted to social gaming.

If you're not familiar with the concept of social gaming--small, casual game applications designed to be played on social networks like Facebook--you soon will be. That's because there is a lot of interest--and a growing amount of venture capital--being focused on the young space.

Examples of the early … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Huge social media services like Facebook and MySpace should allow application developers access to intelligence about their users' behavior.

That was the message from Mark Pincus, CEO of social-gaming network Zynga Thursday as he and others spoke on a panel called "The future of online social gaming" at the InterPlay conference here.

The confab is the first devoted entirely to social gaming, and it has attracted a packed house for a series of discussions on things like advertising and marketing on social games, how to fund such games and how to build these games on social media … Read more

At around 11:50 p.m. Pacific time Sunday night, uber-blogger Robert Scoble posted a short note to Twitter: "@dtan just reported an earthquake in Beijing. Wonder how large it is? Off to check out USGS site."

Of course, as the world knows by now, Scoble was referring to the devastating quake that is already believed to have killed at least 12,000 people.

Some may be skeptical about Scoble's subsequent claims that news of the disaster was flying around Twitter before the U.S. Geological Survey posted anything on it, but one thing seems clear. Because … Read more

If you're among the fraction of Facebook users who have bumped up against the social-networking service's 5,000-friends cap, breathe easy: you might well soon be able to climb into the upper reaches of four figures' worth.

That's according to a Friday post on TechCrunch, where Michael Arrington reported that Facebook is getting ready to lift the limit.

As Arrington wrote, there are only about 1,000 Facebook users--out of 70 million--who have reached the cap, but "a disproportionate percentage of bloggers and press are at the limit, so the issue tends to get a lot … Read more

If you're a social media addict but think that visiting regular Web sites is a lonely experience, you might want to take a look at Weblin.

Created by a German company, Weblin is designed to make the experience of surfing Web sites social--or make services like Facebook or MySpace.com more social. It does so by letting users create an avatar that they can then, effectively, take with them as they move around from site to site.

If they then find themselves on a site that is being visited at the same time by other Weblin users, then they … Read more

It seems that the founder of Napster--no, not Seth Green--may have finally cashed in big time on one of his creations.

According to TechCrunch, Napster founder Shawn Fanning has sold his gaming social-media start-up, Rupture, to Electronic Arts for $30 million.

TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld reported Thursday afternoon that as part of the deal--which EA has not yet announced, "but is expected to do so soon," Fanning and Rupture co-founder Jon Baudanza will become EA employees.

For Fanning, this represents the big-time payday he's clearly been seeking for years. He never made much off of … Read more

It should come as no surprise that a vast majority of us trust our friends' recommendations about products or services, but according to a study, a strong majority also trust the product reviews of anonymous online commenters.

These are some of the findings of a study from the book Groundswell, by Forrester Research analysts Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, highlighted in a post on the book's blog this week.

According to their study, 83 percent of respondents believe in friends' recommendations, a number higher than those who put stock in newspaper, magazine, or TV reviews (75 percent).

More surprising, … Read more

The Wikimedia Foundation has instituted a restructuring of its board of trustees, in the process adding two "chapter" board seats and formalizing Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales' position as the "community founder" board member.

Valleywag on Wednesday first noted the changes.

First, according to Jan-Bart de Vreede, the board of trustees' vice chairman, the board is expanding from its current 8 seats to a total of 10.

The big change, de Vreede wrote, is the expansion of the board through what he termed "chapter-selected" seats.

"This has been under consideration for a long time, … Read more