social media

Twitter said today that it is pumping up the content of embedded tweets, allowing anyone on any blog or news site to see videos, photos, article summaries, and other additional content added to a tweet.

Embedded tweets have become a favorite way to showcase the contents of a wide variety of tweets in blogs and news stories across the Web. But, while they're a convenient way to call out a tweet in a blog post or news story, embedded tweets have been a scaled down version of what was visible on Twitter.com. Now though, Twitter is boosting the … Read more

OK, let's just say you decide to walk the length of Europe and Asia and bring all your social-media peeps along for the journey. What devices would you bring with you to keep in touch and document your epic stroll?

These aren't questions most of us will ever be faced with, but Michael Lee Johnson is thinking very hard about the answers right now as he prepares to embark on a half-decade long sojourn by foot from Beijing to London later this year.

A developer from England who has also worked in social media (he had a moment of notoriety when Facebook nixed the 1-cent ad he purchased to promote his Google+ account), marketing and a few startups, Johnson tells me he's treating his trip as a sort of startup of its own.

In fact, the idea for a major overland trip was originally conceived as a marketing stunt for a startup. The startup is no more, but Johnson's dream of sharing the near-entirety of an epic personal journey lives on.… Read more

Manti Te'o's tale was a portrait of a heartbroken football player overcoming adversity -- triumphing over the tragic death of his girlfriend.

The devout Mormon, Notre Dame linebacker, and runner up to the 2012 Heisman Trophy first suffered the loss of his grandmother, then his girlfriend to leukemia. On the day she died, he had one of the best games of his college career, logging 12 tackles.

The only problem is that she didn't die...because she apparently never existed.

In an exhaustive investigation, Deadspin's Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey detail how Te'o started dating … Read more

A Manhattan judge has decided that news organizations can't publish photos they find on Twitter without permission, because the photos are protected by copyright, Reuters reported.

The judge determined that the AFP news agency and The Washington Post infringed on the copyrights of photographer Daniel Morel when they published photos he took and posted on Twitter after the Haiti earthquake in January 2010.

AFP had argued that because the images were on Twitter, they were publicly available, but District Judge Alison Nathan pointed to Twitter's terms of service, which do not give news organizations the ability to publish … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- What it's like to experience new technology after 25 years in jail.

- Ante up that $100 if you want to message Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

- Why the next big DJ will be an algorithm.

- Enough with the social-media "gurus," "ninjas," "masters," and "mavens."… Read more

Billed by Twitter's inventors as a new platform for high-quality public discourse, Branch today opened it doors to anyone who wants to fork off into conversations of more than 140 characters in length.

Branch is essentially a modern, user-friendly version of the Internet forum. People create "branches" to discuss topics or links and invite their friends to participate. Thread participants can also branch off into their own separate but related conversations.

The small, San Francisco-based startup is backed by Obvious, the incubator-investor hybrid machination of Twitter creators Evan Williams and Biz Stone. Obvious announced last March that … Read more

LAS VEGAS--A group of consumer panelists shared their candid thoughts on online privacy during a tell-all panel discussion on Generation Y and digital media at CES.

Six extremely articulate young adults ages 18 to 28 fielded questions from moderator Xavier Kochhar and the audience about their social media preferences and attitudes. On the topic of privacy, Darius, a 22-year-old fashion designer who uses Twitter "for therapy" summed up the group's attitude with this statement: "We live in public."

Darius was keenly aware that everything he shares on Twitter or other social media platforms is "… Read more

Funky gadgets, next-generation hardware, and disruptive technology fill the halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center during CES. With a little future tech of its own, Salesforce is processing all of the tweets, Facebook updates, and Instagram photos from people oversharing about their proximity to the next big thing.

Stationed at the start of the CES Instawalk in the North Hall, the Social Media Command Center keeps an all-knowing eye on social chatter happening around the show. A wall of LCDs showcase a live feed of recent tweets, popular locations on Foursquare, social media updates from influencers, and interesting factoids … Read more

Six states have officially made it illegal for employers to ask their workers for passwords to their social media accounts. As of 2013, California and Illinois have joined the ranks of Michigan, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware in passing state laws against the practice, according to Wired.

With Congress not being able to come to agreement on the Password Protection Act of 2012, individual states have taken the law into their own hands. Both California and Illinois agreed on password protection laws in 2012, but the laws didn't go into effect until yesterday.

The laws are designed to prohibit … Read more