Social Media

Social media self-promotion: The urge, the ick, the outcome

"My agent just sent my book to publishers! Fingers crossed!" That's the status message I just stopped myself from writing on Facebook.

It took all the willpower I've ever had.

In fact, I'm now eating a block of cheese because focusing so hard on not updating Facebook with that status has depleted my willpower reserves. My diet is left defenseless.

I'm 29, and I'm working hard to make a living, to produce something I am proud of, to pay the rent, to scrape some savings together, to make time for love, to eat … Read more

Helping 'Star Wars' newbies finally embrace the Force

SAN FRANCISCO--What I'm about to tell you is 100 percent true, no matter how much you will want to tell me I'm full of it: there are American adults who have never seen "Star Wars."

The 1977 George Lucas film is a timeless global phenomenon and may be one of the most embedded of all our cultural artifacts. It spawned an empire that Disney ended up buying for $4 billion, in large part because of the passion and commitment of its worldwide audience. But still some people, even those who watch other movies, and are part of mainstream society, managed to make it to 2013 without ever seeing it.

For one group of "Star Wars" newbies, though, their lifelong exclusion from one of the biggest clubs on Earth is over. … Read more

Year two of #Kristofize -- honoring Nicholas Kristof

It's time once again for #Kristofize, a global salute to Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof), the crusading New York Times columnist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. It's his birthday today, and all this week you can help pay tribute to him and do a little bit of what he does so well: bring attention to important causes around the world. 

All you have to do is add an "of" to your last name on any social-media site you like (on Twitter, don't change your handle, just your name; further instructions below for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+).… Read more

Facebook's 'lie' button and other fun from Shorty Awards

Like the medium they honor -- social media -- the Shorty Awards are whimsical, fun, and irreverent, with a pinch of seriousness, activism, and social good thrown into the mix.

I've been a judge for the Shorty Awards for several years (with such folks as David Pogue (@Pogue), Esther Dyson (@edyson), Craig Newmark (@CraigNewmark), and Steve Wozniak (@stevewoz).

Along with the judging, I've also played the Shorty version of Joan Rivers. Earlier this month, at the ceremony in New York's Times Center, instead of asking about their clothes or nuggets of gossip, I used interviews to probe … Read more

Should incest-warning app be a Facebook service?

Meeting someone in a club or a bar -- or even a church -- has its dangers.

You don't know who they really are. You don't know what they're like in a bad mood, as opposed to a bed mood. And you have no idea if they're really your cousin.

Such dilemmas have struck all those who are seeking love, or merely the comfort of warm, fragrant skin on a chilly Wednesday night.

Some extreme intellectuals in Iceland have decided to assist society's thrust toward safer human interaction.

They have created IslendingaApp, an app that gives you fair warning if the target of your pupillary expansion is, in fact, a close relative.… Read more

Facebook reportedly wants $1 million for each video ad

Would you spend $1 million for a video ad on Facebook?

That's allegedly what the popular network is aiming to squeeze out of advertisers when it starts rolling out video ads sometime this summer, says a story today in Ad Age.

Citing information from one "executive briefed on the product," Ad Age reported that the video ads would carry a price tag upwards of $1 million, run for no longer than 15 seconds, and be scheduled so that no Facebook user sees more than three such ads per day.

Facebook has been chatting up ad agencies to … Read more

Google's Schmidt says civilian drones pose privacy threat

Google's executive chairman is no stranger to privacy concerns. But here he is speaking out against the use of drones by us regular Joes, saying they could infringe on our privacy and that we should regulate them.

In a subscriber-only interview with the Guardian, quoted by the BBC, Schmidt posed the scenario: "You're having a dispute with your neighbor. How would you feel if your neighbor went over and bought a commercial observation drone that they can launch from their backyard? It just flies over your house all day. How would you feel about it?"

Drones … Read more

5 social media lessons from Roger Ebert, @EbertChicago

It's appropriate that I learned on Twitter of the passing of Roger Ebert -- not only because that's the place I get most of my breaking news, but also because Ebert helped me understand the power of social media and helped me teach it to others.

Here's what I posted in December 2009 when I started following Ebert on a regular basis:

Not a reader of @ebertchicago's feed, but will be after seeing electic, hilarious 12 Gifts for Christmas: http://ow.ly/LS2L

-- Sree Sreenivasan (@sree) December 14, 2009

For years, I've told people … Read more

Facebook Home and the next stage of iPhone vs. Android

The home computing revolution of the 1980s and '90s was defined by a battle between two titans: Apple and Microsoft. After its IPO and the introduction of the Macintosh, Apple was riding high.

The company started losing the PC market in the '90s, though. Microsoft released Windows 3.0 as a cheaper alternative to the Macintosh in 1990, but it was the release of Windows 95, which brought a comparable GUI (graphical user interface) to PCs, that really hurt Apple. And Apple also suffered from a lack of vision, owing to the absence of its visionary leader, Steve Jobs, from … Read more