networking

Facebook's Instagram video announcement last week went a long way in hurting its chief competitor Vine, a new study has shown.

According to data compiled by Marketing Land using Topsy, a tool designed to analyze social media shares, the number of links shared on Twitter to Vine videos fell off a cliff after Instagram's new video-recording feature was announced on June 20. And since then, things have remained quiet for Vine.

According to Marketing Land's findings, Vine's Twitter shares hit 2.5 million on June 19. After Instagram's video service launched, that fell to 1.… Read more

Facebook launched hashtags earlier this month, but now it's upping the anty. As of Thursday, hashtags will work on the social network's mobile site and the company is also debuting related hashtags, according to TechCrunch.

What this means is that Facebook hashtags could start to be a lot more abundant and easier to integrate.

Facebook describes hashtags as a way to "turn topics and phrases into clickable links in posts on your personal timeline or your Page, and help people find posts about topics they're interested in." For example, Facebook says, write a post along … Read more

Dish Network said on Thursday that it was withdrawing its offer for Clearwire, ensuring that Clearwire will be acquired by Sprint Nextel.

Dish and Sprint were embroiled in a furious back and forth over the 4G wireless provider, but Sprint had taken control after raising its offer above Dish's own offer for a second time last week, winning the backing of major Clearwire shareholders.

Dish had sought to insert itself into what looked like a regular roll-up of Sprint and Clearwire by Japanese carrier SoftBank. Dish initially had its sights on Clearwire, which provides 4G wireless services to Sprint … Read more

AT&T has expanded its LTE presence in the U.S.

The company announced Wednesday that it has turned on seven new LTE markets in the U.S. The new markets include Grand Rapids, Minn., Hot Springs, Ark., and Mount Vernon, Ohio. In addition, AT&T has expanded LTE coverage in Atlanta, New York City, and Columbia, S.C., among other areas.

With the new markets, AT&T now has 291 areas with LTE, covering over 200 million people across the U.S. By the end of this year, AT&T expects its LTE rollout to … Read more

Mobile malware creators and smartphone makers seem to be in a neck-and-neck software race, but new data shows that the malware creators could be taking the lead.

Juniper Networks released its third annual Mobile Threat Report on Tuesday and the findings aren't pretty. Mobile malware grew at a rate of 614 percent from March 2012 to March 2013 -- that's equal to 276,259 malicious apps floating around out there. Last year, the increase was a mere 155 percent.

The report is based on an analysis of more than 1.85 million mobile apps and vulnerabilities across major … Read more

Josh Miller is hosting a house party for the Internet and everyone is invited. The party, called Potluck, starts now and its purpose is to introduce today's generation of social networkers to people beyond their immediate friend circles.

"Most people ... have always known the Internet as a place where you only connect with people you know," Miller told CNET. "So how do we encourage them to connect with new people?"

The answer is Potluck, a social application for meeting strangers in a non-threatening environment. Actually, though, it's just a fun place to hang out … Read more

While setting up gigabit infrastructure can be prohibitively expensive for many local communities, it appears that the cost users will have to pay for Gigabit Squared's high-speed Internet in Seattle won't be off the charts.

Gigabit Squared announced the pricing for its local fiber network in the Seattle area on Monday -- and, the monthly cost is actually cheaper than what people pay for Comcast broadband.

The fastest level of service from Gigabit Squared will cost $80 per month, which includes 1000 Mbps download and 1000 Mbps upload. The next level is $45 per month with 100 Mbps … Read more

Recent disclosures of U.S. government surveillance of our phone and Internet activity have heightened interest in services that promise not to collect or share our personal information.

One such service is DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused search engine that has seen its traffic jump since news broke earlier this month of the National Security Agency's PRISM electronic surveillance program. The Guardian's Stuart Dredge reports that DuckDuckGo's daily search count reached an all-time high of 3.1 million on June 17, well above its daily average of 1.8 million daily searches prior to the PRISM revelations.

Those numbers … Read more

Google is preparing to launch a new service that will be integrated into Google+, according to a new report.

The folks over at Google Operating System, a blog that monitors the search giant, say they have obtained an image of a new service the company is working on called Google Mine. The screenshot describes the feature as allowing users to "share your belongings with your friends and keep up to date with what your friends are sharing." The app also lets users share items within certain Google+ Circles.

The idea appears to center on user interests and sharing … Read more