social

Sometimes I worry.

I worry that at the bottom of the fiscal cliff is another fiscal cliff.

I worry that my future wife who currently won't acknowledge me will only, in fact, acknowledge me when I have another future wife.

And I worry that social media experts have all the expertise of a Labrador offering a lecture series on the cat-mouse conflict.

It's not merely that "Saturday Night Live" and the Onion (embedded here) have offered bitingly believable critiques of these self-appointed gurus.

It's that I have before my eyes the results of a survey … Read more

Snapchat and Poke videos shared with other people are supposed to go poof after a few seconds, but their vanishing act isn't working exactly as advertised.

Snapchat and Facebook's Poke apps are designed for folks who want to share photos and videos with their socially networked friends -- though only briefly. The appeal of both apps is that the photos and videos vanish after up to 10 seconds. That's supposed to mean you can send someone a potentially embarrassing or "sexty" clip of yourself, firm in the belief that it won't stick around for … Read more

If there was one thing you could say about Twitter's 2012, it was that it wasn't boring. Over the course of the year, the service became bigger than ever, hosted major events like a Q&A with President Obama and another with Pope Benedict XVI, and became an essential tool for those looking for information about everything from Hurricane Sandy to the civil war in Syria.

But 2012 was also contentious for Twitter. The microblogging service put new restrictions on what it would allow third-party developers to do, and then had to deal with a rebellion by … Read more

Social media hit new heights this year; Facebook reached 1 billion users, many people in developing nations are logging in to social networks as soon as they get Internet access, and the companies behind these digital communities are starting to make money off the sites.

The big players of social, namely Facebook and Twitter, are ubiquitous in everyday life. Mainstream news outlets cite the social networks as sources of information and commentary on live events. The Olympics, the presidential election, disasters such as Hurricane Sandy -- social media has become an integral part of how such events are recorded and … Read more

When you think of social media these days, you probably think primarily of Facebook and Twitter, and perhaps Instagram. But while those services have massive -- and growing -- user bases, they're of course not the only games in town.

The world of social media is filled with other services, and millions of people get a daily fix without ever going near Facebook or Twitter. There are big general networks like Tagged, and plenty of smaller, purpose-built ones like Path or celebrity-focused ones like Lady Gaga's Little Monsters. There's even a revamped MySpace.

So what does 2013 … Read more

Let's face it: Twitter is an integral part of everyday life. And while that's been true for some time, 2012 was the year the microblogging service became truly mainstream. It was a vital tool during catastrophes, it was the medium of choice for presidential candidates, and it was at the center of political turmoil around the world.

2012 was also a year of business battles for Twitter, with strife between it and Instagram ramping up slowly over the course of the year, and a standoff between Twitter and developers.

But in the end, Twitter's biggest moments of … Read more

Netflix will get "social features" that will allow users to share their viewed movies online, according to a report by Talking Points Memo.

Netflix has long wanted users to link their video accounts with Facebook and other social networks, but has been prevented from doing so because of the Video Privacy Protection Act, which bars company from disclosing information such as video rentals. An amendment to that law passed on Friday allows digital, as opposed to written, permission from users and thus makes it easier for Netflix to move forward with its social plans.

CNET contacted Netflix for … Read more

Which journalists have the most followers on Twitter? Not surprisingly, they are often the ones with the biggest platforms off Twitter as well. Another way of looking at it: If you've built a big brand on places such as CNN, MSNBC or the New York Times, you can drive up your follower counts easily. (Keep in mind that raw follower counts only tell us part of the story. There are many journalists who have far fewer followers than the big stars, but whose tweets are more likely to be clicked on, retweeted, etc.)

Regular readers of this blog know … Read more

Facebook has been quietly testing a new Timeline design, the company has confirmed.

The world's largest social network yesterday confirmed to ABC News that it's testing a new Timeline design "with a small percentage of people." The move, the spokesperson told ABC News, is to "make navigating Timeline even easier."

According to ABC News, which tested out the new Timeline, the design includes a tabbed look, allowing users to switch between friends, photos, and a person's About page. In addition, Facebook's current method of displaying Timeline updates by placing them in two … Read more