Social Gaff: Facebook Cliques Are Just the Beginning by Erik Sass

An intercepted dispatch from Mark Zuckerberg: We think of Cliques as the basic unit of users' social networks -- but we also recognize it doesn't end there. In fact users can create and inhabit myriad social groupings, limited only by their imagination and psychological motivations. And what could be more human than distorting relationships to construct a flattering self-image? That's why we introduced a new group-within-a-group feature for Cliques, called Claques. Basically, we realize not everyone in a particular Clique may be equally supportive of your petty achievements, superficial opinions, and shallow insights. ...Read the whole story

rashieta Be Aware!... of Social Networking Attacks by Rashieta

I am a member of the Black Student Association on Ball State's campus. Every meeting, once a week, we have a "Real Talk" segment of the meeting where we discuss issues in our community. This week a group of members organized skits to represent social networking awareness. One skit was about a group of girls [...] ...More

  • Legal Issues Murky When Government, Marketers Mine Data From Social Sites by Wendy Davis

    This week, reports from two different sources appeared detailing how information that users put online on social networking sites is being mined. The Electronic Frontier Foundation released records showed that the government gathers intelligence by scouring social networking sites, and The Wall Street Journal published a report examining how marketing companies, data brokers and others are using automated scrapers to collect data about Web users. ...More

  • What's Your Social Role: Are You A 'Susan' Or a 'Michael'? by Gord Hotchkiss

    As I was putting the finishing touches on another column, my friend Karl came into my office for a scheduled meeting and, in passing, dropped the following observation about a client (names have been changed to protect the innocent): "I was talking to Susan, the person who's in charge of their social media, but I'm not exactly sure what she does. One of their tech guys, Michael, is the person who actually set up their Facebook page and Twitter account." And there, in a nutshell, is the problem with the corporate approach to social media. ...More

  • Search Reaches Turning Point With Social Integration by Laurie Sullivan

    What will search look like five years from now? Most marketers and search experts don't want to venture a guess because of the speed at which engineers innovate at Google, Microsoft Bing, Yahoo and Facebook is just too fast. Others going out on a limb to express their thoughts had mixed opinions. ...More