OMG the seething cauldron of adolescent fear and loathing that is prom season is almost upon us. Even before it arrives it will inflict many psychic casualties among American youth, as dates are secured, limos hogged, security deposits absconded with, friendships forged and broken. But one key area of potential conflict -- who gets to wear what dress -- may be defused thanks to social media.

I've never understood the appeal of social TV watching -- meaning, logging into a social site to talk about TV while you're watching TV -- but someone out there must, because media companies keep on pushing the idea. The latest to do so is NBC: the network is launching a new online social platform, NBC Live, which will entice users with polls, trivia, insider commentary, photos, and -- most importantly -- a social stream which allows visitors to comment on what's currently playing and interact with other viewers.

Stop the presses and hold the phone, everyone: a new study authored by academics at the University of Buffalo and published in a journal called Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking suggests that women who post a lot of photos on social Web sites like Facebook do so to get attention from other people. Just as shocking, the survey of 311 men and women (average age, 23) found that these women are also more likely to base their own feelings of self-worth on their appearance.

The odds for the Egyptian Revolution turning out well in the long term are growing steadily slimmer, amid growing evidence that the Egyptian military -- hitherto viewed as the protector of the Egyptian people -- simply isn't willing to tolerate certain kinds of dissent. And while I'm sure it wouldn't hesitate to oppress any and all forms of criticism, whatever the forum, it speaks volumes that one of the first prominent targets is a blogger.

With national elections looming on May 2, 21% of registered Canadian voters are using social media to politely talk about politics at least once a week, according to a new poll of 1,001 Canadian adults by Ipsos Reid carried out March 22-24. Meanwhile a hard core of 6% say they talk about politics daily on social media.

They're calling it "Gandhi 2.0": over the last week one of India's most respected political figures, Kisan Bapat Baburao Hazare, a.k.a. Anna Hazare, successfully employed the age-old tactic of fasting -- to death, if need be -- in order to force the government to act against rampant corruption; but where Gandhi himself relied on word-of-mouth, newspapers, and radio to spread awareness of his repeated public fasts, Hazare's hunger strike attracted global attention thanks to social media.

One of social media's big selling points is the high degree of user engagement it generally produces -- but paradoxically this "stickiness" may also be a liability, as heavily-engaged users are also less likely to follow links leading to sites outside the social media universe. At least, that's the conclusion I draw from some interesting research findings just released by ForeSee Results.

I've said it before, and now the GoDaddy debacle gives occasion to say it again. Social media is great, but even the most innovative social media strategy is futile when your company's top management is stupid, malicious, or both. I have absolutely no idea why GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons thought it was a good idea to post video of his elephant hunt in Zimbabwe on Twitter.

Social media is one of the main channels used by online bad guys to deliver malware to victims' computers, according to Symantec's latest Internet Security Threat Report, which also warned that more malware was being delivered to mobile devices (of course there's a great deal of potential for overlap between these two areas).

One of the most incredible things about social media is the sheer amount of information people post about themselves. And this isn't just a valuable resource for marketers: it's also valuable to the users, even if they aren't always aware of the potential treasures hidden in their profiles. That's where the apps come in. The most intriguing example I've found recently an app under development for the Clinton Global Initiative University, MTV, and the College Board, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.