Zynga, the titan of time-wasting, is broadening its distribution base with a new social network called "Zynga With Friends," where players can build profiles and connect with other players while wasting epic amounts of time, according to the company, which announced the plans on Tuesday. In addition to giving gamers a new go-to destination for flushing their lives down the toilet, the move is interesting because Zynga With Friends will be an alternative to Facebook, where most Zynga games are currently played.

Facebook appeared to surprise many users Monday by automatically changing the email address in their online profiles to one provided by Facebook's own email service... A Facebook spokesman said in a statement that the Menlo Park, Calif., company had informed users in April it would update email addresses "to make them consistent across our site." -- The Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2012

It seems to be an eternal truth: parents always try to monitor their teens to prevent them from doing stupid, self-destructive things, and the teens always succeed in evading them. The latest iteration is occurring online, with social media, where the kids frolicking with risk-taking abandon right under the noses of their elders.

Yesterday the world seemed a dark, lonely place for millions of Twitter users who discovered the site was down for about an hour beginning around noon, with several subsequent outages of shorter duration. As shockwaves from this event continue to circle the world, we're forced to confront the terrifying possibility: it could happen again. Although we can't allow ourselves to live in fear, it's worth thinking about contingency plans for such an eventuality. What will we do? How will we handle it? Below are some suggestions for dealing with another Twitter outage.

Most big companies around the world are using social media for a variety of purposes, but they're failing to effectively integrate it into their overall corporate strategies, according to a new global survey and study from InSites Consulting. On the positive side, U.S. companies are leading the pack when it comes to basic adoption.

While "Kansas City Twitter" sounds like a dance step circa 1919, in fact it represents the cutting edge in social media and sporting events: the government of Kansas City recently announced that it is forming dedicated social media teams formed to monitor Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare during the upcoming Major League Baseball All-Star Game, scheduled for July 10. The social media teams, operating from the national headquarters of H&R Block in downtown Kansas City, will answer questions from fans, keep a look out for signs of trouble, and also help disseminate information in case of emergencies. The teams are composed …

When revolution erupted in Egypt in January 2011, there was no denying the key role played by social media, which allowed dissidents to organize protests that eventually toppled the regime of Hosni Mubarak. But revolutions can succeed or fail, and judging by the latest developments, with the Egyptian military effectively neutering the National Assembly and presidency, the revolution there is failing. So what does that mean for social media?

In addition to connecting people and (maybe) serving as an advertising platform, social media can be used to predict a variety of phenomena, according to scientists who are mining the huge volume of conversations and opinions posted online and linking this data to real-world outcomes. One recent example comes from physicists at Japan's Tottori University, who say they've come up with a model which correlates a number of factors, including social media buzz, to the box office success of new movie releases. The model also takes into account the amount of money spent on advertising a movie before its release, …

It has been difficult if not impossible to get a handle on how much Google+ is actually growing, and how deeply it has engaged its user base, for the simple reason that Google only provides selected usage stats -- essentially, the total membership and a few other less-than-dispositive quantifiers. However other data, from sources like comScore, suggests that users aren't spending much time on Google+, while data from RJ Metrics seems to show abysmally low rates of posting and related activity.

While Pinterest is trying to get more male users on board in the U.S., men aren't invited to a new social network launching in Australia. The network, called ConnectPink, is being launched on June 15 by Fairfax Media Australia as a forum to bring together Aussie ladies -- especially the four million women living in rural areas, who have a harder time socializing face-to-face.