By Adriana Lee |
In May, a TechnoBuffalo alumni reached a new milestone. Damon Brown, journalist, blogger, and former TB writer released a new book in collaboration with TED Books called Our Virtual Shadow: Why We Are Obsessed with Documenting Our Lives Online. Although our time with him was…
By Adriana Lee |
Some people long for small-town life — to live in a heartwarming place where everyone knows your name and your neighbors have your back. But these days, one could argue that the whole world is like one, well-connected community. At least that’s what a New…
By Adriana Lee |
Jennie Lamere was the only female to present a completed project at a national coding competition in Boston. At just 17 years old, she’s a lone tech-head at her all-girls school and wound up being the only participant in the TVnext Hack event to work…
By Todd Haselton |
Angry Birds Friends, the popular Facebook social game, is now available on iOS and Android devices. The premise is similar to what you can expect from other Angry Birds franchise titles, but instead of playing solo you’re actually competing for high scores and power ups…
By Adriana Lee |
Is there anything about social media that researchers haven’t yet zoomed in on? This time, the study (.pdf) comes from a Carnegie Mellon Ph.D. student and a Facebook staffer, who reveal that most Facebook users tend to self-censor their comments at the last minute before posting.…
By FOX Business |
Here’s another reason to watch what you say online: it may cost you your friends. A new survey finds people are getting ruder on Facebook and user tolerance is wearing thin. VitalSmarts, a corporate training firm, found two in five social media users have ended…
By Adriana Lee |
Bad news, folks. The Twitter Music iOS app is not launching today as originally expected, nor is it arriving this weekend — at least, not for the masses. If you’re famous, however, that’s another story entirely. Yesterday AllThingsD pegged a Friday release, to line up…
By Adriana Lee |
LinkedIn has always aimed to connect its 200 million users with each other, and now its finetuning that approach with a new unified search tool that makes professional content easier to find. There’s now a single search box at the top of the page that…
By Sean P. Aune |
Netflix has announced integration with Facebook that will now make it possible to get social recommendations of what you should watch next. At long last you can see what your Facebook friends are watching on Netflix, and, in turn, you can share with them what…
By Adriana Lee |
Technology can only go so far. Despite the ubiquity of consumer devices, the Internet and social media, there are still some things that need to be handled with grace, compassion and a real live human touch. Take Anna Lamb-Creasey’s ordeal, for instance. The Georgia mother…
By Adriana Lee |
Although Facebook may be the darling of the social webs, number two ain’t so bad. Twitter’s rise to prominence has made it a fundamental component of strategic promotions for advertisers, financial institutions, entertainment companies, journalists, and plenty of others. But it shouldn’t get too smug…
By Todd Haselton |
The hacking collective Anonymous claimed responsibility on Monday for hacking Burger King’s Twitter account, filling it with drug references and changing the name to McDonalds. On the surface it was, admittedly, a bit humorous. There’s a deeper story here, though, and it’s the risks that…
By Adriana Lee |
Did Facebook poach its iconic “like” button? That’s the heart of a case being brought to court on behalf of deceased Dutch programmer Joannes Jozef Everardus Van Der Meer. The key argument is a simple matter of timeline. (No pun intended.) Six years before his death…
By Maximum PC |
Teenage girl plans to buy “stuff” with the $200 she’ll receive for quitting Facebook. An interesting story about a 14-year-old daughter who convinced her dad to pay her to suspend Facebook for five months is making the rounds. Paul Baier, a research consultant in Boston, posted an image on…
By Todd Haselton |
Instagram announced Tuesday that it has added several features to its web client that make it more similar to the features on its mobile applications for iOS and Android. In a note to users, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom said the focus was always on the…
By Adriana Lee |
Facebook’s new Graph Search has set the Internet abuzz since it was unveiled this week, as business pundits and social media experts weigh in on what this could mean for the nature of online privacy, the company’s own monetization strategies as well as for the…
By Adriana Lee |
Would you pay to guarantee that your Facebook messages end up in recipients’ inboxes, even if they’re not connected to you? The company seems to think so, having launched a new — and utterly ridiculous — test program. Sure, plenty of people and businesses would…
By Adriana Lee |
It’s like the ultimate prank, one that’s guaranteed to turn you into the most loathed contact this side of the social webs. Turns out, nearly anyone can freeze another’s Facebook page via “Memorialization.” The feature is intended to hold Facebook profiles for deceased people, so that…
By Adriana Lee |
Social media can be a tremendous force for good during an emergency. News agencies and local governments can disseminate urgent alerts in an instant, providing valuable information to a distraught public. Unfortunately, as services like Twitter are user-driven and unfiltered, plenty of errant info can…
By Adriana Lee |
Facebook gets a lot of tongues wagging, whether for its failed IPO, ever-changing privacy policies, advertising schemes or startup-guzzling buys. None of that, however, seems to affect its standing among employees. They’ve weighed in and expressed their love for the company, restoring it as the…
By Adriana Lee |
With years of photo uploads, status updates and the accumulation of friends, you’ve amassed quite a collection of info inside Facebook, whether you know it or not. And the social network hangs on to every bit of that. It can be pretty bracing to see…
By Adriana Lee |
Facebook is soooooo over, says Bradley Horowitz, Google VP of product for Google+. It’s just not set up for the way people really want to interact, i.e. having conversations with a few friends rather than broadcasting it to their whole network of “friends.” And those ads? Oh,…
By Adriana Lee |
Facebook. For many people it’s either a reason for living or the most colossal waste of time. (Sometimes, it’s both.) But if the latest research holds true, it could also be something else — a driver for obesity and poverty. These are the findings of…
By Sean P. Aune |
Checking-in on social apps is all the rage these days, but what if it could else help out a charity at the same time? That is exactly what Kyck, the soccer social network, is encouraging its users to do. Through Nov. 14, all anyone has…
