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Are women on Facebook a bunch of lying liars?

The Telegraph published an article titled "Why women constantly lie about life on Facebook." My first thought was, "Do they really?" I'm a woman on Facebook. I'm not constantly lying about my life.

It turns out the article with the somewhat inflammatory title is about a survey commissioned by Pencourage, a social-media site with where people post anonymous journal-like entries. According to the results, nearly one in four women admitted to exaggerating or lying about key aspects of their lives on social media between one and three times per month. The survey of 2,000 women was conducted by OnePoll.… Read more

Facebook redesigns Timeline to clean up the mess

Facebook said today that members soon will see a new, cleaned-up version of Timeline. The redesign comes nearly a year and a half after the social network first debuted Timeline, a radical take on the member profile page as a vehicle for storytelling.

The new Facebook Timeline, which begins rolling out to members today, dumps the two-column posting format for a single column of posts and life events.

"We heard from you that the current timeline layout is sometimes hard to read. Starting today, all posts are on the right side of your timeline, with photos, music and other … Read more

Netflix, Facebook hook up in U.S. at last

It was a long time coming: Netflix users in the U.S. can now reveal their viewing habits and tastes to their Facebook friends.

Netflix announced today that its U.S. members will be able to connect to Facebook and agree to share favorite TV shows and movies on Netflix. The company will be turning on the feature "over the coming days" and expects that all U.S. members will have access to the social feature by the end of the week.

"By default, sharing will only happen on Netflix," Cameron Johnson, director of product innovation … Read more

Your Facebook Likes may reveal more than you probably like

Facebook users' Likes on the social network may be unintentionally revealing their personality traits, sexual orientation, and intelligence, according to a study published today.

By studying the Likes of 58,000 Facebook users on the social network, researchers at the University of Cambridge say they were able to determine users' IQ, gender, sexual orientation, political and religious beliefs, and even substance use, with an accuracy rate of more than 80 percent

Expressions of approval on the social network for things such as photos, friends' status updates, as well as pages for sports, musicians, and books, were analyzed by researchers employing … Read more

If Grumpy Cat is the biggest news of all, is SXSW in trouble?

AUSTIN, Texas -- Talk to just about anyone who has been at South by Southwest this year, and there's really no doubt what was the biggest news of all: Grumpy Cat.

On the one hand a sweet little cat with a facial expression that looks annoyed, and on the other one, of the biggest Internet memes of the last year, Grumpy Cat has been the unquestioned biggest star of SXSW, thanks to Mashable, which managed to bring the famous kitty to the world's most important interactive conference so that tons of her biggest fans could meet her.

Never … Read more

Fake Facebook pages promise free gifts in exchange for 'Likes'

A new hoax is making the rounds on Facebook, promising to give away expensive personal electronics items in exchange for a simple "Like."

One of the earliest examples of this hoax popped up a couple of days ago, inviting Facebook users to "Like" a page for a chance to be randomly picked to receive high-end headphones from Beats Electronics that allegedly couldn't be sold because they had been unsealed. Here is the text of the fake promotion:

We have got 1,239 boxes of Dre Beats and 250 Monster Beats By Dr Dre Studio Limited … Read more

Facebook acquires blogging site Storylane

Facebook has acquired the team behind storytelling platform Storylane, a blogging site akin to the likes of the slower-paced Medium.

Storylane founder Jonathan Gheller posted the news to the site today, assuring Storylane members that Facebook isn't buying any of the site's user-generated content:

This is an exciting opportunity. Facebook's mission of connecting the world has always been at the center of our work, and like our friends at Facebook, meaningful connections are what our team is most passionate about.

The beautiful stories you have decided to share with us are yours to keep and share in … Read more

Facebook apps can now broadcast your fitness, entertainment habits

Facebook is letting the third-party apps that track some of your lifestyle habits -- exercising, reading, and movie or TV-watching -- post more of your activities to the Timeline.

"We want people who use your apps to be excited about how their stories are presented in News Feed -- whether they're sharing a major life moment, like their first marathon, or something smaller, like finishing a book they were reading," Facebook engineer Dan Giambalvo wrote in a blog post to app developers.

This means if you use apps like Runkeeper, Goodreads, or Hulu, the apps can post … Read more

Photoshop this Mark Zuckerberg pic: The results are in

Toss a creative challenge at CNET readers and they always step up. Yesterday, we asked for help jazzing up the above picture of Mark Zuckerberg speaking to the media at Facebook's event.

The company announced changes to its News Feed, with Zuckerberg repeatedly using the phrase "personalized newspaper" to describe the direction of the site's core feature. We thought this photo needed a bit of personalization itself, and that's where our readers came in. Zombies and superheroes, anyone? … Read more

Friday Poll: What's your top social-media news source?

Facebook rolled out its big News Feed news yesterday. The result is more emphasis on photos and a "following" tab that will let users actually see all the updates from pages and people that they want to, instead of relying on Facebook's mysterious algorithm to deliver posts to their attention.

If this sounds a lot like the way Twitter works, that's not a coincidence. Twitter has a reputation as a breaking news source, a place to follow the commentary as it happens. The Facebook changes could put it in a similar position. All you would do is hit up the "following" tab to watch the information flow in from your favorite sources.… Read more