Social networking

It's like Katie Holmes telling Tom Cruise she prefers Brad Pitt's movies. It's like Rupert Murdoch's wife googling a Wall Street Journal article to get past the paywall. It's like Reggie Bush telling Kim Kardashian that her sister Khloe is cuter than she is.

This is hurt, anguish, and embarrassment all wrapped up in one corporate migraine. The problem, you see, is that there are quite a few people at Microsoft who love the iPhone. At least that is what an article in The Wall Street Journal is suggesting.

The article offers stories of Steve Ballmer himself pretending to stomp on an employee's iPhone. It tells of Microsoft employees being sheepish about exposing their Apple-made contraptions in meetings. It even suggests that as many as 10 percent of Microsoft employees might be in the thrall of the Cupertino King.

Naturally, there will be those who suggest such behavior is heresy. Ballmer, according to the article, explains that when his father worked for Ford, the family only drove Fords. But in those days, corporations were slightly different beings than they are now. People believed they had a job that would last forever, rather than one that might not survive the next clever little financial ruse from some halfwit on Wall Street or the next pandering to Wall Street by a halfwitted CFO. Employees offered loyalty, because they thought it would be returned. What hope is there now of that?

It is, though, a ticklish area. Does an employee's preference for the iPhone suggest that Microsoft products aren't good enough? Why, yes it does. At least for them. But does that have to be a bad thing?… Read more

Andrey Ternovskiy, the 17-year-old Russian high school student who created Chatroulette, is this week visiting New York and San Francisco to chat with investors and programmers.

Perhaps with a little help, he can transform the site from a place where you're likely to stumble on someone playing with their private parts into a really useful video social-networking site.

It seems what Chatroulette mostly needs is separate channels so that users can more easily find people with similar interests. I personally don't have any problem with consenting adults having video chats in the buff, but it would be nice … Read more

AUSTIN, Texas--Privacy is not dead in the era of online social networking. It just needs careful curation.

That was the message Saturday from Danah Boyd, a social-media expert who works for Microsoft Research and who was Saturday's keynote speaker at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) festival here.

Boyd is one of the original social-media researchers, having spent years studying the dynamics of how systems like MySpace and Facebook impact teens and youth culture, and how that culture is impacting such services. But she also has demonstrated over the years a keen sense of how people across all age … Read more

I am writing this while wearing a rather cool sweatshirt that I put on for the occasion. I bought it at a 70 percent reduction. It is sort of a beige color, and it has a weird diagonal zip. It was designed by an Austrian.

What else would you like to know? I'll tell you anything. I want to be a truly modern human. A model human, really--one who just doesn't care what people know about me. One who will divulge anything to anyone. (Which, incidentally, many Europeans believe is exactly what Americans do on first meeting.)

You … Read more

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski laid out the "broadband plan for children and families" Friday at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

Referring to children as "our most precious national resource," Genachowski said "we must do everything we can to educate and prepare them to thrive in the 21st century and keep them safe." New technologies, he said, "can expose our children to new dangers, and can potentially outpace the ability of parents to guide their children."

Genachowski had a mostly positive view of technology for kids, … Read more

Sometimes, we say things we just don't mean. Or, more accurately, that we really do mean, but we wish we hadn't said in public.

Still, with fewer people seeming to care about privacy anymore, the untoward consequences of our free expressions can be costly. It seems, for example, that saying something nasty to your ex-girlfriend on Facebook might cost you 165 British pounds (around $250).

According to the Telegraph, Darren Mattox, a 29-year-old from Wrexham, Wales, confessed in court to writing something "grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene, or menacing character" to a Facebook friend … Read more

Google Buzz reminds me of what they say about the weather in a lot of places I've lived: if you don't like it, wait five minutes.

Those who wrote off Google's social networking tool as an annoying source of clutter should take note of some efforts to reform that aspect of Buzz.

"We've heard loud and clear that buzz in your inbox can get noisy--we feel it too," the Google Buzz team said in a Buzz on Thursday. Two changes, currently in testing to work with Gmail's 50 supported languages, are coming as … Read more

Apple normally offers a very simple message about its products. Often, there's not even a tagline.

So it's curious that at Apple.com, the company emits these words: "A magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price. Coming April 3."

I know that this almost Wal-Martesque offer is making many senses tingle. People are wondering how soon they can put in their iPad pre-orders.

Well, according to TUAW, Apple has confirmed that if you are poised over your Mac at 5:30 a.m. PST Friday, you will be able to go to Apple.com and … Read more

It's been proven of late that some on Wall Street are dishonest people who might not even think once about stealing whatever they can get their hands on.

However, this rampant disease of thieving seems to have spread to the corners of Madison Avenue. No, not to the sweet, confused coke-snorters of the advertising world (there aren't many of them left on Madison these days), but to bike thieves.

According to CBS2 New York, there was Austin Horse, a bike messenger, who had just hopped off his saddle to make a routine delivery to an address on Madison … Read more