social

Facebook, attorneys general kick off online safety campaign

Facebook and the National Association of Attorneys General for the U.S. have signed a deal that will see the world's largest social network educate both kids and parents on Internet safety.

Facebook has been the subject of much debate among attorneys general around the U.S. who have been concerned about children's safety on the social network. Facebook has said for years that it has worked on ensuring the protection of children, and has aided attorneys general from time to time with cases or issues they're working on.

This agreement, the latest between the parties, is … Read more

Flipboard: Your Social News Magazine 2.0 Review

In an age of information overload, apps like Flipboard provide the much- needed organization and curation tools to keep it all in one place. By taking your RSS subscriptions, Twitter account, Facebook account, and other online accounts and combining them into one easy-to-use interface, Flipboard simplifies the consumption of information on an iPad and makes it faster and easier than ever before to get what you need from your device.

When you first open Flipboard, you'll be prompted to create an account. This account will store all of your subscriptions, and you can choose to either create a new … Read more

Study: Anxiety and alcohol use linked to Facebook

In a quest to learn what leads some people to turn to Facebook to connect with others, doctoral student Russell Clayton of the Missouri School of Journalism found that anxiety and alcohol use seem to play a big role.

For his master's thesis, which appears in the May issue of Computers in Human Behavior, Clayton surveyed more than 225 college freshman about two emotions, anxiety and loneliness, and two behaviors, alcohol and marijuana use. He found that the students who reported both higher levels of anxiety and greater alcohol use also appeared the most emotionally connected with Facebook. Those … Read more

Foursquare raises $41M in debt deal with Silver Lake, others

Foursquare has been able to raise a whopping $41 million, but the funding hasn't come in the form you might expect.

The company announced the news today, saying the cash came from a host of well-known Silicon Valley investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, and others. However, rather than give those firms equity, Foursquare raised the $41 million through a combination of tapping into the Silver Lake Waterman growth debt fund, as well as asking for convertible debt from the aforementioned investors, among others.

The cash raised helps Foursquare fund its growth and also aids the company in … Read more

Facebook members in U.K. must pay to hob-knob with celebs

Facebook users in the U.K. are being treated to the same premium charges their counterparts in the U.S. have been hit with when sending messages to certain high-profile members on the social network, as well as people outside their circle of friends.

According to U.K. news site The Sunday Times, Facebook users in the U.K. late last week started being charged as much as 10 British pounds (about $15) to send messages to celebrity-status Facebook members. Olympic diver Tom Daley and former Children's laureate Michael Rosen are the most expensive celebrities to contact.

Facebook last year announced what it called a "small experiment" … Read more

Facebook Home faces hurdles getting on iOS

Facebook's flashy, new phone software is Android only for now, but it might not be that way forever, the company said today.

When asked about whether the software was headed to Apple's mobile platform anytime soon, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn't count it out, but noted that such a feature would require cooperation.

"We have a great relationship with Apple," Zuckerberg told reporters in a Q&A session after the unveiling of Home. "Anything that happens with Apple is going to happen with partnership. Google's Android is open so we don't … Read more

Facebook launches Chat Heads for staying in touch with friends

Facebook today unveiled its new Chat Head feature for Android devices, giving users a way to stay in constant contact with friends, no matter what they're doing on their mobile devices.

Whenever someone messages you either through text or chat messaging, a small photo of the person will pop up at the top of your screen. It will initially show a brief preview so you know what the message is about. While the preview will go away, the Chat Head image will remain on the top of the screen, no matter what app you access or what else you … Read more

EA treading into social networking territory?

Gaming company Electronic Arts has come out with something totally new -- a free music and photo social networking app called Vue.

No, it's not a social network focused game. It's simply a social network.

The question is -- why did a gaming company create a social networking app? It's not yet entirely clear. According to Venture Beat, it is a "low-budget exploratory project" started by EA Partners group.

The premise of Vue is to find songs on music services like Spotify and Rdio, pair them with personal photos, and then share the package with … Read more

Tech firms may balk at California push for citizen data access

The European Union has long championed its citizens' right to submit requests for data that companies hold on them in order to ensure the information is up to date and correct. In recent years, an Austrian law student brought this "habeas data" right into the public spotlight by demanding his Facebook data from the social network.

Americans don't have this right -- and generally, relative to the EU, they have little legal protection from the state or federal government against data theft, unauthorized disclosures, and other privacy-related matters.

Though the EU and the U.S. have never … Read more