Social Media

Even more reasons to watch what we say on social media

WeKnowWhatYoureDoing has gotten a lot of attention lately. This "experiment" by an 18-year-old programmer from England puts awkward Facebook status updates in the public spotlight -- as my CNET News colleague Amanda Kooser  (@akooser) so aptly put it last week. From her post:

We Know What You're Doing shakes out into four categories in the form of questions: Who wants to get fired? Who's hungover? Who's taking drugs? Who's got a new phone number?

All it takes to land in the spotlight is a fitting keyword and a failure to have your … Read more

MetroTwit app hits Windows 8 store

The Twitter client MetroTwit is now a full-fledged Metro app available free through Microsoft's Windows store.

MetroTwit users who install the app in the Windows 8 Release Preview will find it similar in many ways to its Windows desktop counterpart.

The app starts off by displaying a column for your traditional Twitter timeline. Clicking on a tweet opens an app bar at the bottom of the screen with a variety of options. You can view the tweet full-screen, reply to it, retweet it, and mark it as a favorite. More options let you open the tweet at Twitter's … Read more

Using social media to bring attention to nonprofits

Until a few years ago, the main way to show your support for a charity was to send in an annual check. As digital and social media evolved, the number of ways you could support your favorite charities has grown.

Sending money, of course, remains, the single most important way to support nonprofits. But social-media users have learned that you can also have an impact by paying with something else. Attention -- your own attention and your friends' attention.

Hitting "Like" or "Share" or retweeting a post from a nonprofit can bring awareness to new circles … Read more

Facebook's stock is bouncing back -- for now

Don't look now, but Facebook shares have been on the rise for the last three trading days. Last Wednesday, the social network's stock stood at $27.24. It closed today at $31.41, a 15 percent rise in less than a week.

So far, Facebook has recovered more than $10 billion of the $35 billion in market capitalization it blew off following its disastrous IPO. Facebook's painful low of $25.52 -- just 12 days ago! -- is now starting to fade a bit.

There are many possible reasons for Facebook's recent rise. The company has … Read more

Social-media-savvy ESPN show is a year-round Father's Day tribute

Outspoken (which might be the gentlest thing anyone's said about him) Miami sports journalist Dan Le Batard has a show on ESPN2 (4:30 pm ET weekdays; back on the air Wednesday, June 20), "Dan Le Batard is Highly Questionable" and it consists of him answering sports questions from viewers. Nothing unusual so far, except for the title.

But it's unusual for a lot of reasons.

USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA: One of them is how well it uses social media. It was the first show I saw to display its Twitter hashtag, #DLHQ, on the screen … Read more

CNET Road Trip 2012: Geeking out on the West Coast

For the last seven years, I've had the chance to explore much of the United States (and Europe) as part of my annual CNET Road Trip project.

In the U.S., these trips have taken me through the Northeast, the Rocky Mountain region, the Southeast, the Southwest, and the Pacific Northwest, and in each of those regions I've gone in search of stories, photos, and videos about some of the best geek-oriented destinations I can find.

Yet, despite those many long journeys along America's roadways, I've never explored CNET's own backdoor -- California. So this … Read more

Facebook ads are effective, says new study

Do Facebook ads influence members to buy stuff? A new ComScore study says yes.

In advance of the study's publication next week, ComScore analyst Andrew Lipsman discussed the impact of Facebook advertising, saying that "Facebook earned media is having a statistically significant positive lift on people's purchasing of a brand."

The conclusions reached by ComScore run counter to recent a Reuters/Ipsos survey claiming that most Facebook members aren't influenced to buy products and services that appear in ads or comments.

But ComScore questions the accuracy of such surveys, saying that people don't necessarily … Read more

Facebook to reveal cyberbullies who harassed woman

Facebook will comply with an order from the U.K.'s High Court to reveal the identities of cyberbullies who targeted a woman with abusive comments.

Nicola Brookes appealed to the court after she was falsely labeled a pedophile and drug dealer by fellow Facebook members who set up a fake profile page of her on the site, according to the Guardian. The abuse allegedly started after Brookes posted a comment supporting a contestant on the British TV show "X Factor."

The order, which Facebook has not yet received since it must physically be delivered in the U.… Read more

Here's to the generous side of social media

It's become fashionable in some quarters to bash various aspects of social media. Whether it's the Facebook IPO, or mostly apocryphal stories about criminals using residents' status updates to rob empty homes, or complaints about users wasting time on different platforms. Most skeptics happen to be non-users (or light users) of social media, but I'm not using this post to push back against them.

Instead, I want to highlight an attribute of social media that is vastly overlooked by skeptics and most observers. That attribute: Generosity.

NOT JUST NARCISSISTS: Social media rightly has the reputation of being … Read more