This morning, three women in Starbucks turned to me, smiled, gave me their cards and suggested I come to their houses for chardonnay and vinegar chips anytime I wanted.

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you there. I was just practicing my Facebook status updates.

Given that I don't really do that Facebook thing much, this hasn't been easy. But I have moved by research from the great university of Harvard telling me that if I want to seek sexual pleasure outside of direct carnality, I should simply boast on Facebook.

I can feel you calling … Read more

YoVille players starting posting complaints on the gaming company's forum about a month ago. Strange happenings were afoot -- players' virtual items were stolen and not returned and some players' property supply was completely depleted.

Apparently, the game had been hacked. According to the tech news site VentureBeat, hackers disrupted YoVille's gameplay for about 1,000 players during a couple weeks of April. "The Best YoVille Hackers" claimed responsibility for the hack.

"We detected unusual activity in YoVille, and it coincided with reports from a small number of users," Zynga's chief security officer … Read more

If you hate Facebook social readers as much as the next guy, you'll probably love hearing that the tools, which let you share articles you're reading, are tanking.

In a post on BuzzFeed today, we find that social readers from publications as diverse as The Washington Post, The Guardian UK, Daily Motion, and others, are collapsing. Essentially, users are abandoning the tools in droves. For example, The Washington Post, which grew its social reader to nearly 18 million users last month, has subsequently seen that number crater -- it's sitting at 9.2 million today, according to … Read more

commentary Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson will likely come to regret his decision to declare a patent war against Facebook. Even if Yahoo does manage to win its case in the courts, he won't be sticking around to savor the victory.

The former PayPal president is under attack by Yahoo investors and the tech world for allegedly inflating his college credentials. His official Yahoo bio said he earned a bachelor's degree in accounting and computer science from Stonehill College, when he only has an accounting degree from his alma mater.

Yahoo called the issue an "inadvertent error" … Read more

My students at Columbia Journalism School came up with a creative idea last year for a scholarship fundraiser. Instead of the usual bake sales and T-shirt sales, they decided to use social media in an unusual way.

The idea: #SilenceSree Day - getting others to donate money to keep me off Twitter and Facebook for an entire day. Last year at this time, more than 100 people contributed a total of $1,172.25. More than the total, it was more interesting to me that so many people from inside and outside the university chipped in.

Today is #SilenceSree Day … Read more

If you look under your seat, you might find a new Oprah Winfrey game designed by star game maker Jane McGonigal's Superbetter Labs.

The new project, called Oprah's Thank You Game, was announced today with the specific -- and ambitious -- goal of "spreading the positive emotion of gratitude to half a billion people worldwide."

"Once someone clicks on the 'I said thank you' button," the game's Web site reads, "they will be taken to the game on Facebook to record their thank you and participate in other exciting game elements -- … Read more

Dear Friends (the real kind and social media kind):

Let's Kristofize! (Or Kristofise, if you prefer the British version of this made-up word.)

Nick Kristof (@NickKristof), the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist (he was a finalist this year, too -- but hey, they need to spread the wealth) is someone who uses his talents and platform to make a real difference in the lives of people around the world.

Whether he's saving girls from brothels in Cambodia, bringing attention to the troubles in Darfur, or talking about the environment in a serious-yet-accessible way, Kristof has done … Read more

It's been more than a week since Facebook's blockbuster acquisition of Instagram, and many people are still confused about the deal. It's understandable -- the $1 billion acquisition happened in the span of 48 hours between two CEOs rather than over the course of weeks between two armies of lawyers.

Facebook and Instagram consistently defy convention though, and that's one of many things you need to understand about both companies -- they are anomalies rather than the norm, even in the fast-paced world of tech startups.

I've seen countless reporters and bloggers question the valuation (… Read more

A fair number of consumers in the United States are relying on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to help them with medical and health care issues.

Polling 1,060 U.S. adults in February, PricewaterhouseCoopers found that a third use social media to find medical information, research and share symptoms, and offer their opinions about doctors, drugs, treatments, and heath plans.

One in four of those surveyed said they've used social-media services to track down reviews from other consumers about treatments and doctors, while one in three have searched for information about medical ailments related by other … Read more