Social media News

Op-Ed: 5 social media tips for small business

Small business owners are increasingly leveraging social media as a promotion and sales tool. A recent LinkedIn study showed that 81 percent of small to mid-sized businesses are using social media, but how many are using it effectively?

Op-Ed: Who is responsible for celebrity invasion of privacy?

Modern-day celebrities are subject to voicemail hacking, leaked photography of a personal nature and the persistent presence of paparazzi. Who is responsible for this invasion of privacy? Is the power of social media to blame?

A new study reveals why most brands fail on Twitter

Twitter is a powerful social media platform, with more than 284 million monthly active users, and more than 500 million tweets sent every day.

Are social media-driven sites a failing fad? Special

Some computer gurus tell us that social media participation is declining from “participation plateau,” caused by too many demands on time, yet as some sites see numbers reduced, there is more to social media activity than what those numbers show.

Snapchat introduces 'Discover' in new update

Snapchat released a new update Tuesday which included the new Discover feature, which allows content creators to share information through stories on the Snapchat platform.

Social media use does not increase stress, says study

A new study from Washington DC-based think-tank Pew Research Center has concluded that social media use in not associated with higher levels of stress.

Facebook may know you better than friends and family, says study

A recent study from Stanford University and the University of Cambridge has found that a computer with data from a person's Facebook “likes” was better able to predict that individual's personality than most of their friends and family.

How Facebook influences voter participation

2015 will be an interesting year for politics. Whether you love it or hate it, social media is completely changing the landscape of voter participation, one Facebook post at a time.

What you need to know about the beefed-up Facebook Graph

Have you ever tried to track down an old Facebook conversation, only to send up lost in your own timeline? What if you could find it by simply typing in a few keywords from the relevant status updates?

Scientists say social media not accurate for sociological studies

Scientists at two universities have determined that social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are not representative of society in general and should not be used for studies.

Facebook users often unable to tell real from fraudulent links

An exhaustive, multi-year study of malware and phishing scams present on Facebook reveals that users often have a hard time distinguishing between real Facebook links and harmful viruses.

Thai junta leader Prayuth wants media blackout for ex PM Thaksin

Bangkok - Thailand’s military junta head Prayuth Chan-ocha has asked the national media to “stop reporting" about former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Spain's National Police gain interest on Instagram with hunky cop

Madrid - Spain's National Police have been beefing up their social media presence recently. Having already gained a huge following on Twitter, they are now a great hit on Instagram, after posting a photo of a muscular and very attractive anti-riot police officer.

114-year-old woman forced to lie about her age to join Facebook

While social media is undoubtedly most popular with younger generations, Facebook also has an older presence — but some are actually too old for the website to handle.

Op-Ed: The murky future of Google+: Doomed, or primed for a comeback?

As Ello enters the social media world with enough vigor to challenge Facebook for its users, what might happen to the slumbering social giant, Google+?

Twitter invests $10 million in MIT social media lab

Twitter is giving every tweet on its network to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, as well as a $10 million investment, to create a hub to better learn how to understand and use social networks.

Why your Facebook friends are inviting you to join Ello

In the past few days, you might have noticed your Facebook community pushing you to join Ello, a new social network best known for being ad-free. But what else should you know about this hot new startup?

New 'secure' social network Lassoh empowers users' privacy

A new social-networking app seeking funding on Indiegogo right now aims to hand total control over security and privacy to its users, creating a much safer site than the heavyweights like Facebook and Twitter. Here we take a quick look at their campaign.

Op-Ed: Facebook becomes way to share loved ones final days Special

Round Lake - In life's final days, my childhood friend used Facebook to share the last moments she spent with her grandmother. Increasingly, we see Facebook being used as a memorial tribute for loved ones who pass.

SmartWatches are so yesterday — Introducing the SmartRing

As Samsung, Apple and Co. are all launching their own takes on the SmartWatches, MOTA, a US company based in the Silicon Valley with its award-winning design team, has designed the next step in the high-tech consumer electronics: the SmartRing!

Dutch artist fakes five-week trip through southeast Asia

Amsterdam - In an effort to show how much we manipulate situations on the social media, Zilla van den Born from Amsterdam pretended to take a five-week trip away in southeast Asia, all the while keeping her friends on Facebook updated with photos of her great trip.

Op-Ed: Robots, the Cloud and robot banks — Utopia? Maybe, maybe not

Sydney - The robots are coming, but not the way you’d expect. They’re about to replace the suits, and perhaps even declutter your home. Spooky? Much more than that. There’s a “vision of excellence," and you know what that means — chaos.

The image that sparked a social media hate campaign in France

This innocent photograph of eight kindergarten children in Paris, posted on the Facebook page of the French Ministry of Education last Monday, has since received a storm of insults and racist comments, because of the children’s skin colour.

Using social media to track diseases like Ebola

A new report argues that algorithms that map social media posts and mobile phone data can help researchers track epidemics.

Op-Ed: Paywalls for news sites are doomed by bloggers

It's a question as old as the Internet itself: How do website owners make money from a traditionally free medium? As sites like the Washington Post erect "paywalls" to force readers to subscribe, it is time to re-examine the controversial practice.

Review: Allvoices web site tries to make itself forgettable Special

San Francisco - Even the founder of the citizen journalist site “Allvoices” appears to want to forget what had seemed, at least for awhile, as a noble attempt to empower the analog world.

Op-Ed: Using Facebook 'Likes' to predict personality can be dangerous Special

Speaking the truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act, so said George Orwell, author of "1984." Computers and the Internet have not only made the most significant advances in our lives possible, it has also been an unwitting betrayer.