Social Networking

Goodbye Facebook

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Joe Caiati outlines his reasons for pulling the plug on Facebook, including the ability to use Twitter to keep up-to-date. If I had to choose between Twitter and Facebook, I’d probably make the same choice, but there are plenty of people that still get a lot out of Facebook. I think it’s the people that use it as a small personal network of friends instead of trying to build a massive network of people they don’t know.

Socl

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Microsoft officials have described Socl as a kind of mash-up of social-networking and search that is designed to get the learning communities to start thinking about how to use collaboration technologies in new ways. And according to the Softies and contrary to popular rumors, Socl is not an attempt to take on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler or Pinterest.

I don’t get it.

Goldfinch for Twitter and Facebook

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Goldfinch helps you keep up with the best articles, photos and videos shared by your friends and followers on Twitter and Facebook.

Looks interesting if you are very active on both social networking platforms.

An exclusive social network

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Joe Caiati:

For many, the lure of an exclusive social network and the lust for reaching the masses will keep most attached to both services; including myself. As much as I would rather just be navigating to one unified service, App.net has the potential to disrupt my social experience. A disruption that can turn out to be pleasant surprise or another failed startup.

Joe brings up some good points about App.net. It’s intriguing, but right now people are splitting their time between the two. Until it gains critical mass, we really won’t know how it will do. But the price — any price — may stop that in its tracks.

Many have asked if I supported App.net. I tried but something happened during the sign-up process. I contacted them via the support email and tried on Twitter to get a response, but never heard back. So, no I didn’t pay for the service, but I would have.

Muxi: A professional social network

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Composed of 40 fraternities, Muxi offers its users a platform where they can share their experience, ask questions, find colleagues and more generally connect with people doing the same job.

Not the first professional social network, but they seem to be incorporating some of the things that have worked in other networks. It’ll be interesting to watch.

The need for ‘Like’ and ‘Tweet’ buttons

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Shawn Blanc:

When I redesigned this site I considered every element and asked myself why it was there and what purpose it served.

I did the same thing when I redesigned The Loop last September, but I kept the Tweet and Google+ buttons because I thought readers used them. If nobody is using the buttons on the page, I’d gladly get rid of them.

Kicking LinkedIn to the curb

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Om Malik:

Infact I get so much unwanted email from the service and from people I don’t know and don’t want to know. Today, I got so frustrated with the whole email thing, that I shut down the account. Done! I will give them full credit for making it much easier than say Facebook to delete my account.

I must say this is similar to my experience with LinkedIn. I did use it when I left Macworld to show recommendations, but that’s about it.

The global, socially conscious consumer

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Around the world, companies have invested time, talent and treasure in social and environmental efforts for a range of complementary reasons. For many companies, cause marketing—the use of social and environmental efforts to build a brand and increase profits—has been a secondary if not primary motivation.

Facebook settles with the FTC

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Reuters: Facebook has agreed to settle an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission into deceptive privacy practices, committing to cease making false claims and to submit to independent audits for 20 years.

Facebook’s $100 billion IPO

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WSJ: The social networking firm is now targeting a time frame of April to June 2012 for an initial public offering, said people familiar with the matter. The company is exploring raising $10 billion in its IPO—what would be one … Continued

∞ The problem with Stamped

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The problem with Stamped is that it correlates popularity of your stamps to quality. It makes the assumption that because you like something – and use up one of your “limited stamps” to demonstrate this as a showing of quality – that others will be inclined to agree or incited to try out whatever you stamped. I don’t think that could be further from the truth.

I agree.

∞ Facebook denies it tracks users

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Emil Protalinski for ZDNet: “Facebook does not track users across the web,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “Instead, we use cookies on social plugins to personalize content (e.g. Show you what your friends liked), to help maintain and … Continued

∞ Why Google wants your real name

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Dave Winer: There’s a very simple business reason why Google cares if they have your real name. It means it’s possible to cross-relate your account with your buying behavior with their partners, who might be banks, retailers, supermarkets, hospitals, airlines. … Continued

∞ Google+ comes to iPhone

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If you’ve hopped on the latest social networking bandwagon and gotten a Google+ account, you may be interested in the new Google+ app for iPhone. It’s available for free download from the App Store.