Social Networking | featured news

Clicking those friendly blue "like" buttons strewn across the Web may be doing more than marking you as a fan of Coca-Cola or Lady Gaga. It could out you as gay. It might reveal how you vote.

Last spring, the future for Viddy, a video-sharing Facebook app, seemed as sunny as southern California's skies. Based a block away from Venice Beach, the 30-person startup impressed prospective investors with skyrocketing user growth figures and won funding from them at a $370 million valuation. The tech press hailed it as the "Instagram for video," potentially ripe for a billion-dollar-plus buyout. Justin Bieber wanted to invest — and the pop star eventually did just that.

Sheryl Sandberg's explosive "Lean In" — a muscular manifesto on the gender inequities of the professional world — is being published within weeks of the 50th anniversary of Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique." It's a convergence destined to invite disparaging comparisons, to prompt people to holler about how they knew Betty Friedan and that Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook and one of the most powerful women in the tech world, is no Betty Friedan.

"What we're trying to do is give everyone in the world, the best possible newspaper we can," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said when he stepped onto the stage during a press event in Menlo Park, Calif. on Thursday. A News Feed redesign that focuses on more visual posts, the ability to view content-specific feeds, and consistency between mobile and desktop experiences is the topic of the day.

Nick Bilton of the New York Times Bits blog wrote a post the other day about how despite having grown his number of Facebook subscribers to a healthy 400,000, he noticed that his actual engagement numbers (likes and shares) had plummeted per post into the low double digits. "Something is puzzling on Facebook," he muses.

U.S. universities have responded to China's exploding demand for American higher education with branch campuses and aggressive recruiting. Now, some are trying to boost their brands by casting photos and other snippets of campus life out into the confounding sea of Chinese social media.

News Feed, one of the three so-called "pillars" of Facebook - alongside Timeline and Graph Search - is the bustling epicenter of the social network. And it's overdue for an overhaul.
In a press invite sent out Friday, Facebook invited us to "Come see a new look for News Feed" on the morning of Thursday, March 7, at the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters.

Facebook appears to be planning another redesign, sending out press invites to come see a “new look for the News Feed” Thursday at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. The company didn’t give further details about what changes may be coming to the landing page for Facebook users that shows updates from friends and other accounts users follow. But speculation started flying soon after the invite hit the inboxes.

Seattle-based Atlas is a digital media measurement platform; it provides measurement, analytical and management tools for ad campaigns and marketing agencies.

Tucsonans flooded social media sites Wednesday night speculating on what caused a loud boom heard — and felt — over a chunk of the city. Tweet messages started about 7:45 p.m., many from residents of Tucson's west side, saying a large explosion rattled windows at some homes. Tucson police received reports of two jets flying over about 7:40 p.m., just seconds before the boom was heard, said spokesman Sgt. Chris Widmer. But it still isn't known it was a sonic boom.