When we started Diaspora two years ago, the project kicked off with amazing reception and support from people that believed in our ultimate goal: giving users ownership over their data. ... Today, the network has grown into thousands of people using our software in hundreds of installations across the web. There are hundreds of pods that have been created by community members, and it has become one of the biggest Github projects to date. ... Today, we are giving control of Diaspora to the community.

Diaspora*, the open social network, is now owned by its user base. [more inside]
posted by rebent on Aug 28, 2012 - 44 comments

Both inside and outside the walls of Facebook, the story of social games has become one of dead geese and golden eggs, flatlined growth, formulaic games and shady practises. Many warned that the sector was slowing down, but sometimes giants need to fall. It needs to get bad enough before people start to really consider what's next... So what comes next?
posted by Artw on Jul 31, 2012 - 61 comments

Agriculture avalanche avian bacteria border botnet carbomb China drill drug drug war earthquake execution forest fire gang gas grid hack heroin hostage interstate Islamist Jihad Juarez keylogger kidnap La Familia looting malware marijuana meth lab nationalist nuclear outbreak Pakistan pandemic pipebomb pirates power lines radicals relief resistant Ricin riot San Deigo scammers screening symptoms Tamiflu terror U.S. Consulate violence virus warning weapons grade wildfire, and Yemen. [more inside]
posted by nickrussell on Mar 4, 2012 - 48 comments

Facebook has submitted its S-1 Form to the SEC, beginning its road to an IPO. LinkedIn, Groupon and Zynga made their first stock available 3-6 months after filing their S-1 forms. The time is spent by regulators evaluating the statements made in the form, and the banks underwriting the issue finding buyers for the stock - which is unlikely to be difficult. [more inside]
posted by running order squabble fest on Feb 1, 2012 - 29 comments

if i die: if i die is the first and only facebook application that enables you to create a video or a text message that will only be published after you die. [more inside]
posted by Fizz on Jan 24, 2012 - 74 comments

Paul Ceglia has refiled his lawsuit against Zuckerburg and Facebook. With a much larger law firm. And a lot more evidence. Ceglia has produced more than a dozen of what he says are emails between him and Mark Zuckerberg from July 2003 to July 2004, the year in which Facebook was created. [more inside]
posted by jeanmari on Apr 12, 2011 - 89 comments

Watch the 93 minute documentary on the making of The Social Network for free on IMDB - How Did They Ever Make a Movie of Facebook? (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4) (via)
posted by slimepuppy on Feb 3, 2011 - 29 comments

Late yesterday the much-hyped "privacy aware, personally controlled" Diaspora social network platform (discussed previously) published its open-source developer release. "Feel free to try to get it running on your machines and use it," the team urged, "but we give no guarantees. We know there are security holes and bugs, and your data is not yet fully exportable." The Register's initial report is less than rosy: Code for open-source Facebook littered with landmines
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis on Sep 17, 2010 - 58 comments

How to Permanently Delete Your Account on Popular Websites Also: Delete Your Account. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Jun 11, 2010 - 25 comments

Ask Recipe Labs is a cooking-related question and answer site, based off of the Stack Overflow structure (prev). Ask Recipe Lab is the newest part of collection of recipe-based sites, which includes Recipe Puppy (an ingredient based recipe search engine, prev. from MeFi Projects), Cook Thing (how to cook anything, by picking a dish and the ingredients you wish to use), and Recipe Labs (social recipe repository, allowing quick tweaks to existing recipes). [via mefi projects]
posted by filthy light thief on Nov 20, 2009 - 4 comments

Tax authorities using social networks to find tax cheats Yet another reason to be careful who you accept a friend request from.
posted by reenum on Aug 30, 2009 - 25 comments