On December 5th, Instagram's founder Kevin Systrom announced that Instagram would cut support for Twitter cards. On December 10th, Twitter updated its mobile apps to include Instagram-like photo filters. On December 12th, Flickr did too. On December 16th, the New York Times reported that Systrom may have perjured himself during the process of selling Instagram to Facebook. On December 17th, Instagram updated its terms of use to announce, among other changes, that its users now

"agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you."

In response, Wired has posted How to Download Your Instagram Photos and Kill Your Account. Previously.
posted by davidjmcgee on Dec 18, 2012 - 192 comments

Are Your Facebook Friends Stressing You Out? (Yes.) - "The finding, which is similar to one determined last year, is nice as a headline: It's both unexpected (friends! stressing you out! ha!) and ironic (the currency of the social web, taking value rather than adding it!). What's interesting, though, is the why of the matter: the idea that, the report theorizes, the wider your Facebook network, the more likely it is that something you say or do on the site will end up offending one of that network's members... Unsurprisingly, per the study's survey of more than 300 Facebook users, 'adding employers or parents resulted in the greatest increase in anxiety.'" [more inside]
posted by flex on Nov 27, 2012 - 135 comments

Femfresh is a product designed for making one's ladygarden more fragrant. Yet despite the success of their TV ad campaign, which took euphemisms for one's velvet glove and spun them into a fifties song (previously), their Facebook page is seeing a backlash from users who believe that vaginal deodorants are unhealthy, unnecessary and sexist and that euphemisms for the sticky bun are infantile. [NSFW content in links, Facebook page may require login to view]
posted by mippy on Jun 22, 2012 - 139 comments

Tim Rogers has written a long piece about the evils of social gaming and the mechanics of getting players to pay for virtual items. This, in reaction to certain mechanics in the new facebook mega-game, The Sims Social, which Tim has also reviewed, calling it "A Love Letter from a Computer Virus"
posted by hellojed on Sep 30, 2011 - 78 comments

The Daily Dot delivers news about social media communities such as Reddit, Facebook and Youtube the way a local newspaper might deliver news about a city.
posted by reenum on Aug 24, 2011 - 10 comments

Facebook is phasing out its Places feature as part of a sweeping new privacy-centric redesign.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn on Aug 23, 2011 - 62 comments

Not so fast, internetpseudonym, on signing up for that Google+ account. Turns out you can only use your real name or face account suspension. Users don't like it and some are worried about safety, but Google isn't budging: "To help fight spam and prevent fake profiles, use the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you...You can use pseudonyms to upload videos in YouTube or post to Blogger."
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Jul 16, 2011 - 201 comments

Last night Google quietly rolled out Google+ to a limited beta release. Unified across all Google sites, Google+ is the company's latest and perhaps most serious attempt to enter the social networking space. As Facebook surpasses Google in some key user metrics, Google's efforts may already be too late [more inside]
posted by 2bucksplus on Jun 28, 2011 - 178 comments

Last Friday, USA Today reported that two people from PR firm Burson-Marsteller had been contacting various news outlets and bloggers, pushing a story about how Google's "Social Circle" gmail feature violates users' privacy. The pitch was made on behalf of an unnamed client that The Daily Beast now confirms was Facebook. [more inside]
posted by zarq on May 12, 2011 - 104 comments

Wael Ghonim: Inside the Egyptian revolution [more inside]
posted by kliuless on Mar 4, 2011 - 8 comments

How (crowd) curation is making a comeback in search and how Facebook is using it to "remake whole industries."
posted by kliuless on Jan 16, 2011 - 27 comments

Have you noticed the cartoon characters overtaking Facebook? Well, you're not alone because the national media sure has. This new Facebook meme is supposedly all about raising awareness for child abuse. But is this meme really accomplishing anything? Maybe not. And for good measure, some links for those who would REALLY like to help.
posted by SkylitDrawl on Dec 5, 2010 - 201 comments

The Wall Street Journal's What They Know blog is charged with determining what information marketers are capable of learning about internet users through tracking technology. This weekend, they took aim at Facebook, after their investigation discovered that many popular apps on the social-networking site, including those by Zynga, have been transmitting identifying information in the form of User ID's to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies, even if a user has enabled strict privacy settings. Additional analysis. Response post on Facebook's Developer Blog. Forbes' blogger Kashmir Hill asks if the WSJ is overreacting, and Techcrunch notes that the severity and risks of UID transferral are still being debated.
posted by zarq on Oct 18, 2010 - 56 comments

Kate Bolick tells a story of Facebook voyeurism.
posted by reenum on Oct 13, 2010 - 16 comments

"Facebook's popularity is based on the reality that human beings are social creatures. Staying connected with people we know is innate to us. But maintaining separate social groups that we don't want to clash is also innate." The Five Stages of Facebook Grief.
posted by flapjax at midnite on Jul 18, 2010 - 87 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

Facebook agrees to privacy changes [Flash video | article]. [more inside]
posted by shoesfullofdust on Aug 27, 2009 - 43 comments

Ping.fm lets you update your social network statuses, blogs and microblogs simultaneously from one place. The current sign-up beta code is "tastyping". [more inside]
posted by nthdegx on Jun 12, 2008 - 28 comments