Facebook, the world’s biggest social network with 1 billion users, celebrates its first decade this February, but challenges remain in the coming years.
EPA/How Hwee Young
Facebook turns ten this month, but so what? Google celebrated its 15th anniversary last year. Even though it has been through several redesigns and relaunches, MySpace is already 11, having been established…
Happy decade, Facebook. You’ve come a long way.
Creative Cakes by KeeKee
When we think of tenth birthdays, we associate them with youth and the cusp of tweenhood, a life only just begun and about to get more exciting. But it’s different in the technology industry and, as it…
Verizon, Comcast and other providers have been fighting against net neutrality rules since 2005, when the Federal Communication Commission first introduced such measures.
Steve Rhodes
A US court ruling meaning broadband internet service providers will no longer have to follow principles of network neutrality has sparked predictions the internet will end as we know it. Some predict it…
Facebook has changed much since the early days but it needs to do more.
Flickr/niallkennedy
Researchers John Cannarella and Joshua Spechler from Princeton University made headlines last week when they predicted that Mark Zuckerberg’s almighty Facebook would shed 80% of its users by 2017. The…
Vincent F Hendricks likes this post, but in a sort of ironic, self-referential way.
Ksayer1
The “like” is the predominant gesture on social media, whether you’re sticking to Facebook or shifting to Instagram. It may even be the most common gesture among humans nowadays. Some of us probably “like…
Facebook has recently tried to close down the popular Anarchist Memes page on its site in the latest of a string of crackdowns on political online activism. It’s just one more example of the social media…
What we self-censor on Facebook is a fascinating topic for sociological research, but it raises some uncomfortable questions about our digital rights.
J Bizzie/Flickr
Are corporate and academic research ethics up to the task of dealing with the “cool but creepy” dilemmas of big data? A recent paper, Self Censorship on Facebook, shows that Facebook wants to know why…
Facebook deals with what’s acceptable and what isn’t through surveillance, community monitoring and self-regulation.
Xomiele/Flickr
Stories of Facebook allowing beheading videos but removing breastfeeding images, and then reversing the decision to allow graphic violence after public uproar, has led many to question how Facebook should…
Dead and buried? 1.2 billion users say otherwise.
dullhunk
When I saw the recent eruption of stories claiming Facebook is “dead and buried to teens” I was at first intrigued, but, once I had read through to their original sources, quickly disappointed – though…
That’s one way to get around Facebook’s facial recognition.
mw238
While every year since the advent of the internet has had its share of privacy stories, 2013 has been a cornucopia of news about surveillance and personal data. Undoubtedly, the biggest story of the year…
Is it time to give Facebook the flick?
Ben K Adams
Breaking up is hard to do, especially with social media. But thousands of people are doing just that, and with the new year and its inevitable resolutions just around the corner, it might be a good time…
Age: 16, likes: social networking, dislikes: Facebook.
dangaken
What does 2014 hold for your online life? If you’re young, it probably won’t involve Facebook that much. This year marked the start of what looks likely to be a sustained decline of what had been the most…
Human beings have long been easily influenced by the opinions of others but the social media networks that have come to dominate our lives may be making this “social proof” a problem. A recent study in…
Do you know anything about machine learning?
newyork
“Move fast and break things.” That is the Facebook motto plastered all over their California headquarters to remind engineers never to stop innovating. This week, the company moved fast and broke some…
Advergames on mobile phones allow advertisers to directly target young children with games that promote unhealthy food.
Toca Boca/flickr
Advergaming is a relatively recent approach to advertising that overcomes many of the limitations of traditional advertising. But advergames are increasingly being used by fast food companies to target…
By David Holmes and Anna Matwijiw More than 50% of young Australians have seriously considered shutting down their Facebook accounts, even while many of them check the site compulsively through the day…
Social media has long been said to enable “produsage”, where viewers can also be content producers. But new research shows this is not how we use these networks.
The Conversation
The democratising potential of social media have long been heralded. Successive government ministers, starting with Helen Coonan, Stephen Conroy and now Malcolm Turnbull, have all talked up the marvels…
Jobseekers are less likely to seek employment with a company that reviews social media accounts as part of the recruitment…
Marketing professionals are facing a moment of truth as reaching customers becomes easier than ever for non-professionals.
Boston Public Library/Flickr
The effectiveness of Facebook advertising as a marketing tool for companies has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks. The first volley was fired by Nate Elliot, the principal analyst at Forrester…