Facebook tops one list of 'slow and inaccessible' social networks
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Performance monitoring group WatchMouse tracked load time and error tallies for 104 social media sites, and has deemed Facebook the top culprit for poor performance. But it's just one survey, and results may be suspect.
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CEO Mark Zuckerberg talks about changes at Facebook, his super-popular social-networking site. By Aria Pearson from Wired magazine.
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By Jefferson Graham  Yahoo is the most widely used online site, but youth-oriented social networks are the fastest growing on the Internet. And everybody wants a piece of the action.
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To be, or not to be: Now Facebook users can decide.
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A large network of online acquaintances does not equate to having many real friends, researcher says.
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With Facebook slowly creeping up on MySpace, is there room for two social networking sites?
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The balance of power in social networking is moving from the Web site to the user, and that could be accelerated with a new tool released Friday by Google -- a Social Graph API (application programming interface).
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Many Web developers these days feel a sleep-depriving mix of unbridled enthusiasm and nagging concern over Facebook's social-network platform.
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Social networking sites like Facebook have wooed millions of users with their easy format for keeping in touch but left them navigating the pitfalls of interacting online -- is it really private?
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(InfoWorld) - Facebook's safety controls and procedures are deficient and fail to properly protect minors from adult sexual predators in the company's social-networking site, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo charged Monday. Cuomo's office has sent Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg a letter detailing preliminary findings of an investigation into Facebook's safety measures and requesting via a subpoena a series of company documents. The subpoena calls for Facebook to submit complaints it has received regarding inappropriate solicitation of underage users and inappropriate content on the site as well as any responses generated by the company. Facebook also has to produce all of its policies "on user safety and all representations made to consumers about the safety of the site," the attorney general's office said in a statement. Early results of the ongoing investigation reveal that the description of Facebook's safety measures is far from reality. In recent weeks, investigators from Cuomo's office posing on the site as minors have been repeatedly solicited by adult predators. The investigators were also able to access a wide range of pornographic images and videos. To add insult to injury, Facebook either didn't respond or responded slowly to complaints from the investigators posing as either harrassed minors or their parents, according to Cuomo's office. Facebook reacted in similar ways to complaints about inappropriate images displayed on the site. Overall, Cuomo takes issue with Facebook's assertion that its social-networking site is safe and suggests that Facebook may be in violation of New York laws for misleading public statements and advertising. Facebook said in a statement that it takes the concerns of Cuomo's office "very seriously" and that it is committed to working closely with all state attorneys general on safety matters. "As our service continues to grow so does our responsibility to our users to empower them with the tools necessary to communicate efficiently and safely. We strive to uphold our high standards for privacy on Facebook and are constantly working on processes and technologies that will further improve safety and user control on the site," the company said. U.S. state attorneys general are turning up the heat on Facebook, MySpace, and online social networks in general, concerned that sexual predators are using these sites to stalk and victimize minors while site operators do little to prevent this from happening. In May, News Corp.'sÂ MySpace agreed to provide attorneys general offices in all U.S. states with information it has gathered on convicted sex offenders who have used its social networking site. The decision followed a tussle between MySpace and the AG offices, several of which had complained MySpace had resisted sharing sex offender data with them.
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Never mind your profile. Social networking sites are tracking what you do and buy, and the you they see may not be the you you really want everyone else to see. From Wired magazine.
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Facebook.com, the No. 2 U.S.   social network site that is quickly expanding beyond its   college student base, has been met with a sudden privacy   backlash by users after it made design changes this week.
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Facebook users should not worry that personal details will be searchable on the net, says the social network.
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There's a fascinating debate today going on about Scoble and his Facebook data. Here's the story so far. Plaxo, on behalf of Scoble, ran a screen scraper on his Facebook account to download information about at least some of his Facebook friends. Facebook detected the scraper and turned off his account, with an email explaining that he had violated their terms of service. The debate: Who is right -- Scoble or Facebook? While there are certainly arguments that Facebook has some rightness, most of it, imho, is with Scoble. Sure, some of the data may "belong" to his friends, like their birthday and mail address. Technically of course the data doesn't belong to anyone, it's data about them, and many organizations have this data. Are bloggers really saying that organizations have more rights than people? Isn't blogging all about a level playing field? My bank knows my birthday and my email address. Why shouldn't Scoble? (Maybe he shouldn't.) Scoble called a few minutes ago. I asked what the consensus was. He said it was about 70 percent in his favor, 30 percent in Facebook's. I think we can win over the 30 percent by saying that there should be a system whereby people can decide how much information they want to share with Scoble, or people like Scoble, or me, or people like me, or BofA or the DEA, KGB or CIA. Further, that system is not Facebook, unless they change.  Now, I think there's a pretty good chance that Facebook will change and give Scoble his data and turn his account back on. I think Facebook wants to give us access to our data, but if they just turned the feature on, there would be a shitstorm, kind of like the one that's raging right now. Except this time Facebook has defenders, which they must find refreshing, because every time there's been a shitstorm around Facebook they've always been seen as 100 percent evil by most people. (Not by me, btw.) Maybe they're getting smart there over at Facebook. Maybe they will relent, kind of admit they were wrong, and secretly be happy that they got to open their network up some more.  However, if Facebook doesn't open up and allow people a system to say who can access what information, we still have to create that system somehow. Google could have done it, but they didn't. Same with Yahoo or Microsoft. These companies don't want to empower the users, but if they studied history, they'd see that the evolution of computers always comes in fits and starts. A period when the technology is new and people are snowed by the companies and let them have full control. Gradually people understand what's going on, and figure out they're being screwed but they accept it. And then explosively the whole thing disintegrates in a new layer of technology.  It's a big effin loop we're in. One of these times around one of the companies that feels (incorrectly) that they have a lock on their users, will voluntarily give it up and be a leader in Generation N+1. I've never seen it happen, but in theory I think it could.  In other words, Apple and Microsoft could have invented the web instead of TBL. DEC and Data General could have invented the personal computer instead of Apple and Microsoft (I know this is a simplification, there were lots of individuals and small companies that did it.) And IBM could have invented the minicomputer instead of DEC and Data General. And btw, the NY Times and CNN could have invented blogging and RSS.  So Facebook has the opportunity to be a crossover company, part of the next generation -- or a last gasp of the generation that's about to run out of gas. It's their choice. And it's fitting somehow that Scoble is the poster child for users in this cycle.
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Facebook, the social networking  Internet site that is sweeping the globe with a quarter million  new members every day, has targeted the world's second-largest  Internet market, registering a local Web address in China.
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Facebook is on the block and bidders can't flunk out this time.
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There was a dream that was web 2.0...sob Comment Silicon Valley's onanistic elements have been in vinegar-stroke mode for an age over the tussle between Google and Microsoft to invest in $15bn profit-lite social networking phenomenon Facebook.â¦