Social networking

Twitter is trying out a new feature to display ads, or promoted tweets, directly in a user's Twitter stream, but the company admits it's watching carefully to see how people react.

The site expanded its "promoted tweets" feature yesterday, starting slowly by displaying the ads only for those who use HootSuite, a third-party Twitter client. Promoted tweets are tweets that advertisers pay to show to a large number of people, similar to the way advertisers pay for sponsored links that appear among search results at Google.

Those who access Twitter through HootSuite will begin to see … Read more

eBay is getting ready for the holidays with a new take on its home page and a new shared gift-giving feature.

The auction site refreshed its home page yesterday with the goal of helping people find and buy items more quickly and easily. The redesign, which eBay said was months in the making, offers a different look and feel to the home page as well as several behind-the-scenes changes.

eBay's search functionality is trying to be smarter by pushing the exact product you're seeking to the top of the results. You can also now find an item by … Read more

One of the lead engineers behind Google Maps and Google Wave has left the Web powerhouse to get into the thick of the "compelling" action at Facebook.

Last Friday, Lars Rasmussen said goodbye to his six-year career at Google; he'll start his new job at Facebook in December following a vacation. The noted Sydney, Australia-based software developer explained why he jumped ship in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald.

"It feels to me that Facebook may be a sort of once-in-a-decade type of company," Rasmussen told the Herald. "Obviously they've already changed … Read more

Facebook has revealed that a data broker has been buying identifying Facebook user information from app developers, and as a result the social-networking powerhouse has placed some developers on a six-month suspension.

The announcement, which Facebook made Friday afternoon on its developer blog, comes on the heels of the revelation that many popular Facebook apps were transmitting user IDs--which can be used to look up a users' names and, in some cases, the names of the app user's friends--to at least 25 advertising and data firms.

According to Facebook's developer blog:

As we examined the circumstances of … Read more

I am not always awake, even when I appear to be clothed, eating, and mumbling.

So I am grateful to Google for waking me up the other morning with the news that it knew where I was. Of course, you always knew it always knew. But suddenly, as I was performing a Google search for a David Arquette Halloween mask, there was my location on the left side of the search page.

It felt like my neighbor had come in by the back door, sat down at my kitchen table, and helped herself to Weetabix and cookies. Well, not quite. … Read more

Have you lost hope?

Are you sick of slogging away on sites such as Match.com and eHarmony.com to find the partner of your dreams? Or at least the partner who will put up with your dead lizard collection, your back hair, and your difficult morning breath?

Then perhaps it is time to be honest with yourself. Perhaps it is time to look in the mirror and decide that you should be at the Ugly Bug Ball. Or, more accurately, on it.

The Ugly Bug Ball is a dating site for those who are aesthetically challenged. That is the … Read more

Roll up. Roll up. You won't believe your eyes.

No, I'm not launching a new Apple product (at least not yet). Instead, I would like you to scan a piece of footage for me and tell me what you see.

I would like you to examine a YouTube video that has been sent to me by various readers and eminences. It has already been viewed by more than 1.6 million people. And it shows Irish film director George Clarke declaring that he has seen an old woman--or a man in drag--in the 1928 Charlie Chaplin movie "The Circus."

Why might this be remarkable? I am sure even Chaplin himself might have donned a skirt at least at some point in his life. Ah, but this skirted individual, with a hardened Edward G. Robinson-type face, appears to be talking on a cell phone.

You did hear me right. She (or he) appears to be in possession of a mobile device and chatting into it. … Read more

Facebook today launched a feature called "Friendship Pages," which lets users load up the interactions between themselves and individual friends, or between any two friends, on the social network. You'll see their posts on one another's walls, events to which both RSVP'd, photos in which both are tagged, and other interactions that you would otherwise be able to access on either friend's profile (i.e. nothing that wouldn't otherwise be public).

Friendship Pages are live as of Thursday but are not yet accessible to all members.

It's another feature, like the redesigned Facebook Groups, … Read more

The modern world has one immutable law: where the founders of Facebook go, so does the rest of society.

Recently, Dustin Moskovitz and Sean Parker, just two of the characters from "The Social Network," donated $170,000 to assist Proposition 19, a California idea aimed at legalizing pot.

And now I read in The New York Times that, sensing a turning of the tides, or merely a cloud of smoke about to emerge from an important chimney, many people are anticipating pot legalization by buying up pot-related domains.

The Times tells of Kevin Faler, who was once a … Read more