The word "love" elicits reactions from everyone, and some of those feelings are not pretty. Except when they're absolutely beautiful.
On Valentine's Day, Internet users' emotions were plentiful and mixed. Twitter trends like #CandyHeartRejects and #FedValentines popped up, illuminating the thoughts of quite a few bitter birds. Facebook also celebrated Valentine's Day with some birdlike activity. News leaked last month that the Angry Birds would crash onto Facebook on Valentine's Day. It's the perfect game for pissed off single users to play on the heart of hearts day. But for all the love-related bitterness on social media, there are still moments of grace.
Facebook recently added an "Add to Map" button for pages which have specific locations. Like everything in the new Timeline layout, which encourages users to recount their entire lives since joining Facebook, and before, this new feature is another step toward full-on lifestreaming. Facebook is evolving from a fly-by bulletin board and events platform into a space for more meaningful social interactions and recreation of days past. But does that mean users should recount their banal details of their lives, like where they vacationed five years ago?
Today Zynga announced its fourth quarter earnings and 2011 financial results. Zynga now makes the top five games played on Facebook. Its non-GAAP earnings per share were five cents, or $37.1 million for the quarter. But even though it had a 59% gain in sales, it posted a loss for the period.
If Zynga is going to succeed, FarmVille has to lose its super uncool factor. And "play" must become a completely mainstream behavior that's as acceptable as buying $30 t-shirts at Urban Outfitters.
"We see [play as] a popular large-scale behavior, but we'd like to see play reach a level of search, shop and share, and we think the monetization opportunity will follow that," said Zynga CEO Mark Pincus. If Zynga is to succeed, it will be because the users make play as much a part of their daily routine as checking Facebook.
"A cute baby dolphin for your weekend-viewing pleasure" a Facebook friend of mine writes. Under the text, I see a link to an imgur-hosted image of that amazingly adorable marine mammal. Suddenly, my day is feeling a lot better. Did I just catch a mood... on Facebook?
A new study by Facebook data scientists shows that Facebook users can spread emotions to their friends through messages, posts and status updates. It suggests that emotional contagion happens quite frequently on the world's biggest social network. Facebook's Chief Data Scientist Adam Kramer presented these findings at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology on January 27, 2012.
"It's time to rethink how emotional contagion works, since vocal cues and mimicry aren't needed," said Kramer.
Sometimes the "Like" button is not as clear cut as it seems. Even Zuck would agree.
ZDNet reports that a Facebook design flaw has accidentally convinced some readers that Zuckerberg is endorsing Republican Party presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
The awkward "Liking" took place earlier this week. Zuck "liked" a story by Salon.com's Farhad Manjoo, who posted the following status along with a link to mittromney.com: "Try, just looking at the Romney logo without seeing the word MONEY." When that image shows up on users' news feeds, however, it appears as if Zuck "liked" the Mitt Romney link rather than Manjoo's comment, coupled with a link to the Romney website. Whatever happened to the "Like" button making things simple?
Reuters reports that a Tennessee couple who "defriended" Jenelle Potter on Facebook were murdered by her father and another man.
"This is just senseless," said Johnson County Sheriff Mike Reece told Reuters. "We've had murders, but nothing like this."
Jenelle Potter, 30, is one of those types who you just don't mess with. She is a Facebook fanatic who stays home with her parents and is constantly on Facebook.
"Once you've crossed her, you've crossed her father too," Reece said.
Last week Facebook IPO rumors swirled about the Internet. Few in the tech world were able to focus on anything else. Facebook's estimated $75-$100 billion IPO had tech-meisters and analysts drooling. Finally, the world's largest social network decided to put a price on everyones' personal data.
But there was an official announcement that dropped just days before the IPO: Games would start appearing in the main news feed.
Only one month before, Facebook began including games in the mobile news feed. If you're already feeling annoyed, remind yourself that this is nothing new. Remember when sponsored stories began appearing in the news feed?
Facebook can be whatever you want it to be. It's a promotional tool, a way to keep in touch with family members, a space for lifestreaming your every move, or a community forum for meaningful discussion about a specific topic.
But sometimes, it all just gets too overwhelming to deal with. You have 1500 Facebook friends from all walks of life - why? Those social ties expired long ago. So what's the point of holding onto that one last digital thread?
Last week Jenni Prokopy, a Chicago-based health care expert, freelance writer and founder of ChronicBabe.com, posted a status update that directly addressed this issue. With about 800 friends, Prokopy realized that her Facebook profile had become totally cluttered. "I started my Facebook a few years ago when there were no business pages," Prokopy says. "People knew who I was online from ChronicBabe.com, so they started to friend me on Facebook. And I was just trying to build my online community so I said yes - and everyone was like yeah, build your online community! And so I did."
"If the Super Bowl is such a meaningless game, why are so many people posting updates about how they're not going to watch it?" said one of my Facebook friends, as the game approached halftime.
OK, I don't follow football. And I especially don't know anything about the Super Bowl. After the Super Bowl, I was wondering why Nicki Minaj and MIA (aside from her Cee Lo flick-off) didn't play a bigger role in Madonna's halftime show. I was also pretty relieved that Madonna made it through that entire performance without slipping, though she did come scarily close. I was truly impressed by some of the throws (Eli Manning!) and was also curious about the stories behind the football players' tattoos.
What I do know about the Super Bowl is that the Giants won (go New York!), and I got to hang out with some very awesome friends and my friend's dog, who I want to steal. I also have a few witty one-liners thanks to my more football-savvy Facebook friends because I, like most other social TV watchers, checked Facebook and Twitter during the game.
Breasts. They're complicated.
Facebook states that breast-feeding pictures are okie dokie, just as long as there's no "exposed breast" that doesn't feature the child actively nursing. In other words, if there's no suckling, there's no posting. Today breast-feeding activists are using Facebook to coordinate "nurse-ins" outside of of the company's headquarters worldwide, including its homebase Menlo Park headquarters.
When it comes to flagging photos, Facebook asks users to flag photos as inappropriate. Then Facebook employees go through and remove those that violate the State of Rights and Responsibilities. Even though it's pretty clear that breastfeeding photos are fine, often times they will still be flagged and removed from the site.
