Despite all of the technology available to teenagers today, they still prefer meeting IRL to texting and "liking" each others' Facebook statuses.
A new study out from Ericsson surveyed 2000 U.S. teenagers ages 13-17 to understand more about how they socialize through technology.
Texting and Facebook in particular have changed the way that teenagers date, particularly in the "courting" process which concludes with an actual date. The initial first interaction still takes place offline. In fact, when asked the question what type of communication would they miss most if it were taken away, teens responded with "face-to-face."
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has sent a letter to the FTC asking it to investigate privacy breaches and the new Facebook Timeline.
"With Timeline, Facebook has once again taken control over the user's data from the user and has now made information that was essentially achieved and inaccessible widely available without the consent of the user," writes EPIC to the FTC. It urges the FTC to investigate whether Timeline is "consistent with the terms of the settlement."
It's not at all coincidental that shortly after launching Timeline to the world, Facebook decided to ramp up its ad services.
This request comes less than two months after the November 29, 2011 settlement with the FTC in which Facebook agreed to obtain express consent from its users before changing privacy settings. It will also undergo privacy audits every two years for the next 20 years.
Yesterday we reported that the squiggly little beast Ramnit stole 45,000 logins and passwords, but Facebook has confirmed that those came from mostly "invalid" accounts.
"Last week we received from external security researchers a set of user credentials that had been harvested by a piece of malware," a Facebook spokesperson told us. "Our security experts have reviewed the data, and while the majority of the information was out-of-date, we have initiated remedial steps for all affected users to ensure the security of their accounts."
But what exactly does "invalid" mean? According to Facebook, it might include an email not associated with a Facebook account, an invalid password or an old/expired password.
The world's largest social network was pretty lucky that Ramnit didn't hit up active accounts in Brazil, where the user base grew by nearly 300% or in Japan, which experienced 254% growth over the past year.
In 2008, the same year that Facebook launched its big redesign, Researcher Nick Burcher started collating Facebook usage statistics by country. The 2011 winner for fastest growing user base is Brazil, which grew 300% over the past year. Japan is in a close second, with 254% growth over the past year. But a recent Forrester report notes that the Japanese prefer to stay anonymous online, prefer not to use Facebook because it requires users to sign up with their real names. This high rate of growth in Japan goes in direct opposition from a January 2011 NYTimes story about the country's complete lack of interest in Facebook.
Last night, I pulled out my phone, snapped a photo and began cycling through Instagram filters looking for the best one. Nothing unusual there. I chose to share this particular image on Twitter and Facebook as well (something many Instagrammers do somewhat judiciously, lest we be spammy), and a few moments later noticed something a little different. Suddenly, I was getting an uptick in Facebook notifications telling me that people liked my photo. Not my post but my photo. Wait, what photo?
For as long as Instagram has been around, it has published photos at unique, Instagram-hosted URLs, which were then linked to on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. The link to the image could be retweeted or "liked" on Facebook, but the image itself remained off on a cold, lonely island on Instagram's servers. The only people that could interact with the photo itself were your Instagram followers who, of course, could only do so using the photo-sharing service's iOS app. Well, that just changed.
You've seen MOO cards, those adorable half-the-size of regular business cards that have a pretty image on one side and your info on the other. Today MOO.com announced a big step toward social business, integrating with Facebook to create real business cards that use images from your Facebook Timeline. The customizable cards are available now for purchase. MOO social business cards fit into the Timeline mission, which hardly differentiates between online and offline identity. With MOO business cards, Facebook wants you to move one step closer to imagining your identity on social media less as you and more as "you," also known as your very own personal brand of yourself.
A rampant worm by the name of Ramnit has stolen login and password information for 45,000 Facebook users, mostly in the UK and France. Prowling the 800-million-strong social network, the worm eats user names, passwords and browser cookies. It also acts as a backdoor, meaning a hacker can attack any computer that has already been infected. According to the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, Ramnit infects Windows executables, Microsoft Office and HTML files. The Ramnit worm initially transformed into financial malware in August 2011, according to reports from Trusteer.
"What was once malware designed to steal data from financial institutions has evolved into a social network threat," says John Weinschenk, CEO at Cybersecurity company Cenzic. "Bank account numbers and Facebook log-in credentials seem very different, but to hackers, they are equally as lucrative."
A new study from Forrester proves that the majority of Americans are a bunch of lazy re-tweeters. 93% of online consumers in the emerging markets of China, India, Mexico and Brazil use social media tools at least once-a-month. U.S. and European consumers are far more likely to view social media as a spectator sport, joining it and then just watching it fly by.
In the U.S., 68% of social media users are "joiners," which means they maintain a profile on a social networking site and visit social networks. 73% are "spectators," or users who mostly just read blogs, online forums, customer ratings/reviews and tweets, listen to podcasts and watch videos. This number is strikingly similar in Europe (EU-7 countries, to be specific), with 69% of users classified as spectators and 50% as joiners.
Today Facebook announced open registration for its second annual Hacker Cup, a competition for the best hacker.
Programmers from around the world will race to accurately solve algorithmic problems, advancing through five rounds of challenges. The winners will walk away with prizes. Only one programmer will take home the title of world champion and the Hacker Cup trophy.
Today Zynga launched Hidden Chronicles, a new Facebook game all about discovering hidden objects in an abandoned estate. It's sort of like "Where's Waldo?" in that users click on an image still over and over again until they finally find the objects within. Perhaps not-too-surprisingly, Hidden Chronicles is Zynga's first foray into the world of hidden-object games, and it's strikingly similar to Playdom's Gardens of Time, which was the number one Facebook game in 2011 based on both number of users and highest recommendations.
Zynga is trying to win the top five Facebook apps, especially the first one. So it's no wonder that Hidden Chronicles and Gardens of Time look and feel so similar. Both games begin in the same way: You arrive in another world and are asked to uncover hidden objects. The only real difference is that Hidden Chronicles has more of a Beauty and the Beast feel to it - you end up in your deceased Uncle Geoffrey's mysterious estate, and an assistant helps guide you through object-finding. In Gardens of Time, there's a bigger task at hand: You must travel through time to find objects that have been misplaced. In both hidden-object games, should you complete your mission, the society will be at peace.
