Author Nicholas Carr wrote a controversial post recently about the use of hyperlinks in online content, in which he argued that links were a distraction for readers , and were likely to lead to less comprehension rather than more. This idea was an offshoot of Carr’s latest book, The Shallows, which makes the claim that the Internet — and digital media in general — are making society dumber rather than smarter . Now Scott Rosenberg,... 

Apple iTunes’ Ping launched Wednesday night to a flurry of chatter  lauding it as a MySpace killer , only to land Thursday morning amid criticism and a  nasty break-up with Facebook . Now that the dust is beginning to settle, let’s take a look at what Ping is, as well as what it could have been. Om claimed that Ping is the future of social commerce , but its sole focus on purchases and its presence behind a walled garden…  Read More →

As expected , Facebook has started integrating social activity from around the web into the search results on its site, by showing how many people “liked” or shared a specific news story or blog post, as shown in the screenshot below (first noticed by All Facebook ). The results are powered by the social-graph plugins embedded in hundreds of thousands of websites, which Facebook launched earlier this year at its F8 conference. The... 

At its core, Twitter is a “recipient-driven medium,” said CEO Evan Williams in a public conversation tonight in San Francisco, Calif. What does that mean? Williams, an unusually theoretical CEO, is happy to explain. He spoke at a high level about the ideas that drive his company (which is now up to 145 million users ). Williams contended that the medium of Twitter is (gasp!) actually well-suited to handle information overload. Williams…  Read More →

Twitter is launching the first native app it’s built from scratch tonight, Twitter for iPad. Aimed at fostering content consumption, the app is designed for new users and power users alike. The iPad app indicates the direction all Twitter-designed apps will be heading, said Leland Rechis, Twitter’s mobile product manager, in an interview at Twitter headquarters on Wednesday. “It’s not about timelines, it’s about... 

Apple  announced on Wednesday a cornucopia of new hardware and software : sleek iPods, a brand new Internet-enabled video streaming device and new versions of its iOS software and iTunes 10. However,  the most impressive to me by far was Ping , the music-only social network that Apple is opening up its 160 million existing iTunes users. No, I’m not blown away by the 160 million number. What I’m impressed by is the thinking behind... 

If there’s one issue that unites major Internet giants like Google and Facebook, it’s privacy. Google tries to offer a new service with Buzz, and triggers a series of privacy land mines ; Facebook tries to offer new services and runs afoul of privacy concerns as well, then it changes its privacy settings and (according to some) makes the problem worse instead of better . Why is privacy so hard? Sociologist Danah Boyd, who specializes... 

A few weeks ago, I wrote Pandas and Lobsters: Why Google Cannot Build Social Applications , a post that dissected why Google doesn’t get social. Since then, Google appears to have stepped up its efforts to develop a coherent social strategy. To paraphrase the Black Eyed Peas, Google is so 2000 and late, trying to get into a business that Facebook lost interest in a…  Read More →

Hard-core Digg users and fans of the link-sharing site — the so-called “Digg Nation” — spend a lot of their time trying to push their favorite links to the front page, competing with each other for the number of “diggs” their links get, and debating why certain links made it and others didn’t. Now, a 17-year-old programmer has come up with an algorithm he says can predict which links will make it to... 

This weekend saw a number of prominent technology observers questioning the value of social networks, including This Week in Tech host Leo Laporte, who penned  a thoughtful post on why he’s leaving Google Buzz behind . Laporte said he feels that his last four years of social networking use have been an “an immense waste of time,” but I think he and others are missing the larger point. Too many people seem to be trying to... 

As it has so often in the past, Facebook has again become a lightning rod for online privacy concerns, this time surrounding its launch of Facebook Places , a location-based service that allows users to “check in” to a specific place or event and share that information with their friends. It also allows others to “tag” or check you in at a location, provided you are Facebook friends, and this has drawn fire from the ACLU... 

This infographic, created by Jesse Thomas of digital creative agency Jess3 , shows the relative size of social networks and online services such as Skype, Gmail, MySpace, Twitter and Foursquare, and also shows the proportion of their user base that access the service via a mobile device. Jess3 has also done a number of other creative visualizations of digital services, including the “Conversation Prism” in collaboration with Brian... 

Facebook tonight presented its long-awaited Facebook Places product to a large gathering of press at the company’s Palo Alto, Calif. office. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted the company had been working on the product for “a little bit more than a few months.” Though much of the functionality duplicates that offered by location startups Gowalla and Foursquare, representatives from both companies swallowed …  Read More →

In an alliance so obvious that it’s surprising it didn’t happen sooner, secrecy-busting organization WikiLeaks has gotten an offer of help from Sweden’s Pirate Party. The political party, which is recognized in Sweden but has a relatively small base of popular support, says it has reached an agreement with WikiLeaks to provide server space to host files collected by the group. WikiLeaks specializes in publicizing documents... 

Most website users still prefer logging in with a Google account, but Facebook is a close second, according to new data from Janrain , a Portland startup whose software plugin makes it easy for websites to offer multiple login methods. The company’s latest survey looked at statistics from more than 250,000 websites and services that use its software, and found that close to 40 percent of users prefer to sign in with a Google…  Read More →