Social networking

Breanna Hughes, a prolific blogger and product manager at Artez Interactive in Toronto was surprised to receive an offer from Virgin America for free round-trip airfare between Toronto and San Francisco or Los Angeles. She hadn't entered any competitions recently. The reason she got the offer? She was categorised as influential in her social network and had authority on topics related to travel. Companies are utilising new developments in predictive analysis to make startlingly accurate assumptions about their customers. Beyond using ...

Are you tired of the bland catch-all nature of Facebook? Confounded by the sheer scale and volume of Twitter? Then Pic-Nic Village, a brand new social network, might be just what you're looking for. Wearing its new-age, alternative colours proudly on its sleeve, Pic-Nic Village aims to be "the first social networking community that targets people who are passionate about creativity, innovation, ideas generation and seeking positive solutions to everyday problems." This is a network with a firm, strong social ethos. It ...

The value of Linden Lab, which operates the virtual world Second Life, has plunged by more than 21%, according to SharesPost, which tracks the private secondary market. In late June, Linden Lab brought back founder Philip Rosedale as interim CEO, after CEO Mark Kingdon stepped down. The current value of Linden Lab is estimated by SharesPost to be about $271-million or about $100-million less than a year ago. The plunge in value appears related to recent news that the company is closing the ...

Location-based services like Google Latitude, Foursquare, Gowalla and, more recently, Facebook Places (currently rolling out gradually to US users) are tremendously useful and fun to use. But they also highlight some pretty serious privacy issues you should be thinking about if you use these or similar location-based services. You need to think clearly about the kind of location information you want to release onto the web before you get started. Location-based services tend to work best when you use them ...

In an age of juggernaut smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android-powered devices, Research In Motion’s (RIM) relatively fledgling foray into the mainstream consumer market sees them still battling for consumer mindshare as a general purpose smartphone maker. With that said, RIM's long-time darling smartphone of the business world, the Blackberry, has come a long way since its conservative suit-and-tie beginnings. With consumer-oriented advertising, user interface improvements, touch screen - and budget devices, RIM are clearly making a push for the ...

If you’re using multiple social media platforms to promote your business, it makes sense to cross promote the media you generate through the various channels available, and try to play to the inherent strengths of each of the platforms. Doing this increases your content's exposure to a larger audience, which means you have more people engaging with your brand. For example, if you’ve already built up a healthy fan base on Facebook, but have only just started  to engage on Twitter or ...

With her own savings, support from friends, and the backing of a UK Government Grant, South African entrepreneur Barbara Mallinson founded Obami, a social networking site that’s been developed specifically for schools and to facilitate e-learning. Mallinson has since brought Obami back to South Africa to try and make a difference in the country she’s always called home. Memeburn.com caught up with her to talk online education and where it is all going. Memeburn: What are the major trends you are seeing ...

Facebook has clearly grown weary of losing business-oriented members to social networking rival LinkedIn, and have decided to do something about it. That paradigm has existed almost since social networking began and has developed into something of a lore. Popular, social searches happen on Facebook, but when it's time to get serious and "grow up", you move over to LinkedIn. Branchout is a new Facebook application that seeks to add career networking to the Facebook universe. According to TechCrunch, "the application ...

The next few months could see Foursquare going into partnership with either Google, Yahoo or Microsoft as they seek to assert their dominance over the emerging trend of location-based social networking. In an interview with The Telegraph, CEO and co-founder Dennis Crowley revealed his vision of a "search partnership which could let people look up the most popular bar or restaurant in their area in real time." The deal would be reminiscent of Twitter's move into the mainstream when it made deals ...

Social networking has become a huge phenomenon, with a couple of big players dominating the market. Yet if one looks around the web you'll find that anyone can in fact build a social network. Whether it's for your local bowling league or a company's workforce, there are various solutions out there that already have all the pieces. All that's needed is someone to put them together in an inventive way to create a budding new social network. These networks offer you the ...