“The graffiti artist who took Facebook stock instead of cash for painting the walls of the social network’s first headquarters made a smart bet. The shares owned by the artist, David Choe, are expected to be worth upward of $200 million when Facebook stock trades publicly later this year.”
“Although we’re more likely to share information from our close friends, we still share stuff from our weak ties–and the links from those weak ties are the most novel links on the network. Those links from our weak ties, that is, are most likely to point to information that you would not have shared if … Continue reading “So Facebook Isn’t A Big Echo Chamber After All…”
This week, a Berlin theatre company performed a play live, with real-time feedback, on Facebook. “Viewers were encouraged to vote on their favorite wedding dress, contribute to a crowd-sourced love letter between characters and three small parts were cast with audience members.”
“The phenomenally popular social networking site may be skewing the way users perceive their lives. It finds those carefully selected photos of cheerful, contented people cumulatively convey a self-esteem-shattering message: Our lives are fantastic! What’s wrong with you?”
“The writer Salman Rushdie hit Twitter on Monday morning with a flurry of exasperated posts. Facebook, he wrote, had deactivated his account, demanded proof of identity and then turned him into Ahmed Rushdie, which is how he is identified on his passport.”
About 55 percent of children under the age of 13 have Facebook accounts, with the permission and support (and maybe control) of their parents. If preteens want to use the internet, should federal law stop them?
After anthropologist and filmmaker Jonnie Hughes did a documentary on the Insect Tribe in New Guinea’s Sepik Valley, tribe members asked if they could do a reverse visit – in effect, a field trip to England. You might be surprised at what they did, and didn’t, take from the trip.
“Facebook has repeatedly disabled users’ accounts for posting images of Gustave Courbet’s The Origin of the World, 1866. The erotic work of art, in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, falls foul of the site’s prohibition of offensive materials.”
Prescreen, a new venture launched by former Groupon exec Shawn Bercuson. The service offers a library of non-studio films, with one highlighted each day in an e-mail; users can stream movies for up to 60 days and earn points for sharing the films via social networking.
“Worried about loose-tongued friends sharing your private details with the world? Culling the least discreet members of your social network will help you feel more secure, but it’s not a perfect solution. What if your best friend is an offender?” An Arizona researcher “has a technique for working out which friends are most likely to … Continue reading “Wanna Feel Safer? Dump Your Facebook Friends”
