social media

Some parties are a riot.

No really, they are. Riot police are called, because there's simply too much fun going on.

Indeed, my heart rocks to an exalted beat at hearing that such a party broke out in the small Dutch town of Haren.

As the BBC reports it, the 16-year-old girl posted an invitation to her birthday party on Facebook and wasn't quite au fait with the privacy controls.

Her little hometown became somewhat tense at the idea of thousands descending upon its leafy parts to party, for 30,000 people ended up receiving the invitation.

The … Read more

Sarah Silverman, the comic actress whose 2008 video "The Great Schlep" helped focus attention on the young Jewish-American vote, is back with a new political project.

"Let My People Vote" is a website and social-media project that looks at voter ID laws. It showcases a video starring Silverman ranting -- in her trademark expletive-filled way -- about the laws that are part of this year's election story. An actress playing her grandmother and some guns make an appearance, too.

Paid for by the Jewish Council for Education and Research, this the latest project of Schlep Labs, … Read more

Technology and everyday tools that millions use are being blamed, in part, for the recent spate of attacks against U.S. embassies in the Middle East.

Social media and a YouTube video of an obscure, crudely-made trailer of an anti-Islam film have helped fan the flames of anti-American hatred that's always looking for an excuse to bubble up in some parts of the world.

It's these same tools, of course, that played such a critical role in helping the anti-dictator forces in countries like Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya over the last 20 months or so. Now we are … Read more

The cops are getting their geek on. Four days a week, a police officer ducks into the social media room at the Redwood City Police Department, launches a video chat application and stands by waiting for your call, just like those Time Life Books operators.

Located smack in the middle of the Valley, the police department is the first in the country to offer video chat on its Web site. Police Chief J.R. Gamez was clearly peacock-proud when we asked about his organization's tech know-how. The police department tweets city alerts to followers and posts updates on Facebook. … Read more

Beware of social-media reviews in the coming years.

Between 10 percent and 15 percent of all user reviews on social-media sites will be paid for by companies selling the products, research firm Gartner reported today in a new study.

"With over half of the Internet's population on social networks, organizations are scrambling for new ways to build bigger follower bases, generate more hits on videos, garner more positive reviews than their competitors, and solicit 'likes' on their Facebook pages," Jenny Sussin, senior research analyst at Gartner, said today in a statement. "Many marketers have turned to … Read more

The tweets were flying in reaction to the launch of the iPhone 5 on Wednesday. So what types of responses did the new phone elicit?

A full 39 percent of the tweets about the iPhone 5 were positive, according to a report from research firm Crimson Hexagon. Among those, 14 percent said they were excited about the new phone or planned to buy it and 18 percent were eagerly anticipating or were excited about the launch itself. Just 7 percent of the positive tweets centered around new features such as the support for 4G LTE.

As examples, one eager iPhone … Read more

As the good and the bad gets hashed out over blogs and on news sources in the aftermath of Apple's highly-anticipated debut of the iPhone 5 today, it's interesting to take a look and see what was the public's reaction on social media when the device was released.

The start-up Taykey produced this data-rich infographic on iPhone 5 reactions from around the Web today. In gathering the data, Taykey monitored 50,000 user-generated online sources, like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, and blogs. With this data, it analyzed trends and conversations to create the graphic that measures both … Read more

Facebook is a great resource to find out about friends graduating, getting married, and going on vacation. Apparently it's also a good resource for Taliban fighters to spy on soldiers.

According to Australia's Department of Defense's new report on social media (PDF), "the Taliban have used pictures of attractive women as the front of their Facebook profiles and have befriended soldiers" as a way to gather information.

These fake profiles are a cause for concern, notes the report. The goal of the report is to be a training guide and review for Australia's military … Read more

First there was "Tebowing," and now there is "Eastwooding."

Twitter users today are flocking to the social network to share pictures of empty chairs in the spirit of "Eastwooding." The name comes from famed actor and director Clint Eastwood, who last night at the Republican National Convention held an interview with an empty chair. In that chair, Eastwood claimed, was President Barack Obama.

A quick search across Twitter reveals dozens of updates every few seconds of people posting their "Eastwooding" pictures. In some cases, an empty chair is shown with folks pointing … Read more