Google+ just opened its doors to the world by enabling open signups and moving to the beta, testing phase. The nascent social network is still thin on features and ways for businesses to properly use it, but its minimalist approach has gained Google+ millions of users in a very short period.
If you own a small business, having a Facebook page lets you reach individuals among the 500 million or so users worldwide who are most likely to be interested in your company. Your interaction on the social network gives customers the sense that they know you and your business, which can increase loyalty and make them more likely to recommend your services.
Can Facebook rest on its 750 million user-base laurels? We'll find out this week at the social network's F8 Developer Conference, which takes place in San Francisco on September 22. Buzz on what's expected ranges from new Read, Listened, Watched, And Want Facebook Buttons to a first-ever Facebook iPad app.
Video chat is all the rage these days, thanks to new services such as Google+ Hangouts and Skype/Facebook integrated video chat. Video chatting is a great way to stay in touch with family and friends--seeing loved ones' faces on a computer screen is almost like actually being there.
When Flipboard hit the App Store last year, the personalised news app for the iPad turned out to be a revelation. There were already plenty of Twitter clients, Facebook apps, and RSS readers available for download—there were even apps that combined those streams of information into one. But none did it quite so elegantly, creating the sensation of effortlessly flipping through the magazine. Overnight, Flipboard reinvented the category.
Facebook is getting serious about on-the-go social networking with a suite of new features announced during the Facebook Mobile event on Wednesday.
Is Facebook building a phone? The company won't say for sure, but for some the idea of a Facebook phone is social networking overkill. To social butterflies, a Facebook phone is a dream come true. Here is a look at the pros and cons.
The code was released to the public for a new social network designed to deliver the benefits of Facebook without the privacy concerns. The project--called Diaspora--also has potential as a tool for businesses to create their own social networks, but its value depends on how businesses intend to use social networking.
Searching for status updates is not Twitter's forte, so leave it to Google to make its own Realtime Search engine more powerful instead.
Facebook's unveiling of Facebook Places is an obvious banshee cry to Foursquare and other location-based check-in services. As with those services, Facebook Places allows users to share their location and discover new hot spots by following the stops of people in their network.
Facebook, the company many people don't trust to protect their status updates and personal information, is now in the business of collecting location information, thanks to the introduction of its Foursquare/Gowalla killer, Facebook Places.
One of the odd aspects of the Facebook event launching the new Facebook Places service was the participation, support, and partnership of competing location-based check-in services.
Popular social games like Farmville, Mafia Wars and Fishville may soon be available to Google users, if recent rumors turn out to be accurate. Google has reportedly invested between US$100 and $200 million in the social gaming company Zynga, and the search giant plans to make Zynga a major part of a Google-branded gaming platform called Google Games.
Quick: Who's the CEO of Facebook?
If there's any correlation between the recently killed Kin and discontinued T-Mobile Sidekick -- aside from Microsoft having a hand in both discontinued phones -- it's that they tried to distinguish themselves from both high-powered smartphones and simpler feature phones.
