Google+ Is Alive! – Business Insider

There are signs of life at Google’s social network, Google+.

For the first time we can remember, we’re getting noticeable inbound traffic from the site.

Walter Hickey’s fantastic presentation on the most controversial facts in math has gotten more traffic from Google+ than Facebook or LinkedIn.

Hilariously though, the story getting traffic from Google+ confirms all the pre-existing stereotypes about the site.

Google’s social network has been accused of being an empty place only filled by Google employees, who are generally believed to be geeky and math oriented. It’s amusing that a story on math is popular with that crowd.

via Google+ Is Alive! – Business Insider.

Anderson Cooper is never too busy to dish out a good burn – Imgur

Anderson Cooper is never too busy to dish out a good burn – Imgur.

Facebook Starts Letting You View And Delete Your Facebook Search History | TechCrunch

Even though search history on search engines like Google is totally private, some people still enjoy the ability to delete it. Now Facebook is following suit, allowing you to view and delete all or part of your search history through the profile Activity Log. The new feature will give you more transparency into what you do on Facebook, what it tracks, and make you feel like you’re more in control. The feature begins rolling out today and will reach everyone over the next several weeks.

The change could signal that Facebook wants to get deeper into web search, and is prepping for a release by adding new controls.

via Facebook Starts Letting You View And Delete Your Facebook Search History | TechCrunch.

London Olympics 2012: Tom Daley exposes Twitter troll – Telegraph

The Team GB diver posted a message to his 600,000 followers on Twitter saying that after “giving it my all” in the men’s synchronised 10m platform diving event, in which he finished fourth, he had “idiots” sending him abuse.

He then highlighted a message from a user on the social networking service with the handle Rileyy69, who wrote to Daley: “You let your dad down i hope you know that.”

In subsequent messages “Riley Junior” accused the 18-year-old star of being “over hyped” and claimed he had “let us all down”.

But after the teenage troll became one of the most talked-about topics on Twitter, he sent a series of apologies to Daley and claimed he had not realised that his father, Rob, had died last year.

He wrote: “I’m sorry mate i just wanted you to win cause its the olympics I’m just annoyed we didn’t win I’m sorry tom accept my apology.

via London Olympics 2012: Tom Daley exposes Twitter troll – Telegraph.

Think Facebook’s $100 Billion Valuation Is Nuts? Read This

We’re all awaiting with bated breath for the Facebook S-1 to drop this week. According to various leaks, Facebook’s operating profit was around $1.5 billion in 2011 and its revenues were something like $4 billion. We’ll know soon enough whether that’s true, but if so, it makes Facebook’s reported $85-100 billion valuation sound insane.Is it? Well, anyone can argue that it’s high. But we don’t think it’s insane. First of all, the value of an asset is the net present value of its future cashflows. This means that a company’s value doesn’t depend on how much revenue it generates today, but on the profits it’s going to generate in the future. The value of the current financials is in helping someone figure out what are going to be the future financials. That’s more of an art than a science, obviously. But we have to remember that assessing whether a valuation is insane is about assessing the future of an asset. So, what’s Facebook’s future like? It’s very bright.

via Think Facebook’s $100 Billion Valuation Is Nuts? Read This.

Facebook, It’s Time To Face Facts: You Need Apple More Than It Needs You

It’s time for Facebook to go hat in hand to Apple and make a deal to get integrated into its operating systems, iOS and OS X.

The two companies have been in a stand off for a long time.

In 2010, Steve Jobs said Facebook’s “onerous terms” prevented it from being integrated into iTunes social network Ping. We’re not sure if that was Steve Jobs bending the truth to his liking, or if Facebook was really asking for something outrageous.

Assuming there’s some shade of truth to what Jobs said and Facebook was asking for something Apple wouldn’t give, Facebook needs to drop it and accept Apple’s demands.

Why? Because Apple is doing really well without Facebook. It’s the most valuable company in the world. It’s producing historically great earnings. People are buying iPads and iPhones in droves.

What about Facebook? It’s doing really well, too! Hundreds of millions of people are using Facebook. It has insane profit margins, and it’s legitimate, big business.

So, we have two companies that doing just fine operating relatively independent of each other.

Why are we suggesting Facebook blink first, then?

Because Facebook’s core mission, according to Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to investors, is “to make the world more open and connected.” He also said, “At Facebook, we build tools to help people connect with the people they want and share what they want, and by doing this we are extending people’s capacity to build and maintain relationships.”

via Facebook, It’s Time To Face Facts: You Need Apple More Than It Needs You.

The Facebook Freaky Line — Scobleizer

It seems everyone is getting freaked out by Facebook once again. Molly Wood at CNET says that Facebook’s automatic sharing features are ruining sharing. That got everyone to pile on over on Techmeme.

First, what does this automatic sharing feature (otherwise known as “frictionless sharing”) do? Well, every time I play a song on Spotify, for instance, it tells everyone something like “Robert Scoble is listening to Skrillex on Spotify.” On Facebook’s web interface that shows up over on the right in the new ticker (not everyone has that, and only the web version shows it). It also puts that onto my new Timeline (only developers have that feature, so far).

It doesn’t just do this for music, either. Everytime I read a story in the Washington Post’s new newsreader it does the same. “Robert Scoble read Ex-MySpace CEO resigns as Zynga executive on Washington Post Social Reader.” (Which I actually did, right now).

via The Facebook Freaky Line — Scobleizer.

Facebook and Privacy Don’t Mix Well | PCWorld

Rumor has it that Facebook is close to reaching a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to settle charges related to privacy. While the privacy settlement may sound like a good idea, it is sort of a smoke and mirrors exercise because the reality is that privacy and social networking are polar opposites that don’t play nicely together.

One of my PCWorld peers, Jon P. Mello Jr., took a close look at what we know of the settlement terms, and found it lacking. The conditions of the settlement seem to address only a certain set of privacy concerns, varies based on when you joined Facebook, and doesn’t affect new features that Facebook rolls out in the future. It is basically a slap on the wrist for something that occurred in 2009 which appears to do more to confuse the privacy issues than resolve them.

[Click to enlarge] Spying eyesSocial networking and privacy don’t really go together very well.Face it–”Facebook privacy” is an oxymoron. It is a social network. The name alone implies a network of connected individuals who are social with one another. Asking a social network to concern itself with privacy is like asking a rock concert to try not to be so loud, or asking a swimming pool to not be so wet.

via Facebook and Privacy Don’t Mix Well | PCWorld.