Internet

A marketing firm has offered Twitter $500,000 USD to carry a banner advertisement for just one day. However, the ad to be carried by Twitter is not guaranteed to be accepted because the advertising firm in question has a controversial reputation. ... The CEO of uSocial, Leon Hill, said of the offer "While half-a-million dollars may seem like a large amount to invest in one banner for one day, we believe that the investment will be more than worth it." (Source: adoimagazine.com ) However, Twitter does not currently carry advertising; therefore, even if it wanted to take up this offer, it's ... (view more)

When you buy something online, sometimes waiting is the hardest part. Waiting several days, a week, or even longer is simply painful for many consumers, particularly as the holiday season approaches -- which is why Amazon announced late yesterday ... that it would begin shipping packages to homes in seven select cities, arriving the same day. Residents of Boston, Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Seattle, and Las Vegas will soon have the opportunity to order and receive goods from Amazon.com in the very same day. It's expected that those living just outside these cities will also be ... (view more)

Shannon Jackson of Hendersonville, Tennessee has been arrested for Facebook "poking" a woman who had filed a legal order of protection against her. The case calls into question the spatial qualities of the Internet and could force today's legal ... system to better define the many unique functions of social networking. It's not yet known why the order of protection was filed against Jackson, but what we do know is that if the poke is classified in the same category as a phone call, email, instant message, or face-to-face visit, she could be on her way to prison for as long as 11 months and 29 ... (view more)

While an increasing number of businesses are encouraging their employees to listen to music in the hopes of making them happier and thus increasing production, most U.S. bosses are taking an opposite approach to social networking sites like Twitter ... or Facebook, with more than half of all companies banning them from the workplace. The finding comes from a recent study by Robert Half Technology, an IT company -- appropriate, since most of the time it's a company's local IT rep who's responsible for setting out which sites are okay and which are not for employees to visit on company time. ... (view more)

Bloggers could face fines of $11,000 for failing to mention free samples and other payments they receive from advertisers. In theory, the rules could even affect people writing on sites such as Facebook and Twitter, though officials indicate they ... are unlikely to be targeted. The rules have been issued by the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, which says it is merely clarifying existing principles for the Internet age. The relevant guidelines had not previously been updated since 1980. In explaining the changes, the FTC said "the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review ... (view more)

The torrent of bad press over Facebook's privacy policies has led to the demise of its much-disliked advertising program called "Beacon." The program, which was considered a marketing coup when first unveiled two years ago, has been phased out in ... accordance with the settlement of a year-old class action lawsuit. At the heart of the lawsuit was the contention that Facebook had failed to properly inform its many users of the privacy compromises introduced by Beacon, which used the data collected from member pages to help third-party sites tailor more effective advertising schemes. ... (view more)

Facebook, the world's largest social networking site, recently announced that it has 300 million active monthly users around the globe. Facebook was not expected to turn a profit until 2010 but has also announce their cash flow is started to trickle ... in. Reports suggest that revenue is supported by applications sold through the site and also by online advertising. (Source: theatlantic.com ) Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recently blogged on the importance of their achievement, and he remains ambitious about the site's future. "This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a ... (view more)

Twitter has reiterated that users of its microblogging service retain the copyright to their comments. However, the site has refused to rule out using posts for targeted advertising purposes in the future. The site has revised its terms and ... conditions to clarify various legal positions. The move appears to be a reaction to public relations problems experienced by rival social networking site Facebook, which recently declared it had the right to use content even after the relevant user had cancelled their account . On the face of it, Twitter is using plain language to reassure users of their ... (view more)

Wikipedia.com is planning to introduce a feature which will color-code parts of its articles in order to show how reliable the information is likely to be. It's a solution to an ongoing problem that has led to a planned freeze on edits to entries ... about living individuals. The WikiTrust feature analyzes the text on a page and ranks each piece of text based on how recently it was edited. This is based on the idea that the longer a piece remains unchanged, the more likely it is that it is trustworthy -- otherwise (it is reasoned), Wikipedia's users would have overturned the edit. The feature ... (view more)

You can "blame Canada" in a good way for Facebook's recent decision to stiffen its privacy controls. In response to demands from Canada's Privacy Commissioner, the social networking site revealed new guidelines that target third party applications ... and the information they're allowed to access. Back in July, the Canadian Privacy Commissioner's office hastened a campaign to identify and publicize the concerns many people have with Facebook's policy towards third-party applications. In the past, some of these applications have been able to access a significant amount of member private data, ... (view more)