Google’s next target: FacebookGoogle is making moves into the social networking world with a bunch of improvements to its Friend Connect feature. It’s a blatant “declaration of war” on Facebook, says Douglas Rushkoff, and one Google will most likely win.
The Internet
Google Dashboard: what is it and do you really need it?
Google has released its latest toy: Google Dashboard, a one-stop-shop for users to access all their Google-related junk (gmail, Google docs, chat, etc). It’s neat, and potentially time-saving, but do you really want so much personal data in one place?
The top internet memes of 2009
Balloon Boy, David after the dentist, the Three Wolf Moon tshirt, Susan Boyle, Kanye West at the VMAs… so many memories. Mashable looks back at 2009 through internet memes.
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Politico and Wash Post to engage in DC territorial pissing
Online political news site Politico is going to launch a local Washington DC edition of the site, headed up by the former editor of WashingtonPost.com. It’s a pretty direct attack on The Washington Post’s DC supremacy, and HuffPo has its hands on an internal memo that outlines the plans.
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Internet access: more than just smut and piracy
New data shows Australia’s young people are overwhelmingly using the internet for education more than anything else — yes, even porn — but their access to the web is strongly tied to socio-economic factors. Should the government started subsidising net access for low-income families?
The internet ushers in the age of the ‘amafessional’
The internet has allowed amateurs to directly rival professionals in opportunity, talent, quality and price, says Mark Penn — and not just in the field of journalism; bedroom musicians, artists and authors are all shaking up their respective fields with some serious competition.
What will the web look like in 5 years? Chinese
Google CEO Eric Schmidt predicts what the Web will look like five years from now: Chinese-language sites will dominate, social media will continue its epic rise, and will all come in real time via super-fast broadband.
MySpace and Facebook to team up?
Facebook has well and truly bested MySpace in the social networking game, but MySpace still has one ace up its sleeve: music and entertainment. Instead of competing, the two are apparently putting their differences aside to share content across the two networks.
Why good programmers go bad
Why do computer programmers turn to a life of online crime? Poor education, a criminal record and a dislike of authority, according to an undercover investigation by IT researchers — but some are just good people who can’t resist the lure of the dark side.
A girl always remembers her first time: a tribute to GeoCities
Yahoo has finally pulled the plug on GeoCities. Though most will say “good riddance” to the home of eye-searing fluro text, badly animated GIFs and never-ending Midi tunes, Ruth Brown looks back fondly on the site that popped her HTML cherry.
Why Twitter’s non-existant business model is brilliant
Don’t be fooled by Twitter’s apparently non-existent business model: by inking deals with Google and Bing last week, the social networking site has shown it has major money-making potential, and its experimental approach is all part of the genius.
Facebook: We see dead people
After a new feature on Facebook created a stir by inadvertently recommending users “reconnect” with dead friends, the site has decided to “memorialise” the profiles of users who have died as creepy online tributes to the deceased.
RIP GeoCities: a loss for fluro text, animated GIFs and endless Midi files
Today, Yahoo is finally euthanising GeoCities, the original free, design-you-own webpage service where many netizens got their first taste of web mastery and popped their HTML cherries. Vale.
The (Dis)Information Age: how the internet is making us stupider
Despite the rhetoric of “openness”, the internet is actually making us more narrow-minded by allowing us to filter what we read to suit our own viewpoints, says a new book by academic Cass Sunstein. How else can you explain the absurd ideas of the “birthers” gaining a foothold?
The real-time web: a Brave New World or hideous dystopia?
Sitting at a Weezer concert, next to Twitterati who’ve never heard of the band, where everyone is too busy blogging about the show to actually watch it, Paul Carr wonders whether the real-time web isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
MySpace surrenders to Facebook
MySpace has officially given up in its battle for social media supremacy with Facebook, the the company’s CEO now claiming it is far more interested in becoming “an online hub for music and entertainment.”
The internet is totally .GAY
With a whole bunch of new top-level domain names on the way (i.e. other than just .com .org and .net) a host of high-profile folk are getting behind a push to approve .gay, which will then be monetised to fund gay rights campaigns.
Microsoft vs. Google: who’s winning the social media search wars?
Yesterday, both Google and Microsoft announced deals with Twitter to add tweets to their search results. But which company scored the better deal? And which will do a better job? The blogosphere weighs in.
Not so fast, Microsoft: Google scores a Twitter deal of its own
Just hours after Microsoft announced its big coup in inking a deal with Twitter to include tweets in its search results, Google has announced its done one too. Close, Gates, but no cigar.
Arrr! Prepare ye landlubbers for book piracy
With the arrival of the Kindle around the world, the publishing industry is preparing for an onslaught of black-market e-books, as people share them illegally online. Will it be the mp3 wars all over again?
The great Twitter coup: how the users took control
“There may be some 50 people officially working at Twitter, but it’s more like 5,000 people work for Twitter,” says founder Biz Stone, explaining how third parties and users have out-innovated Twitter with their own product.
Why I kept playing: confessions of a video game addict
Sure, it’s funny to laugh at the geeky online gamers spending hours (or days) glued to their screens, but for some, it’s a serious addiction with serious consequences. One such gamer has written an excellent piece detailing the destructive toll his addiction to EverQuest took on his life.
leaked The new-look Facebook
Mashable has gotten its geeky little mitts on leaked details of Facebook’s latest redesign. (Spoiler: it looks a whole lot like the current Facebook.)
Are independent political blogs dead?
With the leading political blogs increasingly backed by big media outlets, are the days of needing only a PC and an opinion to be an popular online pundit over?
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Which browser works best?
The performance of the top 5 major web browsers are have been tested, compared and compiled into this handy chart. Which program is leading the pack? You might be surprised…
