Posts tagged Social Networks
Google Invests $200M in Farmville? Is Search Over?
11 year ago
Can pretend farming save Google?
According to ReadWriteWeb, Google has invested over $100 million and possibly as much as $200 million in Zynga, bringing the total investment in Zynga to somewhere around half a billion dollars. You might not know the name Zynga, but if you spend any time on Facebook, you have probably heard of some of the games they have created, such as Farmville and Mafia Wars. Believe it or not, according to TechCrunch, Zynga’s social games were worth $350 million in revenue in the first half of 2010, with half of that being operating profit.
What Does It Mean?
Those numbers are impressive, but mainly for what they signify. (more…)
Blippy Breach Puts Credit Cards Numbers on Google
51 year ago
I thought that number was between us!
Not too worried about how you share your personal information online? Well, VentureBeat has reported on an incident that should make you rethink your position. Blippy, the purchase sharing social site that I covered in January, has had a security breach. As a result, they exposed the credit card numbers of some of their users to Google search. Initial reports state that only Citibank issued MasterCards were affected.
This is a huge black eye for a company that needed to show that they had rock solid control of user data. I would think twice before I used a service like theirs, especially after a breach like this. I really don’t think knowing what your friends are buying is worth the risk of giving up your credit card information to the whole internet. If you desperately need to tell everyone what you bought, why not just mention it on Facebook or Twitter?
KnowEm: Do You Control Your Name?
11 year ago
by David van Sunder
in Business
KnowEm: Check, check, check that name!
People constantly talk about how important a name is to a business. They usually follow that declaration up by emphasizing that a good domain name is just as important. What people often forget is how important it is to register the name of your business on all the major social media sites. Now some of you might be saying, “Whoa, there! I’m not interested in putting in the time to maintain a bunch of social media sites. I have my hands full just running my business.”
Fair enough. One day though you might want to use one of those social media sites for your business. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the name already and not have it occupied by some squatter? (more…)
Need to Rate Everything? Rate Your Church!
21 year ago
by David van Sunder
in Business
Let's go church shopping!
People are obsessed with rating products and services online. If you can never get enough and want to extend your ratings to churches, I found an article on ReadWriteWeb about a new site called ChurchRater.com that is dedicated to rating and reviewing churches. When I saw the site I immediately thought: landmine. Many people take religion very seriously because it is a defining part of their lives. And after looking through the site a bit, I could see that some people did feel quite strongly about certain churches and about the mission of the site itself. So, I wondered whose idea the site was. (more…)
PleaseRobMe.com: Social Network Cautions
11 year ago
by David van Sunder
in People
Many people don’t worry about how much information they share on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Foursquare, etc. With people entering more detailed information, including geolocation data, maybe they should. At least that’s what Barry Borsboom, Boy van Amstel and Frank Groeneveld of PleaseRobMe.com believe.
They drove that point home by creating PleaseRobMe.com, which shows the most recent Foursquare checkins that were posted to Twitter as potential burglary targets. They stated that the purpose of the site is not to help burglars to pick potential targets. They created the site because they believe that giving away your location on social networks doesn’t just tell people where you are. (more…)