Everyone was excited about it. Tech geeks touted it as “The Facebook Killer.” The blogosphere was abuzz about a better chat system, a better interface, and Google Hangouts. Now, it’s all but forgotten in the minds of many. Though one hundred million may have Google + accounts…how many of them are actually active? When’s the last...

Those of you who pay attention to investment news already know the story of the hour- Facebook’s gone public. On Thursday, they filed an IPO, and the entire investment community rejoiced. Several social gaming companies saw their stock skyrocket, and Zuckerberg revealed just how much money he’s really been making off of his world-changing social...

I’m pretty sure this is the granddaddy winner (at least on the internet) for “the ends did not justify the means”. Okay, so there’s this post on Facebook that officially broke over 1 million comments. It’s right here. Is the conversation interesting? Of course not, because this is Facebook we’re talking about. Now in case you...

Back when MySpace was the big deal in social networking, there were tons of major businesses that decided to get a page there. Were any of them worth anything? No, and for the most part they were largely ignored by the internet populous. Unfortunately it’s getting to the same point like before where businesses are getting social profile pages left and...

Instant messaging using a real client is definitely on the rebound these days because it’s one of those things that people really enjoy using. Those who remember how popular it used to be do miss it, and the younger generation also appreciates IM as well. These days, no IM client is worth using unless it connects to Facebook, and AIM was one of the first...

With the advent of the social network, more and more of our lives and consequently our identities, are finding their way to the net. Names, interests, social relationships, birth-dates, and sometimes even financial information. All very valuable information for the right (or wrong, depending on how you look at it) person. It shouldn’t come as any surprise...

It’s all too easy to point out the problems with Facebook because, let’s face it, it’s an easy target. On several occasions I’ve blasted Facebook for the dumb stuff they do, but I also do recognize the good that it brings to us. Here are 5 things that are good about using Facebook. 1. No need to remember anyone’s email address For...

The Facebook web experience (as in how good or bad your experience is on a particular web site) has never been that great. In fact, it’s awful. Over the years, Facebook has had the nasty habit of reshuffling where things are on their web site seemingly almost every other month. Or at least it feels like that. Facebook users have really simple...

Outside of PCMech, our illustrious leader Dave has his own Facebook public page and a Google+ page where he interacts with his fans. As for myself, I do the same thing to interact with my fans. Dave’s audience is primarily a mostly-25-and-up entrepreneur (as in pro-blogging) crowd and mine is a mostly-25-and-under entertainment (as in music fans) crowd. If...

Facebook has their "like" and Google their "+1" (which I like many others call a 1-UP). What this does is only allow for positive, barely-interactive feedback. I say barely-interactive because a like/+1 doesn’t involve typing anything. On Facebook in particular, there are people aplenty who sincerely believe there should be a...

For those of you who use Facebook community pages, a.k.a. “fan pages”, you do have the option of posting region-specific updates so only people from certain parts of the world can see specific status updates. If you intend on doing something like a contest or giveaway where the region matters, this is useful. In the ‘langauge’ area, if...

I will give Facebook credit up front that it’s good they even offer a way to download your data locally as a backup. This is something no other social media site has ever done, so it’s better than nothing. Whether it’s actually manageable or not is a different story, and I’ll explain that more in a moment. The way to get a download of...

This is an unintentional follow-up article to this one where I said that you really have to be comfortable using a Facebook app because, well, you might be literally giving away a ton of personal information you really don’t want to. The latest from Facebook that yet again shows a gross disregard for user’s personal information is that due to a...

It seems that more and more sites are sprouting up with the ability to skip the signup process in favor of using your Facebook login instead. Is this good? Yes and no. I actually do appreciate the sites where I can login using Facebook. One such example is Scribd where you see at top right the big ‘Login with Facebook’ button:What this does is...

One of the lesser known features when typing up Facebook status updates is the @ symbol. This can be used to quickly link to other people in your friend list or pages you’ve marked as being a "fan" of. All you have to do is when typing an update, enter @ followed by the beginning of the name of the person or page you want to link to. A drop-down...

John C. Dvorak recently blasted Facebook with his article The Ghetto Called Facebook. I agree with most of the article but disagree with notion that FB’s main competitor is Second Life due to the fact the two, while both social, are two completely different platforms; saying the two are direct competitors is a bit of a stretch. I also disagree with the...

Years ago many people used AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) as their primary means of instant messaging, but it fell out of favor with the masses with the advent of social networking, namely, Facebook. Today you can use a traditional instant messenger just like people used to, using the same client, AIM. The first reaction people have to this is "I don’t...

Some of you probably remember all the hub-bub when Facebook had a presentation announcing their new messaging system earlier this year. Many called it a "Gmail killer", but Facebook was very quick to reply with "This is not a replacement for email." At the end of the presentation, it was said the new system would go live ‘soon’...

While Yet Another Facebook Look Change is nothing new to report about – the features of the newly redesigned user profiles is something of which to stop and take notice. Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerburg, appeared on 60 Minutes last night to talk about the newly unveiled profile look for users of the social networking site. As early as yesterday,...

The rumor mill went crazy over the supposed “Gmail Killer” coming out from Facebook. Honestly, when the buzz machine declares something a “killer” before release, they’re usually dead wrong. … And they were wrong again. This isn’t a Gmail killer. But, it is new. It is innovative. And it could, indeed, help foster in a...