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Is Your Boss on Twitter?
6/25/2009 12:00:00 AM
A public relations executive recently evaluated the number of Fortune 100 CEOs who had presences on social network sites including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and online information site Wikipedia. Almost none of the chief executives were involved with the Internet destinations, which should not have been a surprise to anyone with sense. The question raised by the PR person is why executives do such a poor job managing their images online. A better question is why a CEO would want to be involved with the websites at all.
The Perils of Zoosk
Raina Kelley 6/10/2009 12:00:00 AM
Back in my dating days, I liked to keep a firewall between my friends and my dates. It was just too complicated to combine the two–in my experience, it's something akin to introducing an alligator to a wildebeest—someone's going to get killed and it could be me. The first interaction between the two was carefully vetted before it happened—a crowded, noisy, neutral spot, no extended trips down memory lane and no photos.
TECHNOLOGY
Walking the Cyberbeat
Nick Summers 5/1/2009 12:00:00 AM
It's just before lunchtime in the sunny, high-tech headquarters of Facebook in Palo Alto, Calif., and Simon Axten is cuing up some porn. A photo of a young couple sloppily making out pops onscreen. It's gross, but not against the rules, so Axten punches a key to judge the image appropriate. Next up: a young woman in panties only, covering her breasts with her hands. "That's pretty close," Axten says, pondering the image. There's nothing arbitrary about his judgments: at Facebook, they have developed semiformal policies like the Fully Exposed Butt Rule, the Crack Rule and the Nipple Rule. In this photo there's no visible areola, he decides, so it stays. The next photo is a male clad only in a black thong and angel wings. Utterly nonplussed, Axten OKs the picture. After delivering a verdict on 75 of the 438,848 outstanding photos flagged by Facebook users—buff guy soaping up in the shower (OK); girl blowing an epic cloud of pot smoke (he deletes it); an underage user drinking from two liquor bottles at once (ditto)—Axten is off to a meeting. It's just another day at the office of the world's fastest-growing social-networking site.
TECHNOLOGY
Browsing The Future
Nick Summers 3/5/2009 12:00:00 AM
At least 18 percent of you already know what Firefox is, because you're using it to read this interview. (Or so says the statistics engine behind Newsweek.com, which tracks things like that.) For the unfamiliar, Firefox is a free Web browser that is built by coders around the world whose open-source work is organized by the Mozilla Corp. and its nonprofit parent, the Mozilla Foundation. Introduced in 2004 as an alternative to Microsoft's ubiquitous, but buggy, Internet Explorer, Firefox has been a force for innovation in the browser category, with improvements such as tabbed browsing and plug-ins that work on any operating system. Commissions from search engines appear to keep Mozilla awash in revenue for now ($75 million in 2007; the foundation has not released 2008 data), although the vast majority of that comes from a company, Google, that now has its own competing browser, Chrome. Mozilla's plans for 2009 include a new version of Firefox, which will focus on user-interface polish; an overhaul of Thunderbird, its e-mail client; and taking Firefox mobile. Mitchell Baker, the Mozilla Foundation's chairwoman, spoke to NEWSWEEK's Nick Summers and Barrett Sheridan about the challenges of making a browser for mobile phones, adapting to a socially networked universe and what she really thinks of Chrome and Internet Explorer. Excerpts:
All the President’s Tweets
N’Gai Croal 2/3/2009 12:00:00 AM
During the 2008 presidential race, one of the oft-cited feathers in the Obama campaign's cap was its Internet arm. From his unexpected win at the Iowa caucuses to his unprecedented field operation, the heart of the new president's machine was MyBarackObama.com. The brainchild of Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, the site allowed Obama supporters to register for information updates, plan events, become part of local groups, sign in at the site's virtual phone bank to make canvassing calls, and create individual fundraising pages. On top of that, his team took full advantage of existing social networking tools: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter. By the time Election Day rolled around, more than a million people had signed up at MyBarackObama.com, and nearly half of the record-breaking contributions to the campaign were donated in discrete amounts of $200 or less.
A Broker’s Best ‘Friend’
Daniel McGinn 1/7/2009 12:00:00 AM
When I checked Facebook earlier this week, I learned from my friends' status indicators that Ken was looking forward to eating lasagna after a trip to the gym. Steve and Michelle were worrying about an ice storm. Bret was planning to cook a rib-eye steak. And Tracy Wortmann, a high-school classmate with whom I reconnected last fall, had a different piece of news to share: "Tracy has 5 new listings, let me know if anyone is looking … Now is the time to buy!!!"