Remember when everyone got all up in arms about Facebook's social ads back in March? LinkedIn recently followed suit, making changes to its privacy policy to automatically include your name and photo in its social ads by default.
Good news is, it's easy to opt-out. Follow these steps to removing your name and image from LinkedIn's new social ads feature.
The London riots have caused more than physical damage to the city — it has also started the discussion on whether or not governments should have the ability to block usage of social networks if they believe those tools are being used to spark violence and unrest. Reports state that a large part of the London riots have been organized via social networks (like Twitter and Facebook) as well as BlackBerry BBM. RIM is already cooperating to hand over information relating to the riots while the British prime minister has issued a call to ban users from social networks who have used them to organize riots, and he's asked sites like Twitter and Facebook to remove posts relating to those actions.
Earlier this year, we saw the population of Egypt blocked from Twitter and Facebook to prevent videos, photos, and information from being shared about the country's protests. While the British government isn't asking to totally block social networks from the country as a whole, rather it wants to ban individuals using it to organize riots. The question can be asked — where do we draw the line? Obviously, sites like Twitter and Facebook have the right to shut users down for violating terms of service, but should that power also be handed off to the government?
What do you think — should governments have the ability to block social networks to prevent violence, or is any blockage considered censorship?
We found lots of reasons to use Google+ in our everyday lives, and it seems that you have too — 25 million people have visited Google+ and are spending 50 percent more time there now than they did in early July.
While Google+ hasn't exactly replaced Facebook for my friends and family, it is a cool way to share info, photos, and soon, a way for businesses to connect to their audience with the roll out of business pages. Are you still using Google+ yourself, or has your use already started dwindling?
To those that have yet to find a reason to use Google+, it's now a great way to discover talented artists. Aaron Wood shared these propaganda-style images of Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ on his Google+ account and has received over 3,000 comments since posting the work four days ago.
Each individual social network image is available for purchase through Aaron's Etsy store, though they keep flying off the virtual shelves.
Google revealed Google+ to the world last week, and the new social network quickly became the talk of the Internet. Though most agree that it's not yet a Facebook killer, there are some interesting and noteworthy features included within its white walls. We've been getting to know the pros and cons of Google+ more intimately over the long holiday weekend, so check out our rundown below and don't forget to add your thoughts in the comments!
Check out the list of Google+ cons after the jump.
Google revealed the first five features coming with its new social product today, called Google+. At first glance, Google+ seems to be a worthy competitor to Facebook, if for no other reason than ease of use and the ability to share certain things with certain people in the different facets of your life.
Google+ brings together all of your friends in one place, and lets you simply and easily designate and organize all of your contacts into different groups. Additionally, Google+ will incorporate some cool chat and mobile features that can come in handy when uploading photos and organizing get-togethers. There are much more details to uncover about Google+, but take a gander at the first five features that will come with the social service below.
See more, including some demo videos after the break.
So much for that old theory that the Internet is isolating: results from a recent Pew Research study show that Facebook users have more close friends than those who aren't engaged in online activity. The study, which was conducted between October and November of last year shows that the number of "close friends" Internet users have is up (now at 2.16 verses 1.93 in 2008), and Facebook users are more engaged with their friends than people who don't use the network at all.
I've often thought that Facebook can bring people closer together, since reading friends' status updates and checking out their photos and events can keep you more involved in their lives than if you weren't seeing their everyday activities. Of course, nothing can replace a phone call or face-to-face visit, so tell me — do you believe that you have more close friends because of social networks, like Facebook, or do you feel that your relationships are more superficial?
Pop quiz: how many Facebook friends do you have right this second? OK, now question two: how many of them are actually friends or family members you're close to and interact with regularly? According to research performed in the '90s by anthropologist Robin Dunbar, that number should be somewhere around 150.
Dunbar has studied groups from ancient hunter-gatherers to GORE-TEX wet-suit factories, and in every situation, the number of meaningful relationships people are able to maintain maxes out between 100 and 200. And new research from Indiana University focused on Twitter followers reaches the same conclusion. The reason for this, Dunbar says, is that at 150 relationships, our brains stop being able to keep track, and we reach a saturation point.
The Dunbar Number isn't an exact science; the number definitely varies from group to group, and even from person to person. So, take a good look at your social network and tell me: what's your Dunbar Number?
There's a new law being shopped around California's senate called SB242, or the Social Networking Privacy Act, which requires social networks to allow parents full access to their kids' profiles and even lets them request removal of text or photos from a minor's (under 18) profile. 
For me, this calls into question the rights of the user. Facebook allows users age 13 and up to open an account, and since these kids are still underage, should their parents have total access to their Facebook accounts? And does the state have a right to step in and make that decision for them? I'm a big proponent of involved parenting when it comes to online activity, but I'm not sure a statewide bill is the answer to keep your kids' online activity clean.
While this bill may sound strict, there is a plus side — the bill would also force social networks to walk users through privacy settings upon signup, explaining what each setting means before the account goes live. I'm all for that action. What do you think about California's SB242?
The über popular Call of Duty: Black Ops game gets a lot of play. In fact, the average player spends 58 minutes of their day playing online. This trumps the 55 minutes a day spent on which social network?
