Social Media

Clay Jam: Zynga goes claymation, with help from new partner

Clay Jam -- the latest game to come out of Zynga's recent push for mobile -- launches today, bringing a new type of game to the social-gaming platform.

Update, 10:38 a.m. PT: The game shows up in the Google Play store, but isn't ready for download, which is why some people may be seeing a "This item cannot be installed in your device's country" message. The creators said this should change any minute now. Android devices need to be on 2.3.1 (Gingerbread) or greater to play.

The claymation-based game, filmed in … Read more

Lexus ads are the latest auto spots to dis social media

While there's a lot of attention paid to how much technology is being built into new cars, Lexus has at least three ads going in the other direction. 

The ads, which were unveiled this week, don't want you to sit around at home doing social media, but encourage you to hit the road. Preferably in a Lexus.

One ad, embedded above, makes fun of hitting the Like button:

This December, remember: you can stay in and "Like" something or you can get out there with your family and actually like something.

The ad below takes … Read more

8 social-media changes since the 2008 elections

In social media, as in politics, four years is an eternity.

That's an example of a tweetable thought -- pithy and likely to be shared -- that you find sprinkled throughout social media these days.

The mild pressure to come up with re-tweetable posts is just one of the ways things have changed for me social-media-wise since the 2008 election, the first U.S. presidential election where social media was part of the equation.

Here are eight developments worth noting:

1. Facebook: 2008 was, indeed, a long time ago. At the end of that August, Mark Zuckerberg announced that his service had crossed 100 million users, … Read more

OMG! Text messaging in decline for the first time

If ever a story called for the use of an emoticon, this would be the one: text messaging volume in the U.S. has declined for the first time ever, according to a new research report.

Regardless of whether the emoticon you'd assign to the story is a smiley or a sad face, it's worth noting that after years as a growing communications medium, texting may be starting to fall victim to new market trends, at least insofar as it generates revenues for wireless carriers.

In a report looking at the U.S. mobile data market in the third quarter, Chetan Sharma wrote that although other western countries have already started to see falling revenue in the messaging segment, this was the first time that American carriers have both mirrored that revenue pattern and seen a drop in the total volume of SMS messages sent. … Read more

Goggles with built-in display let you ski like a boss

Who needs a ski resort map, when your goggles can tell you right where you are?

Next Monday, Oakley, one of the largest sports optics makers in the world, will unveil its $599 Airwave ski goggles, an all-new product featuring a small built-in heads-up display that mimics what appears to be a 14-inch screen seen at a distance of five feet.

The display, created using what is called "prism" technology, shows a wide range of imagery and information, including where a skier is, where their friends are, and even data about the last jump they took, or the … Read more

I Can Has Reality Show?

For years, those in the know have flocked to one site to get their daily fix of funny pictures of cats.

There's plenty of contenders for the crown, but the king of such sites, I Can Has Cheezburger, has long since left its rivals in the dust in the rarefied field of LOLCats, bringing in countless thousands of people every day who stop by to see images like one of a cat grabbing hold of its human and saying, "You have a pulse. You're well enough to get up and feed me."

The company behind I Can Has Cheezburger, Cheezburger Inc., employs more than 90 people who run dozens of blogs. And over the years, as they've built an audience in the millions, they've spawned two best-selling books. But they've never had a TV show. Until now. … Read more

Woman seeking boyfriend wants access to his server

You can meet a new lover in unexpected places -- like on a bus, at a winery, or at a pharmacy counter.

Such a chance encounter allows for the relationship to develop organically, right down to the bitter organic end.

For some people, though, chance encounters tend not to offer the precision they require. One of those people is Japanese programmer Noriko Higashi.

She, you see, knows precisely what she wants. Please believe me, it's quite a lot.

In order to find the man of her (rational) dreams, Higashi decided to advertise on social-coding site GitHub. Perhaps because she … Read more

MLB, NFL and a debate all at once? There's an app for that

Ever since I heard the third debate between President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney was going to be on a Monday night, I've been complaining about the overlap to anyone who'd listen.

Why would you go head-to-head with "Monday Night Football," the sports juggernaut on ESPN? Why remove 10-14 million potential viewers (that's been the range of MNF viewers this season) from the equation?

At least there wasn't going to be a baseball playoff game at the same time, I thought. Well, I was wrong. And so tonight, you have the perfect TV … Read more

How Googling others affects voting, hiring and dating

Despite all the new ways of learning about someone -- including Facebook and LinkedIn -- Googling others remains a major online activity. A new survey by BrandYourself, an online reputation company, and polling giant Harris Interactive shows that when it comes to voting, business and dating, people place a lot of emphasis on what they find in personal search results.

Here are some excerpts from "Just Google Me":

General -- Almost all online U.S. adults use search engines to look up other people: 86% used a search engine like Google to find more information about another person. … Read more