Snapchat takes its secrecy seriously. Very, very seriously. Take the case of one former Snapchat employee. On his first day, he was forced to sit through an ominous orientation in which he was threatened with termination if he so much as breathed a word of what he was...
Inside a Chinese Click-Farm
Inside China's phony 'click farm': Tiny office uses 10,000 handsets to send fake ratings and 'likes' for boosting clients' online popularity Footage has emerged of a giant 'click farm' in which thousands of phones are used to boost product ratings with phony 'likes'....
The tech industry and the media can share blame for creating Donald Trump
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the article. Three weeks after Donald Trump won a historic victory to become the 45th president of the United States, the media postmortems continue. In particular, the role played by the media and...
Furious trolls are everywhere: Even Internet moms are angry — and they hate you
Violent, enraged Internet trolls lurk everywhere, and have remade what seemed like an open space. Can we stop them? By Sara Scribner A young poet, enough of a rising star to be profiled in the New York Times Magazine, posts a poem called “The Rape Joke.” It begins,...
These Are The New Rules For When To Email, When To Text, And When To Call
By Nicholas Carlson A couple years ago, I learned the best way to keep my email account near inbox zero. The secret is to not look at my iPhone or open Gmail unless I can do something right then and there with every unread email. What this means in practice is that...
How the sharing economy makes money for venture capitalists while pretending progressive ideals
By Andrew Leonard Here’s a new term you’ve probably heard recently: “The sharing economy.” In the “sharing economy,” cheap access to resources that would otherwise go unused (a spare bedroom, a car, a weed whacker) is just one click away. And for many consumers of...
Lift, from Obvious Corp., a social network for ‘human potential’
The Obvious Corp. has announced Lift, its first start-up, and its not obvious as to what exactly Lift is. Obvious -- a San Francisco incubator started just about two months ago by Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams, and former head of product at Twitter...
No Magic Bullet For Replicable Social Advertising Success
The Trends in Social Advertising, research from the Pivot Conference in late Spring of 2011, was conducted by the Pivot team to measure the interest in and utilization of social advertising. An invitation to the online survey was extended to marketers and agency...
Social Network Advertising Influences But Doesn’t Drive
According to a recently released report, a collaboration between Forrester Research and GSI Commerce, social media rarely leads directly to purchases online. Less than 2% of orders were the result of shoppers coming from a social network during the holiday shopping...
Netflix Unfriended By Facebook TV
Facebook took some air out of the Netflix balloon when it announced its own movie streaming media service Tuesday. Working with Warner Brothers Digital Distribution, Facebook is testing a video service that will let users rent movies for $3, or 30 Facebook credits....