Social Networking: Features

Social media has been a boon for businesses small and large, but it's also becoming a minefield for those unable to manage the increasing complexities of the run-and-gun nature of the beast. On a seemingly daily basis, we suffer through one "Twitter disaster" or another. It's becoming so commonplace that "Twitter disaster" really doesn't deserve to be in quotes.

At Google I/O on Wednesday, Google unveiled a streaming music service that will compete directly with the likes of Pandora and Spotify -- in what is said to be a growing market, however.

Your online life may not seem worth tracking as you browse websites, store content in the cloud, and post updates to social networking sites. But the data you generate is a rich trove of information that says more about you than you realize - and it's a tempting treasure for marketers and law enforcement officials alike.

Pandora and Rosetta Stone have embraced social business tools and the Cloud to cut costs, increase productivity and improve collaboration. Learn how these two companies overcame security concerns, gained executive buy-in and more.

Confession time: I'm an inveterate social media junkie. From Facebook to Instagram to Diaspora, whenever a new communication platform rolls around--or comes back around--I'm ready to leap aboard.

Facebook's redesigned News Feed may help keep users flooded with information from quitting the social network, anlaysts said.

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have all rolled out major changes to their free webmail services. Which now offers the best organisation, message handling, mobile options and advanced features?

Our LinkedIn guide delivers expert advice on the site's features, step-by-step how-to instructions, details on its apps and proper LinkedIn etiquette. Also included: tips and tricks for your job search and company analysis.

I recently decided, somewhat randomly, to experiment a bit more with social networking. I was on LinkedIn and at some point the service asked me if it could access my Gmail contact list.

You have no doubt watched the rise of Pinterest, the latest social media phenom. But have you switched to the new Pinterest Business Pages? Here's how to do it, plus details on its other exclusive features.

Last week Gen. David Petraeus, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, resigned in response to what has turned out to be a much bigger scandal than it first appeared.

What's the tangible, money-in-the-bank benefit of a Facebook follower? Social marketing mavens have pondered the question for years and we're still not any closer to a hard answer. Facebook last month swept fake "Likes" from its pages, to the chagrin of spammers. But do efforts at gaming the social network even pay off? If you're using Facebook for legitimate marketing, what's the ROI of having virtual fans?

There’s an elephant in the room, and it’s wearing a Microsoft T-shirt.

There are a ton of Android apps out there -- 600,000 in the Google Play store alone, the company said at this summer's Google I/O conference -- but there are only a few that rise to the status of being a critical, everyday app for a lot of people. Without further ado, here are some of those that we defy you not to get hooked on.

It's 1am. and Josh Robin is busy working.

Images are suddenly trumping words on social sites, and the trend is going to transform consumer electronics.

In the 1995 sci-fi thriller Virtuosity, starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, the virtual bad guy from a supercomputer crime simulator (played by Crowe), managed to escape the world of software and make it into the real world as a nano-tech self-generating Android. That's a far-fetched premise, but Virtuosity was a great movie anyway.

So you've said yes to the use of personal tech. How do you make it work for and in your business?

Could you avoid an epic hack against your personal data and online accounts similar to the recent attack against former Gizmodo writer Mat Honan? Hackers bent on breaking into Honan’s Twitter account wreaked havoc on the technology writer’s personal computing devices and online accounts. The bad guys remotely wiped his iPad, iPhone, and Mac, and deleted his Google Account. The attack cost Honan most of his personal data (he didn’t backup the information) including family photos that may be unrecoverable.

The Internet is abuzz this weekend as a result of the Gizmodo Twitter account getting hijacked. That incident was traced back to the hack of an Apple iCloud account - allegedly accomplished through social engineering.