Elderly bloggers and internet junkies in the year 2062 reminisce about the good old days of social media and social networking. I’m not sure how they get the idea of “hipsters” out of these folks. This video was produced to promote Social Media Week 2012. Link -Thanks, Lauren O’Neil!

Have you ever wondered what your online life was like a year ago? Well then, Timehop might just be for you. Just enter a bit about yourself and the program will email you a summary of everything you posted on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Foursquare.

Link Via Laughing Squid

Matthew Inman at The Oatmeal reports on the current State of the Web. Not only does he have new developments, sales and mergers, new products, websites, and software, but he also gives us his opinions on all of it. The big story is, of course, the ups and downs of social networking sites. Some text is NSFW. Link -via The Daily What

This Twaggie was a Tweet illustrated by artist Zach Rodis.

If I ever commit a murder and need to somewhere to hide the body, I
have the perfect place in mind…

MySpace. – @JordyHamrick

I get it, no one would ever look there. Hmm, isn’t it the nature of social networking for one social site to poke fun at another? Link

It seemed like an open-and-shut case of accidental death. The only possible suspect had an albi established thanks to a Foursquare check-in. Or did she? This funny short film by Justin Johnson and Erik Beck mixes the gritty film noir genre with modern social networking.

via Urlesque

What if social media were a high school? That’s the question Ethan Bloch tries to answer by slotting in the “types” of networks into his “yearbook”.  Where would you fit into this system? Link -via Monkeyfilter

Previously:  The Cliques of Social Networking

How true are these stereotypes? I have accounts at a half-dozen of these networks, but since I don’t spend much time at any of them, it’s hard to keep up with trends. Found, of course, at a Tumblr blog. Link -via Buzzfeed

Vincenzo Cosenza created a series of maps tracking the most popular social networks around the world over the past year and a half. This month’s map is above. Consenza writes:

Zuckerberg’s creature continues to gain users around the world (almost 600 millions). Since June 2010 Facebook has stolen new important nations from local, previously strong, competitors (in 115 out of 132 countries analyzed it is market leader) especially in Europe. In particular:

- From Iwiw: Hungary

- From Nasza-Klasa: Poland

- From Hi5: Mongolia

- From Orkut (Google): Paraguay and India. Orkut remains the first social network in Brasil.

In Japan Mixi is still the most used web-based social network (Ameba that I previously mentioned it’s not a pure social networking site, but also a portal/blog-hosting provider). But if we look to mobile social networks usage the leader is Gree followeb by Mobage Town.

Link via Geekosystem

As you can see in the video below, the tree transmits raw information about particulate matter in the environment and weather conditions to researchers. They analyze what the tree sees and senses, then translate that into updates like “Won’t be doing too much photosynthesis in this cloudy weather,” and “This ozone concentration makes it difficult to do my job.” It also advises people to ride their bikes on days with air pollution.

Link -via Discoblog

It’s the game that brings the internet into the real world!

This is the best thing since BUMP for the iPhone which allowed you to instantly add friends to Facebook – it’s Social Media Monopoly. Pete Cashmore, Kevin Rose, Tom, Amber MacArthur, Crystal Gibson and Ariana Huffington are fighting for social media dominance. Race around the board picking up smartphones and computers but make sure you don’t get sent to MySpace or you’ll risk losing everything, including your reputation.

Print out the full-size version plus the Mashable and Technorati cards and use your regular Monopoly game money, and you’re good to go. Link -via Nag on the Lake

Isaiah Mustafa, the Old Spice spokesman, has been busy at YouTube today responding to messages on reddit, Digg, and Twitter. His response to Matthew Sinclair made me laugh out loud! You can see more personal messages at the Old Spice YouTube channel. Link

Social networking technology has contributed to the spread of a new group activity: crop mobbing.  In a modern-day equivalent of barn-raising, groups of young farmers and city-dwelling locavores descend on farms to offer their labor without expectation of compensation other than a hearty meal.  They focus their efforts on family-owned organic farms.  Not everyone is enthusiastic about the phenomenon:

Some dismiss crop mobs as urbanites playing at farming, a hands-on variation of the popular “Farmville” Facebook game. Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, history professor at Iowa State University, likened crop mobs to “agricultural tourism.”  “You go in, spend a nice weekend, get your fingers a little dirty. It’s nice but not a significant contribution to agriculture,” she said.

Supporters would vehemently disagree, noting that the experience offers networking for small farmers and an interesting experience for the “agricurious.”  The phenomenon began two years ago in North Carolina, and has now spread to other states.

Link.  Photo: Jim Gehrz.  Crop Mob website.

We all have an increasing number of sites and online services we’re members of, and sometimes it all gets a little overwhelming. At times, we just need to delete our memberships to some sites, either in an effort to simplify our lives or just because we’ve grown tired of a particular site or service.

What we often don’t realize when signing up for all these accounts, though, is how difficult it can be to permanently delete our accounts when we’ve had enough. Some require complicated, multi-step processes that can stretch over the course of days (or weeks). Others take less time, but still require multiple steps by the user.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by SteenSandy.

QuitFacebookDay is a pledge organized by two Facebook users with a simple goal: get as many people as possible to delete their Facebook accounts on Memorial Day as a reaction to the countless privacy concerns in the news recently. With new Facebook alternatives gaining steam and press, such as the upcoming Diaspora project, a lot have speculated that Facebook is beginning a slow descent. Over 12 thousand members have already pledged to quit Facebook, and the numbers are growing rapidly.

For us it comes down to two things: fair choices and best intentions. In our view, Facebook doesn’t do a good job in either department. Facebook gives you choices about how to manage your data, but they aren’t fair choices, and while the onus is on the individual to manage these choices, Facebook makes it damn difficult for the average user to understand or manage this. We also don’t think Facebook has much respect for you or your data, especially in the context of the future.

Link – via gothamist

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by nmiller.

Royal Pingdom conducted a study of the age distribution of different social networking sites. It’s often middle-aged people who dominate the user bases of these sites:

Although we can’t say how this will change over time, at the moment the older generations are for one reason or another (tech savvy, interest, etc.) not using social networking sites to a large extent. This probably reflects general internet usage, but we suspect the difference is enhanced when it comes to the social media sphere where site usage tends to be more frequent and time-consuming than usual.

It is also noteworthy that social media isn’t dominated by the youngest, often most tech-savvy generations, but rather by what has to be referred to as middle-aged people (although at the younger end of that spectrum).

More charts at the link.

Link via The Presurfer

unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.

As in, “I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight.”

“It has both currency and potential longevity,” notes Christine Lindberg, Senior Lexicographer for Oxford’s US dictionary program. “In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year. Most “un-” prefixed words are adjectives (unacceptable, unpleasant), and there are certainly some familiar “un-” verbs (uncap, unpack), but “unfriend” is different from the norm. It assumes a verb sense of “friend” that is really not used (at least not since maybe the 17th century!). Unfriend has real lex-appeal.”

Other words considered for the honor included hashtag, sexting, and paywall, all of which are unfamiliar to my spellchecker. Link -via Mashable

Karmawish is a new social networking site that hooks you up with other people who need help. Helping them earns you karma points, which gives you access to help that you need from others as life trips you up.

Link via Urlesque

A Venn diagram showing the psychological forces at work among users of social networking tools — a new shirt from the comedy geniuses at Despair, Inc.

Link

Asylum has a nifty post about the 6 crimes solved by the popular social networking website. For example:

Lesson #1: If you spray paint a special tag all around town, you might not want to brand it to your Facebook page.

We totally get the need to broadcast talents to friends on Facebook — that’s what it’s for, right? But unless you’re Banksy, your masterful tags probably won’t go over too well with the feds. That’s why, when specific tags were appearing all over Winnipeg, officers received a tip directing them to Facebook, where they found the same designs on an 18-year-old’s page.

Lesson #2: If you get caught on surveillance camera, just because you don’t have a mug shot on file doesn’t mean your face isn’t already out there for the finding.

Smile! … Or not. The Queenstown police of southern New Zealand nabbed their first Facebook crook after they caught a good shot of a burglar looking directly at the security camera after removing his mask. Quickly after posting the shot to their two-month-old page, tipsters sent suggestions and they identified the 21-year-old thief.

Link

Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centred.

The claims from neuroscientist Susan Greenfield will make disturbing reading for the millions whose social lives depend on logging on to their favourite websites each day. [...]

‘We know how small babies need constant reassurance that they exist,’ she told the Mail yesterday.

‘My fear is that these technologies are infantilising the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment.’

Her comments echoed those she made during a House of Lords debate earlier this month. Then she argued that exposure to computer games, instant messaging, chat rooms and social networking sites could leave a generation with poor attention spans.

Link