On social networking sites such as Facebook, users are asked to list on their profiles their favorite books, TV shows, bands, movies, and so on. One can cynically view this as an opportunity for people to signal how cool they are, but let’s suspend our cynicism and posit that the purpose of this exercise is [...]

Tags: Facebook, profiles, signaling, social networking, statistically improbable phrases
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When Google Buzz came out last week, most of my friends spent the first day messing with it and then promptly turned it off or ignored it. Everyone is already using Facebook, and some of them are on Twitter; the last thing we need is another social network to check. Nevertheless, I think there are [...]

Tags: Buzz, Facebook, Google, PubSubHubbub, Salmon, social networking, Twitter, WebFinger
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