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To help manage this problem, Facebook on Wednesday introduced a "subscription button," which allows people to subscribe to parts of your news feed without having to become your Facebook friend. The new feature feels very similar to the follow button on Twitter, where you choose to follow someone's feed.

This week, according to numerous media and technology executives, Facebook will unveil a media platform that will allow people to easily share their favorite music, television shows and movies, effectively making the basic profile page a primary entertainment hub.

NEW YORK -- Just in time for the crucial winter holidays, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. aims to recreate the feel of a local store for its more than 9 million Facebook fans. The world's largest retailer announced Tuesday a partnership with the social networking site that offers Facebook pages specifically tailored for each of its more than 3,500 locations. Those pages are designed to allow its customers to interact with its local stores as well as get information on new products, events and discount offers. The partnership marks the first of its kind for a merchant and underscores how companies are using Facebook to develop a deeper relationship with its shoppers by responding quickly to their demands with the goal of increasing sales.

When Michelle Ryan Lauto decided to organize a statewide protest against school budget cuts, she didn't pass out fliers, make phone calls or attend meetings.She just logged on to Facebook.Lauto's Facebook page - "Protest NJ Education Cuts - State Wide School Walk Out" - drew nearly 18,000 members within a few weeks and sparked today's mass budget protest in schools across New Jersey.With 400 million members and growing, Facebook is becoming the leading forum for mobilizing protests, rallies, boycotts and other social movements

The latest of several studies to look into the relationship between Facebook use and low grades has a counterintuitive twist - some kinds of Facebook use are correlated with higher GPAs.

All those hours you spend on Facebook may be adding grey matter, signifying greater density, to the part of your brain linked to social skills. Or, perhaps, people with larger areas of the brain for social skills may just have higher than average Facebook friend counts

A poll run by the social media news blog Mashable found that 75 percent of Facebook fans "hate" the redesign. The new Facebook fared even worse on the poll site Sodahead, where 86 percent gave the changes a thumbs down.

Katherine Evans said she was frustrated with her English teacher for ignoring her pleas for help with assignments and a brusque reproach when she missed class to attend a school blood drive. So Evans, who was then a high school senior and honor student, logged onto the networking site Facebook and wrote a rant against the teacher, Sarah Phelps. "To those select students who have had the displeasure of having Sarah Phelps, or simply knowing her and her insane antics: Here is the place to express your feelings of hatred," she wrote. Her posting drew a handful of responses, some of which were in support of the teacher and critical of Evans. "Whatever your reasons for hating her are, they're probably very immature," a former student of Phelps wrote in her defense. A few days later, Evans removed the post from her Facebook page and went about the business of preparing for graduation and studying journalism in the fall. But two months after her online venting, Evans was called into the principal's office and was told she was being suspended for "cyberbullying," a blemish on her record that she said she feared could keep her from getting into graduate schools or landing her dream job.

Each year on Constitution Day, students and teachers celebrate the most fundamental laws of our republic. On this Constitution Day, they should also celebrate Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and other social media. Why? Because it turns out that social media are good for the Constitution. Specifically, they're good for the First Amendment. Fully 91 percent of students who use social networking to get news and information daily believe people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions, compared with 77 percent of those who never use social networks to get news. Not all the news is good this year. While more students understand that government can't censor the media in this country, nearly 40 percent still don't. While more students say they think about the First Amendment, most still don't. Even so, when the numbers start to move in the right direction, it's cause for celebration. Do we have teachers to thank for recent improvements in First Amendment attitudes? Not really. Fewer students say they get First Amendment instruction in school than in our last survey. And only 30 percent of teachers say they are teaching the subject. I'm afraid many teachers are a drag on First Amendment learning. The survey says most don't support free expression rights in a school context. They don't think school papers should print controversial articles. They don't think students should post about school on Facebook. And they mostly think social media hurt teaching.

"A former Florida high school student will now be able to move forward with a lawsuit against her principal after a federal magistrate ruled Feb. 12 that her Facebook post complaining about a teacher is constitutionally protected under the First Amendment. Katherine Evans, a former student of Pembroke Pines Charter High School in Pembroke Pines, Fla., was suspended by her principal months after she made a Facebook page in 2007 about her Advanced Placement English teacher Sarah Phelps. On the page, Evans wrote: "Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I've ever met. To those students who have had the displeasure of having Ms. Sarah Phelps, or simply knowing her and her insane antics: Here is the place to express your feelings of hatred.""

At Thursday's (September 22) f8 conference, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed tons of new features and changes aimed at making the social network even more engaging.

Facebook has made big changes to users' pages, and people are responding in droves with their metaphorical "dislike" buttons.

Police are seeking possible additional victims of a 28-year-old Middlesex County man charged with sexually assaulting two young girls he met after posing as a teenager on Facebook.

Showing that modernity might, just might, find its place even in a world predisposed to the most traditional of customs, in walks FaceGlat: an ultra-Orthodox Jewish answer, at least for some, to Facebook.

SEATTLE -- According to a new study, college students' Facebook pages may reveal which of them are at risk of problem drinking and alcohol abuse.

This guide is designed to give teachers the tools and ideas they need to engage students using social media and existing curricula. The guide was inspired by the recent Knight Foundation study "Future of the First Amendment 2011" written by Dr. Kenneth Dautrich. The Knight study - based on a survey of 12,090 high school students and 900 high school teachers -- indicates that students who are most active in social media also have the best sense of First Amendment principles. That suggests that Twitter, Facebook and other social media can play an important supplemental role in the classroom.