Scholars, advertisers and political activists see massive online social networks as a representation of social interactions that can be used to study the propagation of ideas, social bond dynamics and viral marketing, among others. But the linked structures of social networks do not reveal actual interactions among people. Scarcity of attention and the daily rhythms of life and work makes people default to interacting with those few that matter and that reciprocate their attention. A study of social interactions within Twitter reveals that the driver of usage is a sparse and hidden network of connections underlying the "declared" set of friends and followers.

Web Site Story CollegeHumor's first Broadway musical since (LOL)Cats.

"Someone recently asked me, 'If McCluhan is right and the medium is the message, what is the message of Twitter?" My response: "Here It Is and Here I Am.'"

Tips for effective use of LinkedIn.

Nice article on the right way to create community and integrate social marketing into a web site.

tinythread.com = simple individualized comment application

Opinion piece on the use of Facebook by faculty. Discusses concerns of privacy and granularity in use of FB by teachers. A bit naive in my opinion but does discuss the issues.

The community around Wordpress is excellent providing free themes and plugings in nearly any form ans shape to meet your specific needs. Further on you can achieve amazing things if you know a few Wordpress hacks and have learned some basic programming skills in PHP and SQL. Many programmers have put together solutions that address need on a blog that are not offered out of the box in Wordpress and you can easily use these in your own templates. This articles provides a list of some of the most essential wordpress hacks available.

"To those who Twitter, the reporter who investigates a story before offering it to the public must also seem tediously ruminant. On Twitter, the notes become the story, devoid of even five minutes of reflection on the writer's way to the computer. I can see that there are times -an airplane landing in the Hudson, a presidential election in Iran-when this type of impromptu journalism becomes a necessity, and an exciting one at that. Luckily, reporters still exist to make sense of information bytes and expand upon them for readers-but for how much longer?"

Interesting discussion of the differences between Facebook and Twitter, especially among 18-24 group.

"All too frequently, someone makes a comment about how a large number of Facebook Friends must mean a high degree of social capital. Or how we can determine who is closest to who by measuring their email messages. Or that the Dunbar number can explain the average number of Facebook friends. These are just three examples of how people mistakenly assume that 1) any social network that can be boiled down to a graph can be compared and 2) any theory of social networks is transitive to any graph representing connections between people. Such mistaken views result in broad misinterpretations of social networks and social network sites."

"I have written before about Shiv Sena's militant approach towards Orkut communities critical of the party, its leader Bal Thakeray, or its Hindutva ideology. Caste-based communities on Orkut are another disturbing example of online communities mirroring the dysfunctions in Indian society."

"Those who are seeking social media careers need to remember to remember that social media technologies are secondary to meeting business and customer needs."

"Social media strategy doesn't require dozens of corporate subcommittee meetings and a 70-page master plan. In fact, all you really need is one sentence that can keep you on target and on customers' minds."

The usage of these technologies in learning processes is not a fad, it is just a normal reflection of the evolutionary development of internet. Our students like YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, ect. and spend much time in these virtual places. The informal learning based on Web 2.0 exists and functions like a "university in shadow" with possibilities of a borderless digital learning environment. So, why don't the educators present the power of social media for learning and better strategies for its utilization?

Basic guide to Twitter, why you'd want to use it, how to use it, etc. Created for businesses so there's case studies and other resources for business.

CNet review of Google Wave.

Conversation by CNet editors on the features and process of using Google Wave.

"CoTweet allows multiple people to communicate through corporate Twitter accounts and stay in sync while doing so. With CoTweet, you can: * Engage people throughout your company - Share the job of being on duty. Tap the collective wisdom of people across functional areas like marketing, PR and customer service. Assign tasks and track follow-ups. * Focus on the conversations that matter - Know when you need to jump in. Track your exchanges through simple case management. Schedule updates to make company announcements. * Keep your brand human - Automatically include signatures in your updates to identify who's talking and keep conversations personal."

White paper on the proper way to think about social media for proijects and as part of the enterprise.