Social+Network+Update+4

__**Social Networks **__ Update #4




 * March 24th, 2011 **
 * Posted By: Kayla Drake **


 * The Article: [|Facebook may mean more jail time for South Carolina inmates]**
 * By: Steven Shankland**


 * Just when you thought everyone was using facebook, sources find that even inmates in federal prisons are sneaking in cell phones to update their facebook status'. Now a prison in South Carolina, in an attempt to lock down the use of social networks behind bars, have passed a law extending inmates sentences an extra 30 days if caught up dating or even creating a new facebook account. This will be the first state to make this a crime, but a very sensible one as the use of a social networking page by is a violation of their suspended right to the first amendment. More importantly, prison guards fear that inmates are using facebook to coordinate criminal activity outside the prison walls. Just when you thought it was strange seeing your mother on facebook...imagine seeing a prison on a life sentence updating his profile!**


 * April 4th, 2011 **
 * Posted By: Alex Pilon **

**Twitter Dominated by Elite Users**
 * Researchers discovered that Twitter, which has millions of registered users, is dominated by 20,000 "elite users"- less than .05 percent of total users. And a huge majority of these 20,000 users are celebrities. The other categories are media outlets, organizations and bloggers (shown in the table above). Not only is it disappointing that the social networking site is controlled by such a small percentage of the user population, but it is also sad that a lot of the tweets are recycled between the four categories through re-tweeting.**


 * April 5th, 2011 **
 * Post By: Brook Bentley **
 * Article: []**
 * By: Mary Quinn O'Connor**
 * March 30, 2011**


 * Social-Networking Tools Help Find Missing Children**


 * Fox News reported that the use of social networking has increased the ability to find missing children. The article explains that the rapid transmission of information allows a large amount of people to find out about the missing child very quickly as well as have access to pictures of the child. The article also explains how with mobile media, like the iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, and the general ability to have access to social networks like Facebook at our fingertips allows this quick transfer of information. The article states that the recovery rate of missing children found and returned is 96.4 percent today, compared to 60% i percent in the 1980's. This article is really interesting because seeing this rapid transfer of information being key to helping find missing children is parallel to a lot of other uses of social networks. For example the use of Twitter and Facebook to cause a revolution in Egypt was all due to the rapid transfer of information. Seeing this same key make it possible to help missing children is really a theme among social networks as this is now what people find to be more normal. Imagine if we did not know what was going on the moment it happened all the time.**

** April 5th, 2011 ** ** Post By: Madison Jones **

**The Article: [|A $23,000 Facebook App That Comes With a Car]** **By: Roy Furchgott**


 * The Chevrolet Cruze is adding a new dimension, a new Facebook app located on the rearview mirror. In a test, the Facebook Live Update app demonstrated all of the problems common to voice recognition and automated voice programs. It had a frequent inability to understand what had been said and difficulty reading back names. But before you can use the update feature, you have to go online and link your Facebook account to your OnStar account. Adjustments have been made so posting from the Cruze to Facebook works better, because it doesn’t try to recognize what you say. It puts up an audio file for people to hear. It sounds about like a mobile phone call from your car, which is what it is. The problem is that all of the posts read “[YOUR NAME] has posted an audio update from his Chevrolet Cruze using OnStar.” No will have any idea what it is about, other than product placement for the Cruze and OnStar. In the end the Facebook feature isn’t going to add a reason to plunk down $23,000 on a Cruze LTZ but has things that need to be worked out. **

**April 6th, 2011** **Post By: Sadie Eisley**


 * The Article: Color social networking app sees a lot of green; experience still gray**
 * By: Jordan Crook**

A new social network is in the works…only this time, NO computer necessary. “Color”, the new mobile media social network, is a smartphone based application that is recently available, for free, on i-phone and Android phones. This application requires users to be within 150ft of the people that they would like to be informed on and all users must have a smartphone in order to get information from one person to another. As a person takes a photograph on their smartphone it uploads the photo or video, along with the location, tag, and comment to your Color network. Although this new social networking application has made a lot of money, $41 million so far, I have a hard time understanding its purpose. It seems that this is very similar to the Facebook smartphone application, except for Facebook you can be anywhere and still “stalk” the pictures or videos of whoever you would like. Color claims that the major difference that will influence users to choose Color over Facebook is that they don’t have to work hard….I don’t think many people have broken a sweat logging on to Facebook…




 * April 6th, 2011 **
 * Posted By: Heather A. Shadd **


 * The Article: The Demise Of Social Media And The Return Of Mass Media**
 * By: Tom Foremski**

**"We should call it what it has now become: social distribution of (mass) media."** What Foremski points out in his article is that what we thought media would have become is nothing but a image of our past. Social media to some, promised innovations and opportunity for the individual user. There was a promise for more user generated content, but in a recent study that ties into Alex Pilon's post, most content that is generated is "retweeted", liked and shared from main mass media outlets. Take our Wiki for example, each of us could have done our own research and wrote our own articles, but instead we have relied mainly on the internet and the information that already exists. On a side, but related note, at the bottom of Foremski's article users have the option to "Share" or "Tweet" his article. :-)

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