After hitting the market hard, then getting hit hard by the market, Facebook’s tumultuous IPO has hit a new low, closing at $28.84 yesterday and losing more after hours to rest at $28.69. Some of the “smart money” made claims last week and before that they were going to wait until Facebook went south of $30 before buying. That time has come. Will they buy? The answer would probably be yes if it weren’t for foolish semi-confirmed reports that Facebook is building a phone. If the rumors turn out to be true, many will run from the risky endeavor which would take the virtual world of social media and add in…

Call this a #protip for social media use. If you’re helping your grandmother count her life savings, don’t try to impress your friends by snapping a picture of it and posting it on Facebook, particularly when your home address is on your Facebook profile. That’s exactly what a 17-year-old Australian girl did while helping her 72-year-old grandmother. Thankfully, the masked robbers armed with knives and a club broke into her own house and robbed her 47-year-old mother instead. It was her mom’s house that was on her Facebook page. As Jolie O’Dell at Venture Beat put it, “Use the sense God gave a horse…

Incessant gossip surrounding iPad/iPhone releases and future features is the only thing more persistent in the tech rumor mill than the mythical Facebook phone. It’s coming, then it dies, then it’s in production, then it was never even considered; the information coming out of Menlo Park (and Palo Alto when they were there) as well as reliable sources do more flip flops about the Facebook phone than most politicians. Most. Now, it appears that the rumors may have some real weight to them. The project which was reported scrapped last year may have been up and running the whole time. Code-named…

As of 2012, printed newspaper has been surpassed big time by online news revenue. Networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are becoming the new “Sunday’s paper” causing traditional news outlets to be a thing of the past. At least three times a week, about 46% of people read the news online. This number will continue to increase. Already, over 50% of people find out about breaking news through social media. You can find out about anything and everything via social media. As far as online news sources go, Facebook dominates how people are finding out about things. With 59% of consumers…

For those of you that don’t know, Klout is a way of measuring digital influence through social networking platforms. I’ll admit that I was fully engrossed in checking my score compulsively when I first discovered it and was more elated than a kid on Christmas when my score broke a certain number. Granted, it’s still a modest score, but I feel good about it. Or I did until I really sat down and really thought about it. Please note that, while I write this, I’m sure my Klout score is depreciating in value. Soon I’ll be back to a lowly ten. Klout and clout are really two different things. Klout is…

In Aladdin, when Jafar was pulled into the lamp after making a monumental mistake of going for too much power, he grabbed his untrusty sidekick on his way down to be stuck in lamp limbo together. The same things seems to be happening with Facebook and Zynga; as Facebook’s IPO crumbles, Zynga’s shares continue to sag. In this Chart of the Day by Statista, it’s easy to see how the fate of the larger company is dramatically affecting the future of the smaller, dependent company. Click to enlarge. Related articles An Inside Look at Zynga’s Bribable Approach to Customer Loyalty (dailyfinance.com) Zynga,…

In the news, there was a recent study providing evidence that drinking coffee may help you live longer. The study was carried out by the National Institutes of Health and AARP. However, researchers urge you to remember that this doesn’t necessarily prove that coffee makes people live longer; it just shows that coffee and living longer are related. Even so, this contradicts earlier studies that had said coffee can increase risks of heart disease. This study included 400,000 individuals, making it the largest study ever done on this issue, so the results should be reassuring for those of you…

It seems that BBDO New York has come up with another way for bars to become a different kind of “social”.  As I opened Mashable today and saw one of my favorite things, a pint of Guinness, intertwined with a symbol of the digital age, the QR code. We all know that people flock to the local watering hole to relieve stress from work or meet up with friends to talk about what’s new in their lives.  The type of social scene at a bar can often determine its patrons and vice versa but either way, people go to certain bars because they either want to socialize with their friends or meet new people. The capabilities…

Facebook gives itself a facelift by improving the user experience yet again. Facebook’s Timeline, which was implemented back earlier in the year, was given the digital makeover by compressing the user profile across the cover photo. Previous Timelines were bulky and gaudy, with large tabs under the cover photo where profile visitors could cruise a user’s profile. Timeline has now designed the user’s profile to be subtle and manageable but does this improvement really do anything for the Facebook experience? With millions of dollars in revenue from the Facebook IPO and all the publicity…

She already dominated the pop world, but now with over 51 million fans on Facebook and 24 million Twitter followers, Lady Gaga plans to conquer the social media world with her very own site. The plan is to round up all of her fans and unite them under one roof, a separate social media site deemed properly, “Little Monsters.”  Here, fans are able to connect with one another and share all things Gaga related, as well as share their own pictures and videos. According to developers, Little Monsters resembles Pinterest and Reddit, allowing users to scroll through picture tiles, post and repost images…