Eric Schmidt (guy who runs Google, if you’re new to this ‘inter-net’ thing) was quoted this week as saying that Google was, in fact, not developing a service to rival Facebook. “The world doesn’t need a copy of the same thing,” he said. Oh really, Eric? Because be your inescapable charisma and otherworldly good looks as they may, that’s not what I heard. I heard you’re doing exactly the opposite of not creating a Facebook-like service. I heard it’s called Google Me. I heard it’s coming soon. So while you’re for sure the slickest, most hunkalicious snake charmer I’ve ever seen, I gotta go with…

Oh, hey, that was slick, Facebook. Go to your account, guys. Right now. New tab. Check out your account options. Notice anything different? Facebook rolls stuff out slowly, so maybe you don’t. If you’re one of the lucky few, you may have noticed that Facebook has quietly added the option to delete your account, changing ‘Deactivate Account’ to ‘Deactivate or Delete Account’. Fancy that. It raises some questions, though, not the least of which is: why give us this option now? It’s not like Facebook is still facing bad press from the privacy snafu. You don’t like deleting our data, Facebook. Why give…

The other day, while digging around for the day’s news, I chose not to cover an iPad app that seemed to be grabbing a bit of attention. This iPad app was Flipboard, the social news doodad that presents your Twitter and Facebook accounts as a sexy analog of print media. ‘So what,’ I said, ‘it’s an app. Whatever.’ Boy, do I have egg on my face. Colour me all kinds of mistaken. Hype for the app has reached a fever pitch, and an ocean of users attempt to log in. ”Due to overwhelming interest,” the app’s error message reads, “we are currently limiting the rate at which we are accepting new Facebook and Twitter…

Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg’s own personal privacy invasion tool is known for failing to properly handle issues of security and personal data protection, but most people assume that after death, your Facebook woes will be over. Sadly, this is not the case. A Facebook feature with the goal of attempting to pair up users who haven’t talked for a while has a creepy side effect. Since Facebook has no way of knowing whether users are inactive because they’re busy with something other than Farmville or ‘liking’ stuff or because they’ve passed away, Facebook is prompting users to connect with deceased…

Could we witness a retelling of David versus Goliath with an epic battle between the two largest social networking networking competitors? You have Facebook, which continually grows amidst its privacy woes. Then you have Twitter, which faces scalability issues with increasing usage. As big as they both are, Twitter is tiny compared to Facebook’s massive user base, but maybe not for long. These two services were, at a time, very different from each other. They both had separate methods to their madness: one focusing on a tight-knit network of close friends and the other offering massive community…

Hey Zuckerberg, you’d better make way for Paul Ceglia. Who the hell is Paul Ceglia? Why, web designer / wood pellet distributor extraordinaire, of course. Apparently, Paul signed a contract in April 2003 to develop thefacebook.com, for which he would be paid $1000 and 50% share in the company, with an additional 1% share per day until the work was completed. All told, Paul Ceglia should (according to him) currently own 84% of Facebook. Yeah, Paul, and I should own 77% of Google. But I don’t. Because I didn’t design it. The fact that Ceglia is bringing this up seven years after the fact calls into question…

As if Facebook wasn’t surrounded by enough privacy concerns already, new facial recognition technology is being added to ease the task of tagging people in images. After its purchase of Divvyshot two months ago, Facebook is focusing more of photos and photo uploading. Apparently, more than 100 million photos are uploaded to the giant social service every day, and they see a potential to invade more people’s privacy on an even larger scale than previously. Divvyshot was a tiny photo startup which aimed to make sharing photos easier. After only a year in business, the service was snapped up by Facebook…

Lists are everywhere on the Internet and everyone seems to have an opinion about how the items are ranked therein or just all out disagree with the choices. Thankfully, Listiki has come up with a way for everyone to be happy while allowing everyone’s opinion to be addressed. Listiki is a new site just fresh into its beta stage. It offers users a place to make a list and have the option to post it on their Facebook or Twitter accounts. What Listiki excels at is giving everyone an opinion without having to worry about getting into a virtual fistfight in the comments section. This is achieved by the ability…

You’ve certainly been waiting for this, haven’t you? Back in the day (the 20th, to be exact), I, like so many intrepid newsmen before me, slapped up the poster for the upcoming Dave Fincher opus The Social Network, due out soonish, maybe, perhaps. Starring Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Z and apparently Justin Timberlake as Shawn Fanning, the picture will provide a Hollywood-filtered look at the origin of that-website-what-we-hated-last-month-but-everything-seems-to-be-cool-now. Anyway, most of us immediately scoffed and demanded a trailer. With that, behold a new teaser (below… duh)…

Remember when Google created Buzz to compete with Twitter and Facebook and um, other social tools? Remember how it basically fell flat, with Google forcing some people to use Buzz against their will, and a generally lukewarm reception all round? Well, Google has decided to wander into yet another company’s territory, this time – Facebook. Digg CEO Kevin Rose tweeted that Google might be launching a Facebook killer called Google Me, although one Twitterer mentions it might simply be an upgrade to the existing Google Profiles service. Google’s tried and tested “fling stuff at the wall and see…