MeetUp.com has changed a lot since it was originally founded in 2001. The website that heralds itself as a place where it is “easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face” came under fire—not for the first time—last year after its re-launch included layout and design changes that users felt looked cheap and unattractive, and which downgraded photos, and allowed any member of a MeetUp group to organize events despite the fact that only lead organizers were hit with MeetUp’s high monthly fees. Since then, loyalty to the site has…

Currently in the United States we have two leading cellphone operators, Android and iOS. And we all know it’s about being connected and social nowadays, so which one is the most social of the two? To start off, there are 500 million activated Android devices and 410 million activated iPhone devices. But keep in mind, there are many types of Android phones available and the iPhone only has about 5 upgrades available. Facebook takes the lead on the highest ranked social application on Android phones. Followed closely by Google+ and Instagram. However, the higher ranking social apps on iPhone are…

As technology advances, the amount of information shared increases dramatically as well. No longer is just sharing pictures something of the norm, it’s boring now! Sharing your location is now what posting pictures once was. I’m not talking about Foursquare when people post that they’re at the library or “fishbat docks,” I’m talking about Geotagging posts and photos! How awesomely social is that? The fact that you can attach to your Tweet that you’re sitting at a local farmer’s market or at a Mets game is absolutely incredible From a community managers point of view, this makes…

Posterous, the creator of a simple blogging service via email, has dramatically shifted its focus. The company now revolves around a new product called Posterous Spaces, which allows users to privately share photos and videos with friends or family. With Spaces, Posterous will compete less with other blogging platforms, such as Tumblr. This could be a wise move for Posterous considering that Tumblr just announced it had surpassed its 10 billionth post, and over the past year the service had grown from 7 to 28 million blogs. At one time, both microblogging services were growing at a similar pace,…

When the Google +1 button first rolled out earlier this year, it made a little bit of a splash from speculation that it may have an effect on general search rankings some time in the future. It was designed to help logged-in friends help each other with suggested web pages. Not a big deal. When Google then launched the Google+ social network, the similarities in design and integration of functionality became more intriguing. Users could click the +1 button on any website that had it installed and could use it to share the page on their Google+ profile. Again, great stuff, but nothing huge. Now, the…

Gaming was once ripe with solitude and individualism. Sure, there were multiplayer games, but that required people to be playing on the same console or computer with joysticks attached to the same device. They either took turns or played with each other, depending on the game. In the last decade and a half, network connections, the internet, and social media have changed the face of gaming forever. Social media in particular has drawn a lot of interest in recent years because of the way that it is attracting a larger demographic. Nearly 60% of gamers play with friends. One-third play with siblings,…

It’s another year, which means the time has come for Google to take yet another shot at social. They added another one to the mix, and I got to hand it to Google, this one is… different. Google is calling it +1 — yes, +1 is the name. It’s a new social feature that integrates into Google Search. Users can actually access it right now by activating it within Google’s experimental options. But if you’re in no hurry, it will eventually be rolled out to everyone in the future. But what is +1, exactly? Introducing Google +1 Well, the best way to introduce Google +1 is to start off with the button itself….

I remove people from Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks on a daily basis — not by choice, but because there is too much information — but I never thought of the consequences. I always just assumed that there is an understanding between people in the digital age. But one day changed everything for me: I had removed someone who didn’t take it so lightly, and he made me feel guilt and pain that I had not felt since high school. What was I becoming? He was nice to me. He engaged me in conversation, retweeted articles that I posted, and joined in on conversations that really got me thinking. It…

“I believe that Chatroulette was great in the first honeymoon days after it was launched,” says Andrey Ternovskiy, the founder of Chatroulette, “before it was discovered by a strange people, who started to abuse the true freedom and democratic nature of the service.” Andrey’s been feeling a bit down lately. Wouldn’t you, after the app you so lovingly hand-crafted to create “a perfect video world” had devolved into a wretched hive of scum and villainy, with more users willing to expose their unmentionables than their face? Yeah, you would. Stop giggling. Seriously, stop it. Can’t you see he’s…

Remember when the social media war wasn’t just between Facebook and Twitter, with Google nipping at both their heels with weird and mostly ineffectual efforts? Us neither. But apparently a long time ago there was this thing called ‘MySpace’ that a couple of people used. It was ugly, and never worked particularly well, and allowed people to do awful things like have music play when you visit their profile. MySpace found some success among musicians looking to throw together a simple fan site to upload music to, but socially they couldn’t compete with Facebook. Now they’re fighting back. MySpace…