Social Networking

How can distance learning become more student-centred? Dr Mpine Elizabeth Makoe, University of South Africa (UNISA), has been preoccupied with this question for several years. In a long-term study she conducted, she found that isolated students have a need for informal support that is often neglected in distance education. This has led her to investigate on how MXit, a popular South African instant messaging system, can help to fill the gap and drive collaborative eLearning in an attractive, age appropriate manner.

A new study released by Ohio State University shows that college students who use Facebook spend less time studying and have lower grades than students who don't use the popular social networking site. But don't count on the Facebook users admitting the problem.

Google's not perfect, analysts say, and hooking up with Twitter could prove to be beneficial for the search leader.

Breakthrough's multimedia campaign "Bell Bajao" (Ring the Bell), urges men to take a stand against domestic violence. The extraordinary campaign, launched on August 20, 2008, has reached over 35 million people throughout India through TV and radio spots, print ads, mobile video vans, and an online presence.

Facebook users spend almost 30 minutes a day on the site poking and messaging their friends on average, with access patterns similar on mobile phones and computers, a British study showed on Monday.

Welcome to the world of social networking, a phenomenon that is increasingly driving creation and deployment of applications oriented around whole new universes of communication. Facebook, MySpace, instant messaging and a new generation of Internet-enabled devices is drawing the younger set to connect in new ways and attracting businesses to a new way of reaching this demographic.

Certain predicted technological revolutions are more myth than reality.

After all, TV phones and laserdiscs were hailed as the wave of the future and yet, despite influencing today's technology, they've gone by the wayside.

Social networking sites might have seemed as if they'd follow the same route, but all signs suggest they're here for the long haul.

Employers are checking job applicants' profiles on sites like Facebook, Brightfuse and LinkedIn, according to a recent CareerBuilder.com survey.

Twenty-two percent of employers say they use social networking sites when evaluating job candidates, and an additional 9 percent intend to do the same soon. Yet, only 16 percent of workers with social networking profiles have modified their pages with potential employers in mind.

Social networks could complement, and in some cases replace, services provided by government.

That's according to analyst house Gartner that says government organisations could benefit from social networking technology if they approach it in the right way.

Gartner analyst Andrea Di Maio told silicon.com the public sector could exploit social networking communities which improve on services already provided by the government, and could work with online communities to support or even replace certain online services government provides.