Researchers at Google are hoping to learn about social influence and how message propagate on Twitter. Google software engineer Shaozhi Ye and colleague Felix Wu of the University of California, Davis, point out that while there have been extensive studies of the top online social networks (OSNs) it remains unclear how to characterise the propagation of information on those services and how to measure the social influence of individual members….

Georgeta Drul? of the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Studies at the University of Bucharest, Romania, has an interesting theory about how media companies implement the social media strategy for their journalistic products. In particular his research has focused on how such companies are expanding their use of user-generated content and social media platforms to pull in new audiences and to create new media products.

Engaged user of …

Frank Abagnale, portrayed in the Steven Spielberg movie Catch Me if You Can and now an FBI security expert, warns of the danger of identity theft and how almost trivial it would be for a con artist to make a start spoofing your ID.

"If you tell me your date of birth and where you’re born [on Facebook] I’m 98% [of the way] to stealing your identity," he said. "Never state your date of birth and …