Social Nets

Believe it or not, there are still voids left on the internet. For every niche-fulfilling service that caters to the whims of, say, obsessive insect collectors or Lionel Richie superfans, there are still gaps that leave certain demographics — like the myriad artists and businesses that require their talents — out in the cold. Luckily, Ardist, a social network designed for the arts community, aptly fills this curiously empty space.

Read more

One of biggest complaints about Android’s app story is how many large apps do not allow themselves to be installed on an SD card. This takes up the valuable limited system memory on my Android phone and limits the number of apps that can be installed. Here are a couple of big apps that refuse to allow themselves to be installed on an SD card.

AP Mobile – 4.06mb
Google Books – 3.68mb
Google Goggles – 3.38mb
Google Voice – 3.77mb
doubleTwist – 8.46mb
Facebook – 4.57mb
The Weather Channel – 2.52mb
TweetCaster – 2.5mb

LinkedIn for Android 1.0.1 weighs in at 2.27mb. It is big but not gigantic when compared to some of the other offending apps that refuse to run off of the SD card. However, LinkedIn is the only app developer I know of that has explained why this is so.

LinkedIn for Android 1.0.1

For apps2sd, because we are using the Android Sync Framework/adapter, install-to-SD isn’t possible at this time.

While I’m not pleased that this programming framework is the cause or one of the causes of all these apps that chew up my valuable Android system memory, I am thankful that LinkedIn stepped to provide a reason why this is so.

SampleSyncAdapter – Sample Sync Adapter

President Barack Obama will participate in an intimate, cozy town-hall meeting, with a small group of more than 500 million potential attendees — a special Facebook Live gathering Wednesday, April 20, at 4:45 p.m. ET/1:45 p.m. PT.

Read more

The social media tool is based on the difficulty of paying for a higher education. It is a key reason many college students fail to graduate. Past studies have shown that upwards of two million college students don’t apply for any of the nearly $70 billion in financial aid the government distributes each year, and that almost two-thirds of students find the process of applying for financial aid difficult.

Read more

Paywalls were a popular April Fool’s Day subject, as Digg followed up the paywall that exclusively targeted employees of The New York Times and Winnipeg residents, “announced” earlier Friday by The Huffington Post Media Group president and editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington, with its own take on the concept: the reverse paywall.

Read more

Entertainment-based social network GetGlue revamped its iPhone app and website, adding integration with location-based mobile app foursquare and sports check-ins, as well as launching a thorough redesign.

GetGlue added that updates for the Android, iPad, and BlackBerry platforms are on the way.

More from the GetGlue Blog:

Another major feature in this release is the ability to share your location to foursquare with each check-in. This integration enables a cool new use case: the ability to check in to content at a location. For example, with GetGlue, you can now check in and share that you are: watching The King’s Speech @ AMC Theatre, listening to Maroon 5 @ Madison Square Garden, reading The Hunger Games @ New York Public Library, watching San Antonio Spurs @ John’s Sports Bar, or thinking about Albert Einstein @ Princeton University.

Checking in to content and location is both meaningful and convenient. A lot of times you want to share what you are doing at the location, and this release of GetGlue makes it really easy. First, you can select what you are doing and then you pick the location using foursquare.

When you click the share to foursquare button, GetGlue will prompt you to sign into foursquare. Then you can select your location via the familiar foursquare screen. The check-in is posted to both GetGlue and foursquare, making it easy to share with friends, as well as to get points and rewards on both networks.

The check-ins that have location associated with them will have a small location icon next to them, so you can easily tell them apart in the GetGlue streams.

Read more

Raise a toast to LinkedIn, as the professional networking site announced the creation of 100 new jobs in Dublin, Ireland, over the next 12 months, with 15 of them already listed.

Positions will be available at various experience levels in sectors including sales, business development, marketing, customer services, finance, human resources, and operations.

Read more

LinkedIn topped the 100 million member milestone, and the professional networking site marked the occasion with two blogs posts and an infographic (after the jump).

Highlights from the post by CEO Jeff Weiner:

We’re now growing at roughly 1 million new LinkedIn members every week, the equivalent of a professional joining the site at faster than one member per second.

So, what does all this growth really mean? We’re making great progress toward our ultimate goal: to connect all of the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.

We’re also rapidly growing our network globally — our site is currently used in more than 200 countries and territories around the world, with more than one-half of our users coming from outside of the United States. You can now connect just as readily with someone in Sao Paulo or Singapore as you can with your colleagues in San Francisco, London, or New York. You no longer have to live in the same city — or even the same country — to build and strengthen relationships that can help you succeed and grow professionally and fundamentally transform the trajectory of your career path.

We want to thank all of you, our 100 million members, for making this happen. Your experiences, connections, and shared knowledge are what make LinkedIn so powerful to each and every one of us.

Best of all, we’re just getting started. Here’s to the next 100 million members.

Read more

Digg finally officially addressed the rumors and speculation about the departure of founder and Diggnation host Kevin Rose (pictured) that surfaced late last week in a blog post by CEO Matt Williams, in which he emphasized that Rose’s role had not changed since he stepped back from day-to-day decisions last September. Highlights:

We’ve been hearing a lot about how Kevin Rose is launching something new. Everyone knows Kevin is an entrepreneur at heart, and he’s had many projects in the works over the past several years. We’re excited to see what he comes up with next. Kevin continues to be committed to Digg’s success; his role as founder, board member, and Diggnation host remains unchanged. When I took over as CEO last September, Kevin stepped back from the day-to-day decisions. I’m proud of the great team we’ve got at Digg, and they’re the ones to credit for the changes you’ve seen and the new direction we’re pursuing.

When I joined Digg, we had just released a product that was not ready for primetime. It really upset our users. Over the first few months, we dropped in the number of daily visitors and page views. But through this crisis, the lines of communication between Digg and our users opened to unprecedented levels. We received tens of thousands of comments and suggestions from the Digg community about how to restore the site they loved.

Read more

Entertainment-based social network GetGlue announced the release of a free BlackBerry app, joining its apps for the iPhone, iPad, and Android.

Users can check in to TV shows, movies, music, games, and books; share check-ins via Twitter and Facebook; see what friends are currently watching, reading, or listening to; earn leader-board points and stickers from GetGlue and major brands; rate lists of popular shows, movies, music, and books; get suggestions for weekly new releases and old favorites; and take favorite entertainment and suggestions everywhere.