Internet, Social Networking | featured news

Facebook’s stock price reached a new low Thursday as shares of the world's largest social network fell below $20 for the first time, down by nearly half from its $38 initial public offering price.

A year after they first began buying Facebook stock, many Fidelity Investments fund managers are shrinking their stakes in the company.

Currently, the “New Digg” is facing a host of problems. Digg has 14 million pages indexed in Google, those pages are now 404′ed. Digg’s entire database of archived content vanished over night, including now-defunct user profiles. In one swift move, they’ve completely eliminated the community by removing each and every user account to exist,with little explanation and no answer to when users will be getting their accounts back.

A commerce site called Limited Run, in announcing that it was deleting its Facebook page, claimed that 80 percent of its ad-clicks on Facebook came from "bots" or automated accounts, and only a fifth from genuine users.

Facebook’s results illustrated a reality for social media: It’s a soft sell medium in which advertising may not be that interesting or relevant to consumers. This is important because it means the revenue potential for social media companies such as Facebook may not be as high as many people assumed.

Some companies are leaning on social media like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare for advice on what products to bring to market.

Twitter has suspended the account of a Los Angeles-based reporter for a British newspaper who included the email address of the NBC Olympics president and asked his followers to write him to complain about the network's coverage....

The Twitter hashtag #NBCfail – about the American network’s Olympic shortfalls — is covering a lot of ground. But a key early frustration was the online viewing experience.

Facebook‘s first quarterly report is inspiring few new friends. The social network swung to a loss in the most recent period, casting fresh doubts on the company’s ability to monetize its giant user base. The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company posted a $157 million, 8 cents a shares, loss in the quarter, down from a $240 million profit. Excluding hefty stock compensation charges, Facebook earned $295 million, 12 cents a share. That meets the Wall Street forecast.

While some Twitter users reported intermittent updates via TweetDeck dashboard applications, the short-message website was down for many late Thursday morning.