Articles by Sidney Hill

This story was originally published on May 20, 2011, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series. With more than 600 million members and counting, Facebook is the world's largest social networking community. Lately, however, a lot of people have concluded that this community is too large for their tastes....

Online privacy was in the news again this week -- and Facebook, not surprisingly, figured prominently in many of the stories What was surprising, however, was that Facebook wasn't being castigated for implementing some new policy that made it appear the social networking giant was trampling users' privacy rights in its rush to tap new revenue strea...

As the one major social networking site that actually has gone public, LinkedIn is facing more pressure than its competitors to produce revenue and ultimately turn a profit. Because it now answers to antsy anonymous shareholders -- rather than somewhat more patient venture capitalists or angel investors -- LinkedIn has to make money now.

It's no secret that nearly everyone is on Facebook. So, it shouldn't be a surprise that corporate recruiters are starting to infiltrate the world's largest social network in search of potential new hires It makes sense for corporate headhunters to set up shop on Facebook for numerous reasons, starting with the sheer number of people who are present...

For some time now, I've felt almost like the proverbial lone voice in the wilderness questioning the value of Groupon as an investment My primary issue with Groupon is that there is nothing inherently unique about its business model. Given that fact, I don't understand how a company that really has no way of fighting off competitors can be valued a...

I'm one of the thousands of Netflix customers who were outraged by the movie rental giant's decision to change its pricing structure. No one likes the idea of paying more for less, and no matter how you slice it, that's exactly what Netflix is asking its customers to do Begrudgingly, I've decided to drop the DVD portion of my Netflix service and go...

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that Google+ could be the most significant product release in the history of social media. That declaration was based on my belief that this platform represents Google's best -- and perhaps last -- chance to offer Facebook any competition in the social networking arena That may have seemed like hyperbole at the time.

This week, I got emails announcing changes to two online services I subscribe to. I just sort of shrugged at one message, though it did represent a significant change in the service's business model. The second email outlined a major change as well, but my reaction to it was much stronger. It ticked me off....

I am not now -- nor have I ever been -- an online gamer. I've never even thought about sitting down in front of a Sony PlayStation, Microsoft Xbox or any other game console. And until a few days ago, I considered the idea of paying real money to buy virtual goods to spruce up ones surroundings in imaginary worlds like "FarmVille" and "CityVille" just plain dumb...

By now, you've probably heard about Google's limited release of its new social networking platform, Google+ -- but did you know this could be the most significant product launch in the brief history of social media? That may sound like an outrageous statement, but it's true. And it's valid regardless of whether Google+ proves to be raging success o...

There's no denying that social media is migrating from the consumer realm to the business arena. What can still be debated is how quickly this technology is making its way into the core of the enterprise, and becoming something more than marketing and sales tools Some people -- primarily analysts, vendors and media types -- contend social media alr...

IBM is promising to deliver a solution that will enable companies to include information from social media platforms in their regulatory compliance reports Compliance capability is "fundamental to reducing a barrier that many companies have encountered as they look more closely at using social media for business process integration," Alistair Renni...

Like a lot of people, I was bit stunned to see headlines early this week proclaiming Facebook is losing members. In many cases, those reporting this story also were asking whether it means Facebook is heading toward a decline. My take is that Facebook is in no more danger of going under today than it was yesterday, which is to say that it's still ...

While much of the tech world was fixated on the news of Apple's new cloud strategy this week, Facebook users were discovering a new facial recognition feature on their network. This feature, which makes it easier to tag photos by spitting out names of people whose images it recognizes from previously posted photos, will probably be a welcome upgra...

LinkedIn has been a public company for roughly two weeks, but its brief history on Wall Street should give the people running other social media companies a lot to think about. The biggest question to ponder is whether they should go public now -- or as soon as they can convince an investment bank to shepherd them through the process -- or wait un...

This story was originally published on March 18, 2011, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series. There's no question that as a society, we're addicted to technology. That was evident when the earliest versions of BlackBerry smartphones were given a nickname I won't repeat here....

I have a love-hate relationship with social media. I love platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn that let me keep up with people I truly value as friends and colleagues, even as we move on to new stages in our lives I hate social media's potential for baring intimate details of your life with people you never really cared for, or never even met. That'...

With more than 600 million members and counting, Facebook is the world's largest social networking community. Lately, however, a lot of people have concluded that this community is too large for their tastes That has created an opportunity for a number of startups that are promising users a much more meaningful -- or at the very least more private ...

In a bit of non-Earth-shattering news, Apple this week was deemed the world's most valuable consumer brand The title was bestowed by the Millward Brown branding agency, which has been publishing a list of the top 100 brands for past six years. To compile its rankings, Millward Brown polls more than 2 million consumers around the world on their perc...

Most of the talk about protecting users' privacy on the Web has centered on preventing the collection of information that would aid companies in creating targeted ad campaigns I appreciate the efforts of all those people -- from the myriad consumer watchdog groups to former presidential candidates Sens. John Kerry and John McCain -- pushing for leg...