social media

Q&A with MySpace CEO Mike Jones

MySpace CEO Mike Jones has the challenging task of rejuvenating a faded brand. He is overseeing a re-launch of the still popular site, that despite its size –130 million unique users worldwide – has become far less important than Facebook. MySpace no longer is challenging Facebook directly. In fact, it recently signed a deal with Facebook to allows its users to sign up for MySpace using their Facebook credentials. An MORE

Today in Tech: News around the Web

A round-up of the companies, deals, and trends that made headlines.

Every day, the Fortune staff spends hours poring over tech stories, posts, and reviews from all over the Web to keep tabs on the companies that matter. We've assembled the day's most newsworthy bits below.

Inside new CEO Costolo's plans for Twitter

Fortune spoke with then COO Costolo earlier this year to find out about the tech veteran's plans for monetizing Twitter. Describing the company as at a "juncture," it's now his job as CEO to navigate the company Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams founded, through it.

According to a company blog post, current COO Dick Costolo will replace Evan Williams as Twitter CEO. Williams, who stepped in for creator Jack Dorsey in MORE

Florida tourism saved by social media. Really.

The state mounted a PR blitz to show beachgoers that Florida's surf had been spared an oily disaster. Presidential visits aside, it seems social media helped save summer tourism on the Gulf of Mexico

By Shelley DuBois, reporter

The BP (BP) Deepwater Horizon spill happened in the middle of nowhere in the Gulf of Mexico, but it also took place, as every event of global import now does, in the realm of MORE

MySpace: A place for… what, again?

With declining ad sales, a stagnant user base, and a creaky interface, the once-mighty social network has a redesign on deck, but is it enough to save the site?

Visit the MySpace offices in the News Corp. complex in Beverly Hills, and you won't see a company in crisis. Underneath the company sign, a dry-erase board reads "A place for..." with scribbled Mad Lib-esque responses like, "Soy Milk Ecstasy" and MORE

The Facebook movie spoofs: 'Like' them or loathe them?

After The Social Network trailer went live last week, several readers were quick to pass judgment on the 2-minute and 27-second clip. One found it "hysterical." Another, like Tony, from Boston, dubbed it a flop-in-the-making.

"Ben Mezrich's last book that got adapted [21] ... ended up sucking really, really hard," he wrote. "I expect The Social Network to be equally as bad."

Still other media-savvy-types, probably moved to act by that female MORE

Stop laying off customer service workers!

Smart use of software can eliminate 'cable guy syndrome,' and save jobs.

By Moshe BenBassat, Chairman and CEO, ClickSoftware

Companies recognize how important the quality of service is when it comes to customer acquisition and retention, and that a drop in customer satisfaction can have a significant impact on a company's success or failure. Yet, Accenture's latest study of global business reports that customer satisfaction ratings have dropped by MORE

Blogging for bankers

To take on their toughest critics, big banks are playing as visitors on social media's turf. Can they keep up, much less win?

By Nin-Hai Tseng, contributor

Five days a week, and sometimes weekends, Larry Rubinoff pounds away on his laptop with a mission: Expose what he believes to be the truth about the big banks' roles in the global financial meltdown.

For this semi-retired mortgage professional turned blogger, running Goldmansachs666.com isn't MORE

Deal-a-day sites and retailers get social

"Deal a day" websites are changing the way we shop -- and raising tons of venture capital. Discounter Groupon is leading the way.

A few years ago Andrew Mason was a public-policy graduate student who had gotten into a social rut. "There's so much to do in Chicago," he recalls, "but I found myself going to the same movie theaters and restaurants."

To make trying new places less risky, Mason, 29, started MORE

Cybercrime, the next generation

The popular platforms of today are bound to be the targets of tomorrow

By Kevin Prince, chief technology officer, Perimeter E-Security and Doug Howard, former chief strategy officer

(The following is adapted from the forthcoming book, Security 2020, scheduled to be published later this year.)

The social networking (think Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace) phenomenon is only going to grow. And anytime there is a system, program, or process used by MORE