It no longer takes a world of effort to connect with people around world.
According to Social Media Today’s Brian Solis, the global degrees of separation is shrinking, thanks in large part to the expanding Internet.
“Social networking is the new normal,” Solis writes. “No matter where you are in the world, there are social networks that only continue to bring us together.”
The article includes a graphic from an October Nielson study examining the growing world of web brands.
Google was the No. 1 web brand in every country, and Facebook was in the top three in every country except Japan. In the U.S., AOL still falls in the top 10 brands with its media network brand, while Amazon only managed to be a top 10 site in two countries.
Brin: ‘I’m Worried About the Internet’ Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin spoke with Mashable Monday morning about his concerns for the Internet. Chief among them was the growing pressure to control and limit information flow online.
“I am more worried than I have been in the past. It’s scary,” Sergey tells Stan Schroeder.
So who are the biggest offenders in Brin’s eyes? Naturally, he criticizes governments and the entertainment business, which was the major sponsor behind the now-defunct SOPA bill. But Brin also says that Facebook and Apple bear some of the blame.
Google faces major FCC fine: Meanwhile, the U.S. government is attacking Google for its acquisition of personal data from wireless networks, including passwords, emails and text messages. The Washington Post reports that this is just the latest legal battle for the search engine giant, which is also wrestling with a major lawsuit and an investigation from the FTC.
Too big to fail? Bloomberg Businessweek’s David J. Lynch writes about the Obama administration’s struggle to end “too big to fail” as the five biggest banks in the nation continue to grow. According the Federal Reserve, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. hold 56 percent of the nation’s economy in their assets.
Obama: U.S. can’t afford tax cuts: In the midst of growing criticism over the economy, the President said Friday that the nation can’t afford to cut taxes for the wealthiest in the nation “who don’t need them and didn’t even ask for them.”
