Facebook Friends

Recent college graduate Reem Qadan is exactly the kind of young, energetic West Bank resident the Palestinian Authority hopes will hit the streets this week when it makes its historic case for U.N. membership and statehood recognition. But rather than use her Facebook page to coordinate plans with friends to join the rallies, the 21-year-old is posting critical messages dismissing the United Nations bid as a "tale of collective mismanagement" by Palestinian leaders. Many of her Facebook friends echoed the sentiments and said they planned to skip the rallies.

In a bid to become the hub of communication on the Web, Facebook, the world's largest social network, is partnering with Skype to offer its 750 million users the ability to have live video chats with one another for free. The video calling feature, which became available on Wednesday, is likely to prompt many Facebook users to spend more time online and even less time on the phone. "We're using the best technology out there for video chat with the best social technology," Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said during a news conference Wednesday at the company's Palo Alto headquarters.

Nothing gives people the creeps more than the sense that some hidden force is watching them. In George Orwell's telling of this story, that force was a totalitarian government surveilling the public to suppress dissent. In the contemporary version, it's a seemingly ubiquitous Internet company vacuuming up personal information to build profits. Like, say, Facebook. In its latest privacy intrusion, the Silicon Valley powerhouse has built a gargantuan photo collection of the faces of Facebook users — and non-users.

Perhaps anything is possible with social media -- but even so, this story caught me off guard: A man donated his kidney to a stranger after seeing a plea on Facebook. Jeff Kurze's kidneys were failing, according to the story . His wife, Roxy, posted on her wall in desperation: "Wishing a kidney would fall out of the sky so my husband can stop suffering," the 30-year-old Web designer wrote. "So if anyone knows of a live donor with type O blood, PLEASE let me know. " Ricky Cisco, a 25-year-old comedian, saw the post and messaged Roxy, saying he wanted to help.

Edward Zuckerberg pulls his iPhone out of his jeans pocket and hits the familiar blue Facebook icon. He's eager to show off his latest effort to market his suburban dental practice. The man known as "Painless Dr. Z" is offering a free teeth bleaching kit to the first 10 patients who use their smartphones to tell their Facebook friends that they've stopped by his office. On the receptionist's desk, a blue sticker exhorts clients to "'Like' us on Facebook. " The effort has paid off. The dental practice has more than 1,100 fans.

Facebook friends may not be all that friendly, according to a new survey. In yet another examination of the negative social and psychological vibes generated by Facebook participation, researchers reported this week that 85% of women say they have been annoyed by their Facebook friends' postings. The survey of more than 400 women, from Eversave, a company that offers daily deals online, was conducted to examine how social networking influences consumers' reactions to daily deals.

Internet search engines have become such a helpful fixture of everyday life that it's tough to imagine life before them. They gather information at eye-blink speed, can guess a user's intent and present real-time results from Twitter and other social sites. But the experience of searching the Web remains largely solitary, or, as Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg might put it, it's not social. You can share the end result by pasting a link into an e-mail or a tweet, but there's no way to share the cool stuff you brush past in the midst of a search.

Should doctors be Facebook "friends" with their patients? Increasingly, professionals are stroking their beards and mulling the ethical ramifications (not to say potential for awkwardness) of such relationships. Goodbye to posting "Man, I tied one on last night" the morning of the day you're due to operate on someone. Farewell to blowing off steam about old Mr. XX, whose endless digestive issues drive you nuts: Loose words like that could come back to bite you even worse than accepting a "friend" request from some ex from those long-ago days when you were young and foolish.

With the rise of the Internet, people began looking for love on websites such as Match.com and EHarmony.com. With the growing popularity of social networks, they're turning to services like AreYouInterested.com. The dating application, available on Facebook and Apple Inc.'s iPhone, lets users see beyond the personal details of potential mates to their social circles, including friends and family. AreYouInterested.com is adding more than 50,000 users a day, according to parent company Snap Interactive Inc. Match.

Eugene Hwang, a 41-year-old marketing executive from Westwood, uses a smart-phone application to record the distance he runs and calories burned, and then to share the information on his Facebook page with friends and other runners. He lost 20 pounds over the summer, a feat he said he accomplished only because his online friends were there to hold him accountable. But not everyone was supportive; Hwang said he occasionally saw comments accusing him of being a showoff. "I know some people get upset," he said.