Earlier this morning, our friends at Geekosystem wrote about an Egyptian man who has named his daughter “Facebook.” Based off how most of us Americans use the website (“I guess you’re not too hot to go to prom with me now that you’ve grown up and gotten fat, Allison McCallister!”), this might seem a little silly. Then however, you see posts like this and you begin to understand.

As Glenn Beck‘s latest campaign against Google goes to show, he has little trust in large entities, whether they be government-run or private. After dedicating some time this week to asserting that Google’s involvement in the Egyptian revolts gives them a dangerous bias that seeps into the order of search results on their site, Beck took his campaign, as he always does, to an intrigued Bill O’Reilly last night.

As beat up as the media sometimes gets regularly, the threat to journalism as an institution can often bring out the best in reporters. Dylan Ratigan regular Toure dedicated his regular rant to the tremendous work journalists following the unrest in Egypt have been doing, and to remind viewers that, in the 21st century, trying to shut down the media will, ironically, only reinforce the spread of information.

If you had told me ten years ago, when I was in the midst of my pimply, awkward, boy-terrified teens that there would soon be a world where I could do nearly all communication online or via text, rather than shaky-handily calling my crush, only to hang up three times in a row when he answered, I would’ve begged for you to send me to the future right then and there. Things are different now. Social media lets you avoid and ignore to your heart’s content, leaving you blissfully alone with your laptop so you can update your Facebook status.

Last week, Jimmy Fallon had New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Late Night to talk politics and clash over Jersey jokes. It was a relationship spawned on Twitter–like Christie, Fallon’s made a name for himself as a media guy who “gets it.”

Even before Conan O’Brien‘s rebirth as a Twitter-phenomenon, Fallon’s been engaging with viewers via Twitter, taking their tweeted-in jokes and questions for guests, and using his ever-growing following to create a wave across social media–something he calls the “Hashtag Game:”

At the recent Nevada Cancer Institute gala, CNN anchor Larry King, who leaves his long-running show in December, waxed nostalgic about newspaper and the old way of consuming news — and said that he doesn’t care much for Twitter, Facebook, or other social media. The Las Vegas Sun reports.

Over the past few years, everyone has been captivated by the ideas of what social media can do for political change, how the amazing democratization of free, instantaneous communication could be employed to change the world. In Moldova, protests using the internet for organization were called the Twitter revolution. In Iran, people wondered if social media would destroy a disputed election. And, in America, on the eve of Midterm decisions that could change the very direction of our nation, baseball fans checked into Foursquare to let people know where the best riots in San Francisco are.

Enough with Facebook and Twitter. I admit that I use them; they’re good business billboards. But people, I just don’t care if you got a tatt, or how proud you are that your kid won the spelling bee, or even if your kid got a tatt. I really don’t. Let’s face it: Social media are quickly becoming passe, sort of like anything “green” or “organic.”

The time has come for anti-social media. It’s time for ” Hellbook.”

Have you ever received a Friend Request from someone you didn’t know? Maybe it was someone you forgot. Maybe it was spam. Or maybe it’s just that that person can’t even talk yet. A new study by the Internet security firm AVG has found that 7% of babies already have social network profiles. Clearly online social media has revolutionized the way people can be forced to look at boring pictures of their friends’ kids.

Mark Coatney, better known to many as the funny guy behind the Newsweek Tumblr account, just announced via his own personal Tumblr that he will be leaving his post at Newsweek — to take a job at Tumblr itself: My new job, basically, will be to take the lessons I’ve learned at Newsweek and bring [...]

In the year that Mediaite has been around, it’s certainly been an interesting time for the media world. As Mediaite quickly established itself as one of the go-to sites covering the media industry, legacy media outlets finally began to come to terms with social media — particularly the New York Times and the Washington Post, two of the most storied newspapers in America. In the past year, these news organizations and others began to incorporate social media into their plans – but with varying objectives.

President Obama‘s administration is already known for being tech-savvy — with its heavy use of social media trinity of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Now, the White House is going even further and hiring a Twitter liaison to help policymakers “to tweet more effectively.”

Today, Travis F. Smith has one of the most popular blogs on the internet. It’s a phenomenon that has reached the #2 highest search on Google. Is it because of his charming vacation photos? Perhaps it’s because of the lovely post he made recently with humorous graphs charting his happiness in relation to days of the week, hours of sleep, and activity. Or, possibly, his blog has become such a hit because the media has written a metric ton of articles in the past few days trashing a controversial site with a very similar name.

The Salahis won’t have to sneak by the secret service because, tonight, CitizenTube is bringing Obama to them. That’s right. Tonight, CitizenTube, YouTube’s interactive political vlog, will livestream the State of the Union at 9 p.m.and, for the first time in history, make it social. If this doesn’t solidify social media’s place in more traditional news and politics, then I don’t know what will.

On February 1st, five journalists will lock themselves in a farmhouse in the south of France to determine whether or not Facebook and Twitter are actually worth something. Just kidding. With nearly 400 million combined users, Twitter and Facebook have proved their social power and established their longevity. However, whether or not they can also serve as a reputable source of news remains to be seen.

For a president whose administration trumpets transparency, Barack Obama is being a bit covert with his tweets. Despite the fact that @BarackObama has been open since April 29, 2007, the president sent his first tweet yesterday. From the @RedCross account.

Speaking at the Crunchie awards in San Francisco this weekend 25-year-old Mark Zuckerberg told the crowd that privacy should no longer be considered a “social norm.” A scary declaration which might also explain why the recent change in privacy settings was implemented with such a heavy, oblivious hand. Apparently online everyone is expected to behave like a 25-year-old.

Who: Jimmy Fallon interviewed by Bill Carter What: The New York Times’ Arts & Leisure Weekend Where: The Times Center When: January 8, 2009 Thumbs: At our palms, applauding

When looking ahead at the next year, pundits turn into prognosticators. Bloggers covering all sorts of topics and industries are now giving their predictions for what’s to come in 2010. Conventional wisdom says to go the conservative route with these choices in order to avoid looking foolish when none of your projections pan out. At the same time, there’s a key difference between picking things that are realistically possible and those that are already on the road to happening. I’ve assembled my favorite predictions covering a variety of fields and what’s supposedly in store for the near future:

As Reuters reported from the trench coat Motherland on Monday, Burberry has dug into the social networking mine with the launch of its new website artofthetrench.com. Burberry’s Facebook page calls it “a living celebration of the trench coat and the people who wear it.” While many designers (@DVFNewYork) and retailers (@Bloomingdales) have taken their businesses to Twitter, Burberry is the first major fashion titan to actually create a social media labyrinth of its own.

Looks like the Taliban has gone 2.0. Over the weekend it was reported that the radical, religious, political group, has created its own YouTube channel. Apparently Sharia law, which among other things, allows for gruesome public executions and requires women to wear burqas and remain in the home, has nothing whatsoever against the Internet!

Newark is a city in transition and at the center of that transformation is its mayor, Cory Booker. Crippled by riots that took place in 1967, the city struggled to recover and it was only until recently, almost a half century later, that Newark has begun to rise again. Booker’s sweeping reforms in city government [...]

Recent headlines have read that although the recession is nearing an end, it may be years before everyone feels the actual effects of an upswing. Particularly, non-profit organizations may be among the last to recover from the worldwide economic debacle. There is a silver lining: even amidst a global recession, the marketplace is chock-full of companies who are showcasing their cause-related commitments.

Here comes the fall book season — which means here come the websites, blog posts, Twitter feeds and viral videos that have become necessary counterparts to the excerpts, readings, interviews and lectures that were once the only way of promoting a new book. These days, having a built-in audience is essential to making not only waves but sales — so authors better be able to tap into that.

On May 20, 2009, Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. Amazingly, instead of crumpling in the face of such a diagnosis, he has turned it into an amazing social media experiment in awareness-raising, encouraging people to blame his cancer for anything and everything, creating a link between thousands of strangers who get a lesson in relativity and perspective every time they blame the day’s irritations on, well, Drew’s cancer.