Facebook fights suicide over live chat. Samaritans see this as the next stage
Facebook has partnered up with the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline to introduce a way to give users the option to speak to a crisis counselor over the service's live chat implementation.
The program opened today, with counselors online 24 hours a day ready to talk to anyone who is expressing suicidal thoughts.
Twitter tells your stories in more than 140 characters
Twitter have released a new 'Twitter stories' site today, curating some of the most impactful stories told via the stream of tweets surrounding the particular topics on the service.
“Today we’re launching the first in a series of Twitter stories,” Twitter said in a blog post. "Read about a single Tweet that helped save a bookstore from going out of business; an athlete who took a hundred of his followers out to a crab dinner; and, Japanese fishermen who use Twitter to sell their catch before returning to shore. Each story reminds us of the humanity behind Tweets that make the world smaller.”
Streetlife.com looking to reawaken British community spirit
In a time when David Cameron tries to push his vision of the "Big society" to no avail, it's good to see social good come to the rescue as streetlife.com is introduced.
Simply put, it's the local nature of Foursquare with the interconnectivity of Facebook, and the active transactional engagement of craigslist. The team behind the site say their mission is to let users "create an online profile and connect with people, groups and businesses in their area, to share practical information, advice, opinions, skills and resources".