Weibo.com

Jason Loose, in his early 20s, was photographed on a Nanjing street corner while sharing his McDonald's French fries and bottled water with a barefoot homeless woman. The photos have since gone viral in China...

When in L.A. via Tumblr

In fact, the daily sighs of a Santa Monica twentysomething living with her girlfriends are so unproblematic as to actually be kind of enjoyable.

From this charmed romantic-comedy lifestyle was born "When in L.A.," the new Tumblr whose posts we can't seem to avoid whenever we open a computer. But take heed:

@angiesue224

Alfonso Ribeiro of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air might do the nerdiest, preppiest dance of all time.

But that didn't stop hundreds if not thousands of followers from joining him yesterday at Universal CityWalk and other locales in an attempt to break the record for the largest flash mob in North America.

They performed the awkward "Carlton Dance:"

NBC Los Angeles / Twitter

The Twitter account is already up and running and tweeting about what was happening that week before the unrest, when the final court happenings in the trial of four LAPD officers accused of beating motorist Rodney King were on public display.

The feed answers the question every newsroom has been asking this week:

Project X

That's right, in the gang capital of the nation, where serial killing is sport, the big crime problem is teens' raging in unoccupied homes.

Beck described to us out-of-it reporters what this scene is really all about:

Gary Graves

Except when those people are encouraging you to party, do drugs and have risky sex.

Such is the conundrum for Facebook and other social media, where teens can turn for support ... and bad influences. New research at USC wants to figure this out:

The Nikki Tsugranes effect.

Actually, the new policy was put in place almost two months ago. But until the news wire mentioned it in an article today on LAUSD's hot new social-media director, it seems to have passed quietly under the radar.

CBS2

Stephanie Abrams joins the crusade to re-legitimize LAUSD.

After longtime Miramonte Elementary teacher Mark Berndt was arrested in early February for allegedly spoon-feeding his semen to third-graders, an explosion of similar allegations at other LAUSD campuses has created a culture of panic within the district. (And the pervs just keep coming.)

Superintendent Deasy was immediately aware that superb PR was the key to emerging from this witch hunt alive:

yago1.com

Welcome to Los Angeles, fellow narcissist! You're one of us. But seriously, a study unleashed today says that having lots of Facebook friends is a strong signal of your narcissism. You better cut someone off, fast, and it better not be your mom.

The research ...

Alain Bachellier

Way to cool the guys off. The folks at California-based marketing data company NetBase this week released results of a comprehensive look at want women and men want via their expressions on social media sites. The results were surprising.

Not only do women not think about what men think they think about, but ...

Scott Beale

In other words, many Facebook users are thin-skinned.

According to a just-released Pew Internet & American Life Project survey:

AMPAS

USC's California Annenberg Innovation Lab is pairing up with IBM and the Los Angeles Times for a groundbreaking project in the days leading up to and during Feb. 26's Academy Awards.

They're going to use Twitter to ...

Edmond Yeo

It is true that the body of 28-year-old mother Cristian Alvarez was found Jan. 2 in Wilmington. Then the Facebook page Life in Wilmington stoked rumors that at least three other victims had been found with similar wounds.

The online group has been a lightening rod for breathless reports of a South Bay Slasher:

Robbins Brothers

Robbins Brothers, the L.A.-based jewelry store chain, is giving you a chance to put your "love" on its digital billboard on the westbound 91 freeway in Corona (right before the 15 freeway) during the holiday season.

In fact the jeweler says you can have 8 seconds of billboard time. Just enter your message via Facebook. We assume the notes will be moderated though, so it's all about the good times:

John O'Nolan

Southern California authorities say a Facebook fight between two women escalated into a shooting that left a man with a bullet to the face.

It all culminated at 8 p.m. Tuesday, say San Bernardino County Sheriff's officials, when ...

@LAMurderCop via Twitter

Update: The LAPD says there is an "ongoing investigation" of Detective Sal LaBarbera's activity. But the detective says "that's the same exact photo the news folks would have taken." More at the bottom. See also: "Watts Gang Rivalry Heats Up: Shooting Suspect Kicks Over Victim's Memorial, Reports 'Twitter Cop'."

Originally posted October 14 at 1 p.m.

Local arts blog LA Taco is fuming this afternoon over the "callous" Twitter activity of LAPD Homicide Detective Sal LaBarbera. (As of December 2007, according to the Los Angeles Times, La Barbera was "a 20-year homicide veteran who heads the Watts homicide squad in LAPD's South Bureau.")

lockerz.com

The Game.

It wasn't exactly an attack by the hacker group Anonymous, but the Compton Sheriff's Station was inundated with calls over the weekend after a tweet from the account of rapper The Game offered internships and listed the non-emergency number for deputies.

Sheriff's officials were pissed, and the tweet was ultimately taken down. The Game said someone hacked his account, resulting in the "flashcalls."

And while authorities said their lines were overwhelmed with inquiries from would-be Game interns as emergencies were happening, the rapper had some choice words for the Sheriff's Department (via Twitter):

CDCR

Hello, friend.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced the effort this week, stating that it "has seen numerous instances in which inmates, using their Facebook accounts, have delivered threats to victims or have made unwanted sexual advances."

The CDCR says it's working with the Facebook Security Department to shutdown inmates' pages. But, interestingly, there's one exception:

Our kinda girl.

Yes, the famed Googleplex is located in our nerdy nothern region (another reason not to secede, you freaks), with a chic southern satellite right here in Venice, and yes, we're all a bunch of social-media-binging fame whores, but according to "Find People on Plus," we have twice as many users as New York, at 22,000 [via LAist].

Seems like a disproportionately huge gap, if you ask us. Population could account for some of it:

Caylee Anthony was 2 when she went missing.

Called "Caylee's Law," the online petition via California-bred change.org is asking Congress to create legislation that would make it a coast-to-coast crime to fail to report that your child is missing.

Someone failed to add a crucial element: