Web 'U' RSS Feeds
Posts Tagged ‘facebook’
Report Puts Facebook, Google Ad Values on Display
posted by Linc Wonham @ 9:30 AM
Monday, May 21, 2012
SEO software provider WordStream has released new research comparing the value of Facebook advertising to Google’s Display Network – the portion of Google’s advertising business that allows advertisers to place display ads on Google sites such as YouTube, Gmail and Blogger and over 2 million other websites rather than alongside search results.
The results are compiled in an infographic that evaluates the two models on criteria such as advertising reach, ad performance, revenues and growth, ad formats and targeting options, and highlights of the study appear below:
• Facebook and Google both have huge potential reach, with Facebook boasting 845 million monthly active users and Google owning the world’s largest online display advertising network.
• The average click-through rate (CTR) of an ad on the Google Display Network is 0.4 percent – almost 10 times as high as the typical Facebook ad. Average CTR on Facebook is under 0.05 percent, about half the industry average for online banner ads. At the same time, costs per thousand impressions on Facebook are climbing.
• The Google Display Network offers twice as many ad formats as Facebook, including in-video ads, mobile-game ads, support for industry-standard image ads and more.
• Facebook does not yet support mobile advertising and has more limited targeting options than Google.
The comparison clearly suggests that Google currently offers advertisers more value in terms of both options and results for advertisers, and that Facebook has a lot of catching up to do to provide advertisers with the best possible advertising solutions.
“So far, Facebook’s advertising platform hasn’t kept pace with the explosive growth of its social network, and it remains to be seen if CEO Mark Zuckerberg even wants to focus on advertising as a source of revenue,” says Larry Kim, founder and CTO of WordStream. “In his 2,500+ word letter to shareholders this month, he mentioned advertising just once.”
WordStream provides search marketing software and PPC services aimed at helping marketers get better results from their PPC and SEO efforts.
Comments Off
Everybody and their ousted Brazilian co-founders are talking about the Facebook IPO today. So, when the editors at Website Magazine held a closed-door brainstorming session about the day’s content, we were unanimously in favor of one thing and one thing only: Anything but Facebook.
Then, in accordance with the house rules, we did the exact opposite of what had just been agreed upon. Instead, we pored through close to 100 pages of search results on WebsiteMagazine.com, totaling nearly 1,000 posts related to the world’s largest (and richest) social network. We selected 15 of our favorites, keeping in mind that it is our duty to inform our readers more than it is to entertain you.
Hopefully, the results are a fan-friendly combination of both information and entertainment:
10 Facebook Optimization Tips for Merchants
It’s been a little more than a year since Facebook first introduced the now ubiquitous Like button, and a significant update three months ago has given users the ability to add comments and increased the button’s visibility for the benefit of merchants, marketers and brands. Read more …
500 Million Ways to Make Money from Facebook
With Facebook recently exceeding half a billion users, businesses of all types are realizing they have a big opportunity to monetize their efforts on the world’s largest social network. Read more …
Be Like Mark: Facebook IPO Takeaways
Just in case you’ve been living under a rock, Facebook announced its epic $100 billion IPO this week. Read more …
Master List of Facebook Commerce Platforms
Utilizing Facebook’s massive audience to help grow an e-commerce business through social networking takes little more than common sense and hard work. However, to take full advantage of the world’s largest social network as an actual selling platform requires a little more know-how than elbow grease. Read more …
Facebook is the New Google
Much of the discussion throughout the Web industry this week has revolved around Thursday’s announcement of Google Instant, the revolutionary new feature that has many business owners wondering about the future of search engine marketing in particular and Internet advertising as a whole. Read more …
Best of 2011 - Facebook Brand Pages
As 2011 fades away, it is time to reflect on some of the year’s biggest trends, one being social media. Although it was the birth year of Google+, Facebook still remains the king of social networks and social media marketing. Read more …
Facebook Timeline for Performance Marketing
A major announcement today from Facebook is going to have significant impact on how marketers utilize the Web's largest social network. Read more …
5 Reasons the New-Look Facebook Could Sink Twitter
Facebook is launching a new look, and the main focus is on real-time feeds and status updates on every user’s home page – including businesses. Sound familiar? It should, because that’s been the very model of success for Twitter. Read more …
Facebook Fails with Social Shopping
Facebook is missing the mark on social shopping, perhaps the biggest money-making venture in the social era of the Web. Read more …
Could Facebook be the Daily Deal Killer?
The Web’s largest social network is taking a jab at the Daily Deals industry with its newest launch of Facebook Offers, which is a tool for engaging with and driving new customers to businesses. Read more …
Long Live the Facebook Post
According to Facebook exposure ranking tool EdgeRank Checker, the life of a Facebook post begins when it is posted live on the social network, and it ends when the growth in engagement is less than 10 percent between hourly snapshots. Read more …
Social Media Tips from the Republican Party
There is finally something that the Democrats and Republicans can agree on – social media is an essential marketing strategy. Read more …
Claiming Your Facebook Place
Facebook has become an important channel for marketers – on the Web and off. The social media destination’s relatively new Facebook Places offering provides businesses an additional opportunity to track the people who visit their stores, offices or venues. Read more …
Granny Gets a Facebook Page
Social media use has grown dramatically across all age groups, but older users have been adopting networking tools particularly fast. New research released today by Pew Internet indicates that social networking use among Internet users age 50 and older nearly doubled in the past year – from 22 percent in April 2009 to 42 percent in May 2010. Read more ...
Facebook Posting Strategies
When is the best day to post on Facebook? How about the best time of day? Social media management company Vitrue released a report that reveals some interesting Facebook publishing strategies and practices based on data evaluated from the fans managed through the company’s SRM platform. Read more …
Comments Off
Bing Redesign Gets Top Result in Social Search
posted by Michael Garrity @ 10:25 AM
Friday, May 11, 2012
A few weeks back,
Bing made some design changes to its search results pages that were meant to offer a new de-cluttered experience and make it easier for users to quickly find the best
results for their queries.
Microsoft’s search engine added some more changes on Thursday, one that highlights different results types in three vertical columns and, most importantly, finally does social search right (and much better than Google).
Now, when a SERP pops up, everthing from the center to the left side of the page will show the algorithmic text results. To the right of that, context results will appear, including maps, reviews and actionable input fields. Finally, the far right side of the screen displays “social assistance” results; this focuses on social network connections (notably from Facebook) and experts who can help searchers find the information they want.
One of the best social assistance features is an “Ask Friends” option that lets users request help from their Facebook friends in sorting through results. After entering a question, Bing will automatically post it to the users’ Facebook profile along with a link to the user’s current search. If any friends make recommendations, the searcher will be notified in the social assistance sidebar.
Overall, this is a solid addition and further advances the company’s efforts to cut down on a lot of the clutter that can quickly become distracting and cumbersome for users.
Of course, this is also probably a shot at Google’s attempts at social search with its integration of Google+ to create Search Plus Your World, which has been accused of overemphasizing the importance of Google+ content.
In addition to the latest design tweaks, Bing is including more social functionality into its product. Thanks to an instant personalization partnership with Facebook, users will be able to see what their friends have liked in search results, which shows up as a thumbs up icon next to the text results. However, Facebook Likes won’t have an effect on search result rankings.
For more information about the new design, click here, and here for a video highlighting the new social search features.
Comments Off
Following in the
footsteps of Apple, Google and many others, Facebook
announced plans to unveil its own app store in the coming weeks.
This new offering will give developers a new avenue for promoting their work across multiple mobile platforms, while adding another place for users to discover new apps.
The thoughtfully named Facebook App Center will allow users to search for Facebook apps that run on the Web, as well as iOS and Android devices, provided the applications have some kind of tie into Facebook, which at the very least means using Facebook Login.
Apps will be searchable by category and ratings, with the most popular among them highlighted for convenience.
Facebook plans to set the App Center apart from its competitors by offering a social aspect to the discovery process. Instead of showing a single list of top apps that is identical for every user, each individual will see a list of recommended apps based on what their Facebook friends are using.
Developers can charge users for their apps, and anyone interested in building for the Facebook App Center can see the guidelines here.
Comments Off
Facebook Metrics: Reach, Engaged Users, Talking About This
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 1:30 PM
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
The investing world is certainly going gaga over Facebook's upcoming IPO, but the community of social media professionals continue to scratch their collective heads about the meaning of the available metrics within brand pages that is being reported by the social network.
Based on my conversations with those both successful and struggling with their social media participation and optimization, much of the troubles stem from a simple lack of understanding. There's a lot of "overlap" in the reports, which I believe is certainly one reason this data doesn't generate more attention and exploration.
Let's look at these metrics in more detail and consider how you, as a social media maven, can use the information to your benefit.
Reach: The number of people that have seen your post. The Reach metric is segmented into three seperate channels - organic, paid and viral.
Organic reach is the number of people that have seen your post in their news feed, within the ticker, or on your page. Keep in mind that metrics reported under organic reach can include people that have never liked your page.
Paid reach is the reach associated with sponsored stories or Page Post Ads. It is reported as the number of unique people that saw an ad or story that pointed to your page.
Viral reach is where things get tricky. Viral reach is the number of people that have seen your post because one of their friends interacted with it, either liking, commenting, sharing, answering a question or responding to an event. Viral reach also has to do quite a bit with the Talking About This (TAT) metric discussed below.
Engaged Users: The number of people who have clicked within your post/update.
The Engaged Users metric is reported in three forms: link clicks (clicks on links within your post/update), stories generated (a story is created when someone likes, comments, shares, answers a question or responds to an event), and other clicks, which are clicks on names, timestamp or the number of likes (the "other clicks" metrics is a good indicator of attention).
Talking About This: The number of people that have created a "story" from your page post. The TAT metric reports the number of likes, comments and shares in aggregate.
Comments Off
Social login platform Janrain has released some interesting information which analyzes social login and social sharing preferences for online users from the over 365,000 sites using its Engage platform.
As you might expect, Facebook is the most popular option, coming in with a majority of usage at 45 percent - but don't count out Google, Yahoo! and Twitter. The Janrain research indicates that Facebook's share of social logins has increased considerably over the past two years at the expense of Google (and by the looks of it Yahoo!) but as Google+ continues to scale up, that trend seems to be reversing slightly (see graph).
JanRain also analyzed four industry verticals (media, entertainment/gaming, retail, and music) and found similar "arcs" but there are some consistencies across all verticals.
The e-commerce/retail vertical in particular is quite interesting. While Facebook's dominance has declined moderated from 49 percent to 42 percent during the past two quarters, there appears to be a uptick in the most recent quarter. Google seemed to peak in the fourth quarter (coninciding perhaps with the release of Google+) but is has since fallen off. Yahoo fared best in the e-commerce vertical but its slide since 2010 is quite apparent.
Comments Off
There are some naysayers when it comes to social advertising on Facebook, but advertisers investment in the channel seems to be paying off, at least according to research from ad management platform Marin Software.
According to Marin, Facebook social ad budgets in the U.S. increase from 5 percent to 23 percent in the last 12 months (Editors note: Facebook introduced social ad units such as Sponsored Stories in February 2011). Marin's research suggests that by the end of 2012, social ads will account for nearly 50 percent of Facebook ad budgets.
"With Facebook's introduction of Sponsored Stories last year, two questions arose -- will advertisers adopt the new ads and will the new ads produce revenue results?" said Matt Lawson, vice president of marketing and partnerships at Marin Software. "Marin Software's research confirms that answer is an emphatic 'Yes,' as budgets continue to increase and will soon represent 50 percent of Facebook ad investments."
What is appealing about Facebook's social ads is that they work - and I say that from experience. Consumer engagement with Facebook ads, as measured by click through rates, has increased 50 percent over thee last 12 months.
"In the last year advertisers have directed more budgets to social ads and Facebook users have responded by clicking more often," said Lawson. "This trend is not only positive for Facebook from a revenue standpoint, but also provides important validation of the opportunity advertisers have to drive revenues from word of mouth marketing efforts."
Comments Off
Wrapp Presents a New Facebook Marketing Platform
posted by AllisonH @ 12:00 PM
Monday, April 30, 2012
There is a new way for your business to increase its social media visibility – and it just might come with a big (virtual) bow on top.
Social gift-giving service Wrapp is a Swedish startup that enables consumers to socially and virtually send their friends gift cards. For example, instead of writing the same generic happy birthday message or other greeting on your friends’ Facebook walls, Wrapp enables users to send free or paid gift cards to friends within their social networks.
However, consumers aren't the only ones that benefit from this platform because the service can also help increase a brand's Facebook visibility, drive sales and generate in-person and online traffic for participating merchants. In fact, during the last four months almost 180,000 people gifted more than 1.5 million free promotional giftcards to their friends with the Wrapp service, and participating merchants reported that each sale averaged a four to six times increased value of the free promotional gift card that was being redeemed.
“Wrapp is the ultimate win, win, win app,” says Hjalmar Winbladh, Wrapp’s CEO. “You and I get to give our friends free gifts and promotional gift cards from great retailers, the gifts we give are stored in our friends’ phones so they’re always with them when they want to buy something they really want, and the merchants get a proven customer acquisition and retention platform built on Wrapp’s friend-to-friend marketing for conducting performance-based campaigns.”
Wrapp was previously only available in Europe, however this week marks the company’s U.S. launch with retail partnerships from some big-name retailers including Gap, H&M, Sephora, Angry Birds, and the Wall Street Journal.
Merchants who would like to partner with Wrapp can sign up on the company’s website.
Comments Off
The good news for
Facebook is that it officially surpassed the 900 million-user
mark earlier this year. The "bad" news is that the social network is growing slower than in years
past.
While it’s hard to undermine just how monumental a figure 900 million users really is, it’s also important to know that rapid growth has heretofore been Facebook’s primary means of generating revenue. And while it only took the site about five months to go from 800 million to 900 million worldwide users, it took just three months to expand from 700 million to 800 million.
Facebook is still the top dog in terms of social networking and, really, a lot of other things on the Internet.
Each of the 901 million Facebook users is worth $1.21 for the company, which shows a 6-percent increase from this time last year. Moreover, 532 million of them are considered “daily active users,” which is up from just 372 million a year ago.
Plus, the site is still valued at more than $100 billion, and Q1 revenue was up from this time last year, although it did see a slight net income decrease due to additional operating costs.
Comments Off
The best strategy for creating engaging marketing posts on Facebook is _____ .
A new study from social media analytics provider Simply Measured reveals that fill-in-the-blank posts on Facebook receive more comments than any others.
According to Simply Measured, JetBlue incorporated fill-in-the-blank posts into its Facebook content strategy approximately every seven to ten days over the past six weeks and discovered 182 percent more comments than other types of statuses, such as posts that contain links or multimedia.
However, the study also shows that statuses containing links were better performers for driving likes and shares.
It is important to note that although the fill-in-the-blank method was an obvious success for JetBlue, it doesn’t mean that companies should start sending out a ton of posts that contain blanks. Social media managers should remember that variety is the spice of marketing life, so therefore it is important not to overuse any particular strategy.
Brands should experiment with different content strategies, compare and analyze the success of the types of posts that are being sent out, and remember that everything is good in moderation.
Otherwise, you may just be shooting blanks.
Comments Off
The Web’s largest social network is taking a jab at the Daily Deal industry with its newest launch of Facebook Offers, which is a tool for engaging with and driving new customers to businesses.
Offers are free for administrators to create and share, however only a small number of local business Pages are currently able to take advantage of this new feature, with Facebook claiming that it plans to “launch Offers more broadly soon.”
The offers are created from the sharing tool at the top of a Page’s timeline. Users must click on the Offer, Event + button, and then create an offer headline, upload a photo, choose a limit for the number of claims, add terms and conditions, preview and post the promotion. Although Offers is a free service, Facebook suggests that businesses run an ad or Sponsored Story so that the offers receive more visibility.
Consumers can redeem offers from brands that they have liked. The “liked” brand’s offer will show up in the consumer’s news feed, which is where the consumer can click “Get Offer” to receive the promotion. Then Facebook sends a follow-up email to the consumer, which needs to be shown to the business in order to receive the discount.
It seems as though Facebook is the perfect platform to launch a service like this, especially since small businesses tend to be hesitant to sign up with daily deal services. Not only is Facebook a familiar platform, but the offers are completely free to run, and business owners are given complete control over their promotions. Match made in virtual heaven? – only time will tell.
Comments Off
Facebook, Google, other firms team to fight email phishing scams
posted by Technology @ 12:20 PM
Monday, January 30, 2012
Major tech firms including Google, Facebook and Microsoft have teamed together to fight email phishing scams. Members say the partnership will lead to better email security and protect users and tech brands from fraudulent messages.
The group, which calls itself DMARC – for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance — says it wants to help reduce email abuse by standardizing how email receivers perform authentication. Now, email senders will get consistent authentication results for their messages at Gmail, Hotmail, AOL and any other email receiver using DMARC.
Email phishing scams are messages designed to trick recipients into providing personal information by replying to the messages or clicking on links. The emails look like they come from a legitimate sender, often featuring brand logos and mimicking the format and language of authentic messages.
With the rise of social media and e-commerce sites, spammers and phishers have "a tremendous financial incentive" to compromise user accounts, leading to theft of passwords, bank account information and credit card numbers, DMARC said.
"Email is easy to spoof and criminals have found spoofing to be a proven way to exploit user trust of well-known brands," the group said. "Simply inserting the logo of a well-known brand into an email gives it instant legitimacy with many users."
Other companies involved in DMARC include Bank of America, LinkedIn, PayPal and Yahoo.
RELATED:
Shopping tips for protecting personal information
Hackers infiltrated personal Gmail accounts, Google says
New Justice Department unit to fight tech crimes, identity theft
– Andrea Chang
Image: Screen shot of the companies involved in DMARC. Credit: DMARC
Comments Off
Facebook IPO filing reportedly due ‘as early as next week’
posted by Technology @ 2:47 PM
Friday, January 27, 2012
Facebook's initial public offering has been anticipated for months and is speculated to be worth as much as $100 billion whenever it arrives.
And right about now, that's the biggest question for the world's largest social network — when will the IPO filing arrive?
According to a Friday report from the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, Facebook could file for its IPO "as early as next week."
When next week? The Journal says "Facebook could file papers for the IPO as early as this coming Wednesday, but that timing is still being discussed, said a person familiar with the matter."
Facebook, for its part, hasn't said when its inevitable IPO will arrive, but the rumor mill is in high gear.
On Wendesday, multiple reports said that the Menlo Park, Calif., company had temporarily suspended trading of company shares on private markets so it could tally up just how many shareholders it has — a move sometimes made ahead of an IPO.
The IPO is expected to be the largest of the year and possibly the decade and, as noted by the Times' Jessica Guynn and Walter Hamilton, it could turn as many as 1,000 Facebook employees into millionaires. Facebook has more than 800 million users worldwide and it's expected to also reach 1 billion users soon as well.
Wall Street clicks 'like' on Facebook IPO
Facebook reportedly suspends share trading ahead of IPO
Facebook IPO: Could Facebook be worth more than $100 billion?
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Facebook's thumbs-up "Like" icon is displayed on a sign at the company's new campus in Menlo Park, Calif. Facebook hopes to accommodate over 6,000 employees on the new campus, which is spread out over a million square feet of office space. Credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Comments Off
Google+ now open to teens, with a few security tweaks too
posted by Technology @ 2:52 PM
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Google+ opened up to teenagers on Thursday, a move that Google no doubt hopes will help it challenge Facebook as the social network of choice.
"Teens and young adults are the most active Internet users on the planet," said Bradley Horowitz, Google's vice president of products, in a post on his Google+ page. "And surprise, surprise: they're also human beings who enjoy spending time with friends and family. Put these two things together and it's clear that teens will increasingly connect online."
While minors will now be able to use Google+, the experience on the social network won't be exactly the same for them as the 18-and-older crowd. Google has made a few privacy and security changes with teens in mind that Horowitz said will make Google+ a more ideal network to use for sharing and connecting with friends than other services.
"Unfortunately, online sharing is still second-rate for this age group," he said of teenagers. "In life, for instance, teens can share the right things with just the right people (like classmates, parents or close ties). Over time, the nuance and richness of selective sharing even promotes authenticity and accountability. Sadly, today's most popular online tools are rigid and brittle by comparison, so teens end up over-sharing with all of their so-called "friends.' "
The ability to share on Google+ to specific "circles" of friends is a start Horowitz said, but the social network is also giving users "control over who can contact them online. By default, only those in teens' circles can say hello, and blocking someone is always just a click or two away."
Google+'s Hangout video chats will also be tweaked for teens. "If a stranger outside a teen's circles joins the hangout, we temporarily remove the young adult, and give them a chance to rejoin," he said.
Previously, Google+ was only open to users who were 18 years old and up. Now, Horowitz said, anyone who is old enough for a Google account of any sort is old enough for Google+. And in all but Spain (14), South Korea (14) and the Netherlands (16), that age is 13.
Facebook, which boasts more than 800 million users, is open to anyone 13 and older. Google+ has about 90 million users, the tech giant said earlier this month.
RELATED:
Google plans to merge more user data across its products
Google+ continues battle with fading user interest, data say
Google engineer goofs, tells whole world that Google doesn't get it
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: An example of the prompt a teenage Google+ user under age 18 will receive whenever someone they don't have included in a contact "circle" on the social network joins in on a Hangout video chat session. Credit: Google
Comments Off
Is Facebook ‘Subscribe’ for real? Booming new traffic explained
posted by Technology @ 2:20 PM
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
As their Facebook "subscriber" lists have spiraled upward — into the thousands and tens of thousands in recent weeks — many journalists have looked on in awe and wonder.
Executives at the social media behemoth say the "Subscribe" function, introduced in September, has instantly become a hugely popular feature. It allows the public to follow journalists, artists and political figures without taking the more personal, and potentially intrusive, step of "friending."
The manager of the Journalist Program for Facebook said in a posting Wednesday that subscriptions have jumped more than threefold since November for a sample of 25 journalists around the country. Vadim Lavrusik, the program manager, suggested that the exponential growth — CNN weather reporter Bonnie Schneider somewhat suddenly has 72,000 subscribers — is a reflection of the "organic discovery mechanisms" built into the social network.
Journalists have alternately expressed happiness (any audience expansion is a good thing) and skepticism over what's behind the booming Facebook Subscribe numbers.
Linda Thomas, a morning news anchor in Seattle, put out a series of Facebook messages trying to determine why her following on the site had suddenly leaped to nearly 5,000. Media analyst Jim Romenesko responded: “Subscriber (and LIKE) spam is a huge problem for Facebook. I have 14,000+ Facebook subscribers and guess that not even 25% of them know my work and have any interest in it.”
When I asked Romenesko why he was skeptical that new subscribers were real, he said it was partly the fact the newcomers to his Facebook page seemed to have no connectedness to his other friends and subscribers. Many came with oddball names, like the one that appeared to be a takeoff on "Adolph Hitler."
Romenesko conceded that some of the subscribers might be real people, genuinely interested in his news feed, which focuses on the media industry in the U.S. But he added: "I suspect the vast majority are simply spammers."
USA Today's Gregory Korte said he was initially "mystified" by his booming following on Facebook subscribe, which now numbers more than 21,000. "I mean, I'm not kidding myself," emailed Korte, who covers Congress, "I'm not a celebrity journalist, even among the C-SPAN set." But he figured the fact he ended up on a Facebook list of journalists to subscribe to might have goosed his traffic.
I've watched my own Facebook subscriptions jump to more than 17,000 — almost all of them signing on in the last six weeks. That made me a little giddy at my wondrous, ahem, allure. But I also couldn't help wondering (with apologies to Woody Allen) why so many would want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.
I emailed several of my new subscribers — including Zarrouk in Morocco and Giovanni in Naples — but got no response. Finally, I heard back from one, Chris in Montreal. He told me he had found me through Facebook's recommendation on his Subscribe page.
Chris figured I popped up because he had subscribed to other writers in the media and tech fields. The 33-year-old fine arts student credited Facebook's algorithms with helping him compile a news feed that is "synchronous and relevant.”
Facebook's Lavrusik said the function can be a boon to journalists, and said they should not be skeptical at the far-flung provenance of their subscribers. In the report he posted Wednesday, Lavrusik pointed to updates NBC's Ann Curry posted on a recent trip to Iraq. (Nearly 2,300 people "liked" her update describing her late-night arrival in Baghdad.) A New York Times reporter has regularly posted videos of protests in Moscow.
"You can distribute your content but also contact sources using that profile," Lavrusik said. "So it opens the door to really use it not just for distribution but to improve the journalism process."
Now USA Today's Korte is trying to get the most out of his new audience, figuring out when and how to query them for stories he is working on. Having been schooled in competitive newspaper towns, Korte said he sometimes tends to be cautious, lest competitors see what he is working on.
But he also doubted competitors would spend much time burrowing into his Facebook feed and so is "trying to push myself out of my comfort zone and practice what I preach about 'open source' journalism."
RELATED:
Facebook's Timeline will become mandatory soon
Facebook encourages users to share more by adding new apps
Facebook updates its status: It wants to be an entertainment hub
– James Rainey
Photo: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The social media site introduced the "Subscribe" button to allow users to follow journalists, artists and others whom they had not "friended." Credit: Paul Sakuma/Associated Press
Comments Off
Facebook reportedly suspends share trading ahead of IPO
posted by Technology @ 2:09 PM
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Facebook Inc. has reportedly frozen the trading of its shares on secondary markets through Friday, a move that might be made in preparation for the company's expected initial public offering.
Buy and sell orders can be made, but the world's largest social network won't approve or reject any transaction Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, according to a reports from both Bloomberg News and the New York Times, which each cited unnamed sources.
Officials at Facebook were unavailable for comment on the reports Wednesday, but for months speculation has been rampant over just when the Palo Alto company would sell stock on public markets for the first time.
As we've reported before, Facebook's IPO, whenever it comes, could be as worth as much as $10 billion, which would place the social networking giant's market value at more than $100 billion.
The move to temporarily suspend trading might be taking place so Facebook can get a count on just how many shareholders it has among employees, investors and traders who picked up company stock on private secondary markets. Or the freeze may be attributable to Facebook preparing a pre-IPO prospectus of its financial information, Bloomberg said, noting that companies don't want secondary-market investors trading stock with the prospectus out before going public.
RELATED:
Like it or not, Facebook's Timeline will be mandatory
Facebook IPO: Could Facebook be worth more than $100 billion?
Report: Investment banks compete for lead role in Facebook IPO
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shows off the Timeline view at the company's F8 developer conference in September in San Francisco. Credit: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg
Comments Off
Facebook’s Timeline will become mandatory soon
posted by Technology @ 4:47 PM
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Love it or hate it, Facebook's Timeline will be mandatory on your profile soon.
The social network said in a blog post Tuesday that it would roll out the feature — currently available on an opt-in basis — to all users "over the next few weeks."
You'll have seven days to preview your Timeline before it goes live, which "gives you a chance to add or hide whatever you want before anyone else sees it," the company said. When it's your turn to get Timeline, you'll see an announcement at the top of your home page.
Introduced late last year, Timeline has been touted by Facebook as an "entirely new kind of profile" that is more visual and comprehensive.
"Timeline gives you an easy way to rediscover the things you shared, and collect your most important moments," the company said in a December blog post. "It also lets you share new experiences, like the music you listen to or the miles you run."
Among the most noticeable differences: Past activity is easily accessible via an archive panel on the right side of your screen, and in addition to your smaller profile photo you can choose another image that will be prominently featured across the top of your page.
So far, reviews for Timeline have been mixed, with critics saying they didn't like having all their previous activity dredged back up (you can remove it) or the scattered layout.
RELATED:
How to get the new Facebook Timeline now
Ready or not, it's time for Facebook's Timeline
New Zealand is first country to get Facebook's Timeline feature
– Andrea Chang
Image: Facebook's Timeline. Credit: Facebook
Comments Off
Tweets deny that Anonymous will try to hack into Facebook
posted by Technology @ 2:45 PM
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Anonymous has lobbed many online attacks against high-profile websites, but so far the hacktivist group has never hacked into the world's largest social network, Facebook.
And, if you believe most Anonymous connected Twitter accounts, that won't be changing anytime soon — despite ongoing rumors and a YouTube video stating an Anonymous-backed Facebook strike is planned for Saturday.
The question of whether Anonymous will attack Facebook got started with that YouTube video, published Monday. The video, which can be seen above, states that the group is targeting the social network as a part of an online war in reaction to two controversial online anti-piracy bills known as SOPA and PIPA that were abandoned by several Washington politicians last week.
"Hello. People of the world. We are Anonymous," a computer generated voice-over says in the video. "The time has come. An online war has begun between Anonymous, the people, and the government of the United States. While SOPA and PIPA may be postponed from Congress, this does not guarantee that our internet rights will be upheld."
Later, the video states that "while it is true that Facebook has at least 60,000 servers, it is still possible to bring it down. Anonymous needs the help of the people, the people who want to take a stand against the government. The people who want to make a difference. This is what we must do."
On Monday, just a few hours after the video was published on YouTube, the @AnonOps Twitter account — which many believe to be an authentic Anonymous account — said there were no plans to hit Facebook.
"Again we must say that we will not attack #Facebook! Again the mass media lie," one tweet said.
Another tweet repeated the denial of the YouTube video, stating "AGAIN: 'Anonymous Threatens Facebook Shutdown Jan' IS A FAKE. RT PLEASE."
But while the attack may not be a legitimate Anonymous operation, and while it may never even take place, the group's lack of hacks against Facebook isn't for a lack of threats.
Rogue members of the collective, which has no publicly clear leadership structure, and possibly even impostors have threatened attacks against Facebook multiple times in the past. Notably, one such threat last August planned for Guy Fawkes Day on Nov. 5 never panned out.
RELATED:
SOPA blackouts inspired protest around the world
Wikipedia: SOPA protest led 8 million to look up reps in Congress
Justice Department shuts down MegaUpload, Anonymous responds with Web attacks
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screenshot of a tweet from the @AnonOps account that denies the hacker group Anonymous will attack Facebook. Credit: Twitter
Comments Off
‘Don’t Be Evil’ tool alters new Google search results
posted by Technology @ 4:44 PM
Monday, January 23, 2012
When Google changed the rankings of its search results this month, items from its Google+ social network — such as photos, videos, comments and links — got a boost at the expense of other social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
Twitter wasn't happy about the changes, which Google called Search Plus Your World, and made its dissatisfaction known. Privacy groups called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the changes.
But merely complaining about the new search results wasn't enough for a few engineers from Facebook, Twitter and Myspace. On Monday, the backlash against Search Plus Your World hit another level with the release of their Don't Be Evil bookmarklet, available on the new website Focus on the User.
The bookmarklet, which is a browser plug-in of code that alters Google search results to make them more like they were before Search Plus Your World, was built over the weekend by a small team that included Facebook's director of product, Blake Ross, and Facebook software engineers Tom Occhino and Marshall Roch.
The bookmarklet's Don't Be Evil name is a nod to Google's company mantra.
A statement posted on Focus on the User says:
When you search for "cooking" today, Google decides that renowned chef Jamie Oliver is a relevant social result. That makes sense," reads a statement on Focus on the User. "But rather than linking to Jamie's Twitter profile, which is updated daily, Google links to his Google+ profile, which was last updated nearly two months ago. Is Google's relevance algorithm simply misguided?
No. If you search Google for Jamie Oliver directly, his Twitter profile is the first social result that appears. His abandoned Google+ profile doesn't even appear on the first page of results. When Google's engineers are allowed to focus purely on relevancy, they get it right.
So that's what our "bookmarklet" does. It looks at the three places where Google only shows Google+ results and then automatically googles Google to see if Google finds a result more relevant than Google+.
Google officials were unavailable for comment on the bookmarklet Monday afternoon.
Facebook's Ross, who is also one of the three co-founders of Mozilla's Firefox Web browser and was spreading the word about the bookmarklet on his Twitter and Facebook accounts, has had a run-in with Google+ before: In August, Ross' Google+ profile page was temporarily suspended. Google never commented on why that happened, but Ross has said it was because Google didn't think the page really belonged to him.
Along with the launch of the bookmarklet and the Focus on the User site, a video (which can be seen below) explaining how the bookmarklet works, narrated by Ross, was posted to YouTube.
The bookmarklet isn't an official product of Facebook, Twitter or Myspace, but nobody seems to be shying away from the connection to those companies.
Where will this beef go from here? That's up to the involved engineers and anyone else around the Web who wants to dig in and write some code.
"This proof of concept was built by some engineers at Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, in consultation with several other social networking companies," Focus on the User says. "We are open-sourcing the code so that anyone may use it or make it even better."
RELATED:
Twitter blasts prominence of Google+ content in search results
Google likely to face FTC complaint over 'Search Plus Your World'
Facebook Product Director Blake Ross temporarily kicked off Google+
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of FocusOnTheUser.org.
Comments Off
White House joins Google+ ahead of State of the Union speech
posted by Technology @ 5:34 PM
Sunday, January 22, 2012
The White House is now on Google+ and no, it's not technically a move to help President Obama get reelected — there is a separate Obama 2012 page for that.
So why is the Obama administration now on Google's social network? The State of the Union speech on Tuesday is at least one reason to join Google+.
The annual speech will be broadcast across major TV networks and an enhanced version will be streamed online to the White House's mobile apps and at whitehouse.gov/sotu, with "charts, stats and data that helped inform President Obama's policy decisions as he delivers his speech to the nation," the White House said.
After the speech, which starts at 6 p.m. Pacific time, White House officials will field questions throughout the week regarding the speech, the president's policies, and the direction in which the country and economy is headed. Those questions will be taken from Twitter, Facebook and (as of this week) Google+.
Down the road, the White House may use Google+ Hangouts, the social network's group video-chatting feature, to reach constituents.
"The President and First Lady often call the White House 'The People’s House.' Well, this is another way we're opening our doors (virtually) to citizens around the country," said Kori Schulman, the deputy director of outreach at the White House Office of Digital Strategy, in a blog post. "On our Google+ page, we'll host regular 'White House Hangouts' with administration officials on a range of issues and topics.
"Some Google+ users will be invited to join the Hangout with the White House and have a conversation with policy experts. But the best part is that even if you're not 'in' the Hangout, you can watch the whole thing live on WhiteHouse.gov, on our Google+ page or on the White House YouTube channel."
The White House currently has no Google+ Hangouts planned.
Although the White House's Google+ page isn't an official campaign tool, there is no doubt that the Obama administration and his reelection campaign staff are looking to use every tool possible to reach voters this year.
After all, the president's use of social media in his winning of the 2008 election is often cited as one of the reasons he was able to build up support among voters. The Technology blog even described Obama as "the first social media president."
One other reason the White House might want to be on Google+ — Republican rivals looking to knock Obama out of office are there too.
RELATED:
President Obama's 2012 campaign joins Google+
Facebook to launch its own political action committee
Obama 2012 campaign joins Instagram on eve of Iowa caucuses
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of the White House page on Google+. Credit: Google
Comments Off
Facebook wants Paul Ceglia to pay more than $84,000 in attorney fees
posted by Technology @ 6:36 PM
Friday, January 20, 2012
Facebook's lawyers are asking a judge to order Paul Ceglia to foot the bill for more than $84,000 in fees.
Ceglia, the New York man who claims he's entitled to half of Mark Zuckerberg's multibillion-dollar stake in Facebook, was fined for refusing to turn over email account information and ordered to pay reasonable attorneys' fees.
Facebook's lawyers are also asking Leslie G. Foschio, the federal magistrate in Buffalo, N.Y., to order Ceglia not to file any additional "non-responsive papers or pleadings in the case" until he pays up.
Ceglia's lawyer, Dean Boland, said he has not had a chance to review the court filing in detail, but said he and his client would prepare a response over the coming week.
"If we feel it ought to be modified, we will respond accordingly," Boland said.
Boland, who's from Cleveland, took a shot at Facebook's lawyers for charging Manhattan hourly rates in a case unfolding in Buffalo.
"Cleveland and Buffalo are pretty identical demographically, and I can tell you that no lawyer would survive in the city of Cleveland charging that much an hour because no one would be able to hire him," Boland said.
Orin Snyder, the most senior Gibson Dunn partner, charged $716.25 an hour. His most junior associate charged $337.50 an hour, according to the filing.
Facebook, which is on the verge of an initial public offering that could value the world's most popular social networking company at $100 billion, can clearly afford it.
RELATED:
Federal judge orders Paul Ceglia to pay fine in Facebook case
Paul Ceglia seeks Mark Zuckerberg sanctions
Facebook claimant Paul Ceglia returns to U.S. to press his case
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: The Facebook sign outside the company's new campus in Menlo Park, Calif. Credit: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg
Comments Off
Payvment Adds Polling Feature to Social Shopping Platform
posted by AllisonH @ 12:38 AM
Friday, January 20, 2012
Facebook e-commerce platform Payvment has added a new Polls feature to its solution.
The addition lets sellers create polls featuring their own products, and then invite shoppers to vote. What is interesting about this development in particular is that it uses Facebook’s new Open Graph technology. When a brand’s fans vote on a poll, their actions appear within their Facebook ticker, news feed and timeline which promotes the poll and the e-commerce merchant.
“Payvment continues to add new functionality to our suite of social promotion tools to help sellers boost shopper engagement, drive traffic to their storefronts and increase sales,” said Christian Taylor, CEO and co-founder of Payvment. “With our new Polls and Free Shipping features, our sellers now have two more powerful ways to build their business using Payvment.”
Comments Off
Payvment Adds Polling Feature to Social Shopping Platform
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 4:00 PM
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Facebook e-commerce platform Payvment has added a new Polls feature to its solution.
The addition lets sellers create polls featuring their own products, and then invite shoppers to vote. What is interesting about this development in particular is that it uses Facebook’s new Open Graph technology. When a brand’s fans vote on a poll, their actions appear within their Facebook ticker, news feed and timeline which promotes the poll and the e-commerce merchant.
“Payvment continues to add new functionality to our suite of social promotion tools to help sellers boost shopper engagement, drive traffic to their storefronts and increase sales,” said Christian Taylor, CEO and co-founder of Payvment. “With our new Polls and Free Shipping features, our sellers now have two more powerful ways to build their business using Payvment.”
Comments Off
Facebook encourages users to share more by adding new apps
posted by Technology @ 8:27 PM
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Facebook wants its more than 800 million users to share everything they do with their friends on Facebook and off of it.
So Facebook has teamed with more than 60 partners to roll out apps that encourage users to tell their friends what they're doing: buying a merino wool scarf at Fab.com, researching a new travel destination on TripAdvisor, donating to a favorite charity on Causes or highlighting a new hobby on Pinterest.
The most popular social networking service is working with new applications so that users can publish their activities on their Facebook pages, Carl Sjogreen, director of platform products, said at an event in San Francisco on Wednesday night (and in a blog post).
Facebook is looking for new ways to get people to spend more time on the site and advertisers to spend more money reaching them. The activities will show up in users' Ticker, News Feed and Timeline.
The announcement comes as Facebook tees up a $100-billion initial public offering, the biggest the tech world has ever seen.
Facebook Chief Technology Officer Bret Taylor said in an interview that the new profile page called Timeline is increasingly becoming Facebook users' de facto online identity and that the new apps would help users personalize their profiles with just a few clicks. He said that expanding the Facebook platform would generate revenue in the "grand scheme" but that the announcement was not "overtly" about making money. He said Timeline has deepened users' relationship with Facebook and increased the amount of time users spend on the site.
Facebook is taking on Google, Apple and other technology giants in competition for eyeballs and ad dollars. It first launched the new wave of apps last year at the company's annual developer conference, allowing Spotify to show songs that users play and the Washington Post to display articles users read. At the time, Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said the new apps created "real-time serendipity" beyond users just telling their friends they "like" something. The apps move beyond the "like" button which has become a universal means of expression on the Web but isn't adequate to communicate the full spectrum of human emotion and activity.
Millions are already using the apps, and Taylor said Facebook was "thrilled" with the response.
Now Facebook is opening up the platform to all developers (not just the 60 launching Wednesday) to help Facebook's users let their friends know when they go for a run or design a new outfit, Taylor said.
That not only gives users a way to express themselves and broadcast to their friends, it gives advertisers and marketers even more insight into their interests and habits. That in turn could give Facebook even more of an edge over Google's social network Google+, which has about 40 million users.
Some privacy advocates are concerned about Facebook's growing knowledge of its users and its reach into their lives.
"Facebook now has more ways to track and target us, as it enables dozens of apps designed to drive user and network behavior," said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. "Facebook now has more profile information it can monetize on its massive base of consumers. While giving the appearance of greater privacy control, Facebook knows that for the most part the default will be that they and their business partners can easily harvest our data."
RELATED:
Facebook wants users to share it all
Facebook updates its status: It wants to be an entertainment hub
Facebook F8: Is Facebook a 'social operating system'?
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Facebook's Menlo Park campus Photo credit: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg
Comments Off
Tablets More Important Than Social to Merchants
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 8:30 AM
Saturday, January 14, 2012
The idea that social networks will revolutionize the ecommerce experience has yet to materialize. But tablets? That’s another story.
Baynote’s 2011 Online Holiday Shopping Experience report, which surveyed 1000 consumers between Cyber Monday and Christmas Eve, revealed that 80.2 percent of shoppers said that personal connections on Facebook or another social networking site did not influence their shopping decision. Just 9 percent of consumers purchased something from a retailers Facebook fan page. Keep in mind however that it is not always easy to measure "influence" as the sales cycle can in some cases be exceedingly long for social media.
For merchants that have optimized for the tablet experience however, Baynote's data looks very promising. 48.6 percent of tablet owners made a purchase through their device. And it's not just applications; responsive design presents a low-cost, high impact means to optimize for tablets.
One of the most interesting data points in the Baynote study was the relevance of personalized product recommendations by channel, and the usefulness of promotions. In both cases, email was the channel cited most frequently, beating out both search and social for the top spot.
Additional findings from the study, as it relates to retail websites in particular, include:
- 59% of all consumers purchased a product on a retail website.
- 93% of all consumers researched a product online and then purchased in a store.
Related content on Baynote from Website Magazine:
- A Perfect Pair: Personalization and Conversion
- Personalization in Daily Deals & Flash Sales
- Baynote and Monetate Announce Partnership
Comments Off
Facebook Attacks Feeding Fraudulent Affiliates
posted by AllisonH @ 6:30 AM
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Most Facebook attacks are feeding fraudulent affiliate marketing sites according to a new report.
The Internet Threats Trend Report from Commtouch reports that affiliate marketing sites are the final destination of 74 percent of all Facebook scams. Visitors to these sites are prompted to fill out surveys that generate affiliate payments for the scammers, which abuses businesses that pay affiliate fees.
Fooled users are encouraged to click on the scams through social engineering tactics, such as free merchandise offers, celebrity news, fake Facebook applications or through messages from friends that say something like “check this out!”
According to the study, these deceptions are being spread through a number of ways. Users willingly click on the like or share button 48 percent of the time, while 52 percent of the time likes and shares are generated through likejacking, scripts and malware. And, if just five friends continually share or like these attacks, it can be spread to 9,765,625 people within a few hours.
“Facebook scammers are out to make money, and affiliate marketing is a rich source,” says Amir Lev, Commtouch’s chief technology officer. “The same social engineering techniques that malware distributors and spammers have been using for years to induce people to open their unwanted mail or click on malicious links are being leveraged within Facebook and other popular social networks for ill-gotten gains.”
And although Facebook has made attempts to block malicious content, users can protect themselves and friends against Facebook attacks by using caution when “liking” or sharing something, being suspicious of offers for free stuff, not following links with generic text, avoiding links that promise a newsworthy scoop and being cautious of the applications they download.
Comments Off
Privacy watchdog urges investigation of Google search feature
posted by Technology @ 8:01 PM
Thursday, January 12, 2012
An influential Washington privacy group is urging government regulators to probe a new search feature from Google, saying it invades the privacy of users and shuts out competitors.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday over the new feature called Search plus Your World. The feature started getting attention this week as it rolled out to users who began to see personal photos and updates from the Google+ social network show up in their search results.
Twitter, a competitor to Google+, complained that its content was being pushed down in search rankings.
EPIC’s executive director, Marc Rotenberg, says Google is using its dominance in Internet search to promote its own products at the expense of its rivals. He also said the new feature violates the privacy settlement that Google reached last year with the FTC over its defunct social network Buzz.
"We believe this is something that the FTC needs to look at," Rotenberg told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday.
A spokeswoman for the FTC declined to comment.
Google says it’s trying to make its search engine more useful by highlighting personal information from its social network. Google rolled out Google+ six months ago as Facebook and Twitter increased in popularity.
"For years we’ve been working on social search features to help you find the most relevant information from your social connections no matter what site it's on," a Google spokesman said. "Search plus Your World doesn't change who has access to content, it simply helps people rediscover information they already have access to. We've taken special care with our new features to provide robust security protections, transparency and control for our users."
The new feature mostly affects the up to 1 in 4 people who are logged in to Google or Google+ while searching the Web. Those users now have the option of seeing search results that are customized to their interests and connections. If they search for a vacation spot such as Mexico or Hawaii, they may see photos from previous trips or posts from friends.
Google has been working a long time to create a search engine that delivers results tailored to its users. It's also trying to catch up to social networking giant Facebook, which, with more than 800 million users, knows its users far better than Google does.
Google was already facing broad scrutiny of its search and advertising businesses in Washington and Brussels. Critics allege that Google exploits its dominant position in search to promote its own services.
The Federal Trade Commission, attorneys general in six states and the European Commission are looking into complaints. Google handles about two-thirds of Web searches in the U.S. and more than 80% in much of Europe.
Google also faces rising scrutiny on privacy matters. In April, it agreed to submit to 20 years of privacy audits as part of the privacy settlement with the FTC.
In an interview this week, Google Fellow Amit Singhal said Google has taken significant steps to make its new feature private and secure. He also said Google was open to including information from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.
"However," he said, "it has to be done in a way that the user experience doesn't deteriorate over time and that users are in control over what they see from whom and not some third party."
But Google is facing uncomfortable questions about whether it's looking out for its users or itself, said Danny Sullivan, editor of the website Search Engine Land, who has been tracking Google since the 1990s.
Facebook, which generated billions of dollars in revenue last year and is weeks away from filing plans for a $100-billion initial public offering, poses the biggest threat to Google's online advertising business.
Facebook formed an alliance with Microsoft's Bing, a rival to Google, which has been showing information mined from Facebook in its search engine’s results since May.
Facebook declined to comment.
Washington antitrust lawyer David Balto said Google has little to worry about because EPIC does not have a case.
"You would need a super-powered microscope to be able to find any significant competition or privacy concerns from Google's conduct," Balto said.
Users are split on whether they want their search engine to deliver results customized to them.
Dave Mora, 31, an analyst for a Los Angeles entertainment company, said he now gets more relevant search results and consequently is using more Google services.
"Your experience is even that much richer," he said. "How many times have you asked a friend that knows about computers a tech question, you car enthusiasts friend a car question, or even that doctor friend a medical question? It is the same idea, just presented differently.”
But Melissa Cleaver, a 35-year-old blogger from Houston, said that she would turn off the feature and that she's getting increasingly wary of how powerful Google has become on the Web.
"It just seems to me that Google is pulling out all the stops to force you to use Google+," said Cleaver, who has 40% of her investment portfolio in Google stock. "I don't think Facebook or Twitter have anything to worry about. Just another reason that Mark Zuckerberg can sleep soundly tonight."
RELATED:
Google likely to face FTC complaint over 'Search Plus Your World'
New Google feature adds a personal touch to search results
Twitter blasts prominence of Google+ content in search results
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Google office in Brussels. Credit: Virginia Mayo / Associated Press
Comments Off
Google likely to face FTC complaint over ‘Search Plus Your World’
posted by Technology @ 11:14 AM
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
A privacy watchdog group probably will complain to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that a new Google search feature raises privacy and antitrust concerns.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said his group is considering filing a letter with the FTC.
EPIC made the complaint that resulted in Google's settlement with the FTC that requires the Internet search giant to submit to external audits of their privacy practices every other year.
"We believe this is something that the FTC needs to look at," Rotenberg said.
Google calls the new feature rolling out to users of its English-language search engine "Search Plus Your World." It blends information such as photos, comments and news posted on its Google+ social network into users' search results.
It mostly affects the one in four people who log into Google or Google+ while searching the Web. Those users will have the option of seeing search results that are customized to their interests and connections, say, a photo of the family dog or a friend's recommendation for a restaurant.
Google has been working for years to create a personal search engine that knows its users so well it delivers results tailored to them. It's also trying to catch up to social networking giant Facebook, which, with more than 800 million users, knows its users far better than Google does.
But critics contend Google, a laggard in social networking, is using its dominance in Internet search to favor its own products and take on its chief competitor.
"Google is an entrenched player trying to fight off its challenger Facebook by using its market dominance in a separate sector," Rotenberg said. "I think that should trouble people."
Critics also say the move raises alarm bells for consumer privacy.
"Although data from a user’s Google+ contacts is not displayed publicly, Google's changes make the personal data of users more accessible," EPIC said in a note on his website.
The effect of Google's latest search feature may be fairly limited — at least for now. The 6-month-old Google+ has 40 million users.
Google is not the first search engine to do this. Microsoft's Bing, which has an alliance with Facebook, has been tapping some information shared on Facebook since May. But Google is attracting more attention because of its dominance in search. It handles as many as two-thirds of all search queries in the U.S.
Twitter has also complained about the new Google search feature. So far Facebook has stayed out of the fray, declining to comment.
When a user is logged into Google or Google+, Google will now tap information from Google+ and photos from its photo-sharing service Picasa, to deliver personalized search results. In the future it will also incorporate other Google services.
Seeing how much information Google gathers could make some people uneasy, said Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineLand.com. Google has tried to assuage privacy concerns by switching to technology that encrypts all of its search results.
Rotenberg says the FTC needs to go further to protect consumer privacy on the Web.
"This is a problem the FTC needs to look at closely," he said.
In an interview this week, Google Fellow Amit Singhal said Google has taken significant steps to make its new feature private and secure. He also said Google was open to including information from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.
"However," he said. "It has to be done in a way that the user experience doesn't deteriorate over time and that users are in control over what they see from whom and not some third party."
RELATED:
New Google feature adds a personal touch to search results
Twitter blasts prominence of Google+ content in search results
Google gets personal, searches your world, not just the Web
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Google's new search feature has raised concerns. Credit: Virginia Mayo / Associated Press
Comments Off
Federal judge orders Paul Ceglia to pay fine in Facebook case
posted by Technology @ 10:16 AM
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
The New York state man who claims he's entitled to half of Mark Zuckerberg's multibillion-dollar stake in Facebook has been fined $5,000 by a federal judge for not complying with a court order.
Paul Ceglia was also ordered to pay some of Facebook's legal fees.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Leslie G. Foschio's ruling is a victory for Facebook and Zuckerberg, who have denounced Ceglia's claims that he and Zuckerberg signed a 2003 contract that gives him an ownership stake in Facebook, which is on the verge of a $100-billion initial public offering.
Facebook plans to ask Foschio to dismiss the lawsuit.
RELATED:
Paul Ceglia seeks Mark Zuckerberg sanctions
Facebook claimant Paul Ceglia returns to U.S. to press his case
Facebook alleges 'shakedown,' wants Paul Ceglia lawsuit dismissed
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Facebook sign outside the company's new campus in Menlo Park, Calif. Credit: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg
Comments Off
Twitter blasts prominence of Google+ content in search results
posted by Technology @ 4:09 PM
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Twitter came out swinging after Google said Tuesday it would display content from Google+ more prominently in search results than content from rival social networks.
"As we've seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant results," Twitter spokesman Matt Graves said in a statement. "We're concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that's bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users."
Twitter General Counsel Alex Macgillivray, who used to work at Google, on — where else? — Twitter called the launch of the new search feature a "bad day for the Internet." He commented that search was "being warped."
Google responded on Google+: "We are a bit surprised by Twitter's comments about Search plus Your World, because they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer, and since then we have observed their rel=nofollow instructions."
Google's new feature enables users to search for "personal results" that include posts, comments and photos from Google+ and photos from Picasa. But it will not promote results from rivals Facebook or Twitter.
Facebook declined to comment.
Google, which handles about two out of three Web searches in the U.S., is already under antitrust scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission. And lawmakers have questioned whether Google uses its dominant position in search to promote its own services at the expense of competitors and consumers.
Google and Twitter have history. Twitter gets traffic from Google, and Google used to pay Twitter for access to its "firehose" of tweets. It no longer does (although Microsoft's Bing still does). Google can still show tweets in search results because most of the 250 million of them a day are public.
Google has also tangled with Facebook, which does not let Google crawl its site. Facebook poses the biggest threat to Google in the battle for eyeballs and ad dollars. It's on the verge of a $100-billion initial public offering more highly anticipated than any tech offering since Google in 2004.
John Perry Barlow, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, took to Twitter to express his dismay.
“We are becoming helpless collateral casualties in the war between Google and Facebook,” Barlow wrote.
RELATED:
Heads are turning to Internet's golden child
Google making another attempt at social networking
Google gets personal, searches your world, not just the Web
– Jessica Guynn
Image: Screenshot of Google's new personalized search results. Credit: Google
Comments Off
Google gets personal, searches your world, not just the Web
posted by Technology @ 7:30 AM
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
For Google, it's personal. The Internet search giant is no longer going to roll out the same search results to everyone.
Starting Tuesday, Google will pluck only the results most relevant to you — and not just from billions of Web pages but from the personal stuff that you and your connections privately share.
The idea, says Google Fellow Amit Singhal, is that Google now searches your world, not just the Web, and serves up results that combine both for your eyes only.
"Your world was missing from search until now," he said. "We are bringing your world into search."
It's not just a radical departure for Google. It's a major salvo in the Internet search giant's rivalry with Facebook for eyeballs and ad dollars.
Google, with founder Larry Page at the helm, has been looking to blunt the growing influence of Facebook, which is on the verge of a $100-billion initial public stock offering.
Google has been adding more personal touches to its search engine as people flock to Facebook, the Web's most popular hangout with more than 800 million users who share personal photos, updates and recommendations. Now it's looking to combine its dominant search engine with its nascent social networking service, Google+.
"It's one of the most significant things Google has ever done in search," said longtime Google observer Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineLand.com.
Singhal explained the new feature called Search plus Your World through a personal anecdote.
As a child, his favorite fruit was the sweet brown chikoo. Singhal was reminded of the fruit a few years ago when his wife held a tiny brown fur ball in the palm of her hand. They decided to name their 4-week-old miniature schnauzer Chikoo and privately shared photos of him as he grew with family members. Now both meanings of Chikoo show up when Singhal is logged into Google and searches the word.
Google, like rival Microsoft's Bing, has been working for years to make search more personal and more social. Google says with this move it's transforming into a search engine that understands not only content but also people and their relationships.
It's doing this in three ways. First, it's expanding search beyond public Web pages to the photos and posts you and others have shared privately. Second, as you type a person's name into Google, it will automatically suggest people you are close to or may be interested in. Third, Google is guiding users to profiles and Google+ pages related to the topic of interest.
But how will users react?
"Until now we have not had the mixture of our personal information with our Web search results, and that makes even me a bit nervous," Sullivan said.
Some users may not want or understand why their personal information is appearing in its search results. Google said it would explain the change to users at the top of Web pages.
Even though Google is just making information more visible and easier to find, it may encounter the same kind of resistance that Facebook did when it rolled out its new feature Timeline, Sullivan said.
Like Facebook, Google isn't asking users whether they want the new feature, it's just turning it on for all English-speaking users over the next few days. If you don't want the feature, you have to turn it off.
Google may also be seen as favoring its own products in search results, an allegation that already has made Google a target of an antitrust investigation, Sullivan said. For example, instead of sending someone searching for Britney Spears to her website, Facebook page or Twitter account, Google will suggest her Google+ page, giving the service a "huge advantage," he said.
"It makes you question if Google is doing the best thing for the searcher or the best thing for Google," Sullivan said.
Google says it's hamstrung because Facebook fences off its website from Google's search engine.
"We want users to have control over what personal content they can search for at Google. We don't want third parties dictating to users what they can or can't search for in Google," Singhal said. "Based on the current policies at many social networks, users don't have that control."
That could put pressure on Facebook, Sullivan said.
"This is a really big gun pointed back at Facebook," he said. "This may cause Facebook to say that now that Google has merged social and search, that's what it needs to do as well."
Facebook has an alliance with Microsoft's Bing to lure traffic away from Google, which handles about two of every three Internet search requests. Microsoft owns a 1.6% stake in Facebook. But the partnership has not yielded much, Sullivan said.
Google's new personal approach also raises a broader societal issue, Sullivan said.
"Until now, search has largely been a common experience," Sullivan said. Jon Stewart gets a lot of laughs over Rick Santorum's "Google problem" (a search for his last name brings up a graphically sexual definition of "santorum"). But if search results are tailored to the beliefs we hold and the people we know, chances are "we might not actually see the same thing Jon Stewart sees anymore," Sullivan said.
RELATED:
Heads are turning to Internet's golden child
Google making another attempt at social networking
FTC launches investigation of Google
– Jessica Guynn
Photos: Google's new "personal" search results. Credit: Google.
Comments Off
Graffiti artist David Choe tags Facebook’s new campus
posted by Technology @ 8:08 PM
Monday, January 9, 2012
Celebrated graffiti artist David Choe has once again tagged Facebook.
Choe became infamous in Silicon Valley for allegedly being commissioned to spray-paint sexual graphics on the walls of Facebook's first Palo Alto office in 2005 by the company's founding president, Sean Parker. (If that really happened, though, it has been airbrushed out of the official Facebook history). Choe painted less — ahem — colorful murals for Facebook's next digs in 2007, this time at the request of Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. When Facebook outgrew its office and moved again, it carved Choe's artwork out of the walls and took the pieces to the new place, where they were proudly hung.
So it's not much of a surprise that Choe has christened Facebook's latest address on Hacker Way in Menlo Park. Zuckerberg invited Choe to the new campus and even showed him around before Choe flexed his artistic muscles on Facebook's walls again. He painted a large blue mural in the lobby of one building and tagged the walls elsewhere with a variety of pieces, some of his own inspiration and some suggested by Facebook staffers, who stayed late Friday to "hack out" the office with spray paint and chalk.
Choe's Facebook graffiti art was re-created for the set of the film "The Social Network" by two of his friends, Rob Sato and Joe To.
You can check out more of Choe's adventures at Facebook here.
RELATED:
Mark Zuckerberg vacations in Facebook-blocked Vietnam
Israeli entrepreneur wanted to see Facebook sue 'Mark Zuckerberg'
Mark Zuckerberg says Steve Jobs advised him on Facebook
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Graffiti artist David Choe tags Facebook's new Menlo Park campus at the request of Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. Photo credit: Hunterzpointz
Comments Off
Yahoo names PayPal’s Scott Thompson new chief executive
posted by Technology @ 10:08 AM
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Four months after it fired Carol Bartz for failing to engineer a turnaround, struggling Internet company Yahoo has named Scott Thompson as her successor.
Thompson, who ran EBay's PayPal unit, could "refocus" Yahoo's business, which has deteriorated without a permanent chief executive officer, analysts said.
Thompson will focus on turning around Yahoo's “core business,” its media and advertising assets, and work closely with the board on a review of the company's strategy, Chairman Roy Bostock said.
Thompson starts Jan. 9. His appointment will not slow down the company's strategic review, which includes the possibility of unloading valuable stakes in Asian Internet companies and selling a minority stake to private equity investors.
Yahoo is still considering "a wide range of opportunities for the company's business as well as specific investments or dispositions of assets," Bostock said.
Thompson must boost Yahoo as it loses eyeballs and ad dollars to Google and Facebook. Yahoo still has an online audience of more than 700 million visitors a month. But it's quickly losing market share to Google and Facebook. Facebook catapulted over Yahoo in U.S. display ad revenue last year while Google remains the third-largest purveyor of display ads, according to research firm EMarketer.
Thompson, who ran PayPal since January 2008, is credited with increasing revenue to more than $4 billion from $1.8 billion. He helped the payments company expand into online daily deals and mobile payments. He also helped PayPal expand its number of users to more than 104 million from 50 million. But he lacks experience on the media content side of Yahoo's business.
Thompson is betting that Yahoo's business is stronger than people think.
That was also the opinion of Bartz, who during her tenure reduced costs and formed a search partnership with Microsoft, but could not help Yahoo regain its sales growth in advertising and search. Bostock fired Bartz over the phone. Tim Morse, who had been chief financial officer, became the interim chief executive in September. He will return to his post as chief financial officer.
Thompson's selection could signal that Yahoo is preparing to reclaim its mantle as a technology company.
"We believe the appointment of Scott Thompson as CEO is a slight positive for Yahoo as he will likely act quickly to provide direction to the company that it has lacked in the past few months," said Piper Jaffray & Co. analyst Gene Munster. "Thompson's background is strong in technology, but he lacks media experience. We believe this could suggest that Thompson will focus Yahoo more on technology than Carol Bartz or Terry Semel in the past."
Analysts cautioned that Yahoo faces significant challenges.
"As always execution will be key," Macquarie Capital analyst Ben Schachter said. "As much as we respect what Scott has done at PayPal, Yahoo faces significant challenges in terms of brand identity, technology infrastructure, employee morale, competitive challenges, the transition to mobile etc. To say that Scott has his work cut out for himself is an understatement."
Yahoo shares fell 34 cents, or 2%, to $15.91 in trading Wednesday. Shares of EBay fell $1.09 or 3% to $30.25.
RELATED:
Carol Bartz officially out as Yahoo CEO
Yahoo shares rise after exit of CEO Carol Bartz
Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo team up in online ad deal
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Carol Bartz, who was fired in September as CEO of Yahoo, has been replaced by PayPal's Scott Thompson. Photo credit: Paul Sakuma / Associated Press
Comments Off
Status update: Facebook breaking up a third of UK marriages
posted by Technology @ 12:21 PM
Friday, December 30, 2011
This post has been corrected. See note below for details.
So much for marital bliss. In Great Britain it's all about the Facebook dis.
Apparently, there's no such thing as a no-fault divorce across the pond. Facebook is taking the blame for breaking up a third of marriages in which "unreasonable behavior" was a factor.
The popular social networking site is getting an unfriendly rap because it's a major way that spouses uncover incriminating messages and photos.
According to Divorce-Online, a third of 5,000 petitions in the past year mentioned Facebook. More than 30 million people in the UK — about half the population — log into Facebook each month.
"People contact ex-partners and the messages start as innocent, but lead to trouble," divorce lawyer Mark Keenan, managing director of Divorce-Online, told the Daily Mail. "If someone wants to have an affair or flirt with the opposite sex then it's the easiest place to do it."
The law firm said it has noted a 50% jump in the number of petitions that cite Facebook over the last two years.
Facebook is also becoming less and less social as warring exes use it as a "War of the Roses" battleground to air their differences from picking up the kids to paying child support. Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner would be proud.
This is not a big surprise in the United States where Facebook is the new "lipstick on the collar" and infidelity uncovered in the form of "Facebook bombs" has been known to torpedo relationships. One dating coach speculates that Facebook is "the source of all future infidelity." There is even a website dedicated to "Facebook cheating."
[For the record, 4:30 p.m., Dec. 30, 2011: An earlier version of this post said that Facebook was a factor in one-third of U.K. divorces; it should have said that Facebook was cited in one-third of U.K. divorces in which "unreasonable behavior" was a factor.]
RELATED:
Report: Investment banks compete for lead role in Facebook IPO
Report: Facebook delays IPO until late 2012
Facebook's cash infusion whets appetite of investors
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Dan Kitwood / Getty Images
Comments Off
Google, Facebook, YouTube are most visited websites in 2011
posted by Technology @ 8:00 PM
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Google, Facebook and YouTube racked up the most unique visitors among U.S. websites in 2011, according to new data from the research group Nielsen.
Not necessarily the most surprising news is it? What may be a bit more interesting is that, despite its rapid growth, Google+ was on average visited by fewer users than Myspace this year, according to Nielsen. Google+ was released in beta in July and opened to the public in September.
The Nielsen data also doesn't cover the entire year, only January to October.
According to Nielsen, the top 10 U.S. social networks and blogs, by page views, in 2011 were:
1. Facebook — 137.6 million average page views per month
2. Blogger — 45.5 million average page views per month
3. Twitter.com — 23.6 million average page views per month
4. WordPress.com — 20.4 million average page views per month
5. Myspace.com — 17.9 million average page views per month
6. LinkedIn — 17 million average page views per month
7. Tumblr — 10.9 million average page views per month
8. Google+ — 8.2 million average page views per month
9. Yahoo! Pulse — 8 million average page views per month
10. Six Apart/TypePad — 7 million average page views per month
Nielsen also reported that the 10 most visited overall U.S. Web brands in 2011 were:
1. Google — 153.4 million average page views per month
2. Facebook — 137.6 million average page views per month
3. Yahoo! — 130.1 million average page views per month
4. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing – 115.9 million average page views per month
5. YouTube — 106.7 million average page views per month
6. Microsoft — 83.8 million average page views per month
7. AOL Media Network — 74.6 million average page views per month
8. Wikipedia — 62 million average page views per month
9. Apple — 61.6 million average page views per month
10. Ask Search Network — 60.5 million average page views per month
And finally, the top 10 U.S. Web brands for video, according to Nielsen's data:
1. YouTube — 111.1 million average page views per month
2. Vevo — 34.6 million average page views per month
3. Facebook — 29.8 million average page views per month
4. Yahoo! — 25.3 million average page views per month
5. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing — 16.6 million average page views per month
6. AOL Media Network — 13.3 million average page views per month
7. Hulu — 13.1 million average page views per month
8. The CollegeHumor Network — 12.5 million average page views per month
9. CNN Digital Network — 8.3 million average page views per month
10. Netflix — 7.4 million average page views per month
ALSO:
Google+ may reach 400 million users by end of 2012
'Facebook' tops list of most-searched-for terms of 2011
Report: Investment banks compete for lead role in Facebook IPO
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of plus.google.com. Credit: Google
Comments Off
Report: Investment banks compete for lead role in Facebook IPO
posted by Technology @ 4:44 PM
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Top Wall Street investment banks are competing to be the lead bankers for Facebook's blockbuster initial public offering, which could come in early 2012.
That's according to a report from the Wall Street Journal, which also says that the Menlo Park, Calif., company held a new round of meetings with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley after Thanksgiving.
The paper reported last week that Facebook would take the stock public in the second quarter of 2012. The IPO could peg the worth of Facebook at $100 billion or more and could generate as much as $10 billion. That would give bankers a 2.2% cut, or as much as $220 million. But Facebook may negotiate lower fees.
Goldman Sachs mishandled a private placement deal earlier this year and had to limit the offering to investors outside of the U.S. Morgan Stanley recently was the lead banker in the Zynga IPO, but its shares have mostly traded below the offering price.
Representatives for Goldman, Morgan Stanley and Facebook declined to comment to the Wall Street Journal. "As is our typical practice, we just don't get into speculation about an IPO," a Facebook spokesman told me.
The Facebook IPO is widely anticipated. Facebook board member Peter Thiel said last year that Facebook would consider going public in 2012.
"It's a consumer-facing company, which makes it very interesting to people. People can relate to it," Thiel told the Los Angeles Times in an interview last year. "It's somewhat of a unique thing. There is a lot of intensity surrounding it."
RELATED:
Report: Facebook delays IPO until late 2012
Facebook's cash infusion whets appetite of investors
Facebook IPO: Could Facebook be worth more than $100 billion?
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at an event in November 2010 in San Francisco. Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Comments Off
Google+ may reach 400 million users by end of 2012
posted by Technology @ 8:55 PM
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
It's a guessing game but only Google has the real answers: How many users does its Google+ social networking service have? And how actively are they using it?
The Internet search giant is adding 625,000 new users a day to the service and will finish 2012 with 400 million, said Paul B. Allen, founder of Ancestry.com.
Allen, who calls himself Google+'s unofficial statistician, has been estimating the number of users on the service that seeks to challenge Facebook, which has more than 800 million and is preparing for an initial public offering next year that could raise as much as $100 billion. Google, which is stepping up its game in the social arena with Larry Page at the helm, said in October that it had 40 million users.
"It may be the holidays, the TV commercials, the Android 4 sign-ups, celebrity and brand appeal, or positive word of mouth, or a combination of all these factors, but there is no question that the number of new users signing up for Google+ each day has accelerated markedly in the past several weeks," wrote Allen, founder and CEO of FamilyLink.com, a company he helped start in 2006 with other Ancestry.com alumni.
But Allen is not measuring active users, which is what Facebook measures. He's just measuring total users. The real question, as TechCrunch's Eric Eldon points out, is how many people are hanging out on Google+ after creating accounts.
Last week, ComScore reported that Google+ had grown to 67 million monthly unique visitors in November, up 2 million from October. But that's measuring visitors.
Still, the two analyses do suggest that Google+ is growing.
RELATED:
Google+ continues battle with fading user interest, data say
Pseudonyms, brands coming soon to Google+
Google engineer goofs, tells whole world that Google doesn't get it
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Google CEO Larry Page. Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Comments Off
Mark Zuckerberg vacations in Facebook-blocked Vietnam
posted by Technology @ 11:10 AM
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
For the holidays, Mark Zuckerberg went where Facebook is not allowed to go: Vietnam.
The Facebook founder vacationed in the communist state, arriving sometime around Dec. 22. Zuckerberg sightings almost immediately began to ricochet around the Web.
VnExpress reported that Zuckerberg was granted a two-week tourist visa to Vietnam on Dec. 16.
He and girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, visited the "Hanoi Hilton" prison in Hanoi on Thursday, according to local news websites.
The Dan Tri website quoted Tran Ngoc Bich, a tour guide at the prison, reporting that Zuckerberg and Chan joined a group of about 10 tourists who were "also very excited at seeing this talented young man."
A report on the VnExpress news website claimed Zuckerberg visited a shop that sells mobile phones on Thursday afternoon, but that his bodyguards would not let fans take photos with him.
The happy couple spent Christmas Eve in Ha Long Bay, local official Trinh Dang Thanh told Associated Press. And Christmas Day they spent at an ecolodge in the northern mountain town of Sapa.
Zuckerberg rode a water buffalo there, reported Le Phuc Thien, deputy manager at Topas Ecolodge. Presumably the buffalo had a gentler fate than the bison who had the misfortune of encountering Zuckerberg.
Vietnam blocks access to Facebook and other websites. But young people in Vietnam bypass censors to use the service.
Facebook does have a representative in Vietnam who told one news outlet that he had not been informed about Zuckerberg's visit.
RELATED:
Facebook is suing Mark Zuckerberg (No, really)
Israeli entrepreneur wanted to see Facebook sue 'Mark Zuckerberg'
Chinese activist furious at Facebook, which shut down his profile but kept that of Zuckerberg's dog
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard University on Nov. 7. Credit: Brian Snyder / Reuters
Comments Off
It is always important to reflect on the past and take note of successes in order to avoid failure in the future.
As 2011 fades away, it is time to reflect on some of the year's biggest trends, one being social media. Although it was the birth year of Google+, Facebook still remains the king of social networks and social media marketing.
So, with the days of 2011 coming to a close, let’s take a look at some of the best Facebook brand pages of the past year:
With more than 48.2 million fans, this page is one of the most liked brand pages on Facebook. The brand page features top videos in various genres, but the point of difference is a feature that allows fans to search for videos without leaving Facebook. How can you not "like" it – it is a social network inside of another social network!
As one of the most successful brands in the world, it is no surprise that Coca-Cola is successful on Facebook, too – with more than 36.4 million likes. The landing page of this brand is something to take note of. It makes it very easy for fans to access Coca-Cola content, including links to its Twitter, YouTube and Flickr pages, as well as links to fan highlights. Moreover, fans can even make a donatation to save the polar bears through a link on the landing page, which has already racked up more than $92,000 in donations.
As if you needed a reason to “like” Oreos, the brand’s Facebook page gives you one. The page has more than 23.6 million fans and includes many interactive aspects, such as the "Birthday of the Day" feature, Oreo commercials, recipes, coupons and even “Say it with Oreo,” which allows fans to post Oreo pictures and messages on their friends' walls. These fun and interactive apps are a great way to entice new fans and customers.
There is no doubt that this brand page wins the most colorful design award, but with a slogan like “taste the rainbow”, how couldn’t the Skittles Facebook brand page feature an eye-catching splash of hues? Skittles has more than 19.6 million likes on Facebook, and features pictures, advertisements, videos and witty posts. By not saturating a fan's newsfeed with promotions, brands can keep social media social, and are likely to have engaged consumers that more frequently comment and like posts.
Best Buy currently has more than 5.5 million fans on Facebook. The brand’s page includes polls, sales, pictures, and apps such as the holiday fun app, a gaming app and an interactive deal app. By providing a deal section on a Facebook brand page, consumers have no need to search for deals anywhere else.
And don't forget – Website Magazine
If you aren’t already one of our more than 40,000 fans on Facebook, now is the time to hit the like button. Our Facebook page features all of our top stories, promotions, contests and more. And if you already like us on Facebook, why not follow us on Twitter too?
Comments Off
‘Facebook’ tops list of most-searched-for terms of 2011
posted by Technology @ 2:57 PM
Friday, December 23, 2011
"Facebook" was the term most frequently searched for by American Internet users in 2011, according to a report from Experian Hitwise, part of the Experian Marketing Group.
In fact, "facebook" dominated Experian's top ten list, showing up in four different iterations: "Facebook login" was the third most searched for term this year. "Facebook.com" was fifth, and "www.facebook.com" came in eighth.
The full list looks like this:
1. facebook
2. youtube
3. facebook login
4. craigslist
5. facebook.com
6. yahoo
7. ebay
8. www.facebook.com
9. mapquest
10. yahoo.com
This is the third year in a row that "facebook" has topped the list. Searches for that one-word term were up 46% this year from 2010. Multiple-term searches including "facebook" were up 24% from last year.
"Navigational searches dominated the top search results as users typed in terms versus typing in the URL in the browser bar," Simon Bradstock, a general manager of Experian Hitwise, said in a statement.
Single-word searches rose 11% users came to expect that their search engine would fill in the rest of the terms for them.
The most frequently searched-for public figures, Experian, said were Justin Bieber at No. 1 and Casey Anthony at No. 2. (Charlie Sheen was No. 6.)
In the movies category, "Star Wars" — surprisingly — came in at No. 1, followed by "Transformers 3" and the "Breaking Dawn" installment of the "Twilight" series.
ALSO:
Google-Firefox search deal reportedly worth $900 million
Sales of basic digital cameras fall as smartphones fill the niche
FCC approves AT&T's $1.9-billion purchase of Qualcomm spectrum
– Deborah Netburn
Photo: Facebook's logo, displayed at the company's office in New York. Credit: Scott Eells / Bloomberg
Comments Off
Facebook to boost privacy protections in Europe, Irish agency says
posted by Technology @ 11:54 AM
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Facebook will improve privacy protections in Europe over the next six months after an investigation into its practices there, the Irish data protection agency said Wednesday.
The agency conducted a three-month audit of Facebook’s compliance with European Union and Irish data protection requirements.
Facebook, the Menlo Park, Calif., company that has its European headquarters in Dublin, has agreed to give users more information on how Facebook and third-party apps handle their information, minimize how much data is collected on users when they are not logged in to Facebook and warn European users that Facebook uses facial recognition software that suggests people to tag in photos.
The Dublin headquarters has responsibility for handling hundreds of millions of users outside the U.S. and Canada.
“This was a challenging engagement both for my Office and for Facebook Ireland,” Irish Data Protection Commissioner Gary David said in a statement. “Arising from the audit, FB-I [Facebook Ireland] has agreed to a wide range of ‘best practice’ improvements to be implemented over the next six months.”
There will be another formal review in July.
The agency received 22 complaints from a privacy group, Europe V Facebook, and additional complaints from the Norwegian Data Protection Agency. Facebook said it was pleased that the report underscored a number of Facebook’s “strengths or best practices” in the security of user data and using personal information to target ads.
“The people who use Facebook take privacy and data protection seriously and so do we,” Richard Allan, Facebook’s director of public policy for Europe, said in a blog post.
Last month, Facebook agreed to settle privacy complaints raised by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The proposed 20-year agreement would require Facebook to get permission from users before sharing information they thought would remain private. The company also agreed to 20 years of privacy audits.
Facebook has run into trouble with its facial recognition software that suggests people for users to tag in their photos. A German data protection agency said it may fine Facebook over the feature and Norway’s privacy watchdog is investigating.
Facebook, the world’s most popular social networking site, is planning a $100-billion initial public offering sometime next year.
RELATED:
Watchdog group targets Facebook privacy settlement
Facebook and FTC reach agreement on privacy protections
Facebook nears settlement with the FTC on privacy
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Dan Kitwood / Getty Images
Comments Off
Marketing agency Mr Youth recently conducted a fairly comprehensive study about the role social media played in holiday gift purchasing decisions this year, and what they found wasn't all merry.
For the three weeks leading up to and including Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Mr Youth gathered data on social media interactions to see how they affected holiday purchasing decisions. On the upside, they concluded that about 65 percent of user recommendations made or received on social networking sites led to a purchase, and these recommendations were twice as likely to lead to gift purchses. However, it seems that many brands are apparently just not responding to consumers on these same social media sites; only 55 percent of brands regularly respond to users on Facebook, meaning nearly half of all consumer comments are ignored.
The numbers are a little better on Twitter (this study was obviously conducted before it rolled out brand pages), where brands respond about 61 percent of the time, largely because it allows for both private DMs and @ replies. Also, Facebook has recently been toying around with the idea of introducing private messages for pages to help alleviate this problem, but it still speaks to some potentially damaging missed opportunities by these supposedly social-savvy companies.
Perhaps that explains why the study also found that just 36 percent of social media users find brands with a social presence more trustworthy than brands who aren't on social networks. And online trust seems to be important, as 52 percent of users would be willing to pay more for brands they trust, while just 29 percent of people who aren't on social media will pay more for a brand they trust.
If that's not enough, 80 percent of users who got a response from a brand on a social networking site would go on to make a purchase based on the interaction. This speaks volumes about the crucial role that social media plays into today's marketing environment, as consumers are ever-increasingly expecting brands to interact with them on a wholly personal level, and the responses they get could be the deciding factor for turning a potential customer into a real live paying customer.
Comments Off
Saudi prince invests $300 million in Twitter
posted by Technology @ 11:59 AM
Monday, December 19, 2011
Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has scooped up a substantial stake in Twitter.
The multibillionaire has made a $300-million investment in the popular social media site that activists used during the Arab Spring uprisings. That's roughly a 3% stake in the San Francisco company.
Twitter confirmed the investment, which was announced in a press release from Kingdom Holding Co. that touted Alwaleed's desire to invest in "promising, high-growth businesses with global impact."
A nephew of Saudi King Abdullah, Alwaleed owns 95% of Kingdom Holding, which has stakes in Apple, Citigroup and General Motors. He is one of the richest people in the world, with a net worth of nearly $20 billion, according to Forbes magazine. For more on him, check out this Charlie Rose interview from last year.
Fortune is reporting that he bought his stake in Twitter from insiders, not the company. Twitter spokesman Matt Graves declined to provide any further details. The prince's investment in Twitter has been rumored since October.
The San Francisco company's worth was pegged at $8.4 billion in a funding round led by Digital Sky Technologies in October.
Twitter says it has 100 million active users who send 250 million tweets per day.
One of an elite group of privately held social media companies sporting multibillion valuations, Twitter is taking its time before going public. Facebook, which has more than 800 million users, is planning a $10-billion initial public offering. Twitter is also seen as a major player in social media because of its popularity. The company is still working on its fledgling advertising business.
Twitter's advertising business is expected to generate about $140 million this year, up from $45 million last year, according to EMarketer. Twitter may generate $260 million in ad revenue in 2012, the research firm said. Twitter now has more than 700 employees.
“We believe that social media will fundamentally change the media industry landscape in the coming years. Twitter will capture and monetize this positive trend,” Ahmed Reda Halawani, Kingdom Holdings executive director of private equity and international investments, said in a statement.
RELATED:
Twitter's Fly redesign looks to be faster, simpler and more personal
High-tech boom brings a sense of deja vu to San Francisco
Twitter tries to turn 140 characters into money
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Square and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey in June at D9. Credit: Asa Mathat / All Things Digital
Comments Off
Suit challenging Facebook’s ‘like’ ads gets judge’s OK to proceed
posted by Technology @ 11:10 AM
Monday, December 19, 2011
A San Jose federal judge rejected Facebook's bid to dismiss a lawsuit claiming that ads telling Facebook users that their friends "like" the advertisers violate a California law on commercial endorsements.
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ruled Friday that the case can move forward but dismissed a claim that Facebook, which makes an estimated 90% of its money from online advertising, was unfairly profiting from the ads.
“We are reviewing the decision and continue to believe that the case is without merit,” Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said in an e-mailed statement.
The world's most popular social networking site began running the ads called "sponsored stories" in January. Such an ad shows a friend's name and profile picture and notes that the friend "likes" the advertiser.
The lawsuit was brought by Facebook users who contend the site is making unauthorized use of their names and likenesses, violating the state's "right of publicity" statute. Facebook says the law does not apply because of an exemption. The plaintiffs seek to represent tens of millions of Facebook users.
Facebook’s revenue will reach $6.9 billion in 2012 from $4.27 billion this year, according to estimates by research firm EMarketer. Its major selling point to advertisers is the persuasive nature of advertising when a product or service is recommended by a friend. People are twice as likely to remember commercial endorsements from friends and three times as likely to buy the product, according to Facebook executives.
Privacy issues continue to dog Facebook, which reached a privacy settlement three weeks ago with the Federal Trade Commission.
RELATED:
Facebook looks to cash in on user data
Facebook nears settlement with FTC on privacy
Facebook and FTC reach agreement on privacy protections
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shows off Timeline, a dramatic redesign of users' profiles, in September. Credit: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg
Comments Off
Israeli entrepreneur wanted to see Facebook sue ‘Mark Zuckerberg’
posted by Technology @ 2:02 PM
Friday, December 16, 2011
The entrepreneur who legally changed his name to Mark Zuckerberg says he has received mostly "funny reactions" since his story appeared on television news in Israel on Thursday evening.
"I've had a flooding of phone calls, as well from people I haven't seen for years. The people I did talk to think it's a mad idea, but take it with a smile," Rotem Guez — a.k.a. Mark Zuckerberg — wrote in an email.
"It's amusing, you know, because I'm so small while Facebook's huge," he added.
The 32-year-old entrepreneur, who says he also runs an online marketing company and a bailiff company, came up with the idea to change his name to Mark Zuckerberg after Facebook sued him.
"I wanted that once they sue me, they'll face suing 'Mark Zuckerberg,'" he said.
He says Facebook accused him of selling fictitious "likes," but he says they came from real users.
"The idea was, if only 'Mark Zuckerberg' is allowed to sell likes, then for that matter, I'm 'Mark Zuckerberg,'" he said.
Has he heard anything from Facebook about his name change?
"Yes, a few hours ago, my personal profile was disabled," he said.
No word from Facebook on whether it suspended his Facebook account. In a written statement, a spokesman said: "Protecting the people who use Facebook is a top priority and we will take action against those who violate our terms."
Here's a recap on the strange story of the entrepreneur who would be Mark Zuckerberg.
RELATED:
Facebook is suing Mark Zuckerberg (No, really)
Facebook reportedly disables account of attorney Mark S. Zuckerberg
Chinese activist furious at Facebook, which shut down his profile but kept that of Zuckerberg's dog
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg greets a student as he arrives to speak at Harvard University in November. Photo credit: Kelvin Ma / Bloomberg
Comments Off
Facebook is suing Mark Zuckerberg. No, really
posted by Technology @ 11:02 AM
Friday, December 16, 2011
No, this is not a headline ripped from the Onion. Just wanted to get that out of the way.
Facebook is suing Mark Zuckerberg.
Not the Zuckerberg who founded Facebook, of course, but an Israeli entrepreneur who, embroiled in a bitter dispute with Facebook, has legally changed his name to Mark Zuckerberg.
Gotta admit it's kind of a clever move. I would not have seen that one coming. And it's more than a touch ironic for the giant social network that Zuckerberg built on the idea of authentic identity.
Apparently, Rotem Guez a.k.a. Zuckerberg took Zuckerberg's name after Facebook sued him. That was after he sued Facebook first because it apparently shut down his "Like Store," which sold advertisers fans for their pages in violation of Facebook's terms of service. In December, he changed his name to Mark Zuckerberg.
He has a page on Facebook with more than 3,000 likes.
When one Facebook user took to the page to call him a "huge joke," the newly self-anointed Mark Zuckerberg replied: "The world is big enough for more than one Mark Zuckerberg."
Of course there are other people in the world named Mark Zuckerberg. But most of them were born that way.
RELATED:
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg braces for 'The Social Network'
Facebook reportedly disables account of attorney Mark S. Zuckerberg
Chinese activist furious at Facebook, which shut down his profile but kept that of Zuckerberg's dog
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at on Nov. 7. Credit: Brian Snyder / Reuters
Comments Off
Facebook leaked financials shows it has billions in cash
posted by Technology @ 3:42 PM
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Someone is leaking very private financial information in advance of Facebook's $100-billion initial public offering next year.
Gawker has the numbers, which it calls "the Silicon Valley equivalent of hard-core pornography."
"The big picture is this: Facebook's income is blowing up, and the company will likely come close to earning a full billion dollars in profit this year, more than double what it reportedly made a year ago and quadruple what it is believed to have made two years ago," Ryan Tate wrote in the Gawker piece. "There have been news reports elsewhere on prior Facebook financial periods; our numbers from the latest quarter show the money keeps pouring in."
According to Gawker's unnamed source, Facebook had $3.5 billion in cash and cash equivalents, $5.6 billion in assets, revenue of $2.5 billion and net income of $714 million this year through September. And — unlike many of us around the holidays — it had zero debt.
(Not everyone is so impressed with the numbers.)
Gawker says it also got an inside peek at who owns Facebook: Employees 30%, Mark Zuckerberg 24%, Digital Sky Technologies 10%, Accel Partners 8%, Dustin Moskowitz 6%, Eduardo Saverin 5%, Sean Parker 4%, Goldman Sachs clients 3%, Microsoft 1.3%, Peter Thiel and/or Clarium Capital 3%, Greylock Partners 1.4%, Meritech Capital Partners 1.6%, Chris Hughes 1 %, Li Ka-shing 0.75%, Interpublic Group 0.5% and Goldman Sachs 0.8%.
"Facebook is clearly drowning in success. CEO Mark Zuckerberg could fill that saltwater lap-lane pool behind his house with hundred dollar bills many times over," Tate wrote.
Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.
RELATED:
Ready or not, it's time for Facebook's Timeline
Facebook looks to cash in on user data
Report: Facebook delays IPO until late 2012
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces a new messaging system on Facebook in November 2010. Photo credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Comments Off
President Obama doesn’t let his daughters use Facebook
posted by Technology @ 2:32 PM
Thursday, December 15, 2011
President Obama may have friended Facebook. But he and First Lady Michelle Obama don't let their daughters, Sasha and Malia, use it.
The revelation came in a People magazine interview.
"Why would we want to have a whole bunch of people who we don’t know knowing our business? That doesn’t make much sense,” the president said in the interview.
The first lady pointed out that Malia is 13 and Sasha 10, the interview said. Joked the president: "We'll see how they feel in four years."
Technically, only Malia is old enough to have an account on Facebook. Federal regulations prohibit websites from collecting information from users younger than 13. As a result, Facebook requires its users to be at least 13.
That hasn't stopped millions of preteens from signing up for Facebook, often with their parents' help.
Regulators are considering updating laws to reflect the new era of social networks and smartphone apps. The Federal Trade Commission proposed tougher privacy protections for children younger than 13, broadening requirements covering the collection of personal information by websites and online apps as well as how to obtain parental approval.
RELATED:
Survey: Parents lie to help preteens get on Facebook
Tougher preteen privacy rules urged
Obama finds Facebook headquarters a friendly place
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: President Obama at Facebook headquarters in April. Photo credit: Jim Young / Reuters
Comments Off
Facebook, Greenpeace call truce over ‘dirty data’
posted by Technology @ 10:56 AM
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Facebook and Greenpeace have called a truce over so-called dirty data after the environmental organization used the social networking giant's own site to rally for the cause.
Facebook has formed a partnership with Greenpeace to campaign for the use of clean and renewable energy, they said in a joint announcement Thursday.
The announcement was sparse in details but big on public-relations value for Facebook.
"Facebook looks forward to a day when our primary energy sources are clean and renewable, and we are working with Greenpeace and others to help bring that day closer," Marcy Scott Lynn of Facebook's sustainability program said in the statement.
Greenpeace has attacked Facebook for using coal to power its data centers with an Unfriend Coal campaign that drafted 700,000 online activists to call on Facebook to use clean energy instead.
“Greenpeace and Facebook will now work together to encourage major energy producers to move away from coal and instead invest in renewable energy. This move sets an example for the industry to follow,” Tzeporah Berman, co-director of Greenpeace’s International Climate and Energy Program, said in the statement. “This shift to clean, safe energy choices will help fight global warming and ensure a stronger economy and healthier communities.”
Facebook has pledged to use clean and renewable energy in its data centers. Facebook has launched the "Green on Facebook" initiative and the Open Compute Project which aims to build low-cost, highly efficient technology for data centers.
Facebook tipped its hat to Greenpeace's deft use of Facebook.
Last year Facebook opened a data center in Prineville, Ore., that saves energy by taking advantage of the climate there. But Greenpeace protested that Facebook used a power company that generates most of its electricity from coal. It launched a campaign on Facebook to get Facebook to rely on renewable energy. The page has more than 180,000 followers.
Facebook said it would work with the organization to engage users and communities on how to save energy.
Greenpeace said the agreement "raises the bar" for Apple, Microsoft, Twitter and others. IT says that the data centers operated by online services total more than 2% of all U.S. electricity demand.
RELATED:
Facebook to share energy-efficiency technology developed for data centers [Updated]
Cloud computing and Internet use suck energy, emit CO2, says Greenpeace
Manure could power data centers, Hewlett-Packard scientists say
— Jessica Guynn
Photo: Engineer Lee Rodriguez monitors huge transformers at the Garland Center that would kick in during a power outage and keep the many computer servers in the building running. Photo credit: Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times
Comments Off
Ready or not, it’s time for Facebook’s Timeline
posted by Technology @ 9:31 AM
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Set aside some time for Timeline. Especially if you have been actively using Facebook for years. This is going to take a while.
Fresh off its global debut in New Zealand, Facebook is rolling out its new profile design to all of its more than 800 million users. For the first time, they are getting a look at how their lives are about to appear to all of their friends.
Facebook said in a blog post Thursday that users can either wait for a notification to pop up on their screen or go to facebook.com/about/timeline to get Timeline right away. No point in foot dragging: Eventually all profiles will switch to the new look.
That means that all of those forgotten memories won't be lining the dustbin of your personal history for long. The new design has a way of bringing even the most mundane status update rushing back.
It used to be that profiles surfaced only the most recent stuff. But Timeline is like an obsessive compulsive's digital scrapbook, collecting every detail, no matter how trivial, in chronological order.
It may get people to think twice about what they do and say on Facebook. Or not. It's likely that a lot of people will look at the new profile, throw up their hands and just keep on doing what they've been doing. For now, it probably means that everyone with a Facebook profile is going to spend a lot of time perusing, pruning and doing a whole lot of adding.
Take it from me: I used a workaround meant for software developers and got Timeline shortly after Mark Zuckerberg unveiled it in late September during Facebook's annual developer conference in San Francisco. I could see what was happening in my life years ago as clearly as today. I proceeded to pore over my profile to highlight what was important to me and hide what wasn't. I also noticed a lot of other folks getting busy adding photos from important moments in their lives to better reflect their lives on Facebook.
It goes without saying that some people will love the new design and some will hate it. It's impossible to make even the smallest change on Facebook without upsetting someone.
If you make the switch now, you have seven days to preview the changes, highlight or hide whatever you want and adjust your privacy settings before Timeline becomes your official Facebook profile.
If you want to see how your Facebook profile appears to other people, click the gear menu at the top of Timeline and click on "View As."
RELATED:
How to get the new Facebook "Timeline" now
New Zealand is first country to get Facebook's Timeline feature
Facebook updates its status: It wants to be an entertainment hub
– Jessica Guynn
Image: Facebook's new profile design Timeline Courtesy: Facebook
Comments Off
Forum Software vBulletin Integrates with Facebook
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 8:30 PM
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Forums are Dead! Long Live Forums!
Forums were the original social media destinations. Before Facebook and Twitter, topic-focused forums were everywhere and were an integral part of getting the word out about a product or service and interacting with others including prospective customers.
With the rise of social media however, forums have for the most part simply fallen out of vogue. The most savvy vendors of forum software however are building applications which integrate with the new iteration of social media sites including Facebook. Case in point, leading forum software vBulletin (a product WM recommends and which was mentioned in some detail on my book Web 360) has just released a customizable Facebook application that allows vBullletin forum operators to engage existing members and attract new ones on Facebook.
Community members on forums with the application activated are able to interact with the forum while logged into Facebook, and new "discover" and "explore" tabs provide content recommendations to members that analyzes interests and connections of users on Facebook. Members on vBulletin platforms can also showcase their forum activity on Facebook itself.
"Facebook is an amazing ecosystem and is a hub of social online activity for over 800 million people," said Joe Rosenblum, chief technology officer at Internet Brands, the parent company of vBulletin. "Our customers have been asking us for a solution that gets their forums in front of their members while they're on Facebook in an easy, organic way. We developed this application in direct response to these requests."
Comments Off
Social Sharing in 2011 via AddThis
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 5:30 PM
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Who is the winner of the social sharing wars? Well, Facebook of course. That's what indicated in data released today by ClearSpring Technologies, makers of the popular AddThis sharing platform.
AddThis is really the perfect platform to help understand social sharing trends. The tool is currently used on 11 million domains and see 1.2 billion uniques a month. So who are the top sharing services?
Facebook makes up 52.1 percent of sharing on the Web, followed by Twitter at 13.5 percent. Both Twitter and Tumblr are growing however with 576 percent and nearly 1300 percent growth for the two social sites respectively.
Some other highlights from the study:
- Stumbleupon creates a "viral lift" of 320 percent
- Google +1 grew 373 percent by has platuead
- Sharing on Digg and MySpace declined by 47 percent and 56 percent respectively
Comments Off
Facebook’s top political stories: from Occupy to the ‘dougie’
posted by Technology @ 11:28 AM
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Occupy Wall Street, Osama bin Laden's death and the birther movement all ranked high on Facebook's top political stories this year.
The social networking site said Wednesday that its "Facebook Political Team" looked at some of the top sources for political news and what stories received the most traffic from Facebook through friend shares, pages and social plug-ins such as the "like" button.
The top 40 stories came from newspapers, television news shows and blogs and "represent the type of political news people have been sharing and discussing with their Facebook friends this year," the tech company said.
Coming in at No. 1: "Open letter to that 53% guy," in which an Occupy supporter responds to a former Marine who posted a photo of himself telling Occupy supporters to, among other things, "Suck it up you whiners." The story has been shared 585,000 times, "liked" on Facebook 150,000 times and has nearly 600 comments on the Daily Kos, a political blog.
Facebook's list wasn't all economy and wars, though. It also contained some light-hearted stories, including First Lady Michelle Obama's visit to a middle school in which she danced the dougie and running man (No. 6), the Obamas shopping at a Target (No. 29) and lobbyists succeeding at getting pizza classified as a vegetable in schools (No. 38).
Here's the full list:
1. Daily Kos: Open Letter to that 53% Guy
2. Washington Post: Obama's and Bush’s effects on the deficit in one graph
3. FOX News: Should U.S. Get Involved in Syria?
4. CNN: Osama bin Laden, the face of terror, killed in Pakistan
5. Salon: "USA! USA!" is the wrong response
6. Huffington Post: Michelle Obama Dances 'The Dougie' & 'The Running Man'
7. Huffington Post: Obama's Birth Certificate Through The Eyes Of A Birther
8. CNN: Think Occupy Wall St. is a phase? You don't get it
9. Huffington Post: Sarah Palin's PAC Puts Gun Sights On Democrats She's Targeting In 2010
10: MSNBC: Anti-gay marriage group fakes support with doctored photos
11. Huffington Post: Conservative Pie: Republicans Introduce Legislation Redefining Pi
12.Huffington Post: Westboro To Picket Funerals Of Arizona Shooting Victims
13. MSNBC: Web's bin Laden 'death photo' (just the photo) is fake
14. LA Times: Michele Bachmann is worried about the Renaissance
15. Huffington Post: Senate Votes To Let Military Detain Americans Indefinitely
16. FOX News: White House Condemns Possible Execution of Iranian Pastor
17. Huffington Post: Everything The Media Told You About Occupy Wall Street Is Wrong
18. FOX News: Usama Bin Laden Killed in Firefight With U.S. Special Ops Team in Pakistan
19. CNN: Arizona enacts funeral protest legislation
20. FOX: 'Occupy Wall Street' — It's Not What They're for, But What They're Against
21. LA Times: Lara Logan breaks her silence on '60 Minutes'
22. The Blaze: Adam Carolla on Occupy Movement: '[Expletive] Self-Entitled Monsters'
23. MSNBC: In the ruins of Gadhafi's lair, rebels find album with photos of Condoleezza Rice
24. CNN: Soldier leaves a legacy much larger than 'he was gay.'
25. Slate: Pentagon's top secret cat warfare exposed
26. CNN: Middle class backlash at Occupy Wall Street protesters
27. Weekly Standard: Obama bans asthma inhalers over environmental concerns
28. Slate: Clarence Thomas writes one of the meanest Supreme Court decisions ever
29. Good Morning America: Obamas go shopping at Target
30. CNN: Who owns America? Hint: It's not China.
31. Huffington Post: UC Davis protesters arrested, pepper sprayed
32. FOX News: Should the American flag be banned in America?
33. Huffington Post: UC Davis police officer pepper sprays nonviolent protesters
34. LA Times: Arnold Schwarzenegger acknowledges paternity of child out of wedlock
35. MSNBC: U.S. Forces kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan
36. MSNBC Video: Obama announces the death of Osama bin Laden from White House
37. CNN: Obama announces the death of Osama bin Laden
38. Huffington Post: Lobbyists succeed in categorizing pizza as a vegetable in schools
39. MSNBC: Lobbying firm memo spells out plan to undermine Occupy Wall Street
40. Wall Street Journal: How to Tax the Rich
RELATED:
Facebook says LAX tops list of most 'social' airports
Facebook to launch its own political action committee
Facebook privacy policy becomes an issue in political attack ad
– Andrea Chang
Photo: An Occupy Wall Street demonstrator in New York in November. Credit: Brendan McDermid / Reuters
Comments Off
Facebook users can report suicidal behavior with new online tool
posted by Technology @ 6:34 PM
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Facebook has a new service that will enable users of the social network to report friends who have expressed suicidal thoughts and make sure they get an offer of help from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
Friends will be able to report suicidal behavior by clicking a report option next to any content on the site and choosing suicidal content under the harmful behavior option, Facebook spokesman Frederic Wolens told Reuters.
Facebook will then send the suicidal person an email that will encourage them to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (phone number included). The email will also include a link that will enable those who would prefer not to talk on the phone to begin a confidential online chat session with a crisis worker.
Facebook and Lifeline have been working together since 2006 to provide help to at-risk users of the social networking site, but this is the first time Facebook is making online chat sessions available to its users as an option for suicide prevention.
"Although the Lifeline on average handles 70,000 calls per month, we have heard from our Facebook fans and others that there are many people in crisis who don't feel comfortable picking up the phone," John Draper, Lifeline's project director, said in a statement. "This new service provides a way for them to get the help they need in the way they want it."
Lifeline said they will make sure that crisis center workers will be available 24 hours a day seven days a week to respond to Facebook users who prefer to use a chat session.
Surgeon General Regina M. Benjamin commended Facebook and Lifeline for addressing suicide — which she described as one of America's most tragic public health programs. In a statement she said that nearly 100 Americans die by suicide every day.
"We have effective treatments to help suicidal individuals regain hope and a desire to live and we know how powerful personal connections and support can be," she said. "Therefore we as a nation must do everything we can to reach out and provide them with the help and hope needed to survive and return to productive lives with their family, friends and communities."
ALSO:
Facebook says LAX tops list of most 'social' airports
Google's Street View shows Japan before and after tsunami
Apple removes fake driver's license app after senator complains
Photo: Heather Rosenbaum works her regular volunteer shift at a suicide prevention hotline on Christmas Day 2001. Credit: Clarene Williams / Los Angeles Times
Comments Off
Facebook alleges ‘shakedown,’ wants Paul Ceglia lawsuit dismissed
posted by Technology @ 5:35 PM
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Facebook is looking to write the final chapter in a long-running legal dispute as the social networking giant prepares for a $100-billion initial public offering next year.
Facebook plans to ask a federal judge in January to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Paul Ceglia, a New York man who contends he's entitled to half of Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg's multibillion-dollar stake in Facebook.
Calling the lawsuit a "shakedown," Facebook said it has evidence the alleged 2003 partnership agreement Ceglia produced was faked two years ago, according to the Buffalo News.
"Since Day One, this case has been about pressuring us into writing a check and from Day One, we've said that's not going to happen," Orin Snyder, a lawyer for Facebook, said during a four-hour contentious federal court hearing Tuesday, the newspaper reported.
Dean Boland, one of Ceglia's lawyers, accused Facebook's lawyers of damaging the agreement and causing it to turn yellow, which could make some potential jurors question its authenticity. Snyder retorted that Ceglia yellowed the document in an effort to make it appear older.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Leslie G. Foschio did not say how he would rule on a motion to dismiss, but suggested Facebook give Ceglia more time to question its experts.
"You have to put yourself in the court's shoes," Foschio said. "It's an unusual case."
RELATED:
Facebook claimant Pau Ceglia returns to U.S. to press his case
Paul Ceglia seeks Mark Zuckerberg sanctions
Facebook claimant Paul Ceglia gets new lawyer
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in October 2007. Credit: David M. Barreda / San Jose Mercury News
Comments Off
Facebook says LAX tops list of most ‘social’ airports
posted by Technology @ 10:06 AM
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Facebook has compiled a list of the world's most "social" airports and says LAX is No. 1.
The social networking behemoth found that more people share that they are at LAX than any other airport in the world.
Airports in the United States make up the top six spots on the list, with Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the No. 2 spot followed by Chicago O'Hare International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, Dallas/Forth Worth International Airport and Denver International Airport.
Australia's Sydney International Airport was the first air hub overseas to make Facebook's list, coming in at No. 7. Rounding out the top 10 were Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas and Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport.
To determine the rankings, Facebook tabulated data from people sharing their location at airports on Facebook as well as third-party location services between August 2010 and November of this year.
Further down the list at No. 15 was John F. Kennedy International Airport. San Diego International Airport was No. 17.
RELATED:
LAX-bound plane makes emergency landing
Alec Baldwin kicked off flight at LAX
– Andrea Chang
Photo: Passengers wait at LAX's Tom Bradley International Terminal. Credit: Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times
Comments Off
Social CRM Functionality with Awareness
posted by Website Magazine @ 10:48 AM
Monday, December 12, 2011
Social marketing management software provider Awareness has expanded the functionality of its Social CRM suite with the launch of a new Facebook Campaign Manager.
The product, available to customers of the Awareness Social Marketing Hub, provides the ability to implement promotions on Facebook (creating and managing custom tabs) while collecting social profile data and integrating it with CRM and marketing automation platforms, such as Salesforce.com, Marketo and Eloqua.
"The social realm is where companies and prospects increasingly meet each other," saysDavid Carter, CTO for Awareness Inc." Whether companies are targeting business prospects with white papers and educational content, or offering specials to end consumers, they now have the insight to understand what motivates prospects to purchase."
Comments Off
Facebook debuts Subscribe button for websites
posted by Technology @ 2:57 PM
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Facebook has launched a Subscribe button for websites, making it possible for users to subscribe to updates from their favorite journalists and other public figures without leaving their sites.
The company said the plug-in — which is already live on sites including All Things D, the Huffington Post and the Washington Post — would give publishers and other developers another way to gain subscribers, connect with readers and drive traffic to their Facebook profiles.
In a Facebook blog post Thursday, the company said once a user clicks a Subscribe button, the public posts of the person they have subscribed to will begin appearing in the user's News Feed.
"The subscribe action is also shared — allowing others to subscribe directly via the News Feed stories, and further increasing viral distribution," the post said.
Facebook first launched a Subscribe button in September for people who wanted to share their public updates with more than just friends.
RELATED:
Facebook fixes security glitch after leak of Mark Zuckerberg photos
New Zealand is first country to get Facebook's Timeline feature
How to boost privacy in the face of Facebook's new features
– Andrea Chang
Image: Screen shot of the All Things Digital blog, with Subscribe buttons below the names of its journalists. Credit: Facebook
Comments Off
Edmodo, Facebook for classrooms, lands $15 million, top advisors
posted by Technology @ 5:31 AM
Thursday, December 8, 2011
A Silicon Valley education start-up is getting a big vote of confidence from two venture capitalists who have veritable PhDs in social networking.
Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, and Matt Cohler, an early employee at Facebook, are joining the board of Edmodo. Their respective venture capital firms, Greylock Partners and Benchmark Capital, are leading a new $15-million funding round.
"Edmodo has emerged as the engine in the classroom for content sharing, collaboration and assignments," said Cohler, a general partner with Benchmark Capital. "Edmodo works and students get that, teachers get that."
And that has helped the Facebook-like service catch on in the classroom. More than 5 million teachers and students in 60,000 schools around the globe use Edmodo. The site's usership has doubled in the last three months.
Hoffman, a managing partner with Greylock, said Edmodo is emerging as a key network. Just as Facebook is the social graph and LinkedIn the professional graph, he said, "Edmodo is the educational graph."
Even as technologies in Silicon Valley have radically transformed our lives and industries, they've been slower to make a major dent in the 21st century classroom. Surveys show that most students still use technology more outside the classroom than in it. And while 73% of teachers say digital content is essential, only 11% of districts are using it, according to a survey of IT professionals.
In their last meeting before he died, Steve Jobs spoke with Bill Gates about the future of digital technology in the classroom given how little headway it had made. They agreed that "computers had, so far, made surprisingly little impact on schools — far less than on other realms of society such as media and medicine and law," according to Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs.
Rob Hutter, chairman of Edmodo and a managing partner with Learn Capital, contends that 2011 marks the tipping point with high-speed Internet in 95% of schools and the proliferation of mobile devices, which are more affordable and have longer battery life and the ability to create feature-rich, sophisticated educational initiatives in the cloud.
Edmodo is the brainchild of Nic Borg and Jeff O'Hara, IT professionals from a Chicago-area school district who wanted to bring the connected way people live their lives into the classroom. Most school districts block social networks, but Borg and O'Hara banked on the idea that a safe, secure social network that allowed teachers to network with one another and with students could fly.
How it works: K-12 teachers sign up for free, then add their students to create classroom communities that work on every type of personal computer and mobile device, Hutter said. Teachers can then send messages about assignments, post materials such as photos and videos related to the assignments, conduct quizzes and discuss topics covered in class. Teachers can also share educational content and best practices with each other. Edmodo has even offered interactive lessons on polar bears.
"This is going to be a really big, important network," Cohler said. "The more people join, the better the service gets for everybody."
RELATED:
Business card? He has your profile
Senior executive Matt Cohler leaves Facebook
Heads are turning to Internet's golden child
– Jessica Guynn
Images: Student profile on Edmodo (top), teacher profile (bottom). Credit: Edmodo
Comments Off
Facebook fixes security glitch after leak of Mark Zuckerberg photos
posted by Technology @ 1:58 PM
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Facebook says it has fixed a security glitch after founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg's private photographs were published online.
The incident stemmed from a Nov. 27 post on the Bodybuilding.com Web forum. An anonymous tipster spelled out step-by-step instructions to access photos uploaded by Facebook users, even if the photos were marked as private. Among the photos hackers published: Zuckerberg preparing food and handing out candy on Halloween.
Facebook says the security glitch "was live for a limited period of time." It did not say how many of the site's more than 800 million users were affected. "The precise number of people impacted is unknown at the moment but we continue to investigate," a spokeswoman said in an e-mail.
Facebook blamed the problem on a recent "code push" in which it revised some of its software.
"Not all content was accessible, rather a small number of one's photos. Upon discovering the bug, we immediately disabled the system, and will only return functionality once we can confirm the bug has been fixed," a company spokesman said in an email.
The privacy breach struck at Facebook's Achille's heel. Last week Facebook agreed to settle federal government charges that it exposed too much user information without consent.
Security and privacy concerns have not dampened enthusiasm for Facebook, which has soared in popularity. It's preparing for an initial public offering next year that could peg the company's worth at $100 billion.
RELATED:
Facebook and FTC reach agreement on privacy protections
Facebook nears settlement with FTC on privacy
Privacy group asks FTC for Facebook inquiry
– Jessica Guynn
Photo credit: Dan Kitwood / Getty Images
Comments Off
New Zealand is first country to get Facebook’s Timeline feature
posted by Technology @ 9:20 PM
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
New Zealand already has lush rainforests and sandy beaches, bungee jumping and scuba diving, gourmet restaurants and lively night life, even a thriving tech community that has drawn investment from the likes of Peter Thiel. (Of course, they drive on the left side of the road, but hey no place is perfect).
Now the country has something else the rest of the world does not: Facebook's new Timeline feature.
New Zealand is getting first crack at the major redesign of the profile page. Key to the decision: It's English speaking and very far away from Silicon Valley.
That's according to Sam Lessin, product director of Timeline, who told the New Zealand Herald: "We chose New Zealand to be first — and I'll probably get in trouble for saying this — primarily because it is an English-speaking country…. It's far away from our data centers, so we can monitor speed and performance."
It may also have something to do with the country having about 4.4 million people, 2 million of whom are on Facebook.
And just how long will the rest of the world have to wait?
"We're definitely taking our time with this one," Lessin said. "It will give people a chance to get excited about what they can do with it."
RELATED:
How to get the new Facebook 'Timeline' now
Facebook updates its status: It wants to be an entertainment hub
How to limit sharing in the face of Facebook's new features
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: New Zealand triathlete Tanya Dromgool leaves the water during a triathlon in Wanaka, New Zealand. Credit: Phil Walter/Getty Images
Comments Off
Intuit’s F-Commerce Offering SimpleStore Arrives
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 1:15 PM
Monday, December 5, 2011
Intuit, best known for its business and financial management software solutions for SMB’s, announced the release of SimpleStore for Facebook, an f-commerce solution which enables merchants to sync their website and Facebook page.
Perhaps the single biggest benefit of SimpleStore for Facebook is the one-page checkout which is made possible by Intuit’s Web Payment services. Small business owners can accept credit or debit card payments directly on Facebook with no added log-ins required for the customer. Since Intuit Web Payment is already tied to a users’ merchant account, small businesses receive payment directly (and quickly) from Intuit, whether a sale is made on their website or Facebook page.
There is currently a 30-day free trial of the service, costing roughly $35/mo thereafter.
“In today’s online world, it is more important than ever for small businesses to be where their customers are and this holiday season they have the ability to sell to Facebook’s 800 million users,” said Barry Saik, vice president and general manager of Intuit's Grow Your Business division. “This tool will allow small businesses to be everywhere at once, capturing online shopping traffic through both their website and Facebook page.”
There’s a lot of interest in Facebook commerce (f-commerce) today but the verdict is still out for merchants in relation to how well it is performing. Got an opinion on f-commerce? Share with the Website Magazine community by commenting below.
Related F-Commerce Content on at WebsiteMagazine:
- Facebook Commerce for the Socially Challenged
- Master List of Facebook Commerce platforms
- In-Stream Checkout with ShopIgniter
- The Socialization of Online Commerce
- Wishpond F-Commerce for the Brick & Mortar Set
Comments Off
Facebook picks up team behind location-sharing service Gowalla
posted by Technology @ 12:14 PM
Monday, December 5, 2011
The team behind Gowalla is going to Facebook.
That's the upshot of a blog post from one of the company's founders, Josh Williams.
Like the more-popular Foursquare, Gowalla is a mobile application that lets people share where they are and what they are doing with friends by "checking in."
Facebook confirmed that it's hiring Gowalla co-founders Williams and Scott Raymond, along with "several other members" of the Gowalla team. They'll move to Facebook in January, joining its engineering and design teams. Facebook did not identify which product or products the Gowalla group would work on.
The move gives Facebook an injection of top engineers as it competes for talent with other tech giants such as Google and Apple and startups such as Square. Facebook said last week it was opening an engineering office in New York to attract engineers. And Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said Facebook plans to hire thousands of employees in the next year.
Williams said the talks with Facebook began after the F8 conference in September. For those keeping track, that was one year after Foursquare decided not to sell out to Facebook, opting instead to stay independent — and pursue a truckload of cash from venture capitalists.
A CNN report Friday prompted a weekend of fevered speculation over whether Facebook was buying Gowalla.
But in moving to Palo Alto from Austin, Texas, the Gowalla team won't be packing up the Gowalla service or its technology. Instead, the service will be wound down early next year, Williams said in his post.
"We're sure that the inspiration behind Gowalla will make its way into Facebook over time," a Facebook spokesman said in an e-mailed statement.
Gowalla was one of the pioneers in the location-based sharing space. Both Gowalla and Foursquare launched in the same week of 2009. Kara Swisher dubbed the company "Not Foursquare." As she rightly points out, the company had changed tactics several times and was for sale for some time.
Clearly it's not the way Williams and his team had hoped things would turn out. But working for Facebook, which is on the verge of a $100-billion initial public offering, is surely a nice consolation prize.
RELATED:
Attention Facebook: Foursquare is still going places
Foursquare stays independent, raises cash to fuel expansion
Is Facebook Places a Foursquare killer? Dennis Crowley isn't worried
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Mark Zuckerberg at a product unveiling at Facebook's Palo Alto headquarters in August 2010. Credit: Robert Galbraith / Reuters
Comments Off
Facebook increases limit on status updates to 63,206 characters
posted by Technology @ 8:13 PM
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Wordy and long-winded Facebook users may officially rejoice.
Twitter may limit you to a paltry 140 characters. But Facebook wants you to go on and on (and on).
The social networking site has increased its limit in status updates to more than 60,000 characters — 63,206 characters to be exact. That means you could fit an entire novel into nine status updates. (If you are a friend of mine, I am asking you nicely not to try).
Just this summer, Facebook pumped up the limit to 5,000 from 500 characters for those who are congenitally incapable of keeping things short and sweet. Back in the olden days (March 2009), the limit was 160 characters, a 20-word premium on Twitter.
Still Facebook doesn't let you go on as long as Google+. There the limit appears to be 100,000 characters.
For that, you may have to buy a few vowels from Vanna White.
RELATED:
Survey: Parents lie to help preteens get on Facebook
Facebook looks to cash in on user data
Profile: Andrew Bosworth, Facebook social engineer
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg shows off the social network's new "time line" feature at its annual developers conference in San Francisco in September. Credit: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg.
Comments Off
Social network offers ‘smart journal’ users a revamped Path
posted by Technology @ 9:39 PM
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
In an unforgettable scene from AMC's "Mad Men," Don Draper pitches Kodak executives on an advertising campaign for their new slide projector.
They want to focus on the technology. He's loaded the carousel with family pictures and the emotional pull of memory.
"This device isn't a spaceship," he tells the suits. "It's a time machine."
And that's exactly what the founders of Path are trying to build: a smartphone app that is more powerful than memory alone, that becomes a digital vehicle for recording memories so users can roll back through time and return to places that in Draper's words, "we ache to know again."
Dave Morin and Dustin Mierau have distilled that idea into a new version of the Path app for iPhone and Android. They call it a "smart journal" for the smartphone. Think of it as a modern take on the moleskin diary that travelers used to carry in their pockets to jot down notes about the places they had been and the people they met.
Morin and Mierau say they took their cue from their some 1 million users who have turned Path into a handy way to document their lives — screenshots of songs playing on their iPods, notes to friends or themselves, photos from weddings and road trips — and share pivotal moments with a tight-knit circle of friends and relatives.
"People have this deep desire to remember things, to remember their lives. It's a source of real happiness for people," Morin said. "It's the participation of your friends and family in the story that's exciting."
Path is looking to cement its bond with users by rolling out an updated version of the app. The app has been redesigned to be easier on the eyes and make stuff easier to share.
Users can also now share and check in on other networks such as Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter. And a new feature called Automatic does exactly what the name suggests: it automatically notes changes to your daily routine, such as traveling to a new city, and updates your social circle, essentially becoming a journal that writes itself. (You can turn it off if that's not your thing).
Still, Path has yet to live up to its promise as a new kind of social network.
People often say that they want privacy as they gripe about Facebook pushing them to share more information with more people. But is that what people really want?
So far, Path has yet to catch on in a big way. It's early going but Path is still an ant in a land of social media giants. Facebook is the world's largest social networking site with more than 800 million users and an initial public offering coming soon despite concerns over privacy. And Google's new social network, Google+, has already attracted millions (in part by using its mighty presence on the Web and in part by giving users a new way to segment friends in "circles").
So Path is casting a wider net. At the time it launched a year ago, Path let users designate only 50 friends. Path has now upped that limit to 150 friends, but even then lets people accumulate more friends if they want.
Path pitches itself as a social network that is more exclusive and private than Facebook, an antidote to an era of online openness in which people routinely broadcast the details of their lives to friends and strangers alike.
Morin, a former executive at Facebook and Apple, is betting that people crave more intimate interaction with a much smaller circle.
Path users post snippets and snapshots that over time create a "path." That means your friends and family can see your life through your eyes. The concept got early traction with high-profile investors. Path even turned down a $100-million buyout offer from Google.
RELATED:
Venture capitalists bet on former Facebook exec Dave Morin's social networking service Path
Former Facebook exec Dave Morin rejects $100-million buyout offer from Google
Path, a new social network, limits users to 50 friends
– Jessica Guynn
Images: Screenshots of Path include U2's "Beautiful Day" being posted by a user, and friends and family commenting and sharing emotions on a user's post. Credit: Path
Comments Off
Cloud computing traffic to grow fast in coming years, Cisco says
posted by Technology @ 3:02 PM
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Cisco Systems Inc. sees a cloudy future.
By 2015, cloud computing will account for nearly 34% of traffic at the world's data centers, the huge computing stations that now process and distribute most of the Internet's information. Last year the cloud accounted for only about 11% of data center traffic.
The trend comes as data centers become an ever larger part of the way the Internet works, acting as the digital jet engines for the Internet's most-used services: Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple's iCloud and many others.
Cisco's first "Cloud Index" report says that overall traffic at data centers will more than triple by 2015, to 4.8 zettabytes from about 1.5 zettabytes in 2011. Cisco is one of the world's largest vendors of the networking hardware that sends data around the Internet and between servers in a given data center.
A zettabyte is an astronomical amount of data, equal to 1 billion terabytes. A terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes. Many current PCs contain about 500 gigabytes of storage. So the amount of data that will be processed by the world's data centers by 2015 is roughly what you could fit on 2 billion modern PCs.
None of that may be very surprising, as the benefits of cloud computing — including the substantially lower cost of storing and retrieving data to consumers and businesses — have been widely extolled in recent years. Cisco differentiates between "traditional" services and cloud servers; the latter is a more elastic type of computing that can grow or shrink depending on the number of active users or the types of tasks it is performing.
That can make for economic and energy efficiency gains by reducing the number of data center servers that sit idle while, for instance, people in North America are asleep. With cloud systems, those otherwise unused servers can be shifted over to perform needed functions — often for different companies on other continents.
The rapid movement of data that goes along with cloud computing has raised a number of concerns about online security, including whether consumers and businesses can know precisely where their private data is located and the extent to which cloud data is vulnerable to hackers or accidental disclosure.
RELATED:
Apple prepping movie cloud service
Amazon sweetens its deal for cloud music service
Amazon.com apologizes for multi-day cloud computing outage
– David Sarno
Image: An artist's rendering of Facebook's newest data center in Lulea, Sweden, on the edge of the Arctic Circle. Facebook picked the location because the cold climate allows it to keep its servers cool more cheaply. Credit: Associated Press
Comments Off
Facebook settles privacy complaint with Federal Trade Commission
posted by Technology @ 11:12 AM
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Facebook has settled charges with the Federal Trade Commission that it deceived users by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private and then repeatedly making it public, according to the agency.
The settlement of an eight-count complaint requires Facebook to warn users about privacy changes and to get their permission before sharing their information more broadly, according to the FTC. Facebook has agreed to 20 years of privacy audits, it said.
"Facebook is obligated to keep the promises about privacy that it makes to its hundreds of millions of users," Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the FTC, said in a written statement. "Facebook's innovation does not have to come at the expense of consumer privacy. The FTC action will ensure it will not."
In a blog post, Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook is committed to giving its users "complete control" over what they share and with whom.
"I also understand that many people are just naturally skeptical of what it means for hundreds of millions of people to share so much personal information online, especially using any one service. Even if our record on privacy were perfect, I think many people would still rightfully question how their information was protected. It's important for people to think about this, and not one day goes by when I don't think about what it means for us to be the stewards of this community and their trust," he wrote. "I'm committed to making Facebook the leader in transparency and control around privacy."
Facebook also has created two new positions to make sure it takes privacy seriously, Zuckerberg said.
Erin Egan, a former partner with Covington & Burling, will become chief privacy officer for policy. Michael Richter, Facebook’s chief privacy counsel, will take on a new role as chief privacy officer for products.
Privacy watchdog Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said the settlement shows that Facebook "has long misled users and the public."
But another frequent critic, Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), applauded the settlement.
"The settlement's privacy protections will benefit Facebook users and should serve as a new, higher standard for other companies to follow in their own efforts to protect consumers' privacy online," Markey said in a written statement. "When it comes to its users' privacy, Facebook’s policy should be: ‘Ask for permission, don’t assume it."
RELATED:
Privacy group asks FTC for Facebook inquiry
Facebook nears settlement with the FTC on privacy
Is Facebook killing your privacy? Some say it already has
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg greets a student as he arrives to speak at Harvard University. Zuckerberg, who dropped out of Harvard in 2004, met with students as part of an East Coast trip to recruit for the social networking company. Photo credit: Kelvin Ma / Bloomberg
Comments Off
Facebook’s IPO: Could it come in the first half of 2012?
posted by Technology @ 8:56 PM
Monday, November 28, 2011
Facebook's initial public offering has been the source of Wall Street speculation for months. Some thought the IPO would come this year, others have reported that it wouldn't arrive until late next year.
And on Monday, the Wall Street Journal added fuel to the Facebook IPO fire with a report that the world's largest social network, with more than 800 million users, is prepping to issue its first public stock offering in the second quarter of 2012.
The Facebook IPO could be a $10-billion offering based on a $100-billion valuation of the Palo Alto-based company. But as to when in the second quarter the IPO would come, well that hasn't yet been decided, the Journal said in its report, citing unnamed "people familiar with the matter."
As reported by my colleague Walter Hamilton over on our sister-blog Money & Company:
The timing of Facebook's IPO is likely to hinge in part on the condition of the stock market, which has not been kind lately to some other prominent tech IPOs.
In a major disappointment, shares of one of this year's most closely watched IPOs, online-coupon company Groupon Inc., have plunged recently. The stock closed Monday at $15.24, far below the $20 price at which it sold shares to investors earlier this month.
Earlier this month, Facebook co-Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a PBS interview with Charlie Rose that indeed, his company was planning an IPO, but that the company hadn't yet decided when.
Zuckerberg also said that an IPO isn't something he spent "a lot of time on a day-to-day basis thinking about."
"We've made this implicit promise to our investors and to our employees that by compensating them with equity and by giving them equity, that at some point we're going to make that equity worth something publicly and liquidly, in a liquid way," he said. "Now, the promise isn't that we're going to do it on any kind of short-term time horizon. The promise is that we're going to build this company so that it's great over the long term, right. And that we're always making these decisions for the long term, but at some point we'll do that."
RELATED:
Facebook close to privacy settlement with FTC
Mark Zuckerberg says Steve Jobs advised him on Facebook
Zuckerberg: If I started Facebook today, I would stay in Boston
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Photo: Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg walks around Harvard University in Cambridge on Nov. 7, 2011. Credit: Brian Snyder/Reuters
Comments Off
Pay Per Click Marketing vs Facebook Advertising
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Monday, March 1, 2010
Pay Per Click Marketing vs Facebook Advertising
Google is the Bad Egg of Internet Marketing & MLM. With so
many accounts slapped and closed down for good, Top Gurus
are turning to Facebook Advertising as a far superior
option for cheap targeted traffic.
Don’t Put your Eggs in One Marketing Basket
Savvy Pro marketers like our members aren’t panicking -
we’ve always had a back up plan on the go. Our advice has
been simple – don’t put all your eggs in one basket -
especially Google’s! If you’re using Pay Per Click
Advertising, then make sure you also have some SEO going on
- to generate organic traffic.
It takes a lot of hard work to get your site ranked
through organic traffic – writing articles, forum posts,
blogs, squidoo lenses, hub pages, video marketing – to
build up your online presence and expertise for your chosen
niche keywords.
Organic takes time. So if you don’t have the patience and
want to generate lots of traffic fast, PPC is a good to
have as part of your marketing model.
But internet marketers and PPC experts are absolutely fed
up with the arrogance of Google. So if we’re not doing
Google Adwords for our marketing, where do we get the
masses of traffic we are still able to generate on a daily
basis?
Adding Content Rich Social Marketing into the Mix
If you want free traffic, you usually have to spend masses
of your time with manually writing copy and creating
podcasts and video marketing. So really it’s not free at
all – time is money and all that. Hiring a copy writing
group to create niche content can become quite expensive.
So all this organic SEO friendly traffic takes time to
build up and requires consistent daily effort. This is good
to add to your marketing mix but won’t give you fast
traffic.
What’s super important too is that organic SEO content is
ultimately still controlled by the search engines, so
Google still has power over how you get seen by your
prospects.
How hard is it these days to do enough clever keyword
research to get your unique niche and rank on page one of
Google. Almost impossible – especially if you’re one newbie
trying to compete with the big gurus in internet marketing
or MLM network marketing arena.
What Marketing Strategies to Use that Beat Google Adwords
Fair and Square?
What company is fair and sane, loves affiliates and direct
marketers? What company attracts nearly 40 billion views a
month and the traffic is uber quality and dirt cheap? Who
is this company? Well, it’s your friendly neighbourhood….
Facebook!
Facebook is the only company that Google actually
acknowledges is a real competitor to them. Facebook is
currently showing up as having four hundred million active
members – that makes it 5 times the size of Google!!!
Yet Facebook ads represent just 5% of the advertising done
on Google.
Now don’t be thinking Facebook is just for youngsters!
Insidefacebook.com published its statistics and show that
only 11% of users are aged 13-17. While 33% are 18-25s, a
whopping 18% are aged between 35 and 44. That’s 100 million
people! And a further 9% are aged 45-54 and 4% 55-65.
Don’t spend another cent with Google till you’ve checked
out Facebook Advertising.
Why Facebook is the New Face of Paid Advertising
Facebook is pretty much untapped compared to PPC
advertising on Google, Yahoo or Bing.
It’s truly a “sleeping giant”, an ingenious source of
traffic that is…
- much bigger than PPC
- less competitive than PPC
- more targeted than PPC
- less expensive than PPC
And what’s more, Facebook’s integrated personal profiles
mean you can hone in on exactly the demographic you are
trying to target – not just on keyword phrases, you can
also target only Facebook members who are in particular age
groups, regions and/or have specifically stated certain
interest areas – it’s simply awesome how deep you can get
into Facebook – giving you massive choice and combinations.
Because of this, Facebook allows you to use the same ad in
many different ways so you can really hit the hot spots of
your users and their interests. Imagine being able to
target by age, gender, film interests, AND keywords… you
can really hit your message home.
So what this means in practice is that the clicks you get
on your Facebook ad are immensely more targeted and convert
far better and cost far less than what you’d achieve on
Google Adwords.
If all that targeting isn’t enough to convince you, here
are some more benefits of using Facebook advertising:
- Facebook is also great for newbies. It’s really easy to
use and to set up your campaigns. If you can send an
email, you can do Facebook ads.
- Facebook ads work in any market and will give a far
better ROI than PPC, even for affiliate marketing.
- Facebook advertiser competition is minimal right now,
so now is the time to tap into this massive source of
traffic.
- Your ad in Facebook can include not only titles and
descriptions but also images, which you can’t do with
PPC ads.
- Facebook ads leave little wastage because you can seek
out ultra targeted members who are likely to respond to
your offer.
Following the Facebook Rules
There is a downside.
Facebook is hugely protective of its users. So you have to
really study and follow their rules. And this will take you
some time.
The general rule of thumb stems from what is called
“permission marketing”. So make sure you check this out so
you don’t get your account cancelled.
Recent Comments