Protection against the Dark Arts: Ways to better control social content (via Pando Daily)
By Cale Guthrie Weissman On October 10, 2013Even before it became known that the NSA was tracking citizens’ online movements, Web users have been looking for ways to control the information they disseminate online. Since Instragram’s controversy…
Maybe you’ve read an article with this same or a similar title before. You know Twitter and Facebook are important for your brand, yet you just haven’t made yourself sign up for Twitter yet. And your LinkedIn profile is barren, with an incomplete job history and no portfolio examples. Your blog seems to be doing OK, but you know it could be better.
If this is you– I challenge you to get set-up with social media ASAP. And once you’ve done that, create time in your daily routine for social media. Even 15 minutes per day can help you craft a regular online presence.
You know you should be on social media, but if you are a blogger or representing any of your work online, not having a regular social media presence can hurt not only your blog traffic, but your online persona as well.
Facebook and Apple have teamed up to further integrate the world’s largest social network with the recent Mac OS X Mountain Lion update.
Mountain LionVersion 10.8.2 incorporates Facebook sharing with various system components and Apple created apps.
OS X users simply sign into their Facebook accounts through System Preferences at which time they gain access to new abilities. The integration closely mirrors the setup already offered by Twitter integration.
Some of the apps that now include integrated Facebook sharing includeSafari, Preview and Contacts.
Apple has also integrated sharing capabilities with the Notification Center so apps do not need to be directly accessed to offer sharing capabilities. [Read more…]
There was a lot of doubt from analysts and users when LinkedIn decided to launch its initial public offering (IPO) however the company has since proven its business model and in Q2 2012 the company once again reported a profit.
In a letter to investors Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn noted:
“LinkedIn had a strong second quarter with all of our key operating and financial metrics showing solid performance. Our ongoing investment in product innovation drove healthy engagement as measured by unique visiting members and member page views, and our three revenue streams all experienced significant growth.”
Those unique visitors now number 175 million members while the business reported a 107% increase in revenue from its hiring solutions platform, up to $121.6 million for 53% of the social networks total revenue. In the same period of 2011 hiring solutions accounted for 48% of the networks revenue.
In a statement to investors linked in posted the following financial information: [Read more…]
It’s easy to argue that social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have robbed us of “community.” Gone are the days when people sit on their front porch and wave as the neighbors go by. Instead people answer friend requests and talk to people all over the country.
Attempting to fix the issue of “community” is Nextdoor.com, a newer social network that allows neighbors to learn each others names, share advice such as the names of good babysitters and landscapers and even protect a community by posting about break-ins and other issues of nuisance.
In the infographic shown below Nextdoor.com and InfographicsLabs take a close look at how social networks and community interact to both alienate and potentially help one another.
Much like Facebook and even Myspace before it the Nextdoor.com social network allows users to share their lives along with various recommendations. In fact 26% of the overall network is based around “recommendations” that can range from babysitters and plumbers to garage sales and housekeepers. Nextdoor.com also provides a robust engine for finding events, examining classified and even checking out local crime in your area.
The social good platform currently exists in more than 3,000 neighborhoods throughout 48 states and it continues to grow at a rate of one community per hour. [Read more…]
Facebook on Tuesday rolled out a new plugin that allows users to easily integrate their Facebook accounts with the WordPress.org and WordPress.com VIP platforms.
The new plugin allows users to share their blog content on Facebook with one click and the plugin can be downloaded through Wordress under the name Facebook for WordPress.
The plugin allows both bloggers and administrators of WordPress-based sites to cross-publish content to WordPress and their own Facebook Timelines, it also allows Facebook page administrators to cross post to Facebook Pages they administer.
In a blog post introducing the tool Facebook engineer Matt Kelly wrote:
“The plugin was built by Facebook engineers in collaboration with open source partners, and makes it simple for anyone to make their WordPress site more social – no coding required.” [Read more…]
LinkedIn has announced plans to disable user accounts that are still using hacked passwords. The company says it will suspend the accounts of 6.5 million users and then send those users the information necessary to reset their account.
In a blog post LInkedIn director Vicente Silveira wrote:
“Our first priority was to lock down and protect the accounts associated with the decoded passwords that we believed were at the greatest risk. We’ve invalidated those passwords and contacted those members with a message that lets them know how to reset their passwords.”
Silveira continued:
“Going forward, as a precautionary measure, we are disabling the passwords of any other members that we believe could potentially be affected. Those members are also being contacted by LinkedIn with instructions on how to reset their passwords.” [Read more…]
LinkedIn isn’t just a big publicly traded social network in the United States, it’s one of the fastest growing internet company’s in India, growing by more than 300% in the last three years.
According to recent numbers from company CEO Jeff Weiner, 14 million people in India use LinkedIn with the company excited to target the more than 300 million young people who live in the country in the coming months and years ahead.
Speaking at LinkedIn’s B2B conference in Mumbai Weiner told the audience that he wants big firms in India to adapt to LinkedIn’s platform in order to find new workers in a country where the tech boom has benefited many of the countries tech savvy workers, especially the regions younger generations. [Read more…]
In 2007 father Howard Davies-Carr put up a YouTube video titled “Charlie Bit My Finger” which as the name suggests featured a baby boy named Charlie who bit his brothers finger.
Since going viral just over 4 years ago the video has been viewed 436 million times, earning the family heaps of money under Google’s revenue sharing program.
According to Mr. Davies-Carr he almost removed the video at one boy but then realized:
“At first I thought, well, this is a bit strange, maybe I should take it down. And then I realized that, well, if I take it down then what would happen is that everybody that’s already created parodies or taken a copy of it and put it on their own website will just keep those running.”
The family started receiving revenue after the video reached 50 million views and when added in with TV spots the family soon found itself half a million dollars richer with more money coming in as people continue to revisit an internet favorite clip. [Read more…]
As a country, perhaps even as a planet we have become increasingly obsessed with social networks and while more than 845 million people may be using Facebook, 140 million are on Twitter and Google+ is about to reach 100 million users that hasn’t stopped email from being the number one source of internet communications.
Research firm Ipsos recently polled 19,216 adults in 24 countries and they found that 85% of those polled said internet email was an important part of their communication structure while just 62% admitted to using social networks.
Of course how people actually use the internet greatly differs from one country to the next. For example in Hungary 94% of internet users choose to log into their accounts just to check email while just 46% of Suadi Arabians choose email as their main reason for logging onto the web. [Read more…]
