Medium, the Platform raises $25 million

The blogging platform Medium is more than a year old. It was launched in the beta version in August 2012 and now it has received its first outside funding from a bunch of tech investors. The platform was originally founded by three people, Twitter co founders Biz Stone and Ev Williams and Twitter’s former Vice President of Product Jason Goldman, although Williams wrote in a blog post on the platform that he was the primary funder.

Ev Williams has been more of a blogger himself. He founded the Blogger.com, the first self-serve weblogs. Given a close and keen look, Medium is a better and an advanced version of the same. Medium is more visually aided with backdrops and a sophisticated approach to the entire site. The site also allows networking and collaboration opportunities for writers.

“As CEO, my aim is to maximize Medium’s chances for success. Expanding our network and having partners to lean on is a useful way to do that,” Williams wrote in the post. Greylock Partners are the biggest investors in the platform and they will send two people to be a part of the board of Directors at Medium. David Sze and Josh Elman will help Ev and his team make Medium a better destination point for all bloggers.

Seeing the influence of content marketing and the way people are making use of these platforms, blogger, wordpress, Sze and Elman say that though the ‘content has increased exponentially, but there is still a lot to be done to help people express their ideas and reach the people who would be most interested.’

Giving the chance to create a network of their own, Medium is giving the bloggers of the world an entirely new approach. Specifically marketers who are looking for content marketing will find in Medium a tailor made site that could be used to its full optimum for publishing their content and deriving benefits out of it. Already the site has hired some big names in online journalism, such as Evan Hansen, a former Wired.com editor, and paid others for their posts, including Felix Salmon of Reuters.

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Limits Loosened on Tech Companies

Tech Companies in the US have got a chance to adopt a more transparent approach. After the petition filed by some of the tech companies, the Department of Justice said it will grant the request of top tech companies who had previously petitioned the government for the ability to provide more detailed transparency reports on government-issued national security orders for user data.

The number of national security orders have reduced and Obama has given directions to release the internet and phone companies from certain reforms made by the NSA.Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper talked about the agreement and said, “Through these new reporting methods, communications providers will be permitted to disclose more information than ever before to their customers.”

Top social media companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Linkedin, Microsoft had formed a secretive FISA wherein the petitions were filed for a more transparent approach. The same institutions will also help the Obama administration to implement reforms to government surveillance, which they say are hindering their businesses.

Now with a different approach it is an easy game for the companies as they can present their data in any way they want as and when required by the Government or on their orders.A minimum period of 6 months will be given to each company to produce the data that is required from them. There are many other norms and regulations that are formulated specifically for these companies that can be read here.

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Facebook is hiring for a secret project

Stories about Facebook developing a newsreader which will be on the same lines as the Flipboard have been dominating the social media domain for quite some time now. Though the social media giant has said nothing about such a product being worked upon, Facebook is all set to hire editors for its Flipboard-like mobile news aggregator, according to reports.

The editors will be responsible for selecting the best stories that would be apt for the kind of user base that Facebook has. Mark Zuckerberg started personalizing Facebook and thought of giving it an entirely new dimension. With the involvement of ‘Tweaks’ another Facebook feature recently rolled out that will change the entire equation with which marketers used to use the platform in order to expose their brands to the users.

The obvious competition has also compelled Facebook to take a step and launch its own news reader kind of feature that will make Facebook at par with the other likewise social media platforms. Facebook has never commented on the same but its daily steps and moves showcase that something exciting is about to come.

When asked about the same to a Facebook spokesperson he said, “We do not comment on rumors and speculation.”

We can only hope that the upcoming update is worth the wait.

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Twitter updates its Android app

The new Android update for Twitter’s app is now available on Google Play. Making it a more advanced approach and a better outlook. The update contains of changes made in the photo editing, discovery and sharing features which was announced on 27th January by Twitter engineer Matt Belland via a blog post.

This time the updates are more or less concentrated to photo sharing related features. The photos before being uploaded can be cropped and a particular aspect ratio can be selected as per the users need. It can wide or square aspect depending upon how the image is. Before finally uploading the photo, Twitter now also gives the option to mention friends much like Facebook’s tagging friends in the photos feature.

If we take a broader look at the entire scenario, Twitter has been working off late on photos and their sharing way too much. Recently, Vine videos and photos began appearing on the Twitter timelines of users, now photos can be sent via direct messages to users, also Twitter surfaced a user’s photo gallery instead of a keyboard when he or she starts to compose a tweet.

So it won’t be wrong to actually point out that Twitter is giving a keen and prolonged thought on the way photos and images look, appear and do on Twitter. Apart from photos, the discovery feature has also been given a boost. In absence of any tweets to show, the app will display trending topics, recommended accounts to follow or popular tweets. U.S. residents will also see news, entertainment and sports updates.

In all, the Android app for Twitter has undergone a series of changes which the company wishes to roll out for iOS users as well soon enough.

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Yahoo apologises to Google

There is certainly some serious rift between the two leading mail services, Yahoo and Gmail. Recently, Yahoo’s main Twitter account tweeted something for Gmail, it said, “Gmail is temporarily unavailable” which also included a screenshot to prove it. Although the tweet has now been deleted, all the while it was their on the social media microblogging site it became a trending topic.

Yahoo later apologised via a tweet.

The @Yahoo Twitter handle is used by our editorial team to inform about news and events.

— Yahoo (@Yahoo) January 24, 2014

Earlier today, a tweet that reflected bad judgment was posted and has been deleted. We apologize to @Google and the @Gmail team. — Yahoo (@Yahoo) January 24, 2014

By the time the tweet was removed, which is now unavailable, users had begun reacting to the message that was conveyed. There were plenty of tweets made. One of the many tweets were;

Not even Yahoo people use Yahoo mail RT @Yahoo: Gmail is temporarily unavailable http://t.co/klT0NzBoVM

— laura olin (@lauraolin) January 24, 2014

Not only did people respond to the mistake done by Yahoo but they also reminded Yahoo about the problems that it had faced in December when the Yahoo mail was not accessible. When approached Google, a spokesperson said, “Due to a technical glitch, some email addresses on public webpages appeared too prominently in search results. We’ve fixed the issue and are sorry for any inconvenience caused.”

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Google Acquires DeepMind

Google has always tried to widen its umbrella and increase the arena of its approach. Following its earlier footsteps, the company bought DeepMind, an artificial intelligence firm. Recent reports about Google’s latest acquisitions say that the social media hub bought the company for $400 million. This particular acquisition can help Google become a world leader in artificial intelligence.

The DeepMind website reads nothing about the take over by Google and very little has also been shared about what the intelligence agency actually does. Google’s CEO Larry Page confirmed that the London based agency is now a part of them only.

Google’s of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil, who wishes to build a search engine that is so advanced that could work like a ‘cybernetic friend.’ Taking over DeepMind will help the engineer reach a step closer to his dream.It will help Google compete against other major tech companies as they all try to gain business advantages by focusing on deep learning.

What exactly Google has in mind is hard to say but surely the recent acquisitions made by the company promises something that will be worth the wait. So lets keep our fingers crossed and wait Google to play its cards yet again.

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How secure is the new Snapchat

Snapchat, the relatively new photo sharing app received a prestigious gift from the hackers on New Years, when 4.6 billion account details along with phone numbers were leaked online from Snapchat’s database. It was as shocking for the Snapchat CEO, Evan Spiegel as it was for most of the users whose credentials were leaked and their security was at stake.

Thereafter came a new update wherein users were not asked to fill in their phone numbers as a compulsory step while signing up for the app. Users could easily register with a username, email id and password. This worked out to be going good until Snapchat came up with another update. This update was to restrict any robots from making accounts or so it said on the signup page.

Users had to correctly select Snapchat’s ghost, the icon of the app.

Creating such a security system, the Snapchat authorities were sitting at ease, pleased with what they had done until, Steven Hickson, a graduate research assistant at Georgia Tech focused on computer vision and robotics, broadcasted on 22nd January how he could hack the security update within 30 minutes. In his blog Hickson claimed that he was able to write a program to identify the ghost images automatically. Hickson wrote, “With very little effort, my code was able to ‘find the ghost’ in the above example with 100% accuracy. I’m not saying it is perfect, far from it. I’m just saying that if it takes someone less than an hour to train a computer to break an example of your human verification system, you are doing something wrong.”

Now this proves to be another misstep that the new social media app has taken. At the moment a Snapchat spokesperson said, “We continue to make significant progress in our efforts to secure Snapchat. For security reasons, we cannot provide detailed information on security countermeasures.”

With such threats constantly hovering over the app, can the users feel totally safe about sharing their credentials on the website. What are your views? Share with us in the comments section below.

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Facebook Checks Mobile Ad Networks

Facebook has taken a step forward for providing mobile ad networks to advertisers in mobile apps from different publishers. Facebook is now acting as the middleman between publishers and advertisers to allow a brand to promote itself not only on the social media giant website but also certain other apps which Facebook declined to name.

Though this initiative was also taken by the company in the fourth quarter of 2012, it was pulled back three months later. Attempts again started in 2013 and this time Facebook is going ahead with it. The company announced on its blog post, “Our aim is to demonstrate even greater reach with the same power of Facebook targeting for advertisers both on and off Facebook. While we have run similar tests in the past, this current test is more like a mobile ad network in that we are working directly with a small number of advertisers and publishers rather than an outside ad-serving platform.”

On 22nd January it ran its first test in this respect. Although there will be no difference for a viewer or a user of the ad because the ads will appear to be similar like it presently does in all third party applications, the major difference will be felt by advertisers who will get a better reach and frequency via Facebook’s database.

Facebook has wholeheartedly devoted itself into mobile marketing, mobile advertising and its own mobile site. Is Facebook having second thoughts keeping in mind that their teen audience is decreasing, users are leaving the platform and preferring competitors.

What are your views on Facebook’s new updates and projects that it is undertaking? What is on Mark’s mind? Share your views in the comments section below.

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There is something new that marketers would want to worry about. Facebook is ready with a new update that will likely be a good news for all users but not for all the pages. ‘Tweaks’ is a new feed algorithm announced by Facebook on 21st January that will show more text status updates from users in the News Feed, and will downplay the number of text status updates from Pages.

That’s right, the status messages and other updates of pages and brands will be reduced and users will be given importance over them. According to Chris Turitzin, a Facebook product manager, “Page admins can expect a decrease in the distribution of their text status updates, but they may see some increases in engagement and distribution for other story types.”

Facebook had earlier tweaked in December when quality articles were being given more value over memes. The update has been made by the social media giant Facebook to maintain the interest of users in the website. Upon keen observations it was revealed that a user responds more and better to other posts than any brand related posts.

With such changes, marketers are sure to lose interest in the website and Facebook would never want that. So to keep everyone happy, the giant displayed an example of how brand managers could make posts in the future to be able to crawl up to the news feed of fans and followers.

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Firefighter App for Google Glass

Google Glass is a new sensation for all app developers and each one is trying to create something different and something unique. Already a number of apps have been finalised to be rolled out with the product. Patrick Jackson, a firefighter and self-taught programmer in Rocky Mount, N.C. is all set to create a new firefighter app for the Glass to help his colleagues fight fire attacks in the country and world over.

The app isn’t ready yet and there still much to do but seeing what Jackson has in his mind an exciting app is about to make its way into the glass. The following video will give you a brief idea about what the developer has in his mind.



Initial versions of the app already help with minor tasks, such as receiving messages from dispatch or identifying nearby hydrants but to accomplish each and everything that is shown above will take him some time. Jackson’s dream of providing the firefighters will floor plans, extradition diagrams via the Google Glass are extraordinary but he believes that it is not far when he will be able to actually do the needful.

It is considered that his app will be ready in a time period of six months nearly when the device will be made available for the public. Jackson says, “I’m looking to provide it as a service to the fire department,” he said. “Right now, I’m still a career firefighter, and this is a side job.”

With a range of apps being created for the glass it surely will be a treat to use as well. Google Glass Apps will definitely add the x-factor to the device which will help Google to take it further and way ahead.

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Candy Crush Saga patents ‘Candy’

After a full year the United States Patent and Trademark Office has given Candy Crush Saga makers, the King.com the sweetest treat by approving the patent. The game developers have now a full right over the word ‘Candy’.

There is no doubt on the fact that this game in particular has raised the bar for all the other games on the social media belonging to the same arena and the same genre. Within a short span of time Candy Crush Saga has almost tripled the number of players and fans of the game are increasing on a daily basis. Not only on the desktop, the game has been downloaded on nearly all smart phones and is played quite a while.

The word Candy did literally reflect the game and now after the approval it is legal. Now, app developers with games on the market that include the word in the title are reportedly receiving emails from Apple asking them to remove their apps from the App Store.

The trademark includes games and software, educational services, and, oddly enough, clothing. Getting a patent approved for a word as common as Candy will definitely raise a concern amongst most of the tech developers and specifically for all the indie developers who lack excessive funding to meet the financial demands of using a patent word. Benny Hsu, the developer behind All Candy Casino Slots — Jewels Craze Connect: Big Blast Mania Land, told Gamezebo that he doesn’t have the money to fight back. “I plan on changing the name if that is what I must do,” he said.

Being the most downloaded and played games of 2013, Candy Crush Saga has rolled a yet another benchmark up its sleeves.

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MLK day’s social media fiasco

There is nothing new in brands using the memories of special days for their marketing practices. SpheggatiO’s used the tragic pearl harbour disaster in a dubious tweet that raised a concern on the social media. This time its ZzzQuil, an over-the-counter cold medication/soporific from Vicks that used a tweet on the Martin Luther King day to market the brand.

The tweet was based on the king’s famous speech ‘I have a dream’.

Today is the day for dreaming. Happy MLK Day.

— ZzzQuil (@ZzzQuil) January 20, 2014

Just after the tweet was made users following the brand and other who read it showcased their dislike towards the tweet. As expected the apology for the tweet along with an explanation was then posted by ZzzQuil.

@giotaurus We weren’t making a joke. It was to acknowledge the day and the man. We didn’t intend to offend. — ZzzQuil (@ZzzQuil) January 20, 2014

The use of such events and then apologising for the same is being done quite often now a days. What do you think, is it right or wrong? Share your views in the comments section below.

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Martin Luther King- Lost Recordings Found

The best way to remember the great leader on the MLK day is by listening to some of the great speeches that he gave which still have the power to instill and inspire people. Martin Luther King’s I have a dream is one of the most famous speeches that he delivered. Time and again it has been repeated and referred to.

The once-lost audio reveals a speech that King delivered to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in 1962. The New York State Museum rediscovered the speech on reel-to-reel magnetic tape, and uploaded it to YouTube on Monday such that all followers of the great man could hear him on the social media. According to the officials of the museum, this is the only known recording of the speech.

Enoch Squires, a research associate for the commission, recorded the speech. King’s speech was one of about 400 reel-to-reel audio recordings that Squires’ widow donated to the museum in 1979.

As per Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the state Board of Regents, “This is a remarkable treasure. More than 50 years later, Dr. King’s voice has come back to life.” The speech has been a benchmark for the Americans. He had said, two American documents, the Emancipation Proclamation and the Declaration of Independence, have been invaluable contributions to civilization. “All tyrants, past, present and future, are powerless to bury the truths in these declarations, no matter how extensive their legions, how vast their power and how malignant their evil.”

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GIF animation enters Pinterest

Until now Pinterest did not allow users to pin GIF images that could animate and become still upon clicking them. A new feature only available to selected pinners will be able to play GIFs within the platform.

Now, after uploading a GIF to a pinboard, users can play or pause the GIF by clicking a small “play” button in the lower left-hand corner of the image. Previously, when users uploaded GIFs to Pinterest, they appeared as still images unless users followed the link back to the GIF’s original source outside of the platform.

As per the statements made by a spokesperson, the company aims at enabling its users save things they love on social media to the website which may include GIF animated images. As such the new feature will allow a user to do just that.

Though the new feature is yet not visible to all the users, many are still not seeing GIFs as animated images but still ones as before. The old uploaded pictures in the GIF format can also be played now which means the feature is capable of identifying existing GIFs on Pinterest.

The feature is in the testing phase and is thus rolled out only to a handful users. There is still time for the update to be rolled out for all the users and formly be a part of Pinterest.

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BBC takes a step ahead to go social

Ever since the mobile and tablet viewings overtook the desktop, the prominent news channel has taken to social measures to reach out to a wider and a larger audience. BBC goes extra social and this time they have launched Instafax, a new short-form video news service delivered to Instagram users on 16th January.

At the moment the service is in the testing and monitoring phase where in three 15 second videos will be uploaded to round up the day’s news. Depending upon the response received and the momentum gained by the service it shall be deemed permanent.

Instafax has got its name from Ceefax, the world’s first teletext service that ran on UK television until 2012. According to Steve Herrmann, head of BBC News Online, “the trial was a response to changing audience patterns after monthly figures for December, showed mobile and tablet consumption had overtaken desktop for the first time.”

Still the service is in the trial phase and time and again new features and updates shall be added to eventually find out if the current social media audience likes receiving short videos to tell them what is going around in the world via Instagram.

Although BBC is not the first TV News Channel who is trying to make its way to the digital space, BBC stands a fair chance owing to its credibility and authenticity that it has gained over the past years. Instafax viewers are being encouraged to comment and give feedback. So far it has had mixed reactions ranging from “Instafax is a game changer” to “worst idea ever”.

Whether this new video service will become a regular thing or be totally eliminated from the BBC curriculum we will get to only a month later. Till then tell us what you think about the idea in the comments section below.

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Richard Sherman highlighted on Twitter

After making a place for themselves in the Superbowl, the Seattle Seahawks are overwhelmed and excited. They won the NFC championship to secure a place for themselves at such a huge stage. Other than all the other members of the team, Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman had his own way to showcase his excitement and happiness.

Sherman delivered an epic post-game rant that highlighted him on Twitter. As always, just after the game reporters flung onto the playground to initiate a conversation with any player they could catch hold off. It was Erin Andrews, a Fox Sports sideline reporter whose day was to be lighten up. Sherman totally ignored her question and instead used the camera to tell the world, “I’m the best corner in the game. When you try me with a sorry receiver like (49ers wide receiver Michael) Crabtree, that’s the result you gonna get. Don’t you ever talk about me… Don’t you open your mouth about the best or I’m gonna shut it for you real quick.”

Stay classy, Richard Sherman! https://t.co/MI5NXr2DGx

— Sam Laird (@samcmlaird) January 20, 2014

This was something that wasn’t expected and it came at the spur of the moment. His rather aggressive comment took to social media in no time. The same statement was shared via Vine and not only that following the recent trend of creating memes, certain users even shared meme pictures of the player on Twitter.

Erin Andrews and Richard Sherman http://ift.tt/1e5jYx4 — The Buddha (@Buddhaminati) January 20, 2014

The entire Twitter family seemed to have been talking about Richard Sherman and though the game generated 3.4 million tweets most of them were a result of the statement made by the cornerback.

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Twitter suspends Hamas account

Twitter’s suspension of two accounts created by the Palestinian group opposing Israel and its military forces in the region is a cause of controversy. On the Al-Qassam website, they said, “The suspension of al-Qassam account by Twitter exposes the ‘unprofessional’ policy of the latest, and the total ‘bias’ to the Israeli occupation and real terrorism in the world. Moreover, Twitter seems subordinated to the American- pro-Israel organizations supporting terror against Palestinian people.”

This is the second time when Twitter has suspended their account. The first one was done on 9th January without any precedented warning. When the group engaged their followers via the new account, Twitter even suspended that within a short time. The Palestinian group feels cheated saying that they had not violated any policies made by Twitter and that their account provided the social media company any reason to suspend them.

The Israel Defence Force also highlighted the same through its Twitter acccount. They say, ‘Because Hamas is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under s219 of the USA’s Immigration Act, it is thereby “barred from receiving services under the laws of the United States”. By using Twitter, a company based in the U.S., Hamas was indeed violating the company’s Terms of Service.’

#Twitter has suspended the official account of #Hamas, a terrorist group that uses social media to threaten #Israel http://t.co/g1UxKc9fpf

— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) January 14, 2014

Twitter did not have much to comment, they only said, “We do not comment on individual accounts, for privacy and security reasons.”

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Olympic Games 2014 on VK

The 2012 olympic games were a huge success not only in its true sense but also on the social media domain. The inclusion of Twitter and Facebook to the games gave the fans, the players and even the authorities a common communication channel and a way to know better. They were described as the ‘first social games’ ever.

For the International Olympic Committee (IOC) this meant promoting the Games primarily on Facebook and Twitter. The games will still remain the same, the countries will be the same , the only change will be the venue and the new addition of VK or Vkontakte, at least to the social part of it. Facebook and Twitter will definitely be an integral part but Russia’s popular website will also be a part of the olympic journey this year.

The 2014 Games are being organised in Sochi, Russia from the 7th of February. VK is one of the most sought after websites of Russia, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook has referred to it as a facebook clone. Statistically, it has about 49 million visitors and its easy to say that it has a huge fan following as well. The Games this year will be somewhat reliable on the efficiency of Vkontakte for its promotions and other relevant details with Facebook and Twitter carrying follow ups.

Alex Huot, the IOC’s social media director says, “Russia has not yet had their first social media Games and there is no doubt that these Games will be just that for them. “What is really exciting to me is that we will bring the Russian-speaking world’s ‘fan experience’ of the Games to the West via social media. We will also tell the stories and achievements of athletes from the West to Russians, which will build an Olympic virtual fan bridge.”

The official page of the Olympics on VK has about 2 million subscribers since it was started 11 months ago by the IOC. Hout has a lot of hope from VK and he adds, “We have noticed that Russian fans are like all other Olympic fans: They love sport and they support their team.”

Once the games begin we will know exactly how well and successful VK comes out to be. Till then we can also keep our hopes high and fingers crossed.

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Its time to move on for Twitter’s VP of Product

Michael Sippey, the VP of product is now planning for a shift, he will be moving to an advisory role before ultimately leaving the company. Sippey has mostly worked with start up companies, and two years ago before becoming a part of the Twitter family he was working at SAY Media.

According to Sippey, “I’ve spent most of my career working at startups, helping them scale and having a direct hand on the product,” now he wishes to move to a new startup and help it scale high. Further he also mentioned, “Over the past few weeks I’ve talked with Dick and Ali about what I want next in my career, and what Twitter needs at this stage of its life. And I’ve decided that it’s time for me to move on.”

The email that Sippey sent across to all Twitter employees before publishing it to his personal blog;

If on one hand we have a fully satisfied Sippey who feels his role in the company is done, there is also another story to it. Some sources reveal that Sippey’s exit from the company may be a result of dissatisfaction with Rowghani, who effectively became his new boss at the end of last year. Isaac also points to ongoing frustrations on the product team with Twitter’s slow pace of approving feature changes.

Though the product management at the social media microblogging website was going on well and users did witness a far better and a friendlier product, Michael Sippey will be out of Twitter soon enough.

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Now know what’s popular on Facebook

Facebook is now switching to trending as a new feature that will be included alongside the news feed. Trending will show a personalized list of popular topics for each user, combining their interests with content getting the most attention across the entire platform. The same was announced on 16th January.

The trending topics will be picked up according to certain algorithms and will be presented description and users can click on the trend to see a list of posts and articles related to that topic. According to a spokesperson, “a sharp increase in popularity,” not necessarily a large volume of posts or articles about a particular subject. This basically means that subjects that are commonly trending will not always be on the list of trending topics.

Of course, with such a feature users are bound to connect Facebook with the microblogging site Twitter, with advertising, promoted tweets and hashgtags being common on the two platforms it now seems that both are somewhat on the similar lines and provide almost similar features as of now.

Facebooks inclusion of followers in 2012 and now the trending topics showcases how both of the social media websites are trying to be each other in someway or the other.

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Mark Zuckerberg to deliver the keynote speech

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg is supposed to deliver the keynote speech in February at Mobile World Congress, arguably the largest mobile trade show in the industry. Mark along with tech journalist David Kirkpatrick will be opening the the show on 24th February.

They will both be exploring the importance of extending the benefits of ubiquitous Internet access to the unconnected world. The keynote will be live online as well. Considering the fact that the owner of Facebook Mark is already trying to enter and rule the mobile arena just like the social media.

The move involving Zuckerberg to deliver the speech will be a great initiative for both the conference and the man himself. Since Facebook is still adding more data and content to Facebook home, which has already had a controversial start.

So may be the conference adds to the future endeavours that Facebook makes in response to mobile web and facebook’s mobile site.

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Google Glass Drivers on their own

All Google Glass fans will remember when Cecilia Abadie made history by getting the first ticket for driving while wearing the device in California in October 2013. Though her car was stopped for over speeding, seeing her with the reality augmented device she was given a second ticket even when she swore that the device was off and she just had it on.

Her ticker read as, “Driving with monitor visible to driver (Google Glass).” The case was already weak and it had rare chances of finding the accused guilty because there was no way by which it could be proven that the device was on and the monitor was distracting the driver’s vision.

There was no proof the device was on, ruled Commissioner John Blair of San Diego traffic court.

Cecilia Abadie heads to traffic court to testify against Google Glass citation while driving. #NBC7 pic.twitter.com/KRKeVjnXpB

— Omari Fleming (@OmariNBCSD) January 16, 2014

The case went in favour of Cecilia and now the Google Glass users can wear the device while driving provided it is off. That too won’t be a problem, the device that accepts voice commands can be put off at any instant. So now it is important for all the Glass drivers to drive responsibly and make sure their devices are off or atleast they are quick enough to give commands to their Glasses.

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Mark Zuckerberg praises Snapchat

During an interview with the Stanford University President John Hennessy at the school’s Palo Alto, Calif., campus on 14th January, the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg praised Snapchat saying it is a “super interesting privacy phenomenon.” During the interview a lot of topics were touched upon, when it came to Snapchat Zuckerberg offered a historical perspective considering that the social media giant Facebook had offered the company $3 billion just last year.

Mark agreed upon the fact that instant messaging does have a way with people/users owing to its quick responses and easy communications with groups.”A lot of times you’re not comfortable communicating it publicly, and maybe it’s just not worth communicating it to a small set or that’s not the full potential of what you want to communicate so you just don’t do it. It just gets lost,” he said. He further added, “Snapchat is a super interesting privacy phenomenon because it creates a new kind of space to communicate, which makes it so that things that people previously would not have been able to share, you now feel like you have place to do so. That’s really important, and that’s a big kind of innovation that we’re going to keep pushing on and keep trying to do more on, and I think a lot of other companies will, too.”

Facebook’s Tweak Privacy lets no users opt out of being searched and as such many users do not find it easy to share and communicate easily on the website. Though users can employ groups to exchange private status updates on Facebook, a common perception is that whatever you write there will be on the site forever, and all your Facebook friends will see it.

Facebook has tried to address to the issue but most of their tries have gone into vain. With Facebook’s try at Poke it is clear that the website is trying to work out a new innovation.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://ift.tt/1dxyDGn

Yahoo’s COO leaves the company

The Chief Operating Officer of Yahoo is leaving the company just after 15 months of service as per the company in an SEC filing on 15th January. Henrique de Castro had joined the company in October 2012 after leaving the job at Google as a top executive.

Castro is considered to be Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer’s biggest early hire and a notable poach from her former employer. But according to some rumors she is the one who fired Castro. According to an internal Yahoo memo obtained by Re/code, Marissa Mayer made clear that she fired de Castro. The memo read: “During my own reflection, I made the difficult decision that our COO, Henrique de Castro, should leave the company. I appreciate Henrique’s contributions and wish him the best in his future endeavors.”

Though the man was an important figure in the company, was given a higher compensation than the CEO and was treated as an influential personality in the company. Off late he was under pressure for improving Yahoo’s advertising prospects. Time and again he found himself in a stand still and may be thats the reason he pushed himself out of Yahoo.

The social media domain is becoming more and more uncertain and every now and then something is happening that could not be predicted. What are your views on the same, share with us in the comments section below.

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Facebook in Russia

Russia had been a Facebook free country until Facebook’s partnership with Yandex, the Russian search engine. Now return public Facebook posts and comments in its search results as part of a partnership announced Tuesday. The same was announced by Yandex on its website. These Facebook posts will appear in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Turkey.

Facebook is aware of the odds that it will have to face, majorly the competition from VK, or Vkontakte which was earlier regarded as a Facebook clone by Zuckerberg, the man himself. Although Vkontakte has been doing very well in Russia chances are that indulgence of Facebook allows Yandex to overpower every other social media website largely.

The Yandex website declares to dominate the search traffic by 60% and for them addition of Facebook to their search results will increase this further. Yandex already partners with other social networks, including Twitter and VK, and says that it shows no allegiances, but strives to provide users as much information as possible.

According to a press release release by the Russian search engine, “We don’t compete with anybody in the sphere of social networks; instead we seek to collaborate with all the players.We see one of our key tasks as being the creation of social search services, using content from all the popular social networks in equal measure.”

The partnership will work both ways, benefitting both the parties involved. This particular step might result into Facebook being allowed in the country. We will have to wait and watch how well the partnership works out to be.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://ift.tt/1a6iasf

Twitter’s Ad Targeting Policy

The concept of ‘tailored audiences’ has been highlighted by Twitter for its advertising policies since December and aims at achieving a heavy flow of revenue via the enhancements made in the ad targeting methods that have been modified and extended.

In their Advertising blog, Twitter announced that advertisers can now reach you through your Twitter ID or email address, offering the kind of targeted ad messages that Facebook specializes in. This particular concept can actually raise the CRM messaging resulting into an annoyed customer which might turn into a non user of the brand being advertised and subsequently of the website.

Although other social media giants like Facebook are using a similar procedure, they also allow tailored advertising as per the interests that users fill while creating their account on the platform, but receiving private messages and receiving promoted/sponsored posts in the news feed are two different things.

Of course Twitter will be able to catch up with Facebook and may be its does better, given the current conditions but targeting users on Twitter based on their conversations may not be as effective; they may just be remarking on news of the day, whereas on Facebook, they are somewhat more likely to be stating a preference.

Even though both the companies are now largely dependent on advertising as the biggest source of revenue for them, they cannot leverage advertising activities at the cost of their user base and likers of the website. For Twitter it is a step it has to take but its fate will be decided once we know how users respond to it.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://ift.tt/1d5ds8r

Google acquires Nest

The only place where Google was not prominent was at our homes. To bring about a change in this Google acquired Nest, a company that makes smart thermostats and smoke detectors, for $3.2 billion in cash. Although Google’s intervention into the household goods is an old occurrence with products like Google TV which though did not work for Google.

It now seems that Google is after smart thermostats and making them into a unique product to be used in every household just like its search engine. Users have used Twitter to comment upon the acquisition for many are still not able to understand Google’s move.

Google’s original mission to organize the world’s information now includes knowing what temp. I keep my thermostat at.

— David Cohn (@Digidave) January 13, 2014

The CEO of Google, Larry Page said, “ We are excited to bring great experiences to more homes in more countries and fulfill their dreams!” The point of concern is that the CEO is also keeping his attention towards ‘homes’ a new field altogether where Google is now attempting to hoist their flag. Nest is a vision for what Google in the home could look like.

Not only does Google get the chance of acquiring the company but it also adds a number of talented employees with good experience which includes the CEO of Nest, Tony Fadell, who is credited with being one of the main designers of the iPod.

So seeing the vision Google has, soon enough it will be able to venture into the market of household goods.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://ift.tt/1kzv5HB

Twitter’s New Design close to the Mobile Design

Twitter has not relaxed since its IPO was successful and the company went from being private to public. Twitter just revamped its desktop version to provide a new outlook to all of its desktop users. This new update is more or less like the mobile version of twitter with a few relevant changes.

The profile photo is aligned with the cover image of a user which was visible on the profile page, after the new update which was launched on 13th January, the homepage also carries the cover image behind the profile picture. Initially the homepage had no cover image. Also, the top most panel which used to be black is now white and the font sizes have been altered to enlarge them below each image.

One of the new features added to Twitter’s desktop update is that now users can change the colours of various tools on Twitter and thereby make their pages way more colourful. Colour of compose box, navigation icons can be modified in the Design tab that comes within settings.

At refreshed http://t.co/eNvqKTup1d, personalize your profile w/ accent color: http://t.co/vxt1P3BDxq>web design. http://ift.tt/1hjVswt

— Twitter (@twitter) January 13, 2014

Although the new design is not visible to all of it users across the globe, it shall reach them in the coming days. The design is considered to be more user friendly and desires a further increase in the traffic and user base of the website.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://ift.tt/1akFAVx

Privacy and Security on Facebook

The fire safety advice to follow

he lady who left NBC for Twitter, Vivian Schiller is trying her best to keep the journalistic spirit high. She works as the the head of News at the New York office. While getting the lay of the land, she tweeted this picture of a sign in the company’s New York City office.

The journalistic spirit is alive and well at the @TwitterNYC office…. pic.twitter.com/0SGH9eirzR

— Vivian Schiller (@VivianSchiller) January 8, 2014

So, the impact of social media is felt everywhere it seems. Seeing its effect the tweet was made to warn a number of social media enthusiasts to first save themselves and then save their tweets to their corresponding twitter accounts. In one recent example, passengers on a flight from Singapore to London that made an emergency landing in Azerbaijan posted oxygen-masked selfies on the social network.

So if we see it now the tweet does not sound that bizarre and keeps us with the spirit that it added to the company’s employees in the middle of the week.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/13/the-fire-safety-advice-to-follow/

Is Snapchat the new Marketing hub?

No doubt that Snapchat remains one of the fastest growing social media app that is considered to have a lot of potential which can help a marketer to promote his brand nicely and effectively. The recent addition of the HBO fame ‘Girls’ is itself a demarcation of the fact that Snapchat is being seen as a prospective channel for advertising on the social media domain.

Of course it is way different from the usual promotions on Twitter and Facebook, the stories feature has particularly captured the attention of many brands. According to Sabrina Caluori, VP of social media and marketing at HBO. “”I think it was the launch of the Stories feature that really solidified for us that there was a way to use this platform as marketers. Prior to the launch of that, we struggled to come up with creatives that could be impactful.”

Although slow, brands have now started to embrace the platform with few of them who started using it in the early months of 2013 like Taco Bell and 16 handles. The stories feature has been exploited by the brands the most. The New Orleans Saints use the Stories feature to share behind-the-scenes footage of its games. Taco Bell has used it to share funny sequences of people making taco runs. Juicy Couture turned to Snapchat to preview collections and highlight photo shoots. Seventeen, which joined last month, brings in celebrities like One Direction to engage with fans from its account.

Even though brands are showing a keen interest in the platform a lot of amendments are still to be made to make sure that it becomes suitable for advertising and marketing purposes. Paying attention towards the facts and figures provided to an advertise, apart from knowing whether their posts are viewed or not, Snapchat provides no data for individual posts. This might act as a negative point as its counterparts provide features like retweets, followers, likes, shares, people talking about, hashtags etc.

According to certain experts brands are creating their accounts on Snapchat because it is one of the trending things to do as of now, there is an increasing user base experienced and because more attention needs to be paid to each posts here. Little changes and the platform might just become the new marketing hub of the social media.

All the best Snapchat!

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/10/is-snapchat-the-new-marketing-hub/

Snapchat apologises for the breach of privacy

Remember when Snapchat’s database was hacked. All the information containing usernames of people were uploaded on a separate website which was for public use. Well Snapchat never apologised to the breach of privacy that the users of the popular app on social media went through.

It seems that the CEO of the company had something in mind all this while. The company released an update on 9th January in response to the breach that exposed millions of user accounts at the start of the new year.

This update gives the users an option to opt out of having their phone numbers linked to their user names as part of the Find Friends feature. The blog post that announced the update also apologised to its users. The blog post read, “Our team continues to make improvements to the Snapchat service to prevent future attempts to abuse our API. We are sorry for any problems this issue may have caused you and we really appreciate your patience and support.”

Though the situation was brought under control, the loss of data of 4.6 million accounts is a big deal and it is important that the company keeps a thorough check on the security of its users credentials and other informations.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/10/snapchat-apologises-for-the-breach-of-privacy/

Send mails to all Google+ friends easily

If you didn’t have enough Google and Gmail contacts, now is the time to expand it. Google+ has been updated and now users can send and receive emails from other Google+ connections even if they have never exchanged email addresses. Fascinating as it sounds the recipient end users can alter the setting if they would like to or not like to receive emails from people in their circles, extended circles, or anyone on Google+.

Another interesting feature is that the users can also opt out of this feature by modifying account settings. Every time a mail is received, a note will appear notifying the user that the message was received “via your Google+ profile,” according to Google’s blog post.

Although Google+ users were able to connect through Google hangouts but the email functionality will definitely increase the professionalism factor and make it easier for many businesses to work and function in a better manner. In order to activate the services the users do not need to provide with their email addresses, even after a user sends a mail using the feature the email id still remains hidden until and unless the recipient of the mail decides to respond back in which case the email id is shared.

To send a mail using this feature a user just needs to compose a mail and start typing the name of the Google+ user, the pop up list comes up and you can henceforth select the contact you wish to send a mail to. If a user receives a Google+ message from someone outside his circles, the message will automatically appear in Gmail’s “social” folder, not the “primary” folder.

The social media influencer Google should now be content with its mailing system. It has made work easier for many corporate houses for whom searching contact used to be a challenge always.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/10/send-mails-to-any-googleplus-user/

Facebook eliminates sponsored posts

Facebook is up and again all set to bring about a change in the news feed. The commonly seen sponsored stories will no longer be a part of Facebook as of 9th April 2014, Facebook declared via its blog post.

Sponsored stories are types of advertisements which appear in the home page of a user’s Facebook account. Every time a friend interacts with a sponsored page, app or event, the interaction appears as a sponsored post in the news feed only if the page wishes to promote it. Now advertisers will be able to avail these services only till April.

As per a spokesperson, “As announced in June of last year, we’re bringing the best of sponsored stories – social context – to all ads. Since this update makes sponsored stories redundant, we will no longer offer them as a standalone ad unit for marketers. Social context will continue to appear with all ads where eligible. Our social advertising honors the audience that people choose, so nobody will see information in social context for an ad that they couldn’t already see.”

After April 9th all sponsored stories will transform into other ad formats. Facebook is about to start the social context element of sponsored story ads where one or more of your friends are featured in the ad — will simply become commonplace in all Facebook’s advertisements. If a user comes across a marketer’s ad and has friends who have Liked that marketer’s Brand Page, that information will be included.

Facebook has off late made many changes in advertising and many a time the marketers have had to suffer. Lets see the fate of marketers once sponsored ads are eliminated in April.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/10/facebook-eliminates-sponsored-posts/

More of TV on the social media

There has always been a paradigm observed in the entertainment industry. Earlier it used to be staged then it began to showcase on the silver screen within the idiot box and now following the latest trend, the entertainment industry is shifting its focus to the social media domain.

No doubt that the social networking websites are also taking a lot of pain in making the platforms friendly and worth joining, the entertainment industry as a whole is trying to become a part of the domain such that they can also be a part of the hype and interact with fans regularly.

Out of so many famous names becoming a part of the domain it was Cinemax to try something new on Twitter’s six second video service, Vine. The account was created on the video sharing app to promote the second season of the famous action series, Banshee. It has created a cohesive Vine series which will be featuring the show characters and will provide an intimate look at the hopes and fears of citizens residing in Banshee, Penn., as opposed to just seeing Vine videos of actors out of character backstage.

It is the first time Vine has been used for such an integrated promotion using the characters itself. The new character Vine videos will serve as an extension to the show’s narrative, while the #BansheeOrigins videos will show off frames from the Banshee comic, and the atmospheric videos will highlight daytime and nighttime scenes in time-lapse form. ‘

Now its the first time Vine will be used in such a way to advertise a series. Lets see what Vine can do to take the show to an exceeding height.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/09/tv-on-social-media/

Google’s very own private ferry

After stepping a foot in almost every field, Google is now set to own its private ferry that would take its workers from San Francisco to Redwood City. The service started Monday and the catamaran – the Triumphant which holds 149 passengers runs two trips in the morning from San Francisco to Redwood City and two return trips in the evening. The ride takes about 47 minutes each way.

It is initially a 30 day trial period in which the all rounder social media company will be testing the service and see how well it works and if causes no hindrance in the daily bay traffic. Although the company will be paying the port authorities as per the costs.

Google hired a company called Multinational Logistics to provide the Triumphant, a multi-hulled ferry based in Long Beach. San Francisco Maritime Director Peter Dailey said the Port will be studying what impact the service has on normal bay traffic. One of the prerequisites of this trial study is that it cannot impact public ferry operations it cannot delay or in any way impact their operation.”

Google has always been up to something that has benefitted the society in a number of ways. We3 would like to say, Keep Going Google!

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/09/googles-very-own-private-ferry/

Yahoo acquires Aviate

Yahoo has been working to install the best in their mobile services. To accomplish the same and provide its users an experience they shall love, Yahoo has acquired Aviate, an “Intelligent home screen service.” Although the terms of the deal weren’t disclosed this particular deal could bring great laurels for Yahoo.

Yahoo’s CEO, Marissa Mayer, announced the merger in the 2014 International CES Trade Show in Las Vegas on 7th January. Aviate was launched in the beta version for Android late last year and promised to switch up the apps and buttons that appear on the phone’s homescreen based on the time of day and the user’s location.

Marissa says, “We are incredibly excited to work with the Aviate team and welcome them to Yahoo.”

Aviate also acknowledged the acquisition via a tweet.

Aviate just got better, faster by joining @Yahoo! http://t.co/ZM67IFfX0s Keep on flying!

— Aviate (@Aviate) January 7, 2014

2014 is turning out to be an eventful year for the social media domain.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/08/yahoo-acquires-aviate/

Vetti Pasanga Dance Fever Contest gets an amazing 3100+ votes

About the Movie

Vetti Pasanga (Useless Folks) is an independent Tamil movie produced by Veedu Production Sdn. Bhd. The movie was released in 21 theatres in Malaysia on January 2, 2014 in Tamil, Malay and English. The movie won Silver Awards at International Conference on Informatics and Creative Multimedia, University Technology Malaysia and International Conference and Exposition on Inventions.

About the Campaign

The promoters of the movie launched a video contest with a sole intent to promote the goofiness of the movie among its target audience, the Tamil community in Malaysia.

Vetti Pasanga Dance Fever Contest

Vetti Pasanga Dance Fever Contest invited people to submit a minute video of them and their friends “creatively” dancing to the tunes of Vetti Pasanga Theme song. Thus, a video contest app, powered by SocialAppsHQ was installed for this campaign which included the following important aspects:

Like Gate: The video contest app was like gated. So, each participant had to like the page in order to submit or view an entry. This helped Vetti Pasanga to promote their Facebook Fan page among their target audience.

Entry: Participants had to submit a minute video of them and their friends “creatively” dancing to the tunes of Vetti Pasanga Theme song. The participants were also encouraged to promote their entries for votes for a chance to get their hands of some cool gadgets and free passes of the movie premiere.

Prize: The top three participants based on the number of votes got a Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Tab 2 10.1 and Samsung Tab2 7.0 respectively along with couple passes for the movie premiere. 22 couple passes were also offered as consolation prizes.

Impact

The video contest helped Vetti Pasanga to receive 8 hilarious entries and an amazing 3100+ votes giving a huge boost to this independent Tamil movie promotion.

Entries: 8

Votes: 3,128

The contest turned out to be a tremendous success and was widely admired by the excited movie audience. All this was made possible by SocialAppsHQ, an all in one social media marketing platform for your brand.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/07/vetti-pasanga-dance-fever-contest-gets-an-amazing-3100-votes/

Pinterest acquires VisualGraph

VisualGraph, an image recognition and visual search technology startup from San Francisco has been acquired by the social media image sharing app Pinterest. Although the terms of the deal have not been discussed yet but Pinterest has taken over both the employees and the technology of the image recognition company. The terms and conditions according to which the deal have not been revealed.

According to a spokesperson, VisualGraph CEO Kevin Jing will lead a new “visual discovery team and that the team has begun working with Pinterest with high spirits and hopes best for the merger companies. He has initially worked with Google as a senior research scientist in 2012 after which he started VisualGraph.

The spokesperson further said that, “Our mission at Pinterest is to help people discover the things they love and do these things in their real lives. We hope to build better image recognition technology that helps us understand what people are Pinning so we can help people find more things they love.”

Acquiring such a company will help Pinterest, it already has a search tool but it relies on image captions to decipher what’s in the picture. The new technology of VisualGraph will help enhance the search feature by returning results that aren’t clearly marked.

The merging of two companies will help them in their future endeavours and lets hope that the best comes out for both of them.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/07/pinterest-acquires-visualgraph/

Snapchat gives Facebook the answers

Facebook had offered the all new app Snapchat $3 billion for acquiring the company. Although the refusal shocked many the Snapchat CEO, Evan Spiegel seemed to be content with his decision and he was very sure that he didn’t want to sell his app to the social media giant Facebook.

Spiegel says, “There are very few people in the world who get to build a business like this. I think trading that for some short-term gain isn’t very interesting.” Although the short term gain was not that small still the CEO found it not promising enough. In case Spiegel would have accepted the deal he and his co founder would have got $775 million each.

The deeper reason for the decision, at least according to the Forbes profile, is that Snapchat’s founders sensed weakness and opportunity. Even after a lot of trying, Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg could not scare or convince Spiegel to go ahead with the deal. Snapchat has since raised another $50 million at a reported $2 billion valuation which is less than Facebook’s reported bid, but getting there.

It is not long enough when Snapchat will realise whether it was a mistake not to take Facebook’s offer or it was a blessing in disguise.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/07/snapchat-gives-facebook-the-answers/

Is Facebook recording your unpublished data

According to a petition created by the name of ‘Care2’ boasts more than 27,000 “signatures” from people who want Facebook to “stop stalking our unposted thoughts!” The group is referring to posts, comments and status updates that people type out, then delete before they ever share.It is believed that the social media giant is saving unpublished data by its users to its servers.

Although, Facebook’s data scientist and former company intern prepared a report according to which the website was tracking how often do users type out posts, status updates or comments, and then delete the text before publishing? The results were astonishing, 3.9 million Facebook users over a 17-day period, and found that 71% of users “self-censored” at least once.

Facebook made it very clear that they do not collect or track any content that people have chosen not to post. It seems that the study was misinterpreted by some people. The sole motive of the research was to find out when people typed and then deleted, not what people typed and then deleted. According to the people involved in the research, “To mitigate noise in our data, content was tracked only if at least five characters were entered into the composer or content box. Content was then marked as ‘censored’ if it was not shared within the subsequent ten minutes using this threshold allowed us to record only the presence or absence of text entered, not the keystrokes or content.”

The company says that they stored no data, only binary values as per the observations were recorded for further use. McTernan, the man behind Care 2 says that he is concerned with Facebook gathering metadata around user’s unpublished thoughts, even if they aren’t collecting the actual content. According to him Facebook’s decision of carrying out a research on such an issue is a matter of concern.

Now whom should we believe is the question. A man for whom Facebook has been practicing breach of privacy or the social media company that has maintained its position at the apex for years together. Share with us your views in the comments section below.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/06/is-facebook-recording-your-unpublished-data/

‘Girls’ from HBO on Snapchat

The HBO ‘Girls’ is now a part of Snapchat. The TV show joined Snapchat at the advent of 2014. The show is making use of the platform to send silly and funny pictures, symbolising the series and reminding fans about the season premiers. The show has also used Snapchat to share the pictures of the red carpet with fans.

We just want to snap it all.
Add girlsHBO on @Snapchat for snaps from the Red Carpet Premiere this Monday. pic.twitter.com/iKk8uqgt2B

— Girls (@girlsHBO) January 3, 2014

Social Media is so alluring for everyone nowadays. Be it the common users or celebrities, all making use of the platform as per their involvement with the medium. More and more shows and TV series are joining the social media to ensure that people remember them everywhere. Addition of ‘Girls’ to Snapchat is yet another example of the show embracing social media. Girls is also active on Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr.

Since the medium is the apt place to gain feedback because maximum talking about such shows takes place online. People discuss and trend shows that they like time and again. “When we look at all the different social platforms that are out there, we look at what the fans are doing naturally,” says Sabrina Caluori, HBO’s VP of social media and marketing.

There is no doubt in the fact that social media has changed the way in which marketers treat their brands and advertise them. What do you think, how has the social media changes the promotion and advertising dimensions in the market?

Share your views with us in the comments section below.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/06/girls-from-hbo-on-snapchat/

The New Marketing- Tweets become full page ads

2014 may mark an all new era in marketing. A tweet by the film critic of New York Times on Inside Llewyn Davis made its way to a full page ad featuring only the tweet.

"For Your Consideration" full page @nytimes ad … And it's a Tweet. pic.twitter.com/xezFhyatbI … Corr: Well, as it turns out an MT…

— Kirstine Stewart (@kirstinestewart) January 4, 2014

The ad was placed by CBS films in order to promote the film which is a comedy-drama film that follows a week in the life of a young folk singer in the early 1960s. A.O Scott, the man who tweeted the message that became an ad was surprised to see such an advertisement in his own publication carrying his very own tweet. Scott called the ad “a bit of a surprise” and said he was “a little freaked out.”

we have reached a strange new place in marketing when tweets become full-page print ads.

— a. o. scott (@aoscott) January 4, 2014

The biggest surprise to the critic was that his tweet was modified before becoming a full page ad. In his original tweet he had mentioned two other movie names as well that were professionally removed. In a report NYT explained its reason behind using a modified tweet in their newspaper as an ad, “Generally we accept movie ads that include quotes from our critics from reliable sources and expect them to be accurate and acceptable in taste,” the statement read. “This particular ad adheres to our advertising acceptability standards, and is appropriately labeled as an advertisement.”

This is how the social media domain is influencing the traditional market. The marketing field is too full of social media practices and brands are trying to incorporate the same in as many possible ways. Social Media Marketing has played a very important role in a number product life cycles and continues to dominate the marketing budget and strategies for them.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/06/the-new-marketing-tweets-become-full-page-ads/

Mark Zuckerberg’s worth increased yet again

It has been a lucky year for Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook not only improved in terms of updates and a better mobile site, it valuation is said to have doubled since 2012. 2013 has been quite a year for the Facebook family. According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index the Facebook CEO’s worth increased by $12.4 billion making it the largest gain of any current Tech executive of course if we exclude Bill Gates and his extravagant aims and achievements.

The massive increase in the revenue earned resulted in a strong growth in Facebook share value which have doubled over the past year. Facebook stock started the year 2013 at $27.44 a share and ended at $54.65, thanks to optimism of investors about the company’s ability to monetize its mobile platform.

Facebook’s mobile advertising and the various modifications on its website have worked well to transform the success into monetary gains. The social media giant has bagged some of the great achievements up its sleeves.

The most significant development came from Zuckerberg and his wife’s end who donated much of their wealth to charitable organisations in order to provide the needy with the basic amenities.

May be that is what’s helping the Facebook CEO to achieve one success after the other.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/04/mark-zuckerbergs-worth-increased-yet-again/

Vine’s web version gets an update

Vine announced the rollout of the updated version of their web platform on January 3, 2014 for its social media uesrs. It allows users to scroll through the feed, comment on videos, like videos, visit profiles of the people they follow and scroll through those users’ Vine videos. The version does not allow users to post videos as of now or search for another and other channels.

The new update is available only for the web version and is called the TV Mode. Now the users can click on the icon of the feature which is a TV shaped one and view the videos of that user in full screen mode. Half the screen is devoted to the video and the other half is used for the video’s title or description. Users can also use TV Mode to click through all of the videos from someone they follow.

Although the layout of both the web and mobile app’s version is almost the same there are minute changes in them. In the web version, actions on buttons are now spelled out instead of labeled, meaning users will see “Like” and “Revine” instead of icons. The comments section also has a small message that disappears when a user begins typing in the comment box: “Say something nice.”

Vine is trying its best to provide web users of the app the best experience. Janessa Det, a Vine engineer, wrote on the company blog. “We look forward to introducing more improvements in 2014.”

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/04/vines-web-version-gets-an-update/

Zuckerberg’s big charity

Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan donated 18 million Facebook shares worth $970 million or more to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation in December 2013. According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, this is the largest donation made this year by anybody. The couple donated the same number of shares to the same organisation in 2012. Though, then they were equivalent to $500 million. Facebook’s success on the social media domain over the last 12 months is the reason this value of the same amount of share has almost doubled since last year donation.

The Silicon Valley Community Foundation serves number of charitable causes ensuring adequate funds to these causes. According to its website, the foundation awarded more than 10,000 grants to organizations spread across 29 different countries, .

Zuckerberg is one of the youngest self-made billionaire according to Forbes Magazine. The Facebook CEO makes it a point to put his money to the right use. Apart from the donation of 36 million shares, Zuckerberg also signed the ‘Giving Pledge’ in 2010 according to which he is supposed to donate half of his wealth in charity over his lifetime or after his death.

The young entrepreneur is sure a kind hearted man. Kudos to him.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/03/zuckerbergs-big-charity/