Snapchat answers the hackers

Recovering from a bad start to 2014, Snapchat responded back to the hackers who leaked data of 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers on a website SnapchatDB.info which is now back online after a suspension of just one day.

Snapchat has risen beyond expectations in a span of just 3 years and was doing well before it took a huge blow from hackers. The app is giving tough competition to Facebook’s Instagram, who reportedly try to acquire the company for $4 Billion.

The app responded to the hackers through a blog post which also confirmed that no users images or videos were leaked in the breach. The company also announced the roll out of a new updated version where in users will be allowed to opt-out of the Find Friends feature that was exploited to extract data during attack. However, no date has been yet finalised for the launch of the update.

The company’s blog post read,

“When we first built Snapchat, we had a difficult time finding other friends that were using the service. We wanted a way to find friends in our address book that were also using Snapchat — so we created Find Friends. Find Friends is an optional service that asks Snapchatters to enter their phone number so that their friends can find their username. This means that if you enter your phone number into Find Friends, someone who has your phone number in his or her address book can find your username.

A security group first published a report about potential Find Friends abuse in August 2013. Shortly thereafter, we implemented practices like rate limiting aimed at addressing these concerns. On Christmas Eve, that same group publicly documented our API, making it easier for individuals to abuse our service and violate our Terms of Use.

We acknowledged in a blog post last Friday that it was possible for an attacker to use the functionality of Find Friends to upload a large number of random phone numbers and match them with Snapchat usernames. On New Years Eve, an attacker released a database of partially redacted phone numbers and usernames. No other information, including Snaps, was leaked or accessed in these attacks.

We will be releasing an updated version of the Snapchat application that will allow Snapchatters to opt out of appearing in Find Friends after they have verified their phone number. We’re also improving rate limiting and other restrictions to address future attempts to abuse our service.

We want to make sure that security experts can get ahold of us when they discover new ways to abuse our service so that we can respond quickly to address those concerns. The best way to let us know about security vulnerabilities is by emailing us: security@snapchat.com.

The Snapchat community is a place where friends feel comfortable expressing themselves and we’re dedicated to preventing abuse.”

Such a massive leak of information could have costed the app a fortune. Snapchat is taking all precautions to prevent such incidents in the future. 2014 is not proving to be very good for the social media domain, users and websites need to be more careful or something even worse can turns up.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/03/snapchat-answers-the-hackers/

Snapchat’s Database Leaked

2014 is turning out to be very unlucky for the social media domain. The very first day of the New Year and already two major companies have become the victim of the malicious intents of notorious hackers. Snapchat became the latest victim of this malicious attack when account information of 4.6 million Snapchat users was leaked on internet. A few hours earlier, Syrian Electronic Army hacked Skype’s Twitter, Facebook accounts and blog.

An anonymous hacker gathered all the information and posted it on a website SnapchatDB.info The information was up for grabs for free untill the website was suspended. The information was available for download as an SQL dump or CSV file.

The message conveyed by the site was, “You are downloading 4.6 million users’ phone number information, along with their usernames. People tend to use the same username around the web so you can use this information to find phone number information associated with Facebook and Twitter accounts, or simply to figure out the phone numbers of people you wish to get in touch with.”

The hackers made use of Snapchat API, which gave them the access to the photo sharing app’s personal database. The hackers said, ‘On the site, the SnapchatDB they censored the last two digits of users’ phone numbers “in order to minimize spam and abuse,” but that they may agree to release their uncensored database “under certain circumstances.”’ The hackers have the uncensored Snapchat database “stored in multiple locations.” Mirrors and torrents of the database are now widely available online.

The message that the hackers had for the social media app was, “Our motivation behind the release was to raise the public awareness around the issue, and also put public pressure on Snapchat to get this exploit fixed. It is understandable that tech startups have limited resources but security and privacy should not be a secondary goal. Security matters as much as user experience does. We hope to see that Snapchat patches the exploit, and patches it well this time. Especially after seeing the magnitude of attention that our leak received, we think that Snapchat will be targeted by other groups if they don’t safeguard user security. We expect Snapchat to roll out a proper patch and notify their users and assure them that they will be more careful with their private information from now on.”

2014 has all of a sudden raised the question of security and privacy on the social media. Beware, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and everyone online (which is almost everyone), who knows what’s next.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2014/01/02/snapchats-database-leaked/

Google’s New Year Party

The world’s biggest search engine is up for a dance to welcome the new year. Google’s doodle says it all. Google comes up with one of the most craziest doodles ever. It is an animated Google dancing with the year 2013 and the ‘4’ in 2014 is waiting for its turn to come.

Further down on the page Google also offers a reminder of how we searched in 2013 with its annual Zeitgeist page, launched a few weeks ago.Even Google is up for some advertisement along with some zeal and excitement.

This particular year has been simply splendid for Google, with some of the most amazing devices like the Google Glass stealing the attention it was a good year. On every occasion Google’s doodle prove out to be the star on social media, be it the new years or halloween.

After all the wonderful things that happened to Google this fall it surely is a time for it to the disco dance.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/31/googles-new-year-party/

Sharks now on Twitter

Twitter is not only going to inform you about what the famous celebs and personalities have to say but will also warn about any shark that is approaching the Australian beaches and is 1 km far from the limit line.Several hundred sharks in Western Australia have been issuing their own warnings to beachgoers via Twitter.

Scientists have tagged more than 300 sharks with area transmitters in the Australian region. Each time a shark swims around 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from the beach, signals trigger a tweet to automatically publish on Surf Life Saving Western Australia’s Twitter account, @SLSWA.

Twitter is not only going to inform you about what the famous celebs and personalities have to say but will also warn about any shark that is approaching the Australian beaches and is 1 km far from the limit line.Several hundred sharks in Western Australia have been issuing their own warnings to beachgoers via Twitter.

Scientists have tagged more than 300 sharks with area transmitters in the Australian region. Each time a shark swims around 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from the beach, signals trigger a tweet to automatically publish on Surf Life Saving Western Australia’s Twitter account, @SLSWA.

Considering the odds of the occurrence, the project has already flagged a number of incidences of mostly tiger and bronze whaler sharks but also a few white sharks approaching Western Australian beaches since June. Tweets describe the time, type of shark and its approximate location.

Fisheries advise: tagged White shark detected at Meelup receiver at 10:26:00 AM on 20-Nov-2013

— Surf Life Saving WA (@SLSWA) November 20, 2013

In the past two years, the same Australian belt has seen many deadly attacks with the most recent being the 35-year-old surfer Chris Boyd’s death after an attack late last month in November. The number of mishaps were ranging higher when there came a necessity to demarcate kill zones that could warn and protect the beach goers and surfers about the presence of a shark.

Although the number of sharks in the world are reducing every now and then with 100 million sharks dying every year due to human efforts still the use of social media to caution every individual is one of the most innovative ideas that has been well accepted.

Considering the odds of the occurrence, the project has already flagged a number of incidences of mostly tiger and bronze whaler sharks but also a few white sharks approaching Western Australian beaches since June. Tweets describe the time, type of shark and its approximate location.

In the past two years, the same Australian belt has seen many deadly attacks with the most recent being the 35-year-old surfer Chris Boyd’s death after an attack late last month in November. The number of mishaps were ranging higher when there came a necessity to demarcate kill zones that could warn and protect the beach goers and surfers about the presence of a shark.

Although the number of sharks in the world are reducing every now and then with 100 million sharks dying every year due to human efforts still the use of social media to caution every individual is one of the most innovative ideas that has been well accepted.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/31/sharks-now-on-twitter/

Lawsuit against Russia’s Facebook

VKontakte, which is often dubbed on social media as “Russia’s Facebook” because it bears a striking resemblance to the Mark Zuckerberg production should brace itself to face a lawsuit from the nine music making companies like Sony Music, Universal Music, Warner Music and EMI for streaming licensed music from various artists, including Beyonce and Madonna, without acquiring the rights.

The litigation would be among the first to use Russian anti-piracy legislation that was recently broadened to include music. Leonid Agronov, Head of Russia’s National Federation of the Music Industry, told Russian newspaper Izvestia that the labels had been unable to reach an agreement with the social network, and his agency was prepared to intensify its pursuit of piracy. The suits would put in jeopardy the streaming of some 6,000 tracks.

VKontakte is the largest social networking site in Russia with a total of 236 million members. Although VKontakte has kept mum in the entire scene, it is clear that soon enough, the famous website of Russia will have to face a tough round of question and answers in the court of law.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/28/lawsuit-against-russias-facebook/

The Awesome GoodBye

Google has come up with a answer to Facebook’s ‘Year in Review’ feature. Google has modified its Auto Awesome feature to create automatically create video montage for its more active users.

Facebook’s ‘Year in review’ feature showed an amalgamation of 20 pictures and posts by user in a beautiful interactive timeline. Google’s Auto Awesome feature creates videos for certain users to showcase year 2013 for them in a one-minute video. These videos are only sent to active users who have shared their special moments (or something) on Google+.

These videos are shared with the users who can either share it or keep it for their private collection. Sometime back, Google made another two additions to auto awesome feature that added snow and twinkle effect to images that contained snow and lights respectively to add some holiday awesomeness to the platform.

In the holiday season when people are enjoying and celebrating with family and friends, it is nice to reliving the memories of the year, we all are ready to bid goodbye. Nice work Google+!

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/28/the-awesome-goodbye/

Instagram is for everyone

Everyone is on Instagram. Not just people but now their pets also have Instagram accounts. Charlie and Gibson, the two cute pups have their own Instagram account. People are following them to get adorable and lovable feeds on their Instagram. Their ‘humans’ are using Instagram to share every adventure of this dynamic duo. Charlie and Gibson have more than 2000 followers who are engaged by the wonderful adventure stories of these pups.

The two dogs love getting themselves clicked and their owner who has created an instagram account in their names enjoys updating the app every now and then.

Charlie and Gibson are not the first ‘non-humans’ who has created a stir on social media. Boo the dog already has more than 8.8 million fans on Facebook.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/26/instagram-is-for-everyone/

Twitter Share Cross $70 Mark

December is the month of Twitter. The social media giant has implemented many changes and rolled out several updates on all its platforms. Seems like the efforts are paying off as Twitter stock touched $70 mark on December 24, 2013.

On December 24, Twitter stock peaked at $70.79 before closing at $69.96 registering a growth of 8.4%. This jump is not an isolated event. Twitter stock has surged 169% since its IPO at $26 on November 6. The current market capitalization of Twitter is more than $38 billion registering a growth of nearly 60% since its IPO on November 7.

Twitter has done a lot this year to deserve this feat. Its sales in digital advertising has been the key to success for quite some time now. The company has rolled out several updates on all its platforms including revenue boosting updates such as promoted accounts and broad search for Twitter ads. Introducing new features on its mobile app and desktop version has also helped Twitter in growing its user-base.

Blake Harper, an analyst at Wunderlich Securities Inc. in Baltimore says, “While the company is growing revenues faster than its fastest-growing peers and we do recognize the potential for the company to capture larger portions of the mobile and TV advertising market, it appears valuation metrics are irrelevant and that investors are betting aggressively on Twitter being the next great media-technology platform.”

Twitter is performing beyond expectations and is showing great potential. However, we will only be able to get actual figures when Twitter will file the results of its first quarter since IPO.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/26/twitter-share-cross-70-mark/

Facebook To Face Lawsuit

Facebook may face a lawsuit for providing misleading information to investors prior to its IPO. According to a recent statement by a U.S. District Judge, Facebook investors can pursue loss claims, arising from non-disclosure of some material information, related to internal projections.

The company didn’t want to disclose how an increase in mobile usage could lower revenues of the company. According to the statement, company’s risk warnings should have included the revenue cut as it had already materialized. This is a clear case of material misrepresentation, which misguided investors.

Facebook investors include pension funds in Arkansas, California and North Carolina, who claimed to have suffered from the concealment of the material facts by the company in the IPO registration statement distributed to underwriters’ analysts. These people can now claim damages on the company resulting from the sale or holding of the shares as they fell below the IPO price and bottomed to $17.55 on Sep 4, 2012.

Although no fraud charges have been laid upon the company, 40 defendants were sued including big names such as Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and lead underwriter Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Facebook states that the lawsuit lacks merit but the law may disagree.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/26/facebook-to-face-lawsuit/

Twitter says Pics First

The recent update rolled out by Twitter shows the vision of the company. This update would change the way everyone tweets. Now when the user composes a new tweet using Twitter’s iOS app, instead of the keypad, the photo gallery will appear first. If users do not want to add a picture to their tweet they can simply tap the empty space and the keypad will appear for them to type their tweet.

According to a Twitter spokesperson, these changes are implemented as default settings and currently users are not provided with an option to change the settings back to ‘keypad first’. Users will now have to get used to the view that their pics might be more engaging than their text.

Sharing photos just got easier on your iPhone – now it takes just one tap to select from your photo gallery. pic.twitter.com/Wj0m2CIrk6

— Twitter Mobile (@twittermobile) December 23, 2013

This particular update emphasizes the fact that social media is shifting the focus from status/tweet to pictures. With the success of apps that focuses on photos, like Snapchat and Instagram, Twitter’s minor tweak is a message that the company wants users to focus on sharing photos.

If we notice the trends, Twitter’s last year updates and modifications were primarily related to pictures, be it image filters, image-sharing via direct messages which somehow mimics updates rolled out by photo sharing apps like Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat.

The IPO has surely given the boosts (read funds) Twitter needed to realize its true potential and transform company’s vision into a reality.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/24/twitter-says-pics-first/

Facebook reaches new levels

Facebook joining S&P indices surely boosted investors morale since the company gained about 4.81% on December 23, its first day of trading after joining the S&P indices on December 20,2013.

The company is also planning to issue about 27 million new shares at $55.05 a share, to raise another $1.48 billion on top of the $16 billion it raised from the IPO last year. The company is expected to use the proceedings for future acquisitions.

With much efforts and the regular updates, Facebook is scaling new heights. The recent testings of the video ads have also acted as a catalyst to boost the value of shares. Stock price of the company have more than doubled in past year. Youssef Squali at Cantor Fitzgerald upped his price target for the stock to $65 on Monday, due to company’s increased focus on advertising revenue.

Right now, Facebook is at its all-time high. Can Facebook maintain this growth? We’ll just have to wait and watch.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/24/facebook-reaches-new-levels/

Justine Sacco Apologized

Does one tweet have the capability of ruining the whole career of a respected PR professional? Apparently, it does. One Tweet costed Justine Sacco, Senior Director, Corporate Communications at IAC(ex), her job and all the respect she earned with her talent as a PR professional.

It all started when Justine made this Tweet “ Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”. The one tweet managed to be racist and insensitive to people suffering from the horrible disease. Needless to say that while her friends took the tweet in a sporting manner, the tweet was condemned by almost everyone who came to know about it. Ever since, Justine has been trying to make amends for one mistake she and many others will never forget.

As expected, Justine made an apology tweet, but it was too late. Sacco was fired by her employer and her Twitter account was deleted. Her Facebook account is still active and she is using it to do anything to undo what she did. But the damage has already been done. As per her Facebook account, she has been receiving threats even after she apologised countless times.

Twitter is swarmed with tweets condemning Justine’s racist remarks. People are using #HasJustineLandedYet to register their response to this event. One of the most popular of them is

Going to North America. Hope I don't get shot by George Zimmerman. Just kidding! I'm white.#HasJustineLandedYet

— Ellie Mac (@ellenmc) December 21, 2013

People are all furious by the tweet. Some reacted in a constructive way by donating funds to AIDS research while the others have shown their anger as tweets and comments. Visitors to JustineSacco.com are redirected to Aid for Africa, while another website that references Sacco’s tweet is accepting donations for AIDS relief.

One mistake of a PR professional is turning out to be the social media fiasco of the year.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/23/justine-sacco-apologized/

Facebook Review of 2013

Another year has passed and time has come to bid 2013 goodbye. Don’t you want to see how 2013 was for you? You cannot review yourself in the past year (unless you are monitoring yourself) but you can review your last year on social media.

Last year, Facebook had launched Personal Year in Reviews which was liked a lot by its users and social media critics alike. This year, Facebook has added a separate Year in Review feature that highlights the top 30 moments and life events from users’ Facebook friends.

Although the original feature ‘Year in Review’ is still present where users can see their top Facebook moments in the past year, people are excited about the friend review and are viewing as well as sharing it on their own and their friend’s timeline. To find out your friend’s year in review, first create your own. On your year in review page, you will find the link to get your friend’s year in review page.

The top 30 moments selected are calculated based on the number of likes, comments and shares on posts. Users can also interact with posts and images of from their friend’s review to revisit those moments. If a friend visits your Year in Review page, they will only be able to see the moments and posts that were shared with them.

Facebook’s effort to attract users and create a holiday magic sure deserves applause.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/21/facebook-review-of-2013/

Vine’s Vanity URL

Vine users will now get their own Vanity URL. All verified users have almost got their personal URL and the feature will be rolled out to other users December 23 onwards. This feature will create a sense of ownership among users by allowing them to claim their identity as their Vine URL.

Vanity URLs are optional for every user. With this feature, users will now be able to showcase their Vine collection using personalized urls ‘vine.co/username’. Twitter has also given its users the option to claim their Twitter username as Vine URL. Twitter will automatically reserve those and offer them to users, who’ll still have to register to confirm it.

Just log into vine and claim your URLs before somebody beats you to it.

Vine has also launched a new version of their android app that will run on Android 2.3 Gingerbread users. Gingerbread users will not be able to create videos, but atleast they will be able to see it.

Twitter surely is making the best use of its IPO proceeding. This is also reflecting on company’s stock which has gained more than 50% is past 25 days

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/21/vines-vanity-url/

Social Media Campaigns Take A Turn

These days social media has become the integral part of every marketing campaign and branding effort. Every brand is trying to harness the power of social media and many of them has received incredible results as well. Initially, social media marketing was all about status updates on famous social networking websites and uploading infographics. Now, the trend is shifting towards social media campaigns.

The traditional way of running social media campaigns have become the mantra of success for many brands. However, with the evolution of social media and society, the social media campaign was also bound to evolve. Now, brand managers do not limit their imagination to just offline or online media, they want to create a strong impact in the mind of their customers by combining the power of both

Smartphones have made the work easy for us, no matter what we do. many brand managers have made effective use of these mobiles and organise some out of the box events that not only create widespread awareness of a product but also result into an extravagant responses from the users.

Everybody loves some kind of creativity and innovations during the holiday season. To collect some extra fund for WWF Canada, Telus, a Canadian telecommunications company used the effectiveness of social media campaigns using the power of social media. Telus sponsored a vending machine loaded with pandas, the official logo of WWF. You just tweet #hometweethome with a unique pin displayed on the screen of vending machine to enable the machine. Once you tweet, the machine will give you a Panda (plush toy, not the real one) and Telus donate $1 to WWF Canada. So, you basically get a free panda and the WWF Canada gets a $1. The campaign gained much acceptance in Vancouver, where people got panda, WWF got funds and Telus generated the buzz that would’ve cost it millions otherwise.

A similar kind of campaign was run by Pepsi in 2012 where they installed a vending machine which vended a drink everytime you liked the brand’s page. People could use their smartphones to do that or could also like the page via the touchscreen provided. Social Media coupled with such real life events provide a larger perspective to the users and bind them stronger.

In Sweden Mcdonald’s also did something similar. They used social media to create a game called “Pong” that was constructed on a large-screen billboard. Just by using a smartphone and geo-location information, one’s phone could be directly connected to the billboard game. After 30 seconds of successful playing, players win a free coupon for a McDonalds food item of choice. Consumers were then asked to redeem their prize at the nearest McDonalds location. This simple strategy was able to engage the customer, cheer them up for a meal, promote the brand image of the company while boosting their sales by bringing their customer directly to their restaurant. A simple strategy, free food and a fun game can always be a method to bring in a crowd.

Social Media campaigns have undoubtedly transformed the presence of almost all brands on social media and have helped them evolve a great deal. However, they only way they can ensure future success is to evolve with time.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/20/social-media-campaigns-take-a-turn/

Twitter Alert Now Live

On December 19, 2013, Twitter announced the launch of Twitter emergency alerts in Australia and Brazil. Several new features have also been added to the service. Twitter emergency alerts initially launched in US, Japan and Korea in September 2013, were expanded to UK and Ireland in the month of November.

Now, User can subscribe to the alerts of the organization who have partnered with Twitter for this program. To do so, a new bell shaped icon has been added next to the follow button on the organization’s profile on Twitter. Clicking on the button subscribes the user to alerts from that organization, and also follows that organization if the user wasn’t already doing so. Twitter has updates the feature for iOS and Android as of now. iOS users will also be able to see notification of the alerts on an orange bar shown at the bottom of the app.

Twitter has now also joined hands with Centro de Operações da Prefeitura do Rio de Janeiro (COR) in Brazil and more than a dozen organization in Australia. As of now, more than 120 organization in 7 countries have joined hands with Twitter to provide emergency alert to their followers under this initiative.

With this feature, Twitter has taken the society one step closer to their goal to harness the true power of social media.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/20/twitter-alert-now-live/

Ever-Evolving Google Glass

Enough has already been said and done about Google Glass, one of the hyped and sensationalised products of today. The device has raised various concerns and has also been a matter of concern for many regarding various issues that have been hovering the device largely. Ever since the first ticket for driving wearing the glass was given people/prospective users are apprehensive about the fact that the glass might not be the right choice after all.

Glass Explorer Programme has already given much exposure to the product in terms of how the product is to be used and what shall it appear like to the various volunteers who were selected to be a part of the programme. The Glass got updated a number of times and Google is making sure that they come up with a product that remains unmatched before they roll it out in the market for customers to buy. The Glass has been given some of the most different and unique features and even now the search and testing is on to look out for even better concepts to incorporate in the wearable device.

Indiana-based Longe Optical Company on 18th December revealed that they are going to be the first opticians to unveil lenses for the Glass applying a new technology of which the company is proud. The company is proud of their prescription glasses add-on for Google Glass and took immense pride in announcing it on their website. Inspiration for the design and construction of the add ons is taken from Google’s existing sunglass shade offering which are attached to the Glass such the device can be used by all without any exceptions.

Although there are a very few Glass owners in the market as of now, all of them want excellent new and innovative things to do with their device. In order to quench their thirst Google has unveiled Wink Feed Rss and Weather Alert Apps for the device. By addition of these new app the device has been customised further and suits the needs of its users. Winkfeed allows Glass users to pull in their favorite RSS news feeds to display on their devices. Although its name suggests so, the app has nothing to do with the winking functionality. One never knows, in their next update Google might come with the winking functionality as well just as it has to click pictures.

Now a wink through the glass can result into taking a snapshot. Though a controversial feature, it was initially enabled by an app Winky which got the Congress to send the company a letter on privacy grounds, the feature is once again back in the latest update of the Glass.

Apart from these, Screen Lock and Hangout messages features have also received some updates to make them better.

The Glass team writes, “We’re starting with pictures, but just think about what else is possible. Imagine a day where you’re riding in the back of a cab and you just wink at the meter to pay. You wink at a pair of shoes in a shop window and your size is shipped to your door. You wink at a cookbook recipe and the instructions appear right in front of you –- hands-free, no mess, no fuss. Pretty cool, right?”

With such statements, Google’s motive and aims are quite clear. Would you be interested in such devices that would allow you to sit and just wink to get all the work done?

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/19/ever-evolving-google-glass/

Social Media On Mobile- Is It Safe?

Of course there is a huge hue and cry about Facebook mobile. Every individual is most of the times glued to their mobile handsets checking on their Facebook updates and messages. People all over the globe are addicted to some social networking websites and find it a privilege to stay connected with the world through them every now and then.

Facebook, the social media giant is one of those sites that has been able to gain maximum mobile visitors over the years and has been able to create maximum users per hour via its mobile app. Facebook mobile app is the main focus of authorities at the company because of the great insights that it is bringing to them and the huge revenues being generated by it.

All said and done, the question of concern is whether using the mobile phone for surfing Facebook and other social networking websites all the time by users is safe or not. According to reports, a Taiwanese women fell from a pier and plunged into the sea, while she was checking Facebook on her phone in Australia on 16th December. Dangers of using the cell phone while driving have already been highlighted in the past, students using their mobiles to check updates and notification while walking in the campuses of schools and colleges are prone to accidents and injuries.

There have been incidences and many issues have been raised about people not being able to wait before replying to an email or checking up for notifications, tweeting about your latest experience. Many researchers have reviewed this and their widespread love for the social media domain increasing at a constant rate only to reach injurious heights especially among youngsters. A recent study conducted by researchers connected to Ohio State University shows that pedestrian cell phone-related injuries have more than doubled since 2005. On college campuses, places that usually abound with cell phones and pedestrians these figures can be alarming.

The saying that ‘Students can’t resist distraction for two minutes’ stands true when their cell phones beep indicating a new Facebook update or a new tweet. According to a columnist in NBC, ‘Interruptions are the scourge of modern life. Our days and nights are full of gadgets that ping, buzz and beep their way into our attention, taking us away from whatever we are doing.’

Keeping in lieu with the recent happening the lady who fell off the pier while checking her mobile phone said, “I was checking my Facebook page on the phone and I’ve fallen in,” according to a policeman quoted by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Being unable to swim she was rescued by the local police after 20 minutes and was rushed to a hospital and is now safe.

Using the mobile phones to stay connected to the world is good but it can hamper with your functioning and cause injuries and ill health. What is your take on the rate at which use of social media on mobile phones is increasing. Share with us in the comments section below.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/19/social-media-on-mobile/

Facebook Dislike ‘Button’

Finally Facebook has rolled out a dislike feature. However, it’s not a dislike button. It’s a dislike sticker for Facebook messenger. Now, users will have the ability to give ‘thumbs down’ to something they don’t like, at least on messenger.

Facebook Messenger has just received a new collection of stickers, including an image of ‘thumbs down’. The new stickers can be downloaded from the Sticker Store inside the Facebook Messenger on version or mobile app.

Finally, Facebook has paid heed (though not completely) to the years of petitioning by giving the users of the networking platform a dislike sticker. Though, one can still not use it for disliking posts.

Looks like Facebook is so uncomfortable with the feature that it is taking baby steps to reach the dislike button.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/18/facebook-dislike-button/

Facebook Video Ads

Facebook is planning to launch its much anticipated (by advertisers) video advertising very soon. This will be one of the biggest moves Facebook has made with a focus on revenue generation. Some analysts have predicted that video ads could be a billion-dollar market opportunity for Facebook, but it comes with a huge risk of potentially alienating users.

With this feature, video ads in news feed will automatically begin to play in mute mode whenever they are on screen. The video will unmute and switch to full screen mode when the users click on it.

In its blog Facebook has revealed the fact that they have been testing this since September and have seen engagement of video ads increase by more than 10%. Mark Zuckerberg, Co-founder and CEO of Facebook wants to make sure that this feature is perfect before it launches, as it has the potential to be the biggest source of revenue for the company.

Although the average click through rate remains low, Facebook is presently daring to believe that once they incorporate the video ads it shall rise and increase to a bare minimum.

However, the risk arises when this feature is seen from a user’s perspective who may find the autoplaying video annoying.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/12/18/facebook-video-ads/