There has been many speculations about the new Facebook mobile app update. This is by far the worse scenario. In fact I don't believe anyone would have anticipated anything like that.
At this point we can only hope that this is incorrect. Here's the article.
Facebook just announced a new feature to its app, which will
let it listen to our conversations through our own phones’ microphone. Talk about a Big Brother move.
Facebook says the feature will be used for harmless things, like
identifying the song or TV show playing in the background, but it
actually has the ability to listen to everything -- including your
private conservations -- and store it indefinitely.
Not only is this move just downright creepy, it’s also a massive threat to our privacy.
This isn’t the first time Facebook has been criticized for breaching
our right to privacy, and it’s hoping this feature will fly under the
radar. No such luck for Facebook. If we act now, we can stop Facebook in
its tracks before it has a chance to release the feature.
Tell Facebook not to release its creepy and dangerous new app feature that listens to users’ conversations.
Facebook says it'll be responsible with this feature, but we know we can't trust it.
After all, just a few months ago Facebook came under fire for receiving
millions of dollars for working with the National Security Agency’s
PRISM, a wide-scale and highly controversial public electronic data
surveillance program -- something its CEO Mark Zuckerberg initially
denied. This is also the company that lied about its now-scuttered
Beacon program -- an advertisement system that sent our “private” data
from external websites to Facebook.
It seems like every few months, there's another big Facebook privacy
scandal, and yet the social media giant is pushing this new app anyway.
Why? The information it gathers by listening to its 1.2 billion
users worldwide can be sold for huge profits to advertisers and
corporations looking for better information on consumer tastes and preferences.
Facebook is acting in the best interests of its bank account, not its users. This has gone too far - we have to stop it now.
Facebook: This is an extreme invasion of your users’ privacy.
Do not release this new feature, and do not listen to us through our
phones’ microphones.
Source: Here
Thursday, 29 May 2014
Another winning strategy for Coca Cola
What a brilliant way to promote communication. I have always admired Coca Cola's ability to innovate and bring new concept to the table. This is another amazing example.
Coca cola and how to use Social Media effectively, in this ad they provided free coke which helped freshmen in college break the ice and also promoted their brand as this video has already been shared umpteenth times on each social media platform and will continue because this is truly genius.
You can say what you will about Coca Cola but this is the reason why they are and will remain number 1.
Friday, 23 May 2014
Facebook Lets Restaurants Post Menus to Their Pages
IMAGE: MASHABLE, CHRISTINA ASCANI
Aiming to keep users on the platform and possibly prompt more ads, Facebook started letting restaurants post menus on their Facebook pages on Thursday.
The social networking giant is using Constant Contact's SinglePlatform, an online listing service that helps local businesses showcase products, photos and menus. The program is only available right now in the U.S. and Canada, though if your business is outside those countries, you can upload a PDF of your menu via "page info" under "settings."
While a restaurant could conceivably accomplish the same thing by posting a photo of its menu on its Page, Facebook's move could pave the way for direct ordering from restaurants.
You can't click through to make an order, but that seems like a logical future addition. Facebook signaled its interest in connecting users to restaurants last year when it partnered with OpenTable to let users make dinner reservations without leaving their News Feeds.
IMAGE: FACEBOOK
If restaurants exploit the feature en masse, the biggest loser will likely be Yelp, which makes menus a regular component of its reviews. Tapping the technology behind Facebook's recent Nearby Friends geolocations feature and integration with Facebook's Graph Search could also make this a useful addition down the road for Facebook users and a possible substitute or addition to Yelp.
Thursday, 22 May 2014
Facebook's New Shazam-Like Tool Knows What You're Watching and Hearing
IMAGE: DARREN ABATE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Facebook recently added a feature that monitors your movements, and now the company will be listening in as well.
Facebook unveiled a new audio recognition feature on Wednesday which, when turned on, will identify songs or television shows that you're listening to, in hopes you'll share that information with your friends.
With the update, the Facebook app will use the phone's microphone to listen in on noise and sounds nearby. The feature is able to identify millions of songs and TV shows from 160 different stations, according to Aryeh Selekman, a product manager at the company.
When the app identifies what you're listening to or watching, the content will either appear automatically in the post (you can remove it), or it will be one click away in the "Feelings" tab above the keyboard. The new feature is opt-in, meaning it won't work unless you manually turn it on. Once it's activated, it will remain on until you turn it off in the top-right corner of the compose page.
IMAGE: FACEBOOK
The feature can also identify live TV, including sporting events. When a song is recognized and then shared, your friends will be able to listen to a 30-second preview of that song right within the feed. Users previously had to leave Facebook to listen to a song shared by one of their friends.
The new tool is an extension of Facebook's "Feelings" feature, unveiled last April. Users have enjoyed sharing feelings, according to Selekman, and more than 5 billion posts in the past year have included a feeling or activity. Users who access the feelings list by clicking on the smiley face icon above the keyboard will now be prompted to turn on the audio recognition tool, but it won't be required.
The tool makes it easier for users to share what they're listening to or watching on Facebook, but it's also a way for Facebook to listen in on the content its user base is spending time with. If the feature is turned on, it will automatically spring into action when a user goes to the compose page. If a song or show is identified, but the user chooses not to share it, Facebook still has that data.
In other words, the tools lets Facebook collect info on what you may be watching even if you don't share that with your friends.In other words, the tools lets Facebook collect info on what you may be watching even if you don't share that with your friends.
Selekman says that no audio is actually recorded or shared to company servers. So if you are talking while the app's audio feature is operating, your words won't be saved or stored by Facebook.
This is Facebook's second feature in as many months that gathers user data that marketers are seeking. The Nearby Friends feature the company rolled out in April allows users to share their locations with friends at the touch of a button. The more people use it, the more Facebook learns where people spend their time. Some people find this creepy, although Facebook says the data is not monetized.
IMAGE: FACEBOOK
Wednesday's new audio-recognition feature required a number of partnerships among the company and those in the television and music industries. Selekman, who worked on Facebook's partnership team at one point during his carer, declined to specify the number or nature of the partnerships.
Facebook has been building the tool for over a year, and employees have been testing it for the "past few months," says Selekman. One of the technical challenges Facebook faced was identifying commercials. Facebook simply looks for sound codes that are repeated often, giving the app a good sense of which audio bites are from commercials versus actual TV shows.
Facebook launching the feature out to U.S. users beginning Wednesday, but it will be a "slow rollout," says Selekman. There is no timetable for when all users will have the new feature.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
Monday, 19 May 2014
Social Media to Site Traffic: 5 Tips from the Experts
Social media is a popular way to engage with customers and drive web page traffic, but these information outlets are busy at best and completely overwhelming at worst. You need to target your information to the right audience, link smartly, and get your audience engaged to convert your social followers into web traffic. Want to learn how? Check out these expert tips.Be Careful Where You're Sending People
Without thinking about it, many people automatically link their social media sites to their website's home page. If your home page, like many others, is cluttered and overwhelming, this strategy will set you up for failure. David Risley of Blog Marketing Academy suggests driving traffic to a more valuable page that will immediately engage visitors.
Link from Twitter to an "About" page to immediately offer an in-depth introduction that counters the necessary brevity of a tweet. Link to a squeeze page that collects contact information for a mailing list or a coupon page that immediately offers something of value.
Engage Your Followers Personally
Give your followers a personal incentive to visit your web page. Ask for their advice on blog topics, start a debate, or take a quick poll. Question posts get 100 percent more comments. Risley suggests featuring the most interesting responses directly on your blog and letting your followers know they were featured. It's hard to resist checking out a post that's about you. Social media writer Belle Beth Cooperpoints out that keeping your current customers engaged may be more important than finding new ones.
Use your social media presence to interact with followers. If you use your profiles exclusively for posting links to your website or blog, your customers will disengage quickly and forget all about you. Strike up conversations, answer questions, and otherwise act like a living, breathing person and not a link generator.
Make it Easy for Fans to Share
People are much more likely to follow a link posted by their best friend than one shared by the company who wrote it. Make it easy for your fans to share products, posts, and more. Include social media buttons for the sites your fans use most. If you post recipes, beauty tips, and home decorating inspiration, make sure you include photos worthy of Pinterest and a "Pin it" button. Samuel Pustea of Internet Dreams emphasizes the importance of optimizing every image for pinning.
Customize your social media links so the post is already populated with some text. You can set these links to produce a pre-written tweet or include a keyword optimized description beneath a pin. The user can change these, but the default information makes it much less likely that they'll share the link with no details at all. Link generators like Click to Tweet allow you to add this level of customization quickly and easily.
Make Your Posts Visually Engaging
Social media pages are made for rapid scrolling. If all you post is text, your viewers may miss you entirely. If your post is wordy, they're even more likely to skip past. Posts that include photos are better attention grabbers. Facebook photos get 53 percent more likes and 104 percent more comments, according to a HupSpot study.
Writer, blogger, and community manager Luke Chitwood points out the need to make sure your photos include a link back to your site. Double check this link to ensure that it goes to a relevant post and not just the original image. If your photo gets the viewer's interest but doesn't take him anywhere, you've lost a prime opportunity to generate website traffic. Pictures that engage interest and spark curiosity will leave your viewer hungry to learn more.
Choose Your Domain Hosting Service Carefully
Even if your social media marketing efforts yield a ton of traffic, it won't mean anything if your site is always down. Subsequently, you'll want to do some research before you choose a domain host. For example, does your host really have the uptime it claims to provide? How about the "unlimited resources" and "knowledgeable support" that these services almost universally offer? Do your due diligence, and check out comprehensive overviews like this Hostgator Hosting review on Sitegeek before you commit to any given hosting service. Your investment of time and effort will be well worth the effort.
Social media profiles offer a powerful way to generate website traffic when they're well managed. Unfortunately, many companies never see measurable returns on this strategy because they don't know how to make social media work for them. Start with these expert suggestions to radically change the way social media impacts your web page traffic.
Friday, 16 May 2014
Eating Alone? Chipotle Cups Now Come With Original Writings From Literary Giants
Apparently Jonathan Safran Foer is just like us. He eats at Chipotle and he curses the heavens when he neglects to bring something to entertain him while he crams rice, beans and guacamole (he's a vegetarian) into his piehole.
But since he's a famous author, he was able to e-mail the chain's CEO, Steve Ells, and pitch him a neat idea: "I bet a shitload of people go into your restaurants every day, and I bet some of them have very similar experiences, and even if they didn't have that negative experience, they could have a positive experience if they had access to some kind of interesting text," Foer recalled to Vanity Fair as a summary of his e-mail.
This is all to say that, starting today, original long-form text by Foer—along with fellow scribes Judd Apatow, Sheri Fink, Malcolm Gladwell, Bill Hader, Michael Lewis, Toni Morrison, Steve Pinker, George Saunders and Sarah Silverman—will festoon Chipotle's cups and bags. Chipotle deemed the initiative "Cultivating Thought." Foer selected the writers, and any edits were made by him.
But since he's a famous author, he was able to e-mail the chain's CEO, Steve Ells, and pitch him a neat idea: "I bet a shitload of people go into your restaurants every day, and I bet some of them have very similar experiences, and even if they didn't have that negative experience, they could have a positive experience if they had access to some kind of interesting text," Foer recalled to Vanity Fair as a summary of his e-mail.
This is all to say that, starting today, original long-form text by Foer—along with fellow scribes Judd Apatow, Sheri Fink, Malcolm Gladwell, Bill Hader, Michael Lewis, Toni Morrison, Steve Pinker, George Saunders and Sarah Silverman—will festoon Chipotle's cups and bags. Chipotle deemed the initiative "Cultivating Thought." Foer selected the writers, and any edits were made by him.
Check out two of the writeups below and see them all here.
Via Vanity Fair.
The Two-Minute Minute
By Michael Lewis
By Michael Lewis
I spend too much time trying to spend less time. Before trips to the grocery store, I’ll waste minutes debating whether it is more efficient to make a list, or simply race up and down the aisles grabbing things. I spend what feels like decades in airport security lines trying to figure out how to get through most quickly: should I put the plastic bin containing my belt and shoes through the bomb detector before my carry-on bag, or after? And why sit patiently waiting for the light to turn green when I might email on my phone? I’ve become more worried about using time efficiently than using it well. But in saner moments I’m able to approach the fourth dimension not as a thing to be ruthlessly managed, but whose basic nature might be altered to enrich my experience of life. I even have tricks for slowing time—or at least my perception of it. At night I sometimes write down things that happened that day.
For example: This morning Walker (my five year old son) asks me if I had a pet when I was a kid. “Yes,” I say, “I had a Siamese cat that I loved named Ding How, but he got run over by a car.” Walker: “It’s lucky that it got killed by a car.” Me: “Why?” Walker: “Because then you could get a new cat that isn’t named Ding How.”
Recording the quotidian details of my day seems to add hours a day to my life: I’m not sure why. Another trick is to focus on some ordinary thing—the faintly geological strata of the insides of a burrito, for instance—and try to describe what I see. Another: pick a task I’d normally do quickly and thoughtlessly–writing words for the side of a cup, say–and do it as slowly as possible. Forcing my life into slow-motion, I notice a lot that I miss at game speed. The one thing I don’t notice is the passage of time.
Two-Minute Seduction
By Toni Morrison
By Toni Morrison
I took my heart out and gave it to a writer made heartless by fame, someone who needed it to pump blood into veins desiccated by the suck and roar of crowds slobbering or poisoning or licking up the red froth they mistake for happiness because happiness looks just like a heart painted on a valentine cup or tattooed on an arm that has never held a victim or comforted a hurt friend. I took it out and the space it left in my chest was sutured tight like the skin of a drum.
As my own pulse failed, I fell along with a soft shower of rain typical in this place.
Lying there, collapsed under trees bordering the mansion of the famous one I saw a butterfly broken by the slam of a single raindrop on its wings fold and flutter as it hit a pool of water still fighting for the lift that is its nature. I closed my eyes expecting to dissolve into stars or lava or a brutal sequoia when the famous writer appeared and leaned down over me. Lifting my head he put his lips on mine and breathed into my mouth one word and then another, and another, words upon words then numbers, then notes. I swallowed it all while my mind filled with language, measure, music, knowledge.
These gifts from the famous writer were so seductive, so all encompassing they seemed to make a heart irrelevant.
Thursday, 15 May 2014
Coca-Cola Builds Adorable Mini Kiosks to Sell Mini Cokes
"It's the little things in life that makes us happy." That's the message in this print and outdoor Coca-Cola campaign from Ogilvy Berlin, and it's true in advertising generally. Unusually little things tend to get big props—whether you're talking doll houses, mini Abe Lincolns or tiny billboards.
Ogilvy placed these mini kiosks in five major German cities. They sold mini cans of Coke, which was the whole point, but also various other miniature products. They even had a pint-size vending machine. The kiosks sold an average of 380 mini cans per day, which Ogilvy says is 278 percent more than a typical Coke vending machine.
YouTube, Facebook Account for Nearly a Third of Mobile Traffic
IMAGE: MASHABLE, WILL FENSTERMAKER
Facebook and YouTube are now dominating mobile traffic shares in early 2014, as more people shift to a mobile device to upload photos to social networks and watch cat videos.
Facebook and YouTube now account for 32% of data sent to and from mobile devices, according to a report by Sandvine. Individually, Facebook's share was 26.9% for upstream traffic and had a 14% share for downstream traffic during peak periods in North America through the beginning of this year, while YouTube only had 3.7% share for upstream traffic, but a 17.6% share for downstream.
With Facebook's high upstream traffic, it seems users are uploading photos and videos from mobile devices more than ever before on the social network. YouTube's downstream traffic share is essentially unchanged from the Sandvine's number from last year, 17.7%.
The following chart, created by Statista, lists the top 10 web services ranked by mobile traffic share. The full report can be seen on Sandvine's website.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
Wednesday, 14 May 2014
New research shows that being ignored on social media is mental hell
WHAT do you go on social media for? To see how your friend’s baby is going? To catch up on your mate’s latest trip to Europe? Or maybe to gloat about the awesome things in your life you think will impress others?
Now don’t try and deny it, we all know the answer’s the last one.
We know that you only go on to post your latest photo of you doing some daring activity or at some exotic location with the hopes that at least 20 people will like your photo.
It should come as no surprise then, that rejection on social media is causing us mental hell.
New research by the University of Queensland shows our rejection on social media makes us feel “invisible”, excluded and less important than our online buddies who receive a few more thumbs ups.
This conclusion came from two studies. The first one had half the group posting to Facebook, while the other half were only allowed to browse their feeds, stalk their crushes and watch comments flow without being able to join in the conversation. This made them feel “invisible”.
The other study allowed the test subjects to use Facebook to their heart’s content, to post endless selfies and to post as many statuses as they desired. However, half of these people had their accounts set up so they couldn’t receive any likes, comments or essentially any recognition from anyone else. These people reinforced the trend of feeling invisible, less important and excluded.
“I swear, if this doesn’t get 50 likes...” Source: AP
It may or may not have been intentional when it was created, but social media now has the majority of us trapped.
We feel trapped because we fear social rejection and loneliness if not enough people respond to our own posts. It’s as though we are denied the chance to portray the version of ourselves which we would like our our friends and family to see.
Tuesday, 13 May 2014
RIP, Facebook Poke
IMAGE: FLICKR, KEVIN SHINE
Facebook quietly withdrew its Poke app from the iOS app store Friday, ending the run of an app that was both a Snapchat competitor and the final iteration of a joke that's as old as Facebook itself.
Poke allowed you to send ephemeral messages, photos and videos to your friends that would last up to 10 seconds before vanishing forever. If that sounds familiar, it should — it's an almost exact clone of Snapchat.
But Snapchat was launched at the end of 2011, and rapidly gained traction to the point where users now send 700 million photos and videos per day, according to the startup. Facebook Poke was launched a year later, and Facebook hasn't ever revealed usage stats. All we know is it dropped out of the top 25 most downloaded iOS apps very shortly after its launch.
It was, however, rather popular with the Zuckerberg family during the 2012 holidays, leading to this infamous photo of family members reacting to "Pokes":
IMAGE: CALLIE SCHWEITZER
That was from Vox Media Director of Marketing Callie Schweitzer, and famously led to a privacy complaint from Randi Zuckerberg, sister of the Facebook founder. It was about the only memorable incident in the Poke app's short history.
Even the Facebook page detailing exactly what the Poke app is all about has been taken down. We managed to get a screenshot, however:
IMAGE: FACEBOOK
So where does this leave the original Facebook poke — the ability to "poke" your friends on the service, for no reason and with no explicit meaning, which has been part of Facebook since it was founded in 2004? It's no longer advertised on your homepage or timeline, but amazingly, it's still there. Go to Facebook.com/pokes, and you can still get recommendations on who you should poke.
The public Poke is dead, then — but long live the secret poke.
First Post-Grad Job
IMAGE: FLICKR, JOHN REISER
For college graduates, the reality of finding a job has never been more imminent.
There's a bright side for this generation's grads: The number of smart digital tools and technology resources at your fingertips is increasing by the day. Check out these digital tactics that can help secure introductions, interviews and the highly sought-after offer.
1. Unlock the “key” to LinkedIn
There’s no question that you need to have a LinkedIn profile these days. What you might not know is that using keywords is a critical technique for leveraging your LinkedIn profile: Recruiters searching for candidates hone in on specific keywords that correlate with a job description. So make sure that your profile highlights the terms being used by your would-be employers.
To accomplish this, look closely at the job descriptions you are responding to and considering, and then make sure your profile (as well as your resume) aligns with the keywords found in that job description. For example, if the positions you’re applying to call for a "Social Media Community Manager" and you're listing your previous experience as "Twitter Ninja," then you may be missing a tremendous opportunity to align your credentials directly with the description.
2. Drill down to niche job boards
Companies create niche job boards to narrow a talent pool down to a dedicated, unique and engaged audience, which makes them excellent places for a job seeker to start their search. For instance, Dice and Mashable’s Job Board are great sites for those with tech talent seeking to connect with potential employers.
Ask around within your network, do research online and scour the publications that pertain to your industry to locate the niche job boards (and even LinkedIn groups) that might prove lucrative for your desired career path.
3. Convert your smartphone into a career center
There are dozens of apps for the job seeker — focused on everything from finding jobs to building a resume. If you're unsure about which of these are the real deal and which are a waste of time, here are a few standouts.
- JobAware: This free tool combines resources, job searches, progress tracking and city comparisons.
- Resume Builder Pro: An app that helps you easily update your resume to reflect your most current information and experience.
- Interview Questions Pro: In familiar flashcard format, this app provides a helpful resource for interview prep and practice.
- SuperJobSearch: This tool offers everything from job listings by region or profession to search advice.
- iPQ Career Planner: An app for “job matchmaking” that helps candidates identify the types of jobs they're best suited for.
- LunchMeet: A unique networking app to help you meet up with other professionals for lunch.
4. Own social media; don’t let it own you
The toga party pics probably need to come down — or at least be placed into a private album where potential employers won't have easy access to them. But beyond tidying up, social media is an excellent tool to showcase your personality and career achievements. Here are a couple tips for using it to your advantage.
- Put your best face forward (literally): Make sure your social profile pictures are professional and convey the “personal brand” you want to present to employers.
- Be consistent: Does your resume say you are currently interning at an ad firm, but your LinkedIn page says you’re working in a restaurant? The discrepancy might raise red flags for recruiters and hiring managers. Make sure your information across social networks is up-to-date and aligned with your resume.
5. Prep for a one-way interview
Video interviews are becoming increasingly common thanks to the time and money savings they offer. Beyond two-way interviews, many companies are using one-way interviews for pre-screening. (Think of this as a hybrid format that falls between phone screens and face-to-face meetings.) To nail your interview, try these tricks.
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