YouTube, Facebook Account for Nearly a Third of Mobile Traffic

IMAGE: MASHABLE, WILL FENSTERMAKER

BY DENNIS GREEN13 HOURS AGO

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.

IMAGE: STATISTIA

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Source: http://mashable.com/2014/05/14/youtube-facebook-mobile-traffic/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-socmed-photo

New research shows that being ignored on social media is mental hell

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Is this picture like looking in the mirror? Source: News Corp Australia

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.

Source: http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/new-research-shows-that-being-ignored-on-social-media-is-mental-hell/story-fnjwnhzf-1226914590180

RIP, Facebook Poke

Finger fail: the Facebook Poke app, the last vestige of an old feature on the social network, is no more.

IMAGE: FLICKR, KEVIN SHINE

BY CHRIS TAYLOR2 DAYS AGO

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.

Source: http://mashable.com/2014/05/09/rip-facebook-poke/