Posts tagged Social Networks
Hurray! It is Social Media Day!
Jul 1st
If you are one of the 56% of social media users that have admitted to using channels to spy on their partners, then you can rejoice; you have a special day to celebrate today since it is Social Media Day!
Mashable launched Social Media Day 3 years ago, in 2010 and both the event and social media use have grown tremendously in that time. The event has been declared official by 17 cities worldwide and three U.S. states.
Social media has bombarded our lives; from tweeting about the latest in politics, to rekindling old friendships on Facebook all the way to documenting our lunch on Instagram.
Yet Social media has served a far more influential purpose throughout the course of the past few years; from the behemothic effect Twitter and Facebook have had on the upheaval of the Arab Spring, to more local news when social media has proven to be vital in notifying the public of important information when the catastrophic wildfire hit Colorado just a few days ago. On Twitter, the hashtag #WaldoCanyonFire was a trending topic for several days. Using this hashtag, citizens along with Colorado Springs authorities and the media have been relaying pivotal, life-saving information. Colorado Springs was also a trending topic.
Yet, social media does not stop at Facebook and Twitter; Pinterest is currently the 3rd most visited website in the U.S with 60% of the users being females that is, and it seems everyone wants a bit from the social media apple; with So.cl, G+and Quora of course.
According to a website called The Social Skinny; half of the people that are active online, check into their preferred site first thing in the morning; ahh those annoying Foursquare check-ins, you know what we’re talking about!
Well, moving on to the world of Fashion, as Heidi Klum always says: “one day you’re in and the next you are out.” How have fashion designers and fashionistas reinvented the social media realm you might ask? Well, Oscar de la Renta was up to date sharing his runway show live on Tumblr as it was happening as well as pinning his bridal show, as well as many other brands that have aptly used crowdsourcing for the purposes of generating hype on social media in addition to sparking an emotional connection with their customers and curation to leverage influencers’ networks and create shopping experiences that merge editorial content with retail.
Remember, if all those social accounts get too over-whelming, you always have HootSuite and TweetDeck to come to your rescue and help you sort it out.
On a final note, we’d like to leave you with one fun fact on each of our favorite Social website:
1. Facebook: More than 350 million users suffer from Facebook Addiction Syndrome.
2. Twitter: Twitter handles more search queries per month than Bing and Yahoo combined (24 billion versus 4.1 billion and 9.4 billion respectively).
3. LinkedIn: LinkedIn has 161 million members in more than 200 countries and communities.
4. YouTube: YouTube was founded to share dinner clips of a party due to the files being too large for email.
5. Pinterest: Pinterest drives more referral traffic than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined.
6. Instagram: President Obama is on Instagram, having joined in January 2012.
7. Google +: “Student” is the number one occupation of Google+ users.
8. The mobile Web: China is the No. 1 country in the world for Smartphone use, with approximately 1 billion users.
9. Blogging: 3 million new blogs come online every month.
10. Klout: Justin Bieber is the only person with a perfect Klout score of 100 (says it all, then).
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While Facebook says “I do”, Microsoft says : ” I object” !
May 21st
“Oh my God, not another social network site!” Those were our exact thoughts when we first read about Microsofts’s So.cl ( pronounced “social” ) being launched yesterday. With Facebook, Twitter and G+, it is getting rather hectic trying to manage all of one’s accounts. It seems that everyone wants a bite of the social apple, yet their success is bound by either having the backing of a large Internet player, or an idea that introduces something exceptional to the scene. We have previously discussed the two platforms; Pinterest Vs Reddit.
Yesterday, it seems there was a malfunction, and the site that was in beta went live for a brief period of time; not brief enough though since the keen eyes caught up. Apparently, it has been live when first seen, then it has gone to invites for a couple of days and now it is what we have today. Our guess is that the invites had generated enough interest to go live. Is this a successful silent/ accident launch? Hmm, that is quite arguable, but it seems that the So.cl project was being used at Microsoft for months already for internal purposes, so maybe their somewhat of a secretive launch is to test the waters.
Signing up is either with your Windows Live ID or your Facebook account. If you’ve chosen the latter to sign up, you can follow your fellow Facebook buddies that are already using So.cl and then move on to start exploring some suggested topics and popular users.
So.cl combines web browsing, search and social networking with each other, according to Microsoft.
Well, here is So.cl 101:
1. As in any social network, you can follow other users to view their posts in your newsfeed. You also have the option of browsing through the global feed; though we’re not too keen as to how this might work when/if millions of users start posting.
2. Once you find a post that intrigues you, you have 5 options: you can like it, comment on it, tag it, share it or riff it. Since the last one there sounds a bit puzzling, we shall further explain it; riffing a post basically signifies posting a response to that post. For instance, if you see a post full of photos of Amsterdam, you might want to riff it to add your own photos or notes that relate to the original post. A link to the riffed post is added to the original post and vice versa. This works similarly as YouTube’s video response feature.
3. New posts are created by entering a topic of interest into the form at the top of the page. Bing is obviously the search engine behind So.cl; hence you will find images, videos and texts as well as results from feeds in the results’ listing. Content, links and tags can be manually added to your posts as well.
4. One cool feature is the ability to join and create video parties. By doing so, you will be able to create a chat room and add videos to it from various video hosting web sites. Other users can then join this room and chat about the videos that they watch, and add their own videos.
5. A bookmarklet is available that allows you to share content that you stumble upon on the internet directly to So.cl.
The video party idea is quite appealing, but is it enough to captivate let alone drive away the many Facebook fans? Humm, we think not. One disappointment already spotted is the inability to sign out; you can only do so by deleting cookies.
It is recommended of course, that new users check the settings to make sure the notification and privacy settings are to their liking. By default, emails will be sent out on a weekly basis, and notifications will be sent out when someone comments on a post/ search, tags the user, invites/sends a private message.
Well, in order not to be judgmental and prejudice, we’ve created an account to see how it actually goes, have you?
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Got a question? Quora has the answer, or so they say
Apr 23rd
Ever wondered what would happen if Twitter, Facebook and Google Wave were combined?! Well, we’re sorry to tell you, CTO Adam D’Angelo and Charlie Cheever beat you to it in June 2009, when they founded Quora. It was launched in private beta in December 2009, and made available to the public on June 21, 2010.
So what is Quora?
To quote their own words: “Quora connects you to everything you want to know about. Quora aims to be the easiest place to write new content and share content from the web. We organize people and their interests so you can find, collect and share the information most valuable to you. “
Robert Scoble, seems skeptic about the website though ; “Quora succeeded in combining attributes of various websites that employ a system of users voting content up however it is a horrid service for blogging, and while it was a decent question and answer website, it was not substantially better than competing sites.”
In other words:
-50 credits if the upvote is from the person who asked the question.
-10 credits if the upvote is from anyone else.
-500 credits once you start off using Quora.
-20 credits when people follow questions you ask.
-10 credits when people upvote your contributions.
Video :
Quora added two substantial feature to their website; the first one is the elimination of the original “Pay to show to Topics” feature of Credits, where users would have to pay credits to have their questions show up to people following specific topics. Instead, users will have to pay 50 credits to ask a question, any question and all topic additions are “free.”
Users can earn credits by having their questions and answers upvoted, answering ” Ask to Answer” questions or having users gift them credits.
The second added feature is the “Promote” ; yet another way to use credits to give desired content more visibility throughout Quora.
With Quora Promote, a user pays one credit for every two people he or she would like to have the chosen content promoted to (i.e. 100 credits for 200 people). The people who are being promoted here are exactly the same ones who would have seen it anyways, a.k.a. followers of the topic and/or of the person who posted it. Hence, our thoughts that this “Promote” is a little nonsensical, however D’Angelo seems to think otherwise.
If you are already an avid Quora user, you probably have the Iphone app that alerts you right away when someone votes up one of your answers or replies to one of your comments. You can simulate that on your computer; install Charm of Quora if you are using Chrome, Firefox or Safari. It shows recommended content and boards. You can post, search, view notifications directly from the extension.
As Sandra Liu Huang, Quora product manager, answered a question on Quora stating that the android app must be available this April for a limited beta testing.
From what’s being said around, the startup wants to raise between $30 to $50 million in its Series B, at a $400 million valuation – while potential investors are most certainly interested , co founder D’Angelo will be contributing from his own money ; adding up to $20 million according to one source.
Whether it is just another Silicon Valley popular start-up, or actually a valid asset to our daily life, it sure is worth looking into.
Looking for a simple, elegant backup solution?
Genie Timeline 2012 is a new version of the number one continuous data protection program Timeline 2.1. It offers the first metro style user interface; enhanced performance, and added features. Like us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter for the latest news.
>Follow @Genie9backup
G+ Gets a Makeover
Apr 12th
We’re pretty confident that most of you have Facebook/ Twitter accounts, if not both that you probably use on a daily basis. However, how many of you actually have an active G+ account? We’re betting not many, except for those that don’t like mainstream or are very tech oriented even though Google now boasts more than 170 million users since its 2011 launch.
As you have noticed this morning, G+ has a fresh new “clear white” interface!
While many users have been having quite a laugh at this “white space” (Link) it’s even a trending topic on the social network, makes us wonder if this was a deliberate intelligent act from Google to finally spark a conversation. Nevertheless, if you really cannot handle so much “white” staring at you, here’s a temporary fix. It will adjust the CSS to eliminate if from your screen and when Google updates and places new functionality there the update will show.
The new features:
Navigation
Instead of the static links at the top of your account, you can now modify applications through a dynamic ribbon on the left hand side of the page. Some of the benefits cited by Google are:
- Drag apps up or down to create the order you want
- Hover over certain apps to reveal a set of quick actions
- Show or hide apps by moving them in and out of “More”
- Set up for future features in a clutter-free environment
Account Management
Google has changed the way you switch from a personal account to a page account. There are now three places to find a page:
- Use the account switcher in the Google Bar
- Click the Pages icon on the left navigation ribbon
- Hover over the Pages icon on the left navigation ribbon
Drag pages to your Navigation ribbon to make it easier to switch accounts
Brand Page Profile
A very obvious change to brand pages is the option of adding a panoramic banner at the top of the page (this is suspiciously similar to Facebook’s Cover Photo for Timeline). Brands can now choose from the five separate scrapbookimages, or this one panoramic.
If you have added scrapbook images already, they are automatically transferred to the new format. However, if you have not added these images, your profile will have a black image with blue and red bubbles as a placeholder.
- Panoramic Cover — 940 x 180
- Scrapbook Images — Five 110 x110 images with 16 pixels between each
- Profile Image — 250 x 250
The Genie9 Page before its upcoming new & exciting panoramic cover
Stream Layout
Changes to the stream are the most apparent, and were made so that Google+ can better showcase personal and brand experiences and allow users to see and join conversations. The major changes are:
- Larger photos and videos
- More obvious conversation and activity
You can now simply click on the bottom right corner of any activity to view an expandable drawer with all the +s and comments
Hangouts
Google created a dedicated Hangouts page were users can find any public or On Air Hangout that is taking place at that time. This may help to increase viewership for brands that are hosting Hangouts.
The New Hangout Page
Finally, we leave you with a video explaining it all in brief. Enjoy! (Video)
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Genie Timeline 2012 is a new version of the number one continuous data protection program Timeline 2.1. It offers the first metro style user interface; enhanced performance, and added features. Like us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter for the latest news.
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A picture is worth a 1000 words? Try 1,000,000,000!
Apr 10th
Facebook, yet again has proven to be the pioneer of social networks with its latest acquisition of Instagram; the free mobile app that allows its users to take a photo, and add a digital filter to it then share it on various social networks including its own.
The hipsters of photography, or so called “pro photographers” are quite upset with this latest piece of news, yet the ones jumping for joy are Instagram’s co founder and CEO Kevin Systrom, who owns 40% of the company, making him eligible to take home $400 million from the sale pre-tax, as well as Instagram’s other cofounder, Mike Krieger, who will net around $100 million from the sale with his roughly 10% take. The remainder (10%, or $100 million) will be divided among Instagram’s nine employees. While we are not 100% sure if Instagram’s team really does constitute of only 9 employee, their latest update was in March when they hired their ninth member (Link).
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, has published a very witty statement 15 hours ago (Link), which in brief wanted to assure all Instagram users that this acquisition will not alter their beloved experiecne nor hinder them from sharing with other social networks, or not share if they please. He emphasized that this acquisition does not entail Facebook integration by any means, it merely aims at elevating the photo sharing experience; the reason why Facebook has been at the forefront for the past few years.
The photo-sharing app was exclusive to the iOS users (with a user base of over 30 million!) up until last week, when the app finally became available to Android users likewise. It became one of the best Android apps released for it prompted over 1 million new user signups in the first 12 hours of release. Which sparks an interesting question; do you think it would’ve taken Instagram so long to launch an Android app had it benefited from thousands of eager Facebook engineers? We think not! If you are an avid Instagram user, you would know that its evolution has been incredibly stagnant, we are quite confident this will drastically change. With Mark on board, we expect this ingenious app to be taken to brand new heights.
So don’t be too quick to head for the exit with this news bombshell today, and remember how the acquisition of Youtube by Google went smoothly years ago.
Smile and be prepared for a filter!
Looking for a simple, elegant backup solution?
Genie Timeline 2012 is a new version of the number one continuous data protection program Timeline 2.1. It offers the first metro style user interface; enhanced performance, and added features. Like us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter for the latest news.
>Follow @Genie9backup