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Social Media News Brief

12 Dec
8

YouTube and Social Networks

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 12-12-2013YouTube is one of the biggest websites on the planet. In fact, in terms of page views in the United States, the website is second only to Google, narrowly beating out major websites like Facebook, Yahoo!, and Amazon. However, the Internet is a volatile realm where updates are constantly required in order to keep websites current, as evidenced by YouTube’s recent attempts to delve into features that are typically associated with popular social networks.

Back in August, YouTube decided to launch MixBit, their attempt at a direct competition with instant video sharing apps like Facebook’s Instagram service and Twitter’s Vine mobile app, though MixBit is a little bit different than these services. The way MixBit stands out on its own is by allowing all MixBit videos to be used for editing, splicing, and mixing with other videos. Though MixBit videos can only be 16 seconds in length, they can be edited together into a larger video that’s up to an hour long.

Another way that YouTube has moved into social networking territory is their recent decision to require a Google Plus account to post comments on the site. With interest in Google Plus recently dwindling, it’s likely that this partnership with Google was done in an attempt to increase usage of their floundering social network. However, it appears that the fickle users of YouTube are not particularly happy with the requirement of a Google Plus account to comment on videos.

People on the Internet can often be resistant to change and it appears that petitions have already been created and tens of thousands of people have commented on a YouTube blog post announcing the change with angry complaints, obscenities, and demands to change the commenting system back to what it once was. Some don’t wish to have a Google Plus account at all, while others are reluctant towards having their real name posted on their YouTube comments. Either way, these changes appear to be here to stay, as YouTube is quite used to angry comments and they have made no movement towards pulling back from Google Plus support.

05 Dec
8

What Lies Ahead for Snapchat

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 12-5-2013Snapchat is reaching all-time highs in popularity at this time. According to Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, there are 400 million snaps shared a day, which exceed s the number of photos that are shared through both Facebook and Instagram, proving once and for all that Snapchat is here to stay and it’s huge. To compare, Snapchat was seeing 350 million snaps a day in September and 200 million a day in June, meaning that the social network is growing at a shocking rate.

Needless to say, it’s no surprise that investment analysts are saying that Snapchat has a very long-lasting and lucrative future. The social network has more funding and a higher valuation than Instagram and even YouTube did when they were at Snapchat’s stage in their lifespan. It’s not too much of a shock that there have been rumblings of a $3 billion offer from Facebook hoping to purchase Snapchat. Many attribute Snapchat’s popularity to its lack of permanence, referring to the way snaps disappear after an allocated amount of time.

Facebook is not the only massive company that is interested in Snapchat, however. There are other rumors abound that Tencent, an enormous Chinese corporation involved in the biggest Chinese social networks, has already made a major investment in Snapchat. A partnership between the two companies is likely to be mutually beneficial, as it allows Snapchat to extend into Asia and Tencent to have their first American subsidiary.

Another recent news update for Snapchat is the recent hire of Emily White, who was formerly the director of business operations for Instagram. She will now be working as the COO of Snapchat and it’s very possible that this may be a way that Snapchat will be moving forward with advertisements and monetization. Instagram itself revealed its new ads in October, leading some to believe that White’s hire may lead to a shift in the marketing of Snapchat as well.

21 Nov
8

Vine and Instagram Make It to Windows Phone

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 11-21-2013

People who are using phones with the Windows Phone smartphone platform, such as the Nokia Lumia series or the Samsung ATIV series, have been a bit behind when it comes to some of the most popular social networking applications. Though Windows Phone has been compatible with a number of the basic social networks like Facebook and Twitter, it has been missing major applications such as Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, and more, until recent weeks.

Vine, Twitter’s popular video-sharing application, initially launched on the iOS platform in January and was eventually brought over to Android in June. It was finally released in early November for the Windows Phone platform, with all of the features included for the iOS and Android versions, as well as special exclusive features, such as the ability to pin favorite Vine accounts to the home screen.

Instagram’s launch on Windows Phone came about a week after Vine was launched, but it was received quite a bit more poorly than Vine. While Vine has only been around since the beginning of the year, Instagram has had three years to be working on a version for Windows Phone. Yet the application that was released appeared to be heavily limited and did not feature many of the basic functions that were available in the iOS and Android versions.

In particular, many users found themselves annoyed with the fact that Instagram cannot be used to take photos within the application, which has been one of its most primary and basic functions on the other platforms. Additionally, Instagram on Windows Phone cannot capture or share videos. Currently, Instagram on Windows Phone can only be used to share existing photos that have been taken through the phone’s basic camera application, which keeps it a long way from Instagram’s intended full functionality. At the time, the application is being referred to as a beta product, meaning it is still in the testing process.

07 Nov
8

Facebook Changes the Way We ‘Like’ Things

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 11-7-2013

Facebook has long been embedding its functionalities on popular news websites, to the point where the Facebook Like and Share buttons are seen more than 22 billion times every day on more than 7.5 million websites. For the first time since the Like and Share buttons were developed to be embedded on these pages, Facebook has decided to update the design of the buttons, removing the iconic ‘thumbs-up’ that has long been associated with the Like button and replacing it with Facebook’s ‘f’ logo.

The new design has reportedly come about in order to be optimized for high-resolution screens. Additionally, the Share button is replacing Facebook’s Send button, which was tested and ultimately deemed too confusing. The old buttons were blue on white, while the new ones are white on blue, allowing for a crisper look that can be better seen on the high-resolution screens that Facebook is apparently aiming for.

In addition to changing the design of the Like and Share buttons, it also appears that Facebook is testing the usage of star ratings for Pages. According to some screenshots and videos of live testing, it appears that Facebook is intending to employ a five-star rating system that users can use to rate certain Pages, taking things a bit beyond simply being able to Like a certain Page. Though no official announcements have been made, it is likely that this is something Facebook intends to launch in the near future.

The replacement designs of the Like and Share button began their official launch yesterday. Gradually, over the coming days, the new designs for these buttons will be ubiquitous on the websites that use Facebook’s embedding options.

31 Oct
10

Kids and Teens are Getting Sick of Facebook

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking, Studies & Stats, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 10-31-2013

Back in May, the results of a survey were released, revealing that teens were starting to grow a bit tired of Facebook, finding a number of reasons to instead be drawn to other social networks such as Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and Snapchat. Part of this is because of adults — including parents and grandparents — having an ever-growing presence on Facebook, which keeps Facebook from remaining ‘cool’. Other issues that were brought up included oversharing by their friends and ‘drama’ that would happen in real life because of Facebook.

Though Facebook repeatedly denied that teens’ interest in Facebook was waning, their recent quarterly financial statements have shown Facebook’s first-ever decrease in teenage daily users. Facebook continues to defend itself in regards to the fact that Facebook is still the highest-used social network by teens in the United States, but this admission led to a slight drop for Facebook in the stock market.

Apart from cyber-bullying and oversharing reasons, some news sources suggest that it could be Facebook’s mobile app that is holding it back by being so cluttered and full of options that it can be overwhelming and result in ‘decision paralysis’. When compared to simpler mobile apps that teens have been drawn to in recent years, it’s quite noticeable how much less clutter can be found on services like Instagram and Snapchat.

One of the reasons that teens appear to be drawn to Snapchat in particular is for the same reasons adults who use Facebook wouldn’t put certain information on LinkedIn. For instance, in the way that adults wouldn’t want to look like slackers by posting vacation photos on their LinkedIn profiles, kids and teens don’t want to have any of what they post permanently recorded on Facebook. Instead, they choose to share silly images and videos that are only temporary with their friends, so that their posts aren’t scrutinized and used against them at a later date.

24 Oct
8

Twitter #Music Apparently a Resounding Failure

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 10-24-2013

Earlier this year, Twitter announced their acquisition of the We Are Hunted service and their intentions to launch their own music-based mobile application. In April, this application came to be as Twitter #Music, which I covered upon its launch. Their were high hopes for Twitter’s official entry into the music business, with dreams that Twitter #Music would reach the same level of popularity as their video sharing application, Vine. Unfortunately for Twitter, this was simply not the case.

Upon its debut, Twitter #Music reached sixth place in the App Store rankings for free mobile application downloads, but this success was short-lived. By the end of August, Twitter had dropped to 1,672nd place in the rankings. Of music-related mobile applications alone, Twitter #Music currently ranks at 264, which is truly nothing to write home about for Twitter.

Apparently, behind the scenes, there were a number of missteps in Twitter’s development of Twitter #Music that may have led to its untimely demise. Unlike usual projects created by Twitter, the application was developed in isolation inside the company by the team behind We Are Hunted and former Twitter business development leader Kevin Thau. Part of the app’s lack of development may be attributed to the fact that Thau left the company right after Twitter #Music was launched, in order to become the COO of the mysterious startup known as Jelly.

While an official announcement has not yet been made by Twitter, inside sources claim that the project is going to be officially shut down, and that Twitter may instead find other ways to integrate music into users’ Twitter feeds. How exactly Twitter intends to proceed with Twitter #Music and their foray into the music industry remains to be seen.

18 Oct
8

Facebook Changing Privacy Settings

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 10-18-2013

With recent developments in Internet privacy news, one would expect social networks to be getting stricter with privacy settings. Facebook’s most recent announcements, however, prove that this is simply not the case: in fact, the social network appears to actually be reducing its privacy settings. It was announced last Thursday that Facebook would be removing the privacy setting that allowed users to hide themselves from other users in Facebook’s search field.

The primary reason that Facebook has stated they have made this specific alteration to the privacy settings was that the tool was outdated and it only made things more difficult for Facebook users who were trying to find their friends over the social network. The other likely reason is due to Facebook’s recent Graph Search addition, which is intended to make it easier to find people on Facebook. With Graph Search and the removal of this privacy feature, it will be easier than ever to connect with others via Facebook.

Another way that Facebook is altering privacy settings is in its relaxation of privacy rules for teenagers. 13 to 17 year olds who use Facebook are now able to share their photos, comments, and updates with the public. They can also now turn on the ‘Follow’ feature that adults have been able to use for quite some time now, which allows people who they are not friends with the see that person’s public posts in their own News Feed.

Oddly enough, Facebook also has announced that teenagers’ default share setting will no longer be ‘Friends of Friends’ and will instead just be ‘Friends.’ This means that posts made by teenagers will — by default, anyway — actually be harder for others to see unless the teenaged Facebook user has other wishes. Essentially, Facebook-using teenagers have the ability to share with more people than ever before, but their default settings will reduce that ability unless they choose otherwise.

03 Oct
8

Facebook Makes Updates to its Graph Search Function

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 10-3-2013

Social media platforms tend to change and update features and layouts more frequently than almost any other website. Because of the immense competition between the major social networks, this is relatively unsurprising. Facebook recently made headlines with new updates that they have recently launched. Facebook’s announcement that they are making updates to their Graph Search feature has been of particular interest. Essentially, the update to the Graph Search allows for users to search for posts, in addition to people.

When the Graph Search was originally launched, it allowed people to search for friends who lived in certain areas, who worked at certain places, or friends of friends who were single, alongside many other options. These same options are now being extended to public posts and the posts of yourself and your Facebook friends. Graph Search now allows users to search for posts written during a certain year, posted at a certain location, or that talk about a specific topic.

Since Graph Search has been updated to allow users to search through every single check-in, status update, comment, or note that a person has ever posted on Facebook, it is not surprising that some people are worried about privacy, at least in regards to potentially embarrassing or upsetting past posts. Many people have had their Facebook active for more than half a decade, so it’s not too shocking to assume there may be opinions or information posted a long time ago that they don’t want their Facebook friends to easily see.

Luckily, Facebook has added new options to the social network’s privacy functions. Users can easily go into their privacy settings on Facebook and select the ‘Limit Past Posts’ function, which allows users to hide their past posts from being readily available and easily found through Facebook’s updated Graph Search. Though Graph Search was launched for a limited amount of users on Monday, it will be gradually extended to all Facebook users, so new privacy settings are important to know about.

26 Sep
8

Twitter Alerts Launched to Send Emergency Tweets

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 9-26-2013

Twitter has long been working on ways to make their services better integrated towards societal wants and needs. About a year ago, Twitter launched a service called Lifeline in Japan, which allowed Japanese Twitter users to find out critical information about natural disasters or other moments of crisis, when other communications servers might be significantly more difficult to reach. For instance, Twitter users could find information about gas or electricity after an earthquake. Upon launching Lifeline in Japan, Twitter mentioned that they hoped to eventually expand these services across the world.

It seems that this time has come because Twitter has just announced the launch of Twitter Alerts, a service that will essentially expand the Lifeline service into other countries. Basically, the system allows a Twitter user to receive special alerts from designated emergency Twitter accounts that are run by government and non-government organizations, all with the intention to get important, accurate, and credible information out where it needs to be during emergencies and natural disasters.

Many national and international organizations have signed up for this new system to get important information out there. Some of these organizations include the American Red Cross, FEMA, the World Health Organization, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, among more than sixty others. Those using Twitter Alerts can select specific organizations that they wish to receive alerts from, so that they can get information that is relevant to their region.

Twitter Alerts will connect to the Twitter accounts of these major organizations, and they are allowed to mark certain tweets as ‘alert tweets’ so that they will be sent via text message to anyone subscribed to that account’s Twitter Alerts. Currently, the focus of Twitter Alerts is on the United States, Japan, and South Korea, though Twitter has already stated plans to further expand the services and include more organizations from all around the world.

19 Sep
10

The Value of Facebook Likes

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking, Studies & Stats, Web 2.0 | No comment

Social networking LIKE

The Like button has been a major and iconic part of Facebook since it was launched in February 2009. In addition to its presence on Facebook itself, it has also become an integral part of the Facebook Platform, which allows other websites – such as news websites and blogs – to let Facebook users Like the content of the website in order to share it with friends on their own Facebook profile. In the average year, there are over 955 billion unique Likes on Facebook.

The Facebook Like button has gotten a lot of attention in recent months. Considering its popularity, it’s no surprise. According to one study, a Facebook Like on a certain brand is worth about $174.14 to that brand. This number was reached based on how a Facebook user spends money on products of that brand, their brand royalty, their potential of recommending that brand to other Facebook users, as well as a number of other statistics.

Another recent way that the Facebook Like came into the limelight was through an incident where a number of employees at the Hampton Sheriff’s Office in Virginia lost their jobs for expressing support for their boss’ opponent, many of them using the Like button on Facebook to show their support. Because of these firings, the Facebook Like was brought in front of the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, to determine whether or not it was equivalent to protected free speech.

Though the Facebook Like has previously been stated as not part of this Constitutional right, it is likely that this most recent decision is going to be final, considering the rising popularity and understanding of the Like button. The court determined that Liking a Facebook page was the equivalent of putting a political sign in one’s yard, which has long been established as a right that is covered by the First Amendment.

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