Social Media News Brief

Vine is Coming to Android

In a blog post I wrote back in January, I mentioned the launch of Vine, which at the time was a new social networking service launched by Twitter that allowed users to share six-second video clips without sound that operated similarly to animated GIFs. Since the video social network was launched in January, it has blown up in popularity, even though it still remains only available for iOS and Apple devices. It has consistently been among the top apps downloaded in Apple’s iTunes store.

In fact, after its launch, Vine’s users grew by 50% in a month and by the end of February, Vine was being used by 2.66% of all iOS devices in the United States. As Vine rose to the top, similar services such as Viddy, Cinemagram, and Socialcam began to rapidly decline in their user bases, even though they had all been launched months before the more popular Vine service.

One thing that has been holding Vine back a bit, at least thus far, is that it is currently only available on iOS and not available on platforms such as Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone. Well, that’s about to change, at least for Android, the platform that tends to receive support for major apps like this long before Blackberry or Windows Phone, due to having a much larger user base. According to Twitter, Vine will be coming to Android’s Google Play store soon.

Though the exact release date has not yet been announced, there is still an app that Android users can use in the meantime while they wait for Vine’s official Android launch. Vine Flow is a mobile app that allows users to browse and discover videos posted on Vine, though it does not allow users to upload their own videos like the eventual official Vine app will. Until Vine’s official launch, Vine Flow is about the best that Android-using hopefuls are going to get.

Facebook Charging Money for New Features

Facebook’s primary source for revenue has generally come from the enormous amounts of ad sales that they have made to countless companies that are looking for the incredible amount of exposure made possible through Facebook’s reported 1.11 billion active users. Though Facebook has certainly never been hurting for money and the majority of their services remain free, they have released a number of paid services over the past few months in order to generate additional revenue.

One of the earliest features that Facebook began to push out is the ability for users to ‘promote’ their Facebook posts. Essentially, promoting a post means that will increase the likelihood that one’s audience (people who like your Page) or Facebook friends will see a post by moving it up higher in their News Feed. The cost is based on one’s geographic location and how many people the post would be reaching. More recently, Facebook also added the ability to promote any of your friends’ posts, even without their permission, though these posts can only be viewed by anyone that your friend shared said post with in the first place.

Another new feature that Facebook is beginning to push through is an update to the social network’s messaging system. In the system’s current state, messages received from people that someone is not Facebook friends with will be filtered rather aggressively into an ‘Other’ folder that is often looked over. Facebook wants to offer the ability to pay to circumvent this filter. In other words, Facebook users will be able to pay a small fee – supposedly somewhere between $1 and $15 – to get messages more easily to people they aren’t Facebook friends with. In order to prevent abuse of this service, Facebook has said they will only be extending this service to people – rather than businesses – and users will only be able to receive one paid message in their inbox per week.red said post with in the first place.

Another much more bizarre feature that Facebook recently added was a similar messaging ability, albeit a much more expensive and specific version of that ability. Essentially, it works in the same way as the aforementioned messaging feature: Facebook users can pay a fee to get a message sent to someone and ensure that it won’t go into the ‘Other’ folder, only in this case, that someone is Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The price to get a message directly to Mark Zuckerberg is a cool $100, which has been mentioned as Facebook as an ‘extreme price point’ that is being used to see what works to filter spam.

How Ads are Evolving on Social Networks

Those without a depth of knowledge regarding social media may wonder where revenue is generated from for these multi-billion dollar companies, considering the services are free for anyone to use and so many people are taking advantage of these networks. Though there are a number of ways these companies generate revenue, the simplest route is through advertisements that are made on the networks from companies and corporations that are trying to get their own names out there through social media.

With social media becoming as prevalent as it is, companies like Facebook and Twitter are trying to get a little bit more creative with the way that advertisements are targeted to their users. For instance, Facebook has recently incorporated a system known as ‘Facebook Exchange’ to the ads in Facebook’s News Feed, which allows Facebook to pull from other websites that the user has visited in the past. Moving those advertisements from the right side of the page to the News Feed itself was major for business prospects, due to the ability to more easily view these advertisements on Facebook’s ever-growing mobile presence.

More recently, Twitter has chosen to take a page from Facebook, as ads from Twitter will appear based on keywords used in a Twitter user’s tweets. Twitter had initially categorized its users based on tweets, so that someone who tweeted about coffee would be put into a ‘coffee lover’ group, but Twitter will now respond directly to certain words in recent tweets and adapt its advertisements to suit the user’s possible interests. The service will even be using ‘natural language processing’ which will allow them to prevent from offering ads for something that someone is tweeting negatively about.

Certain reports have stated that Facebook is planning for yet another step in regards to updating their advertising options. This summer, they may be releasing auto-playing video advertisements. The videos would be 15-second spots that would come with a mighty price tag, supposedly costing $1 million per day per demographic, a move which could ultimately net billions for Facebook. How users react to auto-playing video ads on their Facebook, however, might be another story entirely.

Recent Twitter Hacks Lead to Real-World Consequences

It is beginning to be very apparent how much effect Twitter and social media in general is beginning to have on the real world. Twitter has led to many major changes in the real world; people have been fired because of posts on Twitter, diplomatic tensions have become created between the United States embassy in Cairo and the President of Egypt, revolutions have been fueled, and even lives have been saved. With real tweets having this level of power, t

On Tuesday, April 23, the Associated Press became victim to a recent cyberattack when it posted a tweet claiming that there had been explosions in the White House and that the President had been injured. Another Twitter account associated with the Associated Press quickly responded to the tweet to inform followers that the account had been compromised, but the damage had already been done. The Dow Jones industrial average quickly sank by more than 140 points. Generally, Twitter hacks have done little more than featured juvenile obscenities, but this is the first major case where a Twitter hack has led to serious real-world consequences.here can be genuine danger when fake tweets are made, something that has been occurring quite often recently through hacking.

Supposedly, this cyberattack was perpetrated by a group that refers to themselves as the Syrian Electronic Army, who has claimed credit for the Associated Press tweet that led to a plunge in the stock market. The group describes itself as an organization that intends to attack and deface websites in order to combat what they believe to be anti-Syrian media coverage. Personal information regarding the members of this group is currently unknown, so they could simply be activists or pranksters, or perhaps people who are affiliated with Syria’s al-Assad government itself.

Considering this is far from the first hack that a major Twitter account has had in recent months, Twitter has been pressed to respond to these exceeding security issues. It has been reported that Twitter hopes to launch a two-step verification system in the near future that will hopefully prevent future Twitter hacks from occurring, resulting in the same problems that were caused by the hack on the Associated Press’ Twitter account.

Twitter #Music Has Launched!

In my last blog post, I talked about Twitter’s recent acquisition of We Are Hunted and their eventual plans to launch a music application that would work alongside Twitter. Well, it appears that the time has come already, as today Twitter officially launched and unveiled what they’re referring to as Twitter #Music, its title referencing the usage of hashtags that has become popular in recent years due to Twitter.

Similarly to Twitter’s recently released video app Vine, Twitter #Music is not directly included with the browser or mobile versions of Twitter; it can instead be downloaded via its own dedicated mobile app or accessed directly at the Twitter #Music page. At the moment, the app is only available on iOS and has not yet been announced for Android or Windows Phone, though it is likely that in the weeks to come, there will be formal announcements or releases for those platforms.

What Twitter #Music essentially does is it helps users discover new songs based on Twitter activity. It relies on tweets to detect what songs and artists are popular and also allows users to follow their favorite artists to see what they are listening to and following. The app pulls music from iTunes, Spotify, and Rdio to allow users to listen to previews of the songs that Twitter #Music has determined they might be interested in.

The main interface is separated into three tabs, the first two tabs showing information based on Twitter’s trending data to show off Popular and Emerging artists, respectively, additionally making it easy to immediately access that artist’s Twitter profile in a single click. The third tab is where recommendations are offered based on the artists that you have decided to follow on your Twitter account. Twitter #Music users can also see what their friends are listening to and can easily share with their own followers what music they are currently listening to.

It’s likely that, in the coming months, Twitter #Music will be evolving a lot more, as we will likely see Android and Windows Phone releases for mobile apps, as well as fine-tuning on Twitter #Music itself. As Twitter continues to expand – via Vine and Twitter #Music – it is also likely it will find other areas to delve into, which is likely considering it was recently reported that Twitter is in final negotiations with Viacom and Comcast to distribute TV clips via Twitter as well.  based on the artists that you have decided to follow on your Twitter account. Twitter #Music users can also see what their friends are listening to and can easily share with their own followers what music they are currently listening to.

Twitter Expands: From Vine to Twitter Music

In recent months, Twitter has been pushing harder to expand their market and also to expand on the features that Twitter can provide for its users. The first instance of this would be Vine, the video-sharing mobile app that was launched in January. Thanks to a successful marketing campaign, Vine has become the most-used video-sharing application on the market, and Twitter has shown no signs of slowing down when it comes to additional expansions to their company.

Twitter’s most recent acquisition is a software company known as We Are Hunted, which will likely be the first step towards Twitter’s foray into music. We Are Hunted has developed a service that allows users to discover new music and provides a constant stream of music via a simple interface. It is likely the simplicity of We Are Hunted that has attracted Twitter to the company, considering Twitter’s tendency to aim for simplicity, with their 140-character limit on tweets and Vine’s 6-second limit on videos.

No official announcements or release dates have been made, but Twitter Music is likely to be on the horizon. The acquisition may be part of a response to Facebook’s recent overhaul of its own music section, though it is more likely that Twitter is just hoping to expand their horizons and offer even more interesting services to its large user base. The Twitter Music app will allow Twitter users to find songs and artists that are recommended to them based on artists that they are following, as well as artists that people they follow are following. Twitter Music will not require a pre-existing Twitter account to be used, a choice which might ultimately attract new users to the service.

Twitter has long been connected to musicians and artists and many famous musicians use Twitter to announce news about upcoming albums or tour dates, or just to interact with their fans. Some musicians host live-tweet events where their followers can actively interact with the artists that they admire. It’s likely that the Twitter Music app will allow even further connectivity between musicians and their fans, and it will surely be interesting to see how the app evolves upon its release, and as time goes on.

Facebook Home: Integrating Facebook Features with Android Phones

A couple weeks ago, there began to be rumblings of the possibility of Facebook finally announcing something that has long been rumored to be the next step in the company’s evolution, a Facebook phone. Though there were some blatant denials of this from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, it was known that Facebook was sure to be announcing something at the company’s next event, alongside one sentence – ‘Come See Our New Home on Android.’ The event in question wound up taking place on Thursday, April 4, and while Facebook did not announce a Facebook phone as rumored, they did announce something related to that.

What Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook did announce was something called ‘Facebook Home,’ which is a feature that operates as a custom homescreen for Android smartphones. What Facebook Home essentially does is integrates all of the features of Facebook and its various services – including Instagram and Facebook Messenger – fluidly and effortlessly into the homescreen of one’s Android phone. For instance, messages sent via Facebook are combined together alongside text messages, resulting in a single constant conversation.

Facebook notifications can be easily accessed through Facebook Home, even while other applications are running, a feature which most other smartphones cannot currently offer. Zuckerberg stated that launching a program that allowed people to transform their phones into ‘Facebook phones’ rather than launching a Facebook phone itself will allow the company to reach a larger amount of their user base. Zuckerberg stated even a great phone might only sell up to 20 million units, which would only reach 2% of Facebook’s active users. Thus, a program that will work on many different phones became the more viable option.

The first phone that will launch with Facebook Home will be the HTC First, released through HTC and AT&T. The phone will be available on April 12for $99.99. Though this announcement may not have been what people were expecting, it seems like a move in the right direction for Facebook, considering how many mobile users will likely be able to make use of the features offered by Facebook Home.

Facebook Announces Updated News Feed

On Thursday, March 7, Facebook announced a new version of its News Feed – known as one of the ‘three pillars’ of Facebook alongside Timeline and Graph Search – and the thesis statement of this announcement appears to be that Facebook is looking to cut down on clutter. Essentially, the update to the News Feed will allow Facebook users to easily change what information they are viewing on their News Feed. The company has likened this ability to turning pages on a newspaper.

For instance, Facebook users will start out on the ‘front page,’ which includes all of the information typically seen on their News Feed. However, users will easily be able to ‘turn the page’ to other categories, such as a view that only shows close friends, a view that only shows photos, or a view that only shows game-related information. By filtering out the excess posts, Facebook users will be able to easily find whatever information they might be looking for.

In addition to these ‘pages,’ there will also be other design choices made to the new Facebook. Some sources have suggested that this redesign makes the web version of Facebook look a lot more like the exceedingly popular mobile version of Facebook, which is likely due to the focus on simplicity, considering the mobile version of Facebook is also less cluttered, out of necessity. In the new design, photos have been made larger and navigation options have been slimmed down. These changes sound great for most Facebook users, but the fact that users will be able to more easily filter certain posts out may be a hindrance to companies that rely on Facebook for marketing, similar to how DVRs have affected television commercials.

That’s how it looks at first glance, anyway. In actuality, some are reporting that the very reason that Facebook is receiving a redesign in the first place is to effectively include more advertising, allowing more space for ads and more ability to properly personalize those advertisements. Considering how there is often a bit of backlash every time Facebook chooses to redesign their website, followed by eventual acceptance and forgetting what the previous design looked like, one can only wonder how much backlash there might be to a redesign that’s being done particularly to include additional potentially invasive advertisements.

Instagram Reaches 100 Million Monthly Active Users

A recent announcement stated that popular social networking site Instagram had recently reached 100 million monthly active users. For those not in the know, Instagram is a photo-sharing social networking website launched in 2010 that allows users to take pictures, apply special digital filters to them, and distribute them through other social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter. The app has often been lauded as the digital equivalent to using now-extinct Polaroid cameras.

In early 2012, only a year and a half after the initial release of Instagram, the company was purchased by Facebook for a whopping $1 billion. Some suggested that this purchase was made because Instagram was succeeding in the photo-sharing business in a way that Facebook had attempted and ultimately failed at. By making this purchase and allowing Instagram to be an integral part of Facebook (though not fusing the two social networks together), Facebook and Instagram have enjoyed a nominal amount of success together.

Though it may be surprising to some that a social network is able to take off into having 100 million users in a matter of two years, this is simply the fast-paced technological world that we now live in. In fact, looking at previous major social networking websites such as Myspace and Facebook, it usually took roughly two years to report these sorts of numbers in regards to their user base. In fact, Facebook hit its first million users – and this was years before easily-accessible mobile apps and the overall popularity of social networking – in roughly ten months.

With Instagram continuing to grow, and under the wing of Facebook at that, it has clearly made itself a name as one of the most popular and resonant social networking websites of all time. Though there were recently some troubles regarding an update to the website’s terms of service, in that it was mistakenly implied that the company would be able to sell images uploaded to Instagram to outside parties, that trouble does not seem to have majorly hindered the growth of the social network. In years to come, it is likely that Instagram will see an even larger base. Unless some hot new social network knocks it out of the water like Facebook did to Myspace, that is.

Twitter and Facebook, Hacked!

On February 1, Twitter let its users know in a blog post that the social network had been hacked and around 250,000 user accounts had had their information compromised. The hackers were reportedly able to access user names, passwords, and e-mail addresses, and those who were affected by this incident have been e-mailed by Twitter and instructed to reset their passwords to prevent any further tampering with their Twitter accounts. There had been evidence that there may had been a breach up to a week prior, but the company did not know the extent of the security snafu until the day it posted the announcement that the site had been hacked.

Considering Twitter boasts more than 200 million users, a compromise of 250,000 accounts is relatively a small percentage, but the company made sure to remind users of ways to help ensure that one’s accounts wouldn’t be compromised again in the future, such as using strong passwords, refraining from using the same password for multiple accounts, and disabling Java. The Twitter hack came only a few weeks after the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal were reportedly compromised by Chinese hackers, though Twitter did not suggest that their cyberassault was perpetrated by the same people.

Shocking social network users even further was the announcement on February 15 that stated that Facebook had been the victim of a ‘sophisticated attack’, which apparently had taken place in January when some Facebook employees visited a website that installed harmful malware on their computers. Again, the perpetrators are unknown and are not suggested to necessarily be related to the Chinese hackers that compromised the news websites or the hackers who had gotten through to Twitter. Also, unlike the Twitter hack, Facebook has reported that no user information such as e-mails or passwords was released in its attack.

With this many attacks on major websites and social networks, it’s hard not to wonder how truly secure one’s information is. Many websites have home addresses, phone numbers, and credit card information logged into databases, and clearly even the largest social networks are not immune to the effects of sophisticated hacking. While there haven’t yet been any major incidents where massive amounts of information gathered from hacked websites and social networks were stolen and abused yet, it sure seems to be that things are pointing in that direction.

Considering how much trust is given to these websites and how much potentially damaging information these sites and social networks contain, the fear of being hacked in the future might be something worth worrying about. Facebook and Twitter, however, have made statements that they are working rigorously to prevent further compromises, Facebook stating that they are working with law enforcement officials and other people in the industry to help prevent future attacks.