Yahoo Tag

Twitter Finds New Ways to Interact with Search Engines

One of the best ways for social networks to move up in the world is to pair themselves with the major search engines. Many of the larger social networks have some kind of history working with Google or Bing in different capacities. This is something that Twitter has recently been doing, as new features have been announced that directly implement aspects of these search engines. When it comes to Bing, Twitter has paired up with the search engine for translation reasons.

On the Twitter website, as well as in the mobile apps, users can now easily translate any tweet in a foreign language to the user’s default language. Though the translation tool is not perfect, it’s still a step up from not being able to read foreign tweets at all. Bing is not the only search engine that Twitter has found themselves recently pairing with, however. There has also been a deal made between Twitter and Google, which will ultimately allow tweets to appear in Google searches.

Yahoo and Bing already offer the ability to show tweets in their searches, but this will allow Google to have the same benefits. Twitter and Google had an agreement that was similar to this in 2009, but it was discontinued in 2011, around the same time that Google Plus launched. Google pairing themselves up with Twitter again may be yet another sign that they’re gradually removing support from Google Plus, which has been circling the drain for a while now.

Recent Security Breaches for Social Networks

In early December, it was revealed that there had been yet another massive breach in social network security, as 2 million passwords were stolen in a hack that affected accounts for Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo, LinkedIn, and more. The hackers, who are believed to have originated from the Netherlands, were using a virus that allowed them to access information for more than 93,000 websites, including many major social networks.

More recently, it appears that the security of Snapchat has also been compromised. A recent hack resulted in information regarding 4.6 million accounts getting posted on a website known as SnapchatDB.info. Though the site has since been suspended, the hackers were able to get information regarding phone numbers and passwords for all of these individual accounts.

According to the people behind Snapchat, the hole that allowed for this security breach has been sealed. However, some people believe that Snapchat’s response to the hack is evident of their existence as a very young startup company. One particular issue is that a group of ‘white hat hackers’ – people who find holes in security so that companies can prevent these kinds of breaches – had explicitly told Snapchat that there were holes that could be exploited. Yet Snapchat ignored this and didn’t even admit to their mistake in not listening when they released a brief statement regarding the breach.

Though these breaches in security have been unfortunate for a lot of people, one website is trying their hardest to help people find out whether or not their account has been compromised. The website ‘haveibeenpwned‘ allows people to enter their e-mail addresses that are used for these accounts to find out if theirs are among the accounts that have been compromised by any of these recent breaches. The website checks Adobe, Snapchat, Stratfor, Gawker, Yahoo!, Vodafone, Pixel Federation, and Sony accounts.

What’s Happening with Foursquare?

Foursquare originated in 2009 as a social network that allowed its users to ‘check in’ to different locations. Whoever checked in to a location the most would be deemed the ‘Mayor’ of that location and some stores, restaurants, and bars would even offer bonuses to the Foursquare Mayor of the location. Users could earn badges based on the types of venues they were checking in to and could compare their scores with fellow Foursquare users, as well as find out where their friends were currently hanging out at. Initially, Foursquare was quite a popular service, but its popularity began to dwindle after other social networks like Facebook introduced their own ‘check in’ feature.

In an effort to remain relevant, the creators of Foursquare began to alter the model of the social network. Some people indicated that the alterations made to Foursquare appeared to emulate some of the features of Yelp, in that Foursquare began to shift its focus towards recommending locations to users that they might like based on the ones they most frequently checked in at.

Foursquare has attempted to make other attempts to stay relevant by adding new features that its creators believe that the social network’s users will find interesting. For instance, since the hype surrounding mayorships and badges is no longer what it used to be, Foursquare now alerts people with encouraging messages – such as statements regarding checking in at the gym a certain number of days in a row – that can be shared to other social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Another feature added was the Foursquare Time Machine, a visualization of one’s check-ins that allows Foursquare users to view a map of all the places they have checked in before and all the places they should visit next.

Though Foursquare may not be as popular as it once was, the social network still contains a lot of information that some people (and some companies) might find relevant. In particular, Yahoo appears to be expressing interest in the location data offered by Foursquare, in regards to using it for search results, content, and ads based on where a user currently is or the locations they have checked in to in the past. Though no official merger has yet occurred, Yahoo and Foursquare have been in talks for a partnership as of August.

iePlexus Social Media News Brief: March 31, 2010

Is China to blame for the latest Google drama? Twitter’s homepage gets a facelift, what some of you are saying about the new look? And why a few third graders are causing some of the biggest controversy of the year so far in today’s viral video… (more…)

iePlexus Social Media News Brief: February 24, 2010

Get all the latest headlines in today’s social media news brief! (more…)

Facebook Passes Yahoo As 2nd Most Visited Site

We already know that Internet users are spending most of their time on Facebook more than any other site.  Despite the time spent on the site, Google continues to dominate the web as the most visited site on the web. 

However a new report from Compete.com shows that Facebook has now taken out Yahoo as the second most visited site on the web.  At one time Yahoo dominated the web for sure, until about 2 years ago when Google stole the spot from the company.  And since then, most of Yahoo’s traffic has slowly been declining, as Facebook’s rapidly increasing.  (more…)

Google Gains Lead, Bing & Yahoo Fall Behind

The most recent report from Nielsen, shows that Google continues to dominate the search engines, but the most surprising news, is that they are gaining more users. The report documents the top 10 search engines for the month of December.  Google took 67.3% of those searches.  That’s nearly 6.7 billion people searching Google, compare that to only 1.4 billion on Yahoo!, which followed Google with only 14.4%.   That’s a drop from November, when Yahoo took roughly 15.3% of searches.  That’s close to an entire percent, which is drastic in terms of search.  Bing dropped to 9.9% of all searches, which is down from 10.7% in November.  It looks like those users went over to Google, since in November Google only had 65% of searches in November but jumped 2.3%.  (more…)

Social Media News Brief: Jan. 8, 2010

Social Media made a presence at CES, while Twitter starts nominations for the Shorty Awards! Find out all the details in today’s Social Media News Brief. (more…)

Bringing Yahoo To Your TV

To be frankly honest, it’s been a slow week in the social media world.  However, the Consumer Electronic Show (CES), currently happening in Las Vegas is making the week a bit better.  This year, it seems everything is about TV’s.  I shared with you earlier this week that Skype plans on bringing Skype to your TV screen soon.  Then the technology has made it so far advanced, we can expect to get 3DTV in our homes later on this year.  There is even a LG television that debuted which is only 7 millimeters thick, that’s the equivalent of just slightly over a quarter of an inch! 

While it’s hard to skip over that, Yahoo has decided they want to get into the television business.  Last June, Yahoo announced they were creating a widget which would help bring an internet experience to your television.  The company calls it’s Connected TV.  Thursday morning at CES, Yahoo announced they would be expanding their partnership and would start to make the widget available to the public today. (more…)