Facebook, Twitter Taking Up Your Time?

Dec 062010
 

Are you like the rest of the world right now?  Caught up in the fascination with Twitter and Facebook? You have tons of games to play or you get breaking news you can read before it even hits the reporters desk.  A new study from Travelodge shows that 72 percent of 6,000 people check their social networking before they hit the hay for the night.

Does this come as any surprise to you at all?  The study showed that British folk are all about their social networking as a way to end the day.  Unlike a good TV show or reading a book like you might have done 10 years ago.  The peak time for this activity seems to be falling around the 9:45pm mark.

Don’t worry there are plenty of other stats to go with the study as well.  According to the report, 18 percent say they have tweeted in bed, 20percent of adults checking Twitter for news about a favorite celeb and a whopping 65% check their text messages before going to sleep.  Do you think your social networking usage has taken over your life?

Let’s not even talk about social networking taking our time, 1 in 5 people in the survey claimed they have even stopped making love to check a new text message.  What is that all about?  Has social networking grown to be that big of a part of our lives?  Judging by these stats one would have to agree that it has.

Not too mention the fact that you are on these sites in the morning, while at work and right before bed, 27 percent said they have been awoken in the middle of the night by a new text message alert or email.  Now we are even losing sleep over social networking, this is getting very much out of hand.

source: GadgetsandGizmos.org

Twitter Has New CEO: Welcome Dick Costolo

Oct 042010
 
Credit: Flickr.com User:Joi

Twitter today announced via blog post that Dick Costolo is the new CEO while Evan Williams stepped down to do some more product analysis and promote Twitter like he did for past few years. Dick Costolo joined Twitter last year in September to build,  manage and organize how Twitter should bring the income stream. Continue reading »

Stephen Colbert Takes On Social Networking Sites | Funny Video

Aug 252010
 

Even though Stephen Colbert was making fun of Social Networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare and services like Gmail. I must admit that he has few valid points as to how are we going to protect our identity. Even if you are not into social media at all, people will still post pictures of you on Facebook, upload videos on YouTube and things like that. Anyway checkout Stephen’s Colbert funny video of the week on Social Media.

Source: Colbertnation.com and ComedyCentral.com

Interesting Trailers in Making Social Network Site Popular

Aug 132010
 

Really trailers are needed for today’s social network sites? Already we all knew it well that most of the popular social networks as Facebook, Twitter and many more crowded very much. Millions of active members with these social networks is a clear indication of their popularity. But, still their promotional trailers are worth watching.

The recent Facebook Movie trailer was not a bad thing to watch and perhaps can create some interest too. Today, the best parody so far came out: from Next New Networks’ Indy Mogul we have the trailer to imagined Twitter movie:

Choice Quote: “If Twitter was as boring and useless as they say, then someone would have tweeted it”.

Last week was the trailer for the YouTube movies:

Choice quote: Chad Hurley threatens keyboard cat:”you were nothing before me. I made you”.

Before that, My Space trailer:

Choice quote: Tom Anderson on competition with Facebbok: “you think I’m not looking over my shoulder? I’m always looking over my f******ing shoulder”.

While we’re at it, the LOLcats trailer:

Choice quote: “I’m talking about taking every middle-aged cat lady’s craziest fantasies and putting them online”.

And here’s the real “The Social Network” Trailer:

Who’s next-Foursquare?

Via gigaom

Get More Out of Twitter

Jul 302010
 

Twitter has positioned itself as a big player in the world of social networking; it has even become a place where sports stars, celebrities and movie stars hang out.  Despite this uptake though and celebrity endorsements there are still many who aren’t sure what the benefits of it are, or what to do with it.

If you’re falling out of love with the little blue bird or if you packed up and left long ago, maybe one of the following will go some way to entice you back…

Get Freebies – If there are brands or companies that you like or are particularly loyal to then start to follow them, send them feedback and you may find that they offer voucher codes and offers to Twitter users.

Reputation Management – Maybe one more suited for businesses, but using a tool like Tweetdeck, monitor mentions of your brand name and any other conversations mentioning you or your products.  Try and catch anything bad in the bud and stop it spreading.

Potential to promote your brand globally (for free!) – Whether you’re an emerging business like these software developers who are using Twitter as an extension of their PR and growing their followers, or are a recognised online brand with a loyal following such as these guys, the audience is there and with a bit of care and attention it can be possible to get your brand or product known in places you never could have dreamed of before.

Get advice – if you have a problem, be it technical, personal or trivial and are all out of ideas send it out into the Twittersphere and see if anyone out there can help, it’s surprising how willing people are to engage and comment on Twitter (think back to forums in the nineties), and as it is still relatively new it hasn’t become to overrun with spam.

Meet your hero! – Ok, this may not be true for every Twitter user!  However, some lucky followers of Lance Armstrong managed to bag a bicycle ride with him last year in Scotland when he invited them to join him for a ride.  I’m not sure he was expecting such a huge turn-out, but this sort of short notice ‘event management’ couldn’t have been communicated to such a captive audience in a more cost effective or speedy way (shame about the rain!).

Like Worm Invasion of Facebook. You Wont ‘Like’ it.

Jun 022010
 

Hackers are exploiting the ‘Like’ function on Facebook to infect members’ profiles by using a clickjacking attack!

According to Sophos; Hundreds of thousands of Facebook users have fallen for a social-engineering trick which allowed a clickjacking worm to spread quickly over Facebook over the holiday weekend.

The hacked profile will say that they have ‘liked’ a post on such as: “LOL This girl gets OWNED after a POLICE OFFICER reads her STATUS MESSAGE” or “This man takes a picture of himself EVERYDAY for 8 YEARS!!”

Clicking on the links will usually take the user to what appears to be a blank page with just the message “Click here to continue”.

The attackers used an invisible iFrame to load Facebook’s “Like” button on top of another page. The user believes that they clicked on an item on the visible page, users instead clicked on elements in the transparent iFrame.

Graham Cluely – senior technology consultant from Sophos – explained: “What the hackers have done is really sneaky. They hide an invisible button under your mouse, so wherever you click your mouse-press is hijacked, secretly clicking on a button which tells Facebook that you “like” the web page.”

If you click on one of the infected links with a PC based in Windows, you may become infected with the Troj/iframe-ET Trojan.

What you need to do is view the recent activity on your news feed and delete entries that seem unusual to you. You should also view your profile, click on your Info tab and remove any of the pages from your “Likes and interests” section. If you think you are infected, then you need to update your anti-virus and scan your system.

All your Social Networks in One Program

May 302010
 

If you’re like me and find it really annoying jumping between various Social-networking sites, then Tweetbookr maybe one ideal solution.

Tweetbookr lets you access Facebook and Twitter and Flickr. You also get options for managing your accounts. You can post updates to Facebook and Twitter simultaneously. Drag and drop to Flickr!

To use this application you will need Adobe AIR. If you don’t currently have Adobe AIR installed, dont worry, its easy enough. Simply download tweetbookr and the installation process will do all the hard work for you.

What tweetbookr can do

Twitter
  • Update your status (and copy the message to Facebook)
  • View your ‘home’ and ‘profile’ feeds
  • Reply, retweet and direct message your contacts
  • View incoming and send outgoing private messages
  • OAuth ready!
Facebook
  • Update your status (and copy the message to Twitter)
  • View your newsfeed and wall
  • Comment on status updates
  • Create new photo albums and drag ‘n’ drop to upload photos!
Flickr
  • View photos in your stream
  • Drag ‘n’ drop to upload photos
  • View your contacts recent uploads

 

Facebook user phone numbers freely available on the Web

May 262010
 

The Los Angeles Times has profiled on May 25, 2010 a new service called Evil.

What’s it all about?

A lot of users on Facebook use Groups, for example “Find my Phone” or similar! These Groups are Public or Visible to Everyone.  In Facebook Land, this means the World, including People who dont have a Facebook Account.  This also means that Google and other Search Engines can view the Phone Numbers.

This is not really a Facebook Privacy issue by any means but User Stupidity!

How does Evil work?

The Service was created by Tom Scott. whom you can find at tomscott.com,

 

This site randomly displays the private phone numbers of unsuspecting Facebook users.

Evil, searches Facebook groups etc to find posts left by users that include their phone numbers. It then displays the person’s name and all but the last three digits of their phone numbers on the site.

This Service is not doing anything illegal and is just doing something you could carry out yourself using Google etc.

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5 Facebook Alternatives

May 152010
 

As you may have heard Facebook is taking a lot of flack lately in regard to Privacy! With this in mind Users are leaving in droves!  There’s even an official leave Facebook Day on May 31 2010!

So if you decide to abandon Ship and leave Facebook, what alternatives have you got?  Well I have chosen what I believe might satisfy your apetite for seeing what your Friends are up to! Although this may be only if the decide to abandon Ship with you!

1. Diaspora

Diaspora, an open-source, decentralized social networking project being developed by four New York University students, has been getting a ton of press this week as Facebook comes under fire for its user privacy issues. The idea behind the project is to replicate the Facebook user experience that’s proven so popular, but to run the Diaspora social network on users’ own personal Web servers — called “seeds” — instead of in the centralized fashion that allows Facebook and other large, proprietary social networking companies to claim ownership of users’ content and marketable data while running roughshod over their privacy concerns.

2. MySpace

This is Personally one of my favorite Social Network’s.  In 2006 Myspace was King of the Social Network Scene with over 100Million Users!  MySpace was overtaken internationally by its main competitor, Facebook, in April 2008, based on monthly unique visitors.  On March 10, 2010, MySpace has undergone a revamp and some new features added like recommendation engine for new users which suggests games, music and videos based on their previous search habits. The website will also release several mobile micro applications for MySpace gamers besides sending them games alerts. The site may release 20 to 30 micro apps and go mobile next year.

3. Twitter

Twitter describes itself as a real-time information network powered by people all around the world that lets them share and discover what’s happening now.

Twitter asks the question“what’s happening” and makes the answer spread across the globe to millions, immediately.

Twitter is built on Open Source Software and one of its core beliefs is that with the open exchange of information can have a positive global impact.

4. Orkut

Google‘s operated social networking Web site has more than 100 million active users worldwide and is especially popular in Brazil and India. It’s free to join and although it has not had the same level of privacy issues to the level Facebook has, it has suffered period bouts of spam, fake profiles and use by various hate groups.

5. LinkedIn

LinkedIn has over 65 million members in over 200 countries. It is more of a Career focused Social Network in the sense that it focuses on you more as a Professional. Its a place where you can build relationships with likeminded professionals.

Of course theres many more and if you want to see a definitive list head on over to Wikepedia.

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Interesting Video: Revolution of Social Networks

May 082010
 

It’s Saturday and there is really not much going on in tech world but, I did find an interesting video about Social Networks. If you would compare Facebook users vs population in the world, Facebook would be 3rd largest country! Watch the video it has some interesting info for everyone.

Twitter 2010 You Suck!

May 052010
 

Lately I am just disappointed in Twitter, am sure that many others are too, at least those that are registered for few years.

For past few months I must say that there was not one thing which made any good impression as to why I should stay on Twitter?

Everything is F**ed up anyways.

Let me start with Trending Topics…

If I were @ev or @biz I would make sure person who monitors Trending Topics currently get’s fired because they are not doing good job at all. Kid out of nowhere is now trending every single day 24/7 for past month or two. You know who I am talking about? Justin Beaver I mean Bieber.

Trending Topics use to be fun, you could find very useful short information that are really important to many people and not just some 10 year old girl who is in love with some kid.

And what’s up with the constant trending topics like #liespeopletell (lies people tell) or #liesbitchestell (Lies Bitches Tell) WHO GIVES A Fu*k? There are more important things to trend.

Here is what Google trends: “cinco de mayo history”, “mexican independence day” , “gulf oil spill 2010”, “times square”

Now you tell me , what is more informative to you?

#LiesThatBitchesTell , #myJONASdream vs  #GulfOilSpill or Time Square?

Can you sense that I am fed-up with the whole Twitter deal? No wonder Facebook is still growing faster than any other Social Network. MySpace f**ed it up with promoting all kind of BS and the Glitter pages. Twitter is going that route too. Facebook is screwing around with our Privacy but at least they do something about it within a week. I am telling you, many people I talked to before are not Tweeting anymore, not even visiting Twitter at all, they just have automated tweets which promote their products or blog posts.

I remember the days when I use to have 2000  followers, If I tweeted something I would get 20-30 retweets. Now that I am almost close to 50.000 I am lucky if I get 10 retweets. Few of my friends that have bit over 1.000.000 followers get maybe 20 retweets on good tweet and about 50 on very good day. Which tells me Twitter business model isn’t going to work much here.

There is just too much spam, in Direct Messages, Tweets and overall security sucks.

I didn’t have morning coffee this morning, can you tell? Well now it’s of my chest…I would be really happy if you would share some thoughts about Twitter now vs Year or Two ago in comments.

The Way Lowdown Review on the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series

Feb 182010
 

During the festivities of this week’s Mobile World Congress, Microsoft took the opportunity to unveil it’s latest offering, the Windows Phone 7 Series. Technophiles may remember how underwhelming Windows Mobile 6.5 was when it was released way back in 2009. After viewing the demo and all available materials, though, its obvious that Microsoft went back and started from scratch this time around.

Continue reading »

FourSquare and Twitter Have Perfect Tools For Stalkers and Serial Killers

Feb 092010
 

FourSquare very well known social networking website lets you update your exact location you are at. By updating your status location via phone, you get cute little badges online that shows your travel skill and points. Not only FourSquare notifies all of your friends which allows you to import from Twitter, Gmail, Facebook etc…but also updates status with your location on Twitter, Facebook etc…

FourSquare to me looks like cute little web app that does some good things, but to be honest it could cause also serious life damages.

Examples:

Imagine you are an average girl but you have that one guy that you just can’t stand and he shows up everywhere because he knows your exact locations from FS or Twitter (Stalker).  In your lifetime you probably had that one jealous person that just couldn’t live without knowing where you are at the moment.Don’t worry FourSquare will feed that jealousy and questions that come after that “Where have you been? Who did you meet on 100th St at Starbucks?….

I first noticed that issue with Twitter, many smartphone apps now days allow you to use GPS location and update your Bio Location according to where you are located at.

Now imagine you being someone like @BobbyBillard do you really think it’s great idea to have your location updated where you EXACTLY live at? I don’t think so!

Just imagine the magnitude of information you are giving out to the world now days and not just your followers. Yeah it’s fun to let people know that you are at @chipotle on 86th or MacWorld event but 10feet accuracy where you live at?

Have you tried MIT Personas? I freaked out how much info I got from it about my self and OTHERS!

Just Think About it…..

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