Social Media

Facebook CEO Addresses Privacy Concerns

Last week we reported on the public outcry following changes to Facebook’s privacy policy, and as they have been in the past, Facebook was quick to address the issue. After Congress sent a letter to the company in response to numerous complaints, Facebook executives met last week to begin discussing the issue. Following a report from the Wall Street Journal, which expounded loopholes in the company’s privacy policy, Facebook announced it would be making changes to the privacy policy and settings in the near future. In addition, in today’s op-ed section of the Washington Post, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg answered many questions concerning the site’s privacy policies and settings.

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Changes to Privacy Policy Bring Scrutiny to Facebook

For time immemorial, privacy has been a cornerstone of democracy and free societies. Although people now post personal photographs, messages and other information haphazardly on the internet, there is still the notion that social media sites, e-mail and other web-based communiqué come with a certain level of privacy. Websites like Facebook and MySpace have extensive privacy policies that outline how your personal information is used and who will have access to it—although few, if any, people ever take the time to read these documents thoroughly.

In recent months, Facebook has come under scrutiny for several changes the company has implemented in its privacy policy. Instead of receiving protection from stringent privacy settings, which used to be the case, users now have to alter the settings themselves if they wish to keep particular information private. The company has even announced that it will be sharing user information with third-party sites.

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YouTube Users to Soon Charge for Videos

In April, YouTube released a movie rental service that would allow users to watch a small selection of movies directly from the site. In a recent interview with Media Post, Hunter Walk, director of project management, said the site will allow users to charge a rental fee for their online videos. 

The details of the new rental program are still scarce, but will likely allow any user to sign up with the program, regardless of how many views they’ve had on YouTube. Users who rent the films will likely have access to the video for a 24-hour period and will be charged anywhere from $1-$6. (more…)

Facebook Decals Coming to a Business Near You

Whether it’s your favorite cupcake shop, the car dealership down the street or the place where you get your coffee every morning, it appears that neighborhood businesses nationwide have jumped onto the social-media bandwagon. Facebook, in particular, has become one of the most essential tools in business advertising and marketing; and now, the social network is moving from the web to storefront windows.

Tim Kendall, Facebook’s director of product marketing, sent a letter to the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, Calif. this week, which also included a Facebook decal, to say:

“We invite you to place it prominently on your window or sales counter, since businesses that promote their Page off-Facebook tend to see a 20 percent or greater increase in connections.” (more…)

Facebook Coming To A Website Near You

The social in social media and social network is about to become even more social. On Wednesday, Facebook announced they will be reaching out to other sites around the world in order to bring the web together. What does that exactly mean and how will it impact everyone’s Internet experience? Let’s explore this notion.

Most avid Facebook users are familiar with the “Like” button, which usually shows that they’re interested in a friend’s status updates, photos or links. According to Facebook, the average user clicks “Like” on at least nine pieces of content each month. (more…)

Facebook To Link Profiles & Pages Together

Facebook announced Monday that they will roll out a new feature designed to connect all user interests and Fan Pages in what the company is calling Community Pages. At the end of March, the social network removed the “Become a Fan” option from Fan Pages and changed it to “Like” so that users could “openly express” themselves, explained Alex Li, a Facebook software engineer, who wrote in a company blog post that the Community Pages are linked to the new Like term. 

“Community Pages are a new type of Facebook page dedicated to a topic or experience that is owned collectively by the community connected to it,” Li writes. (more…)

Twitter Goes Into Library Archives

We are always told we need to be careful what we post on the internet because it could one day come back to haunt us. Now matter how far back we’ve posted, our tweets could come back to haunt us. That’s because on Wednesday, The Library of Congress announced they will now archive all public tweets dating back from 2006.

“The Library’s primary mission is research and it receives copies of every book, pamphlet, map, print, and piece of music registered in the United States,” said Twitter CEO Biz Stone in a blog post. “Recently, the Library of Congress signaled to us that the public tweets we have all been creating over the years are important and worthy of preservation.”

According to the Library of Congress, “The Library has been collecting materials from the web since it began harvesting congressional and presidential campaign websites in 2000. Today we hold more than 167 terabytes of web-based information, including legal blogs, websites of candidates for national office, and websites of Members of Congress.”

The news broke on Twitter yesterday afternoon and the response from the Twitter community has been mixed.  Melissa Fazli, an avid Twitter user said she was excited about the announcement and tweeted, “We are a part of history.  Awesome!”

Twitter’s Population Is How Big?!

Twitter is all about change this week.  Yesterday the company announced they will begine to add advertisements known as “Promoted Tweets” to the site.  Today the company is answering the question that’s been on everyone’s mind for years.  “How many people are actually on Twitter?”

Twitter CEO Biz Stone announced at the companies first developer conference, Chirp, that the site has exactly 105,779,710 users.  Obviously that number has jumped since this morning, but that’s about a third of the US population and about 25% of Facebook’s population.  The number is quite an accomplishment and is on the right track to be the next to Facebook. (more…)

How Twitter Is Making Now Money

Twitter has launched it’s advertising platform, which many have been anticipating for months.  Obviously, Twitter has to make money some how and today is the day that ad’s are introduced to the site.  And like Biz Stone said back in November, “It’s going to be amazing.” The best part seems to be that the ad platform seems to be well liked in the first hour of it’s debut.

Unlike most ad’s which can take up plenty of room, ad’s on Twitter come in a small box underneath a tweet, saying “Promoted by…” which will come up in search results.  In all honesty, it doesn’t take up to much room and doesn’t make the site look awful, however it’s still noticeable, which is good news for businesses that are going to want to jump on board. (more…)

Twitter Buys Tweetie App

Twitter announced on Friday that they have offically purchased Atebits, the company which produces the Tweetie iPhone application along with a desktop application for Mac’s.  It’s the first time Twitter has linked up and purchased a fellow company, which is just sign at how well the social network is doing.  

Loren Brichter is Tweetie’s creator, and will be part of the Twitter mobile team.  In a blog post last Friday, Twitter said that the iPhone app will change it’s name from Tweetie to “Twitter for iPhone, and will be made free within the next several weeks. 

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