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Facebook and Indian telecom Reliance Communications collaborated on the launch, of Internet.org, which was announced on Tuesday.
The post Facebook Partners to Bring Free Data Access to India appeared first on Web Hosting Talk.
What’s new in tech news? We round it all up for you!
3D printing and its leaps and bounds in technological advancements is taking the market by storm, but how much is too much? Will the medical advances outweigh the ethical questions some people will have about bio printing body parts?
The newest networking site, is an app that promises everything in visual form. Wonderloop, which bills itself as “the world’s first video profile platform,” goes by their “vision” for a unique way of connecting with others — “creating a search engine of what life is all about: people.”
You can search out people by name, location, industry, and skills, make connections, and introduce others to your connections, all through a 20-second video. The ultimate “face” book!
Thinkr, an innovative, beta phase, new social network for the iPhone, just launched and is already being featured by Apple on the homepage of the App Store internationally.
The app works as a social network for hashtags. Users post one-word status updates that are geo-localized and are associated with an emotion. For each of the 12 available emotions users can have a different profile picture, or selfie. These status updates are visible to others in augmented reality, or can be overlaid on photos as clickable hashtags.
Users can “like” their friends content with feelings such as a “wow”, “envious”, or even a “funny”. The goal is to create a global mood graph through fun and innovative user experiences. The iPhone app is available for free on the App Store.
For people who think a bike helmet is clunky, ruins your hairdo, and just looks douchey, the solution was to look at the technology you find in your car.
A big brand-killing problem is employees who post inappropriate social media comments. PostBeyond has a unique solution to curbing what gets out on social media platforms by approving those comments and posts.
Rather HOW to make a touch-enabled jQuery plugin that lets you create beautiful responsive carousel slider for your website.
What are the top 5 sites preferred by teen users? Facebook isn’t one of them. See which sites deserve your social media attention!
Video is the new content for driving sales, leads, and connections. Viewbix has created a handy platform to help your marketing in a society that reads less, but watches more.
Thingcharger is one of those, “why-didn’t-I-think-of-that” devices that simplifies your life, and cleans up your cord clutter. Another piece of the future you can buy today!
Technology marches on, and the tablet moves forward to push the laptop into the stone age. The Crux 360 is the newest keyboard attachment for the iPad Air. Billed as, “the lightest and smallest keyboard case ever! Inserting and removing the iPad® is faster and easier than ever! In addition, we’d completely redesigned the hinge. The hinge automatically shuts and keeps the case closed with its “self-locking” feature. It also features an upgraded Apple-style keyboard which makes typing on the Crux360™ comparable to typing on a Macbook,” it promises to launch a host of other models from competitors for other brands of tablets.
The Crux360™ features four modes:
Laptop Mode: which allows use of the keyboard.
Movie Mode: great for watching movies and videos.
Tablet Mode: great for reading books or magazines.
Carry Mode: when not in use the Crux360™ closes up and protects your iPad’s® screen from nicks and scratches.
In other news, iTech writer has a MacBook Pro laptop for sale. All offers welcomed!
Top image ©GL Stock Images
(The Hosting News) – Facebook’s Luleå, Sweden data center is now up and running. The social network provider announced the move Wednesday, noting via a blog post that the facility was “now handling live traffic from around the world.”
The Luleå data center features a distinct location: The edge of the Arctic circle (Talk about server cooling!). The location makes use of “chilly Nordic air.”
Facebok based the location’s design on the Open Compute Project – an organization developed by the company with the idea of spreading more efficient blueprints in an open source manner.
“As our systems come online for the first time, we are proud to say that this is likely to be one of the most efficient and sustainable data centers in the world. All the equipment inside is powered by locally generated hydro-electric energy. Not only is it 100% renewable, but the supply is also so reliable that we have been able to reduce the number of backup generators required at the site by more than 70 percent,” stated the company.
The data center is used to provide for Facebook photos, comments, videos, likes, etc.
The Luleå facility represents the social network’s first venture outside the United States. Facebook maintains other locations in Oregon and North Carolina to handle its traffic.
The great social media tool, the “water cooler” for former coworkers and the chat-it-up place for friends to stay in touch keeps changing but not an evolution of usage, rather changing how the site uses YOU! Experts said it was coming. Once Facebook went public, it was only a matter of time for it to make use of the product. Unfortunately, in this free social site, you, the user are the product and it had to come down to how and to whom you would be sold.
When Facebook became a publicly traded company a short time ago, people had great expectations but others asked, what can Facebook do to make a profit for investors? Would ads still cover the need to show increasing profits to keep the stock rising? What else could they sell to make money? Slavery, although outlawed, seemed the only answer and Facebook jumped on it, basically without anyone really noticing… or do they?
Have you logged on and wondered who sent you a message because the message icon shows you have one or more messages but wondered why some online gambling site is sending you a message when you’re not a “friend” nor have you “liked” their page? Is there a post from a friend asking you to like a page and you find out that friend never placed that post? Pretty sneaky but someone is giving advertisers access to you and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Most savvy Facebook users grew tired of the third party apps long ago. No one cared who was burning down a barn in Farmville or treasured the “gifts” of icons given so freely to one or another after approving terms of service that gave access to your friend’s profiles and information. In a way, as someone once posted, it’s like turning your neighbors into the Gestapo for some cheesy picture collection of Star Wars spaceships. Okay, to some that was well worth the treachery. Little by little, people would warn their friends not to send requests for help in getting a badge in one of these time-wasting games and more than that, to stop giving permission for the information retrieval they still wanted private.
Sure, Facebook gives you choices for privacy, after they’ve changed the rules without notice and someone on your friends list posts ways of setting your privacy settings under the new smoke and mirrors Facebook changes. While you weren’t noticing the change, everything you’ve posted has been stored, shared and sold for someone else to use. I somehow doubt that Johnny Depp gave his permission to a denim retailer to use his picture for their Facebook ad. A friend of mine had to explain to her boyfriend about her picture adorning a sidebar ad for women who want to date mature men. Yes, it started years ago but it’s only getting worse.
In Nick Bilton’s New York Times article, ”Facebook Changes Privacy Settings, Again”
“There are a billion users and blocking is the ultimate way of saying I don’t want to interact with this person,” Facebook’s director of product, Sam Lessin said. “We think blocking is really positive.”
The company is also introducing a higher level of control on the site’s Activity Log, a feature that allows people to hide or remove things that appear on their Facebook timeline. People will now be able to quickly view and control comments, photos and posts that have been tagged by others.
But when Facebook giveth, Facebook taketh away.
The company is eliminating the ability for people to hide themselves on Facebook’s search, a control, that until now, has existed in the privacy settings on the company’s Web site.
Mr. Lessin said the ability to hide from the site’s search would be “retired” as only ”a single-digit percentage of users” actually hide themselves from Facebook search. But keep in mind that Facebook has a billion people on the site; a single-digit percentage of users could mean tens of millions of people.
Author, Geoffrey A. Fowler, in his Wall Street Journal article, “Facebook Sells More Access to Members,” writes:
To amp up the effectiveness of its ads, Facebook in recent months has begun allowing marketers to target ads at users based on the email address and phone number they list on their profiles, or based on their surfing habits on other sites.
It has also started selling ads that follow Facebook members beyond the confines of the social network.
Rankling privacy advocates most, Facebook is using its data trove to study the links between Facebook ads and members’ shopping habits at brick-and-mortar stores, part of an effort to prove the effectiveness of its $ 3.7 billion annual ad business to marketers.
Mr. Fowler goes on to explain how Facebook is using the power of the information about users at its digital fingertips:
At the core of Facebook’s expanding ad strategy is the fact that the social network knows a lot about its users’ true identities. While Google largely makes inferences about people based on their searching and browsing habits, Facebook is built on people volunteering personal information that’s valuable to marketers, including names, friends, phone numbers and tastes.
In September (of 2012), Facebook began allowing marketers with their own lists of email addresses and phone numbers to target ads at specific groups of Facebook users of at least 20 at a time. Facebook matches up that outside data with information users have entered into their profile.
A clothing store, for example, could use the service to target customers based on their past purchase habits, or a bank could target ads just at customers with high bank balances.
The information Facebook has, willingly thrown at them by almost a billion users, is a marketer’s wet dream. It’s all worth billions and billions of dollars to companies panting to buy access to it all. Will Facebook start selling it? They already are, although indirectly and still through their control.
Lori Andrews, writes in her New York Times article, “Facebook Is Using You” that your information makes you a prime target for certain ads:
Facebook makes money by selling ad space to companies that want to reach us. Advertisers choose key words or details — like relationship status, location, activities, favorite books and employment — and then Facebook runs the ads for the targeted subset of its 845 million users. If you indicate that you like cupcakes, live in a certain neighborhood and have invited friends over, expect an ad from a nearby bakery to appear on your page. The magnitude of online information Facebook has available about each of us for targeted marketing is stunning. In Europe, laws give people the right to know what data companies have about them, but that is not the case in the United States.
Naturally this “data aggregation,” as it’s known in the industry, has been a hot topic of late. In California and Illinois, for example, recently passed laws that makes it illegal for an employer to demand your Facebook password so they can access your account and see your activity. Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey and Delaware had also recently passed the same laws in 2012. This may help a potential employee to hide certain indiscretions, however, there in no law against an employer using search engines to see other material posted online and even Facebook postings are not excluded, depending on what is posted and how search bots may find those terms.
Ms. Andrews continues about the dangers of data aggregation on your personal life:
Stereotyping is alive and well in data aggregation. Your application for credit could be declined not on the basis of your own finances or credit history, but on the basis of aggregate data — what other people whose likes and dislikes are similar to yours have done. If guitar players or divorcing couples are more likely to renege on their credit-card bills, then the fact that you’ve looked at guitar ads or sent an e-mail to a divorce lawyer might cause a data aggregator to classify you as less credit-worthy. When an Atlanta man returned from his honeymoon, he found that his credit limit had been lowered to $ 3,800 from $ 10,800. The switch was not based on anything he had done but on aggregate data. A letter from the company told him, “other customers who have used their card at establishments where you recently shopped have a poor repayment history with American Express.”
Unfortunately, as reported in the Forbes article, “Employers Demanding Facebook Passwords Aren’t Making Any Friends,” it states the obvious:
“…as the job market steadily improves… some job seekers cannot afford to say no.”
If you have a fan or business page on Facebook, then you may wonder what this will mean to your business. Will data aggregation work against you? If users abandon Facebook, will your social media marketing efforts need to change drastically? The answer has to be, “no!”
Remember the “Facebook will start charging users” scam/spam/misinformation? Even if Facebook did start charging, almost like the premium service several social media/networking sites have, people are too addicted to Facebook to quit it. Likewise, despite the odd changes in privacy, businesses that have fan pages will continue to enjoy the social media boost. Will the data aggregation collected by Facebook hurt your business? Again, “no!” with a possible “maybe” thrown in.
As with any posting to the internet, a business must be careful of the content placed in a public forum. One slip and the world will “share” your blunder virally. It is now more important than ever to make sure the person or persons handling you social media outreach are careful, professional and sensitive to what they post in your name. Any posting will be somewhere on the internet forever.
As for your business information being shared or sold, it’s most probably being shared and sold through other methods such as the familiarity of the service or product and, in the long run, every business will benefit from the information being compiled about Facebook users. The more targeted your audience, the better of a ROI you’ll get for your advertising dollar with Facebook ads, so, in conjuction with a fan page, an ad can really push your visibility with like minded users higher than the old “shotgun” approach of advertising and help any business gain the much desired “1,000 true fan rule.”
The old saying, “you kiss your mother with that mouth?” (in reference to those who had a habit of cursing too much in public), is a reminder to all of us that our internet additions will define us to others and privacy is no longer a luxury for anything web related.
Images ©GL Stock Images
Oracle Collaborates with Mexico-Based Playful Play to Provide Infrastructure for Its Fast Growing Social Game
Latest Updates from MySQL
The title of this article says it all—”social” and “media.” Are you prepared to use both to your best advantage? Do you know how to control both? What do you do when both go haywire beyond your control? Whether you handle your own social media outreach or trust it to someone else, you need to know what is said for you, about you and to you. One slip and negativity about you and your brand is there for all to see forever!
Years ago, when I had a position as the gatekeeper of an iconic magazine, it was my unpleasant task of turning down people whose dream was to work for the magazine. Being in the position of having to dash hopes for what was the good of the brand, which also included wrangling freelancers and having to let some go when they couldn’t deliver on time or what was asked of them made me the target of hatred and spite. No matter how nice I was about it, when I would say, “I’m sorry but you just don’t fit our needs right now but please keep in touch,” which was the generic turn-down for the publishing industry, people no doubt heard me cursing and ripping out their hearts. For that, my name was trashed in chat rooms across the net.
Luckily, many years later, nobody seems to remember the passing insults and labels attached to me as most, if not all of those chart rooms were killed by technological advances and my name became mine to ruin across the internet. Quite a relief! Still, for several years after leaving that position, I would have to answer a question here or there about did I say this or that or really kick puppies, etc. I felt out of control about so many lies others so callously place on the web due to their own insecurities.
If you have a personal Facebook page and were not in a coma for the past few months, chances are you saw or were part of a discussion or flame war about the presidential candidates. You probably had a few open-palm-to-forehead moments at what other people said. Well, when your time in the spotlight comes, what will you do to reverse the damage? When it was my turn, I ignored what was being said and hoped my real reputation would cancel out the complaints as hot air from a few idiots. That was about a dozen years ago. Today there are better and more immediate ways needed to keep a clean web reputation.
When you post an opinion, either through an article, a Facebook post, a Pinterest post or a tweet, you invite others to comment and/or reply. Look at the example of Donald Trump’s election night tweets. His opinion’s brought damage to his reputation that will NEVER be forgotten and may have him explaining himself to the Secret Service on charges of inciting treason. While many think it was solely based on self-promotion, he chose the wrong route to get people talking about him and the damage is beyond control. Trump’s only choice is to fade into the background and wait for someone else to create a new scandal or to simply apologize and blame a chemical imbalance. The negativity, political pronouncements and fighting between democrats and republicans, liberals and conservatives, blacks, Latinos and whites, rich and poor will be felt and resented for years. No one knows how or if it will go away and that will hurt the business of this nation.
Several company CEOs have joined the fray by announcing firings, layoffs and hiring freezes due to the reelection of President Obama. It’s too early for them to comment about the backlash of their public announcements and the effect their businesses will feel. When the CEO of Chick-fil-A let his feelings on gay marriage known to the public, business for the chain took a reported income nose dive as well as receiving opposition from the mayors of Boston and Chicago to the building of new restaurants in those cities (although even THOSE response brought a backlash). It wasn’t long before he softened his stance to the public. Naturally, the businesses who stepped up in support of LGBT rights, such as Target and Amazon, took hits as well from those who support Chick-fil-A’s position.
The lesson learned is that sensitive topics that deal with sex, politics or religion has no place outside your own mind, in public. Free speech is a right but not a license to harm others and certainly not a right you want to exercise without considering the ramifications. Every word, every sentence and every thought will have a reaction. Business is, after all, business.
As too many businesses have found, having someone else do their social media outreach, unchecked, has brought similar problems of an angry public. In the Complex magazine article, ‘Bad Business: The 8 Worst Corporate Twitter Fails,’ there are some examples you might not think were breaking Twitter protocol. For instance:
When UK-based furniture store, Habitat, joined Twitter, it thought it unlocked the secret to getting its tweets in front of as many eyes as possible. Too bad all it did was find a new way to spam the Twitterverse. How? With hastag abuse. For a short period of time every tweet that came from the HabitatUK account contained one of the day’s top-searched, or trending hashtags that had nothing to do with the message of the tweet, placing the company’s tweets high in Twitter’s search results. All that resulted in was people crying foul and Habitat changing its ways.
Seemingly apropos of nothing, a Vodafone UK employee tasked with handling the telecommunication company’s Twitter account let loose an attack on homosexuals. The tweet was immediately removed and the employee, who tweeted, ‘VodafoneUK is fed up of dirty homo’s and is going after beaver’ on the company Twitter account, was fired.
Simultaneously managing two Twitter accounts could have dire consequences. Case in point: Instead of Tweeting from her personal account, American Red Cross worker Gloria Huang told the nation’s premier humanitarian organization’s 400,000 followers that she was about to get twistedly drunk with a friend. It was eventually taken down.
You know what’s not funny? Revolution. While people in Cairo were protesting and risking their lives for their freedom, Kenneth Cole decided to not only use the heavily searched #Cairo hashtag to prop up his results standings, but made light of the uprising with an off-colored joke by tweeting, ‘Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor has it they heard our new spring collection is in now available online.’ He later apologized for not being funny.
An employee of New Media Strategies, the company that handles Chrysler’s social media efforts, saw fit to voice his opinion of D-Town’s drivers to all of Chrysler’s followers by tweeting, ‘I find it Ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to fucking drive.’ Chrysler immediately had the “social media expert” fired and issued an apology.
While the company looked for someone to manage its Twitter account full time, Marc Jacobs CEO, Robert Duffy, thought it wise to put an intern in charge and solicit resumes. When the job proved too difficult the intern cracked and with three tweets created a harmful message:
‘You guys and gals have no idea how difficult Robert is. I am only an intern. My last day is tomorrow. I wouldn’t be tweeting this if not! Good luck! I pray for you all. If you get the job! I’m out of here. See ya! Don’t want to be ya! Roberts a tyrant! Seriously! He is tough! I can call him out! I’m out! Won’t work in this town again! I know that! Learned a lot. But, I don’t have the energy for what is expected! Yea, walk in my MJ shoes! Don’t judge me! I’m alone in this office having to try and entertain you all. This isn’t easy. I have tried. Done!’
A day after Amy Winehouse’s tragic, untimely passing, Microsoft’s UK PR team thought it’d be a good idea to encourage fans of the British superstar to pay tribute by going to its Zune store and buying her last album. The body wasn’t even cold!
An intern in charge of using social media outreach? Unfortunately, this is not the only example of such a foolish decision. A financial institution got into some hot water when two tweets appeared seconds apart with different loan rates:
‘Our rates come with a guarantee – lock this in for the next 30 days, 4.9%…’
‘We have great loan rates, really low, 5.3%.’
The reason this happened is because two people were tweeting remotely on the same account without talking to each other.
Some of the examples above just can’t be helped when an employee goes off their medication or just goes insane during the workday. Then again, some businesses, aside from feeling interns can handle all social media outreach, don’t understand the medium and hire Twidiots.
Experts say LinkedIn is a great way to increase the power of your personal brand. Post links to gain attention, answer questions to establish a reputation of being an expert in your field/industry and join groups to network and further establish professional reputation and connections. It never ceases to amaze me who people abuse the medium or embarrass themselves in front of peers on these groups. I often cite the words of the late Jackie Gleason (some say it was actually Walter Winchell), “be nice to those you meet on the way up, because they are the same folks you’ll meet on the way down.”
When eBay, for instance, announced its rebranding and showed its new logo, graphic design message boards on design groups were overactive with opinions on the logo design. Who were these people and were their opinions valid? Were they informed about the inner process that came up with the final solution? Were they just blathering rants of jealousy and bravado? From a group of professionals that are so adamant against design-by-committee, they sure formed their own committee to trash the design and the design firm that provided the work. I all of this internet declarations, what were they telling their peers about their own temperament and professionalism? Did they raise others’ opinions about their own capabilities through these critiques or did they seem mean spirited and invite critiques on their own work via links to their own portfolios, acting only to lower opinions about their professional standing?
When you flame someone, make false statements, bogus claims, show unwarranted bravado or put forth your opinion when it’s not appropriate, you are creating a reputation among peers you probably don’t want. As with social media managers who go insane in mid-tweet or those who decided I should be punished for not hiring them or demanding they actually meet deadlines, some people are just mean. Here’s an article that has some vile examples of personal attacks that affected people’s reputation and business. While the article recommends a professional reputation repair firm and that might be necessary for those who aren’t savvy about social media, there are other remedies.
The biggest mistake people make is ignoring their online reputation. Use several search engines and enter in your name (use several spellings, just use your first initial with your last name, any nicknames, etc.). Read everything! Do this regularly. If you find any really potentially harmful information about yourself that should be immediately removed, contact the owner of the site. If you do not get a response, a support team from the search engine should be able to help you have the harmful content removed.
Everyone agrees that negative comments should be addressed immediately. It’s best to keep a level head and answer/query why the person has posted something negative, how you can satisfy them (if they are a dissatisfied customer) or appear sympathetic to their view but correct any false facts or accusations calmly and in a conversational tone. In most cases, they will not respond but anyone who reads the thread will admire you for your stance and give little or no credence to the negative comment.
Nothing is private! Friends sometimes tag you in a photo with which you’d rather not be associated, someone mentions you in a tweet, etc. You can control what you make available through common sense… albeit in rare quantities these days. If a friend posts or tags something inappropriate, simply ask them to remove it.
Sometimes you can’t make the negative things disappear completely but you can always try to make it appear lower in search results where people are less likely to see it. ‘If you can get stuff that you want people to see to outperform the stuff you don’t want them to see, you’ll be able to reduce the amount of harm that that negative or embarrassing content can do to your reputation,’ says Google’s guide to protecting your personal information. Google and other search engines favor newer content, so it helps if this content is produced on a regular basis (for example: blog posts, Twitter and Facebook updates, press releases).
I had a boss who told me when I was hired that no matter what, apologize, even if you weren’t wrong. He knew this because he was always wrong and always apologizing for his actions. Sometimes you’re responsible for the mistake. A central tenet of crisis communications is to apologize as quickly as possible, so you don’t inflame the public or your bosses by appearing clueless or defiant. My boss held the belief that even if you’re not responsible for a mistake, it will placate people if you apologize. Learning to swallow your own pride is hard but necessary and usually before you open your mouth in the first place.
The answer is; never. Vigilance is now part of social media and social media is part of business. Whether you are a huge corporation, a small store or a freelancer/service provider, you need to be aware of your reputation. Part of marketing via social media is to constantly check what you are putting out there and how it is being received. An important part of social media, as mentioned in the first sentence of this article, is to BE social and that includes the general rules of manners and decorum. The practice of hiding behind the anonymity of a keyboard and screen name is for trolls and gamers. In business, transparency and professional demeanor is the utmost. Sometimes you just have to work really hard to make sure everyone is on board with the same dedication.
Images ©GL Stock Images