While plenty of newspapers and other media entities are happy to use social tools like Twitter and Facebook to promote their content, few are really engaging with their readers on a regular basis, says Reynolds Journalism fellow Joy Mayer — but that is the future of media. Read more »
The Apple Store went down this morning, and there’s still no official explanation as to why. But one thing did change: all Mac Pro and iPod classic models now feature drop down arrows that let you share the product on either Facebook or Twitter. Read more »
As Britain ponders a crackdown on social media and uses facial recognition to try and identify looters, it reinforces the fact that spending more of our time on public networks such as Twitter and Facebook gives police and governments even more ability to observe our behavior. Read more »
Did you know that nearly 40% of all tweets come from a mobile device. Nearly 56% of Twitter users are women and 70% of Twitter accounts are based outside of the US. These and more Twitter facts can be found this infographic. Read more »
Can we find clues about the future of news and journalism in the way a link-sharing site like Reddit operates? We just might be able to — and it’s a good reminder that the replacement for mainstream news media may look very different from what we expect. Read more »
Feed-based UIs are powerful because they encourage frequent usage and participation. They’re becoming one of the most important ways to present information, and are critical areas of competition in social networking and ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
A Wall Street Journal columnist says that blocking access to social media during emergencies isn’t a big deal, and that “techno-utopians” are over-reacting. But are they? Or are these kinds of moves a step on a slippery slope that leads to Chinese-style control over information networks? Read more »
It seems totalitarian states like Egypt aren’t the only ones struggling with the impact of social media and the desire to muzzle services like Twitter and Facebook. Britain says it’s considering a ban on social media in the wake of the riots in London. Read more »
With temperatures reaching record highs, so do the number of heat-related tweets: Twitter sees up to two million weather tweets each day. The Weather Channel will now feature some of those tweets on air and on its website, thanks to an ambitious Twitter integration plan. Read more »
Google+ is the company’s latest attempt to get access to the kind of data users generate when they post status updates, share photos and post comments. These social “signals” are becoming a crucial part of our online lives, and that is affecting the entire search industry. Read more »
Twitter has rolled out two new features to help users know which of their tweets resonate with their social graph, and to get a better look at the activity of the people they follow. The new features appear to be designed to boost Twitter’s “stickiness” factor. Read more »
The recently rolled out Google+ is Google’s latest effort to get a handle on something that so far has eluded the company: gaining access to the data users generate when they post status updates, share photos and comment on friends’ activities. More and more, these social ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
A recent batch of product and funding announcements points to a real trend: the infrastructure and business ecosystem for social media advertising is developing rapidly. That’s good news for marketers – and even for Facebook competitors – as it is critical for growing the market beyond ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
A look at which types of trending topics can be captured in Twitter data, the important ways they can be characterized, and the key distinguishing features of trends. Read more »
Attention webscale aficionados, Twitter plans to open source its Hadoop-like real-time data processing tool known as Storm. The social service nabbed the code through its acquisition last month of BackType, and says it’s a better tool for processing streams of data. Read more »
A report examining the success rate of European venture capital compared to the U.S. sparked heated discussion. But some argue that even the best statistics ignore the real problems that face entrepreneurs and investors — no matter which side of the Atlantic they are on. Read more »
Confirming weeks of speculation, Twitter announced Monday it has closed on a “significant” amount of new funding led by Russia-based venture capital firm DST Global. The specific amount raised has not been disclosed, but various reports have pegged the round at $800 million. Read more »
Are those who post unverified reports on Twitter playing an important role in the new ecosystem of news, or being irresponsible and indulging in gossip? That question goes to the heart of the idea of news as a process rather than a finished product. Read more »
The growing interest in local food and food safety has spurred a small community of technologically minded entrepreneurs to create a range of food-oriented social applications. Their goal? To open up the food chain from the farm to our mouths and make it possible for consumers, ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
One of the reasons why Twitter is so powerful is that you can post to it from anywhere — including a funeral, which is where a Boston Herald reporter posted some updates and got a lot of criticism. Are there things we shouldn’t tweet about? Read more »
Project Runway viewers are already big social media users, sharing thoughts about the show while watching it live. So why not use Twitter as a way for fans to vote for their favorite contestant. That was the thinking behind Project Runway‘s Fan Favorite contest. Read more »
Most mainstream news websites still look like newspapers because most of them still approach the journalism they do in a traditional way — and until they embrace the idea of real-time and “news as a process,” the way that their websites look is unlikely to change. Read more »
IT managers now face a new challenge in the enterprise: the significant presence of a new generation, the Millennials, in today’s digital workplace. These young employees were born in the 1980s or later; they were raised with ever-present mobile phones and ubiquitous online access and social media, and they often demand access to those services and devices while at work. This report, the first in a two-part series, surveys Millennials about their use of technology at work, with a particular focus on how they communicate and learn and what they expect in regard to technology support. We aim to assist IT and tech-support management by pointing out the opportunities Millennials present and also the potential pitfalls. Companies mentioned in this report include Facebook, Google and Twitter. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Nodeable, a San Francisco–based startup that uses social-media tactics to provide analytics on cloud-computing infrastructure, has closed a $2 million Series A round from True Ventures. Essentially, Nodeable feeds customers data about the performance of their cloud resources via a Twitter-like stream. Read more »
Yahoo is still the biggest online property in the U.S., with fairly sturdy content and communications assets, but its options for restoring growth are getting fewer. Yahoo must re-energize its business around video, a social advertising network and/or syndication, or sell itself to Microsoft or AOL, ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Yahoo reported another disappointing quarter, with core revenues down 5 percent to just over $1 billion. Its display advertising business was up 5 percent, but it appears to be losing share to companies like Google and Facebook. Yahoo is still one of the biggest online properties […] Read more »
There’s been a lot of sound and fury about Google and its handling of Google+ branded pages, but there is a serious issue underneath the griping, namely that Google can make or break a company’s presence online by virtue of its control over the web-search market. Read more »
Maybe it’s the influence of Google+, but suddenly everyone seems to be talking about what’s wrong with Twitter. First, blogger Robert Scoble said it was “boring,” and now Slate columnist Farhad Manjoo says it needs to lose the 140-character limit. Both are missing the point. Read more »
San Francisco–based VidCaster is taking the beta tag off its online video distribution platform, opening for anyone to sign up. For example, companies that want to use video for marketing but don’t have the resources to build and maintain a whole site themselves. Read more »
Google just announced it is ending its Labs program in an effort to focus more on its existing products, and a collective gasp went up around the Internet. My first thought was, “Oh my God, what will happen to my multiple inboxes and Auto-advance features?” Read more »
Twitter wants to be “the world in your pocket,” according to CEO Dick Costolo — but more than anything, it wants to be the engine of mobile and real-time commerce in your pocket, judging by his comments at the Fortune BrainstormTech conference in Colorado on Tuesday. Read more »
The turmoil created by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation has pulled back the curtain on the cosy relationship between politicians, police and the media. But those who are angriest seem reduced to stunts — hacking websites and throwing pies. Is this really the best we can do? Read more »
Using social-media tools has become almost a necessity for musicians and artists of all kinds, as a way of promoting their work and connecting with fans. But can doing all this get in the way of the creativity that makes them artists in the first place? Read more »
Big data and Platform-as-a-Service offerings highlighted the second quarter, suggesting that we can expect to see a shift in enterprise IT practices around application development and analytics very soon. On the PaaS front, we saw new projects like DotCloud and Cloud Foundry gain incredible momentum in just a few short months. The big-data activity ranged from major new Hadoop vendors to heavy investment in flash storage that will speed the serving of data to processing engines. In other areas, we saw an uptick in cloud-computing plans from large vendors, OpenStack continued to mature and pick up both contributors and users, and Facebook caught our eye by launching an open-source project around the designs for its specialized servers and data centers. Additional companies mentioned in this report include VMware, Salesforce.com, IBM, Heroku and Calxeda. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Michael Dell likes Google’s new group video chat service Hangouts so much he wants to use it as a tool for customer service and sales. Dell revealed his thoughts about Hangouts on Google+, the social network that Google launched at the end of last month. Read more »
According to multiple reports, Twitter is close to launching in-stream advertising, including a self-serve platform that will allow companies to inject ads into the network in real time. But how will users react to this intrusion? Forrester Research’s CEO says the move is a big mistake. Read more »
We all have our secret Lady Gaga songs tucked away in our playlist or the 80s’ Monster Ballads that are loved rather than laughed at, so now as Spotify comes to the U.S., here’s how to avoid sharing the skeletons in your musical closet. Read more »
The latest mobile app to enter the social-video-sharing fray is Vibop, which makes it drop-dead simple to polish your videos and add effects before sharing them with friends. The app is free to download and plans to make money by selling effects in-app. Read more »
LocalResponse — a marketing platform that allows advertisers to send out targeted tweets to consumers based on where consumers have checked in or where they say they are on social networks — has found that its targeting work is paying off with significant engagement from consumers. Read more »
Comments from some prominent ex-Googlers seem to show the company still sees social networking as an engineering problem. While it’s nice the web giant is paying attention to social behavior at all, can it ever understand social networks if it just sees them as data-producing engines? Read more »
