Social Networking

Report: State-Sponsored Cyberattacks Heat Up in 2012
April 23, 2013

State-sponsored cyberespionage incidents tripled over last year, according the 2013 Verizon Data Breach Report. 96 percent of those attacks were attributable to East Asia. Verizon's study, which analyzed 47,000 security incidents, expanded its contributors this year to 19, including a wider range of worldwide law enforcement agencies. Three key types of cyberattackers were identified in the report.

More A-List Brands Will Join the Tweet Chorus
April 23, 2013

Twitter will soon significantly expand its advertising reach after the social network agreed to a deal with Publicis' Starcom MediaVest Group, one of the world's largest advertising agencies. Starcom's top clients, which include Coca-Cola and Microsoft, will now win some of the premier advertising slots on Twitter. The two companies will also gain access to each other's demographic research and user data.

Social Sharing May Be Eroding Office Security
April 22, 2013

It's no secret that security experts don't have a lot of love for social media. Information freely available at social media sites makes it easier for net marauders to fashion targeted attacks on organizations. However, social media may be undermining data security in a more profound way. Much has been made of the growing willingness of people to cough up personal information about themselves.

Twitter's #Music Whistles a Happy Tune
April 18, 2013

Long before a tweet was a 140-character post on Twitter, it was a component of birdsong. Now the microblogging site is singing the praises of its new Twitter #Music, an app that will help users find tunes they'll like, based on their current preferences and songs' popularity on Twitter. The app utilizes Twitter activity, including tweets and other engagements, not only to identify the most-popular tracks, but also to detect emerging artists.

Cue the Video for Facebook's Maturing Ad Platform
April 18, 2013

Facebook may soon be adding video ads, a key step in the development of an advertising platform that needs to draw interest from brands that may have previously questioned its return on investment. Video ads could start to run on Facebook as early as June or July, according to published reports. Ad slots could be capped at 15 seconds.

How to Get Loopy With Vine
April 18, 2013

A flash-in-the pan, or a truly spellbinding new way to share video? Vine is a free Twitter product that is designed to let you share short video, and its popularity is escalating fast. Vine's social video clips are limited to six seconds. They loop. The idea is to be as comedic or creative as possible within the limitations of the medium, and many of the videos are indeed captivating.

EA Spurns Social Game Wallflowers
April 16, 2013

Electronic Arts will shut down three of its less popular games on Facebook, citing waning interest in some of the company's social network offerings. Starting June 14, The Sims Social, SimCity Social and Pet Society will not be available to Facebook users. It was a difficult decision to kill the games, EA said, but user interest had plunged despite an initial positive response after the games launched.

What We Think We Know About Twitter Music: Presumably Uncondensed
April 15, 2013

Twitter has officially announced its forthcoming push into the digital music space. After weeks of rumors, including one that promised such a service would officially launch over the weekend, Twitter has announced that something, indeed, is coming. On Friday, Twitter made public its music website. Then it slightly revised the wording over the weekend to say "coming soon." There is a link inviting users to sign in.

LinkedIn's Mobile Strategy Gets a Pulse
April 12, 2013

LinkedIn on Thursday announced the $90 million acquisition of newsreader app Pulse, as the professional social networking site looks to add to its content and mobile strategies. Pulse, launched in 2010 by two Stanford University students, allows users to browse multiple media sources, including social networks, to choose the content they want to read.

Konnichi-Whoops! Japanese City Accidentally Tweets About North Korean Attack
April 12, 2013

The official Twitter page for the Japanese city of Yokohama announced that "North Korea has launched a missile." This would be scary if true, but because it didn't actually happen, it's just kind of embarrassing. The tweet, which was sent out to 40,000 followers, had been drafted in case, you know, North Korea actually did attack. It had blank spaces to indicate the time of the rocket launch. The city deleted the tweet and apologized to its followers.

Facebook Slices, Dices Consumers to Refine Ad Targeting
April 11, 2013

Facebook added another level of targeting to its advertising strategy Wednesday with the introduction of partner categories, a self-service feature that uses data collected from other channels to deliver ads on the social network. Partner categories will let advertisers target Facebook users based on browsing and purchase history, occupation, a wide range of specific interests, and location.

Who Gets LinkedIn When an Employee Is Kicked Out?
April 10, 2013

After almost two years of litigation, a federal judge has ruled on a dispute between an employer and former employee over control of a LinkedIn account. The case turned on a specific Pennsylvania law about using the likeness of another individual, so the impact may be limited, but since there is so little litigation concerning LinkedIn or other social media sites, it is important to understand the issues and implications.

Eggs in HTC's One Basket Showing Some Cracks
April 09, 2013

HTC announced earnings for the first quarter of 2013 that were decidedly not pretty. Its net profit dropped some 98 percent -- the lowest quarterly earnings for the company since its launch in 2006. HTC posted $1.4 billion in revenue for the quarter ending March 31, 2013, a 37 percent drop year over year. Simply put, these numbers are dismal, said Andreas Scherer, managing partner of Salto Partners.

Facebook Home: Brilliant Stroke or Desperate Measure?
April 08, 2013

Political and economic news from around the globe may bombard us with annoying regularity here in the tech community, and as most of us know, the news is almost always bad. That, of course, is why it's such a good thing we have Facebook to filter out what we don't want to hear. It's also why we all waited in rapt attention for the Facebook Home announcement.

Tweets Added to Bloomberg's Financial News Portfolio
April 06, 2013

The Bloomberg business and financial news service has begun streaming Twitter feeds to the 310,000 subscribers to its Bloomberg Professional service, including many who work in front of the media company's terminals that are widely used on Wall Street and in the finance industry. Bloomberg classifies tweets by company, asset class, person and topic. Its Twitter filter lets users control and specify what they want to monitor.

Facebook Stretches Out on Android's Couch
April 04, 2013

Facebook on Thursday announced a family of Android-based smartphone apps called Facebook Home, which can be downloaded from Google Play. "We're going to talk about how you can transform your Android phone into a great social phone," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at a company event. He added that the company doesn't want to build "a phone or operating system that only some people are going to use."

Twitter Hands Devs Some New Playing Cards
April 03, 2013

Twitter announced updates to its Cards feature for developers Tuesday. The enhancements enable greater integration of media and apps, and target mobile users of the social network, but the overall goal is to allow developers to stuff more content in and around a typical tweet while maintaining the 140-character tweet limit for texts.

SEC Lets Companies Go Social With Market-Moving News
April 03, 2013

The Securities and Exchange Commission released a new set of disclosure rules Tuesday that allow executives to use social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to update investors about significant corporate announcements that fall under Regulation Fair Disclosure mandates. As long as executives alert their investors about which blog or social networking sites will be used to post announcements, CEOs can fill those online venues with news about their companies.

All Things Appy: Top 5 iOS Video Camera Apps
April 03, 2013

Video cameras have been one of the killer hardware features in the smartphone revolution, and Apple's iOS platform for iPads and iPhones has made an important contribution to the video camera app market. Twitter's Vine lets you create arty 6-second looping videos for distribution on social networks including Facebook, Twitter and the Vine network.

Russian Clampdown on Web Content Raises Red Flags
April 01, 2013

The Russian government is using a law passed last year to restrict online content, and three major social networks have removed content authorities deemed objectionable. The Russian law created a blacklist of sites containing child pornography, drug-related and extremist material, and other illegal content.