Posts tagged as:

social media

Facebook for Windows Phone Version 2.3 officially announced

February 15, 2012

Microsoft announced the release of a new version of Facebook for Windows Phone. The new version, 2.3, is now available from Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace. You can also update the app through the Marketplace on your phone.

Facebook for Windows Phone 2.3 Facebook for Windows Phone Version 2.3 officially announced

The update includes improved design and support for several new Facebook features. There’s Pages view, the ability to access Groups, and see the Likes on any posts or photos, as well as the ability to apply filter to your News Feed. All your requests, messages, and notifications sits at the top of the main interface.

A refined toolbar at the bottom provides quick access to Check in, Add (post, or add/take a new photo.)

“Test out your groups. Visit your pages. Look at who like your posts. Change the banner image. Check out the improved news feed performance. Use the new filters. Explore the improved navigation,” Microsoft said on said..

There is no full Timeline support though. Hopefully, we will see a full integration of the feature in the next update.

There are about 1.4 million active users of the Facebook app for Windows Phone, according to the Next Web.

If you use Facebook app for Windows Phone, do share your thoughts on this updated version.

{ 0 comments }

Facebook, Twitter Harder To Resist Than Sex, Alcohol Or Tobacco

February 6, 2012

Do you feel like your cravings for Facebook is more than alcohol or tobacco?

fb addict 01 219x300 Facebook, Twitter Harder To Resist Than Sex, Alcohol Or TobaccoA new study from the University of Chicago found that the urges to check social media and work were the harder to resist than sleep and sex, alcohol, or tobacco.

A team led by Wilhelm Hofmann at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business carried out the study. Subjects aged 18-85 in Wurtzburg, Germany were given blackberries to monitor their carvings for social media.

The researchers sent messages to the subjects seven times over 14 hours a day for seven days, asking them if they were experiencing or had the urge within the last 30 minutes to check social media, what type it was, the strength of it, whether it conflicted with other desires, and whether they resisted or went along with it. 10,558 responses and 7,827 “desire episodes” were reported.

The researchers found that as the day went by, willpower became lower. The highest “self-control failure rates” were reported with social media, and the desire to work. The subjects were relatively successful at resisting sports inclinations, sexual urges, and spending impulses, and the level of desire for alcohol, tobacco, and coffee were much lower despite their addictive properties.

It is relatively difficult to resist the urges to check social media because they are useful and cost nearly nothing, Hoffmann said.

“Resisting the desire to work when it conflicts with other goals such as socialising or leisure activities may be difficult because work can define people’s identities, dictate many aspects of daily life, and invoke penalties if important duties are shirked,” the researchers told the Guardain.

Resisting a particular urge frequently or recently sap a persons’ willpower, making it easier to cave in the next time.

The full result of the study will soon be published in the journal Psychological Science.

{ 0 comments }

Facebook 8th Anniversary Timeline – From Dorm Room To Nasdaq

February 5, 2012

Facebook, the world’s most popular and largest social networking site, turned eight on February 4, 2012. Facebook has an estimated 845 million active users, and the social networking giant continues to grow, since its launch on February 4, 2004 and is most likely to cross the 1 billion users mark by August this year.

Facebook, initially built the service exclusively for Harvard students, has become a household name all over the world. Here is a quick peek at Facebook’s own Timeline – the journey from a dorm room to Nasdaq.

2004

  • February 2004: Founded under the name thefacebook.com at Harvard University
  • September 2004: Introduced the Facebook Wall, a forum for users to post quick witty messages to their friends. Lawsuit filed against Facebook claiming that Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from a company co-founded by twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and a third person at Harvard.
  • 2004: Began to expand to colleges and university around the country, and recorded $382,000 in revenue.

2005

  • May 2005: Grew to support more than 800 college networks.
  • August 2005: “Thefacebook.com” officially becomes “Facebook.com,” after the Facebook domain is purchased for a whopping $200,000.
  • September 2005: High school students are given the ability to join Facebook. Added international school networks and introduced Photos.
  • December 2005: Facebook cross the one million users mark.
  • 2005: Recorded $9 million in revenue.

2006

  • April 2006: Launched Facebook Mobile.
  • May 2006: Expanded Facebook’s availability to workplace networks, allowing people with corporate email address to join.
  • July 2006: Mark Zuckerberg turns down an $800 million offer from Yahoo to acquire Facebook.
  • September 2006: Facebook begins to let anyone over 13 years of age to join. Introduce News Feeds.
  • November 2006: Launched Share feature on over 20 partner sites.
  • 2006: Recorded $48 million in revenue.

2007

  • February 2007: Facebook launches Facebook gifts, a virtual memento for a low cost of $1.
  • May 2007: Facebook officially launches Facebook Platform, setting a stage for third-party developers to come in and build apps and games within Facebook’s network, and Facebook Pages.
  • October 2007: Facebook agrees to sell a 1.6 percent stake to Microsoft for $240 million.
  • November 2007: Launches ad platform “Beacon”, which post updates on users profile when users interact with partner sites. Users responded with a class-action lawsuit, prompting Facebook to shut the feature down in late 2009.
  • 2007: Recorded $153 million in revenue

2008

  • April 2008: Introduced Facebook Chat.
  • July 2008: Facebook launches it first official mobile app, “Facebook for iPhone.”
  • September 2008: Facebook officially switches all users over to the then “new profile,” or Facebook 3.0 – A Facebook profile like the one we had before Timeline, but with tabs for our wall, info, photos, and other apps….ah..you remember now… There were many users back then too, who were unhappy with the switch.
  • December 2008: Launched Facebook Connect, the next iteration of the Facebook platform.
  • 2008: Expanded to 23 languages offered including French, German, and Spanish.
  • 2008: Recorded $272 million in revenue.

2009

  • February 2009: Introduced the Like button, a lazy way for users to show their appreciation for things they care about both on and off Facebook.
  • May 2009: Launched Facebook Payments.
  • June 2009: Surpassed MySpace as the leading social network in the US.
  • July 2009: Facebook crosses the 250 million active users mark.
  • 2009: Recorded $777 million in revenue.

2010

  • April 2010: Introduced Open Graph API and social plugins – a set of easy-to-use modules allowing anyone to integrate with the Facebook Platform.
  • July 2010: Facebook’s active user base crosses the 500 million mark.
  • August 2010: Facebook launches “Places,” a location-based service, allowing users to share where they are with their friends…..and strangers.
  • October 2010: Launched Groups, a shared space for users to discuss common interests. “The Social Network,” a movie about Facebook, hit the theaters and went on to win 3 Academy awards.
  • November 2010: Launches the new message system, where all of a user’s conversation history of messages, SMS, IM with a individual are combined into one communication string. Facebook users gets an @facebook.com email address.
  • 2010: Recorded $1,974 million in revenue.

2011

  • June 2011: The Winklevoss twins end their legal battle over the idea behind Facebook.
  • July 2011: Facebook teams up with Skype and adds video chatting.
  • September 2011: Introduced Timeline, an enhanced and updated version of the Facebook Profile. Launched the next iteration of Open Graph.
  • 2011: Recorded $3,711 million in revenue.

2012

  • January 2012: Facebook begins making Timeline mandatory.
  • February 2012: Facebook files for its much-anticipated IPO, giving the company a valuation of nearly $100 billion.

{ 0 comments }

February 2012: Top 25 Largest Facebook Nations

February 4, 2012

Facebook has over 845 million users today, with users from over 200 different countries.

The United States with more than 155 million Facebook users continues to be the largest Facebook nation, followed by India at a distant second with about 43.5 million Facebook users.

The country with the smallest user base, according to data from socialbakers, is the Vatican City with 20 Facebook users.

The screenshot below shows the top 25 of the largest Facebook nations as of 3:00 PM GMT, 04 February 2012. Changes in user base are based on the last 3 months.

top 25 largest facebook nations 20120204 February 2012: Top 25 Largest Facebook Nations

Check out the full list of Facebook nations at http://www.socialbaker.com/facebook-statistics

Socialbakers.com is one of the biggest social media statistics portals, covering a wide range of social media statistics for the like of Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

{ 0 comments }

Report: Facebook Usage On Corporate Networks Jumps Threefold

January 18, 2012

New research published by Palo Alto Networks indicates a threefold increase social networking and browser-based file sharing on corporate networks.

The research, conducted by network security vendor Palo Alto Networks, found that the use of Facebook applications more than tripled in 2011 from the previous year, up from 4 percent to 14 percent. Twitter usage in 2011 saw a mammoth jump of 700 percent during the same time period, based on the percentage of total networking bandwidth consumed by more than 1,600 firms the company tracked between April and November of last year.

However, while many employers may assume their employees are wasting time on social games at work, Palo Alto believes that the growing use of social sites may be due to the increase in the number of marketing-based applications on Facebook.

Many companies are increasing launching corporate Facebook applications to use them as part of their public relations strategies. So, it’s unclear how much of this activity is work-related and how much of it is personal.

The report also showed an interesting shift from “passive social networking” to “active social networking.”  Users now spend less time passively reading/checking out contents in favor of engaging more actively with Facebook like commenting and using Facebook apps. This explains why the average time spent purely on Facebook has fallen from 69 per cent to 39 per cent, said Palo Alto.

{ 0 comments }

Spammers Hits 4 Million Facebook Users On Any Given Day

January 10, 2012

Internet’s oldest pest, spam, is now moving away from email to social networks. With the ever growing popularity of social networks, spammers are now targeting the two most popular social networking sites – Facebook and Twitter – like never before.

In November 2011, 70 percent of all email was spam, down from 92 percent in August 2010. While the percentage of spam on social networks is still relative low compared to email, with Facebook saying that less than 4 percent of the content shared on their site is spam and affects 0.5 percent (4 million) of its users on any given day. Whereas, Twitter says just 1.5 percent of all tweets were spam in 2010.

But, don’t think the social network sites are just sitting back. Facebook and Twitter are waging war on social spam. Facebook says, each day the site blocks 200 million malicious actions, such as links to malware.

Facebook has a team of 30 workers who spend hours combing the site for user-reported spam (up from just 4 in 2008), in addition to 46 people working in security as well as 300 people focused on user issue.

Twitter, on the other hand, has only two programmers fighting spam, but it plans to add five more by the end of the year, and another nine account abuse specialists.

With over 800 million users, preventing spam is an uphill battle for site like Facebook, but they are determined to fight the good fight.

We, as users of these networking sites, what is our contribution in this fight against social spam? I believe we can at least take the advice of Chester Wisniewski, Senior Security Advisor at Sophos Inc.

Aside from relying on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google to do a “good job” the best most people can do is implement a good web security filter to look for malicious or spammy URLs and prevent your browser from going to content that may be harmful.”

{ 0 comments }

Facebook Factor in One-Third Of Divorces In UK

December 31, 2011

Social networking website Facebook has been blamed in a third of divorces in the UK.

The social network is increasingly being used as a source of evidence in divorce cases, reports law firm Divorce-Online.

fb breakup Facebook Factor in One Third Of Divorces In UK

The top three reasons where Facebook was cited as evidence were:

  • Inappropriate messages to members of the opposite sex.
  • Separated spouses posting nasty comments about each other.
  • Facebook’s friends reporting spouse’s behavior.

According to a survey by the law firm, a third of 5,000 petitions in the past year mentioned Facebook, which is a 50% jump over the last two years. Similar survey carried out by the firm in December 2009 found that 20% of behavior petitions contained the word “Facebook.”

Twitter on the other hand was mentioned in only 20 of the 5,000 petitions analyzed by the website in December 2011.

“Facebook has become the primary method for communicating with friends for many people. People contact ex-partners and the messages start as innocent, but lead to trouble. If someone want to have an affair or flirt with the opposite sex then it’s the easiest place to do it,” said Mark Keenan, managing director of Divorce-Online.

“People need to be careful what they write on their walls as the courts are seeing these posts being used in financial disputes and children cases as evidence,” he added.

In a similar study by American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers in December 2010, it was found that one-fifth of American divorces involves Facebook.

{ 0 comments }

Google Edge Facebook On Nielsen’s Top Web Brand of 2011

December 29, 2011

The largest social networking site is undoubtly Facebook, but Google is still the web brand to beat.

According to a Nielsen report released Wednesday, Google was the most-visited U.S. web brand in 2011.

Nielsen reviewed the top online destinations, social media sites,  video destination, and smartphone devices.  Without surprise, Facebook and Youtube tops the list of social media sites and online video destination respectively, without much competition. Apple was the top smartphone manufacturer claiming about one-third of the market share.

Nielsen compiled the data based on web traffic from home and work computers from January through October 2011. The data does not include mobile visits, a growing consumer browsing category today.

Experian Hitwise also released their list last week  where Facebook topped the list of most-visited sites and most-searched terms in 2011. It is worth mentioning that Nielsen focused on individual visitors per month while Experian Hitwise looked at total visits for the year. Moreover, Facebook had more U.S. visits than Google.com, but Google has the edge when the visits to all Google properties are combined.

Enough said, let’s look at the Nielsen’s list of toppers for 2011.

Top 10 U.S. Web Brands in 2011

nielsen top10 usa webbrands Google Edge Facebook On Nielsens Top Web Brand of 2011

Top 10 U.S. Social Networks & Blogs

nielsen top10 usa socialnetworksblogs Google Edge Facebook On Nielsens Top Web Brand of 2011

Top 10 U.S. Online Destinations for Video

nielsen top10 usa onlinevideodestinations Google Edge Facebook On Nielsens Top Web Brand of 2011

Top 5 Smartphone Device Manufactures.

nielsen top10 usa smartphonemanufacturer Google Edge Facebook On Nielsens Top Web Brand of 2011

{ 0 comments }

Facebook Introduce Two New Awards For Advertisement

December 26, 2011

Facebook has launched two new advertising awards, namely Facebook Studio Awards and the CLIO Special Recognition Award for Facebook Integrated Media, just in time to be recognized for 2011.

fb studioaward Facebook Introduce Two New Awards For AdvertisementThe first, Facebook Studio Awards, was created to recognize the agencies that are behind some of the best campaigns on Facebook. The deadline for this award is December 31, 2011.

The judges will be looking for work that exemplifies the following criteria:

  •  Is the campaign social? Are people and social interactions at the core of the idea? Does it motivate people to share?
  • Does it make full use of Facebook marketing products? Does the campaign take advantage of Facebook’s full potential?
  • Does it integrate with other media? Is the Facebook idea part of a larger multimedia campaign?
  • Does it scale? Is it easy for people to interact with and share your content?

Agencies and brands are expected to submit campaigns that include:

  •  An inspired, well-executed idea that people want to share
  • Ideas with staying power that transform businesses through social technology
  • Innovative uses of Facebook that make something happen through sharing

fb CLIOaward Facebook Introduce Two New Awards For Advertisement

Using the above criteria as guidelines, the jury will present Facebook Studio Awards to all entries they deem outstanding examples of marketing with Facebook. In addition to the awards, winning campaigns will also be featured on Facebook Studio in 2012.

The Entry Guidelines for the CLIO Special Recognition Award for Facebook Integrated Media are much more particular. The deadline for this award is January 20, 2012.

 

 

{ 0 comments }

Facebook Now Supports 63206 Character Limits For Status Updates

December 1, 2011

character limit status Facebook Now Supports 63206 Character Limits For Status Updates

Lately, Facebook users has a reason more to officially rejoice since the company has increase the status update limit to 63,206 characters, apparently 400 times more than Twitter.

Facebook has keep increasing its limit. Originally, the limit was restricted to 160 characters. Later in March 2009, the company increase the limit to 420 characters. But in 2011, Facebook has increased the character limit three times. By July 2011, the limit was pumped up to 500 characters and within a couple of months to 5,000 characters in September and now has been boosted by over 10 times.

Bob Baldwin, the software engineer who set the new number, wrote on his Facebook wall “I set the exact limit to something nerdy. Facebook … Face Boo K … hex(FACE) – K … 64206 – 1000 = 63206 icon smile Facebook Now Supports 63206 Character Limits For Status Updates ”.

The company explains that the average novel has roughly 500,000 characters. This could be shared in nine posts by the users.

Twitter as of now has been built around the infamous short, 140-character, however the limit of Google+ appears to be 100,000. We wonder if Facebook will overcome Google+ character limit but if so do,hopefully with reasons.

{ 0 comments }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →