page
drop photos, trials simplified Timeline and delivers new privacy controls
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/20/facebook-lets-us-drag-and-drop-to-upload-photos/
Anyone who’s returned from an event with a virtual armful of photos may have been frustrated with Facebook’s upload interface, which until now has involved a less-than-intuitive file browser. The company is quietly solving that problem: an update pushing out to individual users lets them drag-and-drop photos into a new post, like we’ve seen on other social networks, and to a newly streamlined Messages format that’s rolling out at the same time. A much smaller circle is seeing a second update. Facebook has confirmed to ABC News that it’s conducting limited trials of an updated Timeline that moves the news feed to a single column, replaces the thumbnail navigation with simpler-looking tabs and makes all profile page information available through scrolling. A spokesperson wouldn’t say if or when the new Timeline would reach the wider public, but history points to “when” being more likely. They did however mention that the new privacy shortcuts, activity log and untagging tool would be going live for all users starting tonight, and we’ve already seen them pop up on some of our accounts.
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Via: The Verge!
Source: Inside Facebook, ABC News (1), (2)
Wikipedia Has Figured Out A New Way To Stop Vandals In Their Tracks
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/pending-changes-safeguard-on-wikipedia-2012-12
In a small but fundamental change to Wikipedia, a tool which protects articles from malicious vandalism while simultaneously permitting good-faith edits has gone live on the English Wikipedia.
When a page under ‘pending changes’ protection is edited by a new user or a user without an account, the edit does not go live until it has been reviewed by a more experienced editor.
Edits made to Wikipedia articles are normally visible immediately.
The new tool is in contrast to the typical means of page protection on the online encyclopaedia, which, in the case of a flurry of vandalism to an article, completely locks it from being edited at all by new users.
Pending changes is already used on the second largest Wikimedia Foundation project, the German Wikipedia, but unlike the English one, on which pending changes can be assigned to and removed from pages that are frequently subjected to unconstructive edits, it’s applied to all articles by default.
This is a significant and long-awaited development. Wikipedia cannot remain the resource that it is if its four million-plus articles – the product of enormous amounts of volunteer time – are fair game.
At last, the burden for dealing with problematic edits is being shifted away from good-faith editors constantly having to challenge them, and onto those who make drive-by and contentious edits, who may now find themselves arguing the case for why their changes should even appear, let alone remain once already published, as they otherwise would.
There is already plenty of evidence within the project that suggests this is the only way forward. More and more experienced editors are inserting FAQ sections in the discussion pages of articles to save themselves fro! m consta ntly dealing with the same questions and disputes, and at the top of the dispute resolution ladder, the Arbitration Committee has a large list of sanctions for various articles and topics, which can be applied to editors who don’t follow the rules.
But some might argue it’s much too little, much too late. Wikipedia has regrettably served as an anonymous platform to libel people, one which appealed to Johann Hari when he used it to describe people he didn’t like as alcoholics, anti-Semites, or homophobes.
Pending changes would not only have made it much more difficult for such edits to get through, but might even have diminished the incentive to make them in the first place if they didn’t appear immediately after submission.
And then there’s the matter of simply getting things right. If pending changes was enabled on all articles, would Lord Justice Leveson have inadvertently labelled a 25 year old Californian student as a founder of The Independent newspaper?
The fact that Wikipedia can be edited by anyone is arguably both the site’s best and worst aspect: without it, it wouldn’t be what it is. But with September 2012 seeing the lowest monthly level of new editors since September 2005, a laissez-faire attitude to content is no longer sustainable. Sharing knowledge is a worthy and appealing undertaking; baby-sitting its potentially fleeting presence in a digital no-man’s land, not so much.
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The SEC’s Attack On Netflix Is Ridiculous (NFLX)
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-wells-notice-2012-12
Netflix got a Wells notice from the SEC for a Facebook posting CEO Reed Hastings made.
This is ridiculous.
A Wells notice is a warning that the SEC is likely to bring charges against an individual or company. Typically, it’s done for a viable reason. In this case, the SEC is totally over-reaching, acting like a idiotic overly bureaucratic organization.
It’s moves like this that make it seem like government bureaucracy really does smother businesses.
Here’s what happened.
In July, Hastings posted to his Facebook page that Netflix had had 1 billion hours of streaming in June. The stock jumped that day.
If Hastings had just shared this information with a small circle of friends, you could make an argument that the information wasn’t publicly disseminated. But Hastings has 200,000 subscribers on Facebook, including journalists and analysts.
If the SEC wants to use this case to make a new rule about social media and what’s acceptable disclosure and what’s not, that’s fine. It should do that.
But to punish a company and executive for taking advantage of a new service to publicly disseminating information in a way that is vastly more public than SEC filings or press releases is unfair. Not to mention a waste of resources.
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Weight Watchers Made A New Logo That Looks Like Microsoft Word Art
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/weight-watchers-has-a-new-logo-2012-12
Weight Watchers just underwent a branding makeover. Unfortunately its new logo kind of looks like it was made with Microsoft Word Art.
According to the press release:
As part of the program overhaul and looking forward to the next 50 years, Weight Watchers also gave its brand a new, highly modern visual system that brings to life the transformation members experience when they adopt a new lifestyle that can lead to significant weight loss.
But while the 1.3 million member program says its modern, we say that the chunky font with the fade to grey color gradients is reminiscent of what we’d slap on the cover page of an Eleanor Roosevelt book report to spice things up. If only the new logo came with clip art…
The typeface is based on a customized version of the font Fort and comes in five other bright color options.
Paula Scher at Pentagram created the identity redesign and according to Pentagram’s website, “The new identity features a friendly, accessible logotype with the Weight Watchers name set in lowercase. The logotype appears in a gradient that visibly lightens from left to right, embodying the idea of transformation and losing weight.”
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Analytics Show Facebook Curbs The Reach Of Big Brands’ Posts
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-curbs-the-reach-of-big-brands-2012-11
Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban and “Star Trek” actor George Takei both complained recently that Facebook reduced the “reach” of their posts, limiting the number of fans likely to see any given post.
More seriously, two executives at major social media agencies owned by WPP group claimed the same thing — only with data.
In response, Facebook formally denied that it is “gaming” its Edgerank post algorithm to reduce the reach of posts (and thus force advertisers to pay to promote posts to reach all their fans).
Now comes PageLever, a Facebook analytics company, which gave Mashable some data that shows that the bigger fanbase your Facebook page has, the lower reach any individual post has. Brands with small fanbases of fewer than 10,000 people can get nearly 20 percent of them to see any individual post. But brands like Coca-Cola and Walmart, who have more than 1 million fans, can only get about 6 percent of them to see any given post — unless they pay:
The data suggest Facebook’s algorithm discriminates against bigger brands. It encourages smaller brands by offering them triple the reach of their larger competitors. But the more successful a brand becomes on Facebook, the more its organic average reach dwindles.
By the time any company has more than 100,000 fans, of course, they’re pretty dependent on Facebook as a marketing medium — and thus may be more likely to pay to promote posts.
Related: Facebook Denies It Is ‘Gaming’ Its News Feed To Force Companies To Buy Ads
See Also: Facebook Accused Of Changing A Key Algorithm To Hurt Advertisers
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Join the conversation about this story »
Analytics Show Facebook Curbs The Reach Of Big Brands’ Posts
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-curbs-the-reach-of-big-brands-2012-11
Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban and “Star Trek” actor George Takei both complained recently that Facebook reduced the “reach” of their posts, limiting the number of fans likely to see any given post.
More seriously, two executives at major social media agencies owned by WPP group claimed the same thing — only with data.
In response, Facebook formally denied that it is “gaming” its Edgerank post algorithm to reduce the reach of posts (and thus force advertisers to pay to promote posts to reach all their fans).
Now comes PageLever, a Facebook analytics company, which gave Mashable some data that shows that the bigger fanbase your Facebook page has, the lower reach any individual post has. Brands with small fanbases of fewer than 10,000 people can get nearly 20 percent of them to see any individual post. But brands like Coca-Cola and Walmart, who have more than 1 million fans, can only get about 6 percent of them to see any given post — unless they pay:
The data suggest Facebook’s algorithm discriminates against bigger brands. It encourages smaller brands by offering them triple the reach of their larger competitors. But the more successful a brand becomes on Facebook, the more its organic average reach dwindles.
By the time any company has more than 100,000 fans, of course, they’re pretty dependent on Facebook as a marketing medium — and thus may be more likely to pay to promote posts.
Related: Facebook Denies It Is ‘Gaming’ Its News Feed To Force Companies To Buy Ads
See Also: Facebook Accused Of Changing A Key Algorithm To Hurt Advertisers
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What Facebook’s Biggest Advertisers Say About ‘Invalid Clicks’ (FB)
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-facebooks-biggest-advertisers-say-about-invalid-clicks-2012-11
Facebook’s larger advertisers, unsurprisingly, aren’t willing to say much — on the record, at least — about the proposed class action lawsuit which claims up to 20 percent of pay-per-click advertising on the site comes from “invalid” clicks.
Facebook says the suit is bogus, and is fighting an appeal in the case.
One key issue in the case is Facebook’s refusal to allow its clicks to be audited by a third party like the IAB, the Media Ratings Council or Ernst & Young.
Speaking privately, the company’s clients and competitors tell us they are aware that Facebook is non-transparent when it came to its advertising business.
None of them believed Facebook was acting improperly. And none sympathized with the suit. One said, “We trust Facebook and know that they are always working to refine their filters and to identify invalid clicks.”
Another added, “I don’t think they’re ripping people off.”
However, they also said that because Facebook is so big it is able to play by its own rules in a way that might not be healthy .
“They don’t let you audit,” said one client. “It’s a little bit suspect. A bit of a conflict of interest. … You have to trust Facebook’s numbers.”
Another added, “They’re not playing by the rules everyone else is playing by. It’s definitely an issue that there’s this 800 pound gorilla out there that isn’t playing by the rules.”
One major issue for advertisers is that they can only observe Facebook’s clicks independently if they send traffic off the site! to thei r own web sites. As most campaigns are designed to send traffic to the advertisers’ Facebook page, those clicks remain inside Facebook – and thus invisible to outside analytics.
“A lot of campaigns are not sending traffic off site so there’s no way to check,” one client told us.
Another said, “If we are driving users to a Facebook page — then we rely on Facebook metrics (impressions, clicks, conversions, engagement …) as the click goes directly to the Facebook page and not through a redirect AND we can’t fire pixels on Facebook pages like we can on external sites.”
Shuman Ghosemajumder, Google’s former click fraud czar who is now vp/strategy at Shape Security, told us that he knows many of the team members at Facebook who are working on click validation. “They are investing heavily in this area,” he says. A third-party audit of clicks, however is a “non-trivial” event at a company, he says. It requires time and resources, and an outside company must come in and perform experiments with the internal engineers. Nonetheless, “they need to take this very seriously,” he says.
Related:
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Facebook Sponsored Posts Results are SOOOO Low
Facebook does not report actual views, just a relative percentage of paid versus regular views because the actual views are SO low, it’s embarrassing.
Google Play carrier billing goes live for impulse buyers on Verizon
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/31/google-play-carrier-billing-goes-live-for-verizon-impulse-buyers/
Google gave the broadest of targets when it said Google Play carrier billing would reach Verizon in the “coming weeks” — those last two words are often hints from companies that we shouldn’t hold our breath. Call us surprised, then, when Google quietly takes the option live two weeks later. At least one Droid-Life reader has discovered that it’s now possible to load as many as $25 in purchases per month on an existing Big Red smartphone bill and pay through just the one channel. The move puts all four major US carriers on the same page, and gives Verizon subscribers an incentive to splurge on apps and movies for that new Droid RAZR HD… so long as they remember to deal with the financial fallout afterwards.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Google, Verizon
Google Play carrier billing goes live for impulse buyers on Verizon originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 3! 1 Oct 20 12 14:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Amazon Trashes The iPad Mini On Amazon.com (AMZN, AAPL)
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-ipad-mini-comparison-on-amazoncom-2012-10
Amazon is using its heavily trafficked front page to trash the iPad mini.
As you can see below, Amazon does a head to head comparison with the Kindle Fire HD and the iPad mini. The Kindle Fire HD comes out on top.
A few things about this ad. Amazon says it can play HD movies. In his review of the Kindle Fire HD, David Pogue said, “Incidentally, despite the name ‘HD,’ the screen can’t actually show you movies in hi-def. It may have the requisite number of pixels, but most of them are dedicated to black letterbox bars; the screen is the wrong shape for movies. And you can’t enlarge the playback to fill the screen, as you can on an iPad.”
And Walt Mossberg in his review said, “The Fire HD isn’t as polished, fluid or versatile as the iPad.”
The reason for that is iOS, Apple’s mobile software which is vastly superior to Amazon’s tablet software.
The real question for people looking at buying a tablet is whether or not it’s worth paying an extra $130 for an iPad mini which has better software and a bigger library of apps. Also, we should get official reviews of the iPad mini this week, which will give us better independent comparisons.
Digital Consigliere
Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights.
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