Someone may be using your name and picture to create fake Yahoo email and Twitter accounts–at 5c each. Here are the details on how one such scam works. Read →
LocalResponse monitors realtime content and allows marketers to automatically message Twitter users based on that content–a platform that was recently surrounded by controversy around campaigns that it powered for some of its beta customers. Most notorious among these was a Toyota Camry Super Bowl promotion in which a series of verified accounts sent unsolicited @ messages to users who were tweeting with Super Bowl-related hashtags. According to LocalResponse co-founder and VP product Michael Muse, the company will no longer allow clients to run that type of campaign. Read →
When Twitter announced that Promoted Tweets would be appearing near the top of your timeline, it specifically said that you would be served tweets from organizations and brands that you follow. Here’s the exact language from Twitter’s July 28 blog post: “Starting today, we’re introducing a way to ensure that the most important Tweets from the organizations you follow reach you directly, by placing them at or near the top of your timeline.” On September 13, Twitter quietly changed their policy, and started slowly rolling out promoted tweets in timelines for brands that you don’t follow. Read →
Two social media platforms have been involved in controversy this week. One of them has done the right thing. Read →
Yesterday Twitter wrote an unsigned blog post. It said that in order to gain access to large markets, it will henceforth cooperate with governments to censor user content within those countries.
Alas, Twitter did not say it so succinctly as that. They started out with a bit of philosophical butter to salve the corporate conscience. Read →
Social media now accounts for 22% of all the time that we spend online. So how did we spend that time in 2011? And how will that change in the next year? The top stories to watch in 2012 include the intersection of social, local and mobile, the changing role of marketers, privacy issues, and the elusive social media ROI… Read →
Social media now accounts for 22% of all the time that we spend online. So how did we spend that time in 2011? And how will that change in the next year? The top stories on social media in 2011 include the Arab Spring, Weinergate and social TV… Read →
Technology in the age of social media is creating new types of relationships that didn’t exist before. And it is creating new ethical challenges about which the social media industry as a whole should be leading the debate–but is not. Read →
Congress is in the midst of deciding whether to interfere in the one piece of the American economy that seems to be working well — the Internet. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA; the Senate has its own version called PROTECT IP) promises, in the words of House Judiciary Lamar Smith, “protect one of the most productive sectors” of that same economy. He’s talking about copyright holders in the “productive” media, music and film industry, who are trying to protect their cozy 20th century business model by running to Uncle Sam. Read →
Klout has made some concrete changes to protect the privacy of unregistered users. The company is no longer creating profiles or scores based on unregistered Facebook users, and has removed any that were created from the system. Are these changes enough to address users’ concerns about privacy? Read →
