Facebook claims an enormous amount of monthly active users (845 million peeps) and daily active users (483 million peeps). DealBook reports that these numbers include people who do not visit facebook.com.
DealBook found a definition buried on page 44 of Facebook's prospectus that says Facebook includes users who "share content or activity with his or her Facebook friends or connections via a third-party Web site that is integrated with Facebook" as active users. For example, if someone is on a blog and they like a blog post then Facebook considers them an active user. A comment left on a website through your Facebook login also counts you as an active Facebook user. These people are actively using Facebook, but they are not visiting facebook.com.
The Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has reported the results of its 2011 study on the blogging habits of the 2011 Inc. 500 companies. The study found that blogging by the Inc. 500 declined for the first time in 2011. 50% off the Inc. 500 maintained blogs in 2010. This dropped to 37% in 2011.
The Center for Marketing Research says blogging is being substituted for other tools, such as Facebook and Twitter. They say there has been an has been an increase in the use of Facebook and Twitter continuing a long trend.
The definition of blogging comes into play here. One could argue that posting updates on Facebook and tweets on Twitter are both forms of blogging. Twitter has been described as microblogging. So, traditional blogging may be declining, but the overall use of social media is still increasing.
Twitter caved in to censorship last week when it announced it will censor tweets on a country by country basis. Tweets blocked by the government in one country will still show up in another country.
As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.
Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries' limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country - while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.
Twitter shows here what a censored tweet or username will look like. You will see a grayed-out tweet or username that says "Tweet withheld" or "@Username withhheld."
Countries do have different rules for free speech, but surely Twitter could have resisted caving in to the censorship demands of every single country. On a positive note, Twitter does say it will share the tweet and username removal requests it receives from governments. Take a look:
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Facebook may file papers for an IPO as early as Wednesday of next week. The WSJ says the IPO could raise $10 billion for Facebook and give the company a massive $75 to $100 billion valuation. The New York Postsays the NYSE and Nasdaq are battling for Facebook's listing.
Facebook does have impressive revenues. They reportedly made $3.8 billion in 2011. However, the costs to make that $3.8 billion is unknown. The company has over 3,000 employees according to its factsheet.
Facebook says it has about 800 million active users. Strong growth continues for the company, but it may start getting close to its maximum number of active users as it approaches the 1 billion user mark, especially with the relatively recent entrance of Google+. There are only so many people on Earth (about 7 billion) and only a certain percentage of them are going to use Facebook. Facebook should be able to make a lot of revenues with a massive user base of 1 billion people, but probably not enough to deserve a valuation of $100 billion.
Highlight is an iPhone app that aims to help you locate people in the real world. You can only find other people that have Highlight installed. The app alerts you when Highlight users are nearby and tells you who they are.
If someone standing near you also has Highlight, their profile will show up on your phone. You can see their name, photos of them, mutual friends, and anything else they have chosen to share. When you meet someone, Highlight helps you see what you have in common with them. And when you forget their name at a party a week later, Highlight helps you remember it.
As you go about your day, Highlight runs quietly in the background, surfacing information about the people around you. If your friends are nearby, it will notify you. If someone interesting crosses your path, it will tell you more about them.
Technologizer reports that Highlight can identify people within a block and half of your phone. If you don't want random strangers to be able to identify you, then you should probably avoid apps like Highlight. You can choose to be visible only to friends or friends of friends. You can also pause the app and Highlight peeps won't be able to locate you.
Hugh MacLeod at Gaping Void was ready for the most recent "Blogging is Dead" meme and he will be ready again the next time the blogosphere dies.
Former TechCrunch reporter Sarah Lacy recently launched a blog covering tech startups. The blog is called PandoDaily. She has $2.5 million in funding.
Get ready to continue to fight again and again and ignore David Pogue's incredibly incorrect and lame SOPA/PIPA article that tells you to put your pitchforks down. Clay Shirky explains why this is wrong here. Consider taking Pogue off your reading list. There is no place in a free world for bills like SOPA/PIPA that seek to control information and/or support of them. There is no doubt that lobbyists for MPAA/RIAA and other organizations will continue to push bills like SOPA/PIPA through members of Congress they have purchased.
Justin Timberlake helped MySpace launch MySpace TV at CES.
The White House is now on Google's relatively new social network, Google+. The White House's Google+ page, available here, includes news, photographs and videos. It is similar to what you will find on The White House Facebook page. The White House is also on Twitter and MySpace.
The White House says, "On this page you'll find news from the White House blog, behind-the-scenes photos and videos, and opportunities to engage with Obama administration officials and policy experts on topics ranging from the economy to technology. We hope you'll join the conversation on the issues that matter the most to you right here on Google+."
The White House Google+ page can be found here. The page also says that comments posted on the page may be "subject to the Presidential Records Act and may be archived."
Bloggers Blog also recently joined Google+. Our page is located here.
Wordpress.org is one of several sites going dark to oppose the awful Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) bills. The bills give new powers to major entertainment and media companies to take down websites they think are violating copyright. These powers could very easily be abused and used to censor vast portions of the Internet. Keeping information freely available on the Internet is extremely important to our society. Anyone backing this bill needs to be voted out of office.
Wordpress shared this video to explain why the bills are bad news:
Bloggers Blog now has a Google+ page. Google+ is a relatively new social network from Google. Google recently started incorporating results from Google+ into a new personalized search feature called "Search Plus Your World." Search Engine Land has a good article about the new personalized search feature here.
You follow Bloggers Blog on Google+ by clicking on the Google+ button below and adding us to one of your circles.
Reddit has announced it will black out its regular content on January 18th from 8am to 8pm to protest the PIPA/SOPA legislation. Reddit has created a little Braveheart inspired figure to lead the charge.
There is widespread concern - including from Internet inventors, founders and engineers (see here) - that bills like SOPA could be used as a means of Internet censorship.
Reddit says it will display a simple message about how PIPA/SOPA legislation is wrong for the Internet.
Instead of the normal glorious, user-curated chaos of reddit, we will be displaying a simple message about how the PIPA/SOPA legislation would shut down sites like reddit, link to resources to learn more, and suggest ways to take action. We will showcase the live video stream of the House hearing where Internet entrepreneurs and technical experts (including reddit co-founder Alexis "kn0thing" Ohanian) will be testifying. We will also spotlight community initiatives like meetups to visit Congressional offices, campaigns to contact companies supporting PIPA/SOPA, and other tactics.
Reddit says there is new hope the legislation can be defeated. The delay of the bill last month is certainly helping knowledge of the bill's dangers spread online. Reddit says, "There are powerful forces trying to censor the Internet, and a few months ago many people thought this legislation would surely pass. However, there's a new hope that we can defeat this dangerous legislation."
Tim Tebow and the Bronco's overtime playoff win helped set a new sports Tweet per second record. The Bronco's overrated quarterback Tim Tebow completed an 80-yard pass on the first play of overtime to win the game. The play generated 9420 tweets per second - the second highest number in Twitter history according to a tweet by Twitter.
Here are the top eleven TPS events:
25,088 TPS: Castle in the Sky anime movie airs in Japan (12-9-11)
9,420 TPS: Tim Tebow overtime touchdown pass in playoff game (1-8-12)
8,868 TPS: Beyonce/MTV VMAs (8-28-11)
7.671 TPS: Troy Davis executed (9-20-11-)
7,196 TPS: Japan Beats US in Women's World Cup (7-17-11)
7,166 TPS: Brazil eliminated from Copa America (7-17-11)
7,064 TPS: Steve Jobs resigns (8-25-11)
6,939 TPS: New Year's Eve 2011 (12-31-10)
6,436 TPS: BET Awards Viewer's Choice Award Mixup (6-27-11)
6,303 TPS: Barcelona defeated Manchester (5-28-11)
Reddit really cranked in December, 2011. The link-sharing social media site announced it served 2.07 billion pageviews last month. It also had nearly 35 million unique visitors.
Reddit's traffic has doubled in less than a year. Reddit says it plans to improve infrastructure in 2012 and help make it easier for users to discover new subreddits.
There are redditors who feel reddit is getting too big, and even if we don't always reach the same conclusions, we see the same trends and patterns you do. We have some improvements coming that will help redditors discover new subreddits, help new users better understand the way reddit works, and provide better tools to support the moderators of both big and small subreddits. We're also going to keep improving the infrastructure so that the site will be faster and more stable even as growth continues.
Mashable says Reddit may have benefited from a decline in traffic at Digg.
PostSecret was one of the early successful blogs. It dominated the Bloggies in 2006. The blog also found success through books and exhibits. The blog remains popular today and continues to post postcards submitted by users. However, the blog has had to shut down its iPhone app because of abusive posts by a small number of obnoxious users.
PostSecret's Frank Warren writes that the number of abusive and profane posts overwhelmed the volunteer moderators.
99% of the secrets created were in the spirit of PostSecret. Unfortunately, the scale of secrets was so large that even 1% of bad content was overwhelming for our dedicated team of volunteer moderators who worked 24 hours a day 7 days a week removing content that was not just pornographic but also gruesome and at times threatening.
Bad content caused users to complain to me, Apple and the FBI. I was contacted by law enforcement about bad content on the App. Threats were made against users, moderators and my family. (Two specific threats were made that I am unable to talk about). As much as we tried, we were unable to maintain a bully-free environment. Weeks ago I had to remove the App from my daughter's phone.
Facebook, Blogger and Twitter were the top social network and blogging sites in 2011 according to a new Nielsen report. The data runs from January through October, 2011. Facebook had by far the largest average number of unique visitors per month. Blogger continues to have huge monthly visits. Google+ will no doubt have a much higher rank in 2012.
SAY Media has acquired ReadWriteWeb, which is one of the leading technology blogs. SAY said in a press release that ReadWriteWeb's founder and editor Richard MacManus will continue to lead the blog at SAY, where it will anchor SAY's technology hub.
MacManus, said in a statement, "With SAY's technology and services we'll be able to scale ReadWriteWeb in ways previously unavailable to us. We'll now be able to expand our editorial scope into relevant areas of interest and redesign the site to create a more premium experience for both our readers and advertisers."
TechCrunch says ReadWriteWeb was sold for around $5 million.
Ashton Kutcher has decided to let Katalyst Media manage his Twitter feed following a backlash that resulted from his unresearched tweet in support of scandalized Penn State coach Joe Paterno.
A collection of over 8 million followers is not to be taken for granted. I feel responsible to deliver informed opinions and not spread gossip or rumors through my twitter feed. While I feel that running this feed myself gives me a closer relationship to my friends and fans I've come to realize that it has grown into more than a fun tool to communicate with people. While I will continue to express myself through @Aplusk, I'm going to turn the management of the feed over to my team at Katalyst as a secondary editorial measure, to ensure the quality of its content. My sincere apologies to anyone who I offended. It was a mistake that will not happen again.
It has been about two and a half years since Aston Kutcher beat CNN to become the first Twitter account to a million users. Kutcher has sinced dropped to the tenth most followed according to Twitter Counter's chart. He will probably soon be passed by Selena Gomez and Oprah. He has fallen a ways since holding the number one spot, but he has managed to rank very high on Twitter and amass over eight million followers. Kutcher's fans are asking him to stay real on Twitter, but if he does decide to outsource his tweets he won't be the only celebrity doing so.
Google has launched pages for its Google+ social network. Search Engine Land describes the new feature here.
You can already make pages using the Create a Page tool. We added a page here. It is very easy to add pages. The pages will have to be updated manually. So far there is no way to pull it tweets or a feed, which would be a nice feature for Google to add.
Robert Scoble has made some good points here about the lack of features on Google+ Pages. However, it is early and Google probably has plans to add many of the features Scoble mentions, such as letting more than one person post to an account. In the meantime, if you operate multiple accounts, you should be careful which account you are posting to.
Louis C.K. explained to Conan why he hates Twitter. Louis C.K. is on Twitter, @louisck, but he hates it. He is refusing to following anyone, which makes some people really angry. Take a look:
Walmart has turned to Twitter to announce that it will first share its Black Friday deals on Facebook this year. It is a big deal for Facebook that Walmart will use its Facebook page to announce it deals. This will likely send lots of traffic to Facebook.
A lot of companies like announcing stuff on Facebook. Walmart could have easily just announced the deals on its own website and sent lots of traffic to its own website, but Facebook is very hot right now and has become a platform for announcements.
You can keep up with Black Friday news on Twitter by following @blackfriday.
First Lady Michelle Obama recently sent her very first tweet. Michelle Obama used her first official tweet to call on Americans to support our nation's military families. As part of their Joining Forces initiative, Mrs. Obama and Dr. Jill Biden teamed up with Major League Baseball at a game dedicated to veterans and military families. The tweet was sent from the @JoiningForces Twitter account. The video shows Michelle Obama using a laptop to deliver the tweet. Take a look:
Comment trolls are everywhere on the Internet, particularly on YouTube videos. SNL parodied these common web trolls with a show called, The Comments Section. The show interviews the people behind these stupid and annoying comments. The Comments Section also lets some of the people ridiculed by the trolls get revenge. Actress Melissa McCarthy plays one of the trolls. Take a look:
StumbleUpon has announced that is has reached the 20 million member milestone. They site can drive a lot of traffic with that many members. StumbleUpon says, "it's very exciting for us to reach such a milestone, all from the simple idea of 'click a button, find cool stuff.'"
StumbleUpon also shared an interesting infographic that shows its path to 20 million stumblers. StumbleUpon has doubled its user pase from 10 million to 20 million in the past year. You can see a larger version of the graphic here.
A political blog, named Laws-n-Sausages, has acquired an Albany newspaper. 10 WALB reports that the company behind the blog, Knighton Media, Inc., is acquiring The Albany Journal. Blogger Tom Knighton, is the ceo of Knighton Media.
Tom Knighton says being a journalist is always something he has wanted to do. He also told 10 News that the Albany Journal is not dying and it is doing very well. Knighton did not disclose how much he paid for The Albany Journal.
Mashable reports that companies can now post status updates on company pages on LinkedIn. This will make LinkedIn company pages a little more like Facebook brand pages. All the social networks seem to be on a path that makes them more and more alike than different. Here is a video about how it works. You can also find a FAQ about LinkedIn company pages here. Take a look:
The death of Steve Jobs ignited a massive spike in tweets on Twitter. There were 6,049 Tweets per Second (TPS) at its peak.
However, there were several events that generated more tweets per second. Four events rank ahead of Steve Jobs' death in TPS. Beyonce's baby announcement after her performance at the MTV Video Music Awards still tops them all by a wide margin. Here is a list of the top five TPS events:
8,868 TPS: Beyonce/MTV VMAs (8-28-11)
7,196 TPS: Japan Beats US in Women's World Cup (7-17-11)
7,166 TPS: Brazil eliminated from Copa America (7-17-11)
6,939 TPS: New Year's Eve 2011 (12-31-10)
6,049 TPS: Steve Jobs death (10-5-11)
The reason Steve Jobs' death generated less tweets per second than Beyonce is because Beyonce's news came during a live broadcast (the MTV VMAs) being watched by millions. The news about Steve Jobs certainly spread very quickly on Twitter and around the Internet, but not nearly as many people found out about instantaneously.
TechCrunch reports that Sean Parker, known for his Napster, Facebook and Spotify ventures, has joined Twitter. His account is @sparker. His first tweet says, "Sorry Zuck, I had to do it eventually. (Actually @scooterbraun made me do it.)."
The tweet makes it sounds like Facebook ceo Mark Zuckerberg didn't want Parker joining Twitter. There has been a lot of activity from Sean Parker lately. Parker is also planning the launch of a blog. Parker likely wanted to establish the Twitter account so he can mention his blog posts.
Gawker reports that Sean Parker is planning on launching a blog. Sean Parker, 32, is known for his Napster, Facebook and Spotify ventures.
Sean Parker will not be the only one writing for the Sean Parker blog. He told Gawker that his blog will be "more of a monthly essay thing with daily commentary and a couple very smart young writers who will be doing follow-up on the long form pieces that I write."
Parker also told Gawker that he suspects his blog will be "less useless and definitely less mean spirited and obnoxious" than Gawker.
Celebrities garnering the most followers is a trend that occurs on most social networks. The social networks like to help that trend along because they know if they can get celebrities using their service then they can get people to join the service so they can follow the celebs.
The Next Web reports that Google's homepage linked to Will.i.am's Google+ profile earlier today. The link was part of promotion for Google+ Hangouts. The link said, "Hang out with the Black Eyed Peas on Google+ right before they go on stage." Will.i.am no doubt got a boost in Google+ followers from being on Google.com.
Facebook has unleashed a slew of unwelcomed new features. Facebook users were already angry by the addition of top stories to news feeds before Facebook piled on even more aggravating changes.
These new features include a new timeline profile, which features a large photograph on the top, and some apps that lead users to overshare. The Read, Watch and Listen features turned out to be apps, not buttons as had been expected.
There are major privacy issues with the new features. There is also the problem of Facebook user's news feeds being filled with useless information. When people Like content they find online they are choosing to have this information shared with their friends, but when they use one of the apps that shares everything they do, then user's news feeds are going to become less interesting and less useful. Facebook is going to get very cluttered.
Here is NMA TV's animated take on the backlash to Facebook's new features. Take a look:
Facebook has added top stories to its News Feed. The top stories are stories that have been published since your last Facebook visit that Facebook thinks you will find interesting. This is how Facebook determines what a top story is:
We determine whether something is a top story based on lots of factors, including your relationship to the person who posted the story, how many comments and likes it got, what type of story it is, etc. For example, a friend's status update that might not normally be a top story may become a top story after many other friends comment on it.
Facebook seems to have really angered some members based on the comments on its blog post about the new feature.
YouTube added a new video editor last week. The editor includes features like trim (which lets you shorten a video) and stabilize (which reduces camera shake). Other features let you adjust the color and brightness. There are also some effects you can add to the video, such as cartoon or black and white.
You can read more about the editing features here on Google's support site.
Google warns in its FAQ that it only lets you edit and save videos that have 1,000 views or less. Once a video passes 1,000 views you only have to the option to use "Save as," which creates a new video.
TechCrunch reports that Twitter is going to provide analytics data for publishers. Twitter is letting a few publishers test the analytics. Eventually the data will be free for all publishers, which is great news. Twitter's BackType acquisition earlier this year helped lead to the creation of the analytics tool.
The Twitter analytics tool will include the following information:
Tweets sent from your Tweet button on your site
Total number of tweets and clicks over a time period
Number of clicks from individual tweets
Top links by day, week and month
Other platforms, such as Google Analytics, will be able to incorporate Twitter data through an API
A date for the feature to arrive on Twitter for all publishers was not given. Take a look:
Forbesreports that Posterous has changed its name to Posterous Spaces and has added features that enable users to privately share photographs and videos with family members and friends. People can create public or private groups (called Spaces) to share posts, photos, audio, documents and videos. Posterous users can also follow other people's Spaces.
In the video about its new product, Posterous takes aim at Facebook, saying "what gets shared on Facebook usually ends up getting shared with everyone on Facebook." Take a look:
Blogger has launched an iPhone app. The app lets you post a new blog entry or save a blog entry you are working on as a draft on your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.
Today we're excited to announce the new Blogger app for iOS. With the Blogger app, you can write a new blog post and publish it immediately or save it as a draft right from your iOS device. You can also open a blog post you've been working on from your computer and continue editing it while you're on-the-go. Your blog posts are automatically synced across devices, so you'll always have access to the latest version.
The free app can be downloaded from iTunes here. Blogger launched an Android app earlier this year. The Android app can be found here in the Android Market.
The NBC News Twitter account, @NBCNews, was hacked yesterday and a series of shocking false tweets about terrorist attacks were shared. MSNBC reports that NBC issued the following statement.
The NBC News twitter account was hacked late this afternoon and as a result, false reports of a plane attack on ground zero were sent to @NBCNews followers. We are working with Twitter to correct the situation and sincerely apologize for the scare that could have been caused by such a reckless and irresponsible act.
A group called The Script Kiddies claimed responsibility. It was a very irresponsible prank. MSNBC says NBC has contacted the New York police and the FBI about the hack.
The Washington Post has some images of the fake tweets here. The good news from the incident is that many in the Twitter community realized the tweets were fake and started spreading the word.
Here is Brian Williams' reporting on the Twitter hack. Take a look:
Bloomberg is reporting that AOL and Yahoo are in talks for a possible merger following Yahoo's firing for its CEO Carol Bartz. This is not the first time there have been AOL-Yahoo rumors.
The combination makes sense in some ways because both companies are heavily invested in content. AOL has a large investment in blogs, with the Huffington Post, TechCrunch and the Weblogs, Inc. network. Yahoo also owns Associated Content and also has blogs and other media assets. Both companies also have tech components. AOL has its mail and AIM services, while Yahoo is known for its search engine.
CNBC has put the merger in doubt with a tweet that says, "Source Close To Yahoo Says No Interest In A Deal With AOL @Yahoo @AOL."
It is still fun to speculate as to what the combined name would be for the new company. Gizmodo throws out a few possibilities - such as Aolhoo or Yaolhoo. How about the Huffington Yaolhoost?
The animators at NMA TV have animated the ongoing battle between TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington and AOL. They even animated a fight between Huffington Post's Arianna Huffington and Michael Arrington (which Arianna wins). Arrington has been fired, but AOL could change its mind as the Atlantic Wire notes. Take a look:
Twitter announced in a blog post today that it has 100 million active users. Twitter says 40% of its active users don't tweet - they just sign in to read tweets and get the latest news and information. Here are some other tidbits from Twitter's post:
35 global heads of state use Twitter as a primary way to communicate with their constituencies.
Two-thirds of the NBA use Twitter.
Over 99 percent of America's top 200 non-profits are on Twitter
Most newsrooms actively use Twitter.
87% of Billboard's Top 100 musicians of 2010 are active on Twitter
Nichenet has launched Medacity, a new media news site. The site will headed by Nichenet CEO and Founder Duncan Riley. Riley sold his entertainment site, Inquisitr, earlier this year for $330,000.
Blogging and new media is a subject Riley is very experience with. Duncan Riley first covered blogging and new media early on in 2003 when he started The Blog Herald. Two Inquisitr veterans, James Johnson and Kim LaCapria, joined Medacity at its launch.
Riley said in a statement, "The idea of Medacity came about after I realized that no one in the market was exclusively covering the new media sector as a whole. Medacity seeks to fill a gap in the market by providing comprehensive coverage of the latest news and views from across the new media sector. I started my online publishing career by establishing the very first site to cover the then new industry of blogging back in 2003 with The Blog Herald. In Medacity I have gone back to my roots with a site that seeks to chronicle the rise of the new media industry and age."
TechCrunch is reporting that Google may add a Suggest User List, like the one Twitter used to have. Google's Bradley Horowitz tweeted, "We're about to pilot a 'suggested user'-like mechanism on Google+. If you've got more than 100k followers on Twitter, DM me - lets talk!"
Twitter initially created a Suggested Users List (SUL) to make it easy for Twitter noobs to find people to follow. However, the list existed unchanged for far too long, which enabled those on the list to unfairly gain hundreds of thousands of followers. Twitter still has lists today but they are organized in categories and are less controversial than the SUL.
Google+ probably also wants to point new users toward interesting Google+ users to follow. They will have to be careful not to ignite the same controversy Twitter created with its SUL.
During the recent riots in London there was talk of the British government attempting to shut down social media. The British government reportedly held talks with executives from Facebook, Twitter and BlackBerry. Sky News says the government will not be seeking any additional powers to shut down social media. There was a great deal of criticism at the idea of restrictions. Take a look:
YouTube is altering its music page again. The new music page features the YouTube Top 100. It also recommends music videos and artists and lists upcoming concerts in a feature powered by songkick. Take a look:
YouTube has been making it increasingly difficult to find the most viewed music videos of all time and it now looks to be impossible. You can view the most viewed music videos by week, but not all time. You can view the most viewed videos of all time here. Many of them are music videos.
Sophos is reporting a phising scam is trying to lure Twitter users into clicking on a bad link. The scam warns that Twitter might start charging in October and urges them to sign a petition to keep Twitter free. This is a scam. Twitter has no plans to start charging.
Twitter did tweet about the scam from its @safety account. Twitter said, "Seeing Tweets that you need to sign a petition to keep Twitter free? Don't click. It's fake and will steal your password."
Sophos says people that have been hit by the scam should change their Twitter password and revoke all application API access.
Sophos also suggests examining short URLs on longurl.org to find out where links really take you when you click on them.
Foursquare announced it has added events to its social check-in service. They have partnered with ESPN for sports events, MovieTickets.com for movies and Songkick for concerts. Foursquare says this means there will hundreds of thousands of events are over 50,000 venues created over the next few months.
All told, that means hundreds of thousands of events at more than 50,000 venues in the next few months (each event appears in the app a couple hours before it starts). Now, when you check in to a place with one of those things happening, you'll be able to check in to the event, too. It's a great way to include big events and save the shout-typing time, without creating too much clutter in our UI. And we're looking at ways to expand that further.
It is an interesting move for Foursquare as it pushes them down the path of "what are you doing?" as opposed to just "where are you?" As Foursquare heads down this path they start encroaching on more Facebook and Twitter territory.
So far, Foursquare is not letting users and venues create their own events, but they say they are thinking about it.
Bitly, a popular URL shortener and more, announced it has acquired Twitterfeed. Twitterfeed is a useful service that can automatically feed your blog to Twitter, Facebook and other services. It has about two million users and sends updates from nearly 4 million feeds to Twitter and Facebook.
AllThingsD says Twitterfeed was operated by one person, Mario Menti, who is now working with Bitly.
Twitter has tweeted that the new Twitter is officially the only Twitter. Twitter left the Old Twitter available to users when New Twitter arrived last September. It remained available until today. Now there is only one version of Twitter.
There were initial complaints, but most people eventually grew fond of the New Twitter. Twitter wrote in its tweet, "New Twitter rollout: complete! All users now have the same Twitter.com experience & can access our latest features."
Meltwater Group has purchased the IceRocket search engine. IceRocket is a social search engine with special tabs for searching blogs, Twitter and Facebook. Meltwater says IceRocket will continue operate as a standalone search engine.
Blake Rhodes, IceRocket founder, says, "Since its launch in 2004, IceRocket has been at the forefront of social search - starting with blog searches and later expanding to social networking and microblogs. That's why we're thrilled about this acquisition and the potential to take social search to the next level. IceRocket's integration with Meltwater Buzz will provide access to more sophisticated capabilities, such as measuring and analyzing social engagement and influence."
The Twitter results from IceRocket are useful. It provides the latest results from Twitter on your search with the tweet and a link to the Twitter account of the user who tweeted it. You can also search for just links and hashtags.
Foxconn is a company best known for manufacturing part for Apple gadgets, including the iPad and iPhone. It is a subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd., a Taiwanese company.
Xinhuanet, a Chinese news agency, is reporting that Foxconn, which employs about 1 million workers in China, is planning to replace many workers with 1 million robots. Foxconn uses 10,000 robots today and plans to use 1 million robots by the end of 2014. That's a lot of robots!
Xinhaunet says the the news about the robots was given to workers at a "workers' dance party." News that they would be replaced by robots must have brought the music and dancing to a stop.
The New York Daily Newsreports that President Obama lost around 40,000 followers when he turned to Twitter to discuss the debt crisis. Twitter Counter's stats page shows President Obama lost about 34,000 followers, but started gaining followers again today.
President Obama used his popular Twitter account to encourage users to sent Tweets to Texas Republican reps. He sent out lots and lots of tweets with the Twitter addresses of Republican lawmakers.
Pointing out the lost followers makes for an easy, fun attack for Republicans. Lost followers are to be expected when a Twitter account that doesn't tweet very frequently suddenly starts delivering lots of tweets. People don't like their Twitter streams cluttered and they may be starting to realize President Obama is going to tweet at them more frequently with the 2012 campaign nearing full throttle.
Mediaite calls the lost followers a "tempest in a twitter teapot." It is true that the Twitter followers President Obama lost were a fraction of his 9.4 million followers. It is also true that his Klout score increase. However, it would be wrong to say there was no cost at all in these lost followers. They were clearly regular Twitter users, which makes them more valuable than people who have not logged into Twitter in months or years. So the mass tweeting did come with a cost. Whether or not it was worth the cost or not is up to the political pundits.
Google+ Product Manager Christian Oestlien asked businesses to refrain from creating Google+ profiles earlier this month. At the time several brands, including Mashable and Ford, already had set-up Google+ profiles for their brands.
Google removed Mashable, Ford, Sesame Street and other brands from Google+ earlier this week. This is what Google had said it was going to do to the brands on Google+.
Despite being removed, Mashable has not completely left Google+. The Google+ profile was converted into Pete Cashmore, the founder of Mashable. Cashmore was able to retain the Mashable profile's 100,000 followers during the name change.
The ability to keep his followers gives Cashmore and the Mashable team a bit of an advantage over companies that are unable to create business profiles until Google lets them. Pete Cashmore does say Mashable will launch a business profile from scratch once business accounts are available, but in the meantime he already has a popular profile to promote Mashable from.
GigaOm explains why Google+ brand pages are such a big deal (before they even exist) here
At a time when most people are trying to get a Google+ account, CNET TV published this video about how to delete your Google+ account. Youtube commenters are suggesting the video was "sponsored by Facebook."
Leaving services on the Internet is not always easy and sometimes your content remains on the site even if you account is removed. Deleting your Google+ profile looks fairly straightforward. You just have to go slowly so you don't wipe out your other Google services in the process. Take a look:
You can get the latest blogging news from Bloggers Blog by following us on Facebook and Twitter. Our Facebook page is located here and our Twitter page is @bloggersblog. We are also here on Plurk.
Writers Write, Inc., the publisher of bloggersblog.com, also publishes blogs covering books, cars, fantasy/sf, games, movies, science and writing. You can find our Facebook and Twitter accounts at wwfeeds.com.
WordPress now powers over 50 million sites according to its stats. WordPress says it hosts about half of these sites. WordPress says 2.5 billion pages are read a month by web surfers and 500,000 new posts are published daily by bloggers using WordPress.
Google+ Product Manager Christian Oestlien says Google+ is currently being optimized for consumers. They are working on Google+ profiles for businesses. They are asking businesses to hold off on creating Google+ profiles until the business profiles are ready.
Mashable notes that it and other brands, Ford and MSNBC's Breaking News, already have these disallowed Google+ profiles.
Oestlien says in his post, "Our policy team will actively work with profile owners to shut down non-user profiles."
Google+ business profiles will be a big deal. Facebook and Twitter have already proven that people like to follow brands, particularly media brands so they can keep up with the news. Oestlien says business profiles will launch later this year. They are also looking for test profiles. The link to apply can be found in his post. Take a look:
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that three private-equity firms - KKR & Co., Silver Lake Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures - joined forces to acquire the GoDaddy Group, Inc. The company is best known for its GoDaddy.com domain registrar, which has been offering low-priced domains for the past several years.
The International Business Times says an official from Silver Lake says the GoDaddy's competitive pricing will continue. GoDaddy's elephant shooting owner Bob Parsons - dubbed as wacky by the WSJ's Deal Journal - will remain chief executive, but may transition to executive chairman in time.
ESPN is covering the Danica Patrick angle. They say Danica's deal with GoDaddy will continue. Fox Sports on the other hand says the sale could affect Danica.
Twitter has acquired BackType. The company runs Backtweets, a website that offers Twitter analytics. Backtweets also provide a search tool that shares information about tweets to a given domain. BackType says Backtweets will now be offered for free, but it will no longer accept new signups. The API is being discontinued.
BackType announced the acquisition on its blog. The company says it is bringing its technology to Twitter. Backtype believes its realtime processing technology called Storm will have a big impact at Twitter.
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Facebook claims an enormous amount of monthly active users (845 million peeps) and daily active users (483 million peeps). DealBook 
The Wall Street Journal is 
The White House is now on Google's relatively new social network, Google+. The White House's Google+ page, available 
Reddit really cranked in December, 2011. The link-sharing social media site 
Google has launched pages for its Google+ social network. Search Engine Land describes the new feature 
The 
Celebrities garnering the most followers is a trend that occurs on most social networks. The social networks like to help that trend along because they know if they can get celebrities using their service then they can get people to join the service so they can follow the celebs. 
Forbes 
Twitter announced in a 
Nichenet has launched 
TechCrunch is 
Bitly, a popular URL shortener and more, 
Meltwater Group has purchased the IceRocket search engine. 
TechCrunch 
WordPress now powers over 50 million sites according to its 
The Wall Street Journal is 
Twitter has acquired BackType. The company runs 