vcwebmarketing.com

With Zuckerberg Gone Android, Will Facebook Get Better Mobile Apps?

Jolie O'Dell — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:08:32 +0000

Android users, rejoice! Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg will now be forced to feel your pain.The Android app for Facebook could be charitably described as less functional than the iPhone app. We're sure there are good reasons for this, the greatest of which is likely market share. With iOS-running phones composing more than half of all smartphones, according to recent research, it's in Facebook's best interest to focus on this segment first.Still, for the ever-growing number of Android device users who also would like a little Facebook mobile action, the pared-down feature set of Facebook for Android makes us feel neglected -- the redheaded stepchildren of Facebook mobile users. But now that "Zuck" is one of us, all that's about to change... right?Historically, Facebook has made fairly few gestures toward the Android platform. It launched its official Android app last fall and rolled out an SDK for Android devs just a couple months ago.But Facebook's iPhone work, which began with an official app launch in the summer of 2008, has been nothing short of fantastic. iPhone users can chat, watch videos and more all from within the app. Recent patents suggest even deeper app/hardware integration. And the app keeps up with Apple's iOS updates, too.For reference, we polled Twitter users on what they specifically would change or what they currently dislike about Facebook's Android app.The app's notification system was by far the most-cited annoyance. Another common complaint was the app's redirects to Facebook's mobile touch site rather than having more in-app functionality. Users are having a hard time clicking and launching the links posted by their friends, let alone sharing links and items. One user said he'd like to have an easier way to view Pages, and several noted the lack of Facebook Chat features, which the iPhone app does have. Also, a few folks complained that the app is slow and prone to frequent crashes.As a personal aside, and with my heartfelt apologies to the developer team working on Facebook's mobile offerings, I have never found that the usefulness of the Facebook for Android app outweighed the frustration of trying to use it, and I've lately avoided using the app altogether.So, returning to our original question: Will Mark Zuckerberg like the taste of his own dogfood? And if he doesn't, will Android app users see fast-tracked changes and upgrades to the Facebook for Android application?That's really not a question we can answer, unfortunately. While we'd love to optimistically assume that Zuckerberg will find the current version of Facebook for Android as tedious and troublesome as some of its users clearly do, we can't assume that he'll demand immediate fixes and all Facebook's other development will be sidetracked accordingly. But we are certain that Zuckerberg will continue to do what's best for Facebook as a business, something he's excelled at consistently.We've reached out to Facebook for comment, but in the event that our questions aren't answered, we'll still be keeping an eye out for any releases to this particular application.And hey, Mark, welcome to "the dark side," and enjoy your new phone!

For more Social Media coverage:

Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Social Media channel
Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Oldest Twitter User Ivy Bean Dies at 104

Stan Schroeder — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:29:30 +0000

Ivy Bean, who was widely considered to be the oldest Twitter user, died in her care home in a small town in England at the age of 104.The news was published on Bean's Twitter account, @IvyBean104, which regularly informed followers about Bean's deteriorating condition over the last couple of days."Ivy passed away peacefully at 12.08 this morning... Im sorry it took me so long to tell you but it was a very difficult thing to do," the tweets said.Bean was a popular Twitter user with more than 56,000 followers at the time of her death, as well as a fairly active one, with more than 1,000 tweets. As one might expect, Bean was also an avid FacebookFacebook user; she joined at the age of 102.Mrs. Bean's example showed that social media truly knows no boundaries, and that tools such as TwitterTwitter and Facebook are open to everyone who wants to participate. We'll miss you, Ivy.

For more Social Media coverage:

Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Social Media channel
Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Ask.com Reinvents Itself with a Focus on Community Q&A

Jennifer Van Grove — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 04:01:27 +0000

Ask.com is taking a new direction and attempting to refocus their search strategy around a more social experience, including an improved question-and-answer offering.The beta version of Ask.com comes with a new interface and is designed to provide a more semantic search experience. It includes a Q&A product that pulls from 500 million indexed questions and answers and queries appropriate Ask.com users for their answers. It will be released to users on an invite-only basis beginning today.As opposed to the traditional engine, Ask.com has always been centered around serving up relevant answers in the form of links to queries in the form of questions. The new version of the site is meant to deliver real answers, as opposed to just links, and introduce a community element to deliver human answers to subjective and complex questions.The beta offering is a product of four new features: a completely overhauled look with a focus on highlighting trending questions from the community, semantic search with answers displayed on the page, a large Q&A database and a user community element that targets members for answering questions based on their areas of expertise. The latter somewhat mirrors Aardvark's formula for finding answers to user questions, and is initiated when users click the "Ask the Community" button on the right-hand side of the results page.Ask.com currently only accounts for 2% of the search market in the United States, which equates to 184,518,000 total searches for June 2010, according to Nielsen data. As such, the new direction to socialize and transform the search experience is one that makes sense for the company, but something that seems a bit tardy in terms of the question-and-answer online revolution already underway.In 2010, we've seen the traditional Q&A site model flipped on its head with the success of AardvarkAardvark, now owned by Google, the buzz around Quora and the anonymous approach of user-to-user Q&A that Formspring provides. Even Facebook is participating in the Q&A trend with a feature that's already in testing.Ask.com is confident in their altered approach, though. "The evolution of our search technology, the rapid growth of the social Web and the shift in consumer search behavior are propelling Ask to the forefront of what we believe will be a multi-billion dollar Q&A category," says President Scott Garell.[img credit: laurakgibbs]

For more Social Media coverage:

Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Social Media channel
Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

WikiLeaks Releases Afghan War Reports in Unprecedented Leak

Samuel Axon — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 01:51:32 +0000

A website called WikiLeaks just published secret documents related to the United States' war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The documents detail deals, armed conflicts, strategies, politics, intelligence operations and some casualties from 2004 and 2010, painting the most complete publicly available picture of the Afghan War yet.The event is in some ways comparable to the leak of the Pentagon Papers, a set of documents that provided a behind-the-scenes look at the American war in Vietnam. Those papers reached the public in 1971. At more than to 90,000 reports, WikiLeaks' Afghan War Diary is even more substantial. By some measures it is the biggest intelligence leak to date.WikiLeaks founder Julian Assage told the UK newspaper The Guardian that the size of the leak is only one dimension of its significance:

This situation is different in that it's not just more material and being pushed to a bigger audience and much sooner ... but rather that people can give back. So people around the world who are reading this are able to comment on it and put it in context and understand the full situation. That is not something that has previously occurred. And that is something that can only be brought about as a result of the InternetInternet.

Two months ago, we put WikiLeaks first in a list of innovative websites that could reshape the news. The site accepts submissions of confidential political or corporate documents, reviews them to make sure they're accurate, then publishes them on the web for anyone to see. WikiLeaks has previously leaked e-mails from Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin and a video of U.S. soldiers killing civilians.Assage was careful to point out that the Afghan War Diary is comprised of old reports, not future military plans, so its usefulness to NATO's enemies in the battlefield should be limited. The people able to make the most informed decisions about whether or not the release of information can endanger American interests or lives are those working inside the Pentagon, but those are the very people WikiLeaks is trying to keep accountable. The controversy of values is clear.WikiLeaks is able to solicit submissions from all over the world while avoiding jurisdiction by operating in several countries at once — or none at all, depending on your interpretation of the situation. This wasn't possible before the web. Now it is, and the implications for society are significant.

How the Leak Happened

The Afghan War Diary was simultaneously given to reporters from The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel several weeks in advance so those reporters could study the documents and provide context with their public release. It was also given to those three publications so that no one national government could censor it.WikiLeaks removed data that could implicate its sources, but the U.S. military already has an alleged WikiLeaks source in custody: 22-year old intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, who The Guardian says is suspected as the source of the video that depicted U.S. soldiers killing civilians. So far we've seen no evidence for or against any connection between the Afghan War Diary and Manning.Politico reports that The White House released a critical statement in response to the leak, saying the U.S. "strongly condemns" the disclosure. The statement criticized WikiLeaks for not approaching the White House for comment or verification, and claimed that the bleak logs record events that took place before the Obama administration's change in strategy.

What the Leak Includes

The three publications given early access to the reports have made a few similar observations about what they say. Foremost is the general narrative that the situation in Afghanistan is bleaker than any of the governments involved would have you believe, particularly when it comes to collaboration between the United States and Pakistan.Several reports either directly or indirectly implicate the ISI, a Pakistani intelligence agency, in aiding Taliban fighters. There are some suggestions in the reports that current or former members of the ISI have actually met with Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders to collaboratively organize attacks on American troops.However, the New York Times notes that some of the reports on that subject come from Afghanistan intelligence, which has a negative relationship with Pakistan and a potential interest in damaging its reputation. Other reports detail NATO-ordered civilian killings, specifics as to why NATO progress has been slow at best, and other bleak pictures of the activities in the war.Apart from the WikiLeaks website, you can find report specifics in an interactive map The Guardian produced to highlight 300 critical reports found in the leak.Image courtesy of iStockphotoiStockphoto, rubenhi

For more Social Media coverage:

Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Social Media channel
Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Groupon Used to Premiere Indie Documentary Film

Samuel Axon — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:28:44 +0000

An independent documentary film called Ready, Set, Bag! has made innovative use of social media to promote itself in the challenging local theater market, and its strategy culminates with a Groupon that could change the way small films are distributed. It's hard for independent filmmakers to find distribution for their films beyond the InternetInternet, but Executive Producer Oren Jacob (also CTO at Pixar) and Directors Alex D. da Silva and Justine Jacob have changed the game through their use of social media, web video and social good.NewTeeVee reports that the filmmakers have contacted individual theaters asking to be shown while offering an extra suggestion: $1 of each ticket sold will go to food banks near the theater to help feed the community. So far, 100% of the theaters that have agreed to carry the film have agreed to that plan. The team also used TwitterTwitter to promote the movie, tweeting replies to users who mentioned it to ask where they lived, then calling those fans' local theaters personally to pitch the film.Charity and marketing are also combined in the film's online video campaign. The team uses a Blip.tv channel to host the trailer or other videos, and all the ad revenues from the BlipBLIP.tv content goes to support the charity Feeding America.

The Groupon Effect

We're most impressed by the possibilities inherent in the Groupon strategy, though. The first Groupon for Ready, Set, Bag! went live in Seattle today, offering locals the opportunity to mass-purchase tickets to see the film at local theaters. It lets the filmmakers do something that would have been impossible in another era: guarantee theaters a minimum level of attendance and box office success.We can see this as a viable strategy for future independent films with a few extra tweaks. For example, you could make a deal with a local theater that if the film doesn't meet the minimum number of Groupon sales, it simply won't run, alleviating any concerns the theater might have about risk as compared to running a film that might be a safer bet otherwise.It's also beneficial because the filmmakers don't have to pay for the local exposure that they get through the Groupon. To instill good will, they're building the $1 food bank donation into each ticket sold through Groupon, and sending each buyer a complimentary cotton grocery bag.

Ready, Set, Bag!

Ready, Set, Bag! is a slice of Americana, tracking contestants in a national grocery bagging competition, celebrating the American working class and inspiring conversation about grocery stores — a regular part of most of our lives that doesn't get discussed a whole lot. Here's the trailer from the aforementioned Blip.tv channel.

For more Social Media coverage:

Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Social Media channel
Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

HOW TO: Put Facebook’s “Like” Button on Any Website

Ben Parr — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 06:16:11 +0000

Facebook's social plugins, especially its popular "Like" button, have spread across the web like wildfire. They were on 50,000+ websites within one week after launch, on 100,000+ sites in less than a month, and are now on 350,000+ sites.There are still millions of web pages, blog posts and videos without "Like" buttons, though. What if you want to share one of those pages with your friends on FacebookFacebook? There's an extension for that.Facebook Like is a Greasemonkey extension that places a "Like" bar on the top of any webpage you visit (except for Facebook.com). It was built by Facebook Engineer Matt Kelly as a personal project during a company Hackathon."If you come across a site without the Like button, you can still use social plugins to share articles with your friends by installing the Facebook Like Greasemonkey script," Facebook told us earlier today. "Built as a personal project by a Facebook engineer at one of Facebook’s company Hackathons, the script makes it possible to have Like, Recommendations and Activity Feed features on any Firefox page you visit."Not only does the script allow you to "Like" any website, but it also includes the social plugin's Recommendations and Activity Feed features. An important note: while the script was built by a Facebook engineer, it is not officially affiliated with the company.Facebook Like works with FirefoxFirefox as long as you have the Greasemonkey add-on installed. It also works with Google ChromeGoogle Chrome, since includes native support for Greasemonkey scripts, while SafariSafari requires GreaseKit.What do you think of the Facebook Like bar? Will you be installing the script? Let us know in the comments.

For more Social Media coverage:

Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Social Media channel
Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Twitter Turns To New Data Center For HELP!

Ryan Deiss — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:47:49 +0000

I’ll admit that I have a love/hate relationship with Twitter. I LOVE that Twitter is hyper effective tool to grow our online friends/fan bases and get content to go viral. I HATE that Twitter is constantly not working due to some unknown technical error.

After having to shut down for 12 hours on Monday due to a database error, Twitter is tired of all the technical issues too, so they’re opening their own Data Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. (sigh of relief)

Until now Twitter used NTT America’s data center where they did not have full control over their network and system configurations to meet their very specific needs.

Here’s what we should be able to expect from Twitter having their own data center.

1- Twitter is tacking on new users at an ever increasing pace, one of the reasons Twitter can’t seem to stay up and running. A new, dedicated data center will allow Twitter to configure their data center to handle the growth. (the extra power will help as well)

2- With events like the World Cup, people Tweet A LOT more and Twitter has been pretty shaky trying to handle the massive amount traffic. The increase power of the new database will enable Twitter to facilitate way more Tweets with out interruption.

3- Twitter has had to shut down a lot of applications to conserve space and power to keep up with everything. The new data center will give them room to expand their applications and push their new Ads layout.

The data center’s potential positive effects are all great, but even Twitter engineer, Cozzatti, stated that “We frequently compare the tasks of scaling, maintaining, and tweaking Twitter to building a rocket in mid-flight,” meaning that this could all take a bit to fix and straighten out.

Do you think Twitter is yet to reach it’s full potential as they still struggle to find a way to accommodate all their new features and users? Comment Below, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Time-Lapse Twitter Visualization Shows America’s Moods [VIDEO]

Jolie O'Dell — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 02:32:41 +0000

A group of researchers from Northeastern University and Harvard University have gathered enough data from Twitter to give us all a snapshot of how we Americans feel throughout a typical day or week.Not only did they analyze the sentiments we collectively expressed in 300 million tweets over three years against a scholarly word list; these researchers also mashed up that data with information from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Google Maps API and more. What they ended up with was a fascinating visualization showing the pulse of our nation, our very moods as they fluctuate over time.The researchers have put this information into density-preserving cartograms, maps that take the volume of tweets into account when representing the land area. In other words, in areas where there are more tweets, those spots on the map will appear larger than they do in real life.It will surprise almost no one to learn that findings indicate a general mood slump mid-day and mid-week, when we are most likely to be at work. Our tweets show that we're happiest in the early morning and late evening; during the week, our mood tends to peak on Sunday morning.Less predictable, perhaps, is the fact that West Coast tweets were "happier" than tweets from the East Coast. Although West Coast Twitter users expressed emotions in the same cycles as the East Coast users (with a three-hour gap, of course, because of time zone differences), the West Coasters didn't dip as low in mood as the East Coasters by a significant margin.For the inforgraphic fans among you, here's a lovely PDF showing some of the data displayed:And here's a cool video showing the American Twitter mood expressions changing over the course of a day:We're pretty fascinated by visualizations like these; what other data or topics would you like to see these researchers tackle next? What use do you think we could get out of the current information they've generated?

For more Social Media coverage:

Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Social Media channel
Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Facebook Among Web’s Worst in Customer Satisfaction [SURVEY]

Samuel Axon — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 02:19:20 +0000

The 2010 American Customer Survey Index conducted by ForeSee Results gave Facebook 64 out of 100 points in a customer satisfaction survey; that's lower than any other business in its category. However, it's not at the bottom of the social media heap; MySpace received one point less. ForeSee Results CEO Larry Freed says that "privacy concerns, frequent changes to the website, and commercialization and advertising" are responsible for the low rating. Those reasons for dissatisfaction mirror the ones revealed in previous surveys.By contrast, GoogleGoogle received a score of 80 (though that's 7 points lower than last year's score), BingBing and WikipediaWikipedia managed a 77, YahooYahoo! pulled a 76 and YouTubeYouTube landed at 73. FacebookFacebook also received a lower rating than any of the major news websites, which were led by FOXNews.com at 82. MSNBC.com and CNN.com trailed behind at 74 and 73 respectively.We'd love to see what TwitterTwitter's score would be, but the survey excluded Twitter because so many of its users experience it through third party applications, making it difficult to judge how much their perceptions reflect Twitter itself.

Not Dissatisfied Enough

Even though Facebook's users are dissatisfied, they haven't demonstrated the will to leave. Perhaps it's because there is no strong competitor, or because their social lives would suffer tremendously if they opted out of this now-essential tool for communication and event planning.After the Instant Personalization opt-out controversy, thousands of users committed to quit on May 31. The movement failed when many of them simply didn't. Instead of suffering perceptible negative consequences for its choices, the social network has continued to grow. It will celebrate 500 million users later this week.Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be giving a rare TV interview with Diane Sawyer tomorrow, presumably to talk about the milestone and repair some of the PR damage in the wake of these privacy scandals and in anticipation of the release of the film The Social Network. What do you think he'll say? What does he need to say?

For more Social Media coverage:

Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Social Media channel
Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Glendora,CA: Teen swaps old cell phone for Porsche on Craigslist

terry — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:49:25 +0000

For more Social Media coverage:

Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Social Media channel
Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad