Tag Archives: social network

Twitter updates Direct Messaging System

Twitter,

twitter-bird-white-on-blueTwitter announced today that the company is updating its direct messaging system so that it’s no longer a requirement for accounts to follow each other in order to send direct messages. Previously, users could only send direct messages to accounts that were following them. From the Twitter blog:

Changes include:

A setting that allows you to receive Direct Messages from anyone, even if you don’t follow them. To change your settings follow these instructions.

Updated messaging rules so you can reply to anyone who sends you a Direct Message, regardless of whether or not that person follows you.

A new Direct Message button on profile pages on Android and iPhone. You’ll see it on the profiles of people you can send Direct Messages to.

The announcement of this change set off a firestorm of criticism from Twitter users. Apparently, the idea that anyone could easily direct message anyone else wasn’t too popular. The outrage is no surprise, as Twitter has a poor history of dealing with harassment amongst its user base. And while it’s easy enough to report and/or block a user who’s been sending troubling @ replies to you, allowing potential instigators to have access to what has always been a private and secure space (your direct message inbox), provides a whole new level of problems.

Fortunately, this new function is opt-in. So, if you still want your direct messages to work as they always have, you don’t need to do anything. But if you would like to open your direct message box to the world, you can choose to do so in your Twitter account settings.

It seems that Twitter made this move in response to commercial accounts looking for more efficient ways to communicate with their customers. Of course, for Twitter, adding more users is the name of the game. Perhaps the company believes that implementing this change will woo new users over the potential of sending direct messages to their favorite celebrities.

Something tells me most Twitter users won’t be opting in to this new feature.

Jigsie Is A Fun New Social Network At CES

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jigsie logo

Living abroad, I’m always on the lookout for innovative new ways to communicate with friends and family back home, beyond your ordinary old social networks. Lately I’ve been obsessed with Jigsie, a fun new social app with a twist.

Jamie and Nick spoke to Paolo Farrari, CEO of Bella Technologia, about the app. Jigsie is a social app that turns your photos into personalized digital jigsaw puzzles that you can send to your friends and family. With options to add info like location, calendar dates, and more to your “Jigs”, the possibilities are endless with Jigsie.

Jigsie is available for free now for iOS and Android.

Interview by Jamie Davis of Health Tech Weekly and Nick DiMeo of F5 Live: Refreshing Technology.

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Businessfriend is Where Professionals Collaborate at CES

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BusinessFriend logoLove ’em or hate ’em, social networks are here to stay. Over the years, many companies have entered this market. Networks like Facebook want to connect everyone, while networks like LinkedIn are aimed at business users. A new network called Businessfriend hopes to bridge the gap between the personal and professional social network.

Scott met with Glenn from Businessfriend. Glenn explained that Businessfriend is a “one-stop shop” for social networking and collaboration tools. Businessfriend users can do standard social-network stuff like follow the feeds of friends, colleagues and brands. But Businessfriend users can also access tools like instant messaging, video chat, audio chat and cloud-based document collaboration. Best of all, Businessfriend is one app that can be accessed via desktop computers or iOS and Android mobile apps, allowing users to connect no matter what platform they’re on.

Interview by Scott of F5 Live: Refreshing Technology for the TechPodcast Network.

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iGoogle Officially Shut Down… For Now

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iGoogle
iGoogle

They talked about it for over a year. People were confused why the personal homepage was shuttering. But is the page really gone, or just hiding?

iGoogle Shut Down

On November 1st, iGoogle – the webpage that allowed you to add RSS feeds, widgets and more – went offline. It was over a year in the making when Google announced they were shutter the service.

iGoogle launched in 2005 as an Ajax driven browser. You could create your own widgets using the Google Gadgets API. Of course, you could add RSS feeds for news from your favorite web sites.

Yahoo Capitalizes

Yahoo was one of the original creators of a customizable home page. If you were an IT administrator back in 2000, you saw the majority of employees that either wanted or had Yahoo as their homepage.

If you do a search for iGoogle, you will get www.yahoo.com/igoogle – pointing to the newest version of Yahoo’s customizable home page.

Is iGoogle Really Dead?

While Matt Eichner said it is no longer relevant 16 months ago, it might still be a part of future Google’s plans. Since Google is pushing more into their social network Google+, could iGoogle eventually reform into some type of page within Google+?

Chrome also has bounced back and forth on homepage ideas. It could easily add an iGoogle-esque option. all without having to type in iGoogle.

Of course, Google is moving to HTML5 and the Ajax driven iGoogle just wasn’t in the plans.

Goodbye, Apple Ping in iTunes. I Hardly even Used Ya

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Apple announced their social network Ping would be removed in the next version of iTunes. It didn’t build the excitement as Apple wanted it to. Because of the integration of Facebook with iOS6, and also integration with Twitter, Apple decided to retire the network.

Ping was announced on September 2nd, and saw 1 million users in the first 48 hours. After that, it didn’t see the growth it wanted. Of course, it didn’t help to be behind the walled iTunes garden.

Ping

Will Facebook Replace Ping in iTunes?

Since the announcement that Facebook will become integrated in iOS6, it makes one wonder if Ping will get replaced with Facebook or Twitter. That way, you still have a social network in iTunes.

ping3

With a social network in iTunes, you can have people publicly announce what they are watching and listening to. It’s technically free advertisement to say “Hey! Buy from iTunes, because your friend Joe did!”. So it only goes to see the integration happen. Either that, or turn iTunes into web-based software.

According to All Things D, Ping will be removed in the next major revision – coming out this Fall. In the meantime, when you download something from the iTunes, store, just choose the drop-down and share on Twitter or Facebook.

 

MySpace Loses Even More Ground, Gets Dropped From Windows Live

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Just when you thought things couldn’t get much worse for MySpace, the once-king of social networks, it’s now official that Microsoft is giving them the boot from their Windows Live services.  MySpace was once one of the prominent social services that Live users could connect to, thereby importing and exporting status updates via Windows Live Messenger and importing MySpace contacts into both Messenger and Hotmail.

However, it seems Microsoft has recently sent an email to all Live users who had connected MySpace accounts to notify them that these import/export services will be ceasing within the next few weeks.  They even point out in their message that this will have no effect on other social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn – it’s strictly MySpace that is getting the boot.

Both Messenger and Hotmail are two of Microsoft’s most popular properties, but it’s unlikely this email went to very many of their users, and those who did receive it will likely be hearing the death knell for MySpace.  That’s the sound that most of the world heard a while back.  A copy of the email, which was posted earlier by Neowin, can be seen below.

Huffington Post Going Strong – 1 bn Page Views, New Hires, Head Spins….

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Huffington Post
Huffington Post

For anyone that wonders why AOL got into bed with Huffington Post, here is your answer. People use the site. At least, that is what HuffPo says and we believe.

Last month, Huffington Post claimed they hit 1 billion page views in the month of August. With as much diversity that the post has, I wouldn’t be surprised. With the growth of the site in the last 30 days, I wouldn’t be surprised if it hit 2 billion a month by early next year.

So how are they doing this right?

Sites with Communities

This seems to become a new trend – divvy up a site into several niche markets. Make the site feel like it caters to what you like. If you cannot group people in one big circle, make little circles and put all the numbers together in the end.

The announcement also talked about the purchase of “Localocracy” – an “online town common where registered voters using real names can weigh in on local issues.” This could bring the HuffPo to your local community. Get news and comment on it.

The HuffPost 50 is another good example. They call it the “Internet Newspaper”. You can get a little bit of everything on this page. You can scan the front page, find the one thing you like, read it, and move on.

Top Name Site Hires

This is how part of the press release reads:

The Huffington Post Media Group announces today the launch of four destination sites: Huff/Post50 (www.huffingtonpost.com/50), HuffPost Gay Voices (www.huffingtonpost.com/gay-voices) and HuffPost Weddings (www.huffingtonpost/weddings). Each offers HuffPost’s unique combination of real-time news and opinion, and passionate communities powered by a leading social news platform.

HuffPost/50 — whose Editor-at-Large is actress, producer and writer Rita Wilson — covers the challenges, complexities and joys facing the boomer generation, now 77 million people strong. It spotlights boomers who fearlessly tackle new challenges in the spirit of reinventing themselves, regardless of age, and encourages boomers to question conventional wisdom about aging. Topics being covered include: longevity, relationships and sex, politics, the intense “sandwich” pressure of simultaneously taking care of aging parents and children, retirement, spirituality and religion, friendship, politics and dying.

Not only did it announce new communities in LGBT and Wedding categories, it also put a staff together that includes comedian Margaret Cho, Heidi Klum, and other celebrities in their respected fields.

Engagement

It’s amazing to see how many people “Like” an article. Whereas a site has a good day with 34 likes on an article, HuffPo good post would see 1000x the traffic. For example – their “Arrested Development is back” post produced 79,000 likes.

Integrating the Facebook Factor really helps. Then again, their social comment section also adds community response, which – in turn – can be posted back to the social networks. I guess the day of the forum is really dead.

So in a nutshell, Huffington Post is a community site. You can go to get your tech fix, political fix, LGBT fix, and more. It  has news, commentary, pictures, video and so much more. Of course, it’s staff of bloggers and reporters is pretty impressive. So 1 billion page views is not surprising. With addtional website acquisitions, the 2 billion view mark a month is very possible.