Pakistan Authorities Busted a Facebook Kidnap Gang

The authorities of Pakistan busted a gang today which used to lure young boys through telephone calls and Facebook with the help of a female member and then kidnap these boys for large ransom.

According to police, the gang operated in Gujranwala that is a province in Punjab included a lawyer and his wife, a police officer and two others.

Police used the help of Pakistan’s leading intelligence agency to track gang’s phone calls and finally busted this gang. A high-ranking police officer, Khurram Shoiab informed reporters that all accused members of the gang have been arrested. He further added that these kidnappers were using the social network Facebook as a tool for luring the teenage boys and later kidnap them.

He also said that a sum of PKR 1.7 million ransom amount was recovered from the arrested. Also, the female member had a Facebook account that she was using to trap boys and later abduct them. After chatting with the boys for some time or a few days, the women used to call boys or have them called her to plan a meeting in the real world and from there, the gang’s plan proceeded to the next step.

The woman made her claim that all she used to do was making a single phone call. As per her, she was totally unaware of what was happening afterwards.

Mission of Transparency Undermined By Twitter’s Secret IPO

Twitter is demanding respect without giving any in exchange because it has chosen the path taken by elite investors instead of the truly public viewing. This is not a company that would typically be identified with the act of stealing. The CEO of Twitter, Dick Costolo regards it as a worldwide or global town square. This is because 400 tweets take place in a day that covers various aspects ranging between personal feuds, twerking controversies and revolutions. If people wish to publicize something, they should take it to Twitter. However, the company itself has made the choice of going undercover when it is going public.

As per the Jobs Act, a company that has revenues less than $1 billion has the privilege of filing a ‘confidential’ initial public offering. Twitter is opting for that privilege. This means that people don’t really know when Twitter made the decision of going public because it is keeping the IPO confidential. The social messaging site could go public in three months or even seven months. But, this isn’t a great choice for a company that earns its fortune by applying time stamps on instant communication. It is perfectly legal for a company to choose the Job Acts Secrecy, but it doesn’t hold true for the spirit with which Twitter conducts its business.

It is a major fail when one of the most prominent communications companies decide to go for a secret IPO. The purpose of introducing the Jobs Act was to prevent small startup companies and business to be intimated by the huge public market. It wasn’t introduced for allowing international companies such as Twitter, which are under public scrutiny to choose this option for avoiding any discomfort with facing their finances. For Twitter, a confidential IPO is not a good choice at all. This process is called the ‘roadshow’.

It also means that the public will not have any access to the history, business plans, documents and finances of the company until it finally chooses to issue shares to large institutional investors. Only elite investors can be part of the IPO and this procedure is conducted by banks to discover how much the large investors are willing to pay for Twitter. Later, the price offered to the public will be influenced by this research.  But, the public will have no news or access unless there is a leak. Instead, they will be relying on rumor and speculation.

The whole process of going ‘public’ is undermined in this manner. The purpose of going public is to allow the public to discuss the company, examine it and debate on it. However, what Twitter is asking is that the public give it the same respect as is given to the public company and also the rich valuation that’s demanded by the internet stocks. But, the company is refusing to give the same respect to the public. They will not be aware of what they are buying. Twitter is not a startup, but it has to confront its finances and do so publicly.

Facebook Considers Expanding Facial Recognition Database with Profile Photo

 

One of the largest social networks of the world today is Facebook. It has around 1.15 billion users that are spread all over the globe. Since its launch in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, the social network has expanded greatly and has become a public limited company today. However, because of its size, the social network often finds itself involved in numerous controversies that continue to increase on a daily basis. In the latest debatable issue, it has come to light that the social networking giant is thinking of adding profile photos of users to the facial recognition database as they are of the opinion that this will give users better control over their sensitive and private information.

As it has more than a billion members, the social network is thinking of adding profile photos to the growing facial recognition database and thus expanding this controversial technology of the social network. The data use policy of the social network was updated recently and that’s when the company revealed this possible move. As per the indication, this move will boost the performance of the ‘tag suggest’ feature of the social network. In this feature, facial recognition technology is utilized for speeding up the process of tagging or labeling friends and acquaintances that are part of the photographs that are uploaded on the network.

Currently, the technology is automatically identifying the faces that are seen in the newly posted photos and comparing them with old snapshots in which the users were tagged. It is up to the Facebook users to remove the tag that was posted by others for the purpose of identifying them. These changes would come into effect at a time when internet companies including Facebook are being scrutinized regarding their privacy practices because of the revelations of a surveillance program that had been authorized by the US government.

Google, Microsoft, Facebook and other internet companies have insisted that they haven’t been part of any program and neither have they given the government direct access to their computer servers. They have said that they only provide information in response to special requests that are made and only when they are required by the law. Erin Egan, the chief privacy officer of Facebook stated that users would be able to control their personal information in a better way if their public profile photos were added because they would be able to identify the photos in which they appear.

Egan added that the whole point was to facilitate tagging to let people know what photos of them were present in the system. She also asserted that all those users that were uncomfortable with this technology of facial recognition would have the option of avoiding the tag-suggest feature. In this case, the facial recognition database would not include the profile photo of the said individual. For technology companies, this particular technology has remained a sensitive issue and has also had some privacy concerns amongst government officials and privacy advocates. Because of the doubt so regulators in Europe, the tag-suggest feature is not offered in Europe.

Facebook Launching Mysterious Product at June 20 Event

 

Social networking has become all the rage nowadays and there are numerous social networks that are being used today. However, none is as vast or popular as Facebook, which is said to be the largest social network of the world with more than a billion users that are spread out in every corner of the globe. Initially launched for the students of Harvard in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and his roommates, the social network has now expanded to any individual above the age of 13. The social network filed for an initial public offering in 2012 and based its headquarters in Menlo Park, California.

Since its advent several years ago, the social network has undergone a number of changes and has added a variety of features to its website in order to provide a better experience to its customer base. This improvement cycle is ongoing and the company is making another announcement related to it on June 20th 2013. According to the company, it will be hosting an event at its headquarters on the said date where it will be launching ‘a new product’. The invites have started rolling out slowly to people and are being sent through the snail mail.

According to the invitation sent out by the social network to the media, the company has said that a small team of its people has been working hard on a very big idea. The social network has invited them to have coffee and learn about the new product that’s soon to be released. The invite was sent out on a clean white paper, but there is a ‘stain’ on one corner, which resembles that of a singular brown coffee mug. In the past six months, this is the fourth press conference that the social network will be conducting and launching a new product.

So far, the company has introduced several other features that include the Graph Search, which was in January, the Facebook Home Android experience that was introduced recently and also a revamped and enhanced News Feed, which was in March. It was rumored that Facebook would be introducing a postcard service and there is speculation that the invites might just be the clue to exactly that. Moreover, earlier this week, Facebook had mentioned that it would be making additional announcements that were related to its public conversation features. Also, in this week, clickable hashtags were also introduced by Greg Lindley, the product manager of Facebook.

He said that previously there was no means of having an overall picture of what people were up to and what was trending, but hashtags were simply the first step that would enable people to take part in public conversations and learn about people. In the upcoming weeks and months, the social network will be rolling out new features that include deeper insights, trending hashtags and this mysterious announcement that will be made in the next week. There is also a rumor that Facebook might be developing its own RSS reader as Google is shutting its own down.

Upstarting Apps Gunning For Facebook

The ubiquitous social networking site, Facebook has become the bright and burning start of Silicon Valley. An unprecedented scale has been reached by the social network that has over 1.1 billion users and they continue to grow every month, especially in South America, Asia and Africa. This is due to the fact that Facebook is subsidizing mobile access for a completely new generation and has made itself the internet for them. The social network is positioning itself aggressively in established markets and is becoming the default identify provider on countless third party sites. On mobile, the new Facebook app channels all the content via the account.

It seems that business is booming for the social network. Consumer internet companies are aware that people use around seven apps and being one of them means you are becoming successful. Facebook is one of these seven apps for around 751 million people of the world. Revenue has increased by 38%, according to its latest financial results and its total advertising revenue amounted to $1.25 billion. It was revealed that one third of this advertising revenue was generated through the ads that were placed on tablets and mobiles. This proves to be a remarkable recovery by a company that was becoming derailed because of the absence of a mobile strategy.

However, the social network is still facing some challenges that cannot be fixed through algorithms. The most important one of them includes retaining the attention of the internet consumers that tend to be fickle. The biggest example of this is MySpace that fell from the public eye very quickly. From the number one website of the world, MySpace had been reduced to zero and it all happened very quickly. The surprise $1 billion acquisition of Instagram, the popular photo sharing app by Facebook was the defensive strategy of the social networking website.

The acquisition was not because of the worth of Instagram, but was simply a move by Facebook to take it out of the competition. The problem is that it cannot continue to do it with every website that becomes a threat. A human problem is also faced by the social network. It’s engineering and business might be robust, but it doesn’t demonstrate any empathy or sensitivity to the human condition. Regular controversies regarding privacy and inappropriate content continue to arise and the social network is not willing to make any concessions to sort them out.

The social network will point out that it has automated content moderation and the users should flag inappropriate content. However, individuals make inconsistent and poor decisions. Privacy campaigns also continue to hound Facebook for monetizing the date of its users, although the social network denies this claim. It is ignoring the interpersonal and ethical implications of its rapid development and this continues to create controversial issues. Consumers, on the other hand, are becoming more and more aware of the value of their data and are becoming resentful. There is a risk that they will move onto new upstart apps and quit Facebook if this continues. 

LivingSocial Hacked - An Insight Into the Incident

A well-known deal of the day website, LivingSocial is based in Washington DC. The website features numerous discounted gift certificates that can be used by people for both local and national companies. The website currently has more than 70 million members that are spread out in different parts of the world. However, it recently became the latest database target for hackers and the personal and confidential information of about 50 million members of the daily deals website was compromised. According to the information, the hackers have made off with the names, birthdates, emails and encrypted passwords of a vast portion of LivingSocial customers.

Not all divisions of Amazon’s partly owned website were invaded though. Those in Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand and Philippines remained safe and unaffected because different servers are used by the website for hosting them. According to a security expert, this could prove to be catastrophic because of the reuse of passwords of millions of users that could be done. The passwords need to be changed immediately and this was emphasized by the CEO of LivingSocial when he made the announcement of the hack. The passwords of customers have been reset by the website, but it isn’t clear if it was done for everyone or only the customers whose account was breached.

After this massive breach of the computer systems, emails were sent out by LivingSocial to all of its 50 million customers that were impacted in the cyber-attack on the website. This announcement was made by a spokesman of the company, who also added that they were working diligently with law enforcement in the investigation being conducted for finding the perpetrators. Details about how the hackers were able to get access to the servers in the first place were not given out by the company. It wasn’t clear as to how the computer systems of the daily deals website were hacked and how the personal information of the customers was obtained.

Nevertheless, it was added by the company that extra measures were being taken for restricting the access of outsiders to all of its systems and the sensitive customer data. Furthermore, the website was also monitoring the consumer accounts closely to notice any signs of breach or misuse. One more thing emphasized by LivingSocial was that the credit card and related financial information of its customers had not been comprised in the hacking attack. The company stated that it made use of a financial processing network for storing credit card data  due to which the full credit card number couldn’t be found anywhere in their system.

Regardless, the hack remains a huge blow for the daily deals website because now a large number of customers will have to reset their passwords. This incident remains to be the latest biggest breach of data that has occurred recently in the consumer internet space. These hacking attacks have proven to be troublesome for a number of the high-profile companies such as Evernote, LinkedIn and Zappos. Even though 29% of the company is owned by Amazon, LivingSocial has been struggling and this is simply another blow for it. 

Buy Pinterest Followers and Outrun Your Competitors

While the title says you could buy Pinterest followers but with the latest services available on the internet you could buy likes from Facebook, Google+ votes, Instagram followers and Youtube likes & favorites. These social media marketing services are available at low costs from several reliable service providers on the internet on monthly fees basis or onetime payments. Small businesses, large enterprises and even computer users sitting at home could take advantage from these services. This service has a wide range of areas to cover for anyone including the increased volume of traffic on the website, boost in sales or simply more views of a particular page. While the importance of SEO services and web analytics has been recognized by all businesses, the huge effect of these services could not be overlooked as well. Here are some of the benefits of this service:

Benefits Of Buying Likes, Views, Followers And Votes

The points below have been given to cover as many aspects of the service and their benefits as possible but you could explore the individual websites of service providers to know the specifics of their services:

• Whether you buy Google+ votes, Pinterest followers or Youtube Subscribers, these are the most affordable services available for effective marketing.

• While the targeted audience and your webpage content could affect the time in which results are produced but mostly you get to see good results in a few months; and sometimes even weeks.

• These services cover almost all of the most popular social networking websites on the internet including the Google+, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and services like Youtube.

• The followers, views, votes and subscriptions are from real people – no illegal stuff is involved but you are still recommended to explore your options unless satisfied.

• While votes and views seem to be superficial benefits, subscriptions and followers prove to be increasingly beneficial for businesses. Once the people have you in their lists or subscribed services, they are automatically spreading your message as they interact with people online and more people get to notice you in their profiles.

• When you buy Instagram followers, Facebook fans and Google+ votes, you get benefit in more than one ways: first, these people become your customers and second, whoever gets to see these many likes and followers on your page becomes a lead.

• The number of likes, followers and subscriptions play an important role in search engine optimization for your website. This is an additional advantage that you don’t even have to pay for.

• These services are not limited to large enterprises or to a certain group of people: even if you are a drummer sitting in the house waiting for a twist in your career, you could buy views on Youtube or Facebook fans to get the exposure you have always thought of.

• When you buy Google+ votes or likes followers for Twitter or Instagram, you know you are targeting a platform where the number of people is only going increase so your popularity is unlimited.

There are many other benefits when you buy Pinterest followers or Youtube likes & favorites but a better way to know them would be to get in touch with the service provider. There has always been a big competition among big companies and internet has made it even tougher: it just so happens that these competitions benefit the consumers usually. So never forget to inquire about promotional codes and special offers as you’re about to purchase the services from a provider. 

Buy Google+ Votes – It is the New Way to Sell More

Social media marketing and social networking is the new way businesses have started to approach their customers and make new ones. There couldn’t be a better way to connect with your consumers in the past but now that you have one, you wouldn’t want to miss it. You can now buy Google+ votes and thousands of Facebook likes to show your webpage visitors how popular your services are. This is the new marketing strategy applied by hundreds of companies and since it meets all the legal requirements described by social networks, there’s no harm in trying it out. The only thing that needs clarification is the understanding of why these likes or votes would matter. No rocket science involved and no intricate details: they are useful and with time you will realize that.

Understanding The Need Of Buying Votes And Followers

The effect of social marketing has grown to such levels that now when you see a webpage without likes and votes, you feel like moving off the webpage instantly. This isn’t a joke or a statement merely given out to support a service: it actually matters and a little exploration of websites and blogs can easily open the truth on you. First impression when you look at the likes and votes on an article: you actually start thinking about the influence of the writer on its readers. Your mind wonders that there must be a reason why this person is getting these many likes. This is just the point where you as a business can take advantage and buy Facebook likes or Google+ votes to grab the attention of visitors.

Ever noticed when you are walking down the road and there’s a big crowd gathered in one corner: you are psychologically asked and piqued by your brain to see what’s going on. It could be something important or just a display of juggling: who would know until they go and watch it? Similarly, the likes on your webpage urge the visitors to know more about your services or products. Most of the times people use internet to get information about new services and products, and get help from some helpful reviews. These votes and likes play an important role in convincing the people about your particular product/service.

What Type Of Businesses Can Benefit From This Service?

Any type of business can benefit from this service and buy Facebook fans or likes to give more influencing exposure to its product. You might have a small business looking for exposure to a large number of people or you might own a big business that needs more sales to step into the competition among the biggest giants in the industry. You could even be an individual wanting more fans to promote his/her talent e.g. guitaring, singing, painting, debating, dancing etc. This service is unique and covers a large number of industries and it wouldn’t be wrong to say that it covers them all.

You can buy Google+ votes and have more fans of your webpage so the internet users feel secure about your services/products. This is how businesses are now operating on the internet: through social networks. Even the Fortune 100 companies have created their pages on social networks to get direct feedbacks from customers, interact with them without any middle liaison and provide them with answers to their queries. If you are a band waiting for a breakthrough for quite some time, buy Facebook fans today and see how you reach the top of the world in no time.

Why Buying Facebook Fans is Beneficial for Your Business?

You know how people love to follow their friends and be equal to each other in terms of technology and possessions. If your friend has an iPhone today, you’ll probably have one tomorrow because you just can’t ignore the idea of not being on the same level as your friend. But now is the time to make use of this idea in a more innovative and productive way. This could be done by buying a few likes for your services or products. This is absolutely possible and perfectly legal; so you don’t have to worry about the use of service. So how can you buy Facebook fans? You’ll know as you read more.

Since the topic is about buying the fans, it doesn’t include your colleagues, friends and family members because they will definitely not ask for money for liking your service. The goal here is to buy Facebook likes and you will definitely wonder why you are buying them. It is a good question but if you try and think about your business a little deeper you will realize the importance of these likes and fans. These likes and fans are being discussed here in terms of marketing campaigns and marketing strategy. Having a few likes on the service or product you sell is not a big task but having many of them is what matters: at least when you are a big company.

The idea that needs understanding here is the basic mentality of a consumer in the market; and by market it also means the internet. Whosoever is in the market to buy something, the first concern is of security. A consumer will never want to buy something that he thinks will not last for long or benefit him as much as is expecting that thing to. As a matter of fact, the consumer will never throw his money in the wind and will do all the necessary research before purchasing something with the hard-earned money. This research for consumer is highly supported and strengthened by other consumers in the market: if others are liking, appreciating and buying it, there are high chances that you will too.

So while you know internet is playing the major role in the economy of almost all industries today, you should not stop yourself from taking advantage of it. How you can take advantage of internet – you buy Facebook fans and likes. Furthermore, you can buy Twitter followers; and keep in mind the impact these likes and followers can have on your sales and traffic. You will find hundreds of articles on the internet trying to educate website owners on the fact that Facebook likes, Facebook fans and Twitter followers play an important role in search engine optimization and in turn, the website traffic. You’ll have to strive hard to find reasons that prove things otherwise.

So you can buy Twitter followers today and start noticing the difference. You are definitely keeping a track of all web analytics and you will be glad to notice the difference these likes and followers will have on your webpage. Businesses are running hard to excel and beat their competitors; and the battle has drifted into the social networking websites to interact with the consumers directly. When you buy Facebook likes and internet users see them on your product/service page, they will naturally consider you among the best companies in the industry today: which isn’t what you would really not want.

The Role of Different Social Networking Platforms in Growth of a Businesses

With the advent of technology, marketing has also changed a lot. There are different aspects of marketing and it has changed drastically over the period of time. Everyone has been moving towards online marketing techniques because it can help your business grow during a short period of time. There are two basic types of online marketing techniques, i.e. search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing (SMM). SEO can help you in making the rankings of your website better and SMM can help you in building relationship with the customers. There are multiple social media portals like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn etc. These portals have different features that can help you in interacting with your customers. You can easily promote your business with the help of these portals by introducing different products and services. Apart from that, your target audience or customers can contact you anytime and give their feedbacks, which can help you in improving your services.

It is better to hire a professional social media expert or utilize the services of a reputable online marketing company. They will start the work by doing the research and competitive analysis. After that, they will devise a social media plan, which will help you to build a direct relationship with your target market.  They will send that proposal and plan to you and you need to make sure that it is targeting the right people with right kind of strategy. Only then, this plan is going to be successful.

If you want to see the impact first and start with initial SMM services, it is better to start off your campaign with Facebook. A Facebook fan page of your company will be created, which will have all the important information about your business. Initially, an SMM expert will start promoting your page and would leverage people to ‘like’ your page. You need to understand that you should only focus on your target market. These are the people who are associated with your business or your potential customers. If you will ask them to add people randomly, it won’t be of any use because those people won’t be interested in getting updates about your business. Therefore, you will not be able to convince them to buy your product or service. You can also use Facebook page for promoting different articles or blogs that you are posting on your website. You can give them a small teaser about it and they can click to go to your website. It will eventually help you in getting more visits.

Twitter is the best social media portal for sending small, to the point and important messages to your followers. It also involves the first step of community building, where you will have to find the people who are your target market and after that, you can promote your products or services.

Usage of Facebook and Facebook Timeline By Individuals and Businesses

Facebook has taken everyone by storm. You’ll rarely find someone who doesn’t have a Facebook account. Whether it’s a common individual or an artist or a product or business, everyone has a Facebook account, which can help them in interacting with others. That’s why; it is known as a social media portal where you can add the people they like and share pictures, videos or information that they’d like to share with each other. This has brought everyone closer and has helped in making the world in a global village. On one hand, different people are using it for their personal use. On the other hand, businessmen are using Facebook as a medium to promote their services and businesses. According to statistical figures, usually people spend 3-4 hours of their time on Facebook. That’s why; it is considered to be the best place to find the target audience and interact with them.

Business owners create a fan page on Facebook and ask people to ‘like’ it. After that, they can interact with them and introduce their products and services. But the best aspect of using a social media portal like Facebook is the customer feedback. Customers are open to say anything and you can use their feedbacks for the betterment of your services or products.

Facebook also keeps introducing new features and specifications, which can help the users in presenting themselves in a better way. It also keeps the interest of people alive as they get to see new stuff after every few days. Facebook Timeline is one of the newest features that have been introduced by them. It is completely opposite to the typical profile page. Timeline has a huge cover photo area apart from the profile picture and the best feature is entire timeline. You can see when one has joined the Facebook and what have been their activities during the course of different years.  It makes everything pretty simple and you can easily find out what has been happening in their lives.

From the business point of view, Facebook Timeline makes everything pretty clear. If it’s about a business or product, you can actually see that when it was launched. The progress is also visible. The customers or target audience can see how the business or product has grown over the period of time. Whether they tried to get better with every year or their popularity declined. In the older profile, they weren’t able to see the progress of a business or products over the years. But the new Facebook Timeline has made everything easy and they can browse through the different years of your progress.

Twitter in General

Social media portals have gained an immense popularity in the eyes of online marketing. Everyone can understand that social media can do wonders for their business, which can help them in growing their business substantially. Twitter is considered to be amongst the most popular social media portals in the world. It is a tool where a person or an organization can continuously ‘tweet’ their thoughts about different products, service or business. Initially, it was only used by some learned people who used to share their thoughts or popular quotes through tweeting them. But later, business owners understood its potential and these days, almost every business has an account on Twitter. You can easily see the links of Facebook or Twitter on their websites. Whenever you will click on those links, it will take you to their respective Twitter or Facebook account.

Twitter basically works with the help of ‘followers’ and ‘following’. Followers are the people who are following your activities and they have subscribed you after you have approved them to do so whereas following means those people whom you are following. It is not necessary that these accounts are only handled by people. Different business or companies or products have also created their Twitter accounts and they keep tweeting about the activities that are happening within their business.

But first of all, it is necessary that you should have a good amount of Twitter followers who have subscribed for your updates. You can ask your social media expert to do that for you. You can either hire an individual expert or you can hire the services of an online marketing company who is efficient enough to promote your business. You can increase your followers by sending invitations to people who are associated to your business or who comes under your target market. But it is necessary to segment them properly because you can’t add random people who have no interest in your product or business.

You can either use your Twitter account to tweet about your products or you can use it in assisting you in your online marketing strategies. Basically, you are only allowed to tweet certain amount of characters and it’s a kind of a limitation but you can send as many tweets during the day as you want. Many people use these tweets to promote the link of different web-pages on their website. They also use it to promote a certain video or blog as well.  But usually, they wrap those links by using bitly.com, which helps them in shortening the big links. In this way, they can easily tweet a link along with a small description. It is necessary to rethink before tweeting because a lot of people are misusing it by abusing people or companies etc.