Facebook Removes Decapitation Video after Backlash

After the largest social network was criticized by David Cameron for lifting the ban on violent films, Facebook decided to change its approach. Prime Minister David Cameron had dubbed the social media giant as ‘irresponsible’ because it had posted videos that depicted beheadings. The issue had been ‘reexamined’ by Facebook, after which it had concluded that video showing beheading and decapitation glorified violence in an improper and irresponsible manner. Moreover, the social network also asserted that it would strengthen the enforcement of policies that were concerned with the removal of posts, which celebrated violence and also to check if graphic content and similar videos were shared in a responsible manner or not.

This includes giving warnings to users about their content or prohibiting underage viewers to access such content. The move was greatly welcomed by Mr. Cameron, but he also added that he would be waiting to see if this tactic was good enough to ensure that children were being protected against exposure to such gory movies and videos. He had conveyed this message via Twitter. A storm had been sparked by social network Facebook when it had temporarily decided to lift a ban that had been imposed on videos of beheading in May. The social media giant had used the excuse that its website was used by people worldwide for sharing events that happened in different areas.

A video that had shown the beheading of a video by a Mexican drug cartel had sparked such response from the people. But, it had been removed now. The company also mentioned that it would be removing all posts and images concerned with beheading, but has been advised by the critics to rethink their decision. Mr. Cameron said that it was irresponsible on the part of the social network to post such content without giving any warning or assuring parents. Now, Facebook has clarified its policy. It said that content was shared by people for the purpose of raising awareness amongst others.

It asserted that this awareness involved sharing images and videos about different acts of violence and terrorism and the primary purpose is to condemn these acts. The social network doesn’t allow people to post such content for the purpose of celebrating it or for getting sadistic pleasure. Therefore, in order to combat this rising glorification of such contemptible and violent content, Facebook is attempting to strengthen its policies. The social network outlined that it reviews content when it’s reported and takes a very close look at the context that surrounds an image or video. If it has a negative impact, the said content is removed.

The network also said that they also checked that whether the person sharing such content was being responsible or not. This refers to the fact if warnings are being provided with the content and an age-appropriate audience is mentioned. Based on these standards, reports of graphic content have been reexamined and concluded that it is celebrating violence. This has led to its removal from the social network.

Talent Tussle: Twitter Pays $10 Million For Engineer

Christopher Fry’s name stands out amongst the various engineers that are part of Twitter’s list of highest paid executives. Last year, the senior vice president of engineer was able to rake in about $10.3 million and was only a little behind Dick Costolo, the chief executive officer of Twitter who had been given a salary of $11.5 million. This information has been obtained from the IPO documents of the social messaging service. These amounts are way more than the paychecks that were given to chief financial officer Mike Gupta, chief technology officer Adam Messinger and chief operating officer Ali Rowghani.

This is Silicon Valley; where there is a shortage of valuable engineering talent amidst an explosion of startups backed by venture capitalists, which has eventually inflated the paychecks of existing engineers. According to Iain Grant, a recruiter at Riviera Partners, which specializes in recruiting engineers for startups backed by venture capitalists, stated there is a limited number of A players in Silicon Valley. However, he added that the demand for these individuals has simply gone through the roof. It is quite common to hear stories regarding the length to which employers are willing to go for attracting the top engineering talent.

This includes offering them laundry services, free cafeterias and shuttle buses, which are also given Google, Facebook and other renowned companies. Venky Ganesan, a venture capitalist said that a coveted engineer had been offered a year’s lease on a Tesla sedan by a startup and this had led to a cost of about $1000 a month. He did not give the name of the company though as his firm is an investor in it. Sam Shank, the CEO of At Hotel Tonight that offers a mobile app for making last minute bookings said that the office area was staged to make it appear lively for a prospective hire. Two potential employees were roped into a ping pong game while others were positioned at the bar.

The strategy bore fruit and the recruits ended up designing an important part of the software. According to the IPO documents that were registered with securities regulators by Twitter; the compensation given to Fry was mostly in the form of stock awards that had been valued at $10.1 million. He had been given a bonus of $100,000 while his salary had totaled around $145, 513. Some people may regard him as an underpaid employee as well. This is due to the fact that before Facebook’s IPO, Mike Schroepfer, its vice president of engineering had been given $24.4 million in stock awards.

He had also been given a bonus worth $140, 344 and a salary of $270, 833. However, the total revenue that had been posted by Facebook that year had been 10 times greater than that of Twitter. Grant had added that cash compensation more than $250,000 had been paid to around three fourth of the candidates who had taken VP of engineering roles in his client companies in the last two years. Equity grants had also been given to many such candidates.

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.

Instagram Achieves Milestone and Planning Advertisements

In April 2012, the largest social network of the world, Facebook, which has over 1.15 billion users, acquired the popular photo-sharing app Instagram. This acquisition had led to an outcry by the loyal users of the app, who were worried that the social network would ruin and damage the loved photo-sharing application. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case as it was announced on Sunday by Instagram that it has managed to achieve the milestone of around 150 million users. This means that in the last six months, the app has gained around 50 million users and since its acquisition, 128 million users as per the reports of the company.

For a new social network, Instagram has managed to grow quite rapidly. In comparison, it took Facebook about five years to reach the milestone of 150 million users. Earlier this year, it had been announced by Twitter that it had managed to surpass 200 million users, after operating for a total of seven years. As compared to both of them, Instagram is only three years old and has reached this milestone quite quickly. There is no doubt that the acquisition of Instagram by Facebook had added some appeal to the app and helped it target a broader audience for that matter.

The company said that around sixty million users of the application are from outside of the US. According to an analyst, this speedy development of the app indicates that the marketplace has become quite mature. This means that as opposed to Twitter and Facebook, Instagram has the benefit of being launched into a largely mature market that’s full of smartphone and internet services users. However, on the one hand, it gave Instagram the advantage of growing even more quickly than other social networks. But, it also means that other products can grow even faster in the market.

Nonetheless, apart from achieving this particular milestone, it was also announced by Instagram that within the next year, it would start running ads on its network. Emily White, the COO of Instagram who joined this photo-sharing website from Facebook stated that the challenge the company is currently facing is to figure out how to incorporate marketing into the website, without inflicting any damage on the cool factor possessed by Instagram. The addition of advertising isn’t such a great surprise for the users, but it will not be appreciated especially after taking into account the activity of the top brands on the website.

Nonetheless, it is the opinion of analysts that Instagram might be able to learn some lessons from the success and failures of its parent company, Facebook. The photo-sharing website will have to strike a proper balance between giving value to advertisers without irritating their users with excessive ads. In this regard, Facebook can have some useful pointers as it managed to roll out advertising to its mobile users successfully. Instagram is aware that it could capitalize on its huge audience and earn millions of dollars, buts its vary of outraging the years like it did when it changed its terms of service.

Facebook to Introduce a New Policy that Turns Users’ Data into Advertising

Facebook is about to draw fire from the privacy activists by unveiling a latest policy which could turn the data and pictures of users into advertising. The new plan is dramatically going to expand use of people’s personal information for the advertising purposes, as per letter to US Federal Trade Commission by 6 privacy organizations.

The letter read that the changes will violate a year 2011 consent order with a watchdog agency in US and also urged FTC to act for the enforcement of this order. As per the letter, if these changes are in place, Facebook users who think that their content and images will never be used commercially without their approval will now see their images on their friends’ pages validating the products from Facebook's paying advertisers.

Facebook users’ images may even be utilized by Facebook for the endorsement of products that the user dislikes or does not even use, according to the letter from CDD (Center for Digital Democracy), EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center), Consumer Watchdog and 3 other groups. Facebook revealed these updates as part of a class action suit on the usage of images and user names in their so-called 'sponsored stories.'

As per the letter, the existing policy of Facebook lets its users limit how their profile pictures and names can be linked with advertisements. Under the latest policy, Facebook states, 'You give us permission to use your name, profile picture, content, and information in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related content.'

The activists say that this policy will let Facebook turn virtually all the user data into the advertising. The privacy director at Consumer Watchdog, John Simpson said that Facebook has long played loose and fast with the data of users relying on complicated privacy settings in order to confuse the users, but these new changes go even beyond that.

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.

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 Launches A Music Service with Recommendations from Artists

Twitter has revealed a new music application which is going to suggest tracks depending on who you are following on their network. Tracks can be played in the application directly through the services like iTunes, Spotify and Rdio. The software shows songs that your friends currently are listening to. Also, you see the suggestions from various artists. It follows the moves by other different social networking websites, like Facebook for incorporating music recommendations into the new Twitter music services.

In the last year, Spotify made an announcement of its own system of "follow", but the feature is still to be unveiled to mobile users. Twitter's new application, named #Music, will expectedly be available for iPhone to download shortly. No such application has yet been made for the users on Windows Phone or the Google's Android platforms, but there’s going to be a browser-based version available.

The app will in beginning be available in the US, UK and Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, with further countries soon being added.

The Idea of surfacing Songs on Twitter

The #Music app was compared to a "twenty first Century mixtape" divulged on Good Morning America. Twitter's Stephen Philips, in a blog post, explained that the app will use Twitter activity, comprising engagement and tweets, for detecting and surfacing the emerging artists and most popular tracks. He said that the Twitter music app also brings artists' Twitter activity relating music front and center. Users can visit their profiles for seeing who they are following and for listening to the songs of these artists.

He further added that almost half of Twitter’s users are following at least one music artist and that’s why most of the artists turn to Twitter for connecting with their fans and admirers, and that’s the reason Twitter wanted to come with a way to surface the songs that people tend to be tweeting about.
In advance to the release of app, Twitter has given early access to several musicians. These artists include Moby who commented the #Music to be an interesting music resource.

The Failure of Apple

Several companies have already tried to get into the prospective of music’s social recommendation. Apple also came into the market with its app called Ping. This service was built within its iTunes which promoted music that it thought users might like. At the launch of Ping, late Steve Jobs said that the Apple thinks that the app is going to be popular rapidly, since 160 million people will switch it on. The Ping was closed last year in September.

Changes Expected in Facebook’s Redesigned News Feed

Facebook Inc. is a public company, which is the owner of the most popular social media network of the world. Today, the largest social network that exists is Facebook, which is said to have more than one billion registered users spread out in all parts of the globe. This social network was launched in February of 2004 by a bunch of college students, Mark Zuckerberg and his friends. Initially, it was restricted to Harvard students only, but it greater expanded to various other colleges and then eventually to the public. Last year, the company finally went public. The social network has changed considerably since it was launched.

Enhancements and improvements have been made to its layout and overall design. It can now be accessed via mobile application as well. Recently, the company announced that the design and layout of the news feed would be changing. News feed is one of the most important pillars of the social networking website. The news feed will be revamped by the company and posts will be filtered into various strands. Instead of the single feed that exists now, there will be multiple feeds that divide the content users see such as music and photos. The feed has mostly remained unchanged since 2009.

Now, however, according to reports, larger images will be an integral part of the change. At present, only a thumbnail picture of the business, group or individual who posted is available in the news feed features update. Separate feeds are also offered, but the problem is that they are not very easy to locate. For instance, in the apps section in the side bar, it is possible to find the music feed. However, it is mostly filled with music that friends are listening to. Insiders have revealed that users will be able to alternate between feeds by tabs below the search box, which are being incorporated in the new design.

The purpose of the revamping of the news feed is to satisfy the insatiable desire that people all over the globe seem to have for the largest social network. People will devote even more hours to logging onto Facebook if there are more lists for them to sort through. Another benefit of the redesign is that the bigger pictures will also be more of a lure to advertisers. Moreover, with multiple feeds, it would mean that the sponsored stories will have more room to spread out.

The newsfeed has come at a very crucial and testing time for the social network. It recently announced that teenagers were gradually getting bored with Facebook. The company feels that its long term business could be affected because its facing competition from ‘cooler’ apps like Instagram and Snapchat. As the social network is approaching its 10^th anniversary, it revealed its annual report in which it was highlighted that teenagers and youngsters are giving up on the multi-billion dollar business. The revamping is just part of the strategy of the social network to draw youngsters again towards the social network by satisfying their interests more efficiently.