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Posts tagged Twitter
Tumblr: “We’ll be back shortly”
Dec 6th
The popular mixed media blogging service Tumblr has been down for over 15 hours, with no access to its homepage, user blogs, or the ‘dashboard’ where users can make posts. As a young service some troubles are to be expected, and Twitter users will be familiar with the ‘fail whale’ which commonly occurred in its early days. However a downtime which is approaching 20 hours as I write this could prove catastrophic for the company, as companies will shy away from unreliable services.
Do you have a Tumblr account? How do you feel about this extended downtime? Rant or comment freely in the section below!
LinkedIn Share Button
Dec 1st
Business oriented social network giant LinkedIn has recently launched a share button which gives users a way to spread thier content throughout their professional network.
There are 3 options of the share button available which can be easily added to your website or blog – as follows:
1. vertical:
2. horizontal with counter:
3. horizontal without counter.
LinkedIns latest updates combined with the additional sharing options released back in April, link attaching, status updates, ability to re-share links as well as edit and delete posts brings it inline with social media giant Facebook.
The share button competition is strong with Facebook, Digg, Twitter, StumbleUpon and countless others, do you think LinkedIn has a place in this market and which is your preference?
Flock – The Social Web Browser
Dec 1st
Flock was first released in 2005 and is known for its social networking elements, for years the browser was based on the GECKO rendering engine, same as Firefox. In June it has swopped over to use Googles Chromium Engine in an attempt re-invent itself.
With the financial backing of Marc Andreessen, the founder of Netscape they have created the future of browsing and have been quick to react to the launch of RockMelt a start up looking for a piece of the social browsing market. Albiet a little cumbersome and not nearly as polished as Flock, it has ruffled a few feathers, competition is good.
See the into for Flock – better still download it – its free and take it for a spin.
Let us know what you think.
WikiLeaks under virtual fire
Nov 30th
The controversial international whistleblower website WikiLeaks has been suffering large scale Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks as it releases controversial leaks pertaining to American military and embassy communications around the world.
A DDoS attack involves attacking a web server so as to make the website or application it provides inaccessible. This is usually done by directing a large amount of traffic towards it, such that the server becomes saturated and unable to respond to legitimate web requests.
WikiLeaks has posted on it’s social networking profile on Twitter that the “DDOS attack [is] now exceeding 10 Gigabits a second.” A hacker called ‘the Jester’ has claimed responsibility for a previous attack on Sunday, though it is doubtful that these large scale attacks are the work of one person. There is also a strong possibility that governmental forces are at work in the background. This comes to light as the UK and US make defences against ‘cyber warfare’ a high priority.
Areatrade work hard to ensure that the servers holding your website are secure against such attacks and from vulnerabilities. What do you think about the changing face of the web and the growing importance of cyber security? Let us know in the comments below.
More >Twitter Analytics
Nov 24th
Twitter is set to launch an analytic tool to help users to track the popularity of their Tweets, number of retweets and the number of replies each post recieved. This tool is a fantastic tool which will make marketers jump for joy especially when reports say it will be FREE?
Surely Twitter could have cashed in on this one?
Let us know if you would have paid for this kind of service?
T-Mobile ‘Welcome Home’ Advert Promoted via Social Media
Oct 30th
This touching, amusing, feel-good advert was posted on YouTube a few days ago and has spread like wildfire through social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter. A great example of social media marketing done well, it joins the ranks of the Liverpool Street ‘flashmob‘ and the ‘sing-along‘ in Trafalgar Square which featured celebrities like Pink and Vernon Kay. Clever and original marketing is looked upon favourably by online users and will stick in the minds of consumers, raising brand awareness.
Have you noticed any particularly memorable and innovative methods of marketing online recently? Tell us about them in the comments section below.
Social network Myspace to debut redesign
Oct 28th
The dwindling social network Myspace has revealed a massive redesign as part of it’s efforts to survive through rebranding. A few weeks after revealing it’s controversial new logo, Myspace has posted a video reel giving the first glimpses at its significant shift in functionality and focus.
The video reveals a strong change in focus to content sharing and discovery, with clear links to other social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. It is a clear cut and intriguing move for the social network which has seen massive drops in traffic since the rise of Facebook and its buyout by News Corp.
Firesheep Hijacks Facebook, Twitter Cookies
Oct 27th
Did you think you were safe when logging into your social media accounts? Think again.
A free Firefox extension called Firesheep was released this week that exploits a hack known as sidejacking to help users gain access to the social media accounts of other people on the same network. The creator, Eric Butler, developed this extension “to demonstrate just how serious this problem is.” The exploit, which hijacks the unencrypted cookie files sent between the user and the website, can be utilised on a large number of popular websites including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr.
Most websites encrypt the username and password you use to log in when they are transmitted to the server. However, they often fail to encrypt other data including the aforementioned cookies, which, if obtained by a hacker, can be used to ‘spoof’ a log in session and access your account fraudulently.
We believe that this software has been written to raise awareness of the problem and compel the faulty sites to fix the issue as possible. However, many have noted that fully encrypted all communication between the user and the server can increase the required bandwidth by up to 20 times, making full encryption very costly.
Are you More >
The Present Future of Link Building
Oct 26th
The number of people who tried to get their posts to go viral (by writing list posts and publishing images) increased dramatically and, at the same time, Twitter and Facebook REALLY took off. People that wanted to ‘share good stuff’ found these services easier to use for sharing than having a WordPress or Blogspot blog. The result? If you create linkbait and it goes popular, then you should expect a lot of re-tweets/stumble thumbs-ups/Facebook ‘likes’ but a very small number of links from different unique root domains. Do these links from Facebook/Twitter carry any special importance?
Matt Cutts once said in a YouTube video that they rate links from Facebook and Twitter just like any other link! Yay!
One recent lesson I’ve learned about ‘niche’ link building is that you can get viral in your niche community. Take SEO and this blog, for example. I’ve witnessed how different SEOs follow each other and, in case someone has something interesting to share, then other people in the industry re-tweet him and the chain goes on. This is not the case for every niche market unfortunately.
What’s the Future of Natural Link Building? Is it DEAD?!??!Okay, 3 points here:
- Many people who link ‘naturally’ have switched to More >
Klout Now Measures Your Influence on Facebook
Oct 14th
Social media analytics service Klout, well-known for its Twitter influence measurement scores, has finally launched a version of its platform that determines your influence on Facebook.
Klout currently uses various data points from Twitter (Twitter) to figure out your “Klout Score,” a representation of your influence and ability to compel action by others online. Its Twitter analytics platform takes into account metrics such as retweets, follower counts, list memberships and unique mentioners to calculate everything from who influences you to your “true reach” on Twitter.
Klout’s now trying to do the same thing on Facebook (Facebook). Once connected to a Facebook account, Klout will pull in data such as likes, comments and your friendship network in order to determine your influence on Facebook. It can take up to 72 hours for the data to be processed and your Klout score to be updated.
Instead of representing Facebook and Twitter with different scores, Klout has decided to integrate them into a single Klout Score. If you’re worried that connecting your Facebook account to Klout will drop your score, the company says that “there is no risk that your Klout will go down.” The company claims that most Klout scores will rise due to the More >