A2SM Podcast #54 – Your Social Media Friends… Are They Real?

Social Media PodcastIn This Episode

Twitter

Twitter Drops The Ecosystem Hammer: Don’t Try To Compete With Us On Clients, Focus On Data And Verticals

Only 58% of Tweets Come From Official Twitter Apps [REPORT]
Twitter ups its security w/ HTTPS

In Other News

Post-Facebook Deal, Beluga Gets A Final SXSW Tune-Up

The Google Loophole Has Become The Facebook/Twitter Loophole

Officials Push For Action In ‘Online Privacy War’

U.S. Military Launches Spy Operation Using Fake Online Identities

Picks

Neal: Facebook Disconnect (Chrome)
Seth: GTrot – Social Traveling
Hashable
Jody: My Skype Office INFO

Link Post for July 5th through July 7th

This is the A2SM Link Post for July 5th through July 7th. To see more of the bookmarks we’ve found, check out our Delicious Feed.

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Link Post for March 30th through March 31st

This is the A2SM Link Post for March 30th through March 31st. To see more of the bookmarks we’ve found, check out our Delicious Feed.

  • Mobile Firefox Comes to Android (Sort of) – Fennec, the mobile version of the Firefox web browser, is now available in an early build designed for Android handsets thanks to a fan-compiled download posted on an Android developers forum. And by early, we mean unofficial, pre-alpha, device-specific and downright buggy. But for anyone interested in mobile browser developments, this port is an interesting sneak peek into the future of Firefox's mobile plans.
  • Global Pulse 2010 Wants Your Solutions to Global Challenges – Global Pulse 2010 is a completely online virtual event running through tomorrow where you can participate in a global conversation whose stated goal is to “create innovative solutions to the most pressing social issues of our time.” Sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Global Pulse 2010 is also being supported by the U.S. Departments of State, Education, Commerce, and Health and Human Services.
  • Judge: Isohunt Must Remove Infringing Content – One of the largest BitTorrent search engines in the world, Isohunt, has been ordered by a US judge to remove all infringing content from the site. The ruling follows similar ruling against torrent tracker Mininova which has lost a great amount of traffic after complying with the order to remove copyright-infringing links from the site.
  • Board Games on the iPad: Oh Yes, This is Going to be Big – TUAW has a preview of an iPad application called Game Table. It costs 99 cents, and it lets you play classic board games, such as Chess, Poker or Checkers, on the iPad.<br />
    <br />
    The beauty of its approach is the fact that it’s not really a game – it just gives you the necessary components and the mechanics to play a variety of games. And, when you think of it, for many users this app (or similar apps like it) might be the killer app that makes the Apple iPad worth purchasing.
  • 10 Amazing YouTube Magic Trick Videos – Who doesn’t love magic? Whether you’re obsessed with finding out “how they did that,” or you just like to gaze with child-like wonder at a good trick, YouTube has become a wealthy repository of illusion.
  • Google Earth Helps Deputy Make Arrest – Google became true-blue crime-fighting tool for one Florida Panhandle deputy this week. The law man, Deputy Gregory Barnes, recently made use of Google Earth to arrest a man charged with illegally dumping his one-ton boat.
  • iPad, Meet "Star Trek" – In Star Trek, members of the crew are carrying a tablet-like device called the PADD, or Personal Access Display Device. It comes in many shapes and flavors — there’s even a horizontal one. And, circa 2151, the device that was in common use looked pretty much like the thing we’ll be frantically testing this weekend: the Apple iPad.
  • Gmail Adds OAuth Support for Safer 3rd Party Sign-ins – Google announced the addition of OAuth support in Gmail in a blog post today, which is a highly positive move that allows you to give third party applications access to the contents on your email without having to give them your password. You may be familiar with the term from Twitter, who added OAuth support back in April of last year.
  • Automattic Announces VaultPress Security Plugin – (Via @glenngabe)
  • Facebook Squeezes Digg Into A New Business Model – While I personally love using Digg to find my news content, the majority of the internet is perfectly satisfied finding content through their friends. While Digg is in the process of rolling out a new version of their site, Facebook’s decision to release a “like button for the internet” could significantly impact Digg. Combine that with their previously released share analytics and share button, and you can see how Digg is getting squeezed into a new business model.

Link Post for March 19th through March 21st

This is the A2SM Link Post for March 19th through March 21st. To see more of the bookmarks we’ve found, check out our Delicious Feed.

  • Sprint Makes Your iPhone 4G [VIDEO] – The iPhone 4G (next generation iPhone) is yet to be released, but Sprint is cleverly advertising “4G speeds” on your iPhone thanks to its Sierra Wireless Overdrive 4G WiFi hotspot.
  • Yelp for Business: 4 Steps for Success – For local small businesses, Yelp (Yelp) isn’t just an option — it’s a necessity. People in urban centers use it to choose where to go to dinner, where to buy clothes, and where to be entertained. Users decide where and how to spend their money using Yelp, so if your business is local, you need to curate your Yelp page.
  • 4 Ways Non-Profits Can Use Google Buzz – When a green field lies before you, so does opportunity. Some non-profits stand to gain from being part of the early Buzz adopter community. Whether a cause needs to further the dialogue with a tech-savvy crowd, or is attracted to the functionality of Gmail (Gmail) integration, Buzz does bring some new capabilities to bear.
  • Ben Folds Plays Chatroulette Live in Concert [VIDEO] – Singer-songwriter Ben Folds visited the random video chat site Chatroulette during a recent live concert in Charlotte, North Carolina, playing improv piano tunes about the people he was connected with.
  • New Twitter Phishing Attack: “You’re On Here?” [WARNING] – Twitter users are reporting a new attempt to extract their usernames and passwords — a Direct Message attack that asks “You’re on here?” with a link. Others report DMs linking to a site called “mhansenhome” with the message “’someone posted on their blog about you”.
  • Happy Birthday Twitter! – Sunday, March 21st (a few hours from now on the West Coast) marks Twitter’s 4th birthday — exactly four years since Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey sent his first Tweet and, along with Evan Williams and Biz Stone, started a phenomenon.
  • In choosing its battle names, the military must know its target audience – washingtonpost.com – Names are important, especially in war. Like a good advertising jingle, war names must be catchy and concise. But above all else, they have to sell — all sorts of things, to all sorts of people: inspiration to the troops, righteousness to Americans at home, partnership to allied countries, peace and promise to non-combatant civilians.
  • Social Media & Scott Monty @ Ford Motor Company – Online Marketing Blog – When you think of successful consumer brands in the social media space, names like Dell, Zappos and Pepsi come to mind. Another is Ford. Last year the Ford Fiesta movement generated a tremendous amount of awareness (and pre-orders) for a vehicle that wasn’t available to the public yet. (Great summary on Jeff Bullas’s blog) At the same time, it inspired a community to engage, create content and continue discussions about the Fiesta with over 7 million video views.
  • Social Media Optimization Tools – Online Marketing Blog – Plenty of bloggers are talking about the inevitable intersection of social media marketing and search engine optimization. Heck, we’ve been blogging about SMO since 2006! Keyword optimized social content and channels of promotion provide abundant signals to search engines for improved visibility on standard, social and real-time search.
  • Responsibilities of Community Managers » Techipedia | Tamar Weinberg – Every time I tell someone I’m a Community Manager, I get a varied response. But the response doesn’t vary enough. The response is usually something along the lines of “Wow! So you tweet and facebook for a living! Kewlz!” or “So do you blog on the interwebs all day, or sumthin?” Another favorite is “What’s that?” That last one might be the most honest of the three, since asking a Community Manager whether they tweet for a living is like asking a construction worker if they cat-call for a living, or a doctor if he asks people to say “ah!” for a living.

Link Post for March 18th through March 19th

This is the A2SM Link Post for March 18th through March 19th. To see more of the bookmarks we’ve found, check out our Delicious Feed.

  • PETA and Meat Company Battle to Score Sex.com – Sex.com is the most valuable domain name in the world (for obvious reasons). Right now it’s up for sale, and two of the prospective buyers might surprise you: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and a California meat company called BullWhip.
  • 4 Easy Ways to Engage Your Facebook Fans – While more than three million businesses, brands and celebrities have created Facebook Pages, many are struggling to figure out how best to use them. Companies are finding that even when they keep their pages updated with fresh content, they still aren’t seeing steady growth in their fan base.
  • Google May Leave China on April 10 – Google’s decision to cease its operation in China is edging closer to reality after months of negotiations. China Business News reports that Google plans to leave China on April 10.
  • ExecutiveBiz Blog» Blog Archive » FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski: “Consumers Need to Make the Internet Work.” – In an interview with Steve Grove, YouTube’s head of news and politics, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski discussed his goals in implementing the FCC’s National Broadband Plan. Genachowski’s priorities include serving all Americans with broadband coverage while increasing private-sector competition and improving information available to consumers.
  • What Social Media Users Want [STATS] – Twitterers mostly consume news, MySpace users want games and entertainment, Facebookers are into both news and community and Digg’s audience has a mixed bag of interests.

Link Post for March 4th through March 5th

This is the A2SM Link Post for March 4th through March 5th. To see more of the bookmarks we’ve found, check out our Delicious Feed.

  • Social Media Today | Chaos is not a strategy – To be strategic ultimately means that you know what keeps your CEO and the members of her team awake at night so you can tailor communications that will help them all sleep better. That is, you know the business goals the company’s leaders are expected to achieve and you’re able to implement communications that move the needle in the right direction.
  • LEAKED: More Juicy Microsoft Courier Details and Pics – The Courier is a hinged device that combines elements of a tablet, an e-reader, and a netbook (sans physical keyboard). It’s reported to be less an inch thick, slightly heavier than a pound and slightly larger than a 5×7 print when folded. Instead of running Windows 7, the Courier will run the mobile OS Windows Mobile 7 Series, with an NVIDIA Tegra 2 chip under the hood.
  • Conan Pledges to Change One Woman’s Life… on Twitter – Conan, who up until minutes ago wasn’t following a single person, decided to change Sarah Killin’s life by following her and her alone. Conan announced the news via Twitter — likely with the help of his Twitter army.
  • The Top 10 Most Watched Web Series, February 2010 – Each month Visible Measures compiles a list of the top ten most popular web video series, and we share those results with you and provide analysis. Visible Measures tracks views, comments and other data on web video, and has just made available a free public beta of a tool to benchmark online video ad campaign and content performance.
  • Apple iPad Coming to U.S. on April 3 – Apple finally announced the exact date of iPad availability in the U.S.: It’s Saturday, April 3, for Wi-Fi models, while models with both Wi-Fi and 3G will be available in late April
  • Using Twitter Search for Business – [T]here are lots of ways to use it. Do you need to find more case studies? Here’s a simple search for case studies: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=”case+study”+filter:links
  • Clicker – What’s On Online – Clicker is… the TV Guide of Internet Television
  • Can We Kick Our Keyboard Addiction by 2013? – This morning, everyone is looking agog at the words of Google Europe boss John Herlihy, who's quoted in the Silicon Republic predicting the demise of the desktop computer.
  • Google Index to Go Real Time – Google is developing a system that will enable web publishers of any size to automatically submit new content to Google for indexing within seconds of that content being published. Search industry analyst Danny Sullivan told us today that this could be "the next chapter" for Google.

Link Post for February 20th through February 22nd

This is the A2SM Link Post for February 20th through February 22nd. To see more of the bookmarks we’ve found, check out our Delicious Feed.

  • Twitter and Digicel Eliminate SMS Charges for Haiti – Twitter, as a platform, played a big role in the instantaneous spread of information following the earthquake that devastated Haiti in January. Today the microblogging site is officially supporting the exchange of real-time information and offering free SMS tweets for Digicel Haiti customers.
  • Guinness World Records Buys Video Site for Zany Challenges – Guinness World Records has purchased Bragster, a video-sharing site where you can “dare your friends and brag about it.”

    On Bragster, users post dares — for example, “I dare everyone to drink five raw eggs” or “I dare everyone to make as many spins in an office chair as possible (in 1 min)” — and other users respond by posting videos of themselves fulfilling the task. Selected winners get bragging rights points and compete in a site-wide leaderboard. Each initial dare also gets voted up or down, so you can weed through the news for the most interesting dares.

  • Denny’s Menu Misprint Leads to Twitter Mess – Denny’s dine-in menu invites customers to “Join the conversation!” and follow @Dennys on Twitter. The problem is that the account in question belongs to a Taiwanese Twitterer — Dennys Hsieh — and not the American restaurant chain, which manages two official accounts: DennysAllNightr and DennysGrandSlam.
  • Walmart Acquires Online Movie Service Vudu – Walmart is set to make a play for your living room. The company has acquired online movie service Vudu, just over a month after rumors about a deal first surfaced.
  • A Beginner’s Guide to Made-for-Internet TV – Web video is expanding right now, and though a lot of attention is paid to episodes of network TV shows like Lost or The Office that you can stream online, there’s an emerging wealth of content made just for the web. There’s going to be even more of it in the future, so this is a great time to get in at the ground level and experience an emerging art form.
  • Facebook Acquires a Third Startup, Shuts it Down

Link Post for January 27th

This is the A2SM Link Post for January 27th. To see more of the bookmarks we’ve found, check out our Delicious Feed

Link Post for January 20th

This is the A2SM Link Post for January 20th. To see more of the bookmarks we’ve found, check out our Delicious Feed

Link Post for January 6th through January 7th

This is the A2SM Link Post for January 6th through January 7th:

  • HootSuite Now Lets You Update Your WordPress Blog – HootSuite, the popular Twitter app geared towards businesses and power users, has just issued yet another update to their web-based client, featuring the ability to post to the WordPress.com blogging platform, URL and content previews, and trending topic explanations.
  • iTunes Browser Previews Now With Actual Music – Back in November of 2009, Apple finally rolled out a web browser preview for music in the iTunes catalog. It let you view the albums page, see all the songs included on the album, their length, as well as price for individual tracks.
  • Graphic.ly Creates the Digital Comic Book Store – During Microsoft’s keynote at CES 2010 this evening, Steve Ballmer showed off a very cool mobile and web application called Graphic.ly, a platform that aims to be the ultimate digital content delivery system for the publishing world.
  • 2010 Census Turns to Facebook to Maximize Impact, Reach Young Adults – As the year 2010 gets underway, so does the federal Census in the United States — only this time around it has gone somewhat digital, incorporating Facebook and other digital media to spread the word about being counted.
  • HOW TO: Erase Your Online Past [HUMOR] – These days, it’s getting tougher and tougher to keep a good name unbesmirched. Surveys indicate that as many as half of hiring managers use search engines to screen job applicants, and 1 in 10 have rejected potential employees because of damaging information on the web. Even if there’s no one out to get you, it’s likely that you’ve left your own e-trail of embarrassment: FacebookFacebookFacebook photos, blog comments, cached web pages, YouTubeYouTubeYouTube videos — all these things can provide the world with evidence of your previous poor judgement and wrongdoing.
  • Echofon 3.0 Gets With the Twitter Times – You have plenty of options when it comes to using Twitter on your iPhone. But Echofon just made a big move for your attention by releasing version 3.0.
  • Video: Google’s “F*ck You iPhone” Phone. The REAL Google Phone (Satire, NSFW) – As we’re all well aware, Google released the Nexus One yesterday, the first supposed “Google Phone.” But it’s hardly an iPhone killer. For that role, Google has something much more sinister in mind. Meet the “Fuck You iPhone” Phone.