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Social Media Posts

#NewTwitter To Roll Out For All Users Soon

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

Although Twitter is a young company they seem to have grasped the important concept of constantly updating and recreating their site in ways that make users excited without over changing things to make people feel lost.

Recently the Twitter team has rolled out “New Twitter”. By moving your @mentions, retweets, searches, and lists above your normal timeline, they hope to make the users profile page a more efficient way to see important information. This way you see exactly what is pertinent to you specifically before browsing to see who Taylor Swift saw jogging today (which is, of course, also important).

They have also created a couple of brand new one-click options that will make information easier to come by. First, mini time lines will enable everyone to click on a users name and see a small version of their bio and profile page without navigating away from whatever page they are currently browsing. Second the Related Content option will create icons that will show additional related content to the user and/or the author of the tweet they are reading.

Although an exact date has not been given as of yet, the preview process has already begun. This means that any twitter user will be able to switch from the old Twitter to the new and back until they are used to the way the new Twitter will work. Eventually all profiles will be switched over and be able to use all of the new features.

Stay tuned for many more new and exciting changes that the Twitter Team will surely continue to wow the world with!

“The Social Network” Movie

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

This weekend the movie The Social Network hits theaters. It is expected to do quite well. Some have even said that the $25 million opening weekend predictions are conservative.

In searching the reviews on Saturday a negative view was difficult to find. One blogger on IMDB states, “Every aspect of the film is handled just so; from the gorgeous cinematography to the great cast, from the fitting editing to the unforgettable writing. The Social Network is, perhaps, the film of the year. It’s timely and timeless, a combination that few films can ever hope to achieve.”

The movie follows the life of the credited creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg from the idea and through the online bricks and mortar process of building the site.

The movie also chronicles the controversy of the allegations that Zuckerberg in essence stole the website. The films shows the entire process including the trials leading up to the dissolution of the partnership between Zuckerberg and his friends and partners.

Because of the controversy it will be interesting to see how the movie does at the box office and what impact, positive or negative, it has on the social media world and facebook itself.

On a different but interesting note, Mark Zuckerberg himself recently promised the Newark Public School System 100 million dollars. The gift is extraordinary and will make more of a difference than most can imagine for the children of that area. However there are those who feel that Zuckerberg only wanted to offset the possible fallout his reputation could take from the movie. So far no such fallout has occurred.

One funny fact about the movie that is otherwise irrelevant, the actor who plays Mark Zuckerberg, Jesse Eisenberg, also starred in the 2009 movie Zombieland. In that movie his character states that the best thing about Zombieland is that “There are no Facebook status updates”. 😉

Twitter Moves to OAuth for API Access

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Twitter is a relatively new social media website that is quickly growing to be a must have for not only people, but businesses as well.

One of the most convenient ways to use Twitter is by downloading and authorizing one of the thousands of applications written to make using Twitter from your desktop or phone easier and more streamlined.

Recently the staff at Twitter have developed a way for users enjoying twitter through applications to feel more secure. They have named the feature OAuth.

In a nutshell OAuth will still allow users to download their favorite application but will not allow the application to store their password. For example, if you are an UberTwitter (for blackberry) user, you will be able to enter your password once and then continue to tweet and follow others even if you need to change your password. This greatly decreases the chances that a hacker will be able to find your password and ‘hijack’ your timeline.

Twitter has not as of yet rolled this feature out for every person but expects to do so by the end of the year.

Another way they have endeavored to make the Twitter experience a more enjoyable one, is by creating a link wrapping feature named t.co.

Link wrapping makes the 140 character limit of each tweet possible when adding a link. Generally a link added would be so many characters long that it takes the entire tweet and makes commenting or retweeting difficult. t. co will shorten each link and also display it in a way that shows where you are being directed.

Again an example, if you added a link to your online auction and it appeared like this: http://cgi.ebay.com/STAINLESS8_W0QQitemZ160478521656QQ categoryZ67681QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp3907.m263QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DSIC%26itu%3DMRU-10968%252BUCI%252BIA%252BUA –  t. co would not only shorten it but it would appear as simply ebay.com or something similar so that you know where you are headed.

These two roll outs are exciting and looking forward it seems certain that the people at Twitter are sure to continue to wow users with future features.

Google Incorporates Real Time Search

Friday, December 11th, 2009

A few days ago Google added real time search to its main page. To check it out just go Google.com and run a search for anything that has recently been getting public attention for example “President Obama”. You will notice an unobtrusive live streaming results box inserted into the general search results. Almost like watching a stock ticker this stream will constantly update with new information as it comes in. The sources for this new information include Twitter, Facebook, news sources, newly updated websites, etc.

Real time search has been a focus and goal of Google’s for years; the inclusion of this real time window was a gigantic step in that direction. Many people attribute the wide success of Twitter to its ability to connect people, businesses, and news in real time. In this day and age the Internet has become a constant river of information. The real time search box from Google gives us a jumping off point into that river, one from which we can observe the rivers flow and no longer be limited by a frozen image of its currents.

So how do these new additions to our Internet experience effect us? One clear way is reputation management. Most successful business are already leveraging Internet marketing to promote their brands. Real time search results allow us a finger on the lifeblood of the Internet. When a company pays for space on a billboard it can be difficult to measure that investments return and impact. Imagine if that business knew every time a driver commented to their passenger about their billboard and what they said about it. Real time search shows that communication is growing, bringing us closer together, and closing the information gap between businesses and their customers.