Posts
- Social Networks Are Becoming a Security Risk [SURVEY]
- Steve Jobs Is Not Happy With Google, Adobe
- Stephen Colbert Shows Off iPad at The Grammys [VIDEO]
- Bravo! Foursquare Snags a TV Partnership
- Amazon to Macmillan: You Win (for Now)
- Grammys: Imogen Heap Accepts Award Wearing “Twitter Dress”
- The Birth of the Virtual Assistant
- Macmillan CEO Confirms Dispute With Amazon Over eBooks
- Shock Artistry: Lady Gaga’s Social Factors of Fame
Posted: 01 Feb 2010 03:27 AM PST   According to a report by Sophos, malware and spam are on the rise on social networks such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn.In the last year, 57% of users report they have been spammed via social networking sites, an increase of 70.6% compared to last year. Furthermore, 36% of users claim they’ve been sent malware via social networking sites, which is a rise of 69.8% from last year. On the other hand, CEOs of companies are concerned that their employees’ usage of social networks is posing a security risk for their company. Sophos has surveyed over 500 organizations, discovering that 72% of them think social networks are a danger for their company, with 60% of them tagging Facebook as the biggest security risk, followed by MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, says that Facebook is the biggest threat because it’s the biggest social network out there, but he also places some of the blame on Facebook’s own privacy rules. “When Facebook rolled-out its new recommended privacy settings late last year, it was a backwards step, encouraging many users to share their information with everybody on the internet,” he says. Interestingly enough (and contrasted to some of the reports we’ve seen lately), Cluley thinks that simply barring access to Facebook is not the solution. “Social networks can be an essential part of the business mix today,” he says, “and the answer is not to bar staff from participating in them but to apply some ’social security’ instead.” Reviews: Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter Tags: facebook, linkedin, malware, myspace, social networking, spam, twitter |
Posted: 01 Feb 2010 01:23 AM PST   What a time we’re living in. You can’t even make fun of your competitors at your own company meeting without your words leaking out to the internet.Apparently, this has happened to Steve Jobs, who lashed out at Google and Adobe at Apple’s Town Hall company meeting held at their One Infinite Loop headquarters. Speaking to Apple employees, Steve Jobs voiced his expression with buggy Flash, lazy Adobe, and Google’s fakery in the “don’t be evil” department. Although these words have not been (and will never be) officially confirmed, multiple anonymous people from the audience confirmed their authenticity to Wired. Here’s a couple of Steve’s (inexact) quotes from the meeting: “Adobe is lazy. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it's because of Flash. No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5.” When it comes to Google, Jobs is mad at them for trying to “kill the iPhone”. “We did not enter the search business,” he said. “They entered the phone business. Make no mistake: they want to kill the iPhone. We won't let them.” Finally, his most interesting quote is about Google’s “don’t be evil” mantra. According to Daring Fireball, Jobs simply said: “it’s a load of crap”. Yes, I think we can safely say we were right when we said that a) the iPad and the iPhone aren’t getting full Flash support anytime soon, and b) Google is now Apple’s greatest enemy. Reviews: Google Tags: adobe, apple, Flash, Google, steve jobs, trending |
Posted: 31 Jan 2010 05:29 PM PST   Just when you thought the iPad hype may be winding down, Stephen Colbert opened up The Grammys by pulling out the new Apple device instead of an envelope to present the show's award for "Song of the Year."Colbert then jokingly turned to Jay-Z and said "did you not get one of these in your gift bag?" and asked his own daughter, also in attendance, if she finally thought he was cool. He then presented the award for “Song of the Year” to Beyonce and team for “Single Ladies.” Kanye is surely applauding somewhere.  Update: Here’s a video of Colbert’s iPad: [img via jose3030] Reviews: beyonce, song Tags: Apple Tablet, beyonce, grammys, ipad, stephen colbert |
Posted: 31 Jan 2010 04:50 PM PST   Foursquare’s new frontier isn’t just newspapers, but media companies as a whole. Case in point: Bravo and Foursquare have entered into a must-see TV relationship integrating show personalities and their city tips, as well as a Bravo badges, into the game experience.The New York Times Bits blog reports that the partnership officially premieres tomorrow, with Bravo offering badges and prizes to viewers that visit and check-in at upwards of 500 Bravo-tagged locations. We confirmed the relationship with Foursquare Co-Founder Dennis Crowley who tells us that this partnership is actually just the first of many more media deals to come. In fact, Crowley hints that even more television networks will get in on the checkin gameplay in the near future. The genius behind the Bravo deal is that, on top of introducing a plethora of new Bravo-themed badges, the cable TV network — much like Metro News — is turning the personalities behind their hit reality TV shows — think The Millionaire Matchmaker, Top Chef, The Real Housewives, Top Chef Masters, and Shear Genius — into content creators. The reality show celebrities will share their tips and to-dos, essentially serving as curators of city-specific information that fans can follow and practice in real life. Of course Bravo is going to put the full power of their network behind the partnership, promoting Bravo’s Foursquare hooks in TV spots. The NBC-owned cable network also plans to use Foursquare for sweepstakes, awards, and other viewer incentives. They’ll even offer Foursquare tie-ins to Bravo advertisers, which will likely come in the form of coupons for viewers to cash in at the advertisers’ venues. Ellen Stone, Bravo’s senior vice president of marketing, told the New York Times that: “We really want to tap into the power of Foursquare by engaging their audiences and bringing our Bravo viewers these unique experiences on a national level … We saw the Foursquare phenomenon taking off and we wanted to go along with them as they shoot into the mainstream … Our audiences is always looking for new and unique engagements and this is perfect for them."In the grander scheme of things, Crowley sees Bravo as an important partner that will help them reach a more mainstream audience. He says the company’s ultimate goal is “to make checkins synonymous with Foursquare. Everyone is doing check-ins and we’re not going to win that word. What we think we can offer is the best reason to check-in.” As everyone from Google to Yelp attempts to emulate Foursquare’s winning location formula, the recent deals with Harvard, BART, Metro News, and now Bravo are essentially wisely arranged barters for your checkins. Nicely done Foursquare. Reviews: Foursquare, Google, Yelp Tags: bravo, foursquare, media, Mobile 2.0, tv |
Posted: 31 Jan 2010 03:18 PM PST   While the ebook war between Apple and Amazon has only just begun, this weekend’s drama between Macmillan and Amazon has ended decisively in the book publisher’s favor.This weekend it was revealed that Macmillan and Amazon were fighting over ebook prices. Macmillan wanted to raise the prices and change pricing to an agency model. Amazon responded by yanking Macmillan books off the digital shelves. Now Amazon has made its own statement on its forums. The gist of the message: you win, Macmillan. Specifically, Amazon is giving into Macmillan’s demands because it “has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books.” Clearly Amazon is going along with this unwillingly and believes that consumers will prove that Macmillan’s new prices are unreasonable by not opening their wallets. Here’s the full statement: Dear Customers:Tags: amazon, apple, Apple iPad, Apple Tablet, eBook, ipad, Kindle, Macmillan |
Posted: 31 Jan 2010 01:55 PM PST   The 52nd Annual Grammy Awards will air its televised portion tonight at 5 p.m. PST/8 p.m. EST, but the non-televised portion of the awards are already streaming live on the web. One of the early social media hat tips in evidence comes from artist Imogen Heap, who accepted an award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical wearing a specially crafted “Twitter Dress.”The dress, which has its own Twitter feed, displays Twitter pics sent by fans in real-time using the hashtag #twitdress. The artist uploaded a pic of the “dress in progress” to her yfrog account last night (pictured below), with Twitpic being used to handle the extensive stream of fan-submitted pics. She tweeted to earlier this morning that the dress was envisioned as a way to let fans “accompany me on the red carpet.”   The Twitdress idea is nothing if not a creative way to incorporate social media into the Grammys experience and — literally — bring the fans with an artist onto the stage. And besides — why let Lady Gaga have all the fun with the crazy outfits? Then again, if anyone is prepared to top the Twitter dress for craziest Grammy attire, it could be the Gaga — we’ll be watching to see if she whips out some Facebook shoes, or maybe a Youtube hat. Stay tuned!  Reviews: Facebook, Twitpic, Twitter, YouTube Tags: celebrities, grammys, imogen heap, music, social media, trending, twitdress, twitter |
Posted: 31 Jan 2010 01:03 PM PST   Dag Kittlaus is the Co-Founder and CEO of Siri. He is a serial innovator and consumer wireless Internet veteran of 10 years in both Scandinavia and the US. Siri is Dag's third consecutive mobile product.In the near future, anyone who lives a connected lifestyle will be able to delegate their everyday tasks to intelligent virtual assistants that will coordinate, execute and simplify users’ lives. We will look back on these days and ask ourselves how we ever got by without our trusted assistants, the same way my kids ask in amazement about how we ever got things done before laptops and the Internet. What Constitutes a Virtual Assistant? |
Posted: 31 Jan 2010 11:13 AM PST   The news about the Macmillan price feud with Amazon over the pricing of electronic books has been confirmed by Macmillan CEO John Sargent in a paid advertisement on Publishers Lunch.In the message, addressed to “Macmillan authors/illustrators and the literary agent community,” Sargent relates that he met with Amazon this past Thursday to discuss new terms of sale for eBooks under the “agency model.” In this model, Macmillan as publisher would sell digital editions of books to customers through retailers, who as the agents of the sale would take the typical 30% commission standard in many digital media industries. Whereas currently Amazon caps the retail price of eBooks at $9.99, Macmillan proposes to set the price for each book individually at price points between $5.99 and $14.99, starting typically on the high end of the spectrum (between $12.99 and $14.99) and dynamically lowering the price over time. Author Charles Stross has a great overview of the industry mechanics behind this feud and why a “reverse auction” pricing plan is of benefit to publishers and authors. Sargent also confirms that Amazon’s response to the Thursday meeting was “taking all our books off the Kindle site, and off Amazon.” He goes on to express regret for being at an impasse, but indicates that Macmillan’s position is important to the “long-term viability and stability of the digital book market.” He shows no signs of backing down any time soon, and essentially appeals to the author and literary agent community for support in the dispute. What we’re seeing here is the Apple Ripple Effect. Not only have they introduced a device that challenges the Kindle in terms of book-reading hardware, but also a pricing model to publishers that offers an alternative to the hegemony Amazon has heretofore enjoyed in the digital books market. How this ultimately gets resolved could involve a long and protracted fight — you may want to buckle in, make some popcorn, and sit back to weather the coming eBook Wars. Whether you’re an author, publisher, or book lover, how do you see the digital publishing market shaking out? Tags: amazon, apple, authors, digital publishing, ebooks, ipad, Kindle, Macmillan, media, publishers, supply chain |
Posted: 31 Jan 2010 09:27 AM PST   Alex Mann is the director of Trendrr, a business intelligence platform for social and digital media. You can read more by Alex on his blog and follow him on Twitter.Ten years ago, even the most shocking entertainer’s rise to stardom was missing the accelerating momentum of social media. While fame’s appeal lies within its ambiguity, we do know it accelerates with rapid conversation. Lady Gaga has played a hand in manipulating fame to her advantage, emerging this year as arguably the hottest pop star on the planet. She’s done this by developing the image of a shock artist — wearing futuristic attire, sculpted hair styles and glittery makeup to complete her socially disruptive persona that ultimately drives the popularity and consumption of her music. Today, Lady Gaga isn’t just popular; she’s rapidly accelerating in popularity. Lady Gaga By the Numbers On Twitter, the phrase "Lady Gaga" has averaged over ten thousand mentions per day over the past three months, soaring in frequency past other 2010 Grammy performers. Does the buzz translate into commercial success? Do people actually listen to Gaga’s music, or is she merely a spectacle?  As it turns out, Lady Gaga’s Twitter buzz isn’t just noise — it’s backed up by consumption data. Take, for instance, her number of listeners on Last.fm. They continue to rise, with an accelerating upward trajectory beginning last fall when she appeared on Saturday Night Live with Madonna. As the graph above shows, Lady Gaga’s rise in popularity has been meteoric even in the last month when she surpassed John Mayer in listeners. While Lady Gaga’s wardrobe stunts and persona stir conversation, the data suggests that people are actually listening to her music, as well.  The same holds true for MySpace listeners. As the data suggests, she maintains a strong position against other pop icons such as Jay-Z, and Rihanna.  Lady Gaga wins again versus another global star, Beyonce, who peaked in November coinciding with the Kanye West / Taylor Swift VMA incident. While it’s obvious that both stars are frequent press items, the key insight gained from comparing the slopes of the trend lines indicates the accelerating social momentum Gaga has built over the past six months. What All This Tells UsWith consumption of Lady Gaga’s music skyrocketing on social sites where users do not pay to listen, one key fact is clear; she remains a strong performer where it counts: music sales. A final question worth considering: if there was an absence of free channels to hear Gaga, would her album sales be higher? Or, does the social media universe only perpetuate and support her existing successful career? Let us know what you think in the comments. Reviews: MySpace, beyonce Tags: charts, graphs, Lady Gaga, music, social media, Trendrr, trends |
There is a direct relationship between simplicity and user engagement on the web. Less clicks means more users — period. When combined with tools like smartphones, virtual assistants will migrate user interactions towards a far more frictionless e-commerce, consumption and collaboration model.
The OS of virtual assistants will be the Internet itself, 
The vague promises of contextual awareness, personalization, and other generalizations have rarely materialized in real products on the web. We are wary of what personal information we share online, in search engines, and the the never-ending fear of credit card fraud still looms. But this game is changing with the open web.
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