Mashable CEO and founder Pete Cashmore sat down at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof to talk about the future of journalism, his favorite social media tools and how he’s using social games to increase activism. Kristof, who is very active on social media, talked about how he engages with his large following, and also said that since the implementation of Facebook Subscribe, he’s seen a big change in the value of Facebook. Kristof says he has 1.2 million Twitter followers, but his Facebook subscribers, who are only a fourth of that number, are more engaged. “The Facebook people spend much more time on Facebook, and I think they are real,” Kristof said. “My sense is that every Facebook subscriber is worth four Twitter followers.” But, Kristof said Twitter still has a huge value, and it’s where he turns to post breaking [...]
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Aiming to hit Facebook in a vulnerable spot, Google on Thursday opened Google+ to teens — and added security enhancements designed to help secure their privacy. In a post explaining the move, Bradley Horowitz, vice president of product at Google+, doesn’t mention Facebook by name, but dubs current social media sharing “second-rate.” “In life, for instance, teens can share the right things with just the right people (like classmates, parents or close ties). Over time, the nuance and richness of selective sharing even promotes authenticity and accountability,” Horowitz wrote. “Sadly, today’s most popular online tools are rigid and brittle by comparison, so teens end up over-sharing with all of their so-called ‘friends.’” Google, which had previously barred consumers under 18 from joining Google+, is attempting to avoid such a situation on its network via a series of enhancement aimed at protecting people on the network aged 13-17. Those include steps [...]
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Gearing up for Twitter’s self-serve advertising launch — currently in beta stage with only a small selection of advertisers — the company announced its acquisition of spam and malware protection service Dasient on Monday. Dasient will be integrated into Twitter’s “revenue engineering team because they have a deep understanding of advertising-platform security issues,” says Rachael Horwitz, a spokesperson for Twitter. The team will be very valuable as Twitter continues to expand its ad products. Twitter introduced its new ad service in November 2011 to a “handful” of advertisers. The self-serve platform lets advertisers purchase ads without going through a sales representative. Anyone with a credit card and the desire to utilize “Promoted Products” to boost their brand recognition can get on-board with this service. However, the service is not yet available to the public. Twitter has moved slowly into paid advertising, starting with “Promoted Tweets” in 2010. Self-serve ads could [...]
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Facebook announced in a blog post Tuesday that Timeline will be coming to all users in the next few weeks. According to a Facebook blog post Tuesday — or rather, an update to the post published when Timeline became available to all users — you will have seven days to preview your Timeline and hide content you don’t want out in the open. Facebook says you’ll receive a notification at the top of your home page when Timeline has landed in your account. That seven-day preview period is the same for users who activate Timeline and those whose accounts are activated automatically. The new interface and features have been opt-in, until the roll out becomes universal. Beginning in December 2011, users could enable the new look with one click, and then publish their Timelines for their friends to see. Those particularly eager for the new Facebook could first access Timeline [...]
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Anonymous is planning to target Facebook in an attack Jan. 28 — at least that’s what a video uploaded to YouTube Monday is claiming in the name of the hacker network. And you thought a day without Wikipedia was bad. “An online war has begun between Anonymous, the people and the government of the United States,” the video begins. “While SOPA and PIPA may be postponed from Congress, this doesn’t guarantee that our Internet rights will be upheld.” Following the U.S. government shutdown of file-sharing site Megaupload Friday, Anonymous attacked the U.S. Department of Justice’s website, among others. Monday’s YouTube video calls on the American people to participate in the hack by downloading Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC), the tool that was successfully used to target the Department of Justice. LOIC crashes websites by sending thousands of information packets to their servers. The video gives instructions for downloading and running [...]
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