New Facebook Privacy Shortcuts Make Profile Settings Simpler

Last week, Facebook announced that it would be updating profile privacy settings for all users by the end of the year. Users will start seeing these changes in the next 24 hours.

At approximately 3am GMT a small lock will appear in the top right hand corner of the Facebook page. When clicked on, the lock symbol will open into a top-down menu, with the following shortcuts as options: Who Can See My Stuff, Who Can Contact Me, and How Do I Stop Someone From Bothering Me.

The changes are intended to make applying your profile privacy settings easier and quicker.

Social Media Promotions of the Week–21/12/2012

Every week, the staff here at Social Media Frontiers choose our favourite social media promotional campaigns, based on their creativity, originality and innovation. This week three campaigns stood out from the rest.
 
1. Google+ – Google Hangouts

Aardman Animations and Google+ have released a campaign to promote the social platform’s Hangouts feature over the holidays.

Responsible for creating the likes of Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Chicken Run, and more, the production company has brought all the famous characters together in a video which encourages users to connect with each other this Christmas using Google+.

Instagram Reintroduces Ability To Share Photos From Any Album

Instagram has updated its mobile app for both iOS and Android, allowing users to share photos from any of their albums, not just from the camera roll.

The app also has a new filter, Mayfair, and 25 languages have been added including Chinese, Russian, Spanish, French, Indonesian, German and Italian.

Instagram has acknowledged that there is a problem with the app, however: the photo privacy settings switch displays ‘OFF’ even when the privacy settings are in fact on.

Facebook Timeline Set For More Changes

Facebook is preparing to alter your Timeline once again. Some very noticeable changes have already started showing for a very small number of users and it may be distributed to everyone very soon.

A producer on ABC News revealed that his Timeline showed changes on Thursday. The main difference with the new update will be a return to tabs.

This means that the thumbnails we currently see for “Friends”, “Map” and “Photos” will be replaced for a simpler tab system with which users can click on to find the information they want.

What’s Next For Facebook Advertising?

Facebook has reportedly begun developing a video advertising service which autoplays in the news feed, regardless of the users activity on the site.

According to Ad Age, Facebook is planning to have the service out by April next year, and will offer 15 second slots to Facebook video advertisers to display their adverts in the news feed.

These adverts will play across all devices and will begin automatically, requiring users to pause the video if they don’t want to watch it.

Guidelines Clarify Offensive Posts On Social Media

New measures have been set which could see fewer social media users being charged in England and Wales for offensive content.

A set of guidelines has been set out by the Director of Public Prosecutions which states that people will only face trial if their comments on social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook go a step further than just being offensive.

The introduction of these measures hopes to form a division between the ‘trolls’ and abusers on one side, and those maintaining their freedom of speech on the other.

Facebook Suggestions Will Now Influence Foursquare

Foursquare will now take the suggestions of Facebook friends into account when recommending destinations.

Users who have connected their Facebook and Foursquare accounts will now be able to see their Facebook friends’ activity on Foursquare, as long as they have befriended them on both sites.

“When your Facebook friends do public things on Foursquare, like write a tip, like a place, or take public photos,” says the Foursquare blog, “we’ll now use that to help power your recommendations when you search in Explore.”

Kamcord Lets You Film Your Game And Share It Socially

A new start-up enables gamers to record the game they are playing on their mobile and then share the footage onto social media platforms.

Kamcord is a small six-person company that is concerned with recording the footage and play of mobile games, whereas other businesses have previously only focused on games on a console or PC.
CEO and co-founder of Kamcord, Matt Zitzmann has said that the company is announcing a beginning round of investment today which totals $1.5 million.

Twitter Way Behind Facebook In Membership Figures, Way Ahead Of Facebook In Mobile Ad Revenue

It will take a decade for Twitter to reach 1 billion users, studies show, by which point Facebook could have double, or even triple, that number.

Twitter has just reached 200 million monthly active users, cementing its place as the second biggest social networking site after the 1 billion strong Facebook. However, at its current growth rate, Twitter may never equal Facebook’s population figures.

Twitter has grown its membership figures by 60 million since March, the last time it shared its membership data registering 140 million monthly active users, an increase of almost 50%.

Mark Zuckerberg Donates Shares To Charity Worth $500 Million

CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has announced that a gift of 18 million shares of Facebook will be given to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

Zuckerberg released the news on Tuesday evening via his Timeline that he and his wife Priscilla would be donating the gift. This is his second considerable charitable donation to date.

London Fire Brigade Proposes Emergency Tweet Service

The London Fire Brigade has announced that it is considering opening an emergency tweet service, so that the public can tweet about a fire instead of calling 999.

The London Fire Brigade has just published its most recent ‘London Safety Plan’, with the emergency tweets announcement coming soon after.

The emergency services are already using social media to respond to emergencies. For instance, after a fire broke out in London at the start of the year, firefighters turned to Twitter for information in the absence of an available helicopter.

Meebo Being Put To Good Use By Google

A chat bar that looks very similar to that of Meebo has been spotted on Google+, causing stirrings that the social platform may have started putting Meebo to good use.

Meebo, an advertising start-up, was bought by Google back in June due to its popularity with advertisers. Although it was disliked by internet users for taking up space, Google specifically hoped it could be used on their social platform, Google+.

Now it seems that Google has started testing a Meebo-type bar in an attempt to increase user engagement on the site.

Facebook Revamps Local Discovery Feature Nearby

On Monday, Facebook updated its mobile apps for iOS and Android, Completely renovating its Nearby feature into something resembling Foursquare and Yelp.

The old version of Nearby allows users to check in to locations they visit, informing their friends where they are and what stores, restaurants and bars they frequent.

Facebook has a wealth of information in its database regarding local businesses. Most businesses have their own Facebook profile, which users can like or comment on. With the new update, Facebook is using all of this data to the users’ benefit.

YouTube Makes Video Creating Easier With iOS App

YouTube Capture is a new iOS app that allows users to film videos and then instantly share them on the web and various social media platforms.

The app will make it simpler for users to upload videos from their iPhone onto the video sharing website. Features of the app include the ability to edit videos, colour correction and stabilisation.

Free background music is also available from YouTube to add to videos as well as the ability to write a caption. Users are also reminded to rotate their phone to avoid vertical videos.

Instagram’s New Privacy Policy Paves Way For Further Integration With Facebook

Today, Instagram published its new Privacy Policy, keeping most of the document the same, but adding a couple of new passages regarding data sharing with Instagram’s affiliates and partner companies.

In a blog post announcing the change, Instagram makes it very clear that the changes have been made in collaboration with Facebook to better help users make the most of the combined service provided.

“Our updated privacy policy helps Instagram function more easily as part of Facebook by being able to share info between the two groups”, explains the blog post. “This means we can do things like fight spam more effectively, detect system and reliability problems more quickly, and build better features for everyone by understanding how Instagram is used.”

Facebook Set To Release New Photo Messaging App

Facebook is reportedly developing an in-house version of the Snapchat mobile app, the self-destructing photo messaging service.

Snapchat, a unique photo messaging service which has grown in popularity over the last year, allows its users to choose a time limit on how long their photo messages appear in the recipient’s inbox.

Normally, the photos last a matter of seconds before they are permanently deleted from the sender’s phone, the recipient’s phone and the Snapchat servers.

Downloadable Tweets Now Available For Some Users

Twitter users will soon be able to download all of their tweets since the beginning of their account, with some already being able to do so.

The social platform has started distributing the ability to download tweets gradually to users. The downloaded tweets will come in the form of an archive that resembles a calendar.

People currently have access to a few thousand tweets that they have posted on Twitter but the ability to download all personal tweets is currently only available to a select group of users.

Social Media Promotions Of The Week: 14/12/2012

Every week, the staff here at Social Media Frontiers choose our favourite social media promotional campaigns, based on their creativity, originality and innovation. This week five campaigns stood out from the rest.

1. Heineken - Meet The World in One City



Beer company Heineken have created a social media campaign where they aim for two men from the UK to meet a person of every nationality in the space of two weeks around the streets of Amsterdam.

The company is using social media as a way for people to connect and contact the pair informing them if someone they know will be there during the space of time allocated to represent a different nationality.

The agency behind the campaign is Tribal DDB Amsterdam with the project ending next week. People can also contact the pair through a dedicated online page.

Twitter Improves Promoted Tweets With Negative Keyword Targeting And Trend Matching

Twitter have updated their Promoted Tweets service for advertisers, adding the ability to target negative keywords and match trending stories.

Businesses can also import keyword lists from other advertising platforms, or copy and paste them from documents, using the “import multiple keywords” tool.

There are now three different keyword matching options to choose from: exact match, phrase match and basic keyword match.  Negative keyword targeting allows businesses to “restrict [they’re] Promoted Tweets from showing up when users search for certain keywords”.

Facebook App Update As Android App Goes Native

Facebook have updated both iOS and Android apps with both now leaving the HTML5 format and becoming completely native.

The company has rebuilt the Android app from scratch in the hope of improving user experience with faster speed connections and a better performance. All Facebook services will now be the same on each major platform.

Android users will now get the same experience from their device that iOS users do. A post on Facebook’s engineering blog says; “we’re moving from a hybrid native/webview to pure native code, allowing us to optimize the Facebook experience for faster loading, new user interfaces, disk cache, and so on.”

Facebook Now Allows Facebook Marketers To Duplicate Adverts Across Numerous Accounts

Facebook’s ads manager tool now provides marketers with a “create similar ad” option, which copies the same advert across separate accounts. 

So, for example, a brand can now copy an advert from its main company account onto the account of one of its individual branches.

Companies have the option of duplicating both the advert and the targeting data, just the targeting data, or using different audiences for different accounts.

Facebook Shows Users A Personal Year In Review

A Facebook ‘Year In Review’ feature gives users the ability to see their top moments and stories on the social platform’s Timeline from the past year.

Noticeably from the offset users can see a rotating collage of significant pictures from throughout the year. Directly below this you will see how many friends that you have added over the past 12 months and how many different pages you have liked.

Google+ Changes Videos Tab To YouTube Tab

Google+ profiles and YouTube channels are now integrated further, with a new YouTube tab option on the Google+ profile page and improved video sharing across both platforms.

Google+ users who have linked their YouTube channel with a Google+ profile page can now share videos simultaneously on both sites. All the user has to do is check a box when uploading a new video on YouTube and it will be posted on their personal Google+ page.

New Facebook Privacy Settings Rolled Out To Users

New privacy and sharing settings will be distributed to Facebook users by the end of the year.

A Facebook release has said that: “We continue to strive toward three main goals: bringing controls in context where you share, helping you understand what appears where as you use Facebook, and providing tools to help you act on content you don't like.”

The sharing platform has released a preview of some of the new options that can be seen in the menu.
Privacy settings could previously be found under different menu paths but will soon all be organised into one place called Privacy Shortcuts.

Does The Pope Tweet On The Web? Yes He Does!

His Holiness Benedict XVI (@Pontifex) today announced his presence on social media, with a tweet thanking his followers.

The Pope, who has eight different accounts for eight different languages which, together, have amassed over a million followers, sent his first tweet in Italian on an iPad.

Since his first tweet the pope has written four more, alternatively a question and then an answer. Both questions concern the power of faith: how Christians can better celebrate Jesus, and how faith can survive in “a world without hope”. Both answers focus on the power of faith in God and Jesus.

Facebook Gifts Now Available To U.S. Users

Facebook Gifts have been rolled out to all users in the United States after they had spent time in beta.

Conveniently released in time for the holidays, users in America are able to send physical gifts to Facebook friends for Christmas, birthdays, or any other holiday or special occasion.

Despite the fact that the person on the receiving end of the gift will know in advance what is being sent to them, the sender has a large list of options to choose from. These could be gourmet food, novelty gifts and household goods amongst other items.

Yahoo Update Flickr iOS App And Yahoo Mail

Only two days after CEO Marissa Mayer announced the release of a new email service on the Yahoo! blog, an improved Flickr photo-sharing service has been released for the iPhone.

After taking customer feedback, Yahoo! Mail has been updated for the first time in over a year, with simplicity and speed paramount to the service: “We’ve redesigned the new version of Yahoo! Mail with speed in mind”, wrote Mayer, “getting through your emails is faster than ever before.”

Mayer also highlighted the importance of accessibility on mobile devices, saying, “because mobile is everything these days, Yahoo! Mail now has a consistent look and feel across devices.”

LinkedIn Presents “The Biggest Ideas Of 2013”

A selection of influential “thought leaders” have published essays on LinkedIn predicting the most significant developments to occur in 2013.

In October, LinkedIn began a feature allowing users to follow “influencers”: leading figures from the business and political world. The feature proved to be a great success, with Virgin founder Richard Branson passing the 1 million followers mark earlier this month.

In the run up to new year, LinkedIn has published articles written by some of these “thought leaders”, “chosen”, wrote Francesca Levy on the LinkedIn blog, “for their experience and smart perspectives.”

WordPress Announces New 3.5 Version Called ‘Elvin’

WordPress has announced a new WordPress 3.5 which features a whole new and improved way to upload photos and to create galleries. The 3.5 version is called ‘Elvin’ in honour of drummer, Elvin Jones.

The new version has updates that go far beyond a fresh photo improvement. Elvin has added a new default theme for mobiles called Twenty Twelve.

Twenty Twelve has a new refreshed style for the dashboard, has updated the theme so that it has high resolution graphics, and is 'Retina-ready.’

Pinterest Now Supports Twitter Cards

In the aftermath of the disagreement between Twitter and Instagram, Pinterest has started supporting extended tweets.

Users can now post their favourite pins on the Twitter feed, which can be viewed on-site without having to follow a link back to Pinterest.

A spokesperson has confirmed to Mashable that Twitter and Pinterest reached an agreement last week, with the image sharing website looking to expand their influence, and Twitter looking to fill the hole left by Instagram’s departure.

The White House On Pinterest

Home to the President of the United States of America, The White House has announced that they are now officially using Pinterest.

With only 1 pin noticeable, the page already has almost 8,000 followers. The White House claims that they will use the content sharing site for matters such as “inspiring quotes and images” and “infographics that help explain key issues to details about the life inside the White House.” 

Twitter Releases Photo Filters

A week after Instagram disabled full photo sharing on their mobile app, Twitter have released a photo filter service of their own.

Last week, Twitter users noticed that Instragram photos were being cropped on their Twitter feed. In a statement explaining the change, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom told Mashable that Instagram had supported Twitter cards before because at the time they had a “minimal web presence”, but actually found the update “really confusing”.

“We’ve since launched several improvements to our website that allow users to directly engage with Instagram content through likes, comments, hashtags,” explained Systrom, “and now we believe the best experience is for us to link back to where the content lives."

Instagram Updates Features Including A New Filter

Instagram has updated its iOS and Android Apps to include new features that have frequently requested by users for a while.

A new grid guide option is available to users should they wish to use it meaning that they won’t need to open up Camera+ or Snapseed for example to crop or scale their photos.

The photo-sharing and filtering app has said that their tilt-shift feature has been improved so that it provides a “vastly more realistic rendering of depth of field.”

Businesses Can Now Post Events On Foursquare

In August last year, the events option was introduced to a few select venues, such as sporting arenas and concert halls. Any business on Foursquare now has the option of creating their own custom event.
 
Businesses can post information about upcoming events on their Foursquare profiles. The event information will appear when a user searches for locations nearby, checks in, or goes back over previous check-ins.

For example, a book shop can advertise an upcoming book signing by a famous author, a pub can advertise a beer festival and retailers could advertise a sale.

Study Shows That Social Media Benefits Police

Technorati Tags: Social Media,Police,London Riots

A recent study has revealed the benefits an active social media presence has to the public opinion of European police outfits.

Researchers from the COMPOSITE Project – short for “Comparative Police Studies in the EU” – who carried out the study interviewed IT experts from police forces in 13 European countries.

They discovered that in places where the local police do not have a strong social media presence, “unofficial” profiles spring up to provide the service in their place, keeping the population informed on police matters.

Facebook Search Bar Can Take You To Specific App Centre Categories

The Facebook search bar now searches for App Centre categories which will lead users straight to those particular sections of the App Centre.

The ability to do so doesn’t seem to have been available since the introduction of the App Centre in June, but Facebook has since introduced a search option within the App Centre which gives users the ability to finds apps by using keywords such as “sport” or “games”.

Only recently has a discovery been made of users being able to use the main Facebook search bar to find specific App Centre categories.

Pinterest Used To Catch Criminals

A local newspaper based in Pennsylvania has started using Pinterest as a site to post photos of criminals wanted by the police. This has incredibly lead to a 57% increase in arrests.

The Mercury newspaper is based in Pottstown, Pennsylvania and also covers neighbouring towns. They have posted more than 75 pictures on the photo-sharing site of people who are wanted by the police.

Charges could relate to anything from theft and fraud to assault and the police received tips almost immediately from the public once the photos had been posted.

Social Media Promotions of the Week

The best marketing campaigns of the week have been chosen by the staff at Social Media Frontiers based on their creativity, originality and innovation. The five that we feel are the best this week are listed below:

1. Blue Crimbo
Company: Everton F.C.



Everton Football Club hope to turn a traditionally red Christmas into a blue one with a campaign that rewards their fans for the support they have given throughout the year.

Long-standing agency Rippleffect has created a virtual map of Liverpool with an Everton player turning various aspects of the city blue. Fans of the club can tweet using a #BlueCrimbo hashtag to upload photos of themselves turning the city blue, buying match tickets and buying Christmas presents for fellow blue members

Those taking part in the Blue Crimbo campaign will be entered into a prize draw where someone everyday will be picked at random to win different prizes.
 

YouTube Unveils New Homepage Design And Navigation Tools

YouTube has just released a new, simplified homepage design, along with new navigation features focused on getting users to subscribe. A wide array of platforms and devices will support the change: both desktop and mobile, as well as consoles connected to the Television such as the Playstation 3.

“You come to YouTube to watch the videos you care about,” say Josh Sassoon and Alex Nicksay on the YouTube blog, “so it’s important that the videos stand out.” To this end, YouTube now has a far simpler monochrome design, with videos located front and centre, dominating the screen, and titles located beneath the video rather than above.

Google Launches Google+ Communities, Their Answer To Facebook Groups

Google have just introduced a new feature to their social media platform Google+ called Communities, which enables users to connect through their common interests.

“Today”, says Google+ on their blog, “Google+ is the fastest-growing network thingy ever. More than 500 million people have upgraded, 235 million are active across Google (+1'ing apps in Google Play, hanging out in Gmail, connecting with friends in Search...), and 135 million are active in just the stream.”

These are impressive figures for a social media site that many have refuted as a pale imitation of Facebook. The new Google+ Communities feature is one example of the innovation that is helping the network to grow so rapidly.

New Tool Shows How Many Fake Twitter Followers You Have

Socialbakers’ new tool gives Twitter users the ability to see how many of their followers are actually real and who are fake.

The social media analytics company based in the Czech Republic has released its new tool, aptly called Fake Followers Check.

SoundCloud Update Now Available On Mobile

On Tuesday, a new version of SoundCloud was released to the general public. Today, the “Next” update has found its way onto iOS and Android devices.

SoundCloud reported some impressive engagement figures before the recent release, the update being in part to cope with increased public demand.

According to SoundCloud’s report, 180 million people are encountering or interacting with the site every month, an estimated 8% of the entire internet ‘population’.

The number of people registered with SoundCloud has almost doubled since May, reaching 30 million, and they are uploading 10 hours of audio onto the site every hour.

Twitter Adds 100 More Cities To Trending Topics Feature

Twitter has expanded its Trending Topics feature to include 100 more cities around the world. Users are now more able to see what the most popular trending topics are in their area.

The expansion now includes cities such as Frankfurt, Istanbul, and Guadalajara to add to a list of over 200 cities around the world.

Microsoft Socl’s Beta Update Now Available To General Public

The Beta version of Microsoft’s Socl, a social platform that “allows you to express and share your ideas through rich post collages comprised of images, links, captions and videos”, has just been made available to the general public.

The collage sharing site was originally designed to be used by college students at the University of Washington, Syracuse University and New York University, providing them with a platform on which they could share their common interests through pictures and links.

When a user chooses to follow people or interest pages on their current Socl account, the posts generated by these sources appear in the “following” tab of the “posts” page. So, for example, someone could follow their best friend, “Films”, their partner, “Sports” and “Architecture” and they would see all the relevant collages from these people and interest pages in one place.

360’ Video Technology to Showcase Slash’s Single on Facebook

Former Guns ‘n Roses guitarist Slash is the the most recent music artist to utilise a 360-degree video with the help of Mativision. Using Facebook, the new Slash 360 app will present a single from his new album.

Mativision is claiming to now have the worlds first Facebook integrated 360-degree video platform with Slash taking to the social platform with the single, Standing in the Sun from his new album, Apocalyptic Love.

With an array of 360-degree cameras to film and broadcast live music performances, Internet based Mativision player and iOS apps can allow fans to take control of what they view on their screen.

YouTube iOS App Updated For iPad And iPod

YouTube has released an updated version of its iOS application for the iPad Touch and the iPad, with an improved interface and faster video streaming.

“Just in time for the holidays,” writes software engineer Horia Ciurdar on the YouTube blog, “you can download or update the YouTube app with a look designed for the iPad and iPhone 5, enhanced AirPlay support, videos that start faster and play more smoothly, and improved accessibility with VoiceOver.”

YouTube created the iOS app, which is specifically designed for touch screen mobile devices, in response to customer feedback and activity: currently, 25% of YouTube videos watched are streamed on mobile devices.

Recreating Events Now Simpler With Facebook

Facebook now allows users to easily reproduce and repeat events that they have previously hosted or attended.

By clicking ‘create repeat event’ from a drop-down menu on event pages, Facebook composes a new event but including all the details and invitees that were present on the event you wish to recreate.

Users should now find it easier to make plans for repeat events. Facebook page owners will find this new feature especially useful if they regularly create similar events for fans and followers.

Facebook Messenger Only Needs Your Name and Number

Facebook Messenger now allows users to sign up for the service by only entering their name and mobile phone number.

Facebook wants you to be able to “reach your contacts faster, start group conversations, share photos and more.” This move will make the app capable of connecting with over a billion worldwide users.

When using just a name and number instead of a Facebook account, users of Messenger can focus entirely on connecting with friends rather than having to maintain a Facebook account at the same time.