Posts with tag "Facebook"

Windows 8 “Might” Share Your Stuff With Microsoft

  • Category: Technology
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  • Posted 274 days ago

I love this .. people getting upset about possible security (?) problems when it comes to Windows 8

Using the recent RTM build of Windows 8, Kobeissi found something odd with Windows SmartScreen, an application that, turned on by default, screens everything one installs from the Internet in order to tell the user if it’s safe or not. When you tell Windows 8 to download something, it gathers information about the application, then sends the data off to Microsoft. Microsoft (obviously automated) checks out the credentials, then lets you know whether or not the application is signed with an official certificate. Pretty standard stuff. However, Kobeissi finds that Windows 8 is “configured to immediately tell Microsoft about every app you download and install.”

via Geekosystem

This in a world where people share their dumps and other mindless minutia on places like Facebook and Twitter.

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Our red/blue Facebook pill moment has arrived

There has been a shitload of discussion happening around the web when it comes to the Facebook announcement at their f8 developer conference. You know, the one where they have decided that you don’t need the rest of that silly web anymore because they are going to make your electronic womb all nice and cozy with a never ending steam of mental pablum from your vast world of friends.

As Ethan Kaplan said in a post – identity has now been externalized and it will reside on Facebook (that is also where I got the title for this post); and he is right, we are being convinced that in order to have any value we need to be connected to a world created by Facebook (and yes, the same can be said for Google+). It is only by letting them present our identity and life events to the world that they exist.

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Google+ moron moment – no it won’t replace your blog

It never, ever, fails.

No sooner than some new social media slash social network slash circle jerk comes along and it is being proclaimed as the big, awesome, incredible, replacement for your blog.

Uhm, No.

I realize we are all pretty well lazy and always looking for easier ways to do things; and of course maintaining a blog with intelligent thought out discussions is such a horrendous chore than anything that makes expressing ourselves in a coherent manner easier is of course, the next great thing.

The fact is that things like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Posterous, and now Google+ are really cool services and for the vast majority of people they are indeed the perfect outlet for limited forms of creativity and make sharing things drop dead simple.

None of them however is a replacement for blogs no matter how much the social media digerati might want you to believe otherwise.

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googleplus

Twitter needs to worry about Google+ – Not bloody likely.

Google+ is only five days old at the writing of this post and hasn’t even through its trial by fire as it is still in limited field trials, and yet we already have the social media pundits writing ad naseum about how Twitter, and Facebook (but that’ll be another post), need to be watching their backs.

Really?

After only five days of being tested by the geekiest of tech geeks, bloggers, and reporters, we’re already claiming that Google+ is a threat to Twitter.

You people need to get a grip and instead of writing vaporous odes to Google+ and the imminent demise of <take your pick of social media network> do your readers a favor and get a cup of coffee and look at what you are talking; or pontificating, about.

Regardless of what Google+ does down the road it isn’t a threat to Twitter. Period.

As I wrote on Google+ a couple of days ago the only threat to Twitter is Twitter itself because of their own incompetence and the constant slapping around of their dwindling developer community.

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quicksand

Google+ and the aggregation quandary

So it’s been a few days and Google+ (also referred to as G+) is still a hot topic in the tech blogosphere, from those already using the service and those wishing that they had gotten an invite. We’ve already started to see the gamification of G+ as leaderboards of who has the most followers have started to show up; and of course we have had to deal with the Scoble Effect.

One of the other points that has reared its ugly head is the question of how people can start aggregating their content from other services into Google+. It happens on Twitter, Facebook, and just about any network that has an API and lets you auto-post to it. Hit the publish button and within seconds your content can appear on multiple networks with no more thought than blowing your nose; well actually that might take more thought.

At this point Google+ doesn’t have an API for us to access whether it be through things like WordPress plugins or third party clients and as a result G+ isn’t suffering from the same type of non-stop flood of headlines or posts that have already shown up on countless networks. As a result a pretty incredible thing is happening – people are having conversations.

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Are you a blogger that doesn’t use StumbleUpon? Very Big Mistake!

  • Category: Opinion
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  • Posted 708 days ago

I don’t very often talk about numbers when it comes to my sites, mainly because like the majority of bloggers they aren’t anything to write home about. Also like the majority of bloggers out there I make as much use of social media type buttons to help spread the word about my posts; and again, like most of you, they help a little bit.

However, in light of recent events this past week I have come to one firm conclusion. Any blogger that doesn’t include StumbleUpon as an integral part of their social media outreach they are making a huge mistake.

How big of a mistake?

Well take the following graphic of my basic stats for the month of June to date. That huge hockey stick you see there in the graph .. that’s a StumbleUpon run on one of my posts.

June stats to date

June stats to date for WinExtra - click for larger image

But here’s the pretty incredible part – the post that sparked this run is over a year old, and it isn’t the only post on WinExtra that has had the same loving from StumbleUpon.

None of the other social media related mediums like Twitter or even Facebook come close to producing the kind of traffic that StumbleUpon has. Sure Twitter and Facebook might, and I say might, bring you a surge of traffic during the first couple of hours of your post hitting the web; but the beautiful thing about StumbleUpon is that it really seems to love the long tail.

Not only does StumbleUpon love the long tail but you can have it keep coming back again and again with whole new runs. I have had this happen with a couple of other post where I will get a good solid run and then a couple of months later it will happen all over again.

Of course, as with all the other social media outlets, you have to be careful and not flood StumbleUpon with pointless content, and it is always better if someone else “stumbles” your posts but as long as you are judicious and also spend time stumbling other really good posts from other site StumbleUpon will reward you.

Personally if I had to pick just one of the social media call to action buttons I would have to go with StumbleUpon because as you can see when the StumbleUpon loving starts it can be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Oh and this newest run .. while it has slowed down somewhat today it is still going, now on its fifth day.

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It’s been awhile…

  • Category: Opinion, Technology
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  • Posted 783 days ago

It’s been awhile since I either wrote about anything to do with social media (per se) or even posted anything here.

Well the first part was taken care of yesterday and while it isn’t posted in full here you still might find it some interesting reading. Here is the opening couple of paragraphs of The modern Great Gatsby Syndrome and the coming Social Perfect Storm:

It’s been interesting watching the world of change that is happening in places like Egypt, Syria, Tunisia and other countries in that region and how social media tools like Facebook and Twitter are being used.

It has also been interesting to watch the discussion among the digerati of how services like Twitter and Facebook have influenced our changing society; and regardless to which side of the importance scale you might fall there is something much more subtle happening and it’s not restricted to places like Egypt.

Yes, these social media services are important and in a lot of ways extremely subversive; which is why governments around the world are worried, but they are just the tools being used by a fast growing part of our society that wants change.

We aren’t just talking about countries being imprisoned by dictators either as these self same tools are being used by regular people as a way to have a say in the political processes of democratic countries; and often with growing success.

It is easy for us, here in our comfortable homes and with our fun toys, to slough off Facebook as nothing more than a destination point for wannabe farmers and Twitter being the cyber warehouse of pointless 140 characters being spewed forth endlessly. However, the youth of places like Egypt and Tunisia have shown us that these tools can also be used to reach the disenfranchised and ignored to give them a platform from which they can lay the groundwork for change.

You can read the whole posted over at The Inquisitr.

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Facebook in 2011 – Flatline

  • Category: Opinion, Technology
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  • Posted 867 days ago

It’s been interesting watching all this hoopla around Facebook and its insane valuation – which is based on nothing more than all the data we blindly give them everyday.

Facebook is undoubtedly the current golden boy of social media, or rather social marketing, and Zuckerberg deserves all the kudos he is getting for convincing us all that we “need” Facebook in our lives, managing our social presence on the Web.

The question is – just how long can Facebook maintain this forward growth?

Of course everyone is talking up the recent investment from Goldman Sachs, to the tune of $1.5B, and how this is obviously leading to an IPO for Facebook; not to mention the probable internal pressure from employees looking to become the newest web millionaires. Douglas Rushkoff in a post at CNN had some interesting things to say about this investment and how it is an indicator that Facebook is turning from a rising star to a fading one.

Now, it’s Facebook’s turn. This week’s news that Goldman Sachs has chosen to invest in Facebook while entreating others to do the same should inspire about as much confidence as their investment in mortgage securities did in 2008. For those who weren’t watching, that’s when Goldman got rich betting against the investments it was selling.

This time, Goldman is putting up some millions of its own — as if this skin in the game means they couldn’t be up to their old tricks. But the commissions and underwriting fees Goldman is earning for selling that other $1.5 billion of private Facebook shares could be enough to offset the cost of their own investment. And bets against Facebook could be leveraged any number of times.

Either way Goldman Sachs comes away the ultimate winner.

Well I’m a lot less eloquent than Rushkoff so I’ll say this this nice and simply.

At some point in 2011 we will begin to see Facebook begin to flatline.  Growth will stagnate and if a newer cooler social media hub comes along it could actually begin to decline; but it won’t be going anywhere anytime soon – it is too big for that.

2011 will be the peak year of Facebook.

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