Social Media

The iPhone’s App Store may be seeing a competition with the Android Market with the latter growing at a very rapid rate. AndroLib, the online store has declared that they had just reached the 20,000 mark meaning that they have doubled in size within the last five months. According to AndroLib, Android was able to hit the milestone earlier today and shows no sign of slowing and they are very excited with this development. It is assumed that the Android market will be able to hit 30,000 in the next 2-3 months which is one good way to start the New Year. Google does not disclose the figures of the Android Market but AndroLib and others are able to track what apps are added and at what rate. By the different statistics gathered, it is quite clear that the Android development is on the rise. The success of Android is evident in the month of November which is considered to be the biggest month in the history for both new apps in the English language Android Market and is considered to be their biggest gain month.

Experts think that 2010 will be a good year for Android with all the handsets coming up and now that almost everything is going mobile. Twenty thousand apps is a nice way to kick off into the New Year. 15 percent of all applications in the Android Market are games which are very similar to the App Store’s statistics but it has been noted that the methodologies for categorizing the same application type is not necessarily the same.

Facebook, one of the biggest social networking sites has recently launched a new privacy setting tool for their millions of users. It did not take long for privacy and security firms and experts to comment on Facebook’s privacy move and some have advised against using the new privacy setting.

Although Facebook has described the changes as something that would set a new standard when it comes to user control, experts see an underlying goal. This is to make the users share more information which makes Facebook’s search partners – Google and Bing become more valuable.

Frontier Foundation made a comment on the changes and stated that the Facebook privacy transition will only have users share more Facebook info with everyone and this can be a “worrisome development that will likely cause a major shift in privacy level”. They also mentioned that the changes actually limit the amount of user control over personal data.

The security firm Sophos emphasized that readers should read the terms of these changes carefully and said that “If you don’t read carefully you could find that every post you make on Facebook, and your personal information, is visible to everyone in the world who has a computer rather than just your Facebook friends.”

The privacy changes at Facebook were said to set significant issues for those who are unable to review these settings carefully. Millions of users have already been greeted with the new privacy tool and they either have made changes or ignored it and moved on to using the site the way they always have, unaware of the consequences of the changes that they have made.

Trend Micro, another security firm stated that the controversy over these change is a good sign. “I like that there is controversy about these settings. It shows people at least notice that there is something going on.”

For those who are concerned about their privacy and security, it is best that you get to read and understand the privacy guidelines on the site. To be on the safer side, place your private photos, information and connection somewhere else.

Twitter recently launched their support for another language – Italian. Considered as the language of romance, around 70 million speaks the language and has entered the Twitterverse’s dictionary.

This development only goes to show that the Twitter translation project is going well and is developing rapidly. Last October, Twitter asked users to help translate the site – something that Facebook has been doing as well. Since then, Twitter was able to launch the Spanish, French and Japanese versions of the site making the Italian version the fifth language to be supported by Twitter.

The popular micro-blogging site was said that they were aiming to complete the “FIGS” (French, Italian, German, Spanish) languages first. So for now, only the German language remains to be accomplished. Considering that Twitter is crowd sourcing most of the work when it comes to translating the site, the rate of their accomplishment has impressed a lot of people.

Twitter spokesperson Jenna Sampson said that “We’re excited because today with the launch of the Italian version of our site becomes even more a platform for global communication. As always, we wish to thank all the translators who have participated in the project and who have shown us their skills.”

Now that Twitter is turning into a more rich and diverse site they now have viewpoints in a global level. This greatly helps the network information to grow continuously in every crevice and nook of the planet. As more events will be shared, there will be a higher level of awareness affecting the millions of users by use of their tweets.

Twitter has cited out some Italian users who are now tweeting in Italian such as the famous Italian singer Laura Pausini and the famous Italian journalist Beppe Severgnini. The launch was made in Italy where a pizza party was held.

If you are interested in using Twitter in Italian, all you have to do is to get in to your settings and select the language Italian from the drop down menu.

Sally Falkow, Bulldog Reporter’s social media columnist and PRSA National Capital Chapter and PRESSfeed teams up to gather social media experts and anyone who is interested in the ever expanding world of social media in Pasadena, California on December 1, 2009 for a special professional development workshop in order to determine what is in store for social media in the coming year 2010.

There is no doubt that social media activity has skyrocketed over the past years. Today over 80% of internet users are sharing content and going online. Since people are now adopting social media, companies and businesses have migrated to the online world as well. Almost every major brand name now has their own Facebook page, Twitter feed and YouTube channel.

If you are in to social marketing through social media it is recommended that you attend this workshop. This is not just another panel session that would give you only theoretical overviews. The workshop is a practical how-to session with a case study that illustrates the best social media strategy that you can surely use.

You will be getting specific information about the right influencers, results for measurement, example of how to add a social media press release and how you can use a social media newsroom to increase your online coverage.

Sally Falkow is one of the two finalists nominated by PR News as PR Trainer of the Year and has hosted the Social Media Club. She has taught over more than 300 corporations how to plan and implement a social media strategy. She is currently the president and chief strategist at Expansion Plus, an Internet marketing and PR agency that is based in Los Angeles. If you need the best social media tips and advice then she is the person that you should listen to.

YouTube has been making waves in the news again now that they have launched YouTube Direct.

Aspiring journalists would love this addition since YouTube Direct is a tool to make the process of submitting video clips easier for YouTube users and these clips can be highlighted by news media companies. Among the media companies that have participated in YouTube Direct are the San Francisco Chronicle, the Huffington Post and the Politico.

YouTube’s growth has been astonishing. Every 60 seconds, there is 20 hours worth of videos being uploaded. And a significant number of these uploads are about news and politics – both professional and amateur.

Olivia Ma, news manager of YouTube’s News and Politics team is proud of the birth of the YouTube Reporters Center. This is a resource to help people learn the right ways on how to report news and showcases instructional videos that also give tips and advice on how to report efficiently from well known journalists.

She also shared that YouTube is now becoming a video platform for US congressmen and senators as well. In fact 98 senators and almost 400 congressmen now have their own YouTube pages so that they can easily communicate with their constituents.

At this era of high technology, people are carrying video enabled cell phones and cameras so there are no longer a need for fancy video equipments in order to capture news worthy moments. All you have to do is to shoot, upload the video and you can watch yourself giving the latest news in the Internet at no time at all.

Last year, Twitter launched their TweetsGiving program and almost raised $11,000 which enabled them to build a classroom in Tanzania. This year, the Thanksgiving Twitter program is back and they are aiming to raise $100,000 in 48 hours for charity scheduled for November 24 to 26 2009.

As a background check, TweetsGiving is a global volunteer and non profit organization that uses social media for its charity drive every Thanksgiving. The program was made to support Epic Change and to help build additional classrooms, a library, a cafeteria and a dormitory for a school in Arusha, Tanzania. It is recognized as a global celebration done online that aims to change the world through gratitude. The 48 hour event also has live events all over the globe where guests are invited in order to encourage people to give to a common cause.

The school that you will be helping is a school founded by a Tanzanuan Epic Change fellow known as “Mama Lucy” Kamptoni who used to sell chickens and used her earnings to build a school that now has 300 children and facilities are much needed.It is easy to participate in this fundraiser and give your own donations for this cause. First you can simply share whatever you are thankful for on Twitter, Flickr, your blog,  YoutTube, Facebook or blip.fm  then add the link to www.TweetsGiving.org and the #tweetsgiving tag. Another way to contribute to the success of this program is to contribute in cash. Each $10 donation equates to 1 brick for the development of the school in Tanzania. Next year, Epic Change and Twitter aims to widen their campaign by reaching out to other parts of the world beginning next year. This Thanksgiving, why not show your gratitude by giving back?

Twitter, one of the biggest Social Media sites in the World Wide Web has launched a new feature a few weeks ago called Twitter Lists. This feature has got users of the micro blogging excited allowing them to make lists of Twitter users that other users can follow.

This allows Twitter users to organize other users that they follow into groups or lists. Lists can be a stream of stories, breaking news, or tweets from the users who are behind the stories. The Twitter Lists can be public for the entire world to see and they can be private for personal use.

Basically, Twitter Lists have three aims: to organize your followers and the people you are following, to lists out recommendations for the Twitter users to follow and third is to make a list in order to measure the influence that they have.But a weakness was immediately spotted in the list and that is the fact that there is no way to describe what the list was all about. And now, Twitter is making improvements in their Twitter Lists feature starting out by applying the number one suggestion and request of Twitter users which is descriptions. Before, you can find that there is only a title indicated in the Twitter Lists.

Now, when you edit any list, you will find that you can place in a description which will allow you to describe your list in a hundred characters or less. All you have to do is to visit the list page, click “Edit” which can be found at the top right of the edit page, add a description then save.

Now that Twitter has a description field available you can now use short and snappy titles and be able to give a more effective description on what the list is all about.

Facebook is one of the best sites used for social media marketing but there are people out there who are confused as to which they should create in order to use the social networking site to their advantage effectively. The confusion is based entirely on the Groups and Pages features of Facebook. Even senior media marketing consults are confused since both have overlapping features. Add the constant changes Facebook makes to their Pages and the whole issue becomes more complicated.

Here are some factors that you should consider when it comes to choosing which is right for your project:

• Interaction – because of Facebook Group’s security features and size limitations (under 5,000 members) they are more set for personal interaction. While Facebook Pages on the other hand do not list the names of its administrators and are thought of more as a corporate entity. The content of Facebook Groups is an extension of personal actions while content in Pages does not need to be linked back to you personally.

• Updates – for Groups, as long as they are below 5,000 members, you can send messages to the members that will appear in their Inboxes. For Pages, they can send their updates to their own Page and will also appear in the “Updates” section of their inboxes. Unlike Groups, there are no limits on how many updates you can send or how many fans you must have.

• Control – Groups have more control over who can participate. The permission settings can help you restrict access to a group or person. Access to Pages can only be restricted by age and location.

• Moderation – both Pages and Groups can be mediocre when it comes to how things are posted and who can post. If someone posts spam or something negative in your Group or Page you will have to remove it manually but you have the option to remove the member who did it.

• Advertising – advertisements can be bought to promote both Groups and Pages. But Pages have the benefit of having exposure through the fan connection that they have as they can be posted on their walls.

• One more difference that can help you is that Pages are indexed by major search engines like Google while Groups are not.

Facebook, the most popular social networking site in the planet, may have millions of users but how many of them are actually active? As an answer to that, Facebook recently added a “reconnect” option aside from the usual friend suggestions.

Facebook is now enticing its users to reconnect with other less active users in your friends list. The reconnect strategy is brilliant as it encourages its users to prompt these less active users to use Facebook more often as well.

One of the problems that Facebook is having is that it is getting too big and eventually less exclusive and interesting in the long run. This is a serious problem that is only encountered and experienced by the biggest online services. The growth of Facebook users is starting to decline as well which makes you wonder if the popular social networking site is reaching its limit. If you have conquered a huge portion of internet users not only in America but all over the world and are unable to get new users to sign up where can Facebook turn to?

The answer lies in its existing users. Although Facebook’s algorithm is not perfect, it has been spotted that there are users who do not log in to Facebook regularly. Inactive users are just as valuable as new users. Therefore, the reconnect strategy was born. By enticing the friends of the users to connect with them by writing on their wall, they can be prompt to log in more often to Facebook.

Active users are able to take this as an opportunity to reconnect with some of their friends and are able to reestablish a closer friendship. There is no doubt that Facebook’s latest reconnect strategy is one of the smartest tactics it has used when it comes to reengaging inactive users.