Yesterday I read a news article about the number of threating tweets increasing. Daily, approximately 35000 threat tweets are send out, and 200 of them are so serious that the police has to come in action, which leads to a daily arrest. The police has been very busy with monitoring the Internet traffic, as 40 police agents work on this matter day and night. It is said it a social problem.
Social media makes it a lot easier for people to send out threats. Whereas before, they needed to have paper, write the letter, buy an envelop and then put it on the mail, now Twitter makes their lives much easier by enabling them to type a few words, click on send and done.
But really, how many of those so-called threat tweets are actually serious? It was said that the tweeters were usually teenagers, who have a hard time controlling their emotions. I am definitely glad that there are police agents who takes these things seriously, but I wonder if it is not just “blown up” most of the time. If a threat was serious, then why tweet it beforehand for the whole world to see, knowing you will get caught very soon, hence, what is the point of the threat tweet (it is not anonymous).
Overall, the police are doing a good job when it comes to monitoring tweets, but do you think there some ways to prevent this whole matter? You cannot actually stop someone from sending a (threat) tweet, but there must be some way to decrease this problem, especially if you see that 200 tweets per day are considered to be serious threats… any opinions? 🙂
Sony releases massive PlayStation 4 FAQ as launch approaches Sony Announces, and PlayStation 4 companion app.
1
November
2013
No ratings yet.
In approximately 2 weeks from now, Sony’s PlayStation 4 will be released. (YES!!!). Sony has set up a FAQ section for its users in order to answer any of the questions we may have regarding the release and the product prior to it happening. The FAQ is to be published at the PlayStation Blog, and will cover a wide range of topics including things to do with the console, accessories and the games availability.
Linked to this, sony has announced the PlayStation 4 companion app which will be released on the 13th of November 2013 in North America, and 22nd of November in Europe.
Since the PS 4 is an upgrade of all we have ever known for consoles, what do we expect? The new PS 4 is going to transform our world of electronics, and what we know of social media, including our Androids and tablets.
The app will be a mobile companion for all things PlayStation, including second-screen game experiences such as Wii. The app will have access to PSN social features and online multiplayer invitations. As the users, we can purchase PS4, PS3, and PS Vita content via the online store, and there’s a remote control feature for movies, music, and supported games. Perhaps most interesting is the spectate feature, which will allow us to view live and recorded game footage shared from other players’ PS4 games.
Since Sony has let its competitors be lately, I feel that the launch of this new app will show their true selflessness to us, and will have the app be compatible with non-sony hardware when it gets released. As far as I have read, an iOS version is also going to be released (YES!).
I am very excited for this release, and the fact that my (future) new PS4 will have software available on my phone and social media has made my life so great!
Hackers target President Obama’s social media tools
1
November
2013
No ratings yet.
Its always quite funny to think that even the most respected people in the world, who have the most security, and possibly the biggest fan base worldwide can get their accounts hacked. Recently, president Obama had his social media accounts hacked. surprised? well i was! The political activist hackers of the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) are responsible for the hacks this time, on Obamas social media site. The SEA have posted numerous posts on the President’s Facebook and Twitter accounts directing users to YouTube videos uploaded by SEA, and to the SEA website itself. The hackers also posted an image of a Gmail inbox belonging to an employee of Organising for Action, an official promotional website for President Obama’s various political initiatives.
According to the news article, none of Obama’s accounts were seriously compromised, as they believe the way SEA carried out the hacks was seemingly unprofessional and unsophisticated. Their unsophisticated actions were compared to other high-profile attacks that have happened over the past few years, and are probably not a serious threat to humanity.
It was found that the SEA managed to get hold of the username and password of someone related to the website or account in question, and simply logs in with their credentials, rather than coding a special virus or decrypting critical communications, as most other hackers do.
often, these attacks on high-profile users of social media are highly visible, but they’re not the kind of hackers that will reveal state secrets or undermine the NSA. U.S. cybersecurity types are more worried about what they call “advanced persistent threats” such as state-sponsored hacker groups in China and Iran targeting military operations and critical infrastructure.
Therefore, the hacks done by SEA are not as big a threat than the media make them out to be.
What are your thoughts on hacking in general, and hacking of high-profile users suchs as President Obama?
The State of Social Media Spam: Social Media Spam is on the Rise
1
November
2013
No ratings yet.
I recently came across a very interesting article on the state of social media spam today, and figured since we are in social media class, this would be highly relevant to share!
Social media spam (or “social spam”) has seen a 355% growth since the beginning of 2013, this includes social spam on a typical social media account. Spammers have turned to the fastest growing communications medium to circumvent traditional security infrastructures that were used to detect email spam.
As i learnt through this article, social media spam can significantly damage a brand and turn fans and followers away from you.
Social media spam and traditional spam that we receive in our emails can be differentiated in a variety of different ways. firstly, social media spam is one to many, whereas email spam is one-to-one. The issue revolving around this spam though is that many organisations lack tools to help defend themselves against these spam mails.
Social Spam Hurts Your Marketing ROI
For many companies, Return on Investment is something many thrive off. With social media spam, it doesn’t just cause a hassle to those who view it, but also has a highly negative impact on a companies ROI.
some examples of the various social media spam include: Text and link-based spam (the most o=popular), Like-jacking, social bots, fake accounts, and spammy apps are the most prevalent forms of distribution. The author noted that 5% of all social media apps are spammy, and 15% of all social spam contains a URL, often to other spammy content, pornography, or malware. Spammers are using these sophisticated techniques to co-opt your brand, your audience, and your social media marketing spent.
Do you feel social media spam is affecting businesses negatively?
Wikipedia reliability algorithm
1
November
2013
No ratings yet.
So guys, probably you won’t comment on this one because there are posted around 30 blog posts in the last 24 hours. Go procrastination!
I found an article worth reading about the reliability of Wikipedia articles we talked about a coupple of weeks ago. How are these guys (Xiangju Qin and Pádraig Cunningham) measuring reliability? I will tell you:
– they ignore anonymous contributions
– they measure the longevity of a certain edit. In other words: how long does an edit last after it has been edited? This probably says something about the quality
– they measure the authority of each editor by looking at the number of other editors a given editor is linked to (and a difficult algorithm I do not understand)
All the things above are combined to measure the quality of an article. Of course there are still some errors in the algorithm. But I think this will be so usefull to Wikipedia.As we learned there are not that much editors and their quality is mostly unknown.
It’s the next big thing for Wikipedia, an innovation of which I think it’s going to change some real important things in Wikipedia’s rules and interface. What do you guys think?
We’ve not discussed much about video games throughout this course, however i find it one of the most interesting and rapidly evolving social media there is, so here a post about the blurring lines between virtual worlds and the real world.
It has become a multi-billion dollar industry over the last few years; the buying and selling of virtual goods over websites such as eBay. The majority of web users play video games one way or another, from simple Facebook app games to complex MMORPG games with a functioning virtual world with millions of community members playing their part in it. However time has value, and sometimes people who want to progress in games faster do not have the time to do so, hence they resort to buying virtual items or money with real money. This can be a couple of dollars for a rare crossbow to hundreds of dollars for a legendary sword. It has reached the point where the virtual market has had such massive rise in people working to make virtual money and selling it for real money that the entire game market has had a severe inflation. Virtual economies follow the same basic principles of scarcity, demand & supply etc. as the real market, and with now real life value being added to these goods, can this still be considered a virtual market or rather an extension of the real market? This is just one example of how social media can blur the lines between virtual and real platforms, do you think that this can become a serious issue in the future?
Reference:
Castronova, E., Williams, D., Cuihua, S., Ratan, R., Xiong, L., Huang, Y., … (2009). As real as real? Macroeconomic behavior in a large-scale virtual world. New Media & Society, 11, 685-707. doi:10.1177/1461444809105346
Guo, Y., & Barnes, S. (2007). Why people buy virtual items in virtual worlds with real money. Database for Advances in Information Systems, 38, 69-76.
Facebook makes lonely?
1
November
2013
No ratings yet.
So, i am a Psychology student (the only Psychology student from our class :P), that’s why i thought it would be fun to write my last article for the course about a subject, that has a social media aspect and a psychology aspect.
There is a debate going on, about whether Facebook (social media) do people make feel lonely and social unconnected. Some studies came with the conclusion that Facebook makes people lonely and less satisfied, rather than making them feel social connected as we actually expect from using Facebook.. Strange isn’t it? Let’s read a few studies.
-Study from the University of Michigan. Over two weeks, Psychologist Kross and his colleagues sent text messages to 82 Ann Arbor residents five times per day. The researchers wanted to know a few things: how their subjects felt overall, how worried and lonely they were, how much they had used Facebook, and how often they had had direct interaction with others since the previous text message.
Kross found that the more people used Facebook in the time between the two texts, the less happy they felt—and the more their overall satisfaction declined from the beginning of the study until its end. The data, he argues, shows that Facebook was making them unhappy.
– Study from Carnegie Mellon University. Researcher Robert Kraut found that the more people used the Web, the lonelier and more depressed they felt. After people went online for the first time, their sense of happiness and social connectedness dropped, over one to two years, as a function of how often they used the Internet.
Why are people lonelier when using Facebook?
A review of some 75 studies concluded that Facebookusers do not differ in most personality traits from people who don’t use Facebook (Anderson, Chamorro-Premuzic, Fagan & Woodnut, 2012).
So, we can’t say that people who use Facebook are more lonely; that more lonelier people go online than people who are not/less lonely.
So.. why are they lonelier?.. Well… It is also about HOW people use Facebook:
A study from Carnegie Mellon University found that, when people actively engaged in direct interaction with others (Posting on walls, chatting, or “like” something) their feelings of bonding and social connectedness increased, while their sense of loneliness decreased.
But when participants simply consumed a lot of content passively (Going through their timeline), Facebook had the opposite effect: lowering their feelings of connection and increasing their sense of loneliness and dissatisfaction. Other studies do support this.
From above there can be concluded that Facebook makes you (more) lonely, when you are passive on Facebook; going through your timeline and lurking.
This could be because of the fact that people compare themselves to the others in their timeline.. Relationships, photo’s, friendships etc. all look perfect on Facebook as we all know!.. Thereby, people become more dissatisfied with their own lives and they feel more lonely because they maybe don’t have so much friends as the other has on their Facebook (FacebookFriendslist), or they maybe don’t have such ‘perfect’ relationships like the other.
I also think that people using Facebook could be more lonely, because they now spend more time on social media than on face-to-face contact; Rather than meeting friends, communicating with them through for example Whatsapp or Facebook. People manipulate how they want to be presented to peers, family members, and potential mates on social media (by editing), rather than having vulnerable and genuine conversations with them in real time.
Do you think that Facebook, social media, can make us lonely?
If Yes, do you think that it matters whether you are active or passive on it?
If No, why do you think that these people feel more lonely if it isn’t because of their Facebook-activity?
References:
– Anderson, B., Chamorro-Premuzic, T., Fagan, P., & Woodnutt, T. (2012). Facebook Psychology: Popular Questions Answered by Research. Psychology of Popular Media Culture (1).
AVailable at: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/ppm-1-1-23.pdf.
– Gordon, R. (2013). This Video Will Have You Completely Rethink How You Conduct Yourself Online And In Person (Video).
Available at: http://elitedaily.com/news/world/this-video-will-have-you-completely-rethink-how-you-conduct-yourself-online-and-in-person-video/.
– Greig, A. (2013). All the lonely Facebook friends: Study shows social media makes us MORE lonely and unhappy and LESS sociable.
Available at:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2419419/All-lonely-Facebook-friends-Study-shows-social-media-makes-MORE-lonely-unhappy-LESS-sociable.html.
-Hu. E, (2013). Whether Facebook Makes You Lonely Depends On How You Use It.
Available at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/09/16/223052837/whether-facebook-makes-you-lonely-depends-on-how-you-use-it.
– Konnikova, M. (2013). HOW FACEBOOK MAKES US UNHAPPY.
Available at:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/09/the-real-reason-facebook-makes-us-unhappy.html
– Marche, S. (2012). Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?
Available at:http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-facebook-making-us-lonely/308930/
R.I.P. Hyves
1
November
2013
No ratings yet.
It’s the end of an era. From December 2nd, 2013 onwards the Dutch social network Hyves will no longer be a social network, but an online gaming portal. What used to be the biggest social media platform in the Netherlands, with over 10 million members at its peak, quickly lost territory to Facebook over the past three years.
Users are able to download all their Hyves profile data with a special tool, before the social network will be shut down. Because the number of accounts was rapidly decreasing from 2010 onwards, Hyves tried to change its approach several times. In 2011 they incorporated a news service, a hit radio channel and a soccer application, but these additions did not get the desired results. That’s why Hyves will continue as a gaming platform, which they started up in early 2013. The platform has over 400 games available and attracts around 540 000 unique visitors a month, making it the most popular gaming portal of the country.
For the Dutchies: are you sad to see Hyves go, or did you see this coming for a long time? Do you think there’s anything they could have done to prevent this from happening?
Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day
1
November
2013
No ratings yet.
In 1979 Ben & Jerry’s wanted to thank their customers, friends, family and supporters by handing out a free ice cream cone. This gradually became a tradition and nowadays it’s a huge marketing event that’s difficult to miss. How do they make this such a huge social media success? These little infographics show how they basically took over America’s social media for a day:
As you could see, they eventually reached over 700 million people worldwide, in one way or another. That’s 10% of the world’s population. Do you think these huge advertising campaigns will occur more often, or will people start getting tired of them?
“Relaxing” post!
1
November
2013
No ratings yet.
In the end of our course I am not going to make your brain boil, some fun! I would like to use advice of majority professionals in SMM: to make a message or post interesting, it should be relatively short and include some graphics. Here we go!
Some facts about Social Media:
Only on Twitter it is possible to build map of users connections. Why? TO understand who to get to a person, using the shortest way
Only on Facebook it is possible to set an online shop with associated payment system and feature of direct video conversation with customers
Only on Google+ you may create events, where may be up to 10 participants and unlimited audience
Only on Twitter it is possible to get feedback from a lecturer online via translation of tweets with an event hashtag on a big TV or screen
Only on Facebook it is possible to have up to 6 people video chat
Only on Vkontakte you may find the largest (free) collection of music and videos. Search is possible through entering not just titles, singer names or whatever… but also preference search – “Show similar” and recommendations search
Only on YouTube you may create personal TV-channel, which broadcasts your performance online and then save it on a server
Only 5% of companies are satisfied with the quality of employees’ work on social media
Thank all of you, guys! I had a lot of fun and got some interesting aspects of business presence in Social Media and Networks. As I’m going to set my business this or next year, I’ll use a lot of it!
Ting Li! Thank you, of course! It is a good course and not easy to keep up with fast changing environment, however, you do. Thank you, again!
