November 13th, 2008

Microsoft gives Windows Live a social networking makeover

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 8:15 am

Categories: Facebook, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Mobile, Social Networks, Twitter, Yahoo

Tags: Network, Microsoft Windows Live, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows, Social Networking, Operating Systems, Software, Online Communications, Marketing, Advertising & Promotion

Microsoft have announced a major overhaul of its Windows Live service that, similar to Yahoo’s ‘Open Strategy’, rewires the company’s suite of consumer web-based products — e-mail, instant messaging, photo sharing, blogging and more — to turn them into one interconnected social network. To do that, Microsoft is leveraging a user’s existing Windows Live Messenger contacts to create an instant friends list across all Windows Live properties.

And in a feature that borrows directly from Facebook, which Microsoft invested in last year, the new Windows Live includes a a “what’s new” feed that aggregate a user’s activities on Windows Live and third-party site across the web. Initial partners include Flickr, LinkedIn, Pandora, Photobucket, Twitter, WordPress and Yelp — though no sign of Facebook yet, despite that hefty investment.

See also: Yahoo wants to be your social web ‘control panel’ too

The strategy Microsoft is adopting is simple and a rather familiar one. The company wants to become a user’s one stop shop for all things social on the web. And conceding that it isn’t the market leader, and will probably never be, when it comes to the majority of social web products — aside from IM where Windows Live Messenger is number one — the new Windows Live is also attacking the social networking aggregator space, putting it in direct competition with singly-focused products such as FriendFeed or the social networking aggregator features of monolithic networks e.g. Facebook Connect. Read the rest of this entry »

November 5th, 2008

Careful what you say on Twitter - delete option removed? (updated)

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 6:38 am

Categories: Net culture, Twitter

Tags: Twitter, Channel Management, Marketing, Steve O'Hear

Updated - see below.

It appears that the micro-blogging service Twitter has removed the option to delete a ‘tweet’ once it’s been published, making the service a haven for digital litter — the trail of information about you or things you’ve said that perhaps you shouldn’t leave lying around the web.

Publish a status update on Twitter slamming your boss - at 2am in the morning after a night out at the pub - only to regret doing so seconds after hitting the ‘update’ button, then you could be out of luck. As of yesterday (?) the trash can icon that used to reside next to Twitter updates has been removed.

A smart reader over at ReadWriteWeb suggests the likely explanation: Twitter has removed the delete function since it never really worked in the first place yet gave the impression that it did. That’s because of the hundreds of services, including third-party clients and search engines, that exist built on top of Twitter’s API. These services often cache Twitter’s content or simply store it locally - such as the numerous Twitter apps for the iPhone - meaning deleting a ‘tweet’ from the main Twitter site doesn’t necessarily ripple through to other Twitter services. If this is the true reason for deleting the delete option it would suggest that it could be gone forever. That’s unless Twitter is able to design into its API a way to force all Twitter services to respect a deletion within a reasonable time period, although I doubt this will be possible.

Update: According to the official Twitter status blog, the delete feature will be back up later today. So it was probably removed temporarily to ease the load on Twitter’s servers during election night. It doesn’t, however, resolve the issue of third-party caching of Twitter posts, in which Twitter should at least warn users that a delete doesn’t automatically take place across all Twitter clients or other services built on top of Twitter’s API. (Hat-tip: Dave Zatz)

October 27th, 2008

Social Web news: Twitter terrorism, YouTube ads, Social Networking on TV

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 11:01 am

Categories: MySpace, Social Networks, The Social Web weekly, Twitter, Video Sharing, YouTube

Tags: Social Networking, Advertisement, Network, YouTube Inc., Social Web, TV, Terrorism, Twitter, Homeland Security, Government

A few interesting links from today on news relating to the Social Web…

Twitter could be a tool for terrorists. From Wired.com: “Could Twitter become terrorists’ newest killer app? A draft Army intelligence report, making its way through spy circles, thinks the miniature messaging software could be used as an effective tool for coordinating militant attacks.” (Wired)

YouTube hoping to attract advertisers through long form studio content. YouTube has begun running full-length episodes of TV shows, starting with a test of three CBS-owned shows: Star Trek, MacGyver and Beverly Hills, 90210. The move is being seen in part as a response to the success of Hulu, which as proved particularly attractive to advertisers. One analyst tells USA Today: “If you’re an advertiser, where will you put your money? In front of content you’re not sure about, or behind a series like 30 Rock, a known brand?” (USA Today)

Social networking through your television. Microsoft likes to boast that it has the biggest social network on television via its XBox Live service. Now others are hoping to emulate that success by bringing the ‘community features’ of the Web into the living room.  (WSJ)

MySpace sued. A woman was ‘consumed with anger’ after MySpace took down her profile on the social networking site and has decided to sue. However, there’s more to the story: her profile page was set up specifically to verify official celebrity MySpace pages, who upon verification could display the plaintiff’s badge on their page. (Tech Dirt)

October 20th, 2008

Celebs on Twitter: Britney, Lance Armstrong, Stephen Fry and more

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 1:42 pm

Categories: Twitter

Tags: Twitter, Public Relations, Blogging, Team Management, Marketing, Corporate Communications, Internet, Management, Steve O'Hear, Podcasts

The tech blogosphere went crazy over the weekend with news that Britney Spears had opened a Twitter account. Or more accurately, someone from Britney’s PR team has begun Twittering on her behalf. That may still be a big deal in itself as it suggests that the micro-blogging service could go mainstream yet.

It also got me asking which other celebs actively use Twitter, either directly or through their PR agent? Putting that question out as a Tweet (a trick borrowed from the Marshall Kirkpatrick school of blogging), I got the following tip offs:

@lancearmstrong - Lance Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France winner and “full time cancer fighter” (his words)

@stephenfry - Stephen Fry, Comedian, TV presenter and all round geek. Did you know that Fry is an avid Mac fan and was reportedly the second person in the UK to own an original 1984 Macintosh.

@johncleese - John Cleese, best known for his Monty Python antics :-) “Yes, I am still indeed alive, contrary to rumour, and I am making video podcasts”, reads his Twitter bio.

@bobbyllew - Bobby Llewellyn, producer, writer TV presenter, one time actor best known for role of Kryten in BBC comedy sci-fi series Red Dwarf!

Obviously these only scratch the surface. Know of any others? Please leave a comment.

October 2nd, 2008

Obama launches iPhone app; US election good for Twitter

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 9:51 am

Categories: Apple, Politics 2.0, Twitter

Tags: Apple iPhone, Recruiting, Twitter, Recruitment & Selection, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Steve O'Hear

During each presidential election the techniques and practices employed to organize and engage voters becomes ever more sophisticated, with new technology increasingly playing its part. Enter Apple’s iPhone, which the Obama campaign is hoping to turn into a political recruiting tool like none seen before.

The most notable feature of the new “Obama for America” iPhone application, available as a free download via the iTunes store, is the ability to tap your iPhone’s existing address book in order to prioritize your contacts “by key battleground states”, presumably so that you’ll call them up to persuade them to vote Obama. It’s key battlegrounds - states that could go either way - that Obama will need to win if he’s to become president. Read the rest of this entry »

September 1st, 2008

Live Feed: Facebook takes lifestreaming mainstream

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 7:24 am

Categories: Facebook, Social Networks, Twitter

Tags: Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, Blogging, Internet, Steve O'Hear

As much as I love Twitter (you can follow me here), and A-list bloggers constantly bang on about FriendFreed, Facebook will be the one to take lifestreaming mainstream.

In fact, in someways it already has.

The once controversial News Feed has already evolved to include aggregated activity updates from outside web services. The pending launch of ‘Facebook Connect‘ aims to make this feature ubiquitous by creating a simple way for third-party sites to send a users’ online activities back to Facebook’s proverbial brain.

While the newly launched ‘Live Feed’ provides a real-time view of Facebook’s lifestreaming data, whereby the latest friend update fades in AJAX-style and pushes the oldest update off the screen (not dissimilar to Digg’s Spy feature). It makes compelling viewing of all of your friends’ lifestream activity and certainly brings the concept of lifestreaming even further to the forefront of Facebook’s functionality. Read the rest of this entry »

August 14th, 2008

Lessons from Twitter's SMS shut down

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 5:29 am

Categories: Twitter

Tags: Mobile, Europe, SMS, Twitter, Butcher, Text Messaging/SMS/MMS, Telephony, Cellular Phones, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology

The news that Twitter has shut down its outbound SMS service in the UK (or anywhere outside of India, Canada and the US) highlights two problems with our industry:

1. A consumer culture whereby you can’t charge for something that was once provided for free (the Web 2.0 syndrome)
2. Silicon Valley doesn’t understand Europe

While users in the UK can still update their Twitter status by sending an SMS to a dedicated UK number, they’ll no longer receive updates this way. Instead, they’re advised to use the mobile web version of Twitter or install a dedicated mobile client on their phone. The reason for the change in functionality is that sending out a whole bunch of SMS text messages every time a user updates their status was costing the company far too much money. The hope had been to negotiate special deals with the carriers - as they have done in India, Canada and the US - in order to continue offering this feature for free. Something that they’ve failed to do.

However, it didn’t need to be this way, argues TechCrunch UK’s Mike Butcher: Read the rest of this entry »

August 12th, 2008

Twitter moves to combat 'follow spam'

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 11:30 am

Categories: Twitter

Tags: Twitter, Spam, Cyberthreats, Security, Spam And Phishing, Steve O'Hear

In a move to combat so-called ‘follow spam’, Twitter has begun limiting the number of people any one user can follow.

Though the specifics of Twitter’s anti-spam algorithm hasn’t been published in order to make life harder for spammers, the upper limit for non-power users is thought to be 2,000. After which most users will receive the error message: “You are unable to follow more people. Please read about our following limits.”

Although the Twittevangelists only became up in arms over the last day or so, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams explained the company’s thinking in a blog post published last Thursday. Williams explains that the measures were a “work in progress” but that “they’ve already had a very positive effect in reducing (though not eliminating) the most common type of Twitter abuse: ‘Follow spam.’

Follow spam is the act of following mass numbers of people, not because you’re actually interested in their tweets, but simply to gain attention… In extreme cases, these automated accounts have followed so many people they’ve threatened the performance of the entire system. In less-extreme cases, they simply annoy thousands of legitimate users who get an email about this new follower only to find out their interest may not be entirely…sincere.

Williams concedes that there are exceptions to the rule (I’m looking at you Scoble):

On rare occasions we may see a person who is mass following and actually cares about every tweet—there is an opportunity for us to learn more about this use case and work to provide a better experience.

“There is no perfect formula”, writes Williams. Although for him less is more.  “I ‘only’ follow about 700 accounts—less than 5% of the 16,000 who follow me”, he says.

 Note: You can follow me on Twitter here.

August 5th, 2008

Malware arrives - proof that Twitter is nearing mainstream?

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 8:05 am

Categories: Social Networks, Twitter

Tags: Malware, Twitter, Virus, Cyberthreats, Spyware, Adware & Malware, Viruses And Worms, Corporate Communications, Security, Marketing, Steve O'Hear

Micro-blogging service Twitter may not yet reached a tipping point among my own non-techie circle of friends - unlike Facebook which is everywhere - but that hasn’t stopped the cyber criminals moving in.

“Malware hunters at Kaspersky Lab are seeing early signs that Twitter is now clearly big enough to be a distribution mechanism for malicious software”, writes my ZDNet colleague Ryan Naraine.

In one case spotted this week, a malicious Twitter profile had been created to lure visitors to a fake link to a pornographic video of Brazilian pop star Kelly Key. However, if you click on the link, reports Kaspersky Lab, you’re greeted with a progress bar which looks as if it’s downloading a new version of Adobe Flash which you’ll need to watch the video. The fake Adobe Flash file is of course a Trojan virus (or viruses) which you then unintentionally install on your PC in a classic case of social engineering.

While attracting the attention of criminals won’t be particularly welcome by Twitter, especially since fighting cyber crime is the last distraction they need as they attempt to scale, it does show how mind share is rapidly growing.

Notably, BBC news online ran the story too.

All publicity’s good publicity, right?

July 17th, 2008

Will Twitter tip in the UK first?

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 8:25 am

Categories: Net culture, Social Networks, Twitter

Tags: U.K., Twitter, Web Site Development, Web Technology, Social Networking, Marketing Research, Internet, Online Communications, Marketing, Advertising & Promotion

If Twitter is to reach a tipping point, it will likely happen in the UK first not the U.S., according to web analytics firm Hitwise.

UK Internet visits to Twitter’s website have increased by 631% over the last 12 months, with 485% of that growth coming this year. Furthermore, Twitter is more popular, in proportion to population, with Brits than Americans. “Last week the site’s share of UK Internet visits was 70% higher its share of visits in America”, notes Hitwise’s Robin Goad.

This comes as quite a surprise to me. I live in the UK, and have yet to come across a non-techie friend who has even heard of Twitter, let alone one who uses the service regularly. As an increasingly avid user (you can follow me on Twitter here), on a few occasions I’ve attempted to explain the phenomena to those outside of the Twitterverse, usually to a blank stare or two. This is in complete contrast to Facebook which clearly tipped (without my help) in the UK sometime last year

However, Hitwise provides some interesting data points that fly in the face of my own experience. Read the rest of this entry »