Tag Archives: facebook
‘Pop astronaut’ Meets Ground Control!
Astronaut Chris Hadfield, the man who created a YouTube hit by released a video recording of himself playing Space Oddity from his capsule, returned to Earth Monday night after a five-month mission at the International Space Station that saw him become the first Canadian to command the orbiting laboratory.
The 53-year-old touched down in Kazakhstan on a Russian Soyuz capsule which was also carrying Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko and NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn — the same pair Hadfield blasted off with on Dec. 19, 2012.
For more about the ‘Pop astronaut’ please go to
http://blog.icuonlineweb.tv/2013/05/13/astronauts-personal-space-oddity/
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb20ozOlKMk
Astronaut’s personal Space Oddity
Chris Hadfield has become a social media star since boarding the International Space Station, corresponding with online users from space. He has over 770,000 followers on Twitter and 251,000 on Facebook, where he regularly uploads pictures and updates from the cosmos.
He’s showed us how to make sandwiches, brush his teeth and now astronaut Chris Hadfield has sent down his last space tutorial from the International Space Station.
This time it’s a little sing song!
The Canadian’s heading back to earth today after his 5 month mission but couldn’t resist recording his own version of a famous tune by David Bowie.
On Facebook, Hadfield wrote: “With deference to the genius of David Bowie, here’s Space Oddity, recorded on station. A last glimpse of the world.”
He’s built up a big following down on Earth since he started tweeting and making videos about life onboard the International Space Station.
Facebook’s Potential $1B Acquisition
Facebook is reportedly in talks to acquire an Israel-based GPS App called Waze and the price tag could be hefty figure of between $800 million and $1 billion.
Waze is a community-based traffic and navigation app, which allows users to share real-time information. Waze uses that info to help users outsmart traffic. (Via Waze)
Calcalist, a main Israeli business publication, first reported the social networking giant was in final stages of negotiation with the maker of the crowd-sourced traffic and navigation app.
The Marker, another Hebrew publication, added to the Calcalist report, saying the deal would be about half in shares and half in cash. TechCrunch also did some digging and found a source that confirmed Facebook and Waze are in talks.
However, negotiations could hit a roadblock. That source says there’s an issue of “whether to keep Waze in Israel or whether to take it to the U.S., as Facebook did with two previous Israeli acquisitions.”
Bloomberg’s Tel Aviv based reporter says Waze founders are insistent the app’s developers stay in Israel. But that’s if a deal even happens. A spokesperson for Waze was quick to point out this is just a rumor.
“She also said to me look, if you read the press, Facebook has already bought us and so has Apple with a heavy dose of irony. Certainly Waze is not commenting on this.”
Facebook isn’t commenting either, so right now these are unsubstantiated reports, but The Next Web says, if it does happen, it would make sense.
Facebook now boasts 751 million monthly active mobile users. “The company isn’t shy about its further ambitions when it comes to mobile, and has been making acquisitions left and right to beef up its portfolio of products, hire mobile development and user experience talent and stay ahead of the curve.”
Facebook is also familiar with acquiring Israeli startups. It’s picked up two in the last two years, Face.com and Snaptu.
Facebook ‘Like’ Worth Cash?
When it comes to Facebook, have you ever wondered, “What’s in a ‘like?” Well, apparently almost $200 on a normal day.
According to a study by social intelligence company Syncapse, your ‘likes’ on Facebook are worth money to brands — on average $174.17.
There are a few ways a company can buy fans:
One is called “cost per thousand” (CPT). Advertisers place bids on a target group and pay for every time their ad is seen by 1,000 users.
Another is “cost per click” (CPC) and advertisers get paid every time an ad for their page gets clicked on.
And the latest, Facebook rolled out a “cost per action” (CPA) wherein advertisers pay for specific actions resulting from a consumer seeing their ad — like becoming a fan or just ‘liking’ posts related to the company.
So what makes a simple click worth so much? Apparently, it’s not about the click but what’s connected to it.
More than 2,000 Facebookers were involved in the research and the study found users who had ‘liked’ a brand spent more money ($116 more/year) not just on the brands they were fans of, but also within the brand’s sector (43% more) than non-fans, despite not having a higher income. They were also more likely (11%) to stick with the brand.
But KFSN notes — not all brands are created equal, nor is the value of their fans.
“As you can see ……. the value varied across brands: Clothing retailer Zara: $405. H&M: $306. McDonald’s: $182. Starbucks: $177 and Disney: $132.”
Business News Daily explains the study suggests the better a company can engage with customers, the better it can gain loyalty and revenue. Basically: make people feel like they’re a part of the product, and they’ll want to stick around.
A writer for Examiner says social media users should be a key target for business. “Brand managers and others would be wise to interact with their fans whenever possible, encourage additional fans, and otherwise pay attention to this important group of loyal supporters.”
But before a company starts buying fans, it needs to calculate their value. Then determine how much it’s willing to spend to keep in contact with said fans. (via YOUTUBE)
A writer for Mashable explains acquiring Facebook fans isn’t necessary for every company. They can be valuable and it’s likely they’ll become customers if they aren’t already, however, companies should build a strategy behind their reasons. “Don’t acquire for the sake of acquiring.”
Facebook’s CEO $1 Salary
The brain behind the world’s most successful social network agreed to take a big pay cut at the beginning of the year, but the money has not stopped flowing for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg agreed to reduce his yearly salary to just $1 at the beginning of 2013 per his own request. He also opted to forego annual bonuses. (Via KABC)
But the move was most likely symbolic as Zuckerberg is following the footsteps of many CEOs ahead of him.
The San Francisco Chronicle points out several CEOs have opted for the $1 salary in the past. They include late-Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Jerry Yang who founded Yahoo!. Others on the list are Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman and Urban Outfitters founder Richard Hayne.
Despite his $1 a year income, Zuckerberg is getting by just fine thanks to his investments.
Newly released information filed to the Securities and Exchange Commission shows Zuckerberg took in $2.3 billion worth of stock options. (Via The New York Times)
Those 60 million options were exercised before Facebook’s stock went public. The stock began trading on Wall Street back in May of 2012 with lackluster results. (Video Via KXTV)
As The Telegraph notes, Facebook has lost billions of dollars since then, while the stock price has still not recovered back to the level of its IPO.
“With the share price still languishing, Zuckerberg’s holdings in Facebook mean he is now sitting on a paper loss of about $7 billion in the company…”
Despite this, at this point, Zuckerberg has a net-worth of more than $16 billion.
Skype added to Outlook.com
After Microsoft replaced Hotmail six months ago with its new webmail service, Outlook.com, the tech giant is now integrating Skype into its product portfolio by delivering it to users’ inboxes.
Microsoft’s rolling out browser-integrated Skype calling to allow its webmail users to make audio and video calls using Outlook.com.
“Some moments are just right for Skype. Now it’s in your Outlook.com inbox.”
Assuming you’ve set up an account with Skype and with Microsoft’s email service, the next step is installing a browser plugin that connects Skype and Outlook.com. Skype says the plugin will be available for most versions of Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox.
That’s when you’ll have more options for how you want to reach out to friends. Engadget points out Microsoft’s competitors have already connected video calling to a messaging service.
“Gmail’s added easy access to hangouts and even Facebook has integrated Skype-connected video into its messaging so we suppose it’s necessary for feature parity, with the added bonus of Skype’s large install base.”
The update doesn’t actually come as much of a surprise. Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion back in October 2011.
Additionally, The Verge reports Microsoft promised Skype video calling from the web when it unveiled Outlook.com webmail in July, but “While Outlook.com has seen a number of updates over the months, including a calendar UI refresh, Skype integration has been missing in action.”
Gizmodo says the software is actually a preview. “…depending on feedback, it’ll be redesigned and improved. Microsoft doesn’t use the word beta but… uh, that’s what it means.”
Microsoft says it will start the roll out in the U.K. today, in the U.S. and Germany in the coming weeks, and the rest of the world will have a peek by the summer.
Apps the New Network TV
Researcher Flurry reported on Thursday that the audience for mobile apps has hit 58 million in prime time (i.e. 8 p.m) a figure that rivals that of the top three TV networks on a very good night, but revenues are still just a fraction of those of TV.
Its estimated that the U.S. mobile ad market brought in $3.4 billion in 2012. There is no break down revenues for apps vs. the mobile web, but Flurry has estimated that 80% of mobile activity occurs on apps. Comparatively, Kantar Media calculated that TV advertising accounted for $74 billion in ad revenues in 2012. Even if apps generated 100% of mobile ad revenues, the market would still be just 4.5% that of TV.
Meanwhile, Flurry also found that there are now more monthly users of mobile apps than there are for desktop, computers and laptops. Yet the the desktop ad market is still 10 times the size of the mobile ad market in revenues.
Why?
Michael Becker, managing director of the Mobile Marketing Association, says there are several reasons, but the main ones are a lack of a unified buying infrastructure for mobile apps and a comparatively fragmented market. “Reaching this audience isn’t as easy as making a TV buy,” he says. “That’s the big difference.”
To execute a mobile ad buy, you have to choose between various networks and exchanges and real-time bidding platforms. The ads themselves are also different since they’re often designed to prompt users to take action relatively quickly, which mean fewer branding ads and more direct-response executions. To ensure that the ads are effective, it helps to tailor to them to individual users’ demographics and geographic location. To make things even more complicated, while on desktop, there are basically two operating systems, in mobile there are at least 10, Becker says and “hundreds of browsers and screen sizes.”
The disparity between the reach of advertising via mobile apps and the complexity of the buying process is “both the challenge and the opportunity” says Peter Farago, VP of marketing for Flurry.
Flurry projects that the install base for mobile apps will double over the next year, which might lead some to conclude that mobile is a black hole that is eviscerating the TV and desktop market and leaving behind a much less lucrative ad industry in its wake. Yet eMarketer predicts that TV will continue to grow and outpace digital advertising through 2017.
One argument is that even though TV ratings are down (Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne recently found that they fell 50% over the past decade) TV is still the last place where you can find 5 million or more people tuned in at the same time to an ad. You may be able to get in front of 5 million people on Facebook, but if you use a display ad, only about one in 1,000 people will click on it.
Paul Gelb, head of strategy at MoPub, a mobile ad exchange firm, makes a more optimistic argument. In Gelb’s view, mobile ad revenues are still low because the industry is so new. Eventually, he says, mobile will be bigger than TV. “The dollars don’t shift in a meaningful way that’s sustainable overnight,” he says. Yet Gelb points out that bigger advertisers are jumping into mobile (Mondelez (nee Kraft) pledged last year to put 10% of its ad budget into the segment) and that both marketers and advertisers are experimenting to see what works. “Sometimes a blank canvas is a challenge,” Gelb says, noting that “even in TV it took the industry years to get to the 15- and 30-second commercial.”
Twitter’s Two-Factor Authentication
Due to recently hacks and false tweets, one of which was supposedly from the White House and sent the stock market into a momentary free fall, Twitter hopes to strengthen its user security. It has plans to prevent such intrusions through the introduction of a two-factor authentication process (via Wired). When this would be introduced and available to users is unknown.
This trend of having an extra layer of security then the traditional model of simply username and password seems to reflect an technical trend among the technical giants. Google rolled out its two-factor authentication offering in 2011, but Microsoft only just introduced their own last week.
When Twitter verifies an account, it’s saying that it’s gone through some type of procedure to approve that the person or entity is who they say they are. Keeping that integrity safe is essential to the entire concept.
The challenge for Twitter’s to solve is a two-factor authentication for accounts might be used by multiple parties in multiple locations. In Google’s two-step process, as well as Facebook’s, you’re sent a text message with a code to enter when logging into your account from an un-authenticated device like a mobile phone.
How something like that will work for an account managed by multiple people is a head-scratcher.
Until two-factor authentication rolls out, it’s smart to be vigilant when it comes to clicking on unknown links, and it’s always a good idea to change your password from time to time. A word of advice, is don’t make your password something like “APm@rketing.” That could get hacked at any time, no matter who you are, but especially if you’re the Associated Press.
[Photo credit: Flickr]
Activists’ protected by GPS Bracelet
A new GPS bracelet was distributed this week and they aren’t just used for tracking but for potentially saving lives.
The bracelet was developed by the Swedish organization, Civil Rights Defenders. The group dedicated to quote “defending people’s civil and political rights.” Many of the activists work in war zones and other areas of conflict.
The GPS bracelet is part of the Natalia Project created in honor of Natalia Estemirova, an award-winning Russian human rights activist that who murdered in 2009, and those responsible still have not been identified. She was reportedly working on a “extremely sensitive” case at the time of her murder. (Via Human Rights Watch)
What makes this bracelet so special is that it notifies millions of people, all over the world, at the same time people if an aid worker’s life is endangered. Through social media sites like Facebook people can sign up to receive distress signals in the hopes of ensuring future activists do not disappear without a trace.
“Human rights defenders at risk become connected to the world. And those following in the brave footsteps of Natalia Estemirova are no longer alone. The world is watching.” (Via Human Rights Defenders)
The alarms can be sent manually by the worker or automatically if the bracelet is removed by force. (Via Red Orbit)
According to the BBC, the bracelets could also put pressures on governments to find and release people that have been abducted or jailed.
The Daily Mail quotes the executive director of Civil Rights Defenders who said,
“These civil rights defenders are risking their lives for others to have the right to vote, or to practice religion or free speech…These are rights that Westerners take for granted every day.”
The organization hopes to have 55 civil rights defenders equipped with the bracelets by the end of 2014.
Facebook Down???
Reports are coming in from all over the world that facebook is down, a report to CNN states:
– Facebook was down for many users for the second day in a row on Thursday.
A Facebook spokeswoman says Thursday’s issue is not related to the issue on Wednesday that shut or slowed down the site.
“We’re currently experiencing some site issues causing Facebook to be slow or unavailable for some users,” a spokeswoman said in an e-mail. “We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.”
She said the issue was not related to the one from Wednesday, when problems with a third-party network provider shut the site down, or slowed it badly, for several hours.
With more than 500 million users, Facebook is the world’s largest social-networking site.
On Facebook’s blog for developers, a post said the site was “experiencing latency issues,” or a time delay, with its platform. But some tech observers speculated that the delay on the developers’ platform was unlikely to be the entire cause of the problem.
As usual, Facebook’s outage led thousands of social networkers to Twitter to, well … talk about Facebook.
“Somebody needs to fix Facebook ASAP,” wrote Gizmodo blogger Rosa Golijan on her Twitter feed. “I don’t like having to tweet to show that I ‘like’ all the stories about it being down.”
Several sarcastic Twitter users bemoaned the fate of the undernourished virtual plants and animals of FarmVille, while others (presumably with a degree of self-awareness) remarked on the ramifications of the outage.
“OPB BREAKING NEWS: Facebook is down,” read a message on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s feed. “Worker productivity rises. U.S. climbs out of recession.”
- Facebook was down for users Thursday, the second day in a row
- Spokeswoman says the problem isn’t related to a similar outage on Wednesday
- Users flock to Twitter … to talk about Facebook
News source Doug Gross, CNN
Just today in the UK, Facebook seemed to be working just fine as many users communicated and played their social network games, but at about 21:45 GMT, reports started to come in that people were unable to log in and in fact the site was down altogether. I myself tried logging into my account just to see if the reports were true.
Update: it is now 23:10 and it seems facebook is up and running just fine, so hopefully all the issues are now sorted.
