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New Media News Every Morning

InstaBG your Twitter feed

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Twitter is arguably one of the biggest and most successful social networking services on the planet. The ability to microblog, be heard by potentially millions of people and find out what other people are doing, thinking or sharing – whether they’re famous or not – is a winning combination.

If you’ve been a Twitter user chances are you don’t use any of the Twitter applications for the desktop PC, mobile devices or tablets. Majority of Twitter users still use the Twitter web site to access their accounts. Anyone who’s used Twitter online knows how drab the Twitter site is. It’s a very Spartan affair. It may reflect the Twitter philosophy of “less is more” but it would be cool to actually personalize your personal Twitter page. [Read more…]

Ning’s new plans go live

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Ning dumps free social networksAfter nixing their free plans and embracing a pure premium model, Ning users are now able to choose the plan that is right for them, although Ning is giving users until the end of August to choose a plan or find a new home.

The three new plans – Ning Mini, Ning Plus and Ning Pro – are now live!

I encourage you to take a look at your choices and decide which plan makes the most sense for you and your members. You’ll have until August 20th to purchase a plan, which should give you ample time to make a decision. (Official Ning Blog) [Read more…]

Google Me update: Google researchers closely examining social networking protocols

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Facebook - Google Me LogoWith Google Me rumors picking up over the last several weeks yet another rumor has begun to make the rounds. This time it’s being said that a dedicated Google research team has been charting Social Networking functions to gain a better understanding of social media intricacies.

Apparently the researchers efforts include a 216-slide presentation with footnotes which has been posted on SlideShare. The slideshow is being used to help all people involved with Google Me build the new system, including designers, interface designers, programmers and other people involved not just with Google Me but with the social web as a whole. [Read more…]

Who Says Foursquare Has No Business Potential?

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Don’t look now folks, but pretty soon,  your favorite restaurants and other business establishments might soon be offering various discounts, freebies and other promotional gigs in cooperation with Foursquare. Yes Foursquare, you it right?  This is because Foursquare has just launched a business strategy that encourages establishment owners to use its service to engage mobile customers with specials and give them the ability to track how their venues is performing over time – through venue analytics.

Foursquare Business provides simple self-service tools that would allow you, as a business manager, to cook up with various kinds of special gigs that would attract customers to your business establishments. Specifically Foursquare Business will let you created the following specials:

  • Mayor specials can be unlocked only by the Mayor of your venue (the user who has checked in the most in the last 60 days).
  • Count-based specials are unlocked when a user checks in a certain number of times.
  • Frequency-based specials are unlocked every so many check-ins.
  • Wildcard specials are always unlocked, but your staff has to verify some extra conditions before awarding the special.

What’s cool about this is that Foursquare has mobile apps in three major mobile platforms – Android, iPhone and BlackBerry. And Foursquare can use this mobile apps to send notices to potential customers nearby to possibly invite them to check out your Foursquare promotional gigs.

To use Foursquare’s business tools, all you need to do is claim your venue. Once you’ve done that you can have access to various Foursquare venue analytics tools that will let you view:

  • most recent visitors
  • most frequent visitors
  • the times of day people check in
  • total number of unique visitors
  • a histogram of check-ins per day

So, what are you waiting for? Get into Foursquare and claim your venue now before somebody else takes it.

Facebook Pulls Out Topless Photos

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TIME Magazine recently ran a feature on Facebook pulling out photos that it deemed obscene, including those that had some exposed parts of the female anatomy. However, this blanket banning has also included images of mothers breastfeeding their babies, and this has resulted in some protest by rights advocates.

Facebook has drawn a line in the sand by removing any photos it deems obscene, including those containing a fully exposed breast, which the site defines as “showing the nipple or areola.” In other words, plunging necklines or string bikinis are fine — just no nips. The purging of bare-boob pics began last summer and has swept up, alongside any girls gone wild, a growing number of proud — and very ticked-off — breast feeders.

On Dec. 27, some 11,000 protesters held a virtual nurse-in by uploading breast-feeding photos onto their Facebook profiles, and 20 or so women showed up at the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., to breast-feed there. By Dec. 30, more than 85,000 members had joined a Facebook group called “Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!”

Blogging and social media sites being accessible to just about anyone with Internet connections, and true enough, users are able to upload any image they wish, as long as these follow the terms of the online service they use. However, in the above case with Facebook, it’s clearly a subjective case of ethics. The question here is what constitutes obscenity? Does the mere showing of a woman’s breasts constitute obscenity? Or should there be sexual implications to this? And how about images of breastfeeding?

Most web applications allow for mature (though mostly not adult) content, but these are not displayed to the public, but rather to those who verify that they are of legal age (which is altogether not difficult to work around). But in a situation where one’s public profile photo might be the image in question, for instance, it becomes an issue of whether the web application can deny public access to the photo.

For a social network that started out as a network for college students, one could expect a sense of maturity from its users. This means that if you see a photo of a woman breastfeeding, or even shirtless for that matter, but without sexual implications, then there should be no malice. But then again, Facebook is now open to any user 13 years of age and above. And in this case, it’s a big grey area.