Twitter announced they've added two-factor authentication in order to help better secure Twitter. Recently, there has been a large increase in the number of high-profile Twitter accounts being hacked into. Such examples include the AP Twitter account, MTV Twitter account and many more. Many are due to insecure passwords; thus, Twitter has added the option for users to add an extra level of sign in security through two-factor authentication. Login to your account and go to your account settings page. Go to the "Account security" section and click on "Require a verification code when I sig [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Twitter: Accounts & Profiles

After testing a lead-gen capable tweet internally, Twitter has now expanded the product to a select few brand advertisers -- and more will, no doubt, be able to access the technology soon. Twitter announced its new "Lead Generation Card" today. It gives brands a chance to drive new leads inside a tweet. Here's how Twitter describes it: The Lead Generation Card makes it easy for users to express interest in what your brand offers. Users can easily and securely share their email address with a business without leaving Twitter or having to fill out a cumbersome form. When someone expands y [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Social Media Marketing | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: Advertising | Twitter: Cards

Did Twitter unfairly take away Leonard Barshack's handle and give it to Central Idaho ski resort Sun Valley Co.? After using the Twitter handle @sunvalley since 2010, Barshack received an email from Twitter last year notifying him that a report had been filed declaring he was engaging in "non-parody impersonation" with his Twitter handle. The Associated Press reports Twitter claimed Barshack was violating their policy that mandates an account's profile information "make it clear that the creator of the account is not actually the same person or entity," as the subject of the impersonation. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Social Media Marketing | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: Accounts & Profiles | Twitter: Legal | Twitter: Marketing

Teenagers use Facebook by far more than any other social media site and have over 400 friends on it. But Twitter and Instagram have massively increased their usage in the past year, according to a new survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, together with Harvard's Berkman Center. The new report covers US teens and social media. There are an enormous number of findings in the document, which was compiled using both surveys and focus groups. You can read or download the full report online. Facebook Tops, Twitter & Instagram Growing According to the report, 95 percent [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Privacy | Facebook: Statistics | MySpace | Top News | Tumblr | Twitter | Twitter: Business Issues | Twitter: Statistics

Twitter's expansion into the wider content world beyond 140-characters continues with news today that it will be showing highlights of NBA playoff games inside tweets. And, as Bloomberg reports, the deal also includes video ads that will show along with the highlight videos. The NBA will post highlights from the current NBA playoffs using the #NBARapidReplay hashtag, and ads will show from sponsors including Sprint Nextel, Taco Bell and Sony Pictures. Adam Bain, Twitter's head of global revenue, declined to discuss financial details with Bloomberg. Earlier this week, Twitter and ESPN [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: Advertising | Twitter: Business Issues

Yahoo announced a partnership with Twitter today to include real-time tweets from media outlets, politicians and celebrities in the Yahoo homepage newsfeed. In a post titled "@yahoo delivers #bestoftheweb," Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said users will see "relevant and personalized Tweets alongside stories from Yahoo! and other sources." Users will be able to follow tweet sources by clicking on the "Follow" button displayed in the tweets. It is not yet clear how the tweet personalization will function, but one would think that users who are signed in to Yahoo and or Twitter will be served mor [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Featured | Twitter | Twitter: Business Issues | Yahoo | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: News

Google has just added apps from Facebook, Twitter, CNN and others for the Google Glass device and showed a preview of them to a packed house in the "Developing for Glass" session at Google I/O. Several new apps are now available for Android users via the MyGlass app that serves as the Glass' headquarters: Facebook Twitter Tumblr Evernote CNN Elle magazine Google's Timothy Jordan showed off a few of them during today's session. Based on the screenshots in his presentation, some of these apps/experiences are further along than others. Facebook On Glass It sounds for now lik [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Facebook | Facebook: Mobile | Featured | Google | Google: Glass | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: Mobile

When it comes to social media marketing, many brands and organizations have staked claim to various hashtags. Yet by their nature, hashtags can't be owned. They can’t be wordmarked or copyrighted, either. The reality is that many hashtags are started organically, not by brands themselves but by their customers. Hashtags were once the sole domain of Twitter. Over the years, other social properties began incorporating them as well. Google Plus and Instagram recognize them. Earlier this year, LinkedIn started using them. And soon, they'll become part of Facebook as well. Hashtag Bombs Are S [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Social Media Marketing | Social Media Marketing Column | Social Media Marketing: Hashtags | Twitter | Twitter: Marketing

Twitter has scooped up Lucky Sort, a two-year old start-up in Portland, Oregon, that developed TopicWatch, a contextual analytics engine designed to discover patterns in real-time data streams -- including Twitter data. Lucky Sort CEO, Noah Pepper announced on the company website that it will be closing down, and he and other team members will be joining Twitter's "revenue engineering department" in San Francisco. TechCrunch reported that Jesse Smith and Daniel Fennelly will join Pepper in the move. Launched in February 2012, TopicWatch offered analysts a big data visualization tool f [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Twitter: Business Issues

Two days after the May 7 dissolution of TweetDeck, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo resigned from his role as UK Director. TweetDeck's failure to file 2011 accounts led to its forced dissolution by Cardiff-based Companies House, followed by Costolo stepping away from the role of UK Director on May 9. Dublin-based accountant Laurence O'Brien was selected to takeover Costolo's UK Director role, and will serve alongside current UK. Directors Alex Macgillivray and Ali Rowghani. Macgillivray also holds the role of Twitter's general counsel and head of trust, while Rowghani is Twitter's COO. O'Brien has [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Twitter | Twitter: Business Issues

I hadn't seen my old high school pal in about 20 years. As we sat at a bar overlooking Grand Central Station in New York, he told me that he, too, was in social media -- something involving sentiment analysis. “Oh, sure,” I said, “many social media tools use sentiment analysis -- and it’s always a big topic at digital marketing conferences.” “No,” he said, “we analyze Twitter for changes in sentiment that might affect stock price. Then computer trading can kick in for transactions that might only be fractions of a penny per share.” Twitter As An Economic Predic [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Social Media Marketing | Social Media Marketing Column | Twitter

Twitter has hired Cynthia Gaylor as its new head of corporate development. Gaylor has been serving as a managing director at Morgan Stanley, where her recent focus has been in the tech sector. Notably, according to her LinkedIn profile, Gaylor's background includes IPOs. Most recently Cynthia is leading Morgan Stanley's technology execution effort, advising clients across a broad array of strategic financing activities including IPOs, follow-on offerings, equity linked, private placement and debt security transactions. Cynthia has advised on transactions for Workday, ServiceNow, Palo Alt [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: Business Issues

A handful of feature changes have been added to the official Android and iOS apps today to help users view local trends, switch accounts and fully integrate with the iOS only Vine product. A global change for both apps included support for the new 160 markets that Twitter Trends announced last month. Users in these locations will be able to view all local data directly from the app. For iOS, users will now be able to invite friends to Twitter directly from the app, a feature that should help to continue to increase adoption of the social network. Additionally, iOS users will now be [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: Mobile

Digital privacy is a complex issue, little understood by the public. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), as part of its ongoing mission to educate the public, has released its third annual "Who's Got Your Back" privacy scorecard for Internet companies. Below is the 2013 scorecard. Compared with the previous two years (below), results appear to be improving overall. Twitter and ISP Sonic.net are the big winners with perfect scores. Dropbox, Google and LinkedIn also do well, while Apple, Amazon, AT&T, Verizon, MySpace (does it still exist?) and Yahoo essentially get failing grades [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Legal: Privacy | Twitter | Twitter: Legal

A new GlobalWebIndex study analyzing international social media behavior revealed that mobile use and older Internet users are driving growth for Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn. To conduct the Social Stream Q1 2013 study, GlobalWebIndex surveyed 31,779 consumers in 31 different countries, examining global social media behaviors during the first quarter of this year. According to the findings, Android and iOS users were more likely to be on social networks than average Internet users. In Japan, iOS users were 133 percent more likely to use Google+ than average Internet us [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook: Statistics | Google: Google+ | Mobile Marketing | Pinterest: Statistics | Statistics: Online Behavior | Statistics: Social Media | Top News | Twitter: Statistics

Twitter announced at TechCrunch Disrupt today that its self-service ad platform is now open to all users in the U.S. Previously, the self-serve platform was available by invite only. Now, small businesses, bloggers and other users can use the Twitter ad platform to launch Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts ads. Back in March, Twitter announced upgrades to the self-serve platform that allow advertisers to target users by interest, gender, platform and device, and earlier this month, the company expanded keyword targeting capabilities to include users' timelines. The self-serve platf [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Social Media Marketing | Social Media Marketing: Advertising | Twitter: Advertising

Usually, stories around Twitter's API are those of companies begging for access that have been shut down. This weekend, the exact opposite occurred. This odd case featured Followgen founder Myles Recny who released a blog post this weekend telling Twitter that they should shut down his company. In the bold move, Recny posted 500 words on how he started Followgen, the success and his worry around the product, concluding that he should be shut down or given access to the Ads API. Unlike the traditional Ads model, Followgen harnesses "favorites" to draw attention and build a following. Thes [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Twitter | Twitter: Advertising | Twitter: Legal

When implied popularity can be purchased, a problem will arise. That's exactly what has been plaguing social media, a blatant spamming to help promote accounts, updates or links. Social spam is so popular that it has even become a multi-million dollar business. Politicians, celebrities, sports figures and Internet marketing "gurus" have been purchasing handfuls of followers in order to  instantly add implied popularity. Purchasing followers and retweets is cheap, and it can make you look good ... for now. Yesterday, the The New York Times featured two researchers that called out celebri [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Twitter | Twitter: Statistics

(screenshot via CNN) Twitter is warning media outlets to be "extra vigilant" in light of today's incident involving a fake tweet sent out by hackers that had gained access to the Associated Press' Twitter account, @AP. It's also good advice for brands and marketers -- and for all Twitter users, actually. Shortly after 1:00 pm EST today, the AP's account sent out a (fake) tweet saying that President Obama was injured after "two explosions in the White House." The Dow Jones stock market index momentarily tanked almost 150 points. The AP disabled its Twitter accounts, at least temporari [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Legal: General | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: Accounts & Profiles | Twitter: Business Issues | Twitter: Legal

The Financial Times (FT) is reporting that Twitter has struck a major deal with agency Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG), which is part of agency holding company Publicis. The deal, according to FT, is worth "hundreds of millions of dollars over a multiyear period." SMG clients include major brands such as Burger King, Comcast-NBCU, Honda, P&G, Coke, Microsoft and many others. The deal is being characterized as a "partnership." Years ago Publicis announced something similar with Google. As the FT points out, this announcement comes just ahead of the TV "upfront" where advertisers commit [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: Advertising | Twitter: Business Issues