History of Social Media

TheNewMedia Byte for The Week 13/02/2012 - 19/02/2012

1. The FBI is planning to mine the data in the entire universe of social media. The proposals already have raised privacy concerns among advocates who worry that such monitoring efforts could have a chilling effect on users. The developers will have a challenge to overcome the difficulties which would come with it. To read more - click here.


2. Lady Gaga has created a social media website for her fans named LittleMonsters.com. To read more - click here.


3. Social media has truly changed the our understanding in our relationships. I have chosen this article and i fell it will benefit the readers. To read the article - click here.

4. The airport security in US is using social media to improve its services. They have recently launched a mobile application for smartphones that provides passengers with 24/7 access to the most commonly requested TSA information, including what items can be taken in carry-on and checked bags, updates on delays at U.S. airports, packing and traveling tips and checkpoint waiting times at specific airports. To read more - click here.

5. With social media catching up, Oglivy has launched it social media agency Social@Ogilvy in India and around the globe. To read more - click here.


6. Social media and polling have made the best form of tracking public opinion called social polling. Online polls have become very popular and are attracting responses well. Read the article - click here.

Indonesian love with Twitter

Indonesia is the social media capital of the world. This is one of the most Twitter and Facebook-friendly nations on Earth. A higher proportion of Indonesian internet users sign on to Twitter than in any other country. Indonesia is also home to the world's third-largest number of Facebook users. 


The film #republiktwitter is a tale that reflects Indonesia's love affair with Twitter. Many companies are using Jakarta for its launch of games and social media related stuff. They consider it to be a creative market. 

It is thought there are 40 million Facebook users among Indonesia's 240 million-strong population - no small feat, given that only 21% of Indonesians between the ages of 15 and 49 have access to the internet, according to a 2011 report.

Many in rural areas struggle to get connected, but the social media phenomenon is widespread amongst Indonesia's urban elite. A famous TV host in Indonesia, Desi Anwar has over 100,000 Twitter followers and she has written a book on her tweeting experience because many of her tweets are re-tweeted.

Source - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17054056

Automotive Industry on Social Media

A perfect video will clearly justifies why dealers of the automotive industry must become aggressive on social media. Its social and it's here to stay.

TheNewMedia Byte for The Week 2/6/2012 - 12/2/2012

1. Social media interaction woven into Foodie.com - a one-stop shop for magazines. Foodie will become a website where the users can share and interact with the users via their social media profile. The question is will the users be ready to create one more social media profile.Foodie is expecting 10 million users at its launch. To read more - click here.

2. Social networking is proven to be more addictive than smoking and drinking. Leisure and sleep topped the list of activities. To read more - click here.

3. The FMCG leader Reckitt Benckiser has launched its Facebook game poweRBrands. This game gives the players a unique peak into the culture of the company. The game tests players skills such as innovative thinking, quick decision making, marketing skills, business acumen and the ability to take on challenges of an RB employee. The game is to rise to the position of Global President of the company. It helps them as a recruitment tool also. To read more - click here. 


4. The first social media platform for consumer complaints launched in New York - Gripevine.com. It connects customers and companies and empowers both of them to create win - win resolution to common consumer complaints. Companies can use their Customer Satisfaction Index on Gripevine to show the world the quality of their customer service. Customers can use Gripevine to leverage the power of social media to get their stories heard.


5. Lady Gaga launches a social media network around her fan base. She has named her social network - Little Monsters. It is by invitation only as of now. Gaga has Twitter's most followers and it was first to hit 1 billion YouTube views. To read more - click here.

TheNewMedia Byte - 2/3/2012

1. Facebook files for the preliminary form of the long awaited IPO. It is rumored to raise $5billion. It will be the highest IPO of history. 


2. What knowledge FBI will gain with its social media monitoring tool? - Read here.

TheNewMedia Byte - 2/1/2012

1. Mobile payments are the next game changers after social media for US presidential elections this year. Obama has already started collecting mobile donations through Square. Squares can be accepted through any Square app enabled smartphone along with the credit card reader which attaches with the phone. To read more - click here.

2.Social media etiquette here they are. 

• Always ask before posting someone's pictures.
• Many people do not like to mention their whereabouts online. One should check before using the 'check-in' app on Facebook.
• The g+ hangouts have popularized after the US president Barack Obama organised it as a part of his election campaign.  From a privacy perspective, just be aware that anyone you invite to a hangout can invite anyone else. Also, there is no way to kick a person off a hangout (so you're stuck with them for better or for worse). 

To read more - click here.

3. In the hospitality and tourism industry airlines seem to be the most discussed on social media. You can read the entire article here to see on the Indian airline industry. 

TheNewMedia Byte - 1/30/2012

1. It's time when the world leaders are keen to connect via social networks. TopCom is a social network built for the World Leaders attending World Economic Forum in Davos. The 'Facebook for world leaders' was unveiled by software company Tibco at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. These networks have been formed where all the world leaders can communicate. For instance, Japanese prime minister can infirm the other world leaders about the forthcoming tsunami and the other leaders can work together to help them. Read the source article from here.

2. Remember India created a big issue over monitoring all the web content. Twitter has created a policy in which it is possible to re-actively control the information where the country policies demand. Many people are considering this as twitter's move to enter China where the web is restricted. To read the complete article - click here.


3. The youth in India has started facing social media fatigue. Many youngsters have started shutting their Orkut, Facebook and other such accounts. To read the complete report - click here.

TheNewMedia Byte - 1/27/2012

1. FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) is planning to develop an application that can crawl the public's postings to Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks, in order to predict and react to criminal behavior, including public disorder and terrorism. They also want to monitor cybercrime through this tool to manage mass hacktivist attacks like the group of Anonymous. They would also be incorporating Google maps, Yahoo maps and other location based services to get ti know the exact place of the happenings. To read more - click here.

2. Brad Pitt has joined the social media age with Google+. He has skipped Facebook and Twitter. He has joined it to announce his fund raising event 'A night to make it right' to be held on March 10 at New Orleans. The benefit gala will raise vital funds for the completion of 150 environmentally friendly homes. To read more - click here.

The Anonymous (TheNewMedia Byte - 1/23/2012)

Anonymous is a loosely focused group of people which include hackers and other common internet users who work together to the most agreed upon goal of the group. On January 20, 2012 the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)  indicted seven people and two companies which ran the file uploading site Megaupload.com. The site, which billed itself as “the leading online storage and file delivery service,” is now offline. In the indictment, Megaupload and a company associated  with it are accused of making $175 million while simultaneously causing approximately half a billion dollars in copyright infringement. Among the indicted are the site’s founder, Kim Dotcom (a.k.a. Kim Schmitz), who holds residency in New Zealand and Hong Kong. Employees Bram van der Kolk, aka Bramos, 29, Julius Bencko, Finn Batato, Sven Echternach, Mathias Ortmann, and Andrus Nomm were also indicted.

As a revolt to this Anonymous brought justice.gov down. It attacked CBS.com, Universalmusic.com and twitter accounts like @TheDailyShow and @ColbertReport. There was a video which announced to bring down Facebook on January 28 but later anonymous updated that it was a fake video. 

TheNewMedia Byte - 1/25/2012

1. If you have been waiting to get approval to start using social media effectively. Pope Benedict XVI called the social networks and search engines the starting point of many people who are seeking advice, ideas, information and answers. He believes that the endless conversation online demonstrates the restlessness of human beings, ceaselessly searching for truths, of greater or lesser import that can offer meaning and hope to their lives. He gives a message of balancing your online and offline lives. To read more - click here.

2. Define yourself under a 'social media user' category. 
The treasure hunters - These users are the online contest competitors and usually win products. They are drawn to the words 'win', 'contest' and 'prize.' They do a lot of sharing of contests and make them go viral. 
The critics - You can spot such people comment and fearlessly take out mistakes. They are brave to give their opinion aloud.
The observers - Such users are into silently 'liking' posts of others or re-tweeting what they like. They usually tell you about the happenings around.
The talkers - They are the expressive lot with expert-opinions on the topic of their choice e.g. photography, fashion and the like. They are prolific bloggers with a good number of followers. They have competitiveness in their nature.
The gurus - The smartest of the lot. They are the early adopters of technology and make others involved in it. Brands take such users seriously because they can influence others. They know how to make their social media usage into profitability.
To read the full article - click here.

TheNewMedia Byte - 1/20/2012

1. Twitter acquires Summify. Summify summarizes content in people's Google, Facebook and Twitter social media feeds and delivers a daily digest via email, on a website or to a user's iPhone. Twitter has not decided how it will use its services but Summify has disabled many features and stopped taking new sign ups. To read more - click here. 


2. After a movie, musical, drink - we have 'Facebook' nightclub in Bolivia. Mark Zuckerberg has many trademark issues to deal with. A new nightclub in Bolivia is entertaining 1200 people on weekends and its unique proposition is that people can share pictures in real time on the internet from the club. To read more - click here.

TheNewMedia Byte - 1/18/2012

1. The Wikipedia has declared a blackout on January 18 for hours in protest of SOPA and PIPA. Wikipedia is not showing any results for the queries, instead they are raising awareness on the bills which are being proposed in the US to be passed as laws. Many tech giants have joined together to show resentment against these bills. Google has created a special page for signing against SOPA and PIPA https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/. 


Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave a statement opposing SOPA and PIPA "The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can't let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet's development. Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet. The world today needs political leaders who are pro-internet. We have been working with many of these folks for months on better alternatives to these current proposals. I encourage you to learn more about these issues and tell your congressmen that you want them to be pro-internet. You can read more about our views here: https://www.facebook.com/FacebookDC?sk=app_329139750453932."


If you are wondering what Microsoft is doing then you can read about SOPA and PIPA here. 


What you have to say about SOPA?

TheNewMedia Byte - 1/16/2012

1. Australians prefer social networks and computer services like Skype for talking to people over their mobile phones. They have adopted the internet services faster that the rest of the world. KPMG polled 3600 people all over the world out of which 300 were Australians. Overall 64 per cent revealed that the computer was their ideal means of voice communication, up from 8 per cent in 2008. Another 6 per cent of those surveyed said that they preferred a tablet, such as an iPad for conversations. To read more - click here.


2. The Facebook IPO seems to have delayed by a month to May this year. Google started showing Google+ results in search from beginning this year, could prove to be a disadvantage for Facebook. Read the full article here.


3. Here's info on online workshop to provide a crash course to get beginners to speed up the use of the major social media sites. You can check their website for details on the program starting from January 19th - http://www.mediabistro.com/socialmedia101/

The Evolution of Web Search

Let's take a look into a short video on how search evolved and what we have ahead of us. Learn how the 11 September, 2001 changed the idea of search with news being added to it. Not to miss what search has ahead for us - Google wants to focus that the search engine gives you answers to complex questions which require analysis.

TheNewMedia Byte - 1/9/2012

1. The UK's TV platform Sky has integrated Anthony Rose’s Zeebox technology into its suite of tablet and smartphone applications. It will be providing social TV to all the Sky users. Zeebox makes it possible for friends to connect with each other around TV shows, find out more information about what is available to watch, and purchase products that relate to their favourite shows. Sky customers will be able to use a zeebox powered Sky app to access their Sky+ box on the move, so they can manage their Sky+ recording remotely, as well as using their iPhone or iPad as a remote control for their Sky box, creating a comprehensive and fully integrated companion TV experience. To read more - click here.


2. Here's is an excellent review on the new race for Facebook apps which many companies are adopting for their social media strategy. The article talks how every application needs to be 'social by design' and well integrated into the larger social media strategy. To read more - click here.

How to handle your online existence after death?

Death is a reality of life which cannot be denied. Physical beings end but their digital lives remain alive until somebody takes charge. People have started thinking how to end their digital assets when they are gone. Here are a few services which are created on these lines. 


Entrust is a site where you can create your account to decide your digital legacy. You can create your account and then add your email accounts, social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook etc., blogs, photo accounts, internet banking information etc. and then assign each account a digital executor. You can even add your lawyer to this account. You also have a choice to get your account deleted if you don't want to assign it to anyone.

Legacy Locker is another site which provides you a similar service in which you have to set up a beneficiary of your online assets  and you can also feed your legacy letters which will be automatically sent as farewell messages. 


Deathswitch is a service that periodically prompts the account holder to provide a pre-determined password to ensure they’re still alive. If that person doesn’t enter a password on multiple occasions for a period of time, it deduces that the person is either dead or critically injured and begins sending out personalized pre-written messages to chosen contacts. The service can be used in many ways, but according to the site, some of the more common uses include sending passwords, financial information, final wishes, last words, love notes, and funeral instructions.

Maybe all you want is to send emails to your loved ones greatgoodbye.com  provides you with this service.


Assetlock is a service that at focuses on mass storage of important information that may be crucial for others to know after a death, including information on financials, estate planning, insurance policies account passwords, e-mails and final wishes and directives. It has the capacity to store letters to be sent after a death, as well.

TheNewMedia Byte - 1/7/2012

1. London Olympics Organising Committee (LOCOG) has banned the volunteers not to get involved in the details of the games on social media. They would only be able to retweet the official Olympic tweets. Olympics are being held in Lodon this year in July and August. With such restrictions online activity is going to be very tight. Read the new article here.  

TheNewMedia Byte - 1/5/2012

1. Yahoo Inc has a new CEO, Scott Thomson, the co-founder of paypal. His non-media background has been a concern with the investors of the company and the shares were down by 2% after they announced the new CEO. To read the full article - click here.

2. Klout officially declares that it will be going in for another round of funding. Klout’s main product is a scoring system that measures people’s influence and reach on sites like Twitter, Facebook and Google+ — something that social media marketing types pay a lot of attention to. Click here to read more.

Wikipedia raises $20 million through donations

The San Francisco-based non-profit group that maintains Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia, officially closed its annual fundraising drive on Tuesday. The total amount raised: $20 million. That’s a record, and a step up from the $16 million Wikimedia raised last year during a nearly two-month-long fundraising effort. In the given environment the amount raised is notable.

The drive garnered some big-ticket donations, such as $500,000 from Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his wife’s foundation. But according to Wikimedia, the majority of the pledges came from more than a million ordinary folks coughing up donations in the $20 range.

The money will help Wikimedia — whose more than 20 million Wikipedia articles are written and edited for free by volunteers — pay for the technology and infrastructure necessary to keep the service growing, develop new features for the website and bolster its legal defense fund.

There is something that we must remember that even this amount is not enough to cover the operating budget of the company. They are confident that they will be able to get more money through donations and grants in the following months. 

Wikipedia says - Thanks!

Tubalr - A fantastic You-Tube's Playlist Manager

Cody Stewart, a 23 year old software developer in Atlanta has developed a playlist manager in which the YouTube videos of a particular artist will play without any interruption. This is a free website and Stewart has created as his project to be a part of his resume. “I was surfing YouTube and found some amazing HD music videos,” says creator Cody Stewart, “and I thought it would be a cool idea to play those back to back without having all the other stuff I didnt find interesting — mainly the 10,000s of comments about cats and dogs.” 

So far about 124,000 searches have been completed by 2,000 user on the app. Not bad for a project that started as resume fodder. If you happen to be a music lover, you are going to love it.

I like tubalr.com!

TheNewMedia Byte - 1/3/2012

1. The collective analysis of user generated data usually becomes trends. Google has been a leader of such analysis and now we have a company 'Klout' which is planning to work on social media trends. 'Klout' as of now gives scores to people, Twitter accounts and lately retailers on how influential they are. There was a discussion if resumes would carry klout scores.


They are working on a predictive analytics tool in which they want to look for patterns to get at the next viral message on social media. To read more - click here.

2. Iranian political activist, Tabarzadi, sends out a video on YouTube to tell the tortures they are undergoing in the prison. He says that Iranians deserve a democratically elected secular government that will respect the rights of all citizens. This shows that social media gives the activists in Iran a free will to spread their views because other media is heavily censored. To read more - click here.

3. Indian Prime minister, Manmohan Singh, express his views on Indian media. He stands against paid news and sensationalism, and stresses on the need of media to be in consensus for publishing objectively. He said this while issuing a postage stamp in the honour of late Puran Chandra Gupta, founder of Hindi Dainik Jagran newspaper. To read full article - click here.

Never miss your gym again!

Here's an interesting application for the all the people who want to go to the gym but are not able to do so. There are so many times that you want to regularly go to the gym but something keeps coming up and you have to miss it. Your gym membership money seems to be pinching you all the time because you are not making full use of it. 

Gympact is a mobile application for world wide users which helps you commit to your gym routine by putting your money on stake. You make a pact on the number of days you want to go to the gym and set your stake how much you are willing to pay if you are not able to go to the gym. If you hit your target you get the money as an incentive and you haven't been able to hit your target you pay out. This way you are able to overcome the obstacles that you used to have earlier.


Get over all the excuses to go the gym and incentivize your exercise. 

Facebook Kidney Donation

Allie Carr, 26, has become a hero by donating her kidney to a stranger. Carr donated her kidney to a man she met just five months ago on Facebook. The man’s name was Dan Garrett – and the page read simply, “My husband needs a new kidney.” After testing family and friends for kidney donation which didnt seemt o match, Megin Garret resorted to Facebook. She created a page which read 'My husband needs a new kidney.' As soon as Allie found this page on Facebook, she wanted to donate her kidney. She named her kidney 'Paul.' 

"She's (Carr’s) really amazing, to go to a stranger to give someone a piece of yourself literally and she's given me and Dan a chance to have a normal life, a honeymoon, having children," Megin Garrett said. Carr has been modest about donating their kidney. "I wanted to do something meaningful, and if I could give this to them, then I think that everyone should consider it."

The latest post on the Facebook page 'My husband needs a new kidney' reads this. It is January 1st and Dan has been walking around the hospital like a champ! He is feeling better every day and is excited to be up and around more. Our nurses and doctors have been wonderful and deserve more thanks than we could ever give them. I am amazed at how kind they can be!

Allie is doing well at home. She has been telling me that she is feeling much better. She is playing games on her couch and spending lots of time with her fantastic family. We miss having her so close to us at the hospital, but are thankful she is healing and is home. I think I speak for everyone when I say that we are honored by all the support and kind words! I read Dan all the new posts and tell him about how many people like this page every day and it makes him really happy to hear. So, as always, thank you!

God bless you, Dan and Allie.