Facebooks Downward Spiral

The social media behemoth that is Facebook, has reported a sharp drop in profits. The news has prompted a fresh, vigorous decline in the share price of the world’s biggest social network.

The company says the drop in profit is partly due to increased spending on research and development, the market it seems, isn’t buying the rhetoric.

Facebook made a profit nudging $60 million in the final three months of 2012, compared with nearly $300 million twelve months earlier.

The less than impressive results triggered a 5 per cent slide in Facebook shares on the New York Stock Exchange.

Bob Dylan To Receive Highest US Civilian Honour

The White House has announced US folk singer Bob Dylan will be honoured with the country’s highest civilian award. The Septuagenarian will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by US president Barack Obama in a ceremony next month  :: Read the full article »»»»

Facebook’s New Timeline For Brands

Facebook has announced that it’s brand Pages are getting a mandatory design overhaul, which will go into permanent effect on March 30th. But fear not, community managers! You’ll have a full month, starting today, to test the design in Facebook’s preview mode.

The new Pages should look familiar to users who have already jumped on the profile timeline bandwagon, as the redesign will capture key features of the timeline ethos. As Facebook designer Sam Lessin told VentureBeat, “We’ve seen that most businesses have a core group of loyalists, but those loyalists also have friends,” he said. “We’ve made it easier for people to connect with a business through the lens of their friends… It’s a much more personalized experience.” Read the full article »»»»

Facebook Timeline: Unearthing Pix You Forgot You Had? or A Stalkers Dream!

Like it or not, Facebook is about to make its new profile format –  Timeline – compulsory. Over the next few weeks, every Facebook account will be updated with the new-look profile, presenting a scrapbook of all of your past status updates and photographs.

The latest upgrade to Facebook has security experts warning people to clean up their online history or risk having embarrassing photos, comments and status updates resurface. Facebook will not say exactly when, but sometime in the next month all user profile pages will transition to the new Timeline setting.

The changes mean that every post, photo and action in a Facebook user’s history will be available for friends to easily view in reverse chronological order. Facebook users have had the option to use Timeline since last year.

The problem with Facebook is it keeps changing its default settings, you might not care about the change right now, in 20 years when you’re standing for political office? Clearly social media sites like Facebook have granted us a much more transparent society. Graham Cluley, a social media security commentator says “Facebook is encouraging users to enter even more personal details about themselves and their life experiences, and making it simpler for others to view the information.” Read the full article »»»»

The Year of Twitter

Digital marketing agency Zeta Interactive, has released its annual rankings of social networks. They are categorized by “buzz” a ranking calculated by volume and tone – percentage positive ranking – of all the sites. This year, Twitter topped the list followed by LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook.

Google+ did not make the top 10, partially due to its June launch – data starting from January 2011 was used to calculate the scores.

Minna Rhee, CEO of Zeta Interactive, declared 2011 “The Year of Twitter” and told Mashable, “For culture, breaking news and celebrities it is the social network.” Indeed, among the social networks, Twitter is the go-to for breaking news, and also has generated a lot of hype for its role in protests around the world. Combined with the sheer amount of mentions it gets from other websites, it jumped up two places from last year’s rankings. Facebook, which is much larger in terms of number of users, had the most negative buzz among the top 10 (although their negative buzz decreased compared to last year) Read the full article »»»»

Facebook Agrees to FTC Terms on Privacy Breaches

Our favorite social media behemoth Facebook, has reached a deal with the US Federal Trade Commission over allegations it had a deceptive privacy policy. Under the proposed US settlement Facebook will have to submit to independent privacy audits but will not have to fix what it has done in the past. Facebook has agreed to notify users about changes to privacy settings and to submit to external privacy audits for the next 20 years. The deal must still be upheld by a US court, but it is a capitulation of sorts by the company in the face of widespread outrage from its 800 million users. Facebook’s relaxed privacy settings have had a major impact on people’s lives. In one high-profile case a man bought an engagement ring for his partner online and it automatically showed up on his profile. His partner found out before the man had a chance to get down on one knee and pop the question. Now those surprises will have to stop.