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I'm a neurotic. IBM told me so.
I'm a late Wednesday afternoon tweeter. It's not a characteristic I'd necessarily include on any of my dating app profiles, but it accurately sums up my online behavior nonetheless. I'm also a tremendous neurotic (which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me well) who embraces self-expression, challenges and change. I'm that personality pie chart you see up above. I'm an open book, or at least my Twitter profile is to IBM.
Twitter wants everyone to know how many people read their tweets
Publishers and verified users have been able to track view counts on organic tweets since last month, but Twitter is looking to make that data more widely accessible. Today, the microblogging social network revealed that this analytics feature is no longer limited to people or companies with a tiny blue check mark on their profile. The tweet activity dashboard is now also available to users who are active primarily in English, Japanese and Spanish, and have had an account for longer than two weeks. And don't worry, support for additional languages is coming -- Twitter let it be known that it is working to bring its tool to everyone sometime "soon." So, there it is, now you won't have to wonder if anyone's actually reading those thoughtful (and wonderful) tweets of yours.
The Times of India wants access to its journalists' social networks
Over the past few years, social networks have become an extremely powerful tool for every journalist, whether it's here in the United States or elsewhere across the world. But social networks like Twitter and Facebook aren't just a venue for sharing links or live-tweeting breaking news events, as great as that is -- it's also about the engagement one can have with readers and other fellow journalist. Knowing this, The Times of India has recently implemented a new policy that requires its journalism employees to hand over Twitter and Facebook passwords, as it looks to gain control of what they can and cannot post on their social accounts.
Microsoft to start showing people's social and career info in Bing results
Back in 2011, the relationship between Microsoft and social analytics company Klout made it possible for some folks to take home a free Windows Phone. In 2013, though, it's all about Bing. To that end, Microsoft's know-all engine will, as of today, begin displaying Klout-verified information inside Bing search results. The new partnership makes it possible for people to share personal tidbits using Bing's Snapshot feature, things like employment history and prominent social posts from Twitter and Instagram. While this integration with Klout goes considerably deeper than that, it'll ultimately be up to each user to determine the amount of details they want shown when someone is searching for them in Bing. You'll need Klout and LinkedIn accounts to create your very own Snapshot -- and let's be honest, we all know how important first impressions on the web can be.
We now live in a world with two pet-based social networking apps
I love my cats, and I take photos of them frequently and with reckless abandon. That said, I'm not entirely sure I need more than one specialized app just for sharing photos of Nibbler and Cinnamon (don't judge me). Regardless, a couple of months after the iOS version of Peterest hit the scene, we now have Petigram. OK, so pet photo apps clearly still need to work on original naming schemes, but we'll ignore that for the moment. Petigram offers the ability to share photos, follow other users, and post comments. Its main selling point, however, is the built-in photo editing tools that let you add borders, text and other obnoxious graphics. At the moment, the app is quite buggy (you can post blank comments, buttons are sometimes unresponsive, etc.) but for a 1.XX version, it's not terrible. If you really want to share photos of your furry friends somewhere other than Facebook or Twitter, I'd still recommend Peterest as your first stop -- it simply has a better layout and more-polished features -- though Petigram may also be worth checking up on down the road.
DeNA collects 10 new partners for Mobage titles on iOS
DeNA, one of the biggest social gaming networks in Japan, has announced a development deal with 10 social and mobile game developers. The company is working to gain inroads with western audiences via iOS and other mobile platforms. Mobage is the giant network that DeNA runs, which recently picked up Ngmoco and several other western publishers and developers to help build a stable of popular games and attract western players. Now, the company has deals with 10 different social and mobile game developers, including XMG Studio, Cobalt Play Games and Joywinds, plus several other small-to-medium developers who've been working hard on iOS and Android. Deals like this are becoming common in the social and mobile landscape. Eastern companies are learning that they need high-quality games to attract customers in the west. At the same time, smaller game developers are looking for funding. DeNA has plenty of that to go around. Typically, the issue is that smaller developers get swallowed up in the big network's money-making machine, and the resulting games lack the quality they need. So we'll see. DeNA is certainly pushing hard for an iOS hit (or two, or three, or 10, presumably). Some of these studios are capable of giving them that, but hopefully the publisher will be smart enough to let these creators do their thing. Show full PR text DeNA Unveils New Partners Coming to Mobage, the Premier Mobile Games Platform Diverse Portfolio of Games and Developers Further Extends the Reach of the Global Network SAN FRANCISCO – November 1, 2012 – DeNA Co., Ltd. (TSE: 2432) announced today that it is partnering with 10 independent social and mobile game developers to bring their games to the Mobage mobile social games network and platform for iOS™ and Android devices worldwide. New developer partners include BigHut, Cobalt Play Games, GameCloud, Electrified Games, Joywinds, Inc., Kyy Games, Massive Damage, Oh BiBi socialtainment, Runaway Play, and XMG Studio, Inc. The Mobage network has launched industry-leading games such as Rage of Bahamut™, developed by partner studio Cygames Inc., and Deity Wars, created by CROOZ, Inc., which have both held top spots on the Apple® App Store™ and Google Play™ top grossing charts. "The Mobage network provides development studios a unique opportunity to reach millions of mobile game players throughout the world," said Barry Dorf, Senior Director of Third Party at DeNA's U.S. subsidiary ngmoco, LLC. "As a global mobile games platform leader, our dedication to building long-term partnerships has enabled us to work with some of the most esteemed developers worldwide to deliver engaging, top grossing games like Rage of Bahamut. This is an exciting time for Mobage as we strive to fulfill our commitment to bringing delight, innovation, and fun to mobile gamers." New Mobage Developer Partners BigHut: The Brazilian independent mobile game development studio strives to make free-to-play games that are fun to play and provide experiences tailored to individual players. The company launched this week Boney the Runner, an endless runner game where players help Boney the skeleton escape through the cemetery from a pack of hungry dogs. To play Boney the Runner for free, please visit: http://moba.ge/boneytherunner Cobalt Play Games: A team of developers based in Asia working on interactive entertainment for the iOS and Android platforms. They have developed more than 10 casual mobile games and have just released their tower-building game Monster Mall on the Mobage platform. To download the free Monster Mall game, please click: http://moba.ge/monstermall Electrified Games: Electrified Games is an experienced independent developer of mobile and online games recognized for its expertise in trading card and strategy games. From its offices in the San Francisco Bay Area, the company has developed games for leading publishers and brands including Kaijudo Online, Kaijudo Battle Game, Tap Tap Revenge Tour, Defense of the Oasis, and Café 51. GameCloud Studios: A leading developer of global social and mobile games striving to bring together the digital and real worlds. Founded in 2009, the company has operations in Southern California and Shanghai, and has been developing innovative games and systems for the mobile space. With a unique approach to sports simulation games, the company introduces an innovative intuitive play system for their current mobile sports games. Joywinds, Inc.: A new mobile game developer from Shanghai whose core value is to connect people through imagination. Their newest title World of Wizards is set to launch this month on Mobage, and turns players into legendary wizards by learning different spells, collecting equipment and capturing magical pets. Kyy Games: Kyy Games is an independent game development studio located in Tampere, Finland. The company is known for their game Cabals: The Card Game, a revolutionary online trading card game that re-invents the genre with the introduction of a gameboard and an original game world that is inspired by different esoteric traditions. Kyy games has also launched Legends of Elendria: The Frozen Maiden, and Cooties: The Revenge of the Appendix. Massive Damage: Massive Damage, Inc. is an award-winning mobile games studio building the future of massively multiplayer social role-playing games on mobile. The studio recently released its cult-hit title Please Stay Calm, a location-based zombie survival game, and it is currently working on other titles coming soon to the Mobage platform. Oh BiBi socialtainment: Oh BiBi socialtainment is a French company specialized in developing and publishing social games for smartphones and tablets. The young and wild company benefits from the solid handheld game design expertise of its founder Stanislas Dewavrin, the former Creative Vice President at Gameloft and the Asphalt franchise creator. Oh BiBi socialtainment is committed to providing innovative, full-featured social games, promising brand new user experiences. Runaway Play: Based in New Zealand, Runaway Play is currently developing a Mobage mobile version of Flutter, a butterfly simulation game that gained a loyal following on Facebook. The developer also released the mobile games Puzzle Planets and Howling Mouse. Runaway Play works closely with philanthropic partners National Geographic and the World Wildlife Fund to continue to raise awareness surrounding wildlife conservation. XMG Studio Inc.: XMG is an award-winning mobile games developer based in Toronto. They have released 12 mobile games in various genres, including the popular Drag Racer franchise, the original franchise that created the drag racing genre in mobile games. Additionally, the company was named one of the top up-and-coming global mobile game developers to watch for by industry media. For developers interested in opportunities to publish their mobile games on DeNA's Mobage mobile games platform, please visit: https://developer.mobage.com About DeNA DeNA Co., Ltd. is a global Internet company focused on social games, e-commerce and other Web services for mobile devices and PCs. DeNA's current flagship business is its mobile social games platform Mobage, which offers first-, second- and third-party games on four localized user networks across Japan, China, South Korea and the rest of the world. The original Mobage network in Japan currently serves over 43 million registered users with more than 2,000 titles. Founded in 1999 as a small startup in Tokyo, DeNA currently has over 2,000 employees worldwide working at offices and development studios in 16 cities across 11 countries and regions. The company generated annual sales of more than 1.8 billion U.S. dollars in the fiscal year ended March 2012. DeNA is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (2432). For more information, visit dena.jp/intl. About Mobage The Mobage social games network and platform hosts over 50 first-party and third-party games that are available on the Apple® App Store™ and Google Play™. Mobage features chart-topping apps including Rage of Bahamut, Blood Brothers and Ninja Royale™, casual games such as Zombie Farm® and Tiny Tower, licensed intellectual properties such as Marvel: War of Heroes, and core games such as Quests & Sorcery™, Hellfire and Warriors of Odin. Mobage also hosts mobile social games in other languages via separate regional networks. Mobage offers developers access to a suite of features to enhance their development environment, including a payment API, production and marketing support and analytics tools. To learn more about Mobage, visit: http://mobage.com. For developers interested in publishing opportunities on Mobage, please visit: https://developer.mobage.com
Forrester survey finds first ever decline in people 'using the internet,' but a changing notion of 'being online'
A survey measuring people's internet use used to be a fairly simple thing. If you dialed up and logged onto CompuServe or AOL, you were "online" until you disconnected. Even in more recent years, you were "online" for as long as you were looking at a web browser or a chat window. But things have gotten more complicated as we've grown more mobile and connected than ever, and that's now resulted in the first ever decline of people "using the internet" in Forrester's annual survey since it began asking the question in 1997. As AllThingsD reports, this year's survey found that people spent an average of 19.6 hours per week using the internet, compared to 21.9 hours in 2011. According to Forrester's Gina Sverdlov, however, that's not due to a shift back towards TV or other activities, but to a changing notion of what "being online" means to individuals. As she puts it, "given the various types of connected devices that US consumers own, many people are connected and logged on (automatically) at all times," and that "the internet has become such a normal part of their lives that consumers don't register that they are using the internet when they're on Facebook, for example." The full report isn't available to the public, but you can find a few more details from it at the links below.
Connected To The Case to use Facebook for crowd-sourced crime solving
Ready the spandex and decide on a name for your alter ego, because come October 16th, you'll have the chance to fight crime from the comfort of your computer. On that date, the "Connected To The Case" website goes live with the aim of crowd-sourcing tips from its users to help the cops solve active investigations. You'll use your Facebook login for access, as the service pulls data from your profile to prioritize cases with which you might have a connection. Morgan Wright, CEO and Chief Crime Fighter of Crowd Sourced Investigations, told us its system looks at five key areas when digging for pertinent triggers: "date, location, time, relation and demographics." It then uses that data to tailor notifications of unsolved crimes based on -- for example -- proximity to your school, or where you used to work. Rest assured that you control the privacy settings, and if you've got useful info to share, you can do so anonymously. Law enforcement agencies can register to include their cases from today, with the initial roll-out targeting the US. The plan is to expand first to other English-speaking countries, with foreign language support in the future to build a global network of internet do-gooders. Including data from other social networks is also in the pipeline, starting with Twitter and later, Foursquare and Pinterest. A smartphone app is also on the agenda, so get your detective devices ready -- we can be heroes, if just for one click.
Apple's Ping no longer pinging back, leaves memories of white noise in its wake
"I can't remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride Something touched me deep inside... the day the music died." R.I.P. Ping (09.01.2010 - 09.30.2012)
Facebook shutting down facial recognition in the EU, gets stamp of approval from Ireland DPC
Earlier this year, Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner, a body whose decisions impact Facebook's policies in Europe at large, made several recommendations to bring the website in line with regional privacy laws, calling for greater transparency on how users' data is handled and more user control over settings, among other things. The DPC just officially announced that Zuckerberg et al. have for the most part adjusted its policies accordingly. The biggest change involves the facial recognition feature, which attempts to identify Facebook friends in photos and suggest their names for tagging. The social network turned off this functionality for new users in the EU -- and it will be shutting it down entirely by October 15th. It's not like Ireland, home to Facebook's European HQ, is the first to give the site flack about such features: Germany was having none of it when the site introduced facial recognition last summer.
Ping going dark on September 30th, no longer accepting new members
Ping, Apple's foray into music-centric social networking, hasn't seen much in the way of updates since it was announced two years ago, and now the folks in Cupertino are set to shut it down on September 30th. Struck with the sudden urge to sign-up for the service and take it for a spin before it goes offline? You're out of luck. Visiting the network's home in iTunes reveals that Cook and Co. are no longer accepting new members. From here on out, you'll just have to find other avenues to keep tabs on what tunes are playing within your social circles.
Japan considers using social networks in disaster situations
Emergency services are embracing technology as new ways to investigate, send alerts and receive reports of crises. And now, the Japanese are looking at social networks to support communication in disaster scenarios, especially when traditional services fail. The local Fire and Disaster Management Agency put together a panel discussion on just that topic, with representatives attending from the likes of Twitter, Yahoo, Mixi and NHN Japan, as well as various government and emergency bodies. The talk was motivated, in part, by the March tsunami, when the internet was the sole means of information for some, and with initiatives like Google's Person Finder playing a role in the aftermath. Any formal implementation of the ideas discussed is probably a long way off, and this is the first of three planned meets to hash it out. In the meantime, however, Twitter's Japanese blog posted some suggestions on how their network could be used in emergencies -- we just hope they won't be needed anytime soon.
Google Chrome for iOS update brings sharing to G+, Facebook and Twitter
We've had Google's Chrome browser on iPad and iPhone since June and now it has received its first update. After a recent update for the Google+ iOS app added sharing of links to Chrome, the lead feature in the new version is the ability to share from Chrome to "your favorite social network" (Google+, Facebook or Twitter). There have been a few other tweaks that the team says are in response to user reports including better sync sign in error messages, language detection and a fix for blank pages in incognito mode. While a share function that's limited to just a few apps and not being able to use it as the default browser still doesn't quite match the Android edition, users who prefer it to Safari can snag Chrome 21.0.1180.77 free in the usual place.
Facebook to backup its servers with low-power storage devices at 'Sub-Zero' data center
Data backups come in all shapes and sizes. For some, they take the form of external hard drives or a slice of the amorphous cloud. As for Facebook, its upcoming solution is low-power deep-storage hardware contained within a 62,000 square-foot building in Prineville, Oregon near its existing Beaver State data center. Unofficially referred to as "Sub-Zero," the facility will store a copy of the social network's data in case its primary servers need to be restored in an emergency. Rather than continuously power HDDs that are only occasionally used, the new setup can conserve energy by lighting-up drives just when they're needed. One of the company's existing server racks eats up around 4.5 kilowatts, while those at Sub-Zero are each expected to consume approximately 1.5 kilowatts once they're up and running. Tom Furlong, Facebook's vice president of site operations, told Wired that there are hopes to create a similar structure alongside the firm's North Carolina data center. Since the Prineville project is still being planned, Zuckerberg & Co. have roughly six to nine months to suss out all the details before your photos are backed up at the new digs.
Facebook starts really, truly deleting removed photos
For those who haven't kept track, Facebook has had a years-long history of only maybe-sort-of-more-or-less purging our photos: they could be removed from a profile, but they would sometimes float around the site's content delivery networks for months or years, just waiting for a prospective employer to spot those embarrassing frosh week snapshots by accident. As Ars Technica discovered through experiments and official remarks, that problem should now be solved. In the wake of a months-long photo storage system migration and an updated deletion policy, Facebook now won't let removed photos sit for more than 30 days in the content network stream before they're scrubbed once and for all. The improved reaction time isn't as rapid as for a service like Instagram, where photos vanish almost immediately, but it might be a lifesaver for privacy advocates -- or just anyone who's ever worn a lampshade on their head in a moment of insobriety.
Facebook App Center goes full circle, rolls out to all users worldwide
While Mark's network had already flipped the App Center switch in a number of parts around the globe, there was still a large chunk of its abundant user base missing out on the recently unveiled application hub. That's all about to change starting today, however, as a Facebook rep has announced on Twitter the social app shop is now available to every single one of its signees worldwide. In other words, this means now you'll have yet another thing to keep track of during your daily internet browsing routine.
Google Takeout introduces transfer tool for Google+ circles, merges your work and personal life
Those who extol the virtues of keeping one's personal and professional life separate probably never had to juggle two Google+ accounts. Folks saddled with a Google+ profile for both their personal Gmail account and their organization's Google Apps account can now migrate circles, blocks and other information from one account to another using Google Takeout. The new tool won't eliminate your double digital life completely, however -- content such as posts, profile information and comments don't migrate. The process takes time, too, kicking off with a seven day waiting period before restricting the user's Google+ access for 48 hours while Takeout boxes up the data. Still, this should make managing Circles across multiple accounts a little simpler. Check out the official Google help page at the source link below.
Facebook's App Center pokes its way into the UK, now available to you and your friends
It's been nearly a month since we saw Facebook officially introduce us to its newly minted App Center, and now Zuck & Co. are taking the application-loaded service to internet grounds over in the UK. Facebook's App Center in the Kingdom (or, as UKers call it, App Centre) won't be much different in comparison to its American counterpart, thus you'll still be able to grab all those big-name apps like the network's own Instagram, Draw Something, Spotify and Pinterest -- of course, there's over 600 others to choose from. In addition to these, though, there are some Euro-specific additions to the application mix, including Deezer's music streaming goods. Eager to find out what all the App Centre fuss is about? Then head over to the source below, where you'll be able to poke around it yourself.
Samsung says Facebook project rumor 'groundless'
Samsung has stated that it's not planning to offer a social network along the lines of Facebook. Previously referred to as Samsung Facebook, the company reiterates that it'll continue to offer its own Family Story service on its devices -- and its working to upgrade the experience. However, this will remain "far from a Samsung Facebook."
Samsung aiming for complete mobile domination with rumored Facebook competitor
Samsung's made no secret of its ambitions to commandeer all aspects of mobile tech -- from the devices themselves to processors and software like ChatON and the recently announced Siri competitor S Voice. While we've seen the company head into social media territory before, it looks like it wants an even bigger piece of that pie. According to The Korea Times, Sammy is gearing up to launch a Facebook-style service early next year. The network, code-named (rather transparently) Samsung Facebook, will supposedly be integrated with Amazon's cloud computing platform, and the company is using its already-existing Family Story network as a starting point for the service. And lest you think the company sees edging out Facebook as a serious challenge, it hopes to expand its social media service "across different devices from different companies across different mobile platforms."
