It’s the business of engagement, of interpretation, of reaching people before they reach the product or service they love. Social media from an instrumental perspective has helped evolve a sub-class of new society based on their participation in online activities. It has changed the way we look around us.

Earlier it was considered a platform for socializing, a window that connects people, an auxiliary for leisure, a corner to share emotions and share ideas. Over a period of time it transformed into a major marketing pillar. From start-ups to local business and multinational corporations, all businesses recognized the need to expand their presence online using sites that connect and involve direct human participation.

Days of traditional marketing through newspapers, magazine advertisements, posters and television commercials seem to be fading. The size of human engagement online is greater than conventional marketing mediums.

Marketing, no matter conventional or technocratic, blows away barriers and distance between potential customers and the product. A real-time analogy tells us that online marketing through social media sites makes far-reaching interactions with millions of people at the same time easy.

Simple Facebook or LinkedIn user statistics are enough to support the view that, in comparison of conventional marketing, digital marketing through social media is powerful tool because it engages an unthinkably large number of people.

It all takes places beyond fun, games, status updates and tweets; an unimaginably vast playground filled with digitized thinking.

According to the Digital Marketing Ramblings‘ website release of statistics of the number of people using the most popular social media sites, Facebook is on the top slot with 1 billion users, followed by YouTube with 800 million users and 4 billion views per day, QQ with 700 million users, and the Micro-blogging platform Twitter has 500 million users.

Further, Sina Weibo has 400 million users and LinkedIn has 175 million users. According to Media bistro, in their social media marketing industry report, 83 percent of marketers believe that social media is important, and about 94 percent of marketers use social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter for business purposes.

A tally among the tools reveals that Facebook is in the top slot on the preference list of marketers, followed by Twitter and LinkedIn. This is testimonial information with an indication that social connectivity will be helpful for businesses based on customers’ presence.

However, some critics argue that as users gradually move to mobile phones from the computer, advertisements need to undergo technical renovation to keep the communication line alive, or else days are numbered for online marketers.

According to Mashable, Kleiner Perkins’ partner Mary Meeker illustrated the financial gap in her annual trend report that says mobile phones occupy 10 percent of people’s media consumption time and commands only 1 percent of advertising budgets.

It’s an indication that marketing will undergo change following consumer decisions; it means that as screen size expands or contracts (from personal computer to laptops, from tablets to mobile phones), advertisements will change to fit them.

But perhaps, no matter to what platform on-line marketing may divert, it is for sure days of digital marketing are greatly radiant.

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The UN propped International Telecommunication Union (ITU) began its World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) on December 3 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, aptly named ‘wicket’. Notably, the panel of 193 national delegates was to include Internet giant Google, which decided to protest the regulation of the Word Wide Web in person. Seven days into the eleven day conference both Facebook and Google Internet services crashed. In the closing moments of the WCIT, the USA, UK, Canada and Australia walked out on proceedings that counted a show-of-hands as a binding constituent resolution.

The day after the Google/FB crash, the NYC Post announced Google’s new holding company in Bermuda, shielding the Online giant from some two billion dollars of global tax deficit. The following day, Google admitted to shutting down its Shopping service in China. Meanwhile, within the conference, voting blocks had formed: India, Japan, Germany, Italy lead Europe in a rally maintaining a deregulated Internet. Almost half of the 193 nations, including Russia, China, Indonesia, Nigeria, Brazil, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia went on to ratify a treaty that boasts strong African, Arabian, Asian and Latin-American membership. Some fifty nations reserved the right to ratify at a later date while some nations simply abstained.

The conference was to mitigate the over one thousand three hundred proposals that critics attest will aid and abet government crack-downs on free speech. Censorship isn’t the only issue; some blocks believe in charging Internet providers for providing free content, while zeroing in and taxing international content to mitigate the specter of confusing multiculturalism in fragile societies.

American developers see these UN tariffs as nothing less than forced economic redistribution of good and services focused on empowering individuals to commune through communication: “Engineers, companies and people that build and use the Web have no vote. The billions of people around the globe that use the Internet, the experts that build and maintain it, should be included,” stated Google Online.

ITU Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Touré readily admits to targeting the world’s mobile-phone population (90% of the world by his account) and converting two-thirds of the Earth – the offline population – to an Internet lifestyle. Obviously, he’s talking about leveraging the current market dominators to accelerate market penetration as a UN policy; the preamble of the WCIT treaty certainly states so much in legalese.

While the doctor claims to be fighting for the rights of the developing world, his agency’s using development to separate the bestowers of this technology from their clients by standing against a free and unregulated multicultural Web. The proposition floated by some Europeans to fund developing-market intrusion by taxing international services underlines this point. Information Society politicians seeking to mass the market of the majority of the Earth’s population as an international politic to promote appeal is a founding philosophy of the Internet to be sure. Now it stands for politicians’ grab to price-fix, promoting foreign lobbies in a vicious circle that rewards volume and seeks to grant the voluminous ingenuity over protestations of leading companies.

Despite a unanimous vote resolving USA Congress opposition to the WCIT philosophy of a government-controlled Web December 5 – two days after the start of the WCIT – the USA must admit that it is only due to government facilitation that its miracle machine is organized by the non-for-profit giant Internet Corporation for Assigned Names And Numbers (ICANN).

While Westerners decry governed regulation of the ultimate portal into multiculturalism, the arguments against subordination to stultifying bureaucrats and against UN regulation of App-oriented browsers have wilt before the principal accusation: cultural Fascism. But corporations must be most fearful of increased global competition and powerful ITU regulations that can standardize international telecommunication equipment, championing a myriad of local entrepreneurs to introduce the Americans to the margin-cutting global realities of that nation-state controlled thing: free-speech.

Americans touting to possess the ultimate machine in free speech stand the most to lose as a brand.

But no-one mentions what UN presence represents more than anything else to free-market governments: a biting hindsight that can sue even the intelligence community for human rights’ violations by promoting free-speech in violation of hate-crime legislation.

Surely, the USA could benefit from an international body of inquisitive souls who would like to know how in the GPS-age could the awkward master-mind of the Aurora massacre manage to kill an Airforce Sergeant among his victims in a Colorado movie-house.

UN restrictions against prosecuting neglect may melt in the face of over-sight reality: an out-manned capitalist economy that no-longer polices itself with integrity but only as some Nation-State that is neither Fascist nor Communist nor watching nor political – simply disturbed.

Perhaps this is why a group of WCIT experts showed up in Stanford a week before the Dubai meeting to take part in the discussion: ‘Sticky WCIT: Is This the End of the Internet?’

WCIT marks the setting of the World Wide Web behind the accessible Web and the State-controlled ubiquity of the Internet. Perhaps all three were once synonymous. Now, like a nation-state of three minds, like a Common Wealth of Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, each community answers for itself to the benefit of the engineered whole.

Perhaps this is why long after the WCIT vote should have been published at the top of engine searches Online, discrepancies rather than harmonies leapt to the fore. ITU spokesperson Sarah Parkes reportedly contended that Google did not attend WCIT as it chose not to participate as an IT member.

So it was a haughty observer?

Google is now listed as the top Congressional lobbyist to 118 Congress members on OpenSecrets.org. So on my Internet search at the end of ITU WCIT, rather than finding a published vote tally, all that was readily available were links to the thirty page agreement and consensus on English outrage. After hours of contradictory reporting, a WCITleaks.org site rose to the helm, linking leading voices of the 4th Estate: the NY Times and Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Vanity Fair.

Follow up news was immediately inconclusive: the English-speaking world had spoken; nothing happened.

The Intellectual Property now isn’t a language – isn’t a code – it’s coding which is only something from nothing according to latest wicket.

Image Courtesy : Itupictures

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The Israel-Gaza Conflict has existed for almost a decade and while there are many sides to this tumulus relationship, one young man took a stand when he posted a message on his Facebook page.

Waheed Elsamra is an Egyptian supporter of the Palestinian city of Gaza, wanting to do his part in informing people of the truth behind Israel’s plight with Gaza and dared them to respond to the Massacre.

“The destruction of Gaza is not about stopping Hamas, it’s not about stopping rocket fire in Israel, it’s not about achieving peace, the Israeli decision to rain death and destruction on Gaza by the use of lethal weapons of the modern battle field on a large defenseless civilian population is the final phase of the decades long campaign to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians,” Elsamra said.

The battle between Israel Defense Forces and the Palestinian militants is not a level playing field. “Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely crowded refugee camps, schools, apartment blocks, mosques, and slums. They attack a population who has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no army, no ground defense, no artillery units, no command, and they call it a war,” Elsamra said.

There is an ethic to war; this ethic states that one army is battling another army. “These people (Palestinians) have no army, so you target busy neighborhood streets and kill innocent civilians and pedestrians,” Elsamra said.

The reason that Israel has so much military power at its hands is because they are using American weapons. Elsamra noted that America gave Israel 300 billion dollars for the Gaza Massacre a few years back.

According to Congressman Paul Ryan, in an interview from 2009, he clarified the level of support the Bush administration has given Israel. “Certainly, the president has said nothing to diminish it. As a matter of fact, he justifies it on moral grounds, saying, oh, they have a right to do this, without ever mentioning the tragedy of Gaza.”

As far as the monetary support, Cong. Ryan had no issue speaking on that, “ you know, if Israel has a problem, they have to deal with it. I don’t think it should be any of our business. It’s just that it’s our business and we will be blamed because we support Israel blindly, so. And we give them the money and we give them the weapons. That should be the contention that we approach here and Congress should know about it and the American people should know about.”

The same battle that Israel and Gaza were facing three years ago are no different than what is going on today. Elsamra has been trying to do the Palestinian people justice by spreading the truth via social media and recently speaking out at a “Free Palestine” protest rally that took place in New Orleans, Louisiana.

“My duty right now is to educate the people that lack these facts and try to let them understand that I am an American and I’m not against them but I’m not for, what they are for, and what they are for is proven in these facts that I have stated,” Elsmra said.

The efforts to achieve a truce, as the attacks have ceased between Israel and Gaza,  have been somewhat successful but this is only the end of one battle, the war is still going on and it seems as if there is no end in sight.

Image Courtesy : Derivative work: Adambro (talk):Brocken Inaglory [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

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As the US election for president draws closer, dirtier the debates become. This does not only extend to President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, but to the voters themselves. Since this election is so important to the United States, people who have not previously paid much attention to politics–myself included–have been roped into the huge battle for control. The battle has now been dragged into cyberspace.

Facebook has exploded with status and picture updates about the election and who individuals support, which creates tension among friends who are supporting different candidates. I know some of my friends are hardly talking to one another strictly because of fights they have had about politics.

My family and I have an agreement to not discuss politics because we support opposing candidates, and the fights would always turn ugly when the subject came up. However, the rest of the country is letting everyone know their position for the election; political conventions and rallies are happening left and right because everyone wants to get support for their candidate. In other elections, people were not as passionate about who they planned on voting for.

Sure, the election campaigns were aired on TV and everyone was subjected to the annoying phone calls sponsoring a candidate, but friends and families were not torn apart because of politics. Meanwhile, both candidates are trying to make themselves look as saintly as possible while simultaneously trying to make their opponent seem like the anti-Christ. The presidential debates have been the most public display of this goal. The debates have caused a huge stir with voters with trying to determine who “won” the debate.

Romney had better stage presence while Obama looked like he did not want to be there. Obama kept trying to play off of Bill Clinton and emphasizing how horrible George W. Bush was while not taking ownership of any of his own shortcomings. During Obama’s reign, the country’s deficit tripled and he added more debt than any other president combined.  But none of this is his fault, only Bush’s. Obama kept twisting Romney’s plan for taxes, which Romney defended and said that Obama was purposely misleading the public.

Romney continually challenged Obama, who never really defended himself fully. Since the debates, others have tried to make excuses as to why Obama did not seem to be present and involved. However, all the debates have done is created more of a gray area while the public decides which candidate is the biggest liar.

With the debates over, political commercials are always on TV. It has gotten to the point that I refuse to watch any TV until after the election craziness is over. Neither candidate is perfect, and it gets to be very depressing watching Romney have commercials saying how horrible President Obama is while Obama projects the opposite sentiment.

The election is a month away, and it is sure to get much worse before the ballots are collected and tallied. November is guaranteed to be a political bloodbath.   Image Courtesy of   new-york-city

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London, U.K. — Recent data released by Bingoport.co.uk, the UK’s independent authority on online bingo, has shown that Google is the most popular non-bingo website for online bingo players, narrowly ahead of Facebook.

The data, released in Bingoport’s most recent Quarterly Bingo Trends Report, was compiled through surveying Bingoport’s extensive database of online bingo players, representing a broad and unbiased section of the online bingo playing market.

According to the survey, 70% of online bingo players regularly use Google, compared with 69% who regularly use Facebook. This is in contrast to the greater UK online population, where reportedly, 77.7% are Facebook users and over 90% use Google search.

The lower Google share can be attributed to higher usage of other search engines, with 16% of online bingo players using Bing/MSN and 22% using Yahoo, markedly higher market shares than in the greater online population.

As for the lower rate of Facebook usage, Bingoport’s Operations Manager, Andrew Housego, believes it is indicative of the social nature of online bingo sites. “Although most online bingo players use Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family, there are plenty whose sole point of online social contact is their favourite bingo site. In fact, there are plenty of online bingo players whose only activity on the internet is accessing their favourite bingo site.”

Other non-bingo sites frequented regularly by online bingo players included Amazon.co.uk, eBay and YouTube, along with banking sites, news and travel websites.

Image Courtesy of  niallkennedy

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Klout has been in existence for about three years, but so far hasn’t reached the popularity of some social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, even though these ones are used inside of Klout’s program. It utilizes one number to measure a user’s influence across the amount of social networks that this user may be a member of.

As soon as you open a profile in Klout and connect all of your data through the personal social networks, one number called a Klout score will instantly pop up on the screen. The company explains this number as your influence of power across your network and it is calculated based on algorithms that are able to check the size of your network, the amount of content created and how the others are interacting with that content through sharing possibilities and likes, for instance.

The algorithm that is used to calculate the influence level of a user based on the ability to drive action on social networks is being constantly improved. The actual Klout website connects social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Tumblr, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Intagram, Blogger, LastFm, and Flickr and it is also trying to increase to include other ones.

The constant updates are also intended to show the user’s influence on the web. In the beginning it was possible to find metrics as True Reach, Amplification and Network Impact, but these scores have been removed to give space to Moments. According with the company’s explanation, this section will work as a report of the user’s activity from the past 90 days and how each activity has impacted a user’s Klout. This new feature is going to come in the next few weeks.

The Klout score has received attention mainly in the job recruiting processes. It came out that few companies had been hiring the candidates with higher “influence power” according to Klout, but the discussion has started to show that one number related to one’s virtual influence may not be a strong argument for such definitions.

Many candidates with work experience have been declined for companies that choose by Klout score. The job recruiters must give the right weight for such score, and a few professionals are actually saying that this weight should be zero. It is possible that one’s influence on social media could mean that a person actually doesn’t do so much besides posting and updating his or her social profiles.

Many companies have been discussing what the best way to use Klout score is. Airlines, the hospitality industry,  and big retailers are trying to develop one way to reach those with the best influence, and through this method drive actions through the social network. Offering special gifts, VIP areas, or cards to develop a premium experience for those with higher Klout scores can be on the plan for such companies, but so far, there aren’t any real public actions that correlate.

Many strongly divergent opinions have risen debating if Klout is good or bad. The best solution for the user is to be aware about the functionality and goals of the Klout score and how this can impact their security and privacy, and from the companies’ point of view, there are always chances to reach key people to increase influence.

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A great amount of money was kicked out of Facebook’s founder and CEO personal fortune and now more members of the Zuckerberg family are working for Google.

Social media phenomenon Facebook was developed by Mark Elliot Zuckerberg in 2004 while he was an undergraduate student at Harvard University studying computer science.

Facebook became a publicly traded company on May 18. It was listed under the ticket FB on the NASDAQ, and the first sale of stock by the company to the public was priced at $38 per share. This was one of the biggest Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) ever, and during the first day of negotiations the share reached the price of $45. Zuckerberg’s social network was the only U.S company that went public with a market value over than $100 billion.

Facebook’s shares hit a new low of $19.01 on August 17 after the tech company released 271.1 million shares on Thursday and early investors got the green light to sell for the first time. This is more than one-half of the 421 million shares that were sold when the tech company debuted in May.

Compared to the opening price, Zuckerberg’s social network has lost nearly 50 percent of its value since the floatation. Half of investors’ capital has vaporized in three months because of this disaster. Wall Street bankers were paid $176 million in fees in order to sell the $16 billion of share they sold on the Facebook Initial Public Offering.

Meanwhile, the investors who bought Facebook’s share on the IPO have lost nearly $8 billion by now. Lynn Cowan of the Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook’s bankers are divvying up another $100 million they made on Facebook’s shares. That means they are shorting Facebook’s stock, so bankers are actually betting against their own clients.

According to Bloomberg, Facebook is now the worst-performing IPO since records began. But what does this mean exactly? It means that most current and prior employees at Facebook are now worth far less than they were a few months ago.

The Los Angeles Times ran an article stating that there are many who believe that Mark Zuckerberg should stand down and let someone else run the $10 billion company. Sam Hamadeh head of research firm PrivCo, Barry Ritholtz, head of research firm Fusion IQ, Chris Whalen, senior managing director at Tangent Capital Partners in New York and Scott Sweet, senior managing partner of Tampa-based IPO Boutique, are some of the investors who believe that the company should hire an experienced CEO to run things.

The founder and CEO of Facebook has lost $600 million because of the company’s decline on Friday, and the young entrepreneur has dropped out of the world’s top 10 technology billionaires’ club, the Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.

James Goodnight, the co-founder of SAS Institute, is now worth more than Facebook’s CEO and replaced Zuckerberg as the 10th-richest person on the list. But don’t worry, because even though Zuckerberg’s personal fortune has dropped $600 million, he is still worth nearly $10 billion.

Earlier this month during a company-wide meeting, which was held in order to boost company morale, Zuckerberg admitted that the stock’s decline is “painful” to watch for some employees. In the coming months, experts expect the company to lift more sales restrictions in order to maintain Facebook’s stock at a state of stagnation for quite some time yet. David Kirkpatrick, author of ‘The Facebook Effect,’ thinks that Zuckerberg isn’t really concerned about the diminishing value of his own stake in the company.

But stocks are not the only thing Zuckerberg’s company is losing. Last Tuesday, Google obtained Wildfire, the social ads marketing firm, where Zuckerberg’s sister, Arielle, works. Arielle Zuckerberg is now officially an employee at Google, Facebook’s biggest rival. Mark Zuckerberg reportedly tried to persuade Arielle to work for Facebook, but she wanted to pursue an independent route.

Mark’s other sibling, Randi Zuckerberg, left Facebook last year in order to begin her own media company. Randi commented on Twitter about her sister’s career move, saying that now there are officially more Zuckerberg family members working for Google than Facebook.

Image Courtesy of    jdlasica

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Two wars are being waged in Syria. There is the physical fighting going on between the rebels and government troops but there is also a media war going on in which the results of the physical battles are being hidden or changed to misrepresent facts. One young activist, Yahya Abdulrahman, a physics student at Aleppo University claimed, “The regime is fighting the people in two ways. One is with the army. The other is with the media. There are parts of the Free Syrian Army that are fighting the regime. But there are other parts fighting the regime’s hackers.””

Smart phones have been key in the Syrian uprising – just like in the Arab Spring revolutions – because, according to the Christian Science Monitor, it is a way for the people to undermine the state media (which is controlled by Assad) and get supporters within Syria and in the rest of the world. So far the Syrian government has banned access to YouTube and Facebook, but several of the youth have found ways around these government firewalls.

Having smart phones and access to computers and internet allow the rebels to communicate with friends and family as well as talk to soldiers who want to defect to the rebel army.

Many Syrian rebels have risked their lives while fighting the media war. According to the Guardian hundreds of video activists have joined the revolution through videography; most are male, young, and technologically capable individuals. Abdulrahman, one of these activists, admits that filming is just as dangerous as fighting with a gun: “If the army sees anyone with a camera they try and kill him first.”

However, the video aspect of the revolution is just as important as the actual physical fighting. Assad controls Syria’s television stations which claim that the Free Syrian Army (the rebels) is a group of “terrorists” and “al-Qaida” while also broadcasting pro-regime propaganda. Abu Mhio, a rebel media activist claims, “When we will be free, [Syrian TV] will be dead.”

If Assad controls all of the media in the country he can prevent the successes of the rebels from being reported which lowers their support and prevents more people from getting involved. In order to ensure that the world and the Syrian people actually know what is going on in Syria they must record it for themselves, even if it is emotionally tolling and life-threatening.

Abdulrahman was arrested once for video-recording a protest on his campus. After being beaten and made to sign a piece of paper claiming he was an informant, he was released and continued filming for the rebels. He has also filmed the dead in the streets to show the toll of the fighting. “I filmed one of the children killed last week. We hadn’t eaten all day because of Ramadan. But afterwards I couldn’t touch any food.”

In previous years rebels have not had such technological access to aid them in their cause. Hafez al-Assad, the current ruler’s father, ruled Syria from 1970 and was responsible for destroying the Muslim Brotherhood uprising in the city of Hama in 1982, killing at least 10,000 people. One rebel fighter explained to the Christian Science Monitor, “His father destroyed Hama in a few days, but there was no TV there and no internet to show the world. But today we have the internet, we photograph and film and have Al Jazeera, so people know. They can see what is happening.”

Few journalists have been allowed within Syria in the recent months of fighting, but those that have, have received threats. One Guardian journalist received a death threat via a tweet from a member of the regime stating, “I pray every night that you die.”

Those journalists that are allowed in the country are also not provided a lot of access. Another journalist, Alex Thomson, tweeted “Syrian government is losing the PR war” when they refused to let him interview or record the Syrian military.

Ultimately, winning the media war will be just as important as winning the physical war for both sides. The rebels have succeeded in many ways but they must take Aleppo in order to really start making changes. According to Burhan Ghalioun, a member of the Syrian National Council currently in Paris, if the rebels take Aleppo “there will be nothing more that will stand in the way of the Free Syrain Army. Hama, Homs, to the outskirts of Damascus have in large part been liberated.”

Image Courtesy of  Omar Chatriwala

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Hod Hasharon, Israel — Allot Communications, a leading provider of service optimization and revenue generation solutions for fixed and mobile data networks worldwide, have announced a new Allot Olympics Report tracking broadband traffic volumes and usage patterns during the 2012 Olympics in London.

Traffic statistics were collected from mobile and fixed networks around the globe, starting with the opening ceremony on Friday evening, July 27th, and continue throughout the games. Allot began monitoring global traffic weeks before the event to establish a usage baseline.

Results and analysis of broadband usage are posted in an Olympic Online Edition of Allot MobileTrends Report at http://www.allotmobiletrends.com. To mark the event, Allot released a special edition of protocol signatures with unique support for identifying traffic directly related to popular sources of online sports coverage such as ESPN, CNTV (China) and BBC Sports.

Key findings in the Online Report include:

• Instant Messaging increased 182% on average during the opening ceremony; WhatsApp was out front with a massive 430% increase
• Online video increased and peaked at 217% during the first official day of competition, with dedicated sites such as ESPN, BBC Sports and CNTV leading the pack
• Facebook traffic posted an 87% increase during the first two days of the games
• YouTube traffic hit 40% during the first official day of competition

This is the first time the Olympics are being streamed live over the Internet. As a result, people can watch and discuss the games anywhere, anytime via mobile access devices.

“Mobile access to the Internet has become part of the online lifestyle for billions of people, and they are taking full advantage of the online content available,” said Jonathon Gordon, Director of Marketing, Allot Communications. “Allot enables fixed and mobile broadband service providers to gain a competitive edge by monitoring and managing the real-time impact of the Olympic Games on their networks.”

Visit http://www.allotmobiletrends.com to view more statistics and sign up for updates sent directly via email

Image Courtesy of  RachelC

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One of the newest of the Facebook games, SimCity Social, has all of the favorites for fans of the Sims and Facebook. The free online game has content similar to previous Sims games but also features new developments that are made just for Facebook and that come from the newest and upcoming Sim game.

In SimCity Social, the focus is on socializing and city-building according to All Things Digital. The city-building is similar to previous Sim games and to Facebook games such as CityVille and FarmVille. However, unlike the Sims there is no need to take care of the utilities within the city and there are no taxes.

The city-building in the game happens through using one’s resources wisely. The game currency is called simoleans, which can be used to buy things like houses. Diamonds are also used as currency but they are normally used for upgrading factories or larger projects. Players can buy game diamonds with real money in order to get a boost in the game. Some of the things players can buy include things that one could consider advertisements, such as Dunkin’ Donuts or a billboard advertising a Mercedes.

The game has several features, including 3D graphics and even more creative freedom than in previous Sim games according to IBN Live. There are no set paths, although players can gain experience points from completing certain tasks and building new things in their cities in order to reach the next mayor level.

SimCity Social provides the players with real social issues to deal with spontaneously such as natural disasters and climate change. Players can also experience different scenery depending on whether they choose to be in German, British, or French style neighborhoods.

SimCity Social, even more than city-building, is about socializing with friends. Within SimCity Social, players can interact with their friends and send gifts to each other – much like in FarmVille. Players can hire each other for certain tasks and can become allies or enemies with different cities. A player can also visit a friend’s city in order to get an energy boost and can receive more resources and higher property values if a friend visits his or her city.

Jami Laes, Vice President of Playfish Global Studios, claimed that the game provides many different options for every path a player could want to choose when interacting with his or her friends. Laes stated, “whether you… [act through] kindness by helping put out a fire or through mischievous acts like helping a criminal escape, the decisions you make with your friends will determine how the story of your city plays out.”

Currently there are around 750,000 Sims Facebook fans. The game creators have announced that if someone is playing the game and adds his or her ‘like’ to the Facebook page they can receive free access to exclusive content from the next Sims game.

SimCity Social is essentially a prototype version of the latest Sims game that will be coming out in 2013. In the newest version there will be multiplayer support and will allow up to sixteen friends to play together at once.

According to Kotaku, what SimCity Social lacks is the depth of the PC version of the game. Because the game focuses more on city-building, making it similar to Facebook games like CityVille and FarmVille, other aspects such as the collection of taxes and taking care of utilities that made the game more complicated are lost.

Kotaku states, “[it's] strategic enough to distract players from the fact that they’re caught in an endless cycle of earning enough residents to expand their city, buying new land, and starting the whole process over again…SimCity Social is a cute and capable social city-builder. It’s also a shameless attempt to capitalize on the success of Zynga’s wildly popular CityVille, slapping a powerful name on a game that could never live up to its legacy.”

However, Kotaku does admit that the upcoming PC version of SimCity Social will be much more exciting and complicated. “What’s exciting about this new Sim City is how alive it feels, how much it makes the earliest games in the series feel as static as board games. This one feels alive.”

It looks as if most fans of Facebook’s city-building games will enjoy this latest addition, but fans of previous Sims games should wait for the next PC version.

Image Courtesy of   SimCity Social

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This article is a continuation of the Best Facebook Games of 2012, exploring the most exciting and popular games on the social media site.

Fifth on the list of most popular games in 2012 is the Sims Social. Similar to the classic Sims game, users control the life of an individual and are responsible for everything he or she does. There are only nine traits that the characters in the game can have, but unlike the previous Sim games these traits can be leveled. The game also has virtual celebrities lake Lady Gaga and Elvis Presley.

Although Sims Social only had 15.7 million users in the month of June and has 2.8 million daily users, it has been an important feature of Facebook since games were released. Prior to Sims there was Yoville, a version of Sims that Facebook created before it partnered with the Sims franchise. In YoVille, the top game of 2009, users would control a character, his home, his job, and could play minigames.

In sixth place is the well-known Words With Friends. One of the most popular daily games is Words With Friends. Although it does not reach as wide a base as other games, with only 17.1 million users in the month of June, it is one of the most popular that is used daily with 7 million users; it has also been listed as one of the best Facebook games of all time by Kotaku. Words With Friends is similar to Scrabble but is online with a chat feature that allows players to leave messages for their friends.

In seventh place is the extremely popular Bubble Witch Saga that had 20.7 million users in June 2012 alone and has 6.2 million daily users. Similar to Peggle or Bubble Island the user must destroy colored bubbles by matching bubbles of the same color. Bubble Witch Saga was also listed as one of the best Facebook games of all time on Kotaku.

In eighth place is the Hidden Chronicles. In this game the user searches for a list of hidden objects in different rooms in order to solve a mystery. It has 5.1 million daily users and had 20.4 million users in the month of June.

In ninth place is the very well-known Angry Birds. Made popular through a phone app, the user throws angry birds at green pigs who have stolen the birds’ eggs. The game has been gaining in popularity and had 19.9 million users in June 2012 and has an average of 3 million users a day. Angry Birds was also on Kotaku’s top nine Facebook games of all time.

In tenth place is are two classic games that are very similar in game play: Bejeweled Blitz and Diamond Dash. Diamond Dash had 18.4 million users in June and has 4.3 million daily users. Bejeweled Blitz has an average of 3.4 million users a month and is very similar in game play. In both games the player rearranges gems to get rid of sets within a time limit.

Although these are the most popular games of 2012 the nature of the Facebook social network means that what is popular is constantly changing. Facebook has released a new Marvel: Avengers Alliance game that is a 2D fighter. It has been listed as one of the best Facebook games by Kotaku and has been climbing in Facebook popularity. Currently the game has 9.4 million users a month and has had the fourth highest gain in June with 2.1 million users.

Ultimately what is popular this year and what is popular next year may change drastically in regards to which games are being played, but it seems clear that Facebook users prefer the classics and city-building more than any other types.

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Mark Zuckerberg created the sensational Facebook as a sophomore at Harvard University. Originally just for university students around the world, Facebook opened its doors to anyone thirteen years or older on September 26, 2006. Since then the social network has been criticized for issues related to privacy settings and has even admitted that some of the cookies on Facebook could be used to track users after they leave Facebook.

But beyond all of the issues that Facebook may have it is an invaluable tool for keeping in touch friends, wasting time, and sharing photos and links. Facebook has also developed into one of the best sites to stay entertained. Since 2006 there have been quizzes and games on Facebook but recently these games have exploded in quantity and popularity.

Facebook games are constantly changing, whether current features are being updated or new features are being added. The games that are most popular are also changing every year but the ones that in the top ten are almost always from similar types of games. Most people seem to enjoy classic games – like Tetris, Bejeweled, and Angry Birds (a newer classic) – but they also love games that include strategy and building something over time – like CityVille and FarmVille.

The number one game of 2012 is CityVille with 40.9 million users a month and 6.2 million users daily according to Inside Social Games. In the game the Facebook user is the mayor of a small town. As mayor the user must perform tasks to develop and level the city including construction and collecting rent. The user’s friends can also be employed to perform tasks within the town and help the user to level his or her city. With ninety levels, users need all of the help they can get. Although CityVille was launched in 2010 there have been similar games such as FarmVille that have been around even longer.

The second place in most popular Facebook games of 2012 is Zynga’s Texas HoldEm Poker. Although not an original Facebook creation, the game demonstrates that classic games of the real world do not have to disappear with the internet. With 35 million users in June 2012 alone and 6.9 million daily users, the classic game is, not surprisingly, one of the most commonly played games on Facebook. Inside Social Games claims that Texas HoldEm Poker has a monthly average of 36.7 million users.

Prior to the creation of Texas HoldEm Poker, Bejeweled, Tetris, and many others Facebook had MindJolt Games. Mind Jolt allowed Facebook users to play classic arcade, puzzle, strategy, and sports games that users could play alone or with friends.

In third place is the 2009 game FarmVille. Prior to FarmVille there was FarmTown which was essentially the same game with a different name. FarmVille had about 21.7 million users in June 2012 and has 4.6 million daily users. FarmVille has always been one of the most popular games on Facebook, making the top ten list every year since its inception. In the game users plant crops and trees and take care of animals on his or her own farm. Harvesting crops will get the user in game money that can be used for decorations and new crops. Users can also interact with their friends who can have neighboring farms and help each other with their farms.

In fourth place is the CastleVille is one of Facebook’s more recent games, released in November 2011, and is similar to the other -ville games but includes more strategy. In CastleVille the user rules a kingdom and can do a whole range of things that include making armor, building up a castle, planting crops, and making alliances. CastleVille boasts 5.4 million daily users and 21.1 million users in the month of June 2012 alone.

To learn more see Even More of the Best Facebook Games of 2012!

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London, England – Financial and mobile issues might prove the least of Mark Zuckerberg’s problems claims a report out this week from top ten award winning independent market research agency Conquest into the social media habits of 14-24 year olds. It reveals that Facebook’s core audience- teenagers-are starting to fall out of love with the website and that activity may have peaked amid a mounting groundswell of dissatisfaction and concerns over privacy and bullying.

While Facebook’s pre-eminence is assured in the short term, “Fuicide” (the attempted or successful deletion of the account) is on the rise as are complaints about the damaging impact of regular and prolonged Facebook use. Grievances triggered by Facebook’s culture include obsession with appearance and acceptance of sexually provocative behaviour; increased negative self-esteem, vulnerability to bullying, depression caused by jealousy and comparing one’s life to peers and inability to project one’s true self. Conquest used its avatar driven methodology Metaphorix to capture respondent’s authentic feelings about social media.

The Evidence :

• Over 30% of the group have had sufficiently bad experience online to recently attempt or succeed in deleting their accounts, with 13% of regular users planning to lower their presence over the coming 12 months.
• Concerns about privacy, bullying and Facebook ‘making me feel down about life’ are the most cited reasons:-
• Specifically: vulnerability to bullying was stated by 44% as reason for feeling unhappy about using the site, as well as increased negative self-esteem (28%); depression sparked by unfavourable comparisons with other people’s lives (25%); and plain jealousy of others (24%).
• Nearly half of all young women (45%) felt that Facebook intensifies an obsession with appearance. Moreover, 33% of males concurred, with over a quarter stating that it boosts the acceptance of sexually provocative presentation.
•  A growing frustration was articulated with the Facebook culture’s inability to enable authentic expression of character. This is offset by young men’s relish at the opportunity afforded to exaggerate the facts about themselves, with 44% admitting to this.
• Generally speaking it is unsurprisingly young women who suffer more from the adverse effects of Facebook than their male counterparts with more female deleters and complainants of harmful consequences.

New and different sites (like Pinterest and fashism ) have experienced phenomenal growth in 2012 while Myspace has remained a stalwart for those musically minded, challenging Facebook’s monolithic status. Commented David Penn MD of Conquest and inventor of the Metaphorix methodology: “Could the future of social media be more niche networks catering for particular interests- those which users select in order to feel more comfortable, more inspired and ultimately more themselves?”

Conquest canvassed 300 regular Facebook users aged between 14 and 24 years old, equally balanced by gender and nationally representative on region.

Image Courtesy of  Vincos

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iPakistan is a new social media initiative set up by a group of Pakistani university students to change the global perception of Pakistan. Reaching out to others via the web, their aim is to re-brand Pakistan and break the stereotypes that often result in discrimination and prejudice towards its people.

Type out ‘Pakistan’ in the Google Images search bar and scroll down the first few pages: one would find pictures of maps,  the Pakistani flag and images that spell out a country torn between poverty and war. Although this may be the harsh reality in some parts of Pakistan, it is not the only reality of this South Asian country, as some are prone to believe.  With the kind of news surfacing daily regarding the conflicts, bomb blasts and political issues of not only the country, but also its neighbors’ it’s not hard to see why most people have a negative outlook on Pakistan. Rehman Ilyas aims to change this by replacing the post 9/11 images of terrorism, extremism and war zone to that of extremely talented youths, scenic landscapes and rich culture.

As a Lahori studying at the University of Hong Kong, Ilyas found himself subject to questions about Pakistan ranging from relatively normal ones such as “Do you have any malls there?” to more ridiculous ones like “Is there Taliban in your family?” He was always aware of the injustice done by the world media news in regards to their portrayal of his country but he was unaware of the severity of it until he arrived in Hong Kong.

“People only got to see that 1% of Pakistan in which the War on Terror is going on, in the media, and take that to be representative of the entire Pakistan,” he said.

Instead of merely complaining, he took action and decided to play his part in correcting the wrongly propagated image of his country. He started with doing his own online research on the subject and pitching the idea to his friends, followed by doing pilot tests on Facebook and a trial website. A survey was even conducted to realistically depict what the world thinks of Pakistan. Tackling the issues from there, what initially started out as a personal contribution to his country has now expanded to a website and a Facebook page with contents from over 80 team members, a diversified group of youths spread over 10 countries all intent on introducing the real Pakistan to the world.

Ilyas also intends to reach out to the world for a greater purpose that could help Pakistan in a myriad of other ways. According to him, “The 2011 floods in Pakistan were worse than the Asian Tsunami and the Haiti Earthquake combined, and an area the size of England was inundated in water. Despite all this, the media coverage and global aid intervention received wasn’t even close as compared to these other recent natural calamities, simply because people around the world were not interested in helping out a country which in their minds, harbors terrorist groups and is a base camp for terrorist activities around the world.”

Setting the global views straight, even one person at a time, could slowly prove to be beneficial for 180 million Pakistanis. With Pakistani businessman and traders at exhibitions around the world facing difficulties when questioned about bringing in supplies reliably to and from a war zone, Ilyas’ project could have a positive effect on his country economically as well.

Along with changing the way others perceive his country, Ilyas would also like to see a few changes within the nation itself. Speaking for a majority of the population, he said, “Most Pakistanis crave for a change of leadership. We are done with having the same corrupt leaders elected again and again, and this needs to end now. Pakistan is blessed with both vast natural resources and human capital, and given the right leadership we have the potential to develop into a regional superpower.”

Another sub-project that Ilyas has been working on is ‘Romancing the Border’ and is aimed at another issue spread across the nation: the social gap between Indians and Pakistanis. With most youths having been raised with a mindset bearing hatred for the other side, the stereotypical views separate the youths despite the fact both sides may be similar to each other in a lot of aspects. Backed by Stanford University’s Peace Innovation Lab, this cross-border initiative provides an online platform for youth from both sides of the border to interact with each other and to encourage pro-social behaviors between Pakistanis and Indians.

Having received positive responses so far regarding iPakistan from both Pakistanis and foreigners, Ilyas hopes to reach out to the masses and in the foreseeable future, instead of us receiving war torn images of Pakistan as soon as we Google the word, iPakistan will appear on the top search results and bring about a positive first impression of the country.

Perhaps it is a sign of change in the world when youths stand up to defend their country, and not in the traditional means of violence or crude words, but by showing the rest of us what their nation is capable of, what makes it beautiful, and most importantly, what makes it their home and source of pride. With that, Ilyas leaves us with one last statement on his beloved homeland, “We are not a country supporting terrorism. In fact, we are the country which has sacrificed the most in the war against terrorism.”

Image credit: Shutterstock.com

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Australian satirist and comedian Chris Lilley has received a thirty day ban from Facebook after an indecent picture was posted on his wall by an unnamed fan.

The image, which is available on Lilley’s Twitter page, is of three teenagers sitting on a fence, one of whose testicles are exposed. It is believed that the image was a screen-shot from Lilley’s 2011 Mockumentary “Angry Boys,” in which he plays Nathan Sims, a deaf, rural Australian adolescent who surreptitiously exposes his testicles in photographs to create what his twin brother, Daniel, dubs “a sneaky nuts pic.”

Earlier this week, via Twitter, Lilley informed his fans of the suspension of his account claiming that someone had reported him to the networking site:

“Banned from Facebook cause someone reported a nuts pic. Catch me on here, instagram @chrislilley and tumblr (nuts allowed) -chrislilley.com”

In response, supporters of Lilley have begun to circulate the tag-line #freechislilleysnuts across a number of social media cites, including Facebook, in the hopes that the ban will be lifted.

Lilley, who is best known for his work on the critically acclaimed TV mini-series “Summer Heights High,” is no stranger to controversy. The actor, writer, director and producer’s form of social satire often involves the breaking of certain taboos. Most recently, Lilley was criticized for his use of black-face to portray an African American hip-hop icon, S.Mouse, in “Angry Boys.”

In the same show, Lilley also depicts a Japanese “tiger mother” with a gay son, a member of a violent surf-gang from Sydney, a sixty-five year old grandmother who works as a prison guard, as well as the delinquent and destructive South Australian twins and S. Mouse.

When asked in a 2011 interview if there was any subject that he would not broach in his comedic pursuits, Lilley had this to say: “If I thought it was funny, I don’t think I would be scared to do it. I think I’m pretty brave with putting myself out there and looking stupid and doing things that are potentially offensive, but I don’t know. I only like to write about things I know about and am interested in. Religious humor is not really my area, so I probably wouldn’t do anything about that, or politics or something. But, no, there’s no real sort of taboo thing.”

While it appears that the blame for this particular Facebook scandal cannot be placed at Lilley’s boundary-pushing doorstep, the comedian had reportedly already received several warnings in response to behavior that violated Facebook’s terms and agreements.

Image Courtesy of   Chris Lilley

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New York, U.S.A - Viacom unveiled the results of its new “Social TV: Viewers C’s The Moment” study exploring the social TV phenomenon through the lens of the viewer. While fairly nascent, social TV and co-viewing trends are growing rapidly, representing a shift in TV viewing from a lean-back to a lean-forward experience.

Viewers engage in an average of seven different types of social TV activities – online or offline – on at least a weekly basis. The most common activities include watching TV with others (85%), searching for supplemental content (61%) and viewing TV show clips on social networks (58%). The new research reveals that consumers engaging in social TV activities “C’s the moment” primarily by communicating, consuming content and checking comments.

The two-phase study involved 24 ethnographies in Boston and San Diego with VMN viewers aged 13-52 that engage in social TV activities on at least a weekly basis. National online surveys were conducted with over 1,500 VMN viewers aged 13-54. When asked what social TV means to them, the most commonly reported words were “interactive,” “friends” and “Facebook “or “Twitter.” The leading source of discovery of social TV services is through search (38%), followed by social networks (26%) and ads run on shows (22%).

“One of the main goals of this research was to understand how to inspire social TV activity among our audiences,” said Colleen Fahey Rush, Executive Vice President and Chief Research Officer, Viacom Media Networks.  “At VMN, we’re focused on leveraging our fans’ attachment to their favorite shows by developing compelling social TV services and apps that deepen those connections and unlock the value of social chatter.”

Communication

Communicating is a top priority for social TV users. Many respondents described cobbling together unique communication systems to interact with different social circles while watching a show. “When I’m watching Jersey Shore, I have Facebook chats with 10 friends and I’m texting a dozen people, and I can be on the phone to my best friend,” said one participant.

There is no one-size-fits-all in terms of chat options. Of those interested in chat features, 56% prefer communicating through the social TV app/service, 53% through Facebook, 50% through individual or group texts and 38% through Skype or Apple FaceTime.  For those that use check-in services, 71% check in to a show to let their friends know and 64% check in to let other fans of the show know. Check-in services are a unique way of communicating viewing activities while simultaneously encouraging others to tune-in and join a shared experience.

Smartphones dominate the use of social TV apps at 82%, trailed by tablets at 18%. For services that are delivered via HTML websites and associated apps, 52% of usage occurs on smartphones or tablets, followed closely by desktop or laptops at 48%.

Content

Content is king for social TV users. Viewers want something special from their social TV services rather than commoditized content that can be found through online searches. The number one request for content is full-length episodes (88%), followed by sneak peeks of new episodes (75%), and behind-the-scenes extras (71%) and highlight clips (71%).

The majority of TV socializers is interested in rewards with real value, like free merchandise or signed cast photos. When putting aside the material aspect, virtual rewards offer an emotional pay-off, described as being similar to the feeling when ‘liked’ on Facebook. Trivia and casual games related to a show are of greater interest if they offer some kind of reward. Real fans want to have their knowledge and skills tested, and expect the game to be challenging.

Comments

Social TV users check comments about their favorite shows for a variety of reasons. Comments provide a different point of view, can pick up on something a viewer may have missed on their own and most importantly, create a direct connection between fan and show. “I love reading Daniel Tosh’s tweets while watching Tosh.0. It gives the show a whole other dimension,” said one survey respondent.

Not all sources of comments are equally valued. The number one source viewers want to hear from is a show’s cast and crew, followed by the people they know. Audiences are sensitive to the quality of comments from a show’s cast and crew – they look for authenticity and prefer the star(s) to be in character.

Social TV Users “C’s the Moment” During Live Viewing

“Viewers C’s the Moment” reveals that live TV show viewing unlocks the real value of social TV services and co-viewing activities. Features relating to communication, content and comments are twice as likely to be used during live than time-shifted viewing. Social TV enthusiasts reported feeling “left out” of the conversation if they missed a live airing.

One respondent said, “I’m most likely to engage with Social TV networking when it’s live. So when a new show comes on, I’m very likely to check-in just before the show, see comments from other people, [and] make my own comments during the show as well.”

Social TV activities also increase directly after a live show, when viewers can access exclusive content like sneak peeks without interrupting the live viewing experience. “I go to the website and watch the director’s cut…after it airs as I like the extra scenes. I like to feel that I am getting something extra and it extends the show,” said a participant.

Social TV can also help foster show discovery. Features like check-ins, viewer comments and shared video clips help viewers discover shows incentivize them to watch and encourage them to join the live conversations.

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Facebook has launched its latest tool where users can share that they are an organ donor, in the hope that it will help save more lives on a daily basis. Facebook users have to go to their timelines, where under ‘Life Event’ they will see a health and wellness section and then you can click to become an organ donor and share your story about when, where or why you decided to become a donor.

More than 114,000 people in the United States are awaiting organ donations, 79 people daily receive a transplant while 18 die, according to Organdonor.gov. In the UK, National Service Health Service (NHS) pointed out that there are over 10,000 people on the waiting list for an organ, while an average of three people a day die waiting for a transplant.

The new Facebook feature is working in the United States, UK, and Australia but it is expected to expand in other parts of the world. The US previously averaged about 506 new registrations per day, but since Facebook introduced the tool on April 30 more than 24,000 people have registered to donate their organs, according to Donate Life America.

Facebook added the organ donation feature to raise awareness to the issue after CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, took a personal interest in it, partly because of his friendship with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Jobs’s liver transplant extended his life several years.

The move will raise awareness about the critical shortage of organs for people in need of life-saving transplants. It may also create social pressure to inspire Facebook friends to consider registration.

This solidary initiative is seen by many skeptics like another way to obtain personal information concerning our health. Once we become an organ donor our privacy is stripped away, no matter how good Facebook´s intentions, sharing our data with the social network entails releasing information to an unknown companies without our consent. In an indirect way behind our altruistic behavior many big firms will make a killing exchanging information.

This donor program might bring about many successful and happy stories about saving lives, but in the end you are also an information donor, giving away your personal information to a company that can make profit off of it. Medical insurance companies will use our personal medical information to determine our eligibility for insurance coverage for their own protection, allowing health businesses to capitalize on insurance payments for the healthy, whereas others with bad medical history will be overcharged.

Another concern about organ donation is that medical information on Facebook is not protected by U.S. laws. According to the state´s Uniform Anatomical Gift Law, being an organ donor on Facebook is just as good being on the state´s organ donation registry.

Organ donation has never been “private” as it is openly displayed upon a public identification card. The choice of being an organ donor is personal and has to be respected. With the new Facebook feature, this choice becomes a public identity marker, something to be socially shared, commented upon, and potentially, conspicuously absent.

The advocacy group Donate Life American found that many people decline to became an organ donor for diverse reasons: citizens fear that they are not healthy enough or they are too old to donate their organs; others are concerned that doctors will not try their best to save them if they are known to be an organ donor; some people believe there is a black market where organs or tissues are sold; and some citizens question whether or not a person can recover from brain death.

Organ donation, as displayed through Facebook, is at once a deeply personal decision about death and the body, and a public display of generosity, fear, and/or general health. Whether you think that Facebook has made a strong move in a positive direction, or has once again taken sharing too far, the organ donation feature on Facebook embodies the categorical fusion that represents a connected era.

Image Courtesy of  withGod / Shutterstock.com

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Facebook has added more than 200 million users in the last year, Twitter now boasts 100 million active users and Linkedln has 64 million users in North America alone.

Social media networks have become more popular with getting to know everything about a person but now Facebook is taking it another step further. Facebook now has an organ donor status that users can choose to post on their profile in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Facebook’s main objective in issuing this new addition to its vast network is not so your friends can know you more on a personal level, but to lower the total number of people that die in the U.S. and the UK due to waiting for an organ transplant. According to the U.S. Department of Health, nearly 7,000 people in the US alone die each year due to waiting for a donor.

The company announced a plan to encourage everyone on Facebook to start advertising their donor status on their pages.

Under the Facebook plan, members will be able to declare and update their organ donation status. The status will appear with other biographical information in a section called Health and Wellness, which includes, for example, updates on whether a person has recently lost weight or ever broken a bone.

But some representatives that encourage organ donations explain that people need to understand that posting their organ donation statues on Facebook does not close the deal. People need to also go to their state registry.

The ‘New York Times’ explained in an article that “people declaring on Facebook that they are organ donors could spur others to sign up at motor vehicle departments or online registries however, experts say Facebook could create an informal alternative to such registries that could, even though it carries less legal weight, lead to more organ donations. That is because a disclosure on Facebook could provide the evidence of consent that family members need when deciding whether to donate the organs of a loved one,” said Dr. Andrew M. Cameron, the surgical director of liver transplantation at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

This is not the first time Facebook has tried to use its network to address a social issue. Late last year it launched a service called “lifeline” that allows people to make contact with a suicide-prevention counselor or report someone through Facebook who they fear might be suicidal. That year, the company also introduced tools to discourage bullying and allow people to report episodes of bullying.

Overall, donation rates in the United States have been increasing steadily, with 43 percent of those 18 or older designating themselves as organ donors last year, according to Donate Life America. The median wait for a kidney nationally is about four years, according to data collected for the government by the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. However, waiting lists are maintained on a regional basis, and in areas with high rates of organ failure and low rates of organ donation, the wait can extend much longer.

BJ Fogg, who studies how technology can change attitudes as director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University, explains that Facebook might persuade more people to become organ donors by simple “peer pressure”. If people see more of their friends and family members becoming donors they most likely will want to become one as well.

23-year-old Borough of Manhattan Community College student Luis Mendez said, “I think this will increase the number of donors and decrease the waiting list time because Facebook is pretty much at an all time high and most people follow it. It will be a way to persuade people to become organ donors versus years back.”

Most experts hope that this trend will happen so that being an organ donor will become a norm and more lives can be saved.

Image Courtesy of  withGod / Shutterstock.com

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Amsterdam, Netherlands – AVG Technologies, the provider of Internet and mobile security to approximately 108 million active users, has released its Q1 2012 Community Powered Threat Report. The report highlights the growing use of mobile devices to connect with social networks and how this is fast becoming a preferred method for cyber criminals to spread malware, particularly on those devices running Android.

Yuval Ben-Itzhak, Chief Technology Officer at AVG, said: “We detected a big increase in the use of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to target Android users. Cyber criminals are finding it very convenient to distribute their malware straight to a mobile device via these networks.

The growth of the Android platform has been phenomenal, which has not gone unnoticed with cyber criminals who have discovered it to be a lucrative target for their malware. In 2011, Google had to remove over 100 malicious apps from the official Android market, Google Play.”

Social networks have become a key source of information and communication. Twitter now has more than 140 million active users^[1]; and Facebook has over 845 million users^[2], with some analysts expecting that figure to reach 1 billion this year^[3]. The result: targeting those who use Facebook is like targeting around 14 per cent of world’s population or approximately 43 per cent of global internet users.

Consider also that there are over 300 million Android phones already activated, with over 850,000 Android phones and tablets added to that number each day^[4], and it is clear these two trends combined result in a new threat: infecting Android devices using social networks.

Most mobile devices are tied into operator billing systems making monetization of malware a lot more effective than on traditional computer systems. All the attackers need to do is trick users to install a malicious app on their device through which they can then gather cash using the phone companies’ billing systems by utilizing premium SMS services. In many cases, this is done by charging low amounts on an infrequent basis so users don’t even notice.

The Q1 2012 Community Powered Threat Report includes examples of this:

• On Facebook, all it takes for a cyber criminal to attack is to set up a fake profile which downloads malware to a device and randomly invite Facebook users.
• On Twitter, a cyber criminal creates a spam profile and then posts tweets containing shortened hyperlinks to malware using trending hashtags. The way in which Twitter works makes sure the tweet appears on the top of many people’s Twitter feed.

About the report

The AVG Community Protection Network is an online neighborhood watch, where community members work to protect each other. Information about the latest threats is collected from customers who participate in the product improvement program and shared with the community to make sure everyone receives the best possible protection.

The AVG Community Powered Threat Report is based on the Community Protection Network traffic and data collected from participating AVG users over a three-month period, followed by analysis by AVG. It provides an overview of web, mobile devices, spam risks and threats. All statistics referenced are obtained from the AVG Community Protection Network.

AVG has focused on building communities that help millions of online participants support each other on computer security issues and actively contribute to AVG’s research efforts.

To download the summary of the Q1 2012 Community Powered Threat Report:http://www.avg.com/filedir/news/AVG_Community_Powered_Threat_Report_Q1_2012_summary.pdf

To download the full Q1 2012 Community Powered Threat Report:http://www.avg.com/filedir/news/AVG_Community_Powered_Threat_Report_Q1_2012.pdf

Visit the AVG Newsroom at: http://www.avg.com/press-releases-news

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Spike Lee’s negligent tweet to his 240,000 followers has caused an elderly couple in Sanford, Florida to live in fear. The director retweeted an incorrect address that allegedly was the house that Trayvon Martin’s killer George Zimmerman resided at.

The tweet spawned from twitter account holder @MACCAPONE, according to The Smoking Gun. Marcus Davonne Higgins, 33, a Los Angeles resident tweeted the wrong address to several celebrities such as rapper 50 cent and actor Will Smith. Higgins tweet stated “EVERBODY REPOST THIS.” Lee was the only celebrity to retweet the false information. Higgins also took to his facebook page “FEEL FREE TO REACH OUT & TOUCH HIM.”

The address belongs to David McClain, 72 and wife Elaine, 70 who reportedly suffers from a heart condition. Higgins mixed up George Michael Zimmerman 41, for Trayvon’s killer George W. Zimmerman, 28. The recent headline news surrounding the Trayvon Martin’s case has brought attention all around the country due to the injustice felt by the African American community.

The McClain’s have received threatening mail and random visitors to their household. Because of this the McClain’s have been forced to stay at a hotel. Attorney Matt Morgan representing the McClain’s have reached a settlement for the trouble that the couple has had to deal with.

“At this point in time, we have come to an agreement with Spike Lee and his attorneys, and at this point, the matter is fully resolved,” Morgan said. “Spike has agreed to compensate the McClain’s for their loss and for the disruption into their lives. He’s taken full responsibility.”

According to yahoo news. Lee also tweeted late Wednesday: “I Deeply Apologize To The McClain Family For Retweeting Their Address. It Was A Mistake. Please Leave The McClain’s In Peace.”

Lee isn’t the only celebrity to start an uproar through twitter. Pop singer Justin Beiber earlier last month tweeted, “Call me right now.” Beiber used a Dallas phone number and left the last digit a as question mark. Dallas residents were then subjected to phone calls at all times of the night by excited Bieiber fans.

Singer Courtney Love is another rogue celebrity tweeter, tweeting erratically about a fashion designer in 2011. She paid out $430,000 to fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir after making statements that she had a criminal past.

The outlandish behavior amongst celebrities on twitter has a cause and effect not only to themselves but to others as well whom they may not even know. Celebrities are placed on a pedestal once they reach a certain stature and whatever move they make can affect them positively or negatively as far as their image and credibility goes.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/youthradio/

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Aspiro TV, the multi-screen video enabler announced it’s implementing social TV features as part of its services. The seamless social integration into Facebook Timeline will open up new possibilities for Aspiro’s customers.

Integrated into the Aspiro TV platform, the new social TV feature enables end-users to show their friends what they’re watching on their Aspiro-enabled video service. The integration will provide Aspiro’s customers with additional intel on the end-users. This will also allow for new sharing, marketing, integration tools and business opportunities. While watching TV or Video via a service delivered by Aspiro TV, users can also chat with their friends at Facebook directly within the app.

“We believe that social is the next evolution of the TV-experience and as such have chosen to deeply integrate it across our product offering, making it easy for our customers to leverage,” said Aspiro CEO Erling Paulsen. He continued: “It’s what new generation end-users want. Opportunities like this provided by new devices will enhance the experience and help create a more dedicated user.”

Aspiro TV enables multi-screen video experiences on consumer devices. From being a mobile centric company, it has over the last years transformed into delivering to any online device, including tablets, desktop computers, Set-top-boxes, connected TV’s and virtually any screen with internet access.

Aspiro’s open framework integrated with leading industry standards enables companies to connect to their existing platforms and systems and leverage technologies they’ve already invested in. Based in Oslo, Norway, Aspiro TV is a leading multi-screen TV and video enabler powering services for network operators and broadcasters such as Deutsche Telekom, Telenor, TeliaSonera, Nextel, Hi3G, BBC and Entel.

Aspiro in Brief Aspiro has unique positioning as the world’s only provider of complete TV and music streaming services for partners that want to put their own branding on the service. Aspiro also provides the music streaming service WiMP directly to consumers on selected markets. Aspiro has over ten years’ experience in mobile technology and retail in northern Europe, and delivers services to partners worldwide like Deutsche Telekom, Telenor, 3, Entel and Canal Digital. Aspiro is listed on Nasdaq OMX Nordic Exchange Stockholm.

Aspiro TV will be demonstrating this and its complete multi-screen TV solution at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, visit us at our stand number 2A67 in hall 2, 27 February – 1 March 2012. For further information, contact: sales.tv@aspiro.com

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There are millions of innocent Facebook users who have never been faced with fraudulent web content. Emsisoft advises users therefore against new Facebook scams as they arise such as the following. Whitney Houston’s death a few days ago came as quite a surprise. The famous singer was found dead in her bathtub in a hotel in Beverly Hills, prompting immense media coverage around the circumstances of her untimely death.

The text of this particular scam reads as such: “Whitney Houston’s autopsy reveals a shocking secret that explains her death” or “Whitney Houston’s shocking cause of death revealed” and “The dark secret that ruled Whitney Houston’s life and tragically led to her death.”

Everybody who clicks one of the links that pretend to take them to a well-known American news site will in fact be redirected several times and end up facing a survey page that they are asked to take. This is the first of two methods that the scammers use to transform generated traffic into a mode of profit as they get paid for the survey results.

And finally, the user will see the YouTube video itself, which is of course nothing special, but a normal TV report about the tragedy of Whitney Houston. The more views the better for the scammer who uploaded the video. Every hit raises its ranking, thus subsequently attracting more viewers. Well-placed Google AdSense ads turn this into profit.

Christian Mairoll, CEO at Emsisoft, says, “The YouTube video has already had more than 1,000,000 hits thanks to this Facebook scam. This shows how easy it is to get many people’s attention using a current event for criminal purposes on Facebook. We advise all users not to blindly click a link, but to critically rethink content on Facebook – and in particular, not to immediately share it.”

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/asterix611/

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According to a new 30 Hour Famine study, conducted online in January by Harris Interactive, more than half of teens (55%) say social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have made them more aware of the needs of others. This is a huge increase from 2011 when a little more 4 in 10 (44%) said their use of social media made them more aware. The study also says 2 in 3 teens (68%) agree that the benefits of social media outweigh the risks.

According to the study, more than nine out of ten (91%) agree that it’s important to volunteer locally. At the end of this month, some 200,000 teens will go hungry as part of World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine to raise funds and hunger awareness. Since 1992, 30 Hour Famine has raised more than $150 million to fight world hunger. This is the fourth year World Vision has surveyed American youth to get a better idea of what they’re thinking. 30 Hour Famine has close to 30,000 Facebook friends.

“The jump in the number of teens who say social media sites make them more socially aware is a sign of the times,” says Regina Corson, Senior Vice President, Harris Poll, Public Relations and Youth Research at Harris Interactive. Michele Tvedt, World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine Manager says, “It’s exciting to see our youth using the tools at their fingertips like social media to have a direct impact on the world.” Tvedt has personally done The Famine for 13 years, adding up to more than 390 hours over the years.

While many teens will do 30 Hour Famine in late February, others will participate April 27th, 28th^. Teens forsake food for 30 hours to get a taste of what the world’s poorest children face. Prior to the event, teens raise funds by explaining that $1 can help feed and care for a child a day. Teens consume only water and juice as they participate in local community service projects (food banks, soup kitchens and homeless shelters). Last year’s 30 Hour Famine raised $9.5 million to fight hunger. This year’s goal is $10 million.

Tonight, almost 1 billion people worldwide will go to bed hungry. Almost 22,000 children die each day from hunger and preventable diseases. Chronic poverty, affecting half the people on earth, is the cause. Nearly 3 billion people live on less than $2 a day. Funds raised this year for 30 Hour Famine will be sent to 10 countries including Haiti, the Horn of Africa, Burundi, Malawi, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some 30 Hour Famine funds also address poverty here in the U.S.

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comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, on February 09, 2012 released the 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report. This annual report examines how the prevailing trends in social media, search, online video, digital advertising, mobile and e-commerce are defining the current marketplace and what these trends mean for the year ahead.

“2012 promises to be an exciting year for the digital media industry as the explosion of available content and proliferation of web-enabled devices drive the evolution of the digital consumer, creating new opportunities and challenges for the entire digital ecosystem,” said Linda Abraham, comScore CMO and EVP of Global Product Development. “In order to be successful in this new paradigm, digital marketers must understand the key trends shaping the current marketplace and what that means for the future of their businesses.”

Key insights from the 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus include:

Facebook-Led Social Media Market is Redefining Communication in the Digital and Physical Worlds

• Social Networking accounted for 16.6 percent of all online minutes at the end of 2011 and is on track to surpass Portals as the most engaging online activity in 2012. Facebook continues to lead as the driving force behind this shift in consumer behavior, accounting for the largest share of online minutes across the entire web in 2011.

Bing Gains Ground in Search

• Although Google maintains a strong lead in the U.S. search market, one of the most notable stories in search in 2011 was Bing’s positive growth trajectory. Bing closed out the year by surpassing Yahoo! for the #2 position among core search engines for the first time in its history, bolstered in part by its social search partnership with Facebook implemented in early 2011.

Online Video Boom Signals Sea Change in Video Ecosystem

• Online video viewing witnessed impressive gains across a variety of measures in 2011, signaling a behavioral shift in how Americans are consuming video content. More than 100 million Americans watched online video content on an average day to close out 2011, representing a 43-percent increase versus year ago.

Digital Advertising Enters Era of Increased Accountability as Brand Dollars Continue to Shift Online

• A staggering 4.8 trillion display ad impressions were delivered across the U.S. web in 2011 as brand advertisers continued to shift dollars to the digital medium. This shift in ad dollars has magnified the need for greater transparency and accountability in ad delivery across the digital advertising ecosystem.

Smartphone and Tablets Fuel the Rise of the Digital Omnivore

• The rise of smartphones and tablets has drastically altered consumers’ digital media consumption. In 2011, the majority of all mobile phone owners consumed mobile media on their device, marking an important milestone in the evolution of mobile from primarily a communication device to also a content consumption tool. At the end of the year, more than 8 percent of all digital traffic was consumed beyond the ‘classic web’ via devices such as smartphones and tablets.

E-Commerce is Back and Better Than Ever

• Despite the backdrop of continued economic uncertainty, 2011 was a strong year for retail e-commerce. Throughout the year, growth rates versus the prior year remained in double-digits to significantly outpace growth at brick-and-mortar retail. Total U.S. retail and travel-related e-commerce reached $256 billion in 2011, up 12 percent from 2010.

Webinar – 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus: Trends Every Marketer Needs to Know

Join Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix, and Eli Goodman, comScore Media Evangelist, on Wednesday February 22nd at 2 PM EST, as they share key insights from the 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report and discuss what these trends mean for today’s marketers. For more information and to register, please visit: http://www.comscore.com/2012_Future_in_Focus_Webinar

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Socialbakers, the world’s most cited source and fastest growing social media analytics company, on February 09, 2012 announced the launch of its U.S. headquarters in San Francisco.

The company also announced its new U.S. leadership team based in San Francisco, which includes veteran technology executive Martin Huml as President and Chief Operating Officer, and Katrina Wong as Vice President of Marketing. Socialbakers’ global expansion follows rapid demand from many of America’s most recognized brands.

Socialbakers social analytics platform measures the effectiveness of social marketing campaigns across all major social networks, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Google+.

With more than 750 customers and 275,000 registered marketing users, Socialbakers is the leading source for Facebook and social analytics throughout Europe. More than 60 U.S. brands are already using the technology, with an accelerated U.S. demand from brands, consumers and even politicians.

“Companies can no longer expect or assume that online users will engage with their Facebook or Twitter content. Our clients increase social media relevance and build their social community faster because we show what is working, what doesn’t work and how they compare against competitors. Companies can build tremendous communities by using our technology to understand which content is most and least engaging and viral,” said Jan Rezab, Socialbakers CEO.

Technology veteran and investor Martin Huml has joined as Socialbakers’ President and COO, and will lead U.S. operations from San Francisco. Huml, who has been serving as company Chairman, is an accomplished entrepreneur, executive, and investor. Huml built and sold his first company in the mid nineties – an exclusive distributor for Apple Computer in Central and Eastern Europe, including Russia and several other former Eastern Blok countries.

He also worked for several years in private equity at Credit Suisse First Boston in London and New York. Most recently, he ran his own San Francisco-based investment consulting firm, Runway Capital. He has chaired and served on several boards, and has also served as interim CEO and COO for various technology firms.

“Socialbakers is an exciting company on the brink of becoming the global leader in this fast growing social analytics space,” said Huml.  “Jan is a brilliant entrepreneur, visionary, and business leader. The team is exceptional and Socialbakers is positioned as one of the top analytics companies in the world. The U.S. is home to many of the world’s most savvy companies, and it’s time we expanded in order to provide them a technology that will change the way they run their entire social marketing programs.”

Katrina Wong has been hired as vice president of marketing to lead the company’s global go-to-market strategy, with focus on the U.S., UK, France and Germany. Prior to Socialbakers, Wong led corporate marketing for subscription billing company, Zuora. Wong developed marketing strategies for SAP’s entry into the SaaS market, and worked at Salesforce.com deploying CRM solutions for global Fortune 500 companies.

“We have the most aggressive go-to-market strategy in the industry, and have big plans for 2012 – while the U.S. has a fragmented analytics market, Socialbakers is positioned to become the standard for social media intelligence,” said Wong.

Socialbakers, a European technology company, launched in 2008 and is now the social analytics provider of choice for customers in more than 75 countries.

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The USA TODAY Facebook Super Bowl Ad Meter winner has been announced and Doritos “Sling Baby” came out on top for 2012. The ad features a grandmother who creates a way to sling her grandson – with a rubber band-like setup – across the yard to grab a Doritos bag from a taunting boy.  The Facebook community rated the ad a 4.33 (on a scale of 1 to 5 stars).

The top five ads chosen by the Facebook community and their score:

• Doritos – Sling Baby – 4.33
• Bud Light – Weego – 4.25
• Kia – A Dream Car. For Real Life. – 4.23
• Chrysler – It’s Halftime In America – 4.23
• M&Ms – Ms. Brown/Just My Shell – 4.22

In the event of a ratings tie, higher rank goes to the ad that received the larger number of votes.

The USA TODAY Facebook Super Bowl Ad meter voting was open to Facebook’s more than 800 million global users. Facebook users could view, rate and share all the national ads that aired during the game.  Voting began right after the first ad aired during the Super Bowl on Sunday night and continued until 6:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday. Complete results can be found at admeter.usatoday.com and facebook.com/sports as well as in Wednesday’s print editions of USA TODAY.

Created in 1989 to gauge consumers’ opinions about television’s most expensive commercials, Ad Meter and has been a subject of great consumer interest and conversation over the years. The 2012 USA TODAY Facebook Super Bowl Ad Meter combines the industry authority of USA TODAY with the social engagement of Facebook.

With the rise of social media as a tool for consumers to voice, share and discover topics of conversation, this year’s collaboration between USA TODAY and Facebook for Ad Meter 2012 is an evolution of how America discusses and rates ads during and after the Super Bowl, one of the most popular ad spend days of the year.

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The National Inflation Association has announced that it believes Facebook will likely start trading this May at a peak valuation of $100 billion and see its market capitalization and share price decrease in value in the years afterwards.

Facebook has successfully grown their monthly active users from 1 million in 2004, to 6 million in 2005, to 12 million in 2006, to 58 million in 2007, to 145 million in 2008, to 360 million in 2009, to 606 million in 2010, and to 845 million in 2011. After achieving compound annual user growth from 2004 to 2010 of 191%, Facebook’s user growth in 2011 declined to only 39%.

If Facebook begins trading with a market cap of $100 billion, Facebook will be trading for approximately 27 times 2011 revenue of $3.711 billion and approximately 150 times 2011 net income of $668 million.

A price/sales ratio of 27 and P/E ratio of 150 is too high of a premium to pay for a company that has just reached 50% market penetration in the U.S. Moving forward, NIA believes in 2012 we will likely see Facebook’s user growth decline to 20%, with its user growth declining to just 15% in year 2013 and 10% in year 2014.

It is unlikely that Facebook will ever be able to achieve the same market penetration in Europe that they have achieved in the U.S. Facebook needs to expand into the Chinese market, but the Chinese government has blocked off access to the social network.

In October of 2007, Microsoft invested $240 million into Facebook at a valuation of $15 billion. In January of 2011, Goldman Sachs’ international clients invested $1.5 billion into Facebook at a valuation of $50 billion.

While Microsoft is set to make a profit of 667% in 4 1/2 years and Goldman Sachs’ international clients are set to make a profit of 100% in just 1 1/2 years, NIA believes that the U.S. financial mainstream media that is currently hyping the Facebook IPO, is setting the general public up to get slaughtered on Facebook’s common stock.

The consumer social networking space has experienced very dramatic growth over the past few years, with Facebook being the dominant leader of the industry. Moving forward, NIA believes that social networking technology will soon begin to revolutionize the workplace in the same way that it changed the personal lives of millions of people around the world.

Recent college graduates, who experienced Facebook’s very dramatic growth first hand, are beginning to enter the workforce and are demanding that their employers adopt enterprise social networking technology at their place of employment.

The enterprise social networking industry is projected to grow 61% annually between now and 2016. Enterprise social networking is expected to grow from being a $600 million space in 2011 to a $6.4 billionspace in 2016. This is similar to the type of growth seen in the consumer social networking space over the past four years.

Although Facebook is the dominant leader in the consumer social space today, there is a good chance that another consumer social company will grow to become larger than Facebook in the future. Back in 2006, many analysts expected MySpace to remain king of consumer social networking forever and projected MySpace to continue rapidly growing indefinitely. Instead, Facebook surpassed MySpace and MySpace was recently sold by News Corp for 94% less than what they paid for it.

The American public needs to realize that Facebook at a valuation of $100 billion has far more downside risk than upside potential. While Facebook’s growth is going to rapidly decline in the years ahead, there are two publicly traded companies in the enterprise social networking space that are positioned for enormous revenue growth moving forward.

The user growth of these two companies could accelerate greatly in the years ahead as major corporations begin rapidly deploying their own enterprise social networks. Currently the enterprise social networking industry is still in its infancy, but by 2016 it is likely that the majority of the largest corporations around the world will be using some type of enterprise social networking platform within their business.

The two major publicly traded companies in this space now are Jive Software and BroadVision Inc. Jive is the industry leader with a market cap of $937.97 million. After subtracting Jive’s estimated net cash position of $200.99 million, Jive’s Engage social platform is currently being valued by the market at $736.98 million.

BroadVision only has a market cap of approximately $153.51 million. After subtracting BroadVision’s cash position of $54.4 million and another $17 million in value for their old legacy products still generating revenue, BroadVision’s Clearvale enterprise social platform is currently being valued at only $82.11 million.

BroadVision is NIA’s latest position. BroadVision just reported that they signed 117 new Clearvale Enterprise customers in 2011, up an amazing 290% from the 30 they signed in 2010. In fact, BroadVision signed 33 new Clearvale Enterprise customers in the 4Q of 2011 alone, which was more than they signed in the whole entire previous year.

Jive hasn’t yet reported their year-end 2011 results, but Jive has reported that they only signed 113 new Engage customers in the 12 month period ending June 30, 2011.

BroadVision’s Clearvale is now growing faster than Jive’s Engage, when at their current share prices Jive is receiving a valuation for Engage that is approximately 9 times higher than the valuation that BroadVision is receiving for Clearvale. Besides BroadVision’s fully featured Clearvale Enterprise, BroadVision also offers a free starter version called Clearvale Express.

Any employee at a company can quickly and easily setup their own Clearvale Express account to use at work. After outgrowing Clearvale Express, companies have the ability to seamlessly upgrade from Clearvale Express to Clearvale Enterprise.

BroadVision also offers a unique Clearvale Passport reseller program, which allows other companies to offer Clearvale to their clients. Softbank, a $30 billion Japanese telecommunications giant, had so much success using Clearvale Enterprise within their corporation that they have now joined Clearvale Passport and are offering both Clearvale Express and Clearvale Enterprise to their partners and clients.

NIA believes that BroadVision’s free starter Clearvale Express platform along with their reseller program Clearvale Passport, gives the company a huge advantage over Jive. In NIA’s opinion, BroadVision has the potential to become a bigger company than Jive in the future.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdlasica/

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When it comes to political discourse and social protests, social media has changed the landscape.  Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and Youtube have provided outlets for the average person to vent, pontificate, and act as pseudo-journalists on all subjects.

Very often, a video or posting on Twitter and Facebook goes viral as people that agree or disagree forward and re-post the the original posting.  Such was the case after President Obama’s State of the Union speech. In the wake of the president’s speech, a list of his accomplishments went viral on Facebook.

Similar to a popular website that details real and imagined accomplishments of our current president, the list gives a rosy picture of the current state of the Obama administration.   The problem with the new tools of social media, however, is that the authors often have conclusions based more on emotion and ideology rather than facts, and readers often do not check the facts.

Below is a list of things that went viral on Facebook the night of the speech.  In response is a second list that offers an alternative view with links to real factual data.

My President: A Liberal View

1. Osama Bin Laden… check
2. Unemployment rate 8.5 percent… check.
3. 1.6 million jobs created with no GOP help… check
.
4. 22 months of job and economic growth with no help… check.
5. Ended war in Iraq… check.
6. DADT repeal… check.
7. Not one tax hike in 3 years… check.
8. Brought out racism in the GOP… check.
9. Still carries 80 percent of the black vote… check.
10. Same wife for 15 years with no extramarital affairs… check.
11. Can flat out sing… check.
12. Saved auto industry and 1.5 million jobs… check.
13. Assisted in ousting Ghaddafi… check.
14. Only active president to receive Nobel Peace Prize while in office… check.
15. Mortgage modification to prevent homeowners from losing their homes… check.
16. STILL fighting for middle class families… check.
17. Reform affordable healthcare… check.

Rosy, indeed. I decided to put together a more comprehensive and fact-based list.

My President: A Realistic View

1. Killed Osama Bin Laden… check.
2. Net loss of two million jobs… check.
3. Unemployment rate of 15 percent for his biggest fans, African-Americans… check.
4. Had the House and Senate majorities and still could not get his own people (Democrats) to back all his ideas. Seeks blame elsewhere… check.
5. Campaigned against $500 billion deficit created by President Bush, but increased deficit to 1.4 trillion in under two years… check.
6. Spent more money in two years than all of the previous presidents combined… check.
7. Increased debt to $15 trillion… check.
8. Has left my goddaughter and all newborn Americans a debt load of $50,000 per person before they even get out of diapers… check.
9. Uncovered the left and African-Americans’ obsession with racism as a shield against his own failures… check.
10. Race relations worse than in 50 years… check.
11. Still carries 80 percent of the black vote, proving African-Americans will support anyone that is black and has a “D” after their name… check.
12. Proves that African-Americans no longer care about the content of one’s character, but the color of one’s skin and political party… check.
13. Still protects Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the causes of the financial collapse… check.
14. Received Nobel Prize before taking office. Sends 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, violates Pakistan’s borders to kill Bin Laden, and increases drone strikes. I do not have a problem with any of that, but I am not sure that is what the Nobel “PEACE” panel had in mind… check.
15. Mortgage modification plan to help homeowners, who bought houses they should not have, keep their homes.  Plan has not worked… check.
16. Fighting with unions to stop jobs in South Carolina. Fighting against unions to stop jobs with Keystone oil project. Still not helping middle class, but talks a good game… check.
17. Unconstitutional power grab to force me to buy health insurance that is more expensive… check.
18. Second worse president after Jimmy Carter… double check.

Which list is correct? The truth lies not with the information in the lists itself, but in how you wish to view the president. The first is one that ignores a lot because of a liking for President Obama. The second is not personal, but uncovers a deep truth about what has transpired in the last three years.

At the end of the day, the primary questions that remain is if America is better off today than it was three years ago, and will what has transpired be financially viable in the future. It does not take a dislike of the president to answer that question. It takes a $10 calculator and a dose of common sense, which leaves a very unpalatable taste in your mouth, especially if you voted for President Obama the first time.

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Since its very beginning, Facebook seems to have had a love-hate relationship with its users. Now, another controversy has emerged following the release of an American Academy of Pediatrics report addressing a new phenomenon described as “Facebook Depression”.

In the report, Facebook Depression is defined as “depression that develops when preteens and teens spend a great deal of time on social media sites, such as Facebook, and then begin to exhibit classic symptoms of depression.” It also argues that these types of websites can create a skewed reality that makes teens feel alienated.

However, is this enough to conclude that Facebook is causing more teens to be depressed? Many other resources are arguing that if Facebook causes depression, the same could be said for a teen sitting alone in the cafeteria. Whichever side you agree with, the fact is that teen depression is a serious issue. About 20 percent of teens will confront depression before they reach adulthood and about 5 percent are suffering from severe depression at any given time.

The Psychiatry Department at Miami Children’s Hospital has extensive experience helping children and adolescents with behavioral, social, and emotional problems. Psychologist Dr. Sara Rivero-Conil, the department’s Clinical Manager, has helped many teens and their families cope with the effects of adolescent depression.

“Adolescents with underlying poor self-esteem may be impacted by the sight of others enjoying activities or declaring their happiness. On the other hand, social media sites also allow for well-adjusted individuals to share ideas, emotions, and feel connected. As a parent, you can set curfews or time limits around non-school-related activities and keep open communication with your children, allowing them to discuss their stressors, emotions, and positive aspects of their day,” she said.

“Teen depression can affect anyone regardless of gender, ethnicity, or social background,” said Dr. Rivero-Conil. “It’s important to be aware of the signs, which can include anger, irritability, withdrawal, and frequent crying.”

So while it is not confirmed that Facebook is causing teens to become depressed, it is safe to conclude that monitoring your teen’s social media habits, along with their overall behavior and interests, can help you in identifying a potential problem and getting them the correct medical attention in time.

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Audi’s :60 TV spot set to air in the first break after kick-off of Super Bowl XLVI is now live on the brand’s YouTube channel. The cinematic spot – which features a vampire theme and the new 2013 Audi S7 with the brand’s signature LED headlight technology – has been pieced together by Facebook users who cracked the commercial with Audi’s social media contest called ‘Race the Light.’

Through ‘Race the Light,” Audi released its upcoming ad as a 60-piece puzzle for fans to solve and share. Audi’s signature LED headlights take center stage in the spot.  The all new 2013 Audi S7 arrives at a vampire party in the woods and brings with it an unexpected surprise.

“In the spot, Audi LEDs – which at 5,500 Kelvin produce the closest recreation of daylight available – put an end to the vampire party, and perhaps, to the greater vampire trend in pop culture,” said Scott Keogh, Chief Marketing Officer, Audi of America.

The vampire trend exploded onto the pop culture scene over a decade ago, with over a dozen television shows and over 24 movies launched in recent years, as well as countless books, video games and even vampire-themed cruises.

“Given the power of the Super Bowl platform, we wanted to create an entertaining spot that clearly focused on our LED headlights — one of our key product attributes – while also sparking conversation about whether or not it’s time for us to move on from the omnipresent vampire trend into something new and even more exciting,” Keogh added.

The advertisement features the song “The Killing Moon” by Echo & The Bunnymen and was created bySan Francisco-based Venables Bell & Partners. Audi also released a cinematic trailer on YouTube that looks back at Audi’s Super Bowl spots from the past four years and features footage from this year’s commercial.

Last year, Audi’s adventurous “Release the Hounds” spot featured the new Audi A8 flagship sedan, a cameo by legendary musician Kenny G, and was a parody of individuals attempting to escape from the confines of old luxury as portrayed in a luxury prison. In 2010, Audi’s Super Bowl ad showcased a soundtrack created by rock legends Cheap Trick and featured the A3 TDI “Green Car of the Year” clean diesel vehicle, showing how easy being green can be.

The brand’s 2009 spot featured actor Jason Statham in a series of high-speed chase scenes involving luxury competitors, sending the message that luxury is evolving. In 2008, the brand’s first Super Bowl spot delivered a parody of the movie “The Godfather,” signaling that Audi was ready to take on the perceived luxury leaders.

Image Courtesy of   https://www.facebook.com/newenglandpatriots

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