Showing posts with label Social media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social media. Show all posts

Social networking impact: EC may create model poll code for politicos online

The general elections of 2014 in India will go down in history for being one most influenced by social networking and technology in India. The matter has gone beyond mere speculation and research studies, with the Election Commission (EC) now working on ways to make sure that social media is brought within the purview of the model code of conduct.

According to a report by The Times of India, the EC is contemplating putting in action, ways and means to regulate not just accountability of expenses but even communication through social media for parties when it comes to campaigning. The matter was apparently brought to light when a rights organisation spoke of the social media question to the Chief Election Commissioner of the country, VS Sampath.

Reining in the social media

The question put forth in front of Sampath was regarding instances of likes being brought on Facebook for pages and posts belonging to national parties, campaign messages making its way through WhatsApp forwards as well as multiple websites for candidates. The organisation sought to have some kind of accountability and a larger scrutiny of the expenses being made through campaigning on social networking websites and the Internet in general.

For those not in the know, the EC is the authority for putting a limit on poll expenses as the general elections draw near. The limits can be revised from time to time and this seems to be an ideal opportunity to do so. Never before has the social networking medium been a more potent tool in the hands of politicians. Taking a leaf out of international poll campaigns, Indian politicos too have ramped up their presence on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Of course, this would mean incurring expenditure, especially when it comes to hosting and maintaining their own websites.

It has recently been revealed that social media could swing up to 4 percent urban votes in around 160 constituencies in the upcoming elections. Sampath may need to take a good, hard look at politicians’ online presence and expenditure on online campaigns in the run up to the elections.

Report by : Nishtha Kanal

Twitter lands ad agency partnership for major revenue boost

Twitter has struck one of its biggest advertising deals to date with media agency Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG), the companies said, in the social media site's latest effort to boost revenue.

The multi-year agreement, which includes preferred inventory and a direct pipeline into Twitter's data feed for media planning purposes, is worth up to hundreds of millions of dollars, according to sources familiar with the deal. They declined to be named because the transaction details are private.

"In about 18 months, Twitter has gone from an experiment to essential," said Laura Desmond, global chief executive of Starcom, in an interview about the partnership on Monday.

"The deal is about research and experiences on behalf of SMG's clients," said Adam Bain, president of global revenue at Twitter.

As part of the worldwide firm Publicis Groupe , SMG buys and plans media on behalf of clients ranging from Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to Kellogg Co . The partnership marks a significant win for Twitter which has been courting Madison Avenue to expand its advertising business.

Twitter is partnering with an ad agency

With 200 million users, Twitter has become extremely popular for its effective way of sharing short, 140-character messages. But the fast growing social media site now in its seventh year is furiously ramping up its ability to make revenue in the face of stiff competition from Facebook Inc and Google Inc .

Twitter is expected to generate less than $600 million in revenue this year, according to the research firm eMarketer.

The partnership with SMG culminated last fall after a strategy planning session between Desmond and Twitter Chief Executive Dick Costolo. SMG is making a push to connect traditional media buys like TV commercials and glossy ad pages in magazines with chatter on social media across the Web.

As part of the agreement, Twitter and SMG will co-create a virtual lab to research how people tweet and watch TV.

Twitter has also partnered with TV viewership company Nielsen to measure what people are saying on Twitter about TV shows.

Additionally, Twitter and SMG will launch a mobile product to survey users in real-time.

"We think agencies play a big role bringing interesting new ideas to the platform and we want to support that," said Bain, adding that Twitter plans to form more of these types of partnerships. "We want to create a great framework to measure."

Report by : Reuters

Twitter introduces keyword-targeting for advertisers

Twitter will leave no stone unturned to woo advertisers. Turning tweet content into a “first-class citizen” of its advertising arsenal, Twitter has introduced keyword targeting for advertising on the micro-blogging website. Essentially, Twitter’s ad partners will now be able to target their ads based on the content of your tweets.

The new feature is now available to advertisers and will enable them to reach users based on the keywords in their recent Tweets and the Tweets with which users recently engaged. Nipoon Malhotra, Product Manager, Revenue for Twitter wrote in a blog post, that this capability is an important one because it lets marketers reach users at the right moment, in the right context.

How the targeting will work is very simple. Say you tweet about a clothing brand that you love, the brand could run a geotargeted campaign in your area using the name itself as a keyword. You will be able to see a promoted tweet about the brand’s latest offers and sales. It’s a win-win situation for parties involved. You will be able to see advertisements relevant to your interests, and advertisers will be able to optimise their resources by showing the ads to only those who are interested.

Advertising made easy

Malhotra assured users in the blog post that this new feature will make absolutely no difference to user experience on the micro-blogging website. The amount of ads displayed are not going to increase and users will still be able to dismiss irrelevant Promoted Tweets.

"In fact, we believe users' experiences with ads will improve as a result of this feature as they see more relevant Promoted Tweets," Malhotra says. He mentions that when Twitter was testing this feature out, it noted that users were more likely to engage with keyword targeted ads than other forms of timeline targeting.

Malhotra gave the example of GoPro, the makers of action-oriented HD cameras who were running keyword-targeted ads on Twitter. GoPro got about two million ad impressions and an engagement rate of a cool 11 percent.

It figures that Twitter would want to go out of its way to ensure that advertisers get their moneys’ worth on the site considering the staggering ad rate it currently charges. While Twitter says that advertisers can pay as much or as little as they want for Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends will set companies back by a cool $200,000.

What is more important is that advertisers will now be able to make optimum use of Twitter’s new Cards to promote or sell their products and services. Say, a movie theatre is running a series of advertisements through Promoted Tweets, users will be able to make purchases of movie tickets right from within the tweet now.

Twitter introduced new Cards earlier this month that is set to improve user experience on the micro-blogging website. Twitter Cards are essentially embedded information that pop up within a tweet. When you click on a tweet of this sort, it opens up a drawer that contains such content. The company added App, Product and Gallery cards this month.

With the App Card, you will be able to see more information about an app including its name, icon, description and other details like rating or price. Using the Product Cards, developers will now be able to pull additional information from websites for products. Besides image and description of the product, Twitter will allow for two customisable fields that can display additional information like price or ratings. Lastly, instead of just a single image, users will now be able to embed an album or collection of photographs via a preview of the photo gallery. It will indicate to a viewer that an entire gallery, and not just a single image has been shared.

Advertisers now have a vast variety of options to choose from while displaying something as simple as a Promoted Tweet on Twitter.

Report by : Nishtha Kanal

Could there be a Twitter Home in the making?

With Facebook Home already out for users around the world, the question on everyone's mind is what does Twitter have planned for Android to compete with one of its biggest rivals?

Interestingly, Twitter's Vice President of Product, Michael Sippey did not rule out the possibility of a Home-like Android experience for the micro-blogging platform. The idea of a Twitter-centric launcher for Android might sound mouthwatering to many, but Sippey didn't explicitly state what Twitter's plans were.

Sippey said that Twitter has been mulling over the possibility of having a Facebook Home-like product and generally improving user experience on Android. Calling the Facebook Home “a very interesting product”, Sippey said “There are a lot of things we’re looking at on Android and across all of our applications to make it easier to see tweets. I’d like to see tweets there [on the lock screen], so we’ll see how that goes.”

It’s too soon to say that Twitter will be launching a dedicated launcher app for Android, and Sippey didn't reveal what the company was developing behind closed doors. He did say though that the company was looking to improve the Twitter experience on Android overall.

Will Android play home to Twitter Home? (image Credit: Design Tickle)

Meanwhile, before thinking about a possible 'Twitter Home', the company must take a look at its existing mobile products.

Days after Twitter rolled out a major update for its Android app, users took to the micro-blogging site itself to complain about bugs. The most common grouse with the users remained the fact that the “Me” tab, or the profile page refused to load for some users. The page is needed to access your own tweets, Direct Messages and even the option to switch between multiple accounts.

Twitter had to roll out an emergency update to address the issue within a few days of the hyped release. Unfortunately, the update did not address bugs like floating tweets that users still seem to experience with the new Twitter for Android app. Before wanting to experiment further with a Facebook Home rival, Twitter could take the chance to sit down and figure out how to lure back users to their Android app from third-party clients.

One thing that Twitter seems to be getting right, though, is Twitter Music. The music discovery service is about to be rolled out soon and will come with a web interface and an app. Streaming and integration with services like Spotify, Rdio, iTunes, Soundcloud, Vevo and YouTube is expected. The service will apparently help users discover new music based on content from their Twitter profiles.

Report by : Nishtha Kanal

Facebook for iOS gets Chat Heads

Facebook has launched a blitzkrieg of sorts for updates after the launch of Facebook Home. After having readied a bevy of updates for Android, Facebook has turned its focus on its iOS app. Facebook for iOS has received an update that gives it the much desired Chat Heads feature along with a few other new additions and tweaks.

With the Chat Heads you can now chat with your friends from wherever you are within the app. Mind you, you will not be able to see Chat Heads once you are outside the Facebook app on your iOS devices, since Apple does not allow apps to leave the sandbox this way yet.

You will be able to hold multiple conversations from within the Facebook app without needing to run to the Messenger or open the messages tab. The Chat Heads will line up neatly on the iPhone or iPod Touch screen. On the iPad, the Chat Heads will come arranged vertically on the left of your screen. You can flick these Chat Heads around on your screen if they hamper your reading and you can flick them towards the bottom of the screen to make them disappear.

Chat Heads and Stickers! iOS users, rejoice!

Unlike in Android, Chat Heads on the iOS version of Facebook will not work with SMS.

Facebook for iOS now also has Stickers that will help you “liven up your messages”. Stickers are essentially these colourful, cute looking large emojis that you can send in a message with a single tap, quite like you can send emoticons. These large Stickers are bound to make conversations a lot more fun than sending those tiny emoticons whose emotions you can hardly make out.

The social networking giant is also rolling out new feeds like Music, Photo and Games in the revamped News Feed you will get along with this latest update. The iPad app is also set to get “brighter, more beautiful stories” in the News Feed.

Of course, the rollout is a little slow, but you will start getting these features on your iOS devices starting now. Here at tech2, the iPod Touch that we were using received Chat Heads, but not the newer News Feed or Stickers in the messages. Facebook promises us that these features will be available to everyone soon. We’re waiting!

You can grab version 6.0 of the Facebook for iOS app from the App Store here.

Meanwhile, there is good news for people who have been waiting for Facebook Home. The social media giant has made its Android launcher available to users outside the US now. Of course, Facebook Home is available only on select devices right now namely, Samsung's Galaxy S3 and Note II, and HTC's One, One X and One X+.

If you do use any of these devices anywhere in the world, you can download the app from Google Play for free.

Report by : Nishtha Kanal

Just Who Uses Social Media? A Demographic Breakdown

You think you know social? How about who uses it? Well, you might not know it as well as you would have guessed.

A new study from the Pew Research Center and Docstoc shed some light on just who uses social and on what platforms. Some of the findings seem in line with what you would probably guess, but others were surprising.

If you think the smarter, more attractive sex is more socially prolific than us men, well ... you're right. Women use social media 9% more than men do. Despite having more distractions, people living in cities have the most social media activity, at 70% of the population. Perhaps it's the connectivity of large-city life.

In terms of racial and ethnic groups online, Hispanics lead the pack at 72% engagement, with African-Americans trailing at 68%, who are ahead of Caucasians at 65%. And in a strange twist, despite being somewhat economically disadvantaged, 72% of adults with annual household incomes below $30,000 use social networks, more than those with higher wages.

How about most popular social networks? That would be Facebook, with 67% of adults using the Zuckerberg-founded service. A distant second was LinkedIn with 20%, with Twitter coming in third at 16%, and Tumblr falling dead last at 6%.

Report by : Adam Popescu

Twitter's Job to Manage Its Twitter Has Twitter Atwitter

Do you like Twitter? More importantly, are you a "power user" skilled in the Twitter arts?

Twitter just might hire you to run its Twitter.

An online job posting for a social media manager position at the microblogging giant began making the rounds among Internet types on Friday afternoon. Its megadose of meta had Twitter, well, atwitter.

It's hard to tell with these things, but New York Magazine's Stefan Becket seemed to kick off the fun, and others doubled and tripled down on the Twitter.
Twitter hiring Twitter person to manage their Twitter twitter.com/jobs/positions?jvi=oiwjXfwO,Job …

Twitter hiring Twitter person to manage their Twitter https://twitter.com/jobs/positions?jvi=oiwjXfwO,Job …


In all seriousness though, this does look to be a tremendous opportunity in the social media working world. While a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, the gig could really give your career wings, so it can't hurt to apply. Job-seekers will surely flock to the listing, but here are a few of the things Twitter is looking for in candidates:

At least three years of social media-specific experience with a brand or agency.

Ability to write and edit extremely concisely.

Command of a brand voice, and the ability to communicate warmly and clearly.

If you're seriously interested in the job or want to check out the full listing, just click right here.

Does this sound like a cool position? Let us know in the comments.

Report by : Sam Laird

Facebook Home is now on the Google Play store

After days of being just able to read about Facebook's new Home users of the HTC One, One X, and One X+, Samsung Galaxy S3, Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 2 can finally lay their hands on it. Facebook's latest iteration of the service for Android smartphones, Facebook Home, is up for grabs on the Google Play store.

Cover Feed on Facebook Home lets users view their News Feed posts as soon as they turn their phone on. They can swipe through these posts to view more, double tap to like a post and then can comment on a post from the cover feed.

Up next is Chat Heads and Messenger. Home users can install Messenger on their devices to send and receive texts and Facebook messages at the same location. Then there is the ability to move in and out of conversations while, say, watching a video or browsing the web. It is possible to type replies right from chat heads. Alternatively, users can choose to move them around, in case they don't want to respond to it right away.

Facebook Home settles on the Play store

Home users can view their notifications on their homescreen and they will stay there till the users want it to. To open a notification, users can tap on it or get them out of the way to view the cover feed.

Users have the app launcher to open their favourite apps and post to Facebook at the same time. Users can pick what they want to feature on the launcher, and they can press and hold it before dragging it to where they want to see it.

Facebook Home is dubbed as a replacement for the Android UI and puts more emphasis on people rather than apps. The tablet version of Facebook Home is still under development and will take some time to be launched.

On the question of privacy on Home, Facebook's Michael Richter and Erin Egan had clarified that it "doesn't change anything related to your privacy settings on Facebook." They added that privacy controls of a user work in the same way with Home as they do elsewhere on Facebook.

While stating that Home is a new way to experience the social networking platform, the post makes it clear that users get to the service by downloading it from the Play store or by purchasing a phone with Home pre-installed. Implying that they do not have to use Home to access Facebook on their Android devices.

Additionally, once a user installs Home on his Android device, he doesn't necessarily have to continue using it. Users can turn off Home in their Home Settings. Alternatively, if a user likes Home but doesn't want to show up as their lockscreen, there is an option for that too.

Importantly, the post goes on to add that Home collects information when users interact with the service, i.e. when they like or comment on a post and send a message. Home may also collect other details about how a user uses it. The post explains this by stating that Facebook has a list of apps that a user has in the Home app launcher.

As for devices that come pre-installed with Home, the service can display notifications from apps on the phone. Facebook explains that since these notifications appear in Home, they collect information about the notifications, like which app is generating them, and not the content of the notification. Facebook confirmed that it removes identifying information from this data after 90 days.

As far as the service's location collecting abilities go, Facebook clarifies that it does not use the location any differently than the Facebook app that users already have on their Android phones. Importantly, it is possible to control the location permission in the phone's settings.

Report by : tech2 News Staff

More than 500,000 magazines created on Flipboard 2.0 in two weeks

Just weeks after it launched a major update to its service, Flipboard has released an infographic showing the popularity of its new features. Flipboard 2.0 went live just two weeks ago and more than 500,000 magazines have already been created by users, the colourful infographic reveals. Flipboard has listed USA, UK and Canada as among the top 5 countries creating magazines on its platform. It goes on to reveal further that 3 million readers have been added to the service since its update went live. There are in all 53 million Flipboard readers in the world today.

Flipboard goes on to share the list of top 10 countries in terms of its readership. The list includes USA, UK, China, Germany, Spain, Canada, France, Italy, Taiwan and Brazil. Over 50 percent of Flipboard 2.0 users are reading magazines everyday, the infographic shows. The numbers and names don't end just there. The infographic also features a list of popular magazines by their publishers, which include The Esquire Interviews, Prefab Perfection, Women We Love, The Beatles and Photo of the Day, to name a few. That said, Flipboard readers picked a unique list of their favourite reads too, which include The Interesting Things, Easter Bunny and MG's Reading List, to name a few.

Flipboard has put up an infographic full of stats

Love reading Flipboard at 9 AM? Well, that's what Flipboard has found in another interesting trivias on the infographic.

The Flipboard 2.0 update is easily one of the biggest to have been introduced to the application to date. The updated app allows Flipboard readers to create and share their own magazines. They can customise their content, revolving around topics, events and other interests, that they would want to share with others.

Earlier this year, Flipboard rolled out a new update for its Android users on the Play Store, which brought along with it several bug fixes in addition to a whole new feature called Flipboard Daydream.

It allows Android 4.2 users to turn Flipboard covers into a screensaver for their tablet or phone. Until now, Flipboard’s signature covers were available only on the tablet edition. Users can now stay up to date with customised news through covers that become part of a screensaver that automatically updates with fresh stories.

If you are lucky enough to have a handset that runs Jelly Bean, you know how impressive the Daydream feature can get. The latest addition to Android 4.2, Daydream is essentially an interactive screensaver that gets activated while the phone is charging or is docked. Users can customise it to throw up the latest news from Google Currents and display photo albums amongst other things. Now Jelly Bean users can get Flipboard news covers appear in the Daydream mode to stay in touch with news even when their phone is idle.

Users can now see covers from the Cover Stories category from their Flipboard account turn into a screensaver with zooming and panning functions. Compared to default competitor Google Currents, this new update will make Flipboard do a lot more than just display headlines in the Daydream mode. Flipboard has taken what is easily the least talked about Jelly Bean function and turned it into a USP for its app. Users might want to tweak settings a bit as the app will use Cover Stories in Daydream.

Report by : tech2 News Staff

CHART OF THE DAY: Facebook Dominates Social Logins — But Google Is Closing The Gap

When users on the web are asked to log in to a site, they most often choose Facebook over Twitter, LinkedIn or Google rather than registering anew, according to data from Janrain, which tracks social logins.

Facebook has become hugely dominant as the social login of choice but Google gained some ground in Q1 2013, Janrain reports:

During Q1, Facebook did lose ground to Google for the second consecutive quarter, dropping in popularity from 49% during Q4 2012 to 46% in Q1 2013, while Google’s share of social logins ascended from 31% to 34% during the same period.

Here's the chart:
Report by : Jim Edwards

Facebook Home Review: Slick, Fun and, for Now, Superficial

HTC CEO Peter Chou holds an HTC First phone showing the new Facebook Home app for Android
If you attended Facebook’s “our new Home on Android” event last Thursday — or watched the live stream — you could be forgiven if you came away confused about just how significant Facebook thought its news was.

On one hand, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg kept stressing that, despite long-standing rumors, the company wasn’t announcing a “Facebook phone” after all. Nor had it created a Facebook phone operating system. Its new product, Facebook Home, was just a replacement for Android’s standard home screen; one that was shipping on just one new phone — HTC’s First — and which could be installed on a few different existing phone models from Samsung and HTC.

But Zuckerberg also said Facebook Home was a paradigm shift: a piece of software that makes the phones running it people-centric rather than app-centric. And he called it the best version of Facebook yet — not just for phones, but for any sort of device.

So which is it? Is Facebook Home a simple and straightforward piece of software, or a landmark?

Well, conceptually, it’s indeed a big deal: allowing one social network to insert itself, front and center, into your smartphone experience could change everything about how you interact with your phone.

But the thing is, there just isn’t that much Facebook Home to interact with. There are pretty pictures from your news feed, updates from your friends and an exceptionally clever messaging feature called Chat Heads — and not a whole lot else. To riff on what Gertrude Stein said about her hometown of Oakland, Calif., there’s not much there there.

Not yet, anyhow. But Zuckerberg said Facebook plans to release monthly updates to Home, which means that it could get much meatier in a hurry. And even though the software isn’t fancy, it represents Facebook’s first full-blown attempt to reimagine itself for a more mobile world. (The standard Facebook smartphone apps are pretty much just conventional Facebook, crammed onto a smaller display.) As such, it’s the company’s first rough draft of its own future.

I tried Facebook Home on HTC’s First, which will go on sale on April 12, the same day that the Home download becomes available to other phones. The LTE phone will be an AT&T exclusive, for $99.99 with a two-year contract. As the relatively low price indicates, it’s a basic smartphone, not a Galaxy S4 killer: the 4.3-in. (10.9 cm) screen is small by Android standards, the camera has only 5 megapixels of resolution and the Qualcomm processor isn’t among the most potent.

I found it to be a pleasing piece of hardware anyhow — a handset with a pocketable, one-hand feel similar to the iPhone 5 and a sleek, minimalist industrial design. It’s in line with the Facebook Home idea, which emphasizes simplicity over kitchen-sink complexity.

O.K., on to Home itself. It replaces Android’s standard lock screen and home screen with Cover Feed, a feature that reminds me a bit of browsing Facebook in Flipboard. It displays status updates and photos from your friends, one full-screen item at a time. You can swipe your way through them, letting you catch up on what your pals are doing within milliseconds of turning on your phone.

(You can also choose to use Home as your home screen but disable it in the lock screen. You might want to do that if you’d prefer to have one photo you choose greet you when you switch on your phone, rather than a fresh, ever-changing selection of items from Facebook.)

Cover Feed is constantly downloading updates and photos in the background — though it’s careful about doing so in a way that won’t kill your battery or decimate your data plan — so that they’re just there when you’re ready to look at them. You never have to pause while additional items load, as you do with Facebook’s standard app.

There’s a basic problem with blowing up Facebook photos to fill a phone’s whole screen, though: phone screens are designed to be used primarily in portrait orientation. (In fact, that’s the only orientation that Home supports.) Photos, by contrast, are most often landscape-shaped. Home deals with this by panning majestically across photos, Ken Burns style — which sometimes works quite well and sometimes renders them illegible. You can also press and hold a photo to see it in a smaller-but-complete view.

Cover Feed, like Facebook’s News Feed, is a never-ending river of stuff from all your friends. If a friend uses Facebook to aim something directly at you, by posting on your wall or sending you a message, it’ll show up as a banner notification on the lock screen, roughly comparable to the ones in Apple’s iOS. These notifications also alert you to new e-mail, calendar appointments and other items, and are cleaner and easier to read than the ones in standard Android. Nicely done.

The single best thing in this first version of Facebook Home, however, is Chat Heads. (I even admire the wonderfully silly name.) When you get an incoming Facebook message or a text message, a marblelike circle — a Chat Head — pops up on top of whatever else you’re doing on your phone. You can swipe the Chat Head to nudge it to any location on the screen, or tap it to begin chatting in a pop-up window. And you talk with multiple Chat Heads at one time. Much more efficient than hopping back and forth between two apps.

(The one thing that sometimes flummoxed me: each Chat Head is a tiny version of the person’s profile picture, cropped to fit inside a circle. I couldn’t always tell whom a Chat Head represented from this visual clue alone. Oh, and for reasons I don’t understand, Chat Heads are only initiated by an incoming message from a friend — if you start the conversation, you do so in the standard Facebook Messenger app.)

Despite Zuckerberg’s stance at the Facebook Home launch event that the software is organized around people, not apps, you’re going to spend plenty of time on a Facebook Home phone using apps — Facebook’s standard app and Facebook Messenger; all of Google’s built-in Android apps, such as Gmail and Chrome; and third-party apps you’ve installed. You get to them using Home’s launcher, which is comparable in overarching principle to the standard Android launcher and other third-party alternatives. As usual, there’s a section for your favorite apps and one that lists all your apps. (You press and hold an app to add it to the favorites.)

The launcher also lets you post status updates, upload photos and check in, putting three of Facebook’s most important features at your, um, fingertip.

Report by : Harry McCracken

New Skype malware mines Bitcoins for cyber criminals

A new malware plaguing popular Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service Skype has surfaced. Kaspersky Lab Expert Dmitry Bestuzhev shares in a blog post that a screenshot of a Skype client sent to him by a friend from Venezuela has revealed a malware campaign affecting Skype, similar to another malware campaign on Skype he had written about. The malware is capable of turning the infected machine "to a slave of the bitcoin generator". That, and it causes the CPU usage increases significantly.

Bestuzhev further notes that the a large number of the potential victims reside in Italy, Russia, Poland, Costa Rica, Spain, Germany, Ukraine, among others. He noted that worryingly, the average clicking rate was quite high too, at 2,000 clicks per hour. The initial trojan, which Kaspersky detected as Trojan.Win32.Jorik.IRCbot.xkt., is downloaded from a server in India.

Generating over 2,000 clicks per hour

Once the malware manages to infect the system, it drops in other pieces of malware. There are downloads from the Hotfile.com service and the malware also connects to its C2 server in Germany, the IP address of which is 213.165.68.138:9000. The process runs with the command – ?bitcoin-miner.exe -a 60 -l no -o http://suppp.cantvenlinea.biz:1942/ -u XXXXXX0000001@gmail.com -p XXXXXXXX, wherein the sensitive data was replaced by XXXXXX. It takes undue advantage of the infected CPU to mine Bitcoins for the miscreant.

Bestuzhev advises to watch out for signs – which includes your machine working hard and using up all available CPU resources – that may mean you're infected.

It maxes out your CPU

Even as you're reading this, the campaign is active on Skype. This isn't the first instance of malware on Skype. Back home too, in October last year, the service was hit by a spam attack. The government issued an advisory informing Skype users of the malicious spam campaign.

"A malicious spam campaign is on the rise targeting Skype users by sending instant message which appears to come from friends in the Skype contact list," the advisory read. The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) under the Communications and Information Technology ministry shared that the malware was adept at gaining control of the victim's machine by opening a backdoor and communicating to a remote http server.

Cyber security experts unearthed that the malware-ridden content has been found "lurking in the vicinity of cyber networks of Indian users who use this popular Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service". The malware was reportedly stealing user details, fuelling click fraud activity, while also posing as ransomware.

As a measure of caution, the advisory asked Skype users in the country to "not follow unsolicited web links or attachments in Skype messages and install latest security updates to Skype". The advisory added that users should download the latest version of Skype from trusted sources. To secure themselves further, users should install and maintain updated anti-virus software on gateways and desktops. The advisory stressed on the need to maintain caution when opening attachments, accepting file transfers, clicking links to web pages. Disabling the auto play feature altogether is a safe practice. Users should be careful to ward off social engineering attacks, it said

Report by : tech2 News Staff

Do You 'Like' Facebook's Home Announcement?

So what did we learn today? Did Facebook finally release the Facebook phone? Not really. Instead, the company unveiled Facebook Home, a new integration on Android devices that will put updates from the social network directly on the homescreen.

But that wasn't the only thing Facebook announced — we also got a peek at the new HTC First smartphone, which will be the first Facebook Home-optimized phone to hit the market.

With all the rumors and buzz that surrounded this event, are you satisfied with what was revealed? We want to know if you'll download the latest software. And do you dislike the name "chat heads" as much as we do for its new messaging feature?

Take our poll and then share your thoughts in the comments below.

Report by : Ryan Lytle

Fast-changing social media makes advisers scramble

Fast-changing features on social media sites are triggering a new wave of compliance challenges for financial advisers at a time when many are just becoming comfortable with the technology in the first place.

As social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter develop new ways to engage users, financial advisers and their firms will start 2013 with related compliance hassles to make sure they are not running afoul of firm policies. For some, it means adding new policies.

Case in point: a new LinkedIn feature that lets users "endorse" the skills and expertise of other users. That may be a great tool to show off an adviser's professional acumen, but receiving endorsements could also violate securities industry advertising regulations, say compliance professionals.

LinkedIn's "Skills & Expertise" feature is just one of an explosive number of changes in the fast-growing social media landscape. Many brokerages and registered investment advisers, once skittish about letting employees use the sites, now have little choice but to allow access while at the same time monitoring outgoing changes to avoid regulatory trouble.

The task can be overwhelming. Last year, Facebook made an average of 41 changes per week, according to Actiance Inc, a software company that provides social media compliance and monitoring services to businesses. LinkedIn and Twitter each made up to four changes weekly.

Advisers are playing catch-up (image credit: GettyImages)

Many changes are small technical fixes, but others ultimately lead to sweeping new features, said Joanna Belbey, Actiance social media and compliance specialist. They include ways of posting updates to wider audiences for a fee or sending new types of virtual gifts to friends. But these new features, if used, can also push advisers into dangerous waters.

"Social media is going to improve and the rate of enhancements will happen even faster now," said Michael Byrnes, a practice management coach and president of Boston-based Byrnes Consulting LLC. "It will be a challenge for advisory firms to keep up."

LinkedIn's "Skills & Expertise" endorsement feature, launched in September, complements an older feature that lets contacts write recommendations for one another.

Users can endorse contacts by clicking on subjects of expertise that hover above each person's profile, such as expertise in "venture capital" or "retirement plans." They can also add new categories. LinkedIn profiles publicly display the names of those who "endorsed" those individuals.

The sticking point: Endorsements are testimonials, which are heavily restricted for advisers working at brokerages - and the firms themselves - and not permitted for registered investment advisers, say compliance professionals.

There is only one option for most advisers: Turn off the endorsements feature so they do not publicly appear, said Cathy Vasilev, vice president of Red Oak Compliance Solutions LLC in Fredericksburg, Texas. That is especially true for advisers who register with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and are flatly prohibited from using testimonials.

While securities brokers who register with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) can use testimonials, they must include a wordy disclosure explaining, among other things, that the adviser did not pay for the endorsement, Vasilev said. That could be difficult to squeeze into a LinkedIn profile, she said. What's more, many brokerages have their own policies that prohibit testimonials.

To hide LinkedIn endorsements, click on "edit profile," under the "profile" tab. Scroll down to the "Skills & Expertise" section and click on the pencil icon. There is an option to click on "no, do not show my endorsements," using the "manage endorsements" feature.

Some firms eliminate possible social media regulatory snafus by using software that watches out for new social networking features, among other things, and automatically turns them off. The service, available through companies such as Actiance Inc and Global Relay Communications Inc, can cost between $5 and $25 monthly per adviser.

That can buy some time while firms get up to speed on new features and develop policies for their use, such as requiring advisers to hide endorsements, or bar them from sending gifts.

Firms that have not fully thought out their social media compliance programs should shy away from the sites to solicit clients, said Jervis Hough, founder of Taurus Compliance Consulting LLC in Aventura, Florida.

Before they undertake client solicitation, advisers must be taught how their existing policies apply to certain activities on social networking sites, he said.

Also, advisers who pay to "promote" their Facebook posts and Tweets, for example, could easily run afoul of industry and firm communication rules that require safeguards, such as preapproval from the compliance department, said Hough.

Another possible stumbling block is a Facebook feature that lets users send gifts through the site, such as credits for coffee company Starbucks Corp. Regulators and firms already impose strict limits on gift-giving tied to business. Advisers could exceed them, or fail to follow their firm's procedures for keeping track of gifts.

Firms and advisers should hold off on ramping up social networking activities until they put compliance parameters in place, Hough said.

Report by : Reuters

How Social Media Could Land You Your Next Job

We've all heard plenty about how your social-media footprint could cost you that dream job or become a massive distraction at work — but did you know social media also might just be the key to getting hired?

More and more, job hirers and recruiters scour social sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter to find new talent and learn about prospective employees. Here's the great thing about that: By and large, you control what your online presence looks like and includes.

But that doesn't only mean thinking twice about photos you post and links you share. The term "social resume" is beginning to gain traction, and refers to digital enhancements to the traditional paper or PDF curriculum vitae.

LinkedIn is likely the first social-resume tool that comes to mind, but other sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr can be just as helpful. There are also services such as ResumeSocial, VisualCV and Razume that offer more options for job seekers.

What can a social resume offer that the old variety can't? Links to past work, enhanced networking opportunities and instant feedback from recruiters and other job seekers, for starters.

The following infographic from OnlineColleges.com takes a deeper dive into the many benefits of properly leveraging social media in your job search. Check it out below; then offer your own tips in the comments.
Report by : Sam Laird

Social media scripts new modes of communication

Social media such as Facebook and Twitter continues to script new modes of communication, radically changing the way we live and work. Jeff Hancock, professor of communication at Cornell University, says: "The billion-user-mark for Facebook provides yet another piece of evidence that we now live in a digitally networked world that is fundamentally different from how we left the last century only 12 years ago."

Social media continues to script new modes of communication

"For instance, Elvis had a billion people watch his Hawaii show, but we wouldn't know that for weeks afterwards because it took time to compile the ratings," adds Hancock. "Now, we know within seconds. Now, our behaviours and attitudes leave traces that can be observed, computed and reproduced almost instantaneously," says Hancock, according to a Cornell statement.

"Facebook and similar services now affect almost all facets of human life, from how we talk to, or ignore, one another, to how we find love and end relationships, and even the nature of the birth announcement or what to do with our digital remains after death. It's an exciting time to be studying human behaviour," adds Hancock.

"On Twitter's rise, I think that what we are seeing isn't really that ludicrous, but really a new way of seeing how influential some people can be," concludes Hancock.

Report by: IANS

Copyright © 2015 Dynamic Technology

Designed by