Web companies should practice ' Data Stewardship '-PCWorld

People are talking about privacy here at South by Southwest. Generally, Facebook has played fast and loose with the protection of our personal data, and this has raised the interest in question among developers, many of whom develop programs that is intrin Illustration: Jeffrey Pelosically social. There is also a sense that we are better able to make personal information. But we might need a new way of thinking and talking about it.

A Friday panel here discusses a "social network users ' Bill of Rights" would contain a number of protections for users of social networking sites. (You can read the Twitter stream of the event here.) One of the major themes of the discussion was the idea that we are in a very real sense, pay-to-use free services like Facebook and Google by sacrificing some of our personal information. If we start to refuse to hand over our data, or deny social network Web sites the right to use it, can we find ourselves having to pay for use on Web sites.

If there are issues, which are more sensitive among internet users than their personal integrity, is the prospect of having to pay. We are trained to expect "free" on the Internet, and we do not want to change.

Have I am thinking this personal thing again at the latest. I have looked at it not with regard to the protection of personal information, but in the form of personal information on social networks, ad networks and data brokers who used to earn money "cash".

I think first of all, it is the word "Privacy" has become a politically charged term, loaded. I think the collection and use of personal data can have two different results--a beneficial and other coercive measures and potentially harmful. Company a was able to study my personal and friend data and deliver ads to me, is worth looking at and not just random garbage. Company B, on the other hand, can collect my personal, sensitive information, go out of business, and then allow my data and data of millions of others to fall into the hands of people who want to use it on unscrupulous or illegal ways.

Data collected by the social Web sites do not seem to die easily, and can live on after the company collected it is deleted. I think we need a set of rules, which talk about stewardship responsibility both web companies today and in the future. We need rules that apply directly to the Web-the companies themselves, and not so much a vague set of privacy rules concerning consumers. We must, for example, explicit rules about what the Internet companies must do with a person's personal data when the user exits the Web site or even die (this is actually a big problem).

Social network companies Facebook and Google would like to define rules and police even in private life, without a law. But as USC law professor Jack Lerner points out, we have laws on almost every other kind of data--financial data and health care data, for example--but not about the information in the social graph.

I believe that we need a law, and which has international reach (although I am sure, how you do it), because the Internet knows no borders. But I believe that the new law should focus on data stewardship responsibility of Internet companies.

Senators John McCain and John Kerry, is said to circulate an online privacy Bill, which would require companies to get permission from users to collect personal data and allow users to see exactly which data has already been collected. The potential legislation be taken more seriously than in the past, similar attempt because the two sponsors--each a senior member of his party--represents a bipartisan effort that has a chance to win broad support. On the other hand, this pair of promoted privacy legislation for a period of at least ten years.

I hope they get it right, because the law will tone in the way sites like Facebook and Google (and a host of other "social marketing" and online advertising companies) treat our personal information well into the future.

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What is the cost? Return on investment (ROI) of social media can be an intangible-The nonprofit times

What's It Cost?
ROI of social media can be an intangible

There's Facebook, Second Life, Myspace, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and now Jumo. There are many smaller social networking platforms. When it comes to deploying assets, where to be in cyberspace is a tough decision.

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Baltimore is going through the evaluation process. CRS is one of Facebook's 500 million active users, and also tweets on Twitter and posts videos to YouTube. CRS has a Myspace profile with 3,288 "friends," although it is not seeing a lot of activity there and managers are trying to decide what to do with it. Deleting it is a serious option.

"We, like many other nonprofits, struggle to accurately measure the financial ROI (return on investment) of our efforts," said Laura Durington, online community manager at the CRS. "We look at Facebook Insights, Google Analytics and we look at source code reports in our online fundraising program. But, it only gives us part of the picture. Still, I would argue, although it's more of a hunch, that we are getting something important out of these efforts."

According to an Idealware study, "The Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide," CRS isn't the only organization considering cutting back on Myspace. The Portland, Maine nonprofit technology group surveyed 460 nonprofit employees, held six telephone focus groups, and a case study collection in which 273 staff members provided details of which social media channels they are using and who they are targeting.

As you might expect, since 2008 Facebook has seen a huge increase in popularity and there has been a substantial decline in Myspace nonprofit users. Many nonprofits aren't investing much time in it and are seeing decreasing benefits.

Myspace cut its staff in half in January, letting go 500 employees. The decision came after the social media website was revamped in October 2010 to run with fewer people. MySpace had 54.4 million unique U.S. visitors in November, down 15 percent from a year ago.

Julie Somogyi, director of integrated marketing and communications for the Girl Scouts of the Greater Chicago area, believes the organization needs to focus on the social media websites where their girls and volunteers are virtually congregating. "Even though we did have some initial interaction with Myspace a couple of years ago, we began investing our time more heavily in Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn in the past two years because those are the most active sites within our key demographics," she said.

According to Andrea Berry, Idealware's director of partnerships and learning and coauthor of the study, nonprofits are using social media websites for public interest, although the idea of fundraising is always in the back of their minds. "A lot of nonprofits are struggling to use it as a fundraising tool but use it as a way to reach out to new people, potential supporters, engage current supporters and reinforce their brand for key people in their area like the press," she said.
More than 30 percent of people surveyed who use Facebook and Twitter said they know that these social media sites are reaching new supporters for their organization and more than 75 percent responded saying they think Facebook and Twitter are reaching new supporters. The numbers jumped to 80 percent for sites such as Facebook, Twitter, video sharing sites and blogs for nonprofit managers who responded they think that these sites are enhancing their relationship with their audience.

"It's a good way to reach an untapped audience," Durington said. "When we started we weren't sure what to expect three years ago. Every article about it said this is going to be this huge boom for fundraising but very quickly most nonprofits found that not to be the case."

CRS uses Google Analytics, but it's still hard to see the absolute correlation for the Facebook donations because the tracking gets lost and it becomes a "grey area." They also spend more time promoting and encouraging people to go to their own website rather than the organization's Facebook page, although, the Facebook page is becoming a place where people can go to build and engage in an educated community, Durington said.

"Our commenter's seem to be very educated about global issues," she said. "We have witnessed a lot of some interesting dialogue, not just between us and them but also with each other."
It's an interesting experiment to see what people are talking about. CRS's goal is to boost traffic to their website and have Facebook be a referral point. Durington said that the people going from the Facebook page to their website is in the single-digit percentage but it is equal to the number of referrals they get from Google.

Facebook isn't as reliable as a website but it's starting to be a place were people look for information. "A website is always going to be number one. You shouldn't be using a Facebook instead of a website," Berry said.

ROI for nonprofits is hard to calculate, said Thomas A. McLaughlin, vice president of consulting services for the Nonprofit Finance Fund and contributing editor for The NonProfit Times. One way to see if there is anything happening is to look at the overall fundraising of operations. "In reality, even assuming that organizations have record keeping for this, its almost likely the best we could hope is to calculate a marginal interest on fundraising costs and attribute it to social media if that's the only thing that's changed," he said.

Another reason ROI is so hard to determine is it doesn't translate to mean the same thing for nonprofits. "ROI is popular for for-profit businesses and doesn't transfer easily to the nonprofit world," McLaughlin said. "There is no such thing as an investment in the nonprofit world like there is for for-profits. It would be more of a cost."

One cost expense would be if an organization hired an employee solely to work on social media campaigns or trying to break down the time of an employee who works on overall fundraising campaigns. "If organizations can somehow isolate the employees' times in various elements of fundraising, social media will be one of those elements," McLaughlin said. "If you get lucky enough, some organizations might track what that employee spends their time on. In those cases you might be able to strike some approximation on dollars and time spent on social media."

For the Girls Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana, instead of having one person designated exclusively to social media, they include the social media responsibilities in three marketing team members' job descriptions.

Maria Wynne, CEO of the Girl Scouts of the Greater Chicago area, thinks its important to have a place to go on the Internet for all ages, which is why the Girl Scouts just launched their new website, www.worldsstrongestgirl.org for girls 13 and younger. "It's a place for girls where they can express themselves that is safe, with anonymity and the latitude to be imaginary about a story or tell something that is very concrete," Wynne said.

The website is animated with cartoon-like characters that represent badges. Girls can click on a badge and write a story or create their own badge. "The younger girls are very much about something that interacts and engages them," she said.

For girls who are 13 and older, they want to network and talk with people online. One of the reasons why they created the website was to give the younger girls an entry point for interacting with the Girls Scouts online with an activity that isn't threatening.

"The financial value of those communications is secondary and although some decline in the program and marketing print budget has been realized, the intangibles are a bit more difficult to quantify," Somogyi said. "For example, when girls use social media to reach out to their friends and family members to ask them if they would like to order Girl Scout cookies, there is a financial advantage to the girl and her troop because they have reached more customers, and to the council as a whole because proceeds from the Girl Scout cookie program support how we can best support our membership locally."

On the Girl Scouts' Facebook page, girls and volunteers are connecting and even creating their own Facebook pages for their capstone projects and other programs that the Girl Scouts participate in. The Girl Scouts are also on Twitter and LinkedIn. "I think it's the way people expect entities to participate in the virtual world today," Wynne said. "Along with having a presence, it is for many the practical way of sharing information."

For example, Wynne has seen new leaders and volunteers ask for advice on their Facebook page and almost immediately there are 10 responses from other members of the Facebook group. "It's a mentoring and networking tool for best practices and a way for people to ask for help in the volunteer community," she said.

Justin Perkins, director of nonprofit strategy for Care2.com, has been working with nonprofits for five years with online marketing and donor improvements. He was inspired three years ago to make the ROI in social media calculating tool when Facebook Causes launched to help nonprofits decide if this would be worth their time and money.

"There was initial skepticism that there was a vital business model there (Facebook)," Perkins said. "Before investing time, it was ideal to come up with a tool to look before you leap."

The calculator was created using typical metrics that nonprofits use to measure online success like how many employees or volunteers are working on a social media campaign, how many hours a week they spend on it, how many "friends" they recruit, how many of those "friends" sign up for an e-mail list and ultimately how many become donors.

The calculator allows nonprofits to plug in their information or number goals in a four-step process to see their potential ROI. It can be found on www.frogloop.com/social-networks-calculator

Perkins believes nonprofits that started using social media had a sort of "gold rush mentality" but they need to figure out if it will actually be promising for them in the end. "What's the actual cost? What's the opportunity cost if we do this at the expense of something else? What is something else we could be doing to have a higher ROI," he said are some questions that nonprofits need be asking themselves when using social media. NPT

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It is surprising that the UK loves social networking best-Telegraph.co.uk

According to Experian Hitwise reportis the latest social networks like Facebook and Twitter the UK's favorite online destinations, banks entertainment places such as the BBC iPlayer and Channel 4 's website from the top.

Analysts say high UK Facebook adoption and usage leads to the increased popularity of these sites. In fact, last month Facebook announced that it now has 30 million registered users in the UK alone – accounts for half of the population.

The watering down of the two spaces, social networking and Entertainment Web sites, also accounted for the increase in UK traffic to the likes of Twitter.

Robin Goad, Experian Hitwise Research Director, said: "the relationship between the two categories will get much closer with more and more people sharing content from entertainment sites on social sites such as Facebook. Increasing social networks plays host to content from Web sites, entertainment. This does not mean people do not longer have to visit the sites or the content of entertainment, but it just means they now work more with the material, they often look first via a social network – when a friend has shared a link on a site like Facebook – rather than going directly to the source Web site. "

This idea of social networks will be "web in the web" has long been Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg ambitions. His vision, which he shared at the recent Summit in Web 2.0 in San Francisco, is that everything online should be interpreted using social and only businesses that enables social features of their online presence will win in the traffic and consumption.

On the stage provided Zuckerberg own evidence showing that a social version of an existing product always wins, and not surprisingly, chose to give an example of his own website success. In fact, it was an apt. He spoke about how Flickr, Yahoo!-owned photo sharing site, which was the largest and most popular online destination for people to share and store pictures, was great. However, when Facebook came, took over the lead in the same room, because it had people and greater social elements, so that users could really work around content.

According to Zuckerberg the next five years almost every vertical on the Internet product will be social as people will generally not make recommendations from friends or followers on what they should see, read or listen to online.

And it is this growing love for all social sites that have driven Google's hunger to create its own social network, the service so-called circles , rumors, which made the rounds earlier this week. For Google know better than anyone that social networking sites are quickly becoming the dominant force needs online and it is a piece of the action and quickly.

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Twitter contemplating Facebook-like ' pages '-TechRadar UK

Twitter could see Add Facebook-style tag pages in a tender in a way to make money from the popular pro-brevity social network site.

Despite over 200 million users and a five-year pedigree, Twitter still struggles to actually bring any cash.

Move to label pages would give advertisers an incentive to extradite moolah in return for a dedicated room for the pushing their own messages and products, as well as they do on Facebook.

Searchable

In the meantime, Twitter users can now enjoy a better recommendations experience; the network has made it easier to find Twitter accounts that are based on your interests.

Previous search results were returned based on your search query was included in a Twitter user name – so if you were looking for ' tech ', you would generally get Twitter accounts that have the word ' tech ' in the name.

@ TechRadar would, of course, be a place among them, but would be missed by other tech-focused sites, whose names are a little more vague.

It is not clear exactly how the new algorithm works-perhaps by examining recent tweets or by looking at a chart of bio-but it is nice to see Twitter entry into service of search features, which has always been a little iffy a bit of effort.

From marketing and Twitter

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Social marketing winner prominently in corporate plans-BtoB Magazine

Social media takes firmer hold marketers attention and budgets, richly favoured social channels, their primary uses and their individual strengths becomes clearer, according to a new survey by BtoB.

"New trends in b to B Social Marketing: insights from the field," released today found that 93% of all b2b marketers participating to some degree in the social media marketing with the most-used channel, LinkedIn, employed by 72% of survey respondents. Facebook (71%) and Twitter (67%) is almost as popular, and these three together constitute the core of most b2b marketers social media programs.

Online survey was conducted in January and February, and attracted 577 respondents.

"We are using both LinkedIn and Twitter as our two main social channels, mainly in order to provide another way to communicate with our partners and customers," said Sue Watkins, Director-Marketing at project and operations software company Meridian systems.

"LinkedIn allows us to achieve our social media-savvy customers want to network with other customers, so they are more active in our society and are more likely to be champions of our cause," said Watkins. "We post messages and also start discussions around topics."

Watkins said Twitter can Distribute her company and product news in the real-time push model, and used to support the Meridians press release activities and customer newsletter.

Facebooks inclusion in the top level of the b2b social channels is something of a surprise in view of the sometimes appears by marketers as oriented towards family and friends. But Facebook's marketing value to b2b companies is clear, according to the Btobs investigation.

"We have discovered that there is a better attention to Facebook, unlike Twitter," said Dan Rickershauser, marketing researcher with customer relationship management company landslides technologies. "People seem to spend more time on Facebook, because it is a bit more clean and controllable. I think the real winners are the companies that use Facebook Marketing because they are still relatively in front of the pack ".

Other popular channels is the sharing of video Web site YouTube.com, used by 48% of survey respondents, blogging (44%) and customer communities (22%).

While most marketers involved in social media by using a combination of channels, there is a clear preferences. When marketers were asked to name the single most important method used for b2b outreach was LinkedIn again clearly chosen leader, with 26% of respondents.

Facebook was selected as the single most important channel for 20% of the respondents with blogging (19%), customer communities (14%) and YouTube (7%) also cited above.

Despite being widespread overall, chosen Twitter as only 13% of marketers as their single favorite.

"A lot of things I look at Twitter's lack of strategy, and as a result you have Twitter somewhat flooded with" contains "communications" Rickershauser said.

These marketers, tightly integrate their social media marketing channels recognises the individual strengths of each — forces are not necessarily shared by all channels — according to the study.

Branding, considered Facebook, blogging and YouTube, primary strength, while the customer feedback and research competition-related information is perceived as customer communities greater strength.

Professional networking site LinkedIn biggest virtue is its lead-generation power.

Customer communities, on the other hand, is perceived as primary listening posts for marketers and natural ways to solve customer problems.

"In addition to Facebook, use most of our customers targeted debates, such as Amazon's sellers Center and Ebay's the Community Board," said Eric Nash, Director of online marketing in the online Postage company Stamps.com. "They look to the debates find our other customers with similar transactions."

Nash said, as his company began participating in customer communities, together with other social channels negative feedback has fallen from 32% of all comments in 2009 to 18% in 2010, while positive comments have risen to 51% from 28% in the same period.

Twitter, often featuring shortened URLs that advertises, landing pages, product launches, and white papers, seen first and foremost as a support website traffic and product/event promotion, according to the Btobs investigation.

Companies of different sizes were represented in Btobs study, even though small businesses dominated; 56% of respondents represented companies with an annual turnover of $ 24 million or less; 23% came from companies with annual revenues of $ 25 million to $ 499 million; and 21% represented businesses with annual revenues of $ 500 million or more.

Technology companies comprised 22% of respondents, followed by production (15%) and consultation (11%), with financial services (6%), Internet/online services (5%), advertising (5%), publishing/media (5%) and whole-sale trade/distribution (4%) are also represented.

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More college Grads are using social media to find a job Today-United States

Here s a study tip employers who want to hire top-notch college Grads: Bone on social media. By Justin Sullivan, Getty ImagesBy Justin Sullivan, Getty ImagesNearly 28% of the college students plan to seek employment are using LinkedIn, up from 5% last year, according to a study out today from the employee recognition provider in love rewards and career services network experience. A little more than 7% plan to use Facebook, from 5%.No longer just wait visit campus students job recruiters to learn about job opportunities. They re using digital tools to find their dream jobs, saying instead I love rewards CEO Razor Suleman. Companies must know their online image and then update something that is outdated, inaccurate or not interactive. The recruited personnel consultants, has now been Suleman says. They now go out and find the companies they want to apply for. Students learn about employers by viewing their sites reading Facebook and Twitter updates and read the LinkedIn profiles. Another source of information: comments of past and present employees on the job-oriented Web sites.A strong digital presence is a way for employers that they constitute a quest for the best and brightest are competitive.

If you can get a message over Facebook and Twitter, could a new job is waiting for you.

A little more than four in ten employers say they want to use different recruitment tactics to reach Generation Y, according to a survey by job search site Monster.com is released today. Of respondents say almost 60% of social networking sites are popular tools to reach Gen Y candidates.UPS revised its recruitment strategies to better embrace Web 2.0, says Matt Lavery, Director corporate talent acquisition. Our justification for the use of social media is because that s where we think the candidates, he says.The company posts updates and videos on topics such as job opportunities and the benefits of being an employee. It also created a mobile-friendly site for those who want to apply via smartphone. Younger people want to associate with you in a different way than in the past, Lavery said. They will interact with you. They want to know about you The updated recruitment techniques take effort, but they work, "he said.In 2010, used UPS these tactics to recruit 955 employees. The year before, hired the 29 employees through these means. It s a time investment, you must be willing to do, he says. You can t just has a page up and has no content. In social media have you have an offer and a roof or people won t be a part of your community. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit our FAQ. Report corrections and clarifications, contact standards Editor Brent Jones. Publication consideration in the newspaper, sending comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, telephone number, city and State for verification. View our corrections, go to corrections. usatoday.com. We updated conversation guidelines. Changes include a short review of the moderation process and an explanation of how you can use the button "report abuse". Read more.

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Plaxo re-focuses on the address book maintenance, are facing new competition-CNET (blog)

Plaxo personal assistant will monitor the public Web for updates on your contacts.(Credit: Plaxo)

This review has been updated throughout, now that I have had practical experience with the product's Plaxo personal assistant.

Some time after its launch back in 2002, contact list management app Plaxo lost its way. Management of the company, so that social networks as a wagon had to get on and done Plaxo to a personal social hub--which no one really needed. It was the second bad error Plaxo had done with his service, that they first be his habit of sending requests for updated information to the users ' contacts, was often taken for spam. Nobody could suffer Plaxos users, even if Plaxos kernel address book updating and multidevice synchronization features were quite useful.

Now company, a division of Comcast for the last three years, back to its roots as a contact updating and synchronization service, which is still a necessary function. If you have been given different and conflicting address books on the Internet, your e-mail app and your phone, so that you know the problem. The new Plaxo are also back on outbound e-mail messages, so you can use it without becoming a pariah. But it is with a lesser-known competitor, that performs a similar function for 100 percent less money.

Plaxo officially dumped redundant social network Portal today and launch a new service to automate address book maintenance for users. New Plaxo Personal Assistant takes your personal address book, and goes out to the public Internet to find updates information in it. Then synchronize data back to your existing address books (Outlook or Google) and devices (iPhones, and so forth).

Unlike Hiya (see review below), which uses white pages data to update the home addresses and phone numbers of your contacts, Plaxo user Zoom Info to update the company's contact information, as well as the businesses your contact works for, and their titles and work contact details. There are several business use, of course, than the white pages data. And after to have data updated automatically means you do not end up annoying contacts with impersonal impingements on their time. You get unlisted and private information, of course, but you'll keep your friends happy.

I was also not willing to experiment with Plaxos synchronization function to send its data back to my main contact list on our company's Exchange server. As is the case with many people I know, made my own address book from a collection of separate and fragile lists in different Exchange folders, plus some iPhone-only addresses. As I would like to collect all these lists, Smalley told me, I would would disable existing Exchange sync functionality on my phone and also install software on my PC to synchronize with Outlook directly to make Plaxo work, and we were not surethat all of my data would make the transition back to Exchange. I conclude my Plaxo account to a Gmail account, and the bi-directional synchronization was quick and precise.

Plaxos best features is not cheap. New Automatic Updates feature, Plaxo personal assistant, is $ 79.95 per year. The tool synchronization, Sync Plaxo Platinum, is also a paid service at $ 59.95 per year. You can get both for $ 120 per year (a savings of $ 1.66 a month if you count). Plaxo is a useful service, but these are high prices. A person who has worried enough about contact maintenance probably already paying for LinkedIn (starting at $ 239.40 a year) and, optionally, an email intelligence app like Xobni Plus ($ 95.88), both of which you are more likely to use daily.

Plaxo has a useful free feature, it is used to charge for a de-duper to get rid of dust gække letters of modern address books: the repeated contacts from contact list merges we from time to time, for example. When you move to a new mobile device. This tool works well, merge data correctly from the separate records, and always ask before you perform a mail merge, it may be sensible. De-duper is a central feature, where Plaxos focus on merge and synchronize contact lists from multiple sources (Outlook, Google, smartphones, etc.). Plaxo will collect your address books from all of your sources and merge them into an online address book (by Plaxo.com) free of charge, which is good for backup of your personal contacts list. But it is the paid services that make Plaxo really useful.

Hiya updates also contacts from public information – but it is free of charge.(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

If you do not want to, try this
There is a serious competitor to Plaxo, called Hiya. Like Plaxo, it will de-dupe your contacts, and update them automatically from public white pages data. Hiya I fed my iPhone address book, and it did a good job to find and merge duplicate contacts. It also enables personal (home) contact information, that I do not have in my address book. Hiya, however, do not know much about the contacts work information, that data is not in the phone books. In order to keep business contacts up to date, Plaxo Personal Assistant do a better job.

As with Plaxo, but resulted in an error in the system I will not be able to synchronize my changes back to my iPhone address book. In case I was Hiyas alert about enabling bi-directional synchronization would replace all of the photos in my iPhone address book (and by extension the contacts synchronized Exchange) with empty cells. There was not a feature I wanted.

Hiya does not work directly with Outlook or Exchange, but if you enable two-way sync to your iPhone, you can update your PC-based addresses indirectly. It will connect the Google contacts, though. If you request it, it will also email contacts requires updated contact information. Plaxo has taught us that people dislike receiving these e-mail messages.

A great advantage: Hiya is free of charge. I its iPhone app, too.

There is a great limitation in both Hiya and Plaxo: neither use Facebook or LinkedIn as a source for updating contact info. These social networks are the de facto white pages in today's Internet, so it is a pity that these utilities do not use them. I get to know in Facebook, it is because the service does not permit API calls to the address book (for once, Facebook is more private than it should be); Hiya representatives tell me this integration comes, however, Facebook.

Recommendations (updated)
Hiya is for people who want to keep updated with the personal information of their contacts in the address book, a good address book management utility. It's free, easy to use, and is doing a good job with de-duping and fill out the information. Plaxo is better for automatic update for business contact information, but you'll pay a lot for the service. Plaxo remains also go to the update service for users who primarily on Outlook. It is a pity neither service performs a full work, update information about both personal and work accurately.

Anyone with an older or complicated address book system should proceed with caution, but as neither system has perfected mechanism to synchronize the updated contact lists back to PC or telephone-based address books.

See also Soocial that Synchronize and de-duping.

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Obama launches 2012 re-election bid with the help of Facebook, Twitter-PC Magazine

President Obama announced his 2012 reelection bid on Monday, and much as elections in 2008, social network tools front and center.

Obama campaign Web site, barackobama.com, encourages supporters to "Get in with Facebook." Using Facebook Connect, users can pledge their support via their Facebook Wall, and encourage friends to do the same. Obama's Facebook page has about 19 million fans.

Supporters can also say they are "in" via Twitter or email.

Obama said in a Monday e-mail, he is "focused on the job you elected me to do, and race may not reach full speed for one year or more, [but] the work forming the basis for our campaign must start today."

"In the coming days, supporters like you want to begin forging a new organization, which we will build together in cities across the country," he continued. "And I'll need you to help shape our schedule as we create a campaign that is longer to achieve, more focused and more innovative than anything we have built before."

Obama's 2008 election focused strongly on social networks, take advantage of Facebook and Twitter power to get the word out. Opponent John McCain, meanwhile, got some heat admits he was not the most tech-savvy person and run Democrats called a "modem campaign."

No Republicans have formally entered the race against Obama, although potential candidates include Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty and Michelle Bachmann, among others.

To the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @ PCMag.

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Are Facebook and Twitter best ways for brands to reach consumers? -Fast Company

Advertising dollars are moving to Facebook due to its targeting capabilities. But what if there was an even better way for branded goods to reach their desired audiences?

The major thesis of advertising today is that marks gradually moves to Facebook, because on Facebook, you can find the wanted to advertise to specific audience. Wishes to market the 30-something moms in Tallahassee who like ice cream? Facebooks user controls, you can check your ad will be placed just in front of people who have identified themselves as 30-somethings, living in Tallahassee, which like ice.

But as many information as Facebook users are posting about themselves, the system is still based on the assumption that core: namely, because a user has "liked" X, added the topic or x for their interests, they are actually cares deeply topic x. which can actually not be the case. There is, therefore, the project's experience as today launches a new product that can help advertisers get in front of at least some of the audiences they care believes that it has acquired a horse in this race. And that could disrupt the Facebook advantage horse, at least when it comes to advertising.

The project's experience is a network where people connect with each other on the basis of experiences they are interested. It started four years ago as a network, Online support for people with MS, but it has since grown to a place where people share their thoughts and experiences on everything from fly fishing and parents to breast cancer and global warming. In other words, not people connecting to the project's experience based on, as you know, ("social graph"), as they do on Facebook. They connect based on what they care about ("interest graph").

About a year and a half ago connected to large brands began to contact the company to find out how to get in the site's users, particularly in front of them, that was part of the communities reasons marks already supported. Haagen-Dazs, had, for example, recently launched a campaign in support of honey bees. They wanted to raise awareness about their project among people on the Web site can, of course, cares about the issue, as they discuss the problem with the colony hides or environmental issues in General.

Since then, a number of companies work with experience the project, including Sony, Nestle and American Express. Corporate interest reflects the greater tendency to cause marketing. Increasingly brands are trying to get customers and build loyalty not only talk about their products, but also by highlighting their obligations for special reasons. Pepsi did this in a big way last year, when it decided to cede the advertising during the Super Bowl and instead put $ 20 million budget for work supporting reasons, voted on by visitors to his Pepsi Refresh Web site.

Last year launched experience project BroadCause, a Web site that featured brands cause-related campaigns. Today BroadCause is growing with a new toolkit, non-profit organizations and charitable organizations can use to manage projects and campaigns online — everything from high school stops auction United way raise awareness about his campaign to drum up a million training volunteers.

Experience project managers expect that the new toolset to attract many more cause-related society on its website, which in turn becomes an increasingly attractive place for brands wishing to cause marketing. Experience project will continue to match the marks with communities based on custom in the short term, but in the long term, directors say they plan to create turnkey solutions--like AdSense-where brands can manage their own campaigns themselves.

Currently, cannot experience Project user base of five million hold a candle to Facebook or even Twitter. But after four years on the market, says the leadership, the site has hit a turning point, and growth is now faster. User environment, founder Arm Berjikly tells Cnnmoney.com, increasing by 5% per month.

Plus, says CEO Pete Jackson, a business leader, serving Event brites Board of Directors and most recently was a partner at Mike Maples ' floodgate Fund is here to specify their potential: "we do not go to tags" when coming up with this idea, he tells Fast Company. "They came to us."

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The EU will force the social network sites to improve privacy-The Guardian

The European Union is to dock a "right to be forgotten online" to ensure that potential employers among others, can not find the old Facebook party photos of someone wearing nothing else than a Lampshade.

In a speech to the European Parliament EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, warned companies such as Facebook as: "an American-based social networking company, which has millions of active users in Europe must comply with the EU's rules."

In a package of proposals to be unveiled before the summer, the Commissioner intends to force Facebook and other social networking sites to make the high standards of data protection is the default setting and provide control over the data back to the user.

"I would like to expressly clarify that people have the right – and not only the possibility – to withdraw their consent to data treatment," said Reding. "The burden of proof should be on the controller – those who process your personal data. They must prove that they need to keep the data, rather than people having to prove that collect their data are not necessary. "

Under the proposals, will be established national privacy watchdogs powers to investigate and initiate legal proceedings against companies with services that target the EU consumers.

Reding spokesman, Matthew Newman, said: "a year ago, she issued a warning because Facebook personal settings changed for the worse and now she legislature to put meat on those bones."

Facebook profiles has since January last year been available by default. Users have to opt in to ensure that their photographs and other information can be viewed only by friends.

Newman said companies "cannot believe they are exempt from, just because they have their servers in California or doing their data processing in Bangalore. If the target EU citizens, they must obey the rules. "

Personal settings are often so complex that a typical user does not know how to use them, said Reding's staff. The new legislation would ensure privacy is built-in and not stapled on later as an added extra. The rules would also outlaw hidden collection of data without the user explicitly gives permission.

Newman said that the legislation would the EU first jurisdiction to deliver a "right to be forgotten".

"Perhaps you've been to a party, until four in the morning and you or someone you know posts photos of you," he said. "Well, it is a harmless little fun, but not to delete this may threaten your job, or access to future employment."

The rules that would give consumers a specific right to withdraw your consent to share their data. "And after you have withdrawn their consent, even should not be a ghost of your data left in some server somewhere. It is your data and it should have gone for good, "he said.

Facebook believes it is already compliant with the EU acquis and to say that it works in conjunction with Brussels officials in the revision of the legislation on data protection, which was adopted in 1995, in the early days of the Internet.

"Facebook is fully engaged in the debates around the revision of the EU data protection directive," said a company spokeswoman, Sophy silver. "We work closely with the data protection authorities across the EU and the European Commission and Parliament.

Silver said Facebook users already could remove their data completely from the view, and then it took a couple of weeks to clean up in the company's servers.

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If MySpace fails – where will new Bands go? -Daily Planet dispatch

PetSoop-new bands will loose out if MySpace sold?

According to the latest statistics, MySpace fall original breakthrough cool social networking site quickly out of favor. It is well known that people taste in fashion and music change, and it seems the same can be said about the rise and fall of the sites popularity.

Last October, MySpace decided to throbber button itself with a new format, which aimed to make your site a Entertainment Music hub. However, this transition has done nothing to improve ratings, as a recent report from comScore shows not only did MySpace loose around 50 million users in the past year, it lost 10 million between the month in January and February alone, and is now down to 63 million users.

In January cut MySpace 500 employees from its total 1000 us employees and around 120 people divided between Sydney, London and Berlin. It is current Alexa rating is 69 position compared with Facebook on nr 2. Quantcast estimate of Myspace's U.S. monthly unique visitors is 43.2 million.

MySpace was launched in 2003 and quickly became the worlds number 1 social network website. In 2003 opened 100 Nr MySpace account. But when Facebook came along, it proved to be more popular, and by 2008 had overtaken MySpace and went on to create more than 600 million users.

If the industry analyst comScore is correct about the failure of the revised MySpace, then owner Rupert Murdoch company News Corp., will be bitterly disappointed in their investments on the Web site, that they paid $ 330 million in 2005, and now is believed to be worth only $ 50 million.

Strongly Tipped new electronic band, PetSoop, rely on MySpace to provide a window to rule-driven the music industry. The easy-to-use format provides new bands to show their personal music player, videos and tour dates. MySpace is one of only a handful of sites that supports free, legal streamed music.

French Marcello from PetSoop said "these days new bands must go DIY, they cannot expect a great step forward and everything done for them by the record companies.  To be able to direct industry to our Web site, MySpace frees us as musicians. Its bad enough having to keep on top of the social networks without having to worry about homepage design and construction of traffic when we want to make music. "

Remains the question of who will come to Myspaces rescuing it is up for sale, but the faithful users will fall away if the Web site is changed again.  MySpace has been identified as a site for music fans and everyone involved in the music industry, and helped to launch artists like Lily Allen and The Arctic Monkeys, but has new bands PetSoop jumped on the result too late?

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US Facebook data passed through Chinese, South Korean ISPs-ZDNet (blog)

Earlier this week, could your Facebook posts have been rewritten on the Chinese wall, not just on your friends ' walls. 30 Minutes on Tuesday morning, Facebook traffic in the United States or at least connections through AT&T .com's Internet services, not travel via the most direct route. Normally, transfer AT&T data packets to the United States-based Level3 Communications, which again fingers them away to Facebooks servers.

Instead, relations went too far: through servers owned by China Telecom, ChinaNet, mainland China State-owned Internet service provider (ISP) and then to SK broadband, a commercial ISP in South Korea, before finding their way to Facebook. Independent security researcher Barret Lyon so the change and noted:

This morning's route to Facebook from AT&T:
route-server > show IP bgp 69.171.224.13 (Facebook's www IP address)
BGP routing table entry for 69.171.224.0/20, version 32605349
Paths: (18 available, best # 6, table default IP Routing table)
Not advertised to any peer
7018 4,031 9318 32934 32934 32934

AS path (routing path) translates this:

AT&T (AS7018) ChinaNet (Data in China AS4134) SK broadband (Data in South Korea AS9318) Facebook (Data back to the American 32934)

Current route to Facebook via AT&T:
route-server > sho IP bgp 69.171.224.0/20
BGP routing table entry for 69.171.224.0/20, version 32743195
Paths: (18 available, best # 6, table default IP Routing table)
Not advertised to any peer
7018 3356 32934 32934, (received and used)

In other words, if you used Facebook on AT&T at the right time this week, was everything that is sent without encryption exposed for any operation of ChinaNet and SK broadband. Chances have been actually done anything with your data, but it is not a security.

"We shall examine a situation today, which has resulted in a small volume of a single carrier traffic to Facebook will be misdirected," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. ' We are working with the air carrier to determine the cause of the error. Our initial inspection of the latency of requests indicates that no traffic passed through China. "

I was waiting this week to see if the company would make an announcement concerning what it found, but no dice. If nothing really pass through the country, mean data went through ChinaNet server located elsewhere.

Odd route could have simply been an error in the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing tables, which tells the Internet backbone routers where to send traffic. This will normally be seen as a hero, but it is not exactly rare anymore. It came to actually two times last year.

In March 2010, was traffic to sites such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook redirected to servers in China, gives Web surfers around the globe a glimpse of what Chinese Internet users see when they try to access the blocked sites. In November 2010, traffic for 15 percent of the world's destinations, comes from the military and civilian government networks in the UK, United States, Australia and South Korea began re-directing through China Telecom.

It is not clear if all this redirection happens with willingness to help China to collect intelligence. Of course, the Chinese Government denies such allegations. Experts are still trying to figure out how this happens and how to prevent it in the future.

Facebook can be blocked in China, but the Chinese will be able to keep your personal data in order to sell it. Then again, all just a as far as we can never understand. Either way you will probably not your posts are sent elsewhere, but Facebook, otherwise you would use a much more public service as Twitter.

Two months ago, Facebook began to offer SSL encryption and the HTTPS protection for login data. Turn off HTTPS support for your Facebook account, head to the account settings, click Change next to account security, check off the "browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) as far as possible," and then hit save. In this way, at least if the data takes a long way to go, is encrypted.

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Kvidre rapporter vanskeligheder for abonnenter at forsøge at bruge netværk via webstedet - Bloomberg

Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter Inc., photographer: Jacob Kepler/Bloomberg

Twitter Inc., service social network that allows users to share 140 characters messages, said it is seeing an increase in the error rate, which makes it more difficult to gain access to the site.

"We are aware of the problem and take action," said San Francisco-based company today at about 3 p.m. New York time on a blog devoted to the site's status.

Twitter has struggled with service disruptions, such as its traffic surges. The average number of postings are sent daily increased to around 140 million in the past month, from 50 million a year earlier, the company said this week. Twitter had reported "increased error rate" a further four times in February, along with a number of other difficulties.

The company increasingly rely on its Web site to deliver advertising, potentially putting more revenue at stake, when the service goes down. Kvidres rising prospects and potential ad revenue has helped drive up its valuation. It was valued at 3.7 billion dollars in December when it received investment led by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. That compares with $ 1 billion in September 2009, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Carolyn Penner, a spokeswoman for Twitter, refused to comment beyond what was on the status blog.

Contact the reporter on this story: Brian Womack in San Francisco at bwomack1@bloomberg.net

Contact the person responsible for this story editor: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net.

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Local songs: How can we be lovers if we can't Facebook friends? Sun-Sentinel

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Since so many people rely on the Internet for just about everything, it's not surprising that there are now songs about Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other sites that eat up our time. This week, we justified our online hours by scouring local-music sites for songs about gazing into a computer monitor and pounding on a keyboard in a never-ending search for love, information and Facebook friends.

Miami hip-hop artist Gomarvelous incorporates MSN, AIM, BlackBerries, Yahoo, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, blogs, MacBook, and Skype into a song one "Computer Love". It's about falling in love with a woman he met one day on his MacBook. "We likes two MySpace and we likes two Twitter," he sings. "Shorty keeps here blog tight and tells me I'm a winner/… And when she likes Facebooks me in two check it/And take it to the heart when she changing status on here. " The lyrics are based on a true story. "Computer Love ' is a musical description of feelings I experienced while I was dating a wonderful woman on the Internet," Gomarvelous reveals. "Many of my friends thought I was nuts for doing so. However, it really didn't bother me much, nor did it preclude my desire to love here … even though we had never actually met in person. So thanks to Web cams and social networks, we were able to fall in love without feeling weird about it, because the only thing that we didn't have that people who were in love and physically together hatred was just that … being physical while together. " Two hear "Computer Love", "which appears on Gomarvelous's debut album, R and Me Music (Rhythm and Me), visitMySpace.com/gomarvelous.

There's apparently quite an audience for songs about romance via the Internet as Fallbrooke, 's video for "Losin' It" has two date captured more than 154,000 views on YouTube. "I know we've never met except on the Internet," the lyrics state. "I've got the camera by the bed so is yours up yet?/Oh, I know, this is a fast and crazy connection/But you keep monopolizing all my attention." In an interview with music site They Will Rock You, singer-guitarist Eric McNeeley revealed that the song, which was recorded for the band's self-one 2009 album and spawned a video featuring Mandy Jiroux of the YouTube sensation The Miley and Mandy Show, was based on a true story. "The song literally speaks for itself," he customs Theywillrockyou.com. "It's about a girl I met online that I was crazy about, and we spoke through Web cams all the time." Fallbrooke, a Miami band moved to Los Angeles to be closer to its label, RMR Music. Two hear "Losin' It," visitMyspace.com/fallbrooke.

"You Too Can Google" has nothing to do with online relationships. This song TerraNadir, from the green-minded indie-rock duo of Patrician Brunicardi and Stephen Goddard, concerns Googling two learn more about ecology, the green house effect and what vocalist, keyboardist and composer Brunicardi calls "the climate crisis that may dwarf the banking crisis." She warns, "Without the rain forests in Africa, we will have no air to breathe." Two hear this tune, recorded for the Pompano Beach Act's self-one album, visit Myspace.com/terranadir or watch the video on YouTube.

Jennifer "Jenny" Upside-Down Wolfson says she wrote "MySpace Causes AIDS" when MySpace was still bigger than Facebook and Twitter and people were more concerned about online safety. The song begins, "Logged in, uploaded on my html-coded MySpace Web page/… Should I lie about my age?/Found all my old asshole friends/Now I remember why I ditched them/Found a couple of new ones, too/But most of them just want to screw. " Wolfson, who wrote the song after seeing a man with a "MySpace Causes AIDS" t-shirt, says the MySpace reference still hits home for most of this listeners, but jokingly says: "I think I'll add another verse with Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. That way, they can just do a group lawsuit against me. " Two hear "MySpace Causes AIDS," business Myspace.com/jenniferlynnwolfson. Wolfson will perform 10 p.m. Monday to Churchill's Pub in Miami and then head over two Jazid, where she'll perform at 12: 30 a.m.

We saved the funniest, and oldest, song for cargo. We're cheating a little because this group is not local. It's from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. But because of the tenuous Miami connection and because these 15 seemingly earnest guys are too funny not too include here, they make the cut. The Miami u. Cheezies song "Facebook Song" to the tune of the Everly Brothers ' "All I Have To Do Is Dream" even before MySpace began two barrels. If you've seen this video, it's worth viewing again, because seeing a tie-wearing, male choir sing about friend requests, poking and stalking on Facebook is still funny.

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Should Social Networking be regulated-daily news pulse

Govern the use of social networking sites and other electronic communications are a part of a set of guidelines to prevent sexual misconduct and abuse by public schools in the Commonwealth. The measure does not create mandatory rules for schools, but rather to outline the role of schools in helping to prevent abuse and encourages them to create and implement their own policies.I witness the damage social networks overuse can cause daily. Young people have been raised in a technological world, and the importance of face-to-face communication is often lost on our youth. When people begin to use Facebook and Twitter instead of normal social interactions, social skills decline with a rapid speed. Nothing can replace the value of computer-less, human to human conversation.

It is this: a lot of people use social networks and the resources offered by them, have shown statistics only for Facebook. But what other social networks you can immediately name? Now add all of them together. Thas millions and millions of unsuspecting users. Oh, my! And that they are vulnerable, as well as Dorothy was when she was attacked by flying monkeys. Online presence is essential for businesses today. Web analysts suggest that one of the best ways to establish a strong footing in the virtual world is through Social Media Marketing. Be it via social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn or blog posts, social media offers a unique platform to allow interaction between a consumer and a fire in a modern way.

Collegehumor.com has already nailed the film's Chief fault in a memorable parody: substitution of the unnecessary complexity of profundity ". But it bears repeating. There was nothing about the "initial", was particularly creative. Action scenes consisted mainly of tired tropes car chases and action shots of episodes. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with borrowing plot devices that work. But within the world of "Introductory" created the opinion not intended. First and foremost, why guns? DiCaprio was unable to come up with any hyper-powerful dream weapon? For figments of imagination one man shows the nameless, faceless antagonists strange change skills.

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Google to launch ' Anti-Facebook '-Fox News

By Clayton MorrisPublished 15. March, 2011 | Foxnews.com

You can be my friend on Facebook, dear reader, but if Google launches its new social network, I probably will not accept friend requests from people I don't know closely. It is because, like most Google users do not want my Google account to be more socially. I am completely satisfied, you will be social on Twitter and Facebook but when it comes to Google, I have my personal information.

Rumors swirled this weekend, as Google would once again throw the hat in the social ring with the launch of ' circles ' a new social network to the South by Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas.  Google denied that it would launch this week and refuted the allegations, as such a project is in the works.

Although circles is not a real thing and only a labs project, is Google's possible re-entry into the social circle is inevitable. Make no mistake, Google wants to be more socially and I have some theories on why they never really succeeded.

Google have tried again and again to play in the social networking space. Orkut and Google Buzz is just a few examples of good intentions gone wrong. I believe that this is happening because very few people want Google to be social. When you trust Google with private information such as your daily requirements on Google Health, you do not feel motivated to start for the friend request your high school classmates.

In fact, I write this column in Google Docs. I have a lot of work in my Google Docs folders. I am fine sharing certain documents give people example permission on other documents, but I would be uncomfortable participating in social networks with people who would be one click away from such private information.

Google's rumored network, circles, presumed to have more focus on the protection of personal information and inner circle. You will be able to share certain information in a very targeted ways. I can relate to the need to. When I post the photos of my son, they are shared online for my family and friends, but friends of friends often can see and comment on them on Facebook and that's okay but sometimes I just want my nearest family see my son face deck of peas. And when I upgrade my Fox Tech take snippets on Twitter, my family and friends must endure my self promotion. Google may have found a way to solve this problem. They may have found a way to add targeted sharing of all Google services and not just a new stand-alone social network.

I would love to see a new social networks that do not feel like a popularity contest. When a new social network begins to gain traction, it seems to follow the same path as its predecessor. You see a few Weblebrities achieve large number of supporters and then you feel you must get, find a lot of "friends" and start sharing as a madman. What if the next up and coming social networks weren't quite so social, in the absence of a better word? What if message inherent social network felt more like real life, more authentic? What if it was directed against the circles in my life were actually meaningful? May not be quite so valuable to marketers because traffic to any given link or page would be lower, but it would be more valuable to me. So Google, if you want to give social another go I am willing to try again.

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New York Times silence not Story Tweeting feed-PC Magazine

Earlier this week the New York Times asked Twitter to suspend the @ FreeNYTimes account, the handle that was created with the purpose to post links to articles in all times, thus making them free when the paper subscription service kicks off Monday. However, not the times succeeded in silencing @ FreeNYTimes.

According to a report from Forbes ' Jeff Bercovici was the question does not make @ FreeNYT. Rather the times felt that @ FreeNYTimes violates its trade mark with its use of the paper signature "T" logo, the times leader of digital operations Martin Nisenholtz told Forbes. The logo has since been removed from the page, @ FreeNYTimes, and the Times has withdrawn his request with Twitter.

Bad times also Twitter to close another article-tweeting feed, @ FreeNYT. The account is still active. In that case, the publication also argued that the account was in breach of the New York Times trademark.

Subscription service New York Times, which is commonly producer prices as a "paywall", goes into force on Monday afternoon. However, it is not likely that readers will be clamoring to sign, given the service has been received very negative. It is a connection fee plan; readers can chose a plan that costs between $ 15 and $ 35, depending on their level of service.

However, it is not the costs of the service which readers have taken issue with it is, rather, that there are a number of ways to skirt around the payment platform, rendering ineffective. Articles posted to Facebook and Twitter is free, and readers can access up to 20 articles per month at no cost. In addition to it, is a Canadian coder created @ NYTClean, a bookmark tool, defeats paywall with four lines of code. Also, as it is noticed in a broad sense, a user could simply clear the cache on his or her browser to reset the 20-article common agricultural policy

Times trademark argument with @ FreeNYTimes account sends mixed messages, says Berrcovici. @ FreeNYTimes use the times own API and the paper developer guidelines actually require "page or screen that displays the time the API content or data" use a times logo.

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Bing expands social search features-PCWorld

Microsoft has enhanced search features, Bings social display real-time Twitter messages on Bings the news section and the simplification of Sharing of Bing entertainment on Facebook.

The new capabilities build on existing links Bing has both Twitter and Facebook, highlighting the increased importance of supplementary opinion search engines with social network sites. Some queries are input from the people's social circle very valuable and relevant.

Bing social had already a section for people interested in search only through public posts and status updates from Twitter and Facebook. Now, Twitter content is displayed in the Bing news search results.

"Search for a news item and immediately see what people are tweeting on the topic," wrote Betsy Aoki, Bing Senior program manager, in a blog post.

In the meantime, Bing now displays a Facebook box where logged users can type in a status update and post it to their Facebook profile without leaving the interface Bing.

The feature is now specifically available for "Overview" pages in Bing entertainment, a part of the Web site that offers information digests on movies, actors, singers and other categories, entertainment.

' Whether it is a movie, a video game, or even an artist, now you can share your thoughts with just a single click, ' wrote Aoki.

Google are also working hard to factor in social signals in some of his queries and recently gave its social search service is a paraphrase, promoting its results from a special section at the bottom of the page to the list on the main findings based on their query by relevance and sharpness other features.

While access to Twitter content and feeds seems consistent among search engines, Bing enjoy preferred status with Facebook, thanks to a partnership between the two companies. Which has resulted in Google lacks access to essential Facebook features, Bing has, like the ability to include links to Web sites in the results to a Facebook friends "preferred."

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Inserted on Facebook? South Carolina considers banning Social Media behind bars-Fox News

Prisoners are allowed to use Facebook or Twitter or have a MySpace page? One South Carolina State legislator says absolutely not, and he is trying to make it punishable by law, if they are caught by using social media sites.

"This Bill would be the first Bill of such throughout the country would be a crime to any inmate in prison in order to enter the social media as a means of communication. If a person gets caught, would he or she has a lot of time to add to what they have been given. It also leads to a fine, "said State Rép Wendell Gilliard, a Democrat from Charleston, which proposes legislation.

Inmates have access to the most popular social sites by using smartphones smuggled inside the prison walls, which are already illegal in South Carolina. But prisoners not just user update their Facebook status or share interesting videos. Some victims and victims ' families have complained that inmates use popular social networking sites to persecute, harass and threaten them.

"STALKER, batterers, rockers live to intimidate, harass and terrorizing their victim, it is what they are doing," says Veronica Swain Kunz, CEO with South Carolina victim assistance network. "Someone on Facebook can reach out and send a message to all, that they will, and it could be a real thing for terrorizing them."

Bill to stop social networks for prisoners would add 30 days a prisoner sentence and require them to pay a $ 500 fine, if they are caught posting on social networking sites.

"It would send a message to our youth, crime does not pay," said Gilliard. "We must come back to reform people, we have not done. We have given them a clothes where they feel comfortable. "

And out of the reach of this proposed law would stop by prison walls. Family or friends of the prisoners could face mrsdemeanor fees if they are caught setting up social network pages or post messages for prisoners on the Internet. Rep. Gilliard hope just proposing the Bill sends a message throughout the country.

"It's just not that South Carolina and Northern California, other States have this problem also. Hopefully this will bring it in the front row, "he said.

But the proposed bill has already met resistance. ACLU calls it a violation of the first amendment right to free speech in the Constitution. Ashleigh Merchant, a criminal defense attorney in Atlanta, agree in saying that any steps to restrict freedom of expression in any form to anyone is wrong.

"Many times, it is a single outlet for an inmate. If a son or daughter is in prison, want their family must have an outlet, the kind of family members keep up to date on what is happening with the pasted life-there is still a member of this family, "she said.

Merchant agrees, inmates do not use mobile phones in prison and says prison officials must use more energy to enforce inmate mobile phone bans and persecution laws that are already on the books. She says proposed social networks ban is superfluous and unnecessary.

"It is already illegal to have mobile phones in prison – so if they enforce the law and in fact they worked a little harder to keep cell phones out of prison, I think that would serve the same goal," merchant said. "There has been some talk about threats through social media and threats are already illegal, so they have an avenue to enforce. They need another law to enforce. "

Rep. Gilliard said the Republican leadership in the South Carolina State House supports his bill, and he hopes that it will come up for a vote as early as next week.

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Google circles: Social networking not Google PC World India

Facebook, Twitter, note had apparently not Google its last word on social networks. Details about Google circles, a new social network-based product which has arisen in ongoing SXSW (South by Southwest) Festival in Austin, Texas, an annual event themed primarily around movies and music.Not much is known about Google circles right now, but there are strong signs that Google does not stop at the Buzz as its social network hopes to go.ReadWriteWeb jumped the gun Sunday claiming Google would showcase a "sample" its "major new social network" called circles on the SXSW event on an ongoing basis. Asked to do a Google answers on Twitter RWWS report by declaring it would not launch any product at SXSW. So no previews of Google any time soon or not circles before the event Google i/o in may later this year.What is Google circles?But what is Google circles and how is it different from Google Buzz? According to ReadWriteWeb, Google will have different circles allow people social circles, thus sharing photos, videos and status messages with people in a certain social circle.This approach of Google circles--if true--claims to be unique by means of a differentiated and respect the various social circles, we share with our online friends (family, work colleagues, Club helpers, etc.) and determine the amount of content we share with them--as well as offline, real social network works.Evidence of Google move beyond the Buzz and is considering whether social networking deeply has been there to see for a while now. We all know Google has worked to introduce elements (or social layer) in its search engine to serve results depending on our social life, in particular Google's social Search experiment. Google also has something called Social circle that determines your social connections to Social Search.And even if Google does not implement circles at SXSW, it has not denied rumors that it is working on a new social network product or Google circles.Here is what we like to Google the next social network affair to focus on. Other than that keep our fingers crossed until May. follow me on Twitter at @ jshinde.Also read:Google hit by lawsuit over Google BuzzGoogle likely to launch Facebook killer soon

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