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@socialmediaswami
A new Twitter feature rolling out Wednesday will add older tweets to the top of users' timelines in a move the company hopes will boost engagement.
Don’t believe it? Go to your settings and try it. You’ll see. People love to get worked up over tweaks like this.
Say goodbye to Twitter’s most useful feature.
Trying to keep a (relatively) older social media platform interesting isn’t the same as messing with a good thing as Twitter is thinking of doing now. As the author points out:
“The reverse-chronology of Twitter makes it a favorite of journalists, media types, and anyone who likes to stay informed, as it keeps breaking news on top. That useful quality would be kaput, as would the fun moments where your whole timeline is cracking jokes and providing insight on a political debate as it’s being aired, or throwing shade at the Oscars, “
This is what you’d call a ‘fail.’ And if it’s experiment (as I hope it is), maybe they’ll scrap the idea and chalk it up as a bad idea.
Here are the topics that drove the most tweets over the past year. Let's just say that sex and violence rile us up more than anything else.
Just in case you need a quick catch-up for 2015...
In other interesting Twitter news, they’re now displaying full pictures instead of cropped ones in your message. Good idea- this makes them look like real images. See more at The Verge.
And for your journalists out there, here’s some info to consider about upping your credibility game using twitter: http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/research-review/twitter-credibility.
The data was a signal to publishers of what articles were sparking conversation with readers.
Totally understandable- it’s not just a bragging point but also makes readers think: 1) the article is worth reading, 2) maybe I should share it too.
Facebook and Twitter aren't ready for prime-time holiday shoppers.
Seriously? With holiday shopping moving out of the stores and going online, why are these two social media giants so behind the times?
The free mobile app is having trouble courting advertisers, and investors are nervous.
I don’t like to bash this service but reporting like this makes me wonder about them. If that wasn’t enough, how about this?
“On Snapchat, Brands Trust Influencers, But Verify With Only Screenshots”: http://www.wsj.com/articles/on-snapchat-brands-trust-influencers-but-verify-with-only-screenshots-1447952491
After slowly dismantling Google+, the company is now going for a full relaunch.
Scoff all you want at them but Google still has juice for its SEO so you ignore their social network at your own peril!
Amazon has changed its home page to show solidarity with France after the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday.Here's what it looks like: screensh...
Very nice, subtle and powerful. A lesson more in humanity than in image.
Take a look at your iPhone. Chances are, the lockscreen is probably cluttered with notifications about e-mail, news, weather and other information. All of these notifications are produced by separate apps, built by separate developers, and all routed through Apple's iOS. Now, Facebook wants to take all that information and route it through a platform it controls instead: Notify, an app that's purpose-built to send you notifications.
Important thing to note here (along with the headline): “ What it really stands for is an attempt by Facebook to become the dominant interface for your own smartphone.”
It's not the only one to have its valuation questioned in recent months.
“Snapchat is worth 25 percent less than its current valuation of $16 billion, according to one of its biggest investors. Mutual fund Fidelity, which invested in Snapchat’s latest $538 million round, dropped its share valuation to $22.91 at the end of September after marking them at $30.72 in June. The news was reported by financial analyst firm Morningstar and picked up by the Financial Times.”
And this after several of the biggest media companies set up channels there to post exclusive content. What’s that say about the media nowadays? And what does this say about ephemeral media like Snapchat?
Facebook is taking it's first step in incorporating music into the site.
Kind of a half-hearted way for Facebook to get in on the music game. Rest assured, they’re planning something bigger though...
The feature raises questions about the future of links across Facebook, and whether the company will begin to change the way it directs traffic to websites outside of its service.
Is it the death of the hyperlink?
Online publishers are about to get a lot more options for embedding tweets in their stories, with Twitter announcing a new "ecosystem" of products around..
Translation- Twitter has found a new way to publish stories and graphics. Great move.
LINKEDIN HAS BIG PLANS BUT WHAT ABOUT ITS SMALL PLANS?
Anyone still addicted to long-form journalism has to love The New Yorker. Nicholas Lemann’s recent provide of LinkedIn honcho Reid Hoffman is yet another feather in the great magazine’s cap.
But...
I was disappointed that while we learned a lot about Hoffman’s background, his big picture vision of politics and philanthropy, we didn’t learn much about the smaller, meatier details about his plans for LinkedIn itself.
Among social platforms, LinkedIn has its niche with jobs and business. What better place for a job seeker to post your resume, look for contacts and scan company sites for jobs? There are great job boards out there (Indeed and Startwire are my faves) but even those boards always ask for LinkedIn info or give you the opportunity to fast track your application by linking to your profile on LinkedIn itself.
That’s the stuff you already know. What I was hoping to hear in the article is how Hoffman is thinking of tweaking the service to make it better. He wouldn’t have to give away secrets or surprises- he could just float some grand scheme. The article just mentions that he’d like people to dispense business advice and that does happen and sometimes, this biz wisdom is useful. But he could have touted other services there which are just as useful and are great selling points for the service.
My two favorites:
- FORUMS- this is where you can go to specific industry chat areas and learn something about your field and join a discussion. You can also show off your expertise here. Some of my favorites are these (note: some of them are private groups that you have to ask to join):
* Entrepreneurs In Social Media
* Social Media Marketing
* Media Professionals Worldwide
* Social Media Marketing
* Social Media Today
LinkedIn even released a list of new features for Forums a few weeks ago. So, why not tout them?
- POSTS- you know about ‘status’ updates where you add a one-liner about your work or a good article, but did you know how to post a full article on LinkedIn? You can do it through post updates and it’s easy.
To access posts, go to your LinkedIn homepage and click on the “Publish A Post” button near the top (next to ‘status’ and ‘photo’ updates). You’ll come to a page like this.
Notice that they give you all kinds of nice formatting options (bold, italics, links, centering), plus on the left side, they even give you some suggestions of recent events you can discuss (in this case, Twitter Moments, Zappos’ Holocracy). And then you just type up your thoughts there. They even provide some good tips about writing a good post. You can also get inspired by some of the top rated posts in their Pulse section, which will also give you good hints about how to write a strong post.
Even after those two great features, there’s also the online learning (Lynda.com), education (for students, aka Youniversity) and Slideshare (aka free, useful PowerPoint presentations) sections to explore on LinkedIn. Again, why not tout these things? Don’t wait for a great LinkedIn article to hear about these things- check them out now.
FACEBOOK IS THE NEW TV GUIDE?
Actually, it’s more than that... The Zuckerberg company wants you to come to FB to engage with and share your fandom of your fave TV shows.
Twitter had a good leg up on TV show engagement through mentions (@) and hashtags (#) but FB wisely figured that since they weren’t confined to 140 characters and also had a lot of space to play with on their platform, they could provide better engagement for networks and their shows.
This SocialTimes article and Adweek article detail how FB is looking to draw in viewers and engagement through icons that users can brandish, polls taken from viewers and soliciting videos from users related to their favorite shows, all via the new FB project called Media Solutions.
For viewers, it’s a nice way to get more connected to their shows, engage with a community of fellow fans, have some say (however small) in programming decisions and do their own broadcasting too (hey, we all like to be noticed, right?).
But for the networks, this is something very appetizing also. They get more data from viewers and get them more interested and engaged in their shows so that they’ll stay loyal. Plus, they can gather user info that’s useful to advertisers. The only question will be how engaged viewers will really be with this new FB project.
Let’s not forget though that broadcast shows aren’t just on TV channels anymore. In the last few years, Netlfix and Amazon have launched successful, award-winning shows and YouTube continues to be the domain for millions of wanna-be film/show stars. The TV audience is still in the millions but the network domination is slowly shrinking.
Regardless, it’s a smart move on FB’s part to at least try to get the viewing audience to also come to them. It’s also a shot across the bow to other social media platforms that look to rope in program audiences.
Twitter, the ball’s in your court...
REDDIT IS A NEWS SOURCE?
Granted that it already is, touting itself as ‘the front page of the Internet,’ but detractors have other names for it, noting some of its unsavory (racist, sexist) subreddits. And that’s the problem that the platform faces, especially as it tries to distance itself from these unpleasant parts of it and it also tries to monetize itself.
Upvoted is its way to cull its stories into traditional news bites, much the same way that Twitter has done recently with its Moments project (see my post from yesterday). Of course, there’s detractors, such as Re/Code which notes that Buzzfeed has already been using Reddit content to get traffic for years now.
Reddit does have a built-in audience but they clearly like to experience the service inside of Reddit itself- even Upvoted has its own subreddit but also its own webpage, which might seem redundant but serves a real purpose. Go to Reddit’s homepage (which has tabs for ‘Hot,’ “Rising’ and ‘Top’ stories) and you’ll already see the most popular over content there or you can also go to the subreddit simply called Best of Reddit to see much of the same content. Upvoted then isn’t for people on the service already but for the people NOT on the service- it’s done to rope them in and make them take it seriously. Maybe it’s also for some Reddit users who are overwhelmed by the content there, which includes me sometimes though I love to scan the Explain Like I’m Five, LifeProTips, Today I Learned (TIL) and Technology subreddits a few times a week.
Note that so far Upvoted has filtered out some of the ‘Controversial’ topics that have been gaining traction (usually right or left leaning politics) or some of the frivolous stuff that’s gotten lotsa votes (i.e. kid taking a selfie in bathroom). Reddit wants to be taken seriously so Upvoted highlights the good, substantial stuff to be found there.
This thing is, some of us, actually many of us, like the minutia and trivial stuff there too. Hopefully, the service is smart enough not to kill that part of it off as it goes through its growing pains (i.e. recent changes in leadership). If it can convince outsiders and advertisers remains to be seen. If it kills off too much of the ‘silly’ stuff that many users thrive on, the old users will just bolt to another platform. And I might just go with them.
MOMENTS MAKES TWITTER INTO AN OLD SCHOOL NEWS SITE & CURATOR
Not content with breaking news via 140 characters, Twitter wants to reconfigure itself as a trad news site with its new Moments feature, which you access at the top of your twitter page via the lightning bolt icon.
Note how Twitter announces it through their blog. Yes, Twitter has a blog- they couldn’t explain their new configuring of news items in a tweet or series of tweets. They decided that their great way to break news via their system could use a tweak and get repackaged as an old school news website (which is possible to say now in 2015). Also note that the press release is geared to mobile too, which is where most of their audience is going or gone by now.
Sure, Twitter has hashtags already to help group subjects but now they’ve made their own pages to do that for general news categories and particular story items too.
How serious is Twitter about pushing this? They’ve not only developed their own set of guidelines for Moments but they’ve also patterned with some major news organizations for this. Not content with being a news-breaking platform, Twitter wants to also be a news curation system.
It’ll be interesting to see how successful (how much it’s used) this feature will be. Twitter users are used to the 140 tidbits and having it rearranged to a larger structure isn’t totally unknown to the service- they have the great but usually unused Lists service (try it out).