#Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

 The four-year-old messaging app is said to have 150 million people using it each day.

Snapchat Inc. has 150 million people using the service each day, said people familiar with the matter. That makes the four-year-old messaging app more popular than Twitter Inc. by daily active users. genesis mining promo code CZL5k6

 Snapchat has been growing quickly, boosted by its popularity among young people. The app had 110 million daily users in December, said the people, who asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak about the numbers.

 Twitter, which was founded in 2006, has less than 140 million users interacting with the service daily, according to an average of analysts’ estimates surveyed by Bloomberg. The short-messaging service was once the largest social network after Facebook Inc. but has since been surpassed by Facebook’s other apps, including Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.

 Twitter has 310 million monthly active users, according to its most recent earnings report. The company doesn’t disclose how many of those people check in daily, but in the third quarter, it said about 44 percent of monthly users are active each day in the service’s top 20 markets. Twitter Chief Financial Officer Anthony Noto said at the time that the percentage had been stable but that “we’ll be sure to disclose” if there was a significant change. The company hasn’t given an update since then. This implies a daily active user count of 136 million. Twitter and Snapchat declined to comment.

 Snapchat has made communicating more of a game by letting people send annotated selfies and short videos. It has allowed people to use its imaging software to swap faces in a photo, transform themselves into puppies, and barf rainbows. (In March, Facebook said it acquired the startup behind an app called Masquerade, which offers similar photo-manipulation tools.) Snapchat encourages people to visit the app frequently with features such as the "Snapstreak," which counts the number of consecutive days they’ve been communicating with their closest friends. Snapchat’s other content, such as news and Live Stories, disappear after 24 hours.

 Messaging on Snapchat is “very modern,” Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey said on Wednesday at Recode’s technology conference. He acknowledged that Twitter at times can be confusing and alienating—something he’s trying to fix.y.

Bloomberg.com

#Twitter Algorithm: 5 Things you Didn’t Know

 While we all love some things the way they are, sometimes a change is needed. Recently, Twitter updated their timelines in order to show the best tweets from people they follow. Since people tend to freak out when even a slight difference is made in their lives, I am here to clear things up for you. Don’t worry, you can still read the mindless ramblings of people you don’t care about, albeit just a bit differently. Here are five things you didn’t know about their new algorithm.

1. TWITTER’S NEW TIMELINE IS NOW DEFAULT

Previously, Twitter’s new timeline was optional, however, it is now on by default. Maybe you checked it out during the opt-in period and didn’t like it, well too bad. Now, you have no choice but to encounter its qualities. Before you go complaining  that your freedom is robbed, hold up.

2. YOU STILL HAVE A CHOICE

If you’re one of those boring, plain Jane’s who hates change, then this is for you. That familiar old timeline you know and love will still be there. You can revert back to it as you bask in the glow of nostalgia. No one will even bat an eye, but you should really think about changing that hairstyle you’ve had since the second grade.

3. THE BEST TWEETS WILL REIGN SUPREME

For users who choose to use Twitter’s new algorithm timeline, they will be rewarded with quality. Only the best Tweets from people you follow will float to the top. No more digging through the piles of crap other people Tweet just to get a gem.

4. EXPECT MORE LIVE COMMENTARY

According to Twitter, they have been seeing a trend with people who use the new feature. People now tend to Tweet more, which in turn creates live commentary with active conversations. Of course, this can only mean benefits for everyone as the features continue to improve. However, not everyone is so thrilled.

5. PEOPLE REALLY DON’T LIKE CHANGE

With this new algorithm change, one would think Twitter has ceased to exist. People were outraged at the fact their beloved pastime had a small upgrade. It’s not like this is Windows Vista. This upgrade is actually benefitting people. So stop your #RIPTwitter hashtags and get with times.
Clapway.com

Russian hackers used Twitter, photos to access US computers: Report

Russian government-backed hackers who penetrated high-profile US government and defense industry computers this year used a method combining Twitter with data hidden in seemingly benign photographs, according to experts studying the campaign.

In a public report Wednesday, researchers at security company FireEye Inc said the group used the unusual tandem as a means of communicating with previously infected computers. FireEye has briefed law enforcement on what it found.

Researchers at security company FireEye Inc said the group used the unusual tandem as a means of communicating with previously infected computers.

The technique, uncovered during a FireEye investigation at an unnamed victim organization, shows how government-backed hackers can shift tactics on the fly after they are discovered.

“It’s striking how many layers of obfuscation that the group adopts,” said FireEye Strategic Analysis Manager Jennifer Weedon. “These groups are innovating and becoming more creative.”

The machines were given an algorithm for checking a different Twitter account every day. If a human agent registered that account and tweeted a certain message, instructions for a series of actions by the computer would be activated.

The tweeted information included a website address, a number and a handful of letters. The computer would go to the website and look for a photo of at least the size indicated by the number, while the letters were part of a key for decoding the instructions in a message hidden within the data used to display the picture on the website.

Weedon said the communication method might have been a failsafe in case other channels were discovered and cut. Vikram Thakur, a senior manager at Symantec Corp, said his team had also found Twitter controls combined with hidden data in photos, a technique known as steganography.

FireEye identified the campaign as the work of a group it has been internally calling APT29, for advanced persistent threat. In April, it said another Russian-government supported group, APT28, had used a previously unknown flaws in Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash software to infect high-value targets.

Other security firms use different names for the same or allied groups. Symantec recently reported another data-stealing tool used in tandem with the steganography, which it calls Seaduke. Thakur said both tools were employed by the group it knows as the Duke family.

Thakur said another tool in that kit is CozyDuke, which Russian firm Kaspersky Lab says is associated with recent breaches at the State Department and the White House.

Ibnlive.com

Twitter Reveals Its Master Plan For Growing As Big As Facebook

“The largest information network in the world”: Prepare to hear that phrase out of the mouth of TwitterCEO Dick Costolo a lot in the coming months. Costolo and his fellow executives used it four or five times on Tuesday’s second-quarter earnings call, signaling a shift in how they want the rest of the world to think about Twitter. It’s a formulation that delicately skirts the line between social network and media company, conferring the advantages of each.

For months, Twitter has been struggling with the perhaps unreasonable expectation of investors that its growth curve resemble that of Facebook. This is a significant problem, as its acquisition of monthly active users has been slowing down, meaning it could be decades, not years, before it accrues the 1.3 billion Facebook has now.

Costolo’s solution is to tell everyone we’ve been counting wrong. The 271 million MAUs Twitter announced today (itself marking a comfortable jump of 16 million from the previous quarter’s mark) only comprise one segment of Twitter’s audience.

There’s also the secondary audience of “logged out” unique visitors to Twitter profile pages, and the tertiary one of “syndicated” viewers who see tweets embedded on third-party websites, or projected on a TV screen, or in the many other places they turn up. “Twitter is everywhere. It’s all over TV,” Costolo said on the earnings call. “Those users come to Twitter looking for the content they’re told is happening and unfolding on Twitter right now, and obviously, from the numbers we’re seeing, lots of them decide not to log in.”

Count all those people up and you get a total of two to three times the size of that 271 million MAUs, he claimed. “We will position ourselves to reach the largest audience in the world and every person on the planet,” he said.

What is Twitter willing to do to get there? For starters, it’s willing to count as part of its audience people it’s making no money from. Right now, logged-out and syndicated users don’t see any ads, and that’s not going to change soon, said Costolo. No wonder: Twitter knows far less about the people in those outer rings than about its logged-in users, making it hard to target ads to them. But Costolo insisted there are nonetheless “frequently tremendous signals” about their interests and behaviors that will “eventually” make them a valuable part of its user base.

It’s also willing to tinker with the core of what makes Twitter Twitter: its strict reverse-chronological organization. Right now, every user’s timeline consists of every tweet (plus or minus replies, depending on one’s toggle setting) by every user he or she follows. Asked whether Twitter would consider a version of timeline that uses an algorithm, a la Facebook’s Newsfeed, to determine which tweets get promoted and which get suppressed, Costolo said, “It’s fair to say we’re not ruling out any changes in product in service to bridging the gap between signing up for the service and receiving immediate value.”

In other words, to overtake Facebook, Twitter is even willing to become Facebook.

Forbes.com

Google+ takes different, inclusive approach to social networking

When you first log in to Google+ (pronounced Google “plus”), the search giant’s new social networking platform, you are likely to be struck by how ‘Googlian’ it is. Like many of its web products, the design is purposely minimalistic as to almost be threadbare. With the smooth typefaces and the clean lines, Google’s presentations always have a distinct mechanical precision.
And if you’ve spent any time with Facebook, you’ll notice a striking resemblance to the social network. Its main page is a “feed” of users, among them your friends, co-workers and family members, updating and sharing content. You have a “profile” detailing where you live, where you work and whom you’re friends with.
But Google+ is empirically different from Facebook, from their methodologies and thoughts on privacy to its philosophy of how you should (and want) to interact with your social network. While Google+ is still in the early stages of public testing, it does make, and stand by, a bold statement that the Web isn’t a place to expand your network of friends — it’s a place to strengthen and more tightly enclose the groups of friends you already have.
The site’s main conceit is its Circles feature. It forgoes the niceties of Facebook friendships altogether by forcing you to own up to the fact that you don’t interact with all of your friends in the same way. Typically, your best friend and boss are not privy to the same details of your life, nor would you want them to be.
In Circles, you divide your friends into different groups of your choosing. For example: closest friends, family, co-workers, loose acquaintances and your fantasy baseball league. These “circles” of friends will never know what Circle they’re in, just that they’re in one.
Now when you share a message, video, link or some other ephemera, you can choose to share (or not to share) with individuals or entire Circles. Ostensibly, your feed, or as it’s called in Google+, your Stream, is only populated with information relevant and meant for you to read and consume. In Facebook terms, think of it as if the only feed you had was your Wall.
Circles does multiple things in one application that Facebook requires some legwork to mimic. Primarily, it makes tinkering with your social network privacy settings a thing of the past. Instead of having to make sure you have the right criteria set to shield any embarrassing bits of information from your family, you can simply decide not share it with your family Circle. Where Facebook requires a workaround for specific privacy controls, Google+ makes it a guiding element.
Of course, this privacy is exclusive to Google+. The rest of Google’s services are prominently integrated into the site; when you log in to Google+, you are also logged in to Gmail, Google Docs and all its other factions. You may be able to keep your Google+ Circles private, but the rest of the Google machine is still doing everything it can to keep track of you.
But by putting the user in control of essentially every facet of information shared, Google+ is as private or as public as preferred. But the more private, exclusive and closed off, the better, at least to Google+.
Traditionally, with sites such as Facebook and Twitter, the mantra is to share abundantly and with as many people as possible. On Google+, anti-social tendencies are encouraged. If you wanted to, you could exclusively interact with only your small group of friends ­— to hell with everyone else.
And it provides the tools you need to strengthen your Circles’ insularity. Such as the Hangout feature, which can support up to 10 users in a video chat and works snappily for a testing version. You can group chat and even watch a YouTube video alongside each other on a shared screen.
Another big part of Google+ is the plus one feature, styled as “+1”. Now in Google searches, you’ll have the option to +1 a link you like or recommend. Very much in the vein of “liking” or sharing a link with a webpage’s Facebook link, the +1 approach takes it one step beyond. Now when you’re searching Google, if one your friends has given a +1 to a link, you’ll see it in line with the link. Not only can you exclusively interact with certain Circles, you can also make sure that they’re your primary source of news as well. Another feature is Sparks, which provides you with a feed of links tailored to the keywords of your choice. Have an obsession with amateur hip-hop dance crews? Google+ is glad to nourish your addiction.
And that’s a huge basis of the social network, keeping your interactions at the specific, micro level. Unlike Facebook, it’s not about the overlap of multiple streams of information — it’s all about cutting out and combing through the ether for just the stuff you want.
That’s where Google+ becomes divisive. It essentially opens up a competing school of thought about how the Internet should work and how we should use it. As it is, Google+ does a great job at curating your friends and organizing them into groups, but it doesn’t actually do anything new or better to enhance the experiences you share with them. The debate between whether you should use Google+ or Facebook shouldn’t be about the features — it’s how these social networks want you to use them.

Dailytexanonline.com

Court probes WikiLeaks Twitter info

A subpoena presses Wikileaks, Assange thinks that Google, Facebook are facing similar requests about his site.

 U.S. investigators have gone to court to demand the details of WikiLeaks' Twitter account, according to documents obtained Saturday, part of the criminal case which Washington is trying to build against the secret-spilling website.

WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange said he believed other American Internet companies such as Facebook and Google may also have been ordered to divulge information on himself and colleagues.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia issued a subpoena ordering Twitter Inc. to hand over private messages, billing information, telephone numbers and connection records of accounts run by Assange and others.
The subpoena also targeted Pfc. Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army intelligence analyst suspected of supplying the site with classified information; Birgitta Jonsdottir, an Icelandic parliamentarian and one-time WikiLeaks collaborator; and Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp and U.S. programmer Jacob Appelbaum, both of whom have worked with WikiLeaks in the past.
The subpoena, dated Dec. 14, asked for information dating back to November 1, 2009.
Assange blasted the U.S. move, saying it amounted to harassment, and vowed to fight it.
"If the Iranian government was to attempt to coercively obtain this information from journalists and activists of foreign nations, human rights groups around the world would speak out," he said in a statement.
A copy of the subpoena, sent to The Associated Press by Jonsdottir, said that the information sought was "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation" and ordered Twitter not to disclose its existence to Assange or any of the others targeted.
But a second document, dated Jan. 5, unsealed the court order. Although the reason wasn't made explicit in the document, WikiLeaks said it had been unsealed "thanks to legal action by Twitter."
The micro-blogging site Twitterr declined to comment on the topic, saying only that its policy is to notify its users, where possible, of government requests for information.

Salon.com

Facebook & Twitter users richer than MySpace users

They're more likely to live in the city too!

The research firm also revealed that Facebook and Twitter users are more likely to be based in the city.


"Nielsen's online data shows that about half of the US population visited a social networking website in the last year and that number grows every quarter," said Wils Corrigan, an associate vice president with Nielsen.

The survey, which studied the top seven social networking sites, showed that Facebook users generally have an "upscale profile".

Nielsen also said that people who are more affluent than the other two-thirds of the population are 25 percent more likely to use Facebook than those in the the lower third.

And conversely, those in the bottom third of the financial chart are 37 percent more likely to use MySpace than those in the top third.

Other recent studies have shown that as Facebook and Twitter grow in popularity , their user bases are growing older .

A July report released by iStrategyLabs shows that while the number of Facebook's US high school and college-age users declined over the past six months, its popularity among the 55-and-older crowd is booming.

In fact, the number of 55-and-older Facebook users showed staggering growth - 513.7 percent - in the last six months, the digital consulting firm said.

That means Facebook and Twitter, which both have shown phenomenal growth in the past year, apparently appeal to an older, wealthier demographic.

And with expectations mounting for Twitter executives to finally come out with a business plan by the end of the year , the demographics of the site's users will have to be factored into the equation

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