Facebook and other social networks are employing keyword-sniffing programs that monitor our private communications such as chats and direct messages. When a potential criminal activity is found, the communication is presented to human auditors who determine whether or not to inform law enforcement. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? This was one of the most thought provoking questions I’ve ever explored before writing an editorial. The conspiracy-theory-loving, “leave my internet alone” part of me was absolutely outraged (albeit not a bit surprised) once I heard about this practice….

You better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin’! Yep, times are still changing, as more public company boards are lending their ears to digital directors who can develop their online marketing, social media and mobile device strategies.  “Content marketing” is the new buzzword on everyone’s lips, and C-suite execs are finding themselves “increasingly ill-equipped in the boardroom” and, in many cases, digitally illiterate. This may be enough to scare many into hurriedly making a Facebook or Twitter page – but it’s not the whole…

If there’s one major flaw with the way that many businesses use automation tools, it’s that they’re not able to properly control the flow of content from its longest form down to it’s shortest form. This is unfortunate because using RSS feeds to post to Facebook and Twitter from a blog, for example, doesn’t save much time at all but minimizes the effectiveness of the networks. It’s all about flow. It’s about taking advantage of the strengths of the various networks will not falling into the traps that each allows. Let’s take a look at an example of content flow. In this case, we’re going to work it down…

There are two stages to this gambit by Yahoo that must be accomplished. They have to beat out Facebook, Microsoft, and anybody else interested in the 10-digit price that Tumblr is likely to fetch in the coming days. Then, they have to let the site be as it is and make no changes at all to the platform. The Swisher/Kafka tandem over at AllThingsD have reported that the Yahoo board is going to meet this weekend to discuss buying the social blogging platform for a reported $1.1 billion in cash. Sources said that the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s CEO Marissa Mayer has decided that buying Tumblr was going…

Content speaks for itself. It speaks for a company. It speaks to the people. Most business websites are sorely short on content. Sure, they have sales content and information about the company, but so few today are actually putting out high-quality content about relevant topics that make their websites more of a resource. Today, people want to trust a company before doing business with them and content is the easiest way for them to understand that you know what you’re doing. It’s not just about having information for visitors to see in order to convince them that you’re an expert. It’s also about…

Yahoo is quickly going the way of AOL in that it’s becoming a place that simply isn’t “cool”, at least to the emerging internet users and those 20- and 30-somethings who still want to be cutting edge (and 40-, and 50-…). Everyone knows it, even Yahoo itself. “One of our challenges is we have had an aging demographic,” said CFO Ken Goldman spoke at JP Morgan’s Global Technology conference. “Part of it is going to be just visibility again in making ourselves cool, which we got away from for a couple of years.” They started heading in the right direction by getting a hip, young CEO to run the…

Just when you thought Facebook couldn’t get any better when it comes to establishing an active online presence, the social networking giant also introduced a new look where, aside from a profile photo, a bigger space was created to give brands a chance to be more visible and creative—the cover photo. Companies big and small have taken advantage of the cover photo to display powerful images aimed at attracting a bigger clientele. In fact, many of them extra-glamorized their cover photos with chunks of texts in an attempt to catch their audience’s attention. And they did—sort of. The thing…

Google’s first big change from the Google I/O conference The new responsive design of Google+ has been rolled out to a limited set of users is image focused, multi-column, and loads more quickly than before. Here’s a screenshot of what the feed looks like: It seems to be a limited release. After checking with some friends, nobody else seems to have it available. Google is known to roll out changes to a small section of users from time to time. In this case, I like the change. It’s actually quite a bit like the old Facebook look but it definitely has a Pinterestesque feel to it. They’ve also added some nice…

The blogosphere is normally abuzz with stories about Facebook that demonstrate negative sentiment towards their activities. Most of their moves are scrutinized and the company is often targeted for its activities, failures, and missteps. Facebook Home, the app that was supposed to be the “next version of Facebook” according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has been so underwhelming with its numbers that most bloggers started ignoring it shortly after its launch. This could all change once it’s allowed to be released to a wider audience. Currently, it’s only available on the HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung…

Twitter has had a rocky road since its rise to fame in 2008. It first had issues when its growth outpaced its ability to handle the load. Then, it started getting a bad name for being irrelevant. Then, the spam started to dominate. Users are hot and cold on it depending on what day you ask them, putting the shortened update social network in a constantly precarious state. Still, they’ve managed to thrive through it all. Some point to the streamlined way the company has been operated over the years. With under 200 employees sustaining a site that has over 190 million monthly visitors, they don’t need…