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Rumor Has It Facebook May Add Video To Instagram

June 18, 2013, 12:00AM

Facebook invited members of the press to its Menlo Park headquarters to “learn about a new product” this upcoming Thursday. The rumor is that this new product might be a video feature for its photo-sharing platform Instagram.

According to the social network’s invitation, a “small team has been working on a big idea,” and TechCrunch reports that video support on Instagram, which Facebook acquired for a cool billion dollars last year, just might be that “big idea.” It’s no surprise the largest social space would move in this direction given the ever growing popularity of Twitter’s Vine.

Brands are increasingly seeing the value in using the app to send out short and sweet six-second messages associated with their products to a broad audience. An even bigger incentive comes from Topsy Analytics, who recently reported that Vine has surpassed Instagram in total Twitter shares. Additionally, fun fact, this milestone occurred just one day after an Android version of the Vine application was released.

A slightly less-likely rumor connected to the press event on Thursday is that Facebook has been working on a news reader to fill the void created once Google Reader closes its doors early next month. “It could be a sort of ‘trending articles on Facebook’ feature, or a more full-blown RSS reader-style product,” TechCrunch explains. The news outlet also adds that it’s possible that this Facebook product won’t be announced until further in the future, well after Thursday’s press event.

For the big Instagram rumor users and advertisers will have to wait until 10 a.m. Pacific this Thursday to find out what Facebook’s really cooking up.

What do you think Is a video feature the right move for the filtered app Would this clutter the platform or enhance the user experience Let us know in the comments below.

Source: TechCrunch

Facebook Announces Game-Changing Ad Platform Update

BY Lauren Arevalo-Downes

June 7, 2013, 12:00AM

By Elena Zanone

Yesterday Facebook announced plans to streamline its ad products by simplifying its offerings and eliminating advertising cross-over after an influx of feedback from marketers. From these changes, users will see a more standard set of ads, as the social network intends to reduce its twenty-seven different ad units to less than half of that in the next six months.

“We noticed that many ad units accomplish the same goals, so we’re cutting out these redundancies. This includes removing the Questions product for Pages because marketers can simply ask a question in a post and get answers in comments,” said the company in their blog.

Facebook Ads Product Manager Fidji Simo told reporters that advertising on Facebook would be switched around completely. Instead of an advertiser indicating it wants to create a Like post ad or Sponsored story, it can indicate that it is trying to drive more traffic to its website, or that it desires a mobile app install ad, or it is going for more foot traffic or conversions.

Essentially, the overall ad campaign goal will be the first thing an advertiser indicates, not the type of ad model. Some potential examples of the objectives Facebook can offer are to drive awareness of a message, drive views of a video, drive Likes, drive online sales, or drive people in-stores with coupons, and more.

“What we really want to do is reduce redundancies and make sure that there is one clear path for every advertiser that wants to achieve an objective… We’ve worked really, really closely with marketers, and we actually learned from them about what is working for them.”

Instead of having to create three separate types of ads to achieve an objective, these types will be combined:

For example, posting a question ad doesn’t necessarily drive much engagement, but with Facebook’s new capabilities this type of ad can be rolled into a photo ad that is much more eye-catching to users.

The company’s Director of Product Marketing Brian Boland noted, “From audience selection, to targeting and choosing the right people that matter to you, to the actual creative ad format — if we make those steps easier, that actually improves user experience. There’s a better piece of creative and a more relevant piece of creative in front of that person. As we do everything, we really focus on the user experience in the News Feed.”

“In the coming weeks and months, marketers will start to see these streamlined changes to our ads solutions. We think these updates will make it easier for them to do what they do best: reach the right groups of people with the right message and drive the results they care most about,” the company said.

Source: Facebook

Employee’s Licking Lust For Taco Bell Lights Up Social Media

BY Lauren Arevalo-Downes

June 4, 2013, 12:00AM

This less than appetizing photograph of an unnamed Taco Bell employee licking a long stack of about twenty-five taco shells was posted onto the company’s Facebook page {link no longer active} over the weekend, igniting viral attention from social media users.

While the circumstances surrounding the public display of taco shell admiration are unclear Consumerist notes that it is possible the shells were destined for the trash, but it still may make customers think twice before buying their next Doritos Locos Taco.

Facebook user Jj O’Brien Nolan, whose relationship to the infamous Instagramed taco shell lover is unknown, posted the photo with the comment, “This sure says a lot about your employees.”

Since the event, Taco Bell has declined to say whether the employees who created the photo were fired or not but company spokesperson Rob Poetsch did tell the Huffington Post in an email that the company has “strict food handling procedures and zero tolerance for any violations.”

He continued with, “When we learned of the situation we immediately contacted this restaurant’s leadership and although we believe it is a prank and the food was not served to customers, we are conducting a full scale investigation and will be taking swift action against those involved.”

This is not the first time the fast food joint has had an employee post an unflattering image that went viral on social media. In August 2012, a different employee took to Twitter to post a photograph of himself urinating into a plate of nachos.

“I pissed on them where nobody could see, in private, an[d] I threw them away. There’s literally nothing they can do. Fire me. I don’t care,” the photo culprit, Cameron Jankowski, said.

Of course the company took him up on his offer and he was fired immediately.

How do you see this playing out for Taco Bell? Do you think the prank will harm sales or simply increase their Klout score with the massive social media attention?

Source: Mashable {link no longer active}

Facebook Usage Waning, Twitter Usage Winning Among Teens

BY AList Staff

May 29, 2013, 12:00AM

By Elena Zanone

A recent Pew Research study revealed that America teens are showing a “waning enthusiasm” for the social network giant Facebook. In a study that observed over 800 teens and their social media behaviors, the decrease desire for Facebook and the increase interest for Twitter seemed to capture the most headlines.

What teens seem to dislike about Facebook most is the fact that their parents, grandparents and other adults are also there, diffusing Facebook’s “cool” factor. Additionally, teens complain that their friends often overshare and post too much “drama” on the site.

“The stress of needing to manage their reputation on Facebook also contributes to the lack of enthusiasm,” the survey said.

Because of that, teens are increasingly migrating to other social platforms, especially Twitter because of the freedom and ambiguity the site offers.The Pew survey found that 24 percent of online teens now use Twitter, up a dramatic 16 percent since 2011. The increase in teen Tweeters has even outpaced adults on the platform – a major leap from Twitter’s first year where only 9 percent of teens were reported using the 140-character social site. Some 64 percent of teens have Twitter accounts set to public so anyone can read their tweets, with 24 percent setting their accounts to private. Perhaps the most interesting, 12 percent reported they didn’t know whether their tweets were even public or private. Much different from how users fix their privacy settings on Facebook.

Other social platforms such as Tumblr, Instagram (which is owned by Facebook), YouTube and Snapchat have also seen major growth among young users in the past year.

Those teens who used sites like Twitter and Instagram reported feeling like they could better express themselves on these platforms, where they felt “liberated from the social expectations and constraints of Facebook,” the Pew survey said. “Nevertheless, the site is still where a large amount of socializing takes place, and teens still feel they need to maintain their Facebook profile in order to not “miss out,” the report confirmed.

These findings are based on a nationally representative phone survey run by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project of exactly 802 parents and their 802 teens ages 12-17. It was conducted between July 26 and September 30, 2012. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish and on landline and cell phones.

Where do you predict a majority of teens will be next year Do you think overall teens on Twitter can ever surpass Facebook usage entirely Let us know what you think in the comments below!

Source: Gigaom