Pinterest

Advertisers will now be able to add a tracking pixel to their Promoted Pins to collect information on how well a Pin is doing. That pixel on the advertiser’s site can determine which customers are arriving after either viewing or clicking on an advertiser’s Promoted Pin. And in turn, Pinterest can then use that data to customize a consumer’s experience on its website. The company says it will update its Privacy Policy on October 19th.

You can view the original story here.

Social networking site Pinterest, is on a roll with app releases. Their first-ever Android app, at 1.0.2, along with a newer iOS app, Version 2.0.1, now support the iPad. Pinterest’s blog says, “…the app works well on Android phones and tablets, regardless of your device’s cost, speed or screen size.”

The new Android and upgraded iOS apps come days after the service went invite free. Formerly, people that wanted to sign up for it needed an invite from a friend or wait for the site to send them one. However, not all of the app interface changes have been positive for a subset of pinners, as they are called.

The new iOS app changes the interface to two columns on the iPhone, instead of one before the update. Unfortunately, the app is not receiving good reviews on the iTunes app store with one and a half stars at 1,108 ratings (at time of post creation). This may be a temporary low rating, as all versions have four and a half stars at 378,283 ratings. So far, I have experienced fewer crashes on the iOS app and it has increased my ability to repin compelling content faster, via the multi-column view.

Multiple columns, even on a smartphone, allowed me to see up to four pins on a single iPhone screen. Of note, the original iPad is compatible with category browsing, following users and pin boards plus repinning.

Both the Android and iOS apps look and operate similarly. Creating new pins, known as pinning, is easy. Tap the camera icon on the bottom of the screen to take a photo or import one from the camera roll. However, the Android app has its buttons located at the top. Pull the feed down slightly to find the camera icon to create a pin or to refresh the feed. The original iPad is compatible with the iOS app, even though creating pins is not possible in their latest version. The stackable pane interface for category browsing and search is similar to that found on the official Twitter app for the iPad and is easy to operate. Swipe left to right and the categories appear. Swipe right to left and the pane disappears.

Updates and changes like these will be good for Pinterest. I have been using the service and sharing more with people after the app releases. With a few speed tweaks on the iPad app, they will have even more of a reason for users to repin compelling content. All of the changes, upgrades and app releases go towards their goal of inspiring people to do things that they love.

Want to see some delicious food photos, learn some new recipes or checkout over 350 infographics, along with some other fun pins? Follow 24kMedia on Pinterest.

via TechCrunch

(first draft – still needs edit) In late 2010, A man named Mohamed Bouazizi, running a small fruit stand in Tunisia set himself on fire as both a protest and a desperate cry against the brutish and tyrannical regime of Ben Ali and the total lose of what little dignity and hope he had to support his family after a police officer basically attacked him and his little fruit stand.  Although successful in bringing economic growth to the country, only a small percentage of those connected to the state enjoyed the fruits of this economic growth.  People living in the outlying areas were still poor, repressed and basically abused by the state and their collaborators.  In previous years and small event like this would have gone unnoticed.  But with the expansion of access to the internet, Tunisian blogs, mostly outside the country, the population was beginning to learn more and more just how corrupt their government was.  The WIKILeaks release of US diplomatic evaluations that seemed to corroborate this point of view only further inflamed the population.

Protest began to popup all over the country and although there was plenty of hacking attacks on both pro and anti government sites, and a number of bloggers and even a rapper was arrested; at no time (as far as I know) were the internet taken down, social media sites blocked and cell phone service taken down as seen in the Iranian protest.  Although the normal pattern of controlling the media, blaming outside influences, violent repression and vague promises were executed, this time the regime was simply too hated, too corrupt to withstand the ever growing number of those dissatisfied with the government.  After 28 days, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled the nation.

All of the events in Tunisia were followed by people all over the world. Especially those in Egypt who have been living under there own autocratic state controlled by Hosni Mubarak for the last 30 years.  As with Iran and with Tunisia and other states, the people began to communicate with each other through social networks like Twitter and Facebook about what the people can do if united and perhaps that same revolution can take place in Egypt.

When Wael Ghonim started his Facebook page to bring light to Khalid Sayid’s beating and death; people started to add images and videos to this Facebook page coming to 1/2 million followers. Soon people used this page and others to organize protests… and people started to show up.  Taking pictures and video’s; the word spread further.

Soon bloggers and socmed users were calling for protest and strikes against Mubarak.   As fast as Tunisia erupted, Egypt was faster.  The word spread and people were congregating next to the Nile river in an area called Freedom Square.  The Mubarak administration has also watched what happened in Iran and Tunisia and initially blocked certain website just as in Iran, but people got around it user proxies, just like Iran.  After this did not work, he took it a step further and shut down all web traffic and mobile traffic.

Access to Twitter and Facebook was blocked.   In 24 hours it was announced on the Google Blog, the search giant has teamed up with the incoming SayNow team and Twitter to create a simple speak-to-tweet service for people currently engulfed in the turmoil in Egypt.  From the Google post..

It’s already live and anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet.

We hope that this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult time. Our thoughts are with everyone there.

As the protests continued the typical recipe that all dictators seem to follow was concocted.  They started to send thugs to repress the protesters, arrested those that were speaking out.. Through the state controlled press the blamed outside agitators and then made veiled promises to reform. However, the protesters would stand for nothing expect the resignation of Mubarak.  Under internal and international pressure, he finally reopened the internet nodes and stopped blocking mobile devices. Finally an announcement was made that he would give a speech and ‘demands will be met.’  During his speech; instead of stepping down he still insisted he would stay in power and offered more reforms.

There was first a wave of disbelieve, then disappointment, then full on outrage.  All of this was picked up by the global news organizations which has set up camp with live feeds and thousands of tweets and facebook messages racing through the social network reinforcing that only his abstention of power would satisfy the crowds.  In less then 24 hours; he resigned and left the Presentational Palace.

As amazing as it is that this non violent protest worked, was the speed.  18 days total.  Less then 24 hours from the reading of his speech where he stated he would not leave office, to getting on a plane. The speed and depth of social media as well as main media monitoring of this network has made the normal path of divide and conquer less and less effective. What was interesting is that only about 20% of the Egyptian population has internet access at home and 40% have cell phones so communications were not stopped by cutting off access to internet, but instead inflamed the population even more.by cutting off internet and cell phone, that actually drove more people to the streets and the square to find out what was going on

Although we did not see a successful change of power in Iran, we have seen it in Egypt; and we have seen many other autocratic countries moving very quickly to address (or appear to address) the needs of their people out of fear of another lightly fast revolt powered by social media.

At the time of this writing, about 2,000 demonstrators clash with police in the Yemeni capital Sanaa in the third consecutive day of anti-government protests. Riot police in Algiers dispersed thousands of people who had defied a government ban to demand that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika step down. President Mahmoud Abbas will immediately ask Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to appoint a new cabinet. And in Iran, where we started this article, reports from Iran say several opposition activists have been arrested and international broadcasters are being jammed. The moves come after the opposition called for a march in Tehran next week in support of the protests in Egypt.

As much as it seems that the ‘tools’ of social media was the foundation of the revolutions we have been talking about, and seem to be coming, its not the service of Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Google but instead the change of thinking that these tools have helped evolve.  By allowing people to exchange ideas and information, social media tools have given people a sense of community and strength through the social network.  Once ideas have been shared and a sense of mission has been formed, blocking access to social media only angers people more and let them know that the authorities are afraid.

The story of the network revolution is not over and perhaps by March I may have another update, but right now, with the last 3 revolutions we have seen, its clear that social media is more then just a tool to allow people to communicate but instead a way for community to form and ideas to not only be exchanged, but solidify as a call of action.  The next 2 months should be interesting.

When a state wants a certain message to be provided to its population; it normally instructs to top down communication media; the newspapers, television and radio stations, to reflect that view. With networked communications, this control does not exist.  As such, the only other option is to try to hunt down and intimidate those major nodes within the network or shut the network down altogether.

In the case of Iranian election protests of mid 2009; we saw the first beginnings of Social Media as a tool used by the population and opposition of the state to try to affect change in that state.  After the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, discussion on the illegality of the election began to spread around Iran and the world on various blogs and minor publications.  Soon these turned to protests online which lead to protest in the streets.  The Iranian government did as one would expect, instruct the state controlled media outlets to dismiss the protests as outside agitators and criminals, arrest those they believe to be the leaders of the protests and cut off the phones lines of any supporters.  But they did not cut off  access to social media via the internet and text message. The protest continued to grow and become more organized.  Sometimes nicknamed the Twitter Revolution, because of the protesters reliance on mobile phones and Twitter to communicate; and also the first time a major government realized that social network communications are a very real threat to their ability to maintain control over their population.

Once the authorities realized the threat of networked communications; they started to shut it down, first blocking web sites and email.  However Iran is a highly computer literate country with plenty of hackers in conjunction with hackers and coders from around the world working to counter these measures including attached Mahmoud web site through DDoS attacks.  At one point the only reliable traffic was through Twitter and cell phone.  So important was this traffic that the US ask Twitter not to perform a service upgrade during the protests.  Many bloggers, myself included, would rebroadcast IP proxies to allow the Iranians to get around the website blockade. I even created a small php script that will perform 3 separate Twitter searches and remove the duplicates to help people filter through the deluge of Twitter messages that were generated around the crisis. Its basically a game of cat and mouse between the computer and socmed community and Iran.

In the end, the Iranian regime was successful in quelling the uprising through a combination of shutting down universities, blocking web sites, and blocking cell phone service in conjunction with more conventional tactics of misinformation, force, promises of investigations, and counter rallies.  But is not where the story ends..

End Part 1.  Read Part II here.

Image from techcrunch

I’m normally not one to get excited about a social media app for the iphone.. ok, I’m almost never excited.  But I just saw Meebo’s new app previews in Techcrunch and what I like is its simplicity combined with multiple account support.  Its seem that this is also pretty darn fast, and that is what I want.  I do not use socMed that much with exception to using twitter off and on, foursquare and facebook even less. There are only 3 sections; Buddies, Chats, and Accounts. What more do you need really?  If you are going to hit twitter or facebook hard, when there is an app for that.

You can read the full post here.

I’m bummed I have to wait a week for this, but I have high hopes.

If you can beat them. Eat them!  That’s right, Facebook is going after Twitter full force now.  Seem that you can now not only update your twitter account from facebook, but all kinds of controls on how its done.

From there blog..

“If you manage a Facebook Page, you now will be able to decide whether to share updates with their Twitter followers, and you also will be able to control what type of updates to share: status updates, links, photos, notes, events or all of them. If you have multiple Pages, you will have the option to link each of those Pages to different Twitter accounts.”

Wow.  Its a pretty clear move.  If you cannot buy twitter, then simply use there system as if you did.  Now I dont think this is the end of Twitter, nor the beginning of the end because using facebook is still a pain.. BUT, that can be fixed.  So.. Ok Twitter… Now what?

here is the link:  http://www.twittfilter.com/iranElection.php#

I’m sure most of you who use twitter are already aware of what has been going on. Because of the media blocks in Iran, social media tools like twitter, friendfeed, flickr and facebook have been used to maintain information flow in and out of the country. What’s interesting is watching the real time evolution of a self structured networks of social media users working to keep the flow of information open. We have also seen the social network encouraging services to be sensitive to unfolding events. Using twitter as my example, we first saw the request of twitter to delay a schedule maintenance operation in order to insure twitter was still up during peak times in Iran. Stories have gone around that the US gov. also made a request for this delay. (this is confirmed).  I would bet both the public, the US gov and perhaps a direct appeal from Mirhossein Mousavi himself have all taken place.

The last I’ve heard, cell phone and internet service are cut off during the rallies and only spotty afterward. I’m not sure how people are able to communicate via media during these times, short of satellite, but somehow, the social network seems to organize and function.

There are also nodes within the social network where people try to collect and share information. Nico Pitney from the huffintonpost is one of these nodes. Here is you can see information and media flowing in at realtime. (link)

There is so much going on, I’m trying to keep a short list of events around how twitter is being used.  For more information, another node, have a look at this site for a more detailed history:

SUMMARY OF GREEN REVOLUTION: http://www.pastebin.ca/1462651 #iranelection

Please email me if I missed anything or need add to the list below.

• #CNNFail : CNN was not providing much time to the events in Iran. A mass of tweets with the hash #CNNFail started to trent.  CNN see’s this an increases coverage

• Follow #iranElection : As various media elements start to get blocked, social media becomes the primary way information is moved in and out of Iran.  #iranElection becomes the primary tag

• Changing Proxies : Although Iran cannot shut down twitter, they can block parts of the internet. By providing alternative proxies, people are able to get around the blocks.

• #nomaintance : Twitter was suppose to perform maintenance in the middle of the day in Iran.  A number of hashtags with #nomaintance went around asking to delay twitter going down.  There were also reports that a request from the US Gov. and Moussavi for the delay were submitted.
• Traffic reduced, phones cut, Sat dishes collected: This has reduced the flow of information, not stopped it.
  

• Changing icon color to Green : Twitter users change the color of their icons to green to protest the election.

• Changing timezone to GMT+3.30 hrs : To create noise, people change the timezone of their twitter profiles to +3.30 GMT and encourage those in Iran to change to anything but 3:30.
• Request to not use names while RT: RT mean to reweet or copy and resend a message. A request is going around not to use names inorder to protect the source from monitoring.
• The Pirate Bay rename to Persian Bay: Information to support private posting and other techniques to avaide detection are shared. http://iran.whyweprotest.net/
• Security forces are now setting up twitter accounts: to spread disinformation by posing as Iranian protesters. Be aware.
• Hactivists use simple iframe meta refreash as a DDoS attach on Gov. sites.
• Mousavi and Karroubi’s facebook and twitter accounts compromised: Friday’s protest is still on. Seems the word is going around.

As a social media consultant it’s always important for me to be “connected” not just to clients or friends, but to information on the web.   Of course, not all of the apps I use are necessarily for business, but many of the ones I have listed here are.  A lot of these apps don’t even have much to do with social media consulting, but that’s what I am and these are the apps I use (not jailbroken, at which Chris shakes his head)

Twittelator

Twitter has been a tremendous resource and valuable networking tool, so naturally I try to stay connected even when I am not around my PC.  Twittelator is my favorite free way to stay connected to the various conversations on twitter.

Google

Google has a great app available that allows you to access things such as your RSS feed, Goog 411, News, etc.  Part of being a consultant means you have to know what’s going on in the social media space…all the time.  I’ll be honest, the thing I use the most from the Google app is the RSS feed, this allows me to stay up to date on the latest social media news and technologies.  If you need a free portable way to access your RSS feeds, the Google app is for you.

IM+Lite

This application is pretty much an all around chat app.  I use it to connect with people on aim and gchat when I’m traveling around.  Fring is another one you can check out, I haven’t used it but have heard good things.

Facebook

Truth be told I use facebook mainly as an event management tool.  I use facebook to find out about new events in my area and as a calendar.  While I do like the facebook app one shortcoming I have noticed is that it doesn’t let me view various events.  Still, it’s a good app for connecting with people on the go.

News Apps, i,e. NY Times, USA Today

The various news apps out there are great, I can stay up do date on everything from economic news to tech news.  The apps are easy to navigate and read which is a huge plus.  I can scan an article in about a minute on iphone, so it’s a huge time saver and an efficient way to read the news.

Chess

Eh what can I say I’m a huge chess nerd, by far my most favorite app is called chess with friends.  Chess with friends is an app that lets me play games against contacts or random folks on the network.  I usually have at least 5 games going at a time and I can make a move at my leisure.  If you like chess then this is a must have app!

Pandora

Do I really need to explain this one?  Free streaming music on the go anywhere?  Ya, it’s amazing

There are plenty of other apps I use out there, the list can go on and on.  I’m also a big fan of apps such as linkedin, yelp, urbanspoon, around me, etc.  But the ones I listed above are my favorites…for now.  That is until I jailbreak my phone and will have the ability to tether my iphone to my laptop, when that day comes, then you might see a different favorite app post from me

In the meantime connect with me on twitter

Obama used a grass roots based approach building and managing the organization. Just 4 years ago, it would be hard to imagine the level of organization and communication required to build and manage such numbers as those involved in the Obama campain through traditional top down means. But with youTube, Facebook, twitter and even the iPhone and Blackberrys; social media and the hand held tools that expand their reach has changed politics.

First, lets think about fund raising, something I’m sure everyone will agree was one of the major factors in this election’s outcome. What the Obama team did was focus on small donations via the internet. Although web based fund raising is not new, the way it was done was different.  In this campaign, we saw donate buttons on web pages and emails. Then, what I consider the first markable impact of social media, the ‘yes we can’ video.

Although the lyrics are entirely quotations from Sen. Obama’s concession speech in the New Hampshire^[3] the Obama campaign had no involvement in its production.^[4] The viral music video, shot in a sparse black-and-white, features Barack Obama’s image in collage fashion; the performers (celebrities including musicians, singers and actors) echo his words in a hip-hop call-and-response manner as his voice plays in the background. The song was produced by will.i.am; the music video was directed by Jesse Dylan, the son of singer Bob Dylan.^[5] The music video (which Joe Klein of primary,Time later characterized as “brilliant”)^[6] premiered on the national media on ABC News Now‘s What’s the Buzz entertainment program on February 1, 2008.^[5] On February 2 it was featured on the Obama campaign’s community blog,^[7] and later promoted as a viral video by the campaign on its website.^[8] Obama played the clip prior to a February 12 rally of nearly 20,000 at the Kohl Center on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. cit-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_We_Can  at this writing, there has been 1,035,880 views on youtube.

Once this video went viral, not only did the word get out, and people become inspired, but social media links were established. As the campaign wore on, the obama campaign used all forms of social and digital media where they could, even to the point of putting ads in video games.

What really impressed me during the summer, was how the campaign was starting to show up everywhere I normally was. Twitter, Facebook, my iPhone!  I wrote about an Obama campain aid app from iPhoneDevCamp, there were plenty of twitter sites dedicated to the Obama message and discussion, the 1 million strong Facebook group, and on and on.   Have a look at this info from speakmediablog:

Election 08 Social Media Showdown – Here is a look at the activity surrounding each candidate’s social media outreach.Senator Barack Obama

• Twitter http://twitter.com/barackobama 95,758 Followers
• Facebook http://www.facebook.com/barackobama 2,047,779 Supporters
• MySpace http://www.myspace.com/barackobama 686,547 Friends
• YouTube http://www.youtube.com/barackobama Subscribers: 98,156 Channel Views: 16,966,722
• LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/barackobama 500+ Connections

Senator John McCain

• Twitter Unofficial Site http://twitter.com/JohnMcCain2008 2,102 Followers
• Facebook http://www.facebook.com/johnmccain 567,227 Supporters
• MySpace http://www.myspace.com/johnmccain 55,323 Friends
• YouTube http://www.youtube.com/johnmccain Subscribers: 24,373 Channel Views: 1,716,044
• LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmccaindotcom 500+ Connections

The McCain campain was late to the game, and also, its younger voters that tend to use social media tools, so that needs to be taken into consideration when looking at these numbers.

Whats interesting about how smartphones plays into this is how iPhones, blackberrys and other smart phones allow the users to stay connected and more inportanly, report in. The iPhone in paticular with the Obama app and other applications that came later; allows a campain volenteer to not only canvas, but become a reporter armed with pictures, movie recordings if you have a jailbreak, SMS, and emails. During the election I saw many people taking pictures of their polling sites. A tool was created to allow reporting of odd goings on (talked about it here) .  Once can imagine that if people needed help at a phone bank, a twitter could go out to get more people in a flash.  Finding that your are canvacing that area as someone else?  Email back to HQ with a screenshot of your map and double check to see if you are in the same area.

I think we have seen how future campaign will be run.  Integration will ALL media, TV, Radio, Blogs, Social Media and even SMS feeds as where Obama offered to provide news of his VP pick via SMS before it’s announced.  Although the SMS messages did not go out to everone at the right time, the orginal goal of expanding the contact lists was successful. We will see future campain websites embracing social media in the model of what we saw with Obama.

screen shot of the Obama web site