Pope Benedict To Get His Own Twitter Account [Report]

According to a Conservative American News Media report, the Pope will be sharing his opinions and church news through his personal twitter account.

Barack Obama's 'Four More Years' Is The Most Retweeted Tweet In Twitter History

 Four More Years |Source: Barack Obama

President Barack Obama after winning the U.S Presidential election announced his win on Twitter at 11: 14 p.m ET Tuesday :

Pinterest Now 3rd Most Popular Social Network

Pinterest is now the third most popular social networking site in the U.S. and could help foster "meaningful connections" between retailers and consumers. That's according to a lengthy new 2012 Digital Marketer report from Experian.

Retailers should also consider advertising on Facebook. The report found that retail advertisers saw conversion rates of almost 50 percent through Facebook ad campaigns in 2011.

According to Experian, Pinterest attracted 21.5 million visits in the week ending January 28, 2012 – nearly 30 times the number of total visits six months before giving it a larger audience than LinkedIn. As reported by other firms, Pinterest skews female; 60 percent of the site's users are women, and 55 percent are between the ages of 25 and 44, according to Experian.

Californians and Texans made up the largest share of visits to the site, and its users over index in visits from Midwestern, Northwestern, and Southeastern states.

"This data indicates that Pinterest visitors have a different profile versus their counterparts visiting other social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube," notes the report.

Pinterest users post photos of "Products They Love," from L.K. Bennett shoes and Kate Spade purses to iPhone cases, laptop bags, and Reyka Vodka. So, it's no surprise Experian sees the site as full of potential for retail marketing. "As communities become less about friends and more about common interests, retail brands in particular need to take note if they want to make more meaningful connections with their customers," the company states.

Retail brands that ran at least four ad campaigns on Facebook in 2011 drew some of the highest conversion rates as measured by Experian. Retail Facebook ads resulted in a 49 percent conversion rate, compared to 40 percent for travel advertisers and 58 percent for consumer goods brands. In contrast, auto brand ads on Facebook generated just 18 percent conversion.

Facebook ads can be a "significant source" of company site traffic, added the report. Twitter remains the second largest social site in the U.S.

BO.LT VS Pinterest : Is BO.LT better than Pinterest?

The Internet is full of fascinating material, things we know we’ll need now or in the future. Sure, you can bookmark a page, but your browser bar can only hold a half dozen or so and the overflow can be unwieldy. And worse, pages can just disappear any time and all you will see is the dreaded “404 Page Not Found ” Error message.

Echofon: A Twitter App for your Windows Desktop

Are you a Twitter User? If you uses your Twitter everywhere, Why couldn't you use it outside your web browser?

Explore 'Hunger Games' with HTML 5

The Microsoft and Lionsgate have teamed upto bring the Hunger Games futuristic city of Capitol to life with the latest HTML 5 technology than using the Java for Internet Explorer. 

Twitter adds Hebrew and Arabic Home Pages

Twitter users have long been able to fire of messages, mostly known as "tweets", & it will now be able to visit Twitter home page with local language notices and instructions. 


Twitter has now launched Hebrew, Arabic, Farsi & Urdu versions of the website, which further localizes the text message services.

Facebook & Twitter vs Alcohols & Cigarettes

How much time do you spend on Social Networks ? 
Many are unable to walk away from them with many apps and smart phones friends and family are always with you.. 

Here is an infographic to know whether you are addict or not ? 

Tweetbot released in Apple IPad : A Client with Personality

The Tapbot team introduced a new Twitter app for the iPad users which had a revolutionary user interface with unique sound 

features, and with other EXCLUSIVE features which the

 others where not able to provide.

Last Year  the same team had come with a Twitter app for
the iPhone Users.

The allowed the users to do more with Twitter that you thought was possible by taking the APIs to its full potential.

The Social Media Life with Pinterest

Social platforms are still in their phase of massive expansion with new services emerging and consolidating large audiences almost faster than they can be tracked.

Twitter to Censor Tweets

Twitter has been a free and open platform for tens of millions of people around the world, to say and share what they like.

Saudi Prince Drops $300 million Into Twitter

In a Very very unexpected move the member of the Saudi royal family has invested $300 million in social networking company Twitter. Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has taken Twitter through his Kingdom Holding Company investment firm.

With Twitter valued at around $8 billion in total, the investment represents a 3.75 percent stake. The prince says tha the deal is the culmination of several months of negotiations.

In a statement, Twitter’s newest equity holder says that the investment was the result of “several months of negotiations and comprehensive due diligence”.

Prince Alwaleed commented: “Our investment in Twitter reaffirms our ability in identifying suitable opportunities to invest in promising, high-growth businesses with a global impact.”

Prince Alwaleed and Kingdom Holding (KHC) have stakes in many Arab and international media and entertainment companies; including a roughly 7 percent stake in News Corp.

Here is another bit of news that makes one wonder – why would Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s investment firm, Kingdom Holdings, invest $300 million in Twitter? After all, this microblogging service helped spread the Arab Spring protests in early 2011. Perhaps this is to have a say in how Twitter runs, so that something like the Arab Spring would not happen in Saudi Arabia down the road? Either way, I would say that those who have cashed out on their Twitter shares would be happy at the kind of money they received in return.

He's also got a strong presence in the Middle Eastern media and entertainment world, with a 29.9 percent holding in the Saudi Research and Marketing Group (SRMG). He's also recently announced plans to launch a privately owned news channel, Alarab.

"We believe that social media will fundamentally change the media industry landscape in the coming years.Twitter will capture and monetize this positive trend," says Ahmed Halawani, executive director of private equity and international investments for Kingdom Holding Company.

In August, investment firm DST Global, which also owns stakes in Zynga and Groupon, took a $400 million stake in Twitter.

The Quality & strength of passwords

The phishing attack that led to more than 10,000 Hotmail, MSN and Live.com passwords being exposed online earlier this week has provided an interesting glimpse into the mindset of email users when setting up their accounts.

The Hackers who managed to look at the 10,000 or so Hotmail, Facebook, Twitter, MSN and Live.com passwords published an analysis of the list and the strength of passwords used.

According to the analysis, one of the simplest passwords around, ‘123456’ appeared 64 times in the list. Undoubtedly, those account users would do well to change it as soon as possible but judging by people’s attitudes towards passwords, I doubt that many of those 64 account holders will choose anything more complex than adding an ‘a’ at the beginning.

Some of the other statistics are quite interesting. Forty-two percent of the passwords only use lowercase letters from ‘a to z’, while only 6% used mixed alpha-numeric and other characters.

The analysis shows that one-fifth of the passwords were only six characters long although the longest had 30 characters. The shortest was 1 character long.

A good number of passwords were formed using first names which is just as secure as having no password at all.

As Emmanuel Carabott explains, it is very important that people not only create strong passwords but they also change them regularly. Furthermore, it is good practice to use different passwords for different accounts so that if one is compromised, your other accounts or memberships will not be affected.

A lot of people are worried that if they use very strong or long passwords, they will forget them and not be able to access their email. While this is a valid point, it is possible to create a strong password that you can and will remember. For example, you can choose a phrase or a combination of words that are of particular significance: I love chocolate. By changing a few characters you can create a strong password:!loveCh0c0late.

The Worst Passwords of 2011

SplashData along with the help of some hackers have compiled some of the most hack-friendly passwords to raise a campaign for password security measures and awareness. Most people tends to set easy-to-remember passwords across many of their online accounts that will expose them to security vulnerabilities. The great thing about this compilation were you’ll have the idea on how important the password strength you’ll use on your online accounts such Facebook, Twitter and Emails etc.. At the top of the research, with no shocker the word “password” is the most hackable password in the list follows by 123456, 12345678, qwerty and abc123 completes the top five. The complete list of the Top 25 Worst Passwords of 2011 is after the break, check it out. Check out whether there is any password which you uses.

Top 25 Worst Passwords of year 2011

 1. 123456

 2. 12345678

 3. letmein

 4. dragon

 5. abc123

 6. monkey

 7. 1234567

 8. password

 9. trustno1

10. qwerty

11. baseball

12. 111111

13. sunshine

14. superman

15. master

16. ashley

17. bailey

18. passw0rd

19. football

20. 123123

21. 654321

22. iloveyou

23. qazwsx

24. michael

25. shadow

Most importantly, we hope that this will open our readers eyes too, and that if you are currently have any of the above mentioned  passwords it will be a good thing that you change that password immediately.

According to SplashData here are some tips for choosing a secure password.

•       If you think that your password is weak then:

1. Use different characters, words and numbers and special characters in your password.

2. Keep your password at least eight characters long; use spaces and underscores to separate small words.

3. Use different passwords for different websites. If you cannot remember different passwords use online password managers and different smartphone applications to keep track of your passwords.

Sweden Allows citizens to take over its Official Twitter Account

With Twitter is now flourishing as a well-established part of the Internet landscape, it’s increasingly difficult to make a splash with a truly innovative marketing campaign using the service. The country of Sweden may have managed that with a new project that sees a different citizen take over its official Twitter account every week.

“No one owns the brand of Sweden more than its people. With this initiative we let them show their Sweden to the world,” says Thomas Brühl, the CEO of the country’s tourism agency VisitSweden.

Curators of Sweden is certainly an interesting idea; a variety of Swedes, including an editorial writer, a founder of an advertising agency with his own farm, a suburban writer, a priest, a teacher and a coffee-drinking trucker lesbian are all lined up to take over the account in coming weeks. The plan is that they will portray a diverse range of values, skills and ideas from across the country.

However, it’s a bold step to jump from what Twitter users may reasonably expect a tourism account to offer (news, offers and recommendations of places to visit) to what Sweden’s first ‘curator’ is offering. From his first tweet onwards …

 …he’s tweeted about everything from touching personal news…

to humour that not everyone will appreciate.

Yes, it seems that the ‘curators’ won’t be restricted to tourism-friendly soundbites – it looks like they can pretty much say what they like. Not everyone’s happy with it though – it has already led one Swede living abroad in London to criticise her country’s approach as “a disgrace“.

It’s certainly going to be odd for casual visitors to stumble upon links to humorous photographs and jokes about the Pope on the official Swedish tourism Twitter account, but that aside, it certainly gets people talking about the country and, after all, the project’s aim is clear from its website:

“The idea is that the curators, through their tweets, create interest and arouse curiosity for Sweden and the wide range the country has to offer. The expectation is that the curators will paint a picture of Sweden, different to that usually obtained through traditional media.”

In that respect, it’s a success – even if it won’t please everyone.

Tweet to get Scholarship

Not too long ago, students had to craft an essay if they wanted to win a scholarship. Now, they just can craft a tweet.

The Kentucky Fried Chicken Foundation is asking eligible high school seniors to tweet a photo that illustrates their commitment to education and enriching their communities. The KFC Colonel's Scholars winner, announced December 15, will receive up to $5,000 per year to pursue a bachelor's degree at a public university in his or her home state.

KFC started the Twitter contest last year as a way of reinvigorating its scholarship program for the social media age. The competition saw over 2,800 applicants, with the winning tweet coming from California high school senior Amanda Russell: "#KFCScholar Hey Colonel! Your scholarship's the secret ingredient missing from my recipe for success! Got the grades, drive, just need cash!"

Other organizations, perhaps weary of wading through applicants' lengthy essays, also are offering eager students ways to turn a 140-character message into money for college. Last summer Scholarships.com awarded a "Short and Tweet" $1,000 cash prize and Amazon Kindle e-readers to three students who tweeted winning answers to questions like, "What would an extra $1,000 for college mean to you?"

"No lengthy essay, no pile of paperwork -- just your thoughts, in real time," promised the contest's website. "To enter, simply log on to Twitter ..."

In place of an essay, the University of Iowa's Tippie College of Business offered a full $38,000 scholarship to its MBA program for the best tweet from a prospective student. "That's right, it's a 140-character application that pays $271 per letter," said the school's website.

Why a tweet? Jodi Schafer, the University of Iowa's director of MBA admissions and financial aid, told USA Today that application essays were "becoming unoriginal." She said "we're hoping that incorporating social media in the process will help bring back some of that creativity." Applicants were encouraged to include in their tweet links to blogs, videos or Facebook accounts.

The college plans to bring back the tweeting scholarship next year to international applicants.

Competitions like these are done more for marketing purposes than finding qualified candidates, said Sree Sreenivasan, a digital-media professor who teaches classes on Twitter at Columbia Journalism School. He cited a scholarship sponsored by Dr. Pepper that was awarded to a girl who threw the most football passes into a giant Dr. Pepper can at the SEC Championship game.

"How is that better or worse than Twitter?" he asked. Sreenivasan believes these scholarships get buzz because they are "marketing to the extreme." He said he would not be surprised to see more competitions like this in the future, because marketers are very imitative.

This year's KFC scholarship competition explores students' creativity in a different way by asking them to tweet a picture instead of just a snippet of text. The ideal image should capture their high school experiences and collegiate dreams. KFC Public Relations Manager Rick Maynard says snapping pictures and sharing them online comes naturally to this generation of students, and the scholarship is a new way to connect with social-networking teens.

"The Colonel was a lifelong learner, reinventing himself at the age of 65 when he turned a $105 Social Security check into what would become a global chicken chain. He would have been thrilled to see how KFC continues to adapt to fit the changing consumer landscape," Maynard said.

Maynard said KFC is watching for new technological trends to help the company decide what to do for next year's competition. In the meantime, students may submit photos until December 13, and the winner will be named around December 15.

Making Money Online

Making money online is very famous among all of us, as we would have heard it from our friends, coworkers, family, neighbors etc. You may have browsed through one of them or else you may have seen a Decorated Attracting ad somewhere while you were surfing. These MONEY, MONEY promising ads might not be really The real McCoy. You Might have thought that  ''Are people really making out of this?'' And if they earn, how do they do it? 

Here I'm mentioning how to earn money taking online Surveys.