Twitter IPO Potential Release Date

Twitter has chosen the NYSE to be the platform for the upcoming IPO. They have also submitted a tentative date of November 15th, though of course that could change.

The Social Media giant will use the ticker symbol TWTR

I would guess the government would have to get back to work several weeks before twitter would want to start the process. The market could be very volatile shortly after our government decides to get back to work, so look for twitter to delay the ipo if the government shutdown continues.

Twitter Gradually Rolling Out Private Messaging

In the wake of the upcoming IPO from Twitter, they are rolling out a new feature. Private Messages.

As you can see in the caption below ( Caption Provided by CNN ) users will have the ability to send direct private message.

Users will have to "opt in" to use this service. I personally wonder how much spam I would receive by using this. This will be an interesting feature to watch.

Google, Facebook, And The Rise Of Zombie Marketing

Jonathan Salem Baskin of Forbes wrote this excellent article about Marketing.

Google and Facebook’s recent changes to user privacy policies will make it more efficient to find users, and then throw marketing at them that appears to come from other users. These are only the latest steps in the march to automate the entire marketing process or, as I see it, the rise of Zombie Marketing. We marketers should talk more about what’s causing it, and what it means going forward.

As for its causes, I think we’re even talking about technology because we’ve failed to make our case convincingly to our clients and employers. Remember when procurement was big news a few years ago? The number-crunchers had the audacity to presume they could analyze and judge our work better than we could. Now, the technologists are promising they can do our work for us or, once it’s driven by perfect data, in spite of us. The pitch is so powerful that it was credited as the driver of the biggest ad agency merger in history.

What do we offer in our own defense? We tell stories. We come up with creative ways to get people to spend time witnessing our creativity. While accountants manage our decisions and funding, and technology conceives and delivers our work, we hold onto the belief that we’re the only ones in the room who understand the spiritual dimensions of branding… even as it’s likely there’s another corporate department waiting in the wings to tell us how to tangibly realize it. My bet is on human resources, which arguably manages the people who drive social media interaction, and thus the levers for P2P communicating.

So, while we give one another awards, and make presentations of our successes riding the waves generated by procurement, technology, and other forces beyond our control, I worry that our profession and job responsibilities are diminished.

Now, as for what it means, I think the premise of Zombie Marketing is kinda scary. Commercial data-collection capabilities should make any NSA spook blush with envy, and I don’t think most consumers are consciously aware of how much is already known and then concluded about their behavior. The Zombie model strives to perfect this activity by making it unlikely that an online user can hide or obfuscate his or her real identity (the new Facebook policy), and then automatically tee-up recommendations on products or services to friends and family without users actually makingthem (Google's GOOG +0.48% latest policy change).

I know, I know, I’m glossing over the fact that user substring identifiers aren’t cached at the ISP level, or whatever, and weavers complained when the first looms powered-up. But the bigger picture is that Zombie Marketing relies on tech to emulate the ways content used to be developed, and then matches it to online experience in a simulacra of conscious choice and active dialogue. There aren’t any people involved. Just zombies producing and sharing stuff that makes needles spike on computer dashboards.

What’s really interesting is that this development is positioned as a user benefit, and much of it is automatic unless consumers opt-out (and doing so isn’t obvious or always easy, and one could argue that even opt-outs create a class of users who have their own profile that might be useful). It presumes that consumers asked to be tracked, analyzed, and then have their experiences mediated by content chosen by algorithms running on supercomputers.

They didn’t, of course. They…we…just want commercial speech that doesn’t waste our time, or insult our intelligence. Marketers don’t need to read minds in order to deliver it, and no amount of data-driven matchmaking can take the place of creating information that’s truthful, meaningful, and reliable. Creativity is the mechanism for making that content  accessible, understandable, and memorable.

Zombies can’t produce such content, only marketers can. We need to reaffirm not just our role in its creation, but its centrality to the future of marketing.

Marketing, and advertising in particular, has always adapted to changing environments, and that includes technology. Mass-distribution print, radio, and then television were transformative in so many ways — the formats of sponsored and then interrupted TV programming defined the how andwhen of the commercial speech that appeared on it, for instance — but the ultimate power of marketing derived from its ability to identify and share what people needed to know, not just mirror what they wanted to read, hear, or see. We marketers used to own and stand for that.

The rise of Zombie Marketing, like procurement before it, is the result of our abrogation of that authority. Both are imperfect replacements, since you can’t automate communications, any more than you can reduce it to numbers on a balance sheet. Until we figure out how to stand for something that is as objectively real to the executives around us, and useful to the consumers we serve, however, the technologies coming from companies like Google and Facebook will dictate marketing’s story.

LinkedIn Preps 'Block User' Capability

Alison Diana, of Internet Evolution writes:

When Anna Rihtar began her campaign for LinkedIn to add a block user feature, she was at the beginning of her sales career -- and in the middle of an ongoing stalking nightmare. Sadly, she was far from alone.

Rihtar worked with Change.org to bolster her earlier efforts and began a LinkedIn Privacy/Blocking Petition group on the business-oriented social media site (membership required). When I first wrote about her efforts, many were surprised that LinkedIn didn't already include this capability, which is readily available on many other social networks. All that changed recently when LinkedIn finally agreed to begin working on a block user feature.

Writing in a forum on the LinkedIn privacy group, Paul Rockwell, the company's head of trust and safety, told members that LinkedIn is building a block user feature. Rockwell also pointed participants to the redesigned Safety Center and reminded them about flagging or reporting inappropriate or threatening behavior.

The feature is not out yet, and Rockwell didn't give an estimated timeframe. That left some skeptics among the group's approximately 80 members -- many of whom say they have been stalked online.

Bonny Folkestad, a consultant who has been stalked via LinkedIn, told me in an email:

I don't know if it will change anything, since a trust has been broken. I don't know if I can ever feel safe to be honest. It is a true love/hate relationship. I really think LinkedIn, Pinterest, FaceBook, etc., should all have staff that pay attention to and welcome emails regarding concerns that people might have, that they would take customer service to the virtual world and even investigate complaints. The front end is changing so fast that the back end has to catch up. These companies are making enough money that they can afford to have staffs to protect those that use their sites. They need the ethical hackers to protect us. Actually they can't afford not to.

Facebook Gets Rid of Privacy Option And Makes All Users Searchable

Any change to Facebook, whether it's a tweak in its site design or an overhaul of its privacy settings, generates a groan or two. Jon Chang of ABC reports:

In another effort to improve its users' experience on the social network, Facebook is getting rid of an old and sometimes glitch-prone privacy option that will now render every Facebook user searchable to any other user.

The old privacy setting -- called "Who can look up your Timeline by name?" -- gave users the option to not appear in Facebook search results. If Mark Zuckerberg himself wanted to keep all Facebook users from looking up his Timeline and activity via the Facebook search bar, he could toggle the setting so that only friends, or friends of friends, could do so.

However, according to Facebook's Chief Privacy Officer Michael Richter, that led to some problems with the search function itself. "People told us that they found it confusing when they tried looking for someone who they knew personally and couldn't find them in search results," he said in a statement. Facebook is phasing out this privacy option and will make all users accessible via the search bar.

The search bar wasn't the only way for people to be found on Facebook. "It didn't prevent people from navigating to your Timeline by clicking your name in a story in News Feed," said Richter. He noted that users could also be found through Graph Search, which lets Facebook users put in more general search terms such as "people who live in Seattle" and returns a list of people who fit the description.

Bradley Shear, a lawyer who specializes in Internet privacy and social media, said it's a bad move on Facebook's part. "Facebook has over a billion users," he told ABC News. "Even though only a small number of users used this privacy option, that can still mean millions of users." Facebook did not specify what percentage of users opted to use this privacy option, but confirmed with ABC News that it was a small percentage, within the single digits.

"The best way to control what people can find about you on Facebook is to choose who can see the individual things you share," said Richter. To enforce this point, Facebook will notify users making a public post on their timeline that people they don't know may be able to see their activity. In addition, Facebook said that users can still block specific people from seeing their own Timeline.

While it may be more convenient for some users trying to connect with one another, Shear said that in the long run it could hurt them. "That notification and this privacy change is going to make people think twice about the content they post online," he said. "Facebook's business strategy depends on people sharing more info, and so they're looking at things from a short-term perspective and not over the long term."

Facebook to buy mobile data compression startup Onavo

Loek Essers, of IDG News Service reports:

Facebook has agreed to acquire mobile data compression startup Onavo and plans to use its technology in an effort to make Internet access more affordable, Facebook said on Monday.

Onavo develops iOS and Android apps that compress data as it is downloaded, helping subscribers save money on their data plans. The technology gives mobile users the ability to do up to five times more with their data plan without any additional fees, according to Onavo.

The Israeli company also offers an analytics tool that allows iOS and Android users to track how much data is consumed by each individual app installed on their phones, although this is something that the latest versions of the phones' operating systems also do.

"We expect Onavo's data compression technology to play a central role in our mission to connect more people to the internet, and their analytic tools will help us provide better, more efficient mobile products," a Facebook spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. Facebook declined to discuss the terms of the deal.

Onavo's Tel-Aviv office will become Facebook's office in Israel, Facebook said.

In August 2013, Facebook and other tech companies including Nokia, Samsung Electronics, Ericsson and Qualcomm launched an initiative called Internet.org that aims to connect "the next 5 billion people" to the Internet in an affordable way. The founders believe it is possible to build infrastructure that will provide sustainable free access to basic Internet services in a way that enables everyone with a phone to connect to the Internet.

This is a challenge Onavo is also passionate about, said Onavo co-founders Guy Rosen and Roi Tiger in a blog post. "We're excited to join their team, and hope to play a critical role in reaching one of Internet.org's most significant goals -- using data more efficiently, so that more people around the world can connect and share," they wrote.

Onavo plans to continue running its mobile utility apps as a stand-alone brand when the transaction closes.

New Google Maps Regains Support For Multi-Destination Trips, Now Integrates Your Flights And Upcoming Events

Greg Kumparak

 from Techcrunch writes:

The big, still-in-Beta Google Maps overhaul brought a bunch of new shiny stuff, from its new fullscreen interface to drastically improved public transportation integration.

It also lost some features, though – and when you take away things that people (like me!) have been using for years, those people (like me!) get sad. One of the features that got washed away in the refresh: multi-destination trips.

At long last, it returns.

To add a new location to your route, just click the little plus sign below the list. Once you’ve got all your destinations listed, they can each be dragged up or down to adjust the order of your route accordingly.

To be clear, this change only really affects those of us who’ve taken the plunge into new Google Maps land; those undaunted by the occasional bug or five, those willing to turn a blind eye to the new interface’s seemingly insatiable hunger for every cycle your CPU can throw at it (though, admittedly, the Beta has gotten a lot less resource intensive since launch). If you’re still on old Google Maps, you’ve had multi-stop directions all along.

Meanwhile, New Google Maps has also picked up a few new tricks by way of its product-brother-from-another-mother, Google Now.

If Google is aware of an upcoming flight, hotel, or restaurant reservation on your schedule, that data will now be pulled straight into Maps whenever you’re signed in. Searching for “SFO”, for example, would trigger a drop down list with your upcoming flight’s details. You’ll probably want all that databefore you find yourself searching for directions to the airport — but when the taxi driver asks “Which airline?” and you realize you’ve completely forgotten, keep that one up your sleeve.

Lastly, Google Maps is also now piping in data about upcoming events in a given area or at specific venues. Search for “music venues” and it’ll plot out music venues in the currently shown region and toss up a smattering of upcoming shows. Search for a specific venue — like, say, the Oakland Coliseum (Go A’s!) — and they’ll try to dig up everyone who’s playing there in the next few weeks.