Twitter Changes Feed Again

Twitter once again has changed their feed and not all users are happy about it. My question is why
would you change anything right now with an IPO looming?

As Zach Miners reports users are complaining about a change that puts photo previews front and center in their streams, and offering advice to others on how to turn it off.

Apparently some users like viewing photos on Twitter but don’t want image previews appearing automatically in their stream, which is what happens with a change to the service rolled out Tuesday.

“I was perfectly happy with that one extra step of ‘show picture’ for the ability to see a picture that I want to see,” one user wrote on Twitter’s developer forum.

“I do not necessarily want to see every picture that every person I follow posts, right on my timeline,” the person wrote.

Another Twitter user wondered if he had “ticked something somewhere” without realizing it.

“Wow, Twitter is suddenly unscannable. What is this crap in the feed and how do I turn if off?” asked another.

The update means users no longer have to click a link to view the photos, so scrolling through Twitter can now mean scrolling past a lot of photos. It’s been activated on the desktop version of Twitter and is included with an update for the iOS and Android apps. It only works with images posted on Twitter itself, or videos posted on Twitter’s Vine service, however.

Twitter is apparently keen for users to see a lot more images in their Twitter streams. Photography is a key service for social networks, and Google updated its photo features on Google+ Tuesday as well.

Showing photos in Twitter without needing to click on them can have unintended consequences, though. A search for “twitter photo previews” on Twitter Tuesday revealed at least one explicit pornographic image.

Some users provided advice on how to disable the feature, posting screenshots of how to turn it off within the Twitter app on mobile devices. The image previews can’t be disabled on the desktop, however. (Here’s TechHive’s advice on turning off online images in the mobile version of Twitter.)

It’s not uncommon for users to complain about changes to online services, as Facebook, Yahoo and others know too well.

One user suggested this is a fight Twitter can’t win. “Y’all complained when Twitter wasn’t visual. Today, y’all are complaining it has photos in your stream?”

Twitter Could Be Worth More Then $11 billion

Julianne Pepitone of CNN reports that Twitter could be worth 11 Billion or more. She writes that 

Twitter isn't yet making a profit, but analysts think its future is bright -- and that it's worth more than the current $11 billion valuation.

Twitter set the preliminary price range for its initial public offering at $17 to $20 per share late Thursday. At the top of that range, the company would be worth $11 billion.

That's lower than the $15 billion to $20 billion valuation that some experts had predicted.

Even the $11 billion figure might sound high given that Twitter is unprofitable. But investing in a company is about belief in its future potential, not its current situation.

In a note to clients on Friday, SunTrust analyst Robert Peck said Twitter "wisely started the pricing conservatively" -- and he expects the company to raise its range, which isn't binding, over the next few weeks.

"[Twitter] left room to raise the range based on potential investor demand, which we anticipate will be strong," Peck said. He based that demand prediction on discussions with several investors over the past few weeks, which leads him to believe the deal will be "well received."

In fact, Peck set a $50 price target on Twitter.

Morningstar analyst Rick Summer hasn't yet set his price target, but he noted that Twitter's valuation is "rich" when comparing its financial performance with that of Facebook (FB, Fortune 500) and LinkedIn (LNKD). Still, he's extremely positive about the company's offerings and business model.

"Twitter is a very unique medium, and we think that speaks extremely well of the company," Summer said. "It's not just about selling ads on the side of a page and measuring impressions."

Twitter runs ads for corporate accounts, specific tweets and topics, and the sponsored content is tucked right into users' feeds. Advertising accounted 85% of Twitter's revenue in 2012.

"They've done a good job of offering unique advertising and not forcing products that don't work," Summer said. "They dominate their market and really partner with companies, which use Twitter to distribute their content widely. It's attractive."

Twitter has also been quick to offer those ad products on mobile. Three-quarters of Twitter's monthly active users accessed the service on a mobile device last quarter, and mobile ads brought in 70% of its total ad revenue.

Mobile was the big area where Facebook suffered -- and, as a result, so did its stock. So it's a big plus that Twitter has figured out this important part of its business.

But Nate Elliott, lead social analyst at Forrester, cautioned against judging Twitter through the lens of Facebook.

Twitter was founded more than seven years ago, while Facebook had eight years under its belt when it went public in 2012. That's not too much of a difference from a timeline perspective, but Elliott pointed out that the two social networks have very different histories.

"The big comparison everyone is making is how Twitter stacks up to Facebook," said Nate Elliott, lead social analyst at Forrester. "But Twitter is at a much earlier stage of business than Facebook was when it went public. Twitter is still figuring out how to best serve its audience."

Twitter may be more green than Facebook, and is certainly less popular -- it has about a fifth of Facebook's user base. But that newness could be to Twitter's advantage.

"We've had advertising partners tell us they're kind of burned out on Facebook, but they haven't gotten to that point on Twitter yet," Elliott said. "That doesn't mean they're necessarily sold on Twitter. But they're listening." 

Facebook Redesigns Messenger

It's not immediately obvious that the latest version of Facebook Messenger for iOS and Android is a Facebook app at all says Ellis Hamburger of The Verge. Its name is Messenger, not Facebook Messenger, and its icons, text, and buttons have been graded a new shade of lighter, more vibrant blue. If not for the chat window's big Like button, you might mistake Messenger for yet another new app to let you send photos and stickers to friends. And that's kind of the point.

This past spring, Facebook made it abundantly clear that it didn't intend to sit on the sidelines as messaging apps like WhatsApp gathered hundreds of millions of active users per month. Facebook Home, the company's most progressive piece of mobile software ever, elevated chatting with friends above everything else on your Android device. The latest version of Messenger for Android and iOS hopes to take this idea to the next level, because it doesn't want to feel like part of Facebook. Messenger wants to be something else entirely: a mobile to mobile messaging network like WhatsApp or Kik. The redesigned app begins testing with a random group of Android users today, and will come to everyone on iOS and Android "in the coming weeks."

The new Messenger has largely the same functionality as its predecessors, but features a brand new design meant to emphasize its distance from the main Facebook app. Most importantly, friends' avatars are now circular, and have a little badge on them if a friend is using the Messenger app. In other words, it's instantly clear if a friend you're chatting with is using Facebook Chat on the web, or has the Messenger app on their phone and will receive your chats instantly. This distinction is part of what makes apps like WhatsApp compelling. WhatsApp isn't hooked in to any social network, and there's no ambiguity about how you're chatting with a friend.

"This is a refresh of the Messenger brand," says designer Luke Woods, which focuses not just on "mobile to mobile" but on fitting in with iOS and Android and their respective conventions, like the Send button. The previous version of Messenger, Woods says, was an iOS app visually ported to Android. Before that, Facebook for mobile devices was built using HTML 5 for no platform in particular, but Facebook ditched that plan long ago.

In terms of functionality, there are a host of under-the-hood improvements to make sending and receiving messages faster, says product manager Peter Martinazzi. There are also some front-end tweaks that makes the app faster — especially on Android, where the SMS texting feature, which let you text friends who don't have Facebook, has been removed. "We made a big deal about the SMS feature and it just didn't take off," said a Facebook spokesperson. Removing the ability to send SMS texts from within Facebook Messenger is an interesting move, especially considering KitKat, the next version of Android launching soon, will let users pick their own default SMS app. KitKat would provide Facebook with one more place to insert itself into your digital life, and rumor has it Google plans to make its Hangouts messaging app the default SMS app in Google Play devices like the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4.

While Facebook won't let you text a phone number from Messenger, the company plans to use phone numbers in a new way: to identify its users, just like in WhatsApp. Upon opening Messenger for the first time, it will ask you to provide your phone number. Then, the app can match you with people whose numbers you have, but whom you aren't Facebook friends with. Facebook guarantees your messages will reach somebody's inbox if you have their phone number. "The Facebook friend graph is an important graph for you, but everyone also has a phone graph," says Martinazzi. "These are the people who you aren't Facebook friends with, but you have their phone number, like a classmate or coworker." While Facebook has abandoned its plans to replace your texting app wholesale, it's more dedicated than ever to becoming your de facto messaging app.

The messaging wars are hotter and more fragmented than ever. By cutting visual ties between its messaging experience and its main app, Facebook hopes to get its horse back in the race — because features have never been the problem. If anything, the problem has been branding.

Mobile Adds Equals Profit For Facebook

With Facebook targeting hard on mobile adds profits are soaring. Vindu Goel of the New York Times says
Mark Zuckerberg should ditch the hoodie and dress up as a mobile phone for Halloween.

After all, that’s how half of his company’s users connect to the social network and where half of its advertising revenue comes from.

He just has to be careful not to scare away the kids because the youngest ones are already starting to go elsewhere.

Facebook, which operates the largest online social network, reported Wednesday that its profits doubled in the third quarter, to $621 million, after excluding expenses related to stock options.

The company’s revenue rose 60 percent, to $2.02 billion, compared with last year’s third quarter. Most of that, about $1.8 billion, came from advertising.

Perhaps most important for Facebook’s future as an advertising-driven company in a world of iPads and Android smartphones, the company noted that mobile ads accounted for 49 percent of its advertising revenue, up from 41 percent in the second quarter. Facebook said prices for mobile ads remained high, and users were clicking on them in their news feeds more frequently.

That bodes well, analysts said, for its smaller rival, Twitter, which takes a similar approach to mobile ads and is preparing to sell stock to investors in an initial offering as soon as next week.

Clark Fredricksen, a vice president with eMarketer, a research firm, said Twitter would benefit from Facebook’s efforts in mobile because the larger company had been investing heavily in educating marketers and users about mobile ads.

“Facebook has been a major force in helping advertisers and users get more comfortable with seeing and buying mobile ads,” he said.

Other big Internet companies like Yahoo and AOL are benefiting less from mobile ads, he said, because their ads are fragmented across various sites and are less appealing to advertisers.

The Facebook results beat Wall Street’s expectations for both revenue and profits, and cemented the company’s position as the leading platform for mobile display ads for products like games and sugary snacks. (Google, which eMarketer estimates will account for roughly half of the world’s $118 billion in digital advertising this year, is still the overall leader in mobile ad sales because of its dominant position in search ads.)

But Facebook, whose stock has doubled in the three months since its last earnings report, also tried to temper expectations for endless fast growth.

In a conference call with analysts, the company’s chief financial officer, David Ebersman, warned that the company would not keep increasing the percentage of ads in its users’ news feeds, especially for mobile users.

“This is important because increasing ads in News Feed has been a meaningful driver of our revenue growth in 2013,” he said. “So this should be factored into your expectations for next year.”

Although he did not disclose how many ads Facebook was showing its users, the company said this year that roughly 1 in 20 posts sent to users’ news feeds were ads.

Shares of Facebook, which were down slightly in regular trading to $49.01, initially soared about 12 percent in after-hours trading following the earnings report. But the stock quickly lost the gains as investors digested the results.

LinkedIn, another leading social networking company, issued a similar warning late Tuesday, saying that its sizzling growth rate could not continue — hardly surprising, given the law of large numbers, but still a shock of cold water to investors. LinkedIn shares fell more than 9 percent on Wednesday.

Mr. Ebersman also confirmed an observation made by outside researchers that teenagers were using Facebook less. Although the overall engagement of teenagers remained stable, he said, younger teenagers were indeed using the service less.

It’s unclear how big a problem that will be for the company since those younger users are in part flocking to Instagram, a photo-sharing service owned by Facebook that just began showing ads this month.

“Facebook is the obvious audience for advertisers looking to reach mobile users,” Mr. Fredricksen said. “They are capturing market share by leaps and bounds on an annual and quarterly basis.”

Ronald Josey, a senior research analyst following the Internet industry for JMP Securities, said Facebook’s results were solid. “They’ve learned mobile,” he said. Clearly they have the right product for advertisers.”

But even before Mr. Ebersman’s comments, Mr. Josey predicted that the company would put a damper on the exuberance that has doubled the price of the company’s stock in the last three months. “They are going to try to temper expectations,” he said.

The company also continued to add to its user base slightly. In the third quarter, 1.19 billion people used the site at least once a month, up from 1.15 billion in the second quarter.

Facebook is expected to account for 5.41 percent of the $117.6 billion global digital ad market this year, up from 4.11 percent last year, according to eMarketer.

Facebook’s presence in the mobile ad market is growing especially quickly. The company will account for 15.8 percent of worldwide mobile ad spending in 2013, according to eMarketers, up from 5.35 percent last year.

Mark Mahaney, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said Facebook posted its highest profit margins in a year and half and built on its mobile strength.

“But you can’t keep accelerating forever,” he said.

Google+ Rolling Out Personalized URLS

As Kit Eaton reports"Vanity" URLs have been available to some high-ranking Google+ users for a while, but now Google is dramatically expanding the system. This means you will likely be able to customize your account page with a more memorable address. Instead of a bunch of meaningless numbers, users' URLs now look like:http://plus.google.com/+Username.

Google is rolling out the system to users right now. To get one, you must verify your Google account with a phone number, have had an account for at least a month, and have at least 10 followers.

I think this is a very big move for Google. The vanity URL makes it easier for potential followers to find you on Google+. More significantly, it makes the Google+ network a more human place. Owning your Plus homepage is now a more touchy-feely experience because, for example, to share your account details you don't have to email someone a stupid machine-like string of numbers to tell them the address of your Plus profile. It's also the sort of label that can go on a business card or in an email footer. 

Google+ Aims to Become a Photo Storage and Editing Hub

                               Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times wrote this nice article on google+

Google Plus has not come close to rivaling Facebook for social networking. But it is trying to carve out its own niche, as the place to go for photo storage, editing and sharing.

At a news conference showcasing photographers’ work on Tuesday at a San Francisco gallery, Google Plus executives barely mentioned sharing and social networking. Instead, they focused on new photo and video services.

“The cloud is not just about storing your photos,” said Vic Gundotra, Google’s senior vice president in charge of social networking. “Google aims to revolutionize photography.”

As cellphones have helped the field of photography explode, photography and video have become one of the hottest areas of competition for Web and software companies, including Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Yahoo and many start-ups.

Google’s pitch is that it can fit the needs of a variety of users, including casual cellphone photographers who want to share what they are doing, amateur photographers who want an easy way to organize family photos, and hobbyists who want high-tech editing solutions.

“No other company has dared to take on the entire spectrum of photography,” said Bradley Horowitz, a Google Plus vice president for product.

Google has some advantages, like massive amounts of computing power for storing, sorting and automatically editing photos and the money to buy photo start-ups like Nik Software, maker of Snapseed.

But it lacks a few important things. Google said on Tuesday that its social network had 300 million monthly active users posting in the stream, a fraction of Facebook’s 1.2 billion. And many consumers have already invested time and effort in other services, like Apple’s iPhoto and iMovie.

Still, Google is trying to compete, even if it is still early in the process, Mr. Horowitz said.

The press conference was streamed live on Google Plus, and active Google Plus users in the Bay Area were invited to attend in person. Some offerings, like automatic photo editing and album organizing, had been announced earlier at Google’s I/O conference.

Many of the new features are also done automatically, replacing manual labor, and will be part of a new Google Plus photo app to appear in the next few days.

Google offers automatic back-up and free, unlimited storage for lower-resolution photos taken on Android and Apple phones. People can store higher-resolution photos as well, but in that event Google charges for storage after a certain point.

With a feature it calls Auto Awesome, it automatically turns a series of related photos or videos into animated GIFs, or short movies. Google has also created computer vision algorithms to let people search their photos using thousands of words, like manicure, bridesmaid, concert, kiss or waterfall.

CryptoLocker

This new Worm going around is quite nasty. You can become infected via email attachment in the form of a .zip or from a botnet.

These emails will seemingly come from legitimate companies as well. Please be mindful when opening anything from anyone.

In a nutshell, the .zip file will contain a .PDF that will execute the trojan on your computer thus starting the nightmare that is Cryptolocker.  Cryptolocker will then encrypt the following file extensions on your computer.

*.odt, *.ods, *.odp, *.odm, *.odc, *.odb, *.doc, *.docx, *.docm, *.wps, *.xls, *.xlsx, *.xlsm, *.xlsb, *.xlk, *.ppt, *.pptx, *.pptm, *.mdb, *.accdb, *.pst, *.dwg, *.dxf, *.dxg, *.wpd, *.rtf, *.wb2, *.mdf, *.dbf, *.psd, *.pdd, *.eps, *.ai, *.indd, *.cdr, ????????.jpg, ????????.jpe, img_*.jpg, *.dng, *.3fr, *.arw, *.srf, *.sr2, *.bay, *.crw, *.cr2, *.dcr, *.kdc, *.erf, *.mef, *.mrw, *.nef, *.nrw, *.orf, *.raf, *.raw, *.rwl, *.rw2, *.r3d, *.ptx, *.pef, *.srw, *.x3f, *.der, *.cer, *.crt, *.pem, *.pfx, *.p12, *.p7b, *.p7c

As you can see this would be a nightmare of a worm to get.

Now after this propagates through your computer you then get this lovely message










100 bucks.

Thats right, $100 smackeroos. I even seen an instance that said $300.00

THINGS YOU CAN DO TO HELP PREVENT THIS

Bleeping Computers .com has a great article on this and how you can prevent this forest fire of a nightmare. Those folks over there are very very good. Read this excerpt from this post by one of their admins:

How to block this infection from running on other computers on your computer.

You can use Software Restriction Policies to block executables from running when they are located in the %AppData% folder, or any other folder, which this thing launches from. See these articles from MS:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310791
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc786941(v=ws.10).aspx

This can also be setup in group policy 

File paths of the infection are:

C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\{213D7F33-4942-1C20-3D56=8-1A0B31CDFFF3}.exe (Vista/7/8)
C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\{213D7F33-4942-1C20-3D56=8-1A0B31CDFFF3}.exe

So the path rule you want to setup is:

Path: %AppData%\*.exe
Security Level: Disallowed
Description: Don't allow executables from AppData.

With the bundling of Zbot with Cryptolocker, it is now also recommend that you create a rule to block executables running from a subfolder of %AppData%. This can be done with this path rule:

Path: %AppData%\*\*.exe
Security Level: Disallowed
Description: Don't allow executables from immediate subfolders of AppData.

You can see an alert and event log showing an executable being blocked:









I would like to add that I personally use Acronis as my software backup with an external hard drive.
This is a VERY cheap method to keep your files safe and stored and a very quick recovery if you need to wipe and start over. At any rate, with the prices of Hard Drives so low and software like Acronis so cheap it would benefit everyone to have a nice backup in the event you become infected with terrible stuff like this.