Good news for the users of Twitter! Now there Twitter accounts will be as protected as their bank accounts.

Twitter, the famous social networking site, has given a secure option to its users. They can sign-in to Twitter in a more secure way, as Twitter is using same security protocol that is used by the banks and on-line shopping sites. Twitter has done these changes in order to protect its users from hackers.

Twitter users can use Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTP), by selecting it from security setting page. It’s been since months that Twitter was working on it. Twitter anticipate that now its users’ account will be more secure than ever as HTTP will enhance the security of accounts.
Sophos, the famous internet security firm has recommended Twitter users to switch to the new system for a more secure log-in. Graham Cluely said, “What has happened in the past is that high profile people have had their accounts snatched, when that person is some one like Ashton Kutcher, who has six million followers, then someone can send a message from them that might be spam or malware”

It seems to be that Twitter is in bit aggressive mode to compete with other social networking sites especially Facebook-No1 rival of Twitter. Twitter will be having an edge over Facebook, as Facebook haven’t switch to HTTPs yet.

Human beings have always been social animals. Even in the age of technology, socialization is given priority over many other aspects of life. Therefore, although the world has advanced, the needs are the same. They are just being fulfilled in a different manner. No longer are letters written rather even emails are outdated. Now communication is done in the open by writing on walls and posting comments. So how do you make new friends, maintain old ones and stay at the top of the social network? Here are a few ideas that might help you through the maze of the world wide web:

1. Choose a Good Site: There are many sites allowing people to catch up with old friends or start new friendships. The question is which one to join? simple: join the popular group to be popular. so join sites that you have heard of and of course once you have joined you will understand whether the decision was correct or not. if no one except you creates the updates you are definitely on the wrong site! some the good social networks include facebook, Orkut and twitter each with its own distinguish style.

2.  Profile Making: Now that you have managed to join a popular place its time to make a good first impression. The first impression includes your display picture and information provided in the about me sections etc. it is important that you upload your own photo not those of celebrities. You want a good impression not a fake one! Make information fun and attractive not dull and boring.

3.  Activity: Now that you do have an account and have filled information to form a profile you must remember to log in! Do not just leave the profile. Update new status. Share your adventure or feelings through your page. Explore the site to find groups to join. This way you learn more about your hobbies and interests and meet people with similar interests as well.

4. Sharing: Share what you like and what you believe your friends will like as well. Share but do not over share. It is good to have an active page but activities mean creation of notifications. Too many notifications can be irritating for others. Be careful of what you upload. Know what you are uploading and share only what you like not what others have shared and hence you did so too.

5. Interaction: Interact with new people just as you would with a person standing infront of you. You will meet all kinds of people through the net. Make sure you have fun. If you find someone good, go ahead and chat. If you do not like the conversations direction, well there is always the black button!

6. Delete Button: For all those comments on your profiles that may offend others, there is the blessing of a delete button. Use it to delete comments made by you or others that may not be so funny for someone in your friends list. Better, erase than be embarrassed by the offensive nature of a joke.

7.  Join Conversations: Discussions are a good way of learning about the topic and about views that others hold. They allow you to interact and virtually meet new people. Don’t be a silent spectator. Share your point of view so that people get to know about you and your stands in life.

8.  Friend’s Connection: What are friends for? To help you! So check out your friend’s list. Found someone interesting there? Ask your friend to introduce you to the new friend to be and voila! You just made a new friend!

9.  Relationship Status: Check relationship status of others. People make clear why they joined the site. Some are looking for new friends and relationship while others are interested in meeting only old friends. To increase your network communicating with the first group is what you need to do

10.  Don’t act Desperate: Contact new people but don’t show desperation! Don’t be too frequent in your messaging. Give some break in between to maintain interest rather than scaring the other person away. It is better to start of with messages and chats and then move on to posting comments on your new friend’s walls.

Hope you get loads of friends!

Earlier the News of social network by Google was just a rumor but now the information is coming out from some official sources, Matt Brittin, Google’s UK chief executive while talking with Telegraph said that “Facebook is an absolute phenomenon but there are other social networks which are successful too.” And further “It’s a phenomenon that is with us to stay. I think what we’ll see is the internet becoming more of a social place, as well as people being social within the context of social networks.”

Nowadays we know that Facebook is the most famous social network of the world and a huge majority of people have become addicted to this platform and at this time bringing some completely new network is quite a task and the Google’s statements shows that the company is ready to take such a big challenge.

In April 2010, ComScore, the marketing company reported there are 17 million unique Twitter users, with Facebook coming in at 67.5 million and MySpace at 71 million. Just think about the numbers and their potential. It is kind of a mass participation in a revolution.

Photo by ArtistOnline

Social network is nothing but a social relationships in terms of network theory consisting of nodes & ties. Nodes are the individual person within the network, & ties are the relationships between persons. Social networking is used to connect people with current friends, meet new friends, or may be simply to find others with same interests or problems. Sites such as Facebook, twitter allow people or organizations to create profile, a network and generate new contacts and followers.

However Social Networking platforms such as these are not just for playing online social games, taking quizzes, sending virtual gifts or reconnecting with friends and family any more. The fact of today is Social Networking is another way to advertise yourself and your business for free or at a very low cost. Also you will see social network is helping us, the human being to be more human!

Business network has great potential to influence our current economy. Organizations can use every available technique to attract new customers & vendors. Name & brand security are also assured by websites. Social networking today is just like having a tool box full of free tools just needs to know how to use them.

A very recent incident will reveal that these websites are now used for good, not only frivolity. These websites become powerful tools for social change.

A trio of students of Stanford Graduate School of Business in California posted a video to YouTube. The video promotes an organization. The organization hopes to save the lives of millions of prematurely born babies. In India and other developing nations every day thousands of premature babies take birth. The students created an innovative low cost baby incubator which may solve the problem.

The CEO of India’s first interactive digital-billboard company noticed the video on YouTube.

That instant digital connection to Mumbai was unthinkable before the era of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. It is the focus of “The power of social Technology.”

Another student launches an effort on the Internet to find South Asian bone-marrow donors for two friends who were critically ill with leukemia. This is an example of the power of a community to galvanize change. Now platform like Facebook is used as a tool to create micro mass mobilization.

Who is the winner?

Does this matter? In terms of overall traffic, Facebook seems to still be the winner. But Twitter is emerging as a powerful platform for business because it is expansive; it also introduces you to new people, rather than merely reconnecting you with the folks you already know.

So, it certainly has a nice presence already, considering how quickly it’s grown from just a few million users’ months ago.

Facebook is one of the most social of all Social Networking sites.  Most people are hooked into Facebook to connect to family and friends and people they have not seen in a long time.  Facebook provides fun in newer ways. There are games to play, silly gifts to give and all kinds of other Fun things to do.  However, there are many ways that Facebook can be used to promote your business as well.  It has the option of creating a business account, “Business accounts are designed for individuals who only want to use the site to administer Pages and their ad campaigns“.

On February 23, 2010, Facebook got US Patent No. 7,669,123, which covers patent on a method for dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network.

In Twitter, connections which are profitable occur all the time. Shel Israel, for his forthcoming book “Twitterville”, has told the story of a man buying a house in New Hampshire via a conversation that began on Twitter. A Toronto-area fundraiser collected $25,000 for charity thanks to Twitter. Micropayment systems such as TwitPay and Tipjoy are taking hold in the Twitterverse, threatening to transform Twitter into the world’s cheapest real-time garage sale.

These stories and more help to explain why investors increasingly see Twitter as a platform for business development.

Everything is not so good

Social networking sites can bring out insecurities in people. As per Rita Florez in her “Status Foe: Aging and Anxiety on Social Networks,” many people who use social networking sites such as Facebook feel pressured to aggrandize their lives to compete with socially constructed beliefs about success.

To conclude, good or bad social networking is here and will stay for a while until another technological expression comes into picture. Meanwhile, get in touch with me in Facebook or Twitter.

These days the competition between the social marketing platforms is rising highly and each of them are bringing some more features to defeat the other. Facebook which is one of most common social networking place, is working very consistently in bringing new features into their platform and among the diversity of its features one thing was always felt to be missing and that is location service. Rumors have been circulating for very long time that facebook is bringing location service for their site and now on the NYT’s Bit blog this news has been shown that Facebook is going to bring the new location service in the April’s F8 conference.

Now one point to think is that, how will this application look like? May be it will be like twitter’s which is attaching location data to user’s status update or the company will go for some totally different way. It has also been heard that the company has tested some location services and the time is not very far when the new application will get its way into the Facebook’s applications list. One interesting thing about the news is that Facebook is not looking to beat any other location service provider like Foursquare or Gowalla but their main target is to beat Google who has provided the location service in Buzz.

Credit: sidekick

Cons: Well, perfect is none and the Sidekick LX has no exception, as the given GPS is not quite up to the mark and no inclusion of Wi-Fi is also a serious drawback and other than this no serious drawback.

The device has been especially designed for school and college going kids, but you wouldn’t find it quite mature this time and something more than just a device to send and receive instant and text messages and the things that make it a really impressive device are integration of social networking and the exceptional thinness.Its online presales has started now with $199 price for a 24 months contract and the current users of the device can get its first dibs, while for others who want to make the most of it will be able to get it from stores as well as online with $249.99 two year contract. The device will be available from 13th May.

Look and feel

The overall look of this Sidekick LX 2009 is almost the same as of the rest of Sidekick family developed by Sharp. It weighs 5.7ounces with 5.1-inch width, 2.4-inch height and 0.6-inch thickness. Though it’s slim, yet can’t be reckoned flimsy. T-Mobile says that device has undergone some robust testing and has proved its metal with four times more durability and endurance than you found in the previous version. It has a soft touch finish, but feels quite solid and robust in the hands.

Features

T-Mobile has often been criticized not to add a good amount of new features in its new models of devices, but the case is not the same with the T-Mobile Sidekick LX 2009. But now in the Sidekick LX 2009, some serious additions have been made including the addition of 3G for fast and quick transfer of data and enhanced web browsing. T-Mobile’s UMTS/HSDPA network has been rolled out in more than 120 cities and now these guys are planning to expand it further 100 cities.

A vibrate mode, three-way calling, call forwarding, speed dial and quad-band world roaming are some impressive voice features of the Sidekick LX. It also offers stereo Bluetooth and Bluetooth 2.0 support for file transfers. The available camera is also able to record videos with low and high video recording qualities.

The nicest feature is social networking integration that allows connecting with your family and friends in a lot more ways.

Performance

In its different tests, we found it quite impressive in call quality and its audio was quite crispy with least background sound. Similarly, its automated voice system was also quite impressive and we couldn’t find something really bad for preventing conversation.

But the thing that proved somewhat nagging was the quality of its speakerphone, as we didn’t find it positive enough. Overall, the device is, indeed, quite responsive.

Unique Selling Points

• A device loaded with impressive features
• Slim, but vigorous design
• High Quality voice feature

Source: reviews.cnet

The growing trends to be excluded if the new approach is implemented and it may make the new system a lot more abused than the previous ones.

Malware infected hosts have been persistently trying to identify CAPTCHAs, but it didn’t seem to do a lot in end by just solving 200,000 CAPTCHAs and to charge $2 for every thousand entries.

Two months back, a Russian boutique vendor of CAPTCHA solution services came up with a new approach that was a revenue sharing community driven scheme for breaking CAPTCHA. This concept seemed to mimic ease of reCAPTCHAs implementation, but it will allow the webmasters to implement the forms of CAPTCHA solving.

This fact is very disturbing that various vendors seem quite well-aware of Web2.0 and have been working with some well-known spamming tools and blackhat search engine optimization that enable their customers to use API key for CAPTCHA solving.

Popular social networking worm Koobface is a perfect example of exploiting CAPTCHA systems through human networks.  As it has been eating CAPTCHA barrier of different social networking sites and this gang seems to make the most of algorithm of CAPTCH recognition.

The ongoing battle is not between CAPTCHAs and bots, it’s being fought against human networks by networks that are trying to distinguish between bots and humans.

Social networking

In MySpace’s application directory, this feature will appear under the name of “Editor’s Pick”. As the name illustrates, this category will allow the users and members of MySpace to effortlessly navigate through the best applications available at the website. MySpace had launched such feature previously that showed the featured applications, but the drawback was that there was no way one could leaf through them. A team of MySpace employees will determine this list, now, on the basis of merit and not for finance reasons.

On its website, MySpace has stated the method of sending emails thereto, if people want their applications listed in the “Editor’s Pick”. The method described in the post is a s below:

“If you’d like to be considered for this category, please send an email to developerrelations(at)myspace dot com. Include “Editor’s Pick Category” in the subject line, and provide a reason why you feel your application should be in the spotlight and why your application stands above the rest. Be sure to include a 200 character description and a 128×128 icon image.”

It is not guaranteed that every application will be selected, or its status constantly updated. Reportedly, the listed applications will include the application description, a logo and a link thereto. This category will be added to the website by next week.

Are you a social person? Is there nothing else in your life without social networking? Is it that you are fond of Twitter to the extent that you want to be connected to it even on road while driving, by some means?  Here comes the answer to your need provided by OnStar, which is making a voice-activated Twitter for cars, only for US market right now.

This device works when you have set the button to “on”. It is a voice-to-text service, and the spoken thoughts will be automatically published on your Twitter page. Also, the replies from your buddies will be vocalized by the machine, and you will be able to listen to your friends’ posts. All this procedure is boasted to occur in real time.

Though, there are some serious points to consider. What if you were talking to your beloved and left the Twitter button on, mistakenly? What if you were backbiting on a common friend with your buddy and the service was switched on unknowingly? Certainly, you wont like your intimate or harsh (both personal) thoughts shared to everyone on your Twitter page via this little device. Thus, do not go for the gadget immediately, rather wait a little for more feedbacks before purchasing one.

Written by “Seemab”

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says in an interview with Reuters, “We are considering providing services to various commercial entities that will help them to make the most of the social networking. These companies would definitely like to pay for these services if they find it helpful for their businesses.”

During the past month, there were over 7 million unique visitors on the website, while they were around 475,000 for the same month last year, Nielsen Online report indicates.

According to Reuters, “Twitter has been planning to seek revenue in the coming years and this move is a step taken in this direction. The company has also accelerating the schedule to find ways for monetizing their services in 2010.”

“We have enough time to make some new experiments regarding finding new ways to generate more revenue. We are going to try some new things this year that will definitely prove quite effective in this connection.”

Meanwhile, Microsoft is also going to sponsor a new project that has been named as Exec Tweets that has been designed to let users have easy access to various business executives.

Written By: “Aftab Bashir”