Twitter Strikes Back

The latest Consumer Sharing Trends Report is here and Twitter is back from its slump, with a major growth trajectory of 43 percent. The Twitter flock flew right past Facebook (14 percent growth), LinkedIn (12 percent growth), and Pinterest (5 percent growth). Reddit also joined the top growing channels for the first time with 25 percent growth compared to 11% decline in Q4 2013. Sharing via email continues its steep descent, with 25 percent decline in Q1.

As consumers continue to share content such as articles, photos, videos and more via their social networks at unprecedented rates, another notable trend this quarter is that surges like Twitter’s are driven by mobile sharing, which surpassed desktop sharing in Q1. Sharing on mobile devices grew 2.5 times faster than sharing on the desktop at 28 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

In addition to measuring the growth by social channel and device, our Q1 2014 report also looks at demographic sharing trends, including age and race. Key findings include:

• iPhone vs. Android battle heats up: While the iPhone still holds the lead for the mobile device people use to share most often at 25 percent, Android smartphones are closing the gap at 17 percent, which was up at the end of the quarter from 15 percent in January 2014.

• Age matters: Reddit attracts the youngest demographic with the highest number of 18-30 year olds sharing content, whereas LinkedIn and Facebook see the most activity from older users. Twitter and Pinterest sharers tend to be younger than Facebook and LinkedIn, but slightly older than those sharing on Reddit.

• Hispanic consumers are driving growth in sharing: Sharing by Hispanic consumers, who make up the fastest-growing consumer group in the U.S., reinforced our findings from the Hispanic Consumer Study. Compared to African American and Caucasian sharers, Hispanic consumers shared most on Twitter with 42 percent growth and Reddit with 36 percent growth.

The quarterly Consumer Sharing Trends Report analyzes consumer sharing behavior from Q1 2014 across nearly every social channel on desktop and mobile devices. The large-scale social data offers valuable insight into what, where and how consumers share online, which is not only a true indicator of interest and intent, but also a powerful way for publishers and advertisers to drive content and brand engagement.  Read More

LinkedIn: Social Media Stock For Investors Who Hate Social Media Stocks

By : David Penn,

Image via CrunchBase

With shares of Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) continuing to be sold aggressively, it will be worth watching to see how well the “Facebook for Grownups” known asLinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) does when it reports quarterly earnings later this week.

LinkedIn clearly has become the sole beloved of the social media stocks. With the Zynga (NASDAQ: ZNGA) implosion, the slow-motion meltdown inGroupon (NASDAQ: GRPN), and Facebook increasingly suffering from both overvaluation and volume (i.e., large shareholders with big losses looking to get out as well as the earlier-than-typical expiration of share lockups that likely will release more FB shares into an already-saturated market), “boring is beautiful” LinkedIn is being heralded as “the only social stock that matters” by pundits in the financial media (above plaudits courtesy of The Wall StreetJournal and CNN Money, respectively.)

Up more than 100% in its rally from latest November through the beginning of May and in correction mode ever since, LNKD shares have been on sale twice this month. In the first instance, a sell-off that took the stock lower for three out of four sessions in the first half of July was met by buying and a snapback rally gain of more than 6% in three days and more than 9% in six days.

More recently a five-day retreat sent LinkedIn shares tumbling back to oversold levels, as well as to new, two-week lows. As of midday on Tuesday, the market for LNKD is higher vis-a-vis those pullback lows, though a fraction of Monday’s and Friday’s gains have been given back.  Read More

 

Social media news: Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and more

• BY: CENDRINE MARROUAT

Here is a quick roundup of some of the latest happenings in the social media world.

Google and Tate Modern in London recently partnered to launch a new online art experiment called “This Exquisite Forest“.

Conceived by Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin, This Exquisite Forest is based on the famousExquisite Corpse, a technique invented by Surrealists in the 20th century. Internet users create “seeds” (or short animations) or build on existing ones. The goal? Growing these seeds into tree-like collections of branching narratives.

To provide inspiration, seven artists from Tate’s collection (Bill Woodrow, Dryden Goodwin, Julian Opie, Mark Titchner, Miroslaw Balka, Olafur Eliasson and Raqib Shaw) have already created their own animations.

“This Exquisite Forest uses several of Google Chrome’s advanced HTML5 and JavaScript features to produce a unique content creation and exploration experience,” saysAaron Koblin on the Google Blog. “For example, the Web Audio API makes it possible for contributors to generate music to accompany their submissions. The project also runs on Google App Engine and Google Cloud Storage.”

An accompanying installation will open on July 23 in the Level 3 gallery of Tate Modern. Trees seeded by Tate artists and public contributions will be on display as large-scale projections.  Read More

Original Story

Want a job? Check the spelling on your Facebook profile

More recruiters are turning to social networks to find and hire talent, according to a new study.(Rogelio V. Solis / Associated Press / July 9, 2012)

When it comes to looking for jobs, you better put your best Facebook forward. Recruiters are looking, and, frankly, they’re not impressed with your poor grammar or posts about your latest unforgettable exploits.

A whopping 92% of U.S. companies say they are using social networks to find talent in 2012, according to a new survey.

In addition to checking your resume, nearly 3 out of 4 hiring managers and recruiters check candidates’ social profiles — 48% always do so, even if they are not provided.

LinkedIn still reigns supreme as the recruiting hot spot, but some serious recruiting also takes place on Facebook and Twitter, according to the poll by social recruiting platform Jobvite, which polled more than 1,000 human resources and recruitment professionals.

“The rise in social recruiting has allowed both candidates and employers an easier way to find the best match,” said Dan Finnigan, president and CEO of Jobvite. “We continue to see social recruiting gain popularity because it is more efficient than the days of sifting through a haystack of resumes.”

While the survey may be a bit self-serving — Jobvite offers social media recruiting tools — it does provide some insight that even when you’re off the clock, you’re probably being watched.  Read More

Have LinkedIn’s security woes permanently damaged the social network?

 After hackers last week breached the LinkedIn site, stealing more than 6 million user passwords, analysts are debating whether the attack will cause long-term damage to the social network.

In the attack, users’ passwords were posted publicly to a Russian hacker forum. The incident garnered a lot of headlines, both in the trade and mainstream news media, and LinkedIn was accused of using lax security and having nothing more than light encryption to safeguard its users’ data.

Many companies besides LinkedIn suffer security breaches. What’s causing the furor over the LinkedIn breach is that the company makes its name and its money from user data, yet it failed to take what security experts would call adequate steps to secure its bread and butter.

Critics accuse the company of failing to protect its users. Will users stand by their social network or will they flee?

“This is a business site focused on business users who generally don’t take well to negligence, particularly when it comes to their passwords and IDs,” said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. “I think this attack will do lasting damage and open the door for competition. But I don’t see a competitive choice positioning against the opportunity, so LinkedIn may do better than they otherwise would as a result.”

While LinkedIn’s security lapse could drive people away, users of social networks have proved to be immensely loyal and willing to take hits without leaving their favorite sites.  Read More

Like LinkedIn, eHarmony is hacked; 1.5 million passwords stolen

A screenshot of insidepro.com, the site used by a hacker to dump two lists containing 8 million stolen passwords from LinkedIn and eHarmony. (Insidepro.com / June 6, 2012)

EHarmony, the popular online dating site, was the target of a password hacking attack that resulted in 1.5 million stolen passwords, most of which have been cracked.

The attack is believed to be by the same hacker who stole 6.5 million passwords from LinkedIn, the career-oriented social network.

The hacker posted two lists containing the 8 million passwords on the website insidepro.com, on which the user goes by the name of “dwdm.”

The larger list contained some passwords LinkedIn has now confirmed as belonging to its social network.  and a significant number of the passwords on the smaller list contained the words “eHarmony” or “harmony,” according to Ars Technica.

EHarmony has confirmed that some of its passwords were stolen. The company announced the news in a blog, but did not say how many passwords were stolen. The dating site reset passwords for compromised accounts and emailed those users with instructions on how to reset their passwords.

The user posted the list of hashed passwords online and asked peers for help cracking them. The passwords were not salted — which is an extra form of security that can be added on top of  hashing passwords — allowing dwdm’s peers to help crack the vast majority of the passwords. Ars Technica reports that only about 98,000 passwords are still secure.

Ars Technica reports that the lists only contains passwords and not actual logins, which makes the passwords useless even if cracked, but in all likelihood, the hacker also has the logins.  Read More

LinkedIn Recommendations: Things You Should Know

by Caitlin Newman

LinkedIn is continuing to grow rapidly, which means more people are using the tool for intelligence, recruitment, and networking. A social space like LinkedIn can make specific individuals stand out among others; a specific way individuals can best leverage this social network is by gathering recommendations on their LinkedIn profile.

Here are some guidelines for LinkedIn recommendations:

1. Ask For Specific Recommendations

When you ask someone for a recommendation, make sure the request is personal and polite. LinkedIn will autofill the recommendation request text box, but remember to take that out. Replace it with asking the person for a recommentaion for something specific you worked on together. Also, ask the person to include what happened as a result of working together. Specific information showing how your skill or work was used reflects well on you.

2. Don’t Ask Everyone

Don’t send out a defaulted autofill recommendation to all of your connections, because most of those connections haven’t worked with you close enough. You also want to keep the recommendations business related; you don’t want your best friend or landlord to recommend you in a way that doesn’t relate to business.

3. Don’t Ignore a Request

If you receive a recommendation request from someone that you don’t really know that well, don’t ignore it. Say something like “Thanks for the recommendation request, but I don’t feel that I can endorse your work, since we don’t really know each other that well.” With a response like this, you have let the person down gently and didn’t just leave them hanging.

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So Why Is LinkedIn An IPO Standout?

Earlier this morning at D10 KPCB analyst Mary Meeker showed a pretty definitive slide about the current state of the public markets with regards to tech companies. “The private market is in a bubble,” Meeker said, “We have a $1 billion fund, and didn’t invest once in Q1 because the valuation’s too crazy.”

The problem with these valuations is that public market investors are more skeptical, Meeker asserted bringing up the above slide comparing the IPOs of Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, Pandora and LinkedIn. Because of this skepticism their valuations are suppressed, almost all were trading at 20% lower than their initial IPO pricing, all except LinkedIn that is. The public market has taken kindly to the career focused social network, which is currently trading at $100 a share, 137% above its strike price of $32.

Kara Swisher had the opportunity to ask LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and CEO Jeff Weiner why they thought the company was doing so well later today, dubbing it the “Little LinkedIn That Could”. Their answer?

Hoffman said part of the company’s success was only focusing on the long-term, “I only look at the stock price once a month, it’s doesn’t really affect what are we building towards. Weiner said that companies were often to focused on IPO events with companies being criticized for talking too much or too little, etc.  Read More