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Twitter Opens its Self-Serve Advertising Platform to All U.S. Users (SocialTimes)
Twitter will open its advertising platform to all users in the United States, the company announced on Tuesday. The self-serve advertising suite allows account administrators to run their own campaigns by promoting their accounts or individual tweets to specific groups within the social network, and to track the results through Twitter analytics. CNET The microblogging company has allowed organizations to pay for promoted tweets and promoted accounts since last March, but it was on an invite-only basis. “Business has been on Twitter since Day 1,” Kevin Weil, Twitter senior director of product for revenue, said at TechCrunch Disrupt. “We’re very excited everyone will be able to leverage Twitter advertising.” Adweek Since Twitter’s ad platform operates on an auction-based model a la Google’s AdWords — and since the laws of supply and demand dictate that if demand increases but supply hold steady, then price increases — Twitter’s ad rates should trend upward. While self-service advertisers can take advantage of Twitter’s bevy of targeting options — targeting by interest, keyword, device, gender and geolocation — the location-targeting capabilities may leave some local marketers wanting. AllTwitter In other Twitter news, in a memo sent to news organizations, Twitter has urged all reporters and media firms to work harder to keep their accounts secure, following the hacking of the AP’s Twitter account last week. The document partially reads: “These incidents appear to be spear phishing attacks that target your corporate email. Promoting individual awareness of these attacks within your organization and following the security guidelines … is vital to preventing abuse of your Twitter accounts.” Bloomberg Following a move by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to allow companies to share market-sensitive news via social media, the AP breach threatens Twitter CEO Dick Costolo’s ability to establish Twitter as a trusted source of information ahead of a possible initial public offering. The false information from the AP account, which said there were explosions at the White House and President Barack Obama had been injured, came after repeated attempts by hackers to access to AP reporters’ passwords, the news agency said.
Google to Integrate App Activities into Search (CNET)
Google plans to integrate information on app activities into its Search page, giving users insight into what peers are doing and linking Google+ more closely with Google’s other offerings. Seth Sternberg, product management director for Google+, and Ardan Arac, a product manager at Google, said the company will now integrate information it has culled from apps with the company’s flagship search site. Mashable “Searching for Fandango, for example, will show the top movies among Google users. And when you click on a movie, you’ll go directly to its page on Fandango,” Google said in a statement. It will be rolling out the feature to Search in desktop — not mobile yet — in the next few weeks. TechCrunch The launch apps are music and movie ones, which lend themselves to lists of top content based on listens and ratings. Google is rolling this out in the next few weeks for Fandango, SoundCloud, Deezer, Flixster, Slacker Radio, Songza and TuneIn.
Stalked on LinkedIn: Victim is Not Alone in Her Fight to Block Abusive Members (SocialTimes)
Anna Rihtar quit her job after her boss allegedly sexually assaulted her, but her struggle to rebuild her career was just beginning. Shortly after she left the office for good, Rihtar’s boss started stalking her on social media. After speaking with LinkedIn, SocialTimes got a tip that a few LinkedIn engineers who agree that a blocking feature is needed may already be working on it.
How Do RSS Users Want to Share Content? Digg and Feedly Try to Find Out (paidContent)
This week, Digg and Feedly both surveyed RSS users on the types of social features they’d like to see integrated into a Google Reader replacement. Feedly says it will roll out an updated product in a couple weeks, while Digg’s product launches in June and is likely to be paid.
What Others are Predicting About Facebook’s 1Q Earnings Call (AllFacebook)
Wednesday, Facebook will announce how well it did financially in the first quarter of this fiscal year. The company has been aggressive about rolling out ad products, and it deepened its relationship with firms such as Datalogix to give advertisers better purchasing data.
YouTube Goes to Washington (CNET)
Google’s popular video channel and its public policy group have teamed up to provide members of Congress with feature-enhanced video channels. Citing an increase in public interest in streaming video from their elected representatives, Google has offered to improve the YouTube channels of all 535 members of Congress for free.
Vine App Update Allows Front-Facing Videos, to Delight of Wiseasses Everywhere (AllTwitter)
Even savvy businesses will love this new ability on Vine because it just makes too much sense: The ability to shoot front-facing videos. Can you hear the people practicing in front of their phones right now?
Silicon Valley Eager to Drive Uber into Billion-Dollar Club (Wired)
Reuters is reporting that Uber is seeking its next round of funding at a $1 billion valuation — just as regulators appear to be coming around to Uber’s way of thinking. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick quickly threw cold water on the idea that he was actively seeking to raise more money.
BuzzFeed Party Heats Up (FishbowlDC)
For its White House Correspondents’ Dinner party, BuzzFeed brought its entire politics team to D.C., but one of its members was noticeably absent from the party. Andrew Kaczynski, the prolific tweeter and Internet video resurfacer, skipped out.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
SoundCloud, headquartered in Berlin, plans to open a new office alongside a cacophony of honking taxis, rumbling subway lines, and people who aren’t afraid to speak their minds.
A great soundtrack can take your video project to the next level. Finding inspiration is easy; the hard part is finding music that’s affordable and doesn’t violate any copyright laws.
SoundCloud has released new versions of its iPhone and Android apps for recording and sharing audio tracks.
Flattr today launched a service that allows users to contribute financially to content producers simply by clicking “like.”
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is sharing his experiences at the White House with the public in a new audio series called “Being Biden.” He posted his first recordings using the social audio platform SoundCloud.
