Twitter is great. I funnel a lot of stuff from Twitter into Instapaper and Pinboard. But Twitter is a flowing river. I am not on Twitter all day so I miss the clever banter and people complaining about Twitter.2 RSS is time-shifted. RSS is targeted and bounded by my subscriptions.
For these reasons, I don’t use Twitter as an RSS replacement.
Here at the 512 Pixels HQ, I know the site has a lot more RSS subscribers than Twitter followers, for what it’s worth.
The number of Americans using Twitter has grown to 15 percent of Internet users, according to a new survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. That’s up only slightly from 13 percent a year earlier, but Pew notes the percentage of daily users has doubled from last year to 8 percent.
Facebook’s shares dipped below $30 Tuesday as the company’s shares hit new lows and continued to struggle in the wake of its massive initial public offering (IPO).
Even as US stock markets bounced back from falls last week, Facebook’s shares slumped over 6% in early trading, to $29.78 – more than $8 below the $38 price set at their IPO earlier this month.
Law firm Robbins Geller has has opened a class action lawsuit against the company in the wake of the IPO.
But why are Facebook ads failing? For years now, advertisers have been shouting from the rooftops about how Facebook is this treasure trove of information about customers. They can’t wait to target their ads so perfectly that it’ll only be shown at exactly the right moment to the exact customer.
This generation of marketers have found fool’s gold: the idea that targeting your ads based the attributes of people will make them more likely to click and buy.
Ok, I’m not quitting the Internet.
I am however, taking a little break from Twitter and RSS this weekend. I already cheated a little by sending a few DMs to take care of some things, but other than that, it’s social media radio silence over at the 512 Pixels HQ.
I don’t know if I’ll be back on Monday or not. I like the quiet.
Adam Messinger, Twitter’s VP of Engineering:
The IPA is a new way to do patent assignment that keeps control in the hands of engineers and designers. It is a commitment from Twitter to our employees that patents can only be used for defensive purposes. We will not use the patents from employees’ inventions in offensive litigation without their permission. What’s more, this control flows with the patents, so if we sold them to others, they could only use them as the inventor intended.
Get ready for advertising in your Facebook news feed. The company has launched Facebook Offers, which aims to bring Groupon-like deals to users of the social networking site. Facebook will roll out the functionality to page owners gradually over the next few months.
I hope no one is surprised by this. Facebook is free to use because advertisers pay for views.
Update: According to The Next Web, this has actually been around for several months.
Stephen Marche at The Atlantic:
Social media—from Facebook to Twitter—have made us more densely networked than ever. Yet for all this connectivity, new research suggests that we have never been lonelier (or more narcissistic)—and that this loneliness is making us mentally and physically ill. A report on what the epidemic of loneliness is doing to our souls and our society.
Facebook was scared shitless and knew that for first time in its life it arguably had a competitor that could not only eat its lunch, but also destroy its future prospects. Why? Because Facebook is essentially about photos, and Instagram had found and attacked Facebook’s achilles heel — mobile photo sharing.
This makes a lot of sense.
The update uses iCloud to sync Timelines, DMs and mute filters.
Now, where’s that Mac app?