The week in social media news curated by your friends at Fandom Marketing. FAFSA apologizes for a Tweet, Facebook’s psychological experiment on users, and learn Instagram’s real name.
How Facebook Moved 20 Billion Instagram Photos Without You Noticing
June 28, 2014
Your Instagram photos aren’t where they used to be. This spring, even as some 200 million people were using Instagram on their smartphones, a small team of engineers moved the photo sharing service from Amazon’s cloud computing service—where it was built in 2010—into a data center operated by Facebook, which bought Instagram in 2012. “The users are still in the same car they were in at the beginning of the journey,” says Instagram founder Mike Krieger, “but we’ve swapped out every single part without them noticing.” Facebook calls it the “Instagration,” and it was an unprecedented undertaking for Mark Zuckerberg and company.
Full story on Wired
FAFSA Apologizes for That Offensive ‘Bridesmaids’ Tweet
June 26, 2014
The Office of Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) apologized on Wednesday morning for a tweet it sent out the night before from the FAFSA Twitter account that some have found offensive. The tweet, which has since been deleted, included the Bridesmaids meme in which a drunk Kristen Wiig gets kicked out of first class on a flight after trying to sneak in, saying, “Help me, I’m poor.” FAFSA added text to the meme: “If this is you, you better fill out your FAFSA.” It was most likely intended as a light-hearted way to engage students on social media, but instead provoked outrage from those who deemed it offensive and mocking toward low-income students.
Full story on Mashable
Google Finally Shuts Down Orkut, Its First Social Network
July 1, 2014
In 2004, fresh off a failed attempt to buy hotshot-of-the-day Friendster, Google launched Orkut. The fledgling site was Google’s first foray into a social network in the days before anyone knew what a “social network” was. Facebook launched a month later and quickly rose to prominence. Orkut never caught on in a meaningful way outside of Brazil. But it has nevertheless stayed alive for ten years — until now. Google will shut Orkut down at the end of September, the company said Monday in a blog post. Users can export their profiles and other information using Google Takeout until then.
Full story on Forbes
Vine’s New Loop Count Is Perfect For Advertisers
July 1, 2014
Vine’s format was always tantalizing to advertisers. Its six-second loop was just long enough for one idea, one recurring message, or one jingle. And while Vine, which Twitter launched in early 2013, might not have grown into something mainstream users turned to often, it was gold to creative types: comedians, stop-motion animators, bite-sized film directors, and silly teens with serious followings. Advertisers quickly caught on. Vine celebrities cashed in on opportunities to share sponsored videos or started to make comedy Vines for corporate accounts.
Full story on Forbes
The Outrage Over Facebook’s ‘Creepy’ Experiment Is Out-Of-Bounds — And This Study Proves It
July 2, 2014
Two years before Facebook began a study that critics are branding as unethical and manipulative, another researcher used the social media site to do a similar experiment. And his story pokes holes in many of the arguments that Facebook did something wrong. In Facebook’s experiment, researchers found that manipulating the emotional content of the posts in users’ Facebook feeds had a mildly contagious effect: It caused people to use slightly more or less positive language when writing their own updates.
Full story on Forbes
Facebook’s Mood Manipulation Study: What Does It Mean To Brands?
July 2, 2014
By now, most of you will have read or seen multiple media stories about Facebook’s recently published mood manipulation study. There’s a lot of debate about the ethical implications of the research, and several European data protection agencies have already announced investigations into whether Facebook violated local privacy laws with the study.
But we think the questions for marketers go deeper: how will this research, and user response to it, affect how brands are able to engage with their customers on Facebook? My colleague Nate Elliott and I have just published a Quick Take on the subject.
Full story on Forrester
Social Logins in Q2: Facebook Rebounds, Regains Lead on B2B Sites
July 3, 2014
After 6 consecutive quarters of shrinking market share, Facebook’s share of social logins increased by 1.5% points to roughly 44% in Q2, extending its lead over Google, which dropped slightly to 37% share. Twitter (6%) moved in front of Yahoo (5%) for the third spot, but both remain far back from the leaders. Meanwhile, after briefly surrendering the lead on B2B sites in Q1, Facebook was back on top by a slight margin in Q2. Its lead was far more comfortable on music, entertainment, retail, media and consumer brands sites.
Full story on MarketingCharts
Facebook Acquires LiveRail For $400M To $500M To Serve Video Ads Everywhere, Improve Its Own
July 3, 2014
Facebook has just bought video ad tech startup LiveRail, which connects marketers to publishers on web and mobile to target 7 billion video ads to visitors per month. A source tells us Facebook paid between $400 million and $500 million for LiveRail, but Facebook refused to comment on the terms. [Update 3:30pm PST: Another source now tells us LiveRail sold for $500 million.
Full story on TechCrunch
Social Media Day 2014: How the World Celebrated
July 3, 2014
Mashable community members gathered on June 30 to celebrate the fifth annual Social Media Day. At guest panels and happy hours the world over, we came together to connect and discuss the huge role social media plays in our daily lives. Now in its fifth year, the celebration saw gatherings with as many as 5,000 attendees each. Some of the biggest celebrations took place in Cairo, Kochi in India and Panama City. In the United States, some of the biggest celebrations took place in Miami, Florida, Las Vegas, Nevada and Mashable’s own celebration in Brooklyn
Full story on Mashable
Instagram Started as a Social Network Named After Bourbon
July 3, 2014
Instagram didn’t start out as Instagram. It started out as … Burbn. Kevin Systrom, the creativity researcher Keith Sawyer explains, was a fan of Kentucky whiskeys. So when he created a location-based iPhone app — one driven by the success of networking app Foursquare — he named it after the booze. The app was complicated, but it took Systrom just a few months to build: Burbn let users check in at particular locations, make plans for future check-ins, earn points for hanging out with friends and post pictures of the meet-ups.
Full story on The Atlantic
What We’re Watching
WordPress has become the new web standard in website architecture. It’s used by bloggers, huge media publications like CNN, and major brands for everything from company website to blog and community portal. Designing a WordPress website is much more efficient using “themes” which can truly be easily reskinned when ever you need an update. Or, easily be implemented in full site migrations and redesign. Here’s a nice tutorial on how themes work.
Geek out,
Melonie
P.S. if you have WordPress questions direct them to our resident expert Rob Marlbrough. @downtownrob on Twitter or send a message here.
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