Just a couple of days after Google announced a major change to its current privacy policy, the company is facing severe criticism. From now on, it will be sharing a greater quantum of user data across its own services something that has greatly antagonized privacy advocates and a few official data-protection agencies. Read the rest of this entry »

Twitter is giving itself the prerogative of withholding content in certain countries, even while keeping the same content available for other parts of the world as it may deem fit. The only way for it until now to censor was universally eliminating the material from the platform. The new change means text thought to be inappropriate by a national government can be withheld selectively in that country. Read the rest of this entry »

Relish it or not, approve of it or not; the trend of gamification is going to stay. It is not a wise idea to fight it. Instead embrace it and you will encourage customers to stick to your brand. Using some of the catchy concepts involved in game mechanics on a business website, in your service, and also perhaps in your storefront. And if you are not convinced as why to infuse a gaming element into your business site, here’s why! Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine a situation in which we’re assigned and identified with a particular number, which suggest how influential we are or are not. It would help decide whether one receives a job, a guest-room upgrade or some free samples at a high-profile supermarket. In case your influence score happens to be low, you wouldn’t get the promotion, the swanky suite of your choice or the complimentary offers. If you think this is science fiction, pause for a moment; it’s actually the case with millions of online social network users. Read the rest of this entry »

Facebook is infusing ‘life’ into its service with help of over 60 partners that will let users tell their friends what they are presently doing online – right from reading news to listening to music. The social networking platform is collaborating with Pinterest, Rotten Tomatoes, Ticketmaster, and many other diverse platforms for this purpose. Read the rest of this entry »

Google’s popularity revolves around its ability to let surfers find the right webpages. With the advent of social web, wherein users can check vast amounts of data largely off-limits to the former, its dominance has come into question. In its desperate bid to catch up to Facebook, the company is trying to amalgamate the best facets of both search and social. Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s well-connected and highly ambitious professionals, irrespective at which stage of their careers they are, well realize the fact that online networking is a crucial aspect in terms of climbing the ladder of success in today’s highly competitive work environment. So have you ever given a thought to any particular LinkedIn Groups that would be most fruitful to your career’s success? Read the rest of this entry »

What has the new year in store for marketers on SEO landscape that has undergone a dramatic change with the rising stature, power and reach of the social media. The search engine optimization techniques and strategies are bound to witness a further churning in 2012. What can one expect on this count? Are there any definitive trends to give us a clue? Let us try to find out as part of an academic exercise, which can also be handy in practical terms in setting the SEO agenda: Read the rest of this entry »

“I would estimate that just about 30 percent of social games in the fray whose developers are spending on advertising are actually hitting a positive ROI (return on investment)…”  This observation from the CEO of AdParlor, Hussein Fazal sums up the state of the social game industry. A consultant on Facebook ad campaigns, the expert underlines how things are not that rosy for social gaming industry. Read the rest of this entry »

About two years after ‘FarmVille’ from Zynga, the San Francisco-based startup, drew millions and millions of Facebook users to plant fascinating fields of dazzling digital crops, social gaming seemed to have bloomed into an enticing multi-billion dollar activity. But now experts are wondering if the gamer fatigue is gradually setting in, thus putting question marks over its growth prospects as marketing costs are shooting up. Read the rest of this entry »