Holly Berry Social: May 2014

Friday, May 30, 2014

Police Use Twitter, 'Bait Bikes' to Combat Theft

In San Francisco, one Twitter account is watching over your bikes.

Officer Matt Friedman of the San Francisco Police Department is behind the Anti-Bike Theft Unit, a program that utilizes Twitter and GPS trackers to thwart bike thefts in the city.

The main tools in Friedman's utility belt: "bait bikes" fitted with GPS trackers and left chained up on the streets of San Francisco

The GPS-enabled bait lets Officer Friedman and the Anti-Bike Theft Unit track bike thefts in real-time — and ultimately nab the thief.

After a bait bike is stolen, the Anti-Bike Theft Unit tracks down the thief, arrests them and then posts a picture of the thief to their Twitter account, @SFPDBikeTheft: Read more...

More about Twitter, Bike, Social Media, Police, and Us World

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Twitter Changes Its Web Font; Cue a Twitter Freakout

A Kimye Wedding Photo Is Now the Most-Liked Photo on Instagram

You know how the saying goes: First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes setting Instagram records

Reality star Kim Kardashian now has bragging rights for holding the Instagram photo with the most Likes. It's the image of her and new hubby Kanye West kissing at their wedding in Italy last weekend.

The pic has accumulated 1.96 million Likes in just three days. (That makes the 24 Likes on your sunset selfie seem just sad.)

Kardashian steals the Instagram crown from pop star Justin Bieber, whose photo — which depicts him cozying up with on-again-off-again girlfriend Selena Gomez — has racked up 1.82 million Likes in five months Read more...

More about Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Instagram, Tv, and Social Media

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Is This the End of Twitter?

Is this the final station? Is Twitter's failure to meet the expected number of users in 2014 an indication of impending doom? Where on Earth will we get our supply of snarky 140-character comments? Elliott Morgan despairs...pardon, delves into the slowing growth of his social media site of choice, Twitter!

And in Thursday's episode, Elliott reminds us why Maya Angelou was amazing

More about Twitter, Social Media, and Youtube

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Facebook Has Spent $22 Billion on Acquisitions. That's Equal to the GDP of Uganda.

Media juggernauts in today's technology sector don't hold back when it comes to spending top dollars on rising startups

Facebook in particular has spent a whopping $22 billion-plus on disclosed acquisitions since its inception in 2004WhatsApp, Instagram and 45 other companies are now under Facebook's belt. It didn't take Mark Zuckerberg very long to realize buying other companies is the best way to grow his own

The folks at Marketo created an infographic comparing the $22 billion-plus sum to the gross domestic products of countries, the net worth of celebrities, the price of making movies and values of professional sports teams. Take a look below: Read more...

More about Facebook, Social Media, Features, Instagram, and Whatsapp

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Thursday, May 29, 2014

Twitter Engineering Lead Chris Fry Is Leaving the Nest

Twitter's engineering lead, Chris Fry, is stepping away from his role, according to documents filed Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission

Fry will assume an advisory role with Twitter, a typical move for an executive transitioning out of an important role. Alex Roetter, another senior member of Twitter's engineering team, will take over for Fry as Senior VP of Engineering, according to the documents

Fry is the latest in a string of Twitter employees who have left the company since it went public in November of last year. Michael Sippey, Twitter's VP of product left the company in January (he also became an advisor) Read more...

More about Twitter, Engineering, Social Media, Twitter Ipo, and Michael Sippey

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60+ Events in Social Media, Marketing and More

The Mashable Events Board is a great place to find leading conferences in your industry, whether it's advertising, technology, media or public relations. This week, we're highlighting five events that we think can help move your career forward, from those in Las Vegas to New York. If you don't find something that's right for you, check out more than 60 events featured in our complete listing.

On the Events Board, you can sort listings by date added, get discount codes as a Mashable reader and watch videos of past events to get previews of what to expect. You can also follow @MashableEvents on Twitter to catch the best events before they sell out. More about Events, Marketing, Social Media, Business, and Jobs

via Social Media http://on.mash.to/1oxCCrM

Instagram Bug Gives Man Access to High School Girl's Account

Many social media apps and services let you sign in with Facebook. But only one — Instagram, owned by Facebook — assumes that you're using the same email address for both services

And as Mashable has learned, that has led to at least one embarrassing situation — where a man in his late 20s unwittingly found himself with access to the Instagram account of a high school girl

San Francisco resident Michael Wagner (no relation) created an Instagram account shortly after the service launched in late 2010. He never posted to the account, never really checked it, and ultimately forgot about it Read more...

More about Facebook, User Privacy, Bug, Instagram, and Social Media

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Why Maya Angelou Was Amazing

American author and poet Maya Angelou died on Wednesday at 86 years of age. In celebration of her life, Elliott Morgan talks about how inspiring one person can be!

In yesterday's episode, Elliott takes us through various country's preferences when it comes to dog breeds

More about Social Media, Youtube, and Maya Angelou

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Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Dick Costolo Reveals Twitter's Toughest Conversations

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, California — Twitter is a largely public sharing platform that, as it's grown from within the U.S. to other parts of the world, has increasingly faced some very hard decisions about what, if anything, to hide from regional Twitter audiences.

"The reality is, internally, that the hardest discussion we have are between the rights of one set of users and the rights of another set of users balanced against the laws of that country," said Twitter CEO Dick Costolo during a wide-ranging discussion with Recode's Kara Swisher at the inaugural Code Conference.

More about Ryan Seacrest, Social Media, and Twitter

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'I'm Not Very Social': Sergey Brin Admits His Google+ Mistake

Google cofounder Sergey Brin admitted Tuesday that he should not have been even "marginally" involved in the company's social network, Google+, claiming that he's "not a very social person."

"It was probably a mistake," he said on stage at ReCode's first Code Conference near Los Angeles, "for me to be working on anything tangentially related to social to begin with."

It is widely believed that former Google executive Vic Gundotra was primarily responsible for founding Google+, and led the charge for it until he left the company in April. This is the first time Brin has said he was involved with the gestation of the service in any way Read more...

More about Google, Sergey Brin, Social Media, Re Code, and Code Conference

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Share a Life-Changing Story With Us for This Week's Photo Challenge

One of the most beautiful and nerve-wracking parts of being a real, live human is knowing that any random event could instantly change the course of your life forever. Sometimes, like in the case of Stella & Dot founder Jessica Herrin, that instant is stumbling into a conference of ambitious and enthusiastic beauty consultants.

This week's Mashable Photo Challenge is inspired by the Broadway Musical If/Then, a tale that tells of how even the smallest decisions can have huge, unexpected consequences

Share a portrait of someone whose entrance into your life led you to take new risks or overcome old challenges. Show us the landscape that really put your path into perspective and helped you shape it in ways you never thought possible. Snap a picture of that apartment you found on Craigslist that led you, unwittingly, to move in with your new BFF Read more...

More about Social Media, Mashable Photo Challenge, Photo Challenge, Supported, and Stella Dot

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Fullscreen Media to Launch New Premium Video Platform

Fullscreen Media, a multichannel YouTube network that boasts more than 3.2 billion monthly views, is looking to build a premium subscription service similar to Netflix or Hulu that would operate separately from YouTube. The goal of this service would be to target a large chunk of YouTube's audience - millennials.

It's unclear whether the subscription model will be that of Netflix, where a user pays a monthly subscription to access all content, or an ad-supported tier system like Hulu. Either way, this new model will take content creators away from YouTube and feature them on an all new platform. Read more...

More about Youtube, Mashable Video, Social Media, Lamarr Wilson, and Youtube Weekly

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Sergey Brin: Google Was 'Shocked' When It Learned of NSA Snooping

RANCHOS PALOS VERDES, California — Google cofounder Sergey Brin said the company was shocked to learn that the National Security Agency (NSA) was snooping backbone data.

Speaking with Re/Code's Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at the inaugural Code Conference (the replacement for the "D Conference"), Brin explained that even though the company was surprised to learn of the NSA's data-collection practices, Google had already started encrypting much of that backbone data anyway.

He said the NSA revelations made the U.S. government look "hypocritical" and "raised a lot of policy questions." Read more...

More about Google, Social Media, World, and Nsa

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What's Your Country's Favorite Dog?

Which dog breeds are adored where you live? In the new Mashable Minute, Elliott Morgan delves into international dog preferences, with a special emphasis on corgis and maltipoos.

In yesterday's episode, Elliott shows us how to survive the apocalypse using Pinterest

More about Dogs, Social Media, and Youtube

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7 Pieces of Job Advice Your College Isn't Giving You

It's no secret that the current job market for recent graduates is — how can we put this lightly — not the best.

The process of looking for a job is exhausting, and a lot of guidance, particularly from the very universities we've graduated from, can be summed up with the frustratingly simple recommendation to "join LinkedIn."

While setting up a LinkedIn account is, of course, a great start to your job search and networking with professionals, there are plenty of other simple tips that can give you a leg up on the competition.

Follow these seven tips to help you nail down that full-time position. Read more...

More about Job Search, Social Media, Features, How To, and Lifestyle

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Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Facebook Cuts Down on Automatic Updates in the News Feed

If you've ever been shocked to find out that all your Facebook friends know what song you're listening to on Spotify, here's some good news.

Facebook announced Tuesday that from now on fewer "implicit stories" will make it into the News Feed. That's Facebook's way of describing automatic updates from third-party apps

"We’ve found that stories people choose to explicitly share from third party apps are typically more interesting and get more engagement in News Feed than stories shared from third party apps without explicit action," the company wrote in a blog post. "We’ve also heard that people often feel surprised or confused by stories that are shared without taking an explicit action. In the coming months, we will continue to prioritize explicitly shared stories from apps in News Feed over implicitly shared stories." Read more...

More about Facebook, Facebook News Feed, and Social Media

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How to Survive Armageddon With Pinterest

Think Pinterest is just for sharing photos of cute knitted sweaters? Wrong, the popular thingie-sharing network can help you prepare for the apocalypse. In today's installment of Mashable Minute, Elliott Morgan wades through the weird world of doomsday Pinteresting

In the last episode, Elliott shares the ultimate guide to the best summer ever. EVER.

More about Pinterest, Social Media, and Youtube

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