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What Is the State of Social Media in Europe? [Live Hangout] | |  Social media's ever growing presence can be seen across the world. Last week we hosted Google+ Hangouts to discuss the state of social media in both Asia and Latin America. Now we're turning to Europe. Europeans are becoming more socially minded everyday. An estimated 61.3% of the European population uses the Internet, according to Internet World Stats. Germany tops that list with more than 67 million Internet users (82.7% of the country's population), closely followed by Russia with about 61 million Internet users, a little under half of the country's population. Although it has fewer Internet users than heavily populated Germany and Russia, Iceland has the highest level of Internet penetration, with 97.8% of the it's population on the Internet. Overall, Europe has 223 million Facebook subscribers, the largest number of Facebook subscribers in the world, according to Internet World Stats. Awareness of Facebook is close to 100% among European Internet users, although Facebook isn't the only network this Internet savvy continent is on. Europeans actively use Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Badoo and Odnoklassniki among other social networking services. SEE ALSO: Facebook Dominates Global Social Network Traffic Second only to Asia, Europe is a growing digital market, and residents continue to embrace new social media tools, networks and technologies, according to the comScore 2010 Europe Digital Year in Review. How might Europe be using social media differently than we do in the U.S.? What kinds of trends are emerging? What's next for social media in Europe? Today we'll try to answer these questions and more in a Google+ hangout with some of Europe's social media thought leaders. Join us at 8:30 A.M. EST as we chat about social media in advance of Mashable's worldwide Social Media Day celebration on June 30. Here's who you can expect to hear from in today's Hangout: Evgeni Makarov is the cofounder of Cloudbus and DrivePixels, a web/mobile development studio. He is the co-organizer of Social Media Day Nizhny Novgorod in Russia. Mike Rubinstein is a PR and marketing specialist, consultant and the founder of Unformatof a project to educate people about communications and the effectiveness of personal management. Rubinstein is the co-organizer of Social Media Day Nizhny Novgorod. Eileen Dolidh Young is a web developer with Kenkai Projects Ltd based in Falkirk, Scotland. Young is an active social media user and helped organize Social Media Day in Scotland. Read on to learn more about Social Media Day and find a Meetup near you. Let us know in the comments what social media looks like where you live. Ways You Can Participate Sign up to attend or organize your own event on the Mashable Meetup Everywhere page. Use the #smday hashtag on Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and any other social network of your choice. Find your Mashable Meetup community: How Are You Celebrating? Whether you've had your event planned for months or are now inspired to get one started, we want to know: What are your plans for Social Media Day 2012? Share with us in the comments how you'll be recognizing the connected generation come June 30th. We look forward to celebrating with you! Social Media Day 2012 Is Presented By Motorola Mobility Thumbnail image courtesy gingerbeardman, Flickr. |
7 Smashing 'Incredible Hulk' Twitter Accounts | |  Oh, @ReutersHulk, we hardly knew ye. The account parodying headlines from the news agency in the voice of Marvel Comics's big green hero was not long for Twitter, as it yelled jokes and poked fun at Reuters's occasional all-caps alerts for less than a day before Twitter suspended it. Though the glut of Incredible Hulk-style accounts on Twitter is far from a new phenomenon, the meme with questionable grammar and (usually) all-caps missives remains among the most enjoyable trends on Twitter. There are at least a few hundred Hulk accounts out there, so it can be difficult to cherry pick which ones to follow. Here's seven of the best Hulks. 1. @DRUNKHULK -- 162,011 followers Because it has been around since October 2009, @DRUNKHULK is perhaps the purest distillation of the meme. Merging Hulk's anger, a healthy dose of cynicism and alcohol might be a recipe for bad news in the comic book world, but on Twitter @DRUNKHULK creator Christian A. Dumais meshes them together to good effect. 2. @FilmCritHULK -- 13,315 followers The all-caps style might be grating for some, but @FilmCritHULK is an excellent culture (and not just film) critic. From taking a step back to gaze at the beauty of Mad Men's fifth season as a whole to explaining just why Weezer isn't as good as it used to be (hint: it's all about the bass), FILM CRIT HULK is well worth reading. He also treats his Twitter followers to a variety of intelligent thoughts (mostly related to film, of course). 3. @GRAMMARHULK -- 4,855 followers When you're in need of a little help constructing that sentence you're working on, send a little tweet to @GRAMMARHULK. The account is seemingly always ready to dispense advice on the fundamentals of the English language. Just don't get too upset if it seems @GRAMMARHULK is shouting at you. 4. @FEMINISTHULK -- 54,531 followers Whether it's being topical, opining on presidential candidates or tweeting about sports, FEMINIST HULK is easily one of the best Hulk accounts around. By turns hilarious, thoughtful and insightful (at least when it comes to the challenges of motherhood with those huge arms), FEMINIST HULK smashes much of the competition into oblivion, then tells them exactly why gender binarism is flawed. 5. @NEWFIEHULK -- 763 followers Tweeting all the way from Newfoundland, NEWFIE HULK offers insights into making breakfast, Newfoundland vernacular and, inevitably, the weather. There are also some ever-so-slightly ridiculous Harry Potter jokes too. 6. @HULKMAYOR -- 2,645 followers This Hulk is a little different from the others on the list. It's more of a straight-up parody, aping Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. Being a Canada- and politics-related account, it would be disappointing if there were not at least one poutine/gravy train joke. But it does not disappoint. @HULKMAYOR also doesn't hold back from patting himself on the back for a job well done. 7. @LouFerrigno -- 18,675 followers We would be remiss to discuss some of the most interesting Hulks on Twitter without mentioning the original and best. The actor and bodybuilder played the Hulk on The Incredible Hulk in the 70s and 80s, and even now provides the voice of the Hulk in Marvel films like The Avengers. He's also an active tweeter, regularly interacting with fans and sharing his admiration of Bruce Lee. Image courtesy of The Incredible Hulk on Facebook |
Selena Gomez Tops Buzz at Cannes Lions [INFOGRAPHIC] | Tuesday, June 26, 2012 6:34 PM | Stephanie Buck |
|  The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity wrapped up in the south of France on Saturday, but people continue talking about the event's hot awards and high-profile guests. Cruising into the top spot was Selena Gomez, who attended the conference to speak on a panel called "Millennials and the Future of Creativity." According to the infographic, created by SapientNitro, the actress and singer tweeted about her participation, earning over 2,600 additional tweets and conversations on Twitter alone. The seminar itself topped 3,863 mentions all together. SEE ALSO: Korean Band 2NE1 Dominates Social at Cannes Lions/a> Other notable speakers included singer-songwriter Deborah "Debbie" Harry, who spoke about the entrepreneurial spirit. "Does anyone ever start at their best?" she asked. "That would be so depressing, to start at the top and work your way down." Thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr, conceptx_design |
Win 1 Million Followers With Twitterich | Tuesday, June 26, 2012 5:51 PM | The Daily Dot |
|  If you're bummed because Heidi Montag has one million followers but you don't, here's your chance to even the score. A new social media experiment called @1MillionRicher will turn over its Twitter account to a random follower once it hits 1 million followers. As of publishing time, it had around 1,000 followers, although it started tweeting four days ago. On Twitterich's website, which was created by a Virginia-based advertising firm, it reasoned that while its reward may not be as good as collecting a million dollars, it's definitely worth something. "Who likes paying taxes anyway?" The site jokes. "It's not for money, it's not a scam, and you won't get spammed." While waiting until the account hits one million followers may seem boring, @1MillionRicher encourages you to share the website in order to increase the speed at which you (might) become Twitterich. It's unclear to what extent the winner can reap the benefits. In the contest's fine print, the winner "agrees not to exploit followers for commercial purposes." That's an odd rule considering that once the password is changed, there's really nothing the ad firm can do about it. AdWeek called it a "laughably unenforceable restriction." |
Social Media Sparks Visions of a Radically Open Future | Tuesday, June 26, 2012 2:02 PM | Adam Ostrow |
|  TED Global is underway in Edinburgh, Scotland, with a lineup of more than 70 speakers set to offer their visions of "radical openness" (the theme of this year's conference) across disciplines as diverse as corporate governance, global security and education. The conference was kicked off by Dan Tapscott, who in 2003 authored "The Naked Corporation," which called for new levels of corporate transparency and accountability -- a novel idea at the time, when you consider there was no Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. In his talk, Tapscott defined what he sees as the four key principles for an open world: transparency, collaboration, sharing and empowerment. Offering examples like Gold Corp, which used a $500,000 contest to find $3 billion worth of gold, Tapscott said we're moving from a world of social media to one of social production. He also sees the need for industries like pharmaceuticals to do away with their intellectual property-based business models and instead focus on openness, and in turn allow the wisdom of the crowd to accelerate development in medicine. Tapscott's framework set the stage for NATO Supreme Commander James Stavridis to share his vision for "open source security." The leader of the alliance said that security in the 21st century won't be delivered "solely through the barrel of a gun," calling on more cooperation between nations, agencies, and the public and private sectors, linked together through "strategic collaboration on the Internet." Starvidis described how NATO now collaborates with volunteer organizations for disaster relief missions, works with groups like Major League Baseball and the Department of State for goodwill projects, and teaches reading and writing in places like Afghanistan. While not necessarily "open source" in the way we think of it in technology terms, Starvidis compared his organization's efforts to those of Wikipedia, saying "No one of us is as smart as all of us thinking together." Looking to add a visual twist on the "radical openness" theme, futurist and filmmaker Jason Silva created this rapid fire video looking to capture the rate at which society and technology are evolving: Underscoring all of these ideas, of course, is the far reaching impact that social media has had on everything from business, to governments, to media and entertainment. It now seems as if the next frontier may be in applying the tenants of social media -- transparency, crowdsourcing and the democratization of media -- to solve a wide array of global problems. We expect many speakers to continue to touch on these themes throughout the week at TED Global, and will have ongoing coverage of the conference on Mashable. Image Credit: James Duncan Davidson, TED Conferences |
Your Tweets to Be Beamed Across Space. Will ET RT? | Tuesday, June 26, 2012 1:42 PM | Chris Taylor |
|  In a move that is part blatant self-promotion, and part so-crazy-it-might-just-work, The National Geographic Channel is preparing to collect your tweets this Friday, then broadcast them into space via the world-famous Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico this August. The channel is producing a show about the so-called Wow signal, a 72-second transmission from space received in 1977. The extremely unusual frequency of the signal is why it's still one of the high points of SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It's also why the astronomer who picked it up wrote "wow!" in the margins of his printout. To mark the 35th anniversary of the signal -- and heavily promote its show UFO Chasers -- the channel is asking you to tweet on July 29 with the hashtag #ufochasers. The resulting tweets will be sent via Arecibo on August 15. SEE ALSO: SETI Live: How You Can Search for Alien Civilizations on Your PC Sent where, exactly? There's the rub. We don't know where the telescope that received the Wow signal was pointing, and it has since been demolished to make way for a golf course. The National Geographic Channel's partners tell Mashable they're still working with Arecibo on promising points in the sky to broadcast a radio signal. Apparently, they have it narrowed down to three candidate locations. Wondering how on this pale blue dot that's all going to work? So did we. And we got some answers, below, from Steve Coulson, Creative Director of Campfire, the marketing agency leading this effort for National Geographic. How exactly are the tweets going to be sent into space? We're going to be using the enormous radar transmitter at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, which is the largest single aperture telescope ever built. You might recognize it from Contact, The X Files and Goldeneye (especially the N64 version)! It's also the facility that SETI@Home uses as a primary source for their data, and was the location from which a rudimentary message was sent out into space in 1974. If we want our transmission to be received by another civilization, Arecibo is our surest bet. Where in the cosmos will it be pointing? How long would it take to get there? The Big Ear Telescope that received the original Wow Signal has been demolished to make way for a golf course, so unfortunately we have to use a facility that points to a different area of the sky. But as the universe is constantly in motion and the message will take many years to reach its destination, it's more art than science in determining where to send it. Recent research suggests that most, if not all stars, possibly have planets and we are narrowing down from two or three candidates with Arecibo Observatory's help. And don't forget, this project coincides with the premiere of National Geographic Channel's "Chasing UFOs", so there's always the chance that our message could be intercepted by anyone who happens to be flying by closer to Earth. Once we have exact details for how we'll reply, we'll be posting an article detailing the process on thewowreply.com. Is there any reason to suppose this data will be faster or stronger than regular TV and radio signals? Unfortunately we're not able to bend the laws of the universe and all electromagnetic waves travel at the same speed. Certainly using Arecibo makes our signal much stronger than all those random waves, and more likely to be received and recognized as a purposeful message by scientists on other planets. More importantly, unlike all those mass media broadcasts from the early days of radio and television, this message is completely crowdsourced, written by the people of Planet Earth, unfiltered and uncensored, and created specifically as a message to the stars. So while it may not be faster or stronger, it could be more representative of who we are as a society and how we define ourselves. And while we want to make sure that we're giving our signal the best chance of being received, what we're really interested in here is the social experiment - giving anyone with a Twitter account the opportunity to individually say something to an interstellar neighbor. It's very empowering and the logical extension of the transformation we've seen as we all change from consumers to producers, 140 characters at a time. Twitter provides a platform for anyone to send a message to the world, and now, for one time only they'll have the chance to send their tweets to another world. Would there be any way to unencrypt the tweets at the other end, presuming ET isn't using Twitter? What kind of civilization doesn't use Twitter? Seriously though, it's an interesting question about how simple and decodable a message needs to be to be understood. Earlier transmissions have focused on simplicity, whereas this one will rely more on creating a complex but noticeable pattern, hopefully standing out from other random, natural noise. After recognizing the pattern, the scientists on the other end would theoretically be challenged to find a way to decrypt the transmission and understand our language. No small feat, but surely finding a signal of intelligent origin from another planet would be a momentous and impactful find for them - assuming they don't already know about us from past visits! Or maybe they already follow us on Twitter. |
Revealing Facebook Updates Collected at WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com | Tuesday, June 26, 2012 11:09 AM | The Atlantic |
|  Let me give you this hypothetical about privacy. You and a friend walk into a public subway station having a conversation about how much you hate your boss. Someone happens to be recording every word spoken listening for the search string "hate my boss" while running facial recognition software to figure out who you are. This information is then being posted in another public location for anyone and everyone to see. Would that be OK? My intuition is that almost everyone reading this post would say no. And yet, that is precisely what the website, WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com is doing with public Facebook updates. The site scrapes public Facebook updates and searches for people saying "hate my boss," discussing doing drugs, giving out their phone numbers or complaining about being hungover. It then handily formats them for broader consumption. Like the all-knowing technology in the hypothetical I gave, Facebook makes this amplification easier: You don't need the facial recognition component and you don't need the software to parse the audio. But the type of privacy violation is the same. And all the difficult parts in the physical world scenario are getting easier by the day. What's important is that people can have discussions in public places that are not intended for a global audience. We recognize that in the offline sphere, but the same norms have not developed online. To many people, if someone says something in an online forum, it is public for all intents and purposes. In fact, the whole "ecosystem" way of thinking about many web tools builds this idea into the structure of many sharing tools. APIs, which allow outside developers to access portions of the data you create on social networks, are designed to unlock the value of what you're putting on Facebook or Foursquare or Twitter in ways that no one can anticipate. So, on a practical level, WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com is probably doing a service in raising the awareness that public updates are, in today's world, open for any and all uses. But on a theoretical level, the tech community needs to establish norms that incorporate Helen Nissenbaum's thinking about "contextual integrity" into its standard thinking about APIs and the use of private information shared within public forums. To recap her theory: Privacy violations occur not when too much data accumulates or people can't direct it, but when one of the receivers or transmission principles change. The key academic term is "context-relative informational norms." Bust a norm and people get upset. Obviously, WeKnowWhatYoureDoing is intentionally busting this norm to make people upset. Its creator Callum Haywood, is aware that what he's done will make people cringe. But his answer to the new privacy problems introduced by the Internet is to put the responsibility onto the people who are posting status updates, NOT the people profiting from all that information sharing. In an FAQ on the site Haywood responds to the question,"These people probably wouldn't want this info publishing, would they?" like this: "Probably not ... but it was their choice, or lack of, with regards to their account privacy settings." Imagine someone making a similar remark about a physical public space. "Sure, you only intended to tell your friend about hating your boss, but I just happened to be searching through millions of conversations looking for these kinds of remarks and therefore, it's your fault for not anticipating that this would become very public information. Guess you should be more careful next time!" And online, the situation is even more silly. Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and every other social network benefits from people sharing parts of themselves. App developers feed on the this firehose of data through APIs and no part of geek culture sees anything wrong with changing the context of information shared "publicly." There is a stunning lack of nuance or common sense to this understanding of "public" that just so happens to benefit social media companies who live off people's information. Out of self-preservation, the social networks need to figure this one out. They need to set standards for their ecosystems of developers that don't just ask, "What is technologically possible?" but "Is this use consistent with people's expectations of the way data was going to be shared?" Otherwise, we're just going to see endless repetitions of the Girls Around Me story in which benign data becomes recontextualized by jerky young men into something gross or annoying. Ultimately, that kind of problem makes people less likely to share online and that's not good for any of the social networks. |
Facebook Pulls Find Friends Nearby 'Test' | Tuesday, June 26, 2012 10:01 AM | Alex Fitzpatrick |
|  Facebook killed the "Find Friends Nearby" feature only a day after it rolled out unannounced to some mobile users and under threat of a lawsuit from a company that claimed copyright infringement. Find Friends Nearby, first called "Friendshake," was created in-house by one of its engineers during a company hackathon and was merely a test which was rolled out to some users, according to Facebook. "This wasn't a formal release -- this was something that a few engineers were testing," a Facebook spokesperson told Mashable. "With all tests, some get released as full products, others don't. Nothing more to say on this for now -- we'll communicate to everyone when there is something to say." However, a company called Friendthem, which makes an app that use smartphones' GPS signals to track friends nearby, accused Facebook of copyright infringement and threatened a lawsuit almost immediately after the feature launched. Charles Sankowich, the CEO of the company, previously told Mashable that he shared his idea with a senior Facebook executive earlier this year. "I was amazed on Sunday to read that Facebook is blatantly stealing our idea with what they are calling 'Find Friends Nearby,'" said Friendthem CEO Charles Sankowich in a statement on Sunday. "Facebook engineer Ryan Patterson claims the feature was born at a hackathon as 'Friendshake,' but we believe they simply stole trademarked materials of Friendthem.com. We are consulting attorneys and assuming this is true and expect to commence a lawsuit very shortly." After learning that the new feature was missing on Tuesday morning, Sankowich indicated that his company's legal threat was the impetus for Facebook's removal of the feature, while still hinting that a lawsuit could be imminent. "We are continuing to explore all options pertaining to filing a suit against Facebook and we will continue to seek all necessary information regarding the matter," wrote Sankowich in an email to Mashable. "We were pleased to see that our voice has been heard and Facebook has made the right judgment to pull the feature. We strongly believe that Facebook's decision to explore the location based friend request shows the importance and need surrounding our service." SEE ALSO: Friendthem Plans to Sue Facebook for 'Find Friends Nearby' Feature Find Friends Nearby notified Facebook users who enabled the feature on their cellphones whenever a Facebook friend also using the feature was near their physical location by using phones' GPS systems. The idea was to turn Facebook into a conduit for impromptu hangout sessions with friends. Why do you think Find Friends Nearby was pulled by Facebook? Share your ideas in the comments. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, ymgerman |
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