The day has finally come, and everyone is talking about Facebook’s IPO. The company offered 421.2 million shares to the public and will now raise $17.7 billion. This makes Facebook now worth $116.6 billion making them bigger than McDonalds and Amazon.

Even though they are having positive results from this, the numbers do seem to be falling and rising. The market had planned for the opening price for a share to be $38.00 but some shares were as high as $43.20. The price for the shares did seem to rise at one point but in the end the price declined to $38.00, as expected.

The social media giant has been running for eight years and begun in a Harvard dorm room. It has come a long way and is making a huge impact on social media today. Facebook is now one of the largest companies on the web. They hit the markets with more revenue than Google did when they went public. This would make this the largest internet IPO of all time and the third largest in the history of the United States, right behind General Motors and Visa.

While these shares were being spread around, Zuckerberg went back and forth from being the 29^th richest person in the world to 24^th but then back down to 29^th.  Some people think that Facebook has reached its peak.

“The flame may already be flickering down,” said John Borthwick, CEO of Betaworks. “Look at what happened with Instagram. Facebook was losing the battle for mobile photo sharing, one of its core features. We are living in an era where things are shifting very rapidly, from search to social, from PC to mobile and tablet. If Google had its time at the top of the mountain, Facebook’s will be even shorter. The cycles are getting even shorter.”

Others don’t agree. Ron Conway, known as the Godfather of Silicon Valley, is still blown away by Facebook.

“That is an incredible company, incredible talent,” he said of Facebook’s IPO. “I don’t think they have begun to scratch the surface of what they can do in terms of Open Graph and their ability to build a marketplace that powers social commerce. Big business.”

So, as a consumer, would you invest in Facebook? Why or why not? Let us know on our Facebook, Google+ or Twitter pages.

Micrositez: Digital Marketing, Social Media

Amazon, facebook, Facebook IPO, Google, Harvard, john borthwick, mark zuckerberg, McDonalds, open graph, rise of Facebook, ron conway, technology

Today, technology has taken a huge toll on the American way of living. There aren’t many places that you can go and not see people constantly checking their smartphones or laptop computers. There is now a new self-driving vehicle that is looking to solve a lot of problems for all drivers.

Average Americans do not have access to any of these self-driving cars but sooner or later this new trend will become worldwide. Google has just recently put their new car on the streets of Nevada and there is already tons of positive feedback for people who are interested in these new vehicles.

This new invention has been worked on for about 10 years now and the goal is to someday have most of the cars on the roads autonomous. These cars can really make an impact on your life if you are one of the people who have had the thought about being an owner. There are plenty of great reasons to want one and here are some of the positive benefits that these autonomous cars provide.

Let’s say that you are the type of person who is always working. Scores of businessmen/women waste a lot of their precious time driving back and forth to work when they could be using this time to get something else done. When you get behind the wheel of an autonomous vehicle you almost have no restrictions to what you can do. You can sit back, relax and complete whatever it is that you’re working on. Checking your e-mails, texting a friend or just checking the daily news can now easily be done when you have something else taking the wheel. While you’re getting precious work done, your self-driving car will take care of switching lanes, or parking.

It always seems like when you’re in a rush you hit every red light or get hit with the worst traffic. These new autonomous vehicles completely fix that whole problem. Google made these cars able to wirelessly talk by using an automated system that calculates paths that are quicker and have less stops. This could change the way that traffic functions on the streets.

Gas prices are also a huge problem when it comes to traveling. When dealing with an autonomous vehicle, all of your stops will be monitored and the amount of pressure to be put on the gas will be calculated. This will, in the end, save money and gas for whoever is the owner. It is predicted that the roads would be a lot safer if these cars took over the streets. There will be no more aggressive drivers and getting distracted from the road will be the least of your worries. Sooner or later these vehicles will be worldwide!

Will you be one of the people who take advantage of this new invention?

Let us know how you feel about these news vehicles being on the road by finding us on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter pages.

Micrositez: Digital Marketing Agency

autonomous, feedback, Google, google car, google car nevada, positive, self-driving, self-driving vehicle

Google always seems to be the place to go when certain questions can’t be answered. Whenever you have that unsure feeling, turning to Google is what most people do to get information. Thankfully Google always seems to come up with  new ways to make browsing for information easier. Today Google has launched one of its most interesting updates to its search engine. In the next couple of days you will begin to see large panels with extra factual information on the topic that you are searching. This new system goes by the name of “Knowledge Graph” and it will have two different purposes.

Knowledge Graph will be used to to show a summary of relevant information about your search topics. This will also list all of the related topics for whatever it is that you are looking up. This new idea has been in the works for the last two years. Whenever the new system goes completely live the database will hold information about 500 million people, places and things.

Having the Knowledge Graph will make it even faster and easier to get answers anywhere anytime. Some people do believe that this can have some sort if impact on many SEO work done on certain websites. Right now Google is trying to find relevant information to how this can be prevented.

The main goal for this new system is to make searching online with Google quicker and simpler. Google will soon be able to answer your questions even if you are not sure what you are even looking for. It doesn’t matter what you want to know, Google will find the correct answer for you with the Knowledge Graph.

Do you think that Google needs to make this update or do you believe that it will cause more problems? Let us know how this new idea makes you feel by finding us on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.

Micrositez: Digital Marketing Agency, SEO, Social Media

Google, google search, google update, information, knowledge graph, relevancy, search, search engine, seo

Everyone wants to be a part of Facebook these days. There are no other social networks out there that are as popular as Facebook is right now. People are asking about Facebook’s IPO daily and even more are trying to have a little share of Facebook. Since Facebook has 900 million users and made a profit of $1 billion last year, there are tons of people that have to be taken care of when it comes to this social network.

If you’re one of those people who think that these stocks won’t be a best seller, you’re wrong. Their shares are not available yet for purchase but are almost all accounted for already. Some investors have already run out of shares and are trying to find out if anyone else has any to spare. These shares began at the price of $28.oo but have recently been raised to $35.00-$38.00. Facebook could make about $12.1 billion if they sold each share at $36.00. With such a high demand for these shares, by raising the price, Facebook could end up being worth more than Disney!

As of right now, the company is offering over 337 million shares to go on sale on the 18th of this month. Since there are so many people wanting to have a piece of this company, they might even have to offer even more shares than that. This is not a surprise though, Facebook is one of the most anticipated companies for public offerings. Even with all of these new shares available, don’t think that it’s any easier to get your name on that stock list. If you aren’t already lined up for one of these shares, you’ll most likely be waiting for the six month lockup period to expire.

This Friday is the official day of the offering… Will you be one of the millions of people who buy a share of Facebook? Do you even think that it will be worth it in the long run?

Tell us what you think about Facebook’s IPO and stock shares by finding us on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.

Micrositez: Digital Marketing Agency, Social Media

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Recently, Facebook has been the topic of a lot of discussions with them having their IPO results coming out soon and with the purchase of Instagram. Facebook has a lot going for them right now. One of the newest elements that is being tested for this social network is the new pay-to-promote system for status updates. This new idea is set up for users to pay a small fee to Facebook to be able to have their status’s more visible.

Social networks are getting so big and popular these days that many are starting to predict that the only way to be heard anymore is by purchasing certain services. Facebook Highlight is what they are calling this new system. This idea has only been tested in New Zealand and there are no definite plans to take this new feature to other markets. Facebook does not know if this idea is good enough for the site yet.

The purpose of this pay-to-promote system is to have your specific status update stay longer on your friends news feed. Facebook prioritizes their posts by having the status’ with the most likes, comments and status’s from your closest friends first. If you were to purchase the new pay-to-promote system, your posts would be visible to more groups of people and last longer on the news feed.

Right now, Facebook is testing different price points for Facebook Highlight. The prices are ranging from about $0.40 to $2.00. This would mean that the more you pay, the more people will see your status. As of right now, Facebook is only excepting payments from PayPal, credit card or even Facebook Credits if it becomes available for everyone.

This feature can really help a lot of businesses receive more traffic to their page and also help some people get known… if that’s their objective. You get to flag your own posts as “more important than normal” which will bring more attention towards your page.

If managed correctly, Facebook Highlight could really make a big difference in someone’s business traffic.

Will you be one of the users to purchase this new pay-to-promote service? Do you believe that this will help out certain businesses or just be a waste or time and money?

Let us know what you think about this new service by finding us on our Facebook, Google + or Twitter.

Micrositez: Digital Marketing Agency, Social Media

facebook, Facebook Highlight, idea, mark zuckerberg, pay-to-promote

Microsoft will become one lucky company when Facebook goes public. The technology stalwart has a small stake in Facebook, making it Microsoft’s biggest ally.

On Thursday, Microsoft announced a set of changes to Bing that will improve the search features of the struggling search engine. Microsoft plans to use the expertise of Facebook and other social networks, the New York Times reports.  By using people’s Facebook pages they can provide more personal search results.

If a person logs into Facebook through Bing, then searches for “malls in Washington D.C.,” results would come up of where your friends had checked in or places they have liked in the Washington D.C. area.

“This is a fundamentally different way to look at search,” Qi Lu, president of Microsoft’s online services division, told the New York Times.

The version of Bing the software giant is working on now is the biggest overhaul Bing has seen since its inception three years ago. It’s Microsoft’s way of taking a stab at Google and trying to become a direct competitor.

Microsoft is tying Bing to Facebook in order for the two companies to work against Google, who is a threat to the partners. Google is the most dominant search engine but is starting to compete with Microsoft and Facebook on different levels (Google+, anyone?).

Unfortunately for Microsoft and Facebook, the partnership has barely caused any damage to Google. The two companies partnered in 2010 and it’s been a slow start.

The new Bing has a cleaner design and puts the Facebook search results in a sidebar. By doing this, Bing makes it clear those search results are Facebook-derived – not from the Internet.

Privacy has also been an obstacle for Microsoft. Executives say Bing will only pull data that is seen by directly going to a person’s Facebook page.

Will you switch to Bing? Do you think Facebook and Microsoft can knock Google from the top seat?

Let us know what you think on our Facebook, Google+ or Twitter pages.

Micrositez: Digital Marketing Agency, Social Media, SEO

Bing, facebook, Facebook IPO, Google, microsoft, Microsoft Facebook alliance, privacy, Qi Lu, search engine, social media

Google has yet again re-vamped and re-designed its Google+ application for iPhone. Previous updates had been fixes for functionality but this time Google says the reason for updating was more about the “sensory” experience, according to Mashable.

Google describes the Google+ updated in a blog post as taking full advantage of the mobile experience.

“We’re not interested in a mobile or social experience that’s just smaller,” the blog reads. “We’re embracing the sensor-rich smartphone (with its touchable screen and high-density display), and transforming Google+ into something more intimate, and more expressive.”

The look of the app and its interface has been changed completely. When you first open the app, it still takes you straight to your Google+ stream. However, the looks of the posts have changed. The photos are front and center with large, easy-to-read font. The text almost seems to float over the photos.

Instead of changing the stream with a swipe there is a new menu that says “All Circles” to change your view. If you click within in a post the photo or video fills the screen. The +1 is also now displayed more visibly in the top corner at all times, no matter if you scroll down.

The iPhone app is available today and the Android version will be available in a few weeks.

More news for Google+: Conan O’Brien held his first Google+ Hangout, on Monday. Strangely though, no one has really heard about it until later on this week. The recording of it on YouTube only has 11,500 views. Google also hasn’t released any numbers on how many people attended the Hangout.

We do know the Hangout with Conan wasn’t promoted. If it was, more people would have seen it.

Are people really using Google+? If they were, would Hangouts be more successful?

Tell us what you think on our Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.

Micrositez: Digital Marketing Agency, Social Media

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If you have not heard about Google’s self-driving car, now is the time to get informed. Google has modified a Toyota Prius and figured out a way to manufacture a self-driving vehicle. Last year, in the month of June, Nevada was the first state to legalize driver-less, autonomous cars. These cars, would of course, have to pass all of the driving tests and licensing requirements.

Recently, Google’s autonomous vehicle program passed its driver’s license test in Nevada. This would be the first license of its kind in the United States. Receiving Nevada’s self-driving car license makes it legal for Google to test its technology on public roads in this state. Test drives were taken on the Las Vegas strip and in Carson City to make sure that this car was safe to be out on the public roads.

Not only does this car have its own special license but they also have a specially designed set of  red license plates that include an infinity symbol and the words “autonomous car”. This should help differentiate all the other vehicles from Google’s car on the road. This new designed car has cameras and radar equipment attached to the roof.

To fully be able to have access to the road, these cars need to have a combined minimum driving time of 10,000 miles. The state of Nevada also requires these car operators to submit a complete description of their self-driving technology and a detailed safety plan. A license fee of $100.00 is required plus $13.00 extra for each set of license plates. A surety bond of $1 million must be purchased as well to put up to 5 vehicles on the road.

Nevada is looking forward to that day when self-driving cars are sold to the public. The states DMV says that they plan on issuing privately owned self-driving cars a green license plate instead of red. These cars are the future and will soon be seen all around the world.

Do you think that these cars are safe for the roads? Could you see yourself behind the wheel of one of these vehicles?

Tell us what you think of this new invention by finding us on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.

Micrositez: Digital Marketing Agency

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There are so many apps out for mobile devices today. One of the upcoming apps is the new Viddy app. On April 16th, Viddy hit 6.5 million users. This put this new app in the #2 spot of top free apps in the iOS app store. Not even a month later, the number of users sky rocketed to 26 million users. This would mean that almost 500,000 people signed up daily since they were at 6.5 million users.

This app allows users to upload a 15 second video clip of their own interest. There are tons of celebrities who have gave Viddy a try and some even upload clips daily. Not only does this app attract celebrities but you can also find well known sports players and other different types of people on the user list of Viddy.

Some would like to call this app the “Instagram of video”. The two apps do have some similarities. They both allow you to take your image or video and make them look vintage or look however you want with the different settings. Both of these apps are getting a lot of attention from Facebook.

Some are already making the word “Viddy” popular. Instead of them posting ” Time for me to post a video on Viddy” people are saying “Time for me to post a Viddy”. This could mean a lot for the new app. More people are likely to sign up for Viddy if they see others talking about it. Some users are even beginning to wonder if this new app will get bought by a big company like Instagram. Only time will tell with this one.

Do you believe that Viddy will rise above Instagram or will this new app stay on the back burner? Should Facebook consider buying Viddy for their site?

Let us know what you think about this by finding us on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.

Micrositez: Social Media, Digital Marketing Agency, Technology

celebrities app, instagram, instagram video, iOS app store, mobile device apps, viddy, viddy app, viddy users

Facebook is one of the biggest social networks in the world right now. Facebook does quite a bit of their personal information onto the site to be able to interact and find friends quickly.

There are over 150 million Facebook users now and that means there is tons of private information going around the web.

Even though Facebook has recently updated their privacy settings, not too many people are taking advantage of it. A recent study has shown that almost 13 million users do not use these privacy settings or are unaware of them.

This can result in a lot of problems. More people can view your private information than you think. Studies have shown that some people are sharing way too much information online. Even the smallest things can lead to someone using your information against you. Just by posting when and where you will be somewhere can help someone know the perfect time to sneak into your house when no one is home.

Some people don’t even use the privacy settings at all. When these settings are not used in any way, all of your information and posts can eventually be viewed by a larger amount of people than you even know. Many times, people do not want their workplace seeing certain areas of information on their page. Without using these settings the proper way, anyone can access your personal photos or information.

Not many Facebook users realize that their information is not being protected unless they set up their page a certain way. If more people were aware of these privacy settings, less private information would be getting spread around.

Do you use your Facebook settings the proper way? If not, are you going to start using these privacy settings more?

Let us know what you think about this by finding us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

Micrositez: Social Media, Digital Marketing Agency

facebook, facebook privacy, facebook security, online privacy, online security, personal privacy, privacy, privacy settings

There was a study done in the US and UK on 400 companies to see the statistics of who uses social media sites with their customer service. Studies have recently shown that most businesses are using social media sites as an avenue for customer service. 75 % of the 400 companies that took part in the study said that they were using social media somehow with their customer service.

59% of these organizations have started using Twitter and 60% use Facebook. Out of all of them together, 85% use both of these social media sites. The size of the company does have some influence on how much social media is being used.

40% of the people from businesses that have more than 1000 employees have been using social media for customer service for the past two years. As for other companies that have between 100 and 500 employees, only 53% have just begun to use social media in the past 12 to 24 months.

The principle and founder of thinkJar, Esteban Kolsky, says that social customer service will be around for a very long time. Businesses will eventually have to consider using this method for their customer service. The US was found to be using social channels for customer service a little bit longer than the UK has.

Social customer service came along because there was actually a lot of requests from customers. 71% of customers go online first whenever they have a question or problem. Being able to answer a customers question over the internet is a really good capability now-a-days. 89% of the people who were in the study said that they believe that providing customer service via social media sites is one of the best ideas for their business. 91% believed that it was best for their customers.

Do you think that using social media sites is a good way to help with customer service when dealing with a business? How do you get in touch with a company when there are questions to be answered?

Let us know what you would do if you were these companies by finding us on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Micrositez: Social Media, Digital Marketing Agency

customer service, esteban kolsky, facebook, social media, social media customer service, thinkjar, twitter, uk online customer service, us online customer service

Google has already pledged $100 million to create a ton of premium video channels and this Wednesday the company said it plans on investing more. Today, Google is putting in another $200 million into marketing across various ad networks. Google is going to use YouTube, which is on the Google Display Network and other formats to promote new premium channels.

Google is going to be throwing a big party in New York on Wednesday night. Jay-Z, Flo Rida, Julie Stiles, Virginia Madsen and Jennifer Beals will be there to help promote and make some noise about these upcoming channels. A lot of network execs and media buyers will be attending this event in the Big Apple to sell  ad commitments.

Also, YouTube is going to be putting up a programmable channel guide to make it easier to find this new premium content. This premium channel program was launched last October. Ashton Kutcher, Shaq and even the Wall Street Journal are included in this new program. These channels are a great way to help set up for YouTube’s future cable channel.

There will be a channel for everyone, whether you want to watch sports, love to listen to music or even if you’re a parent just looking for something interesting. The goal for these new channels is to bring more an even larger range of entertainment to YouTube. This will give the viewers a reason to keep coming back for more. Also, if you are an advertiser, these channels can definitely help out with global consumers.

Next month is when the first of these new channels will appear. You will be able to access it by any device that has internet connection, even on your television anywhere in the world.

Will you be one of the first people to test out this new program? Let us know how you feel about YouTube widening their business with these new channels.

Find us on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter and let us know what you think.

Micrositez: Digital Marketing Agency, Social Media

Google, Google TV, Jay-Z, premium video channel, social media, Video Channels, youtube, YouTube Channel

Akamai has been publishing its State of the Internet report for about 4 years now. This report is like a list of the haves and have-nots in the internet world. It covers details countries, regions, and cities that have the most impressive broadband capabilities and the ones that offer the least-capable connections.

South Korea seems to be in the lead with the highest average connection bandwidth to internet users(17.5 Mbps). Also, South Korea has the highest average peak bandwidth delivered to users(47.9 Mbps). At speeds like that, you can download a songs in less than three and a half seconds. You could even download a whole movie in high definition and it would take barely over 30 minutes.

Countries like Cuba, East Timor, Eritrea, Chad, Niger, the Solomon Islands, Burundi and Central African Republic all measured as having the average connection speeds under 300kbps. So if you were to download a movie with this connection, it would take more than 30 hours to receive it. The US sits at the thirteenth in the world with an average connection speed of 5.8 Mbps. That same HD movie would take over an hour and a half to download.

The top 10 countries with the highest average broadband connection speed go in this order:

1. South Korea

2. Japan

3. Hong Kong

4. The Netherlands

5. Lativa

6. Switzerland

7. Ireland

8. Czech Republic

9. Romania

10. Belgium

Even though Japan is second, they still have a large gap between them and South Korea. South Korea’s average connection speed is 17.5 Mbps and Japans is 9.1 Mbps. This would mean that South Korea has a connection that is almost twice the bandwidth than the average connection in Japan. Japan and Hong Kong used to have the same average connection speed during the fourth quarter of 2011. Those figures soon changed after Japan represented a 10 percent year-on-year improvement. Hong Kong saw its average decline by 2.6 percent. There were only two countries that saw an improvement in their connection speeds. Japan and South Korea were the only ones that saw improvement from the third quarter of 2011 to the fourth quarter.

A lot of all the other countries saw a decline in connection speeds. Some of these broadband speeds can be impacted by the failure of a single company or a natural disaster. Just like many people decide to ditch their land  lines for cell phones, many are ditching their wired broadband for WiFi connections.

This Akamai system can also tell us which cities have the fastest connection speeds in the US. The top five are:

1. Boston metro area, Massachusetts

2. North Bergen, New Jersey

3. Jersey City, New Jersey

4. Monterey Park, California

5. Clifton, New Jersey

Akamai can provide you with tons of information about broadband connectivity. Will you use this State of the Internet Report for the rest of your connection information needs? Let us know what you think about this system by finding us on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.

Micrositez: Digital Marketing Agency, Social Media

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Mark Zuckerberg is one of the wealthiest men in the world and ever since he introduced the world to Facebook, he has kept adding more and more to it. His most recent addition to this social network would be the new option to add yourself as an organ donor.

While conversing with his med-student girlfriend, he came up with this wonderful, new idea. Zuckerberg believes that by adding this to Facebook, it could eliminate the shortage of organs for patients who desperately need live-saving transplants. Steve Jobs’ life was extended by years because of a liver transplant. Being good friends with the Apple founder, Steve Jobs, also helped Zuckerberg put the idea into practice.

There are over 112,000 Americans that are waiting for organs to save their lives. About 18 people die, every day, from the lack of available organs. After hearing stories from his girlfriend about the kids that she takes care of at work, Zuckerberg began to come up with this organ donor idea. His girlfriend informed him with sad stories about some of the kids that are getting sicker and sicker because they do not have the proper organs to live.

Zuckerberg says that this can really help spread awareness of organ donation and help solve the crisis that’s out in the World. Users in the US and UK can now add this information to their profiles. If you are not already an organ donor and would like to become one, there is also a link that brings you to official organ donation registries.

In the ‘health and wellness” section of your timeline, you can list your status as an organ donor. You can also add a short story about why or how you became an organ donor. The only other information that you are asked to add is the state or country that you are from. This helps link you to the proper official registries.

Facebook and organ donation advocates are hoping that this new tool makes a big change in the landscaping of the organ donation process.

Do you think that this new element can help people all over the world?

Place your vote here to show what you think about all of this. You can even let us know how you feel about all of this by finding us on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.

Micrositez:  Digital Marketing Agency, Social Media

facebook, facebook organ donor, mark zuckerberg, organ donation, Organ Donor, organ donor registries, steve jobs liver transplant, uk organ donor, us organ donor

Barnes & Noble has teamed up with Microsoft to help their market for e-books and the devices being used to consume them. This will come in the form of a new subsidiary of Barnes & Noble. It will include all of its Nook business and its educational College Business.

Microsoft is making a $300 million investment into this subsidiary and will value the company at $1.7 billion. This new investment could eventually spin off into their own business.

This leaves tons of questions for Barnes & Noble. What will they do next with the Nook since it is built on a forked version of Google’s Android platform? This new company goes by the name of Newco for right now.

Newco will contain Barnes & Noble’s digital business and its college division. Microsoft will take 17.6 percent and Barnes and Noble will own 82.4 percent of the venture. Microsoft will also be getting more content onto the Microsoft platform. Much of this will be e-books content just to ensure that the Windows 8 tablet will be able to compete against the best selling iPad and also the Kindle Fire. The Kindle Fire has taken its spot ahead of the Android tablet because of their low price and also the fact that it contains so much content.

It is determined that the first product to come out of this will be a Nook application for Windows 8. Education has been one of the biggest pushes of the year for other companies so it was no surprise that Barnes & Noble put their college division into this subsidiary.

Microsoft has also been making one of its biggest cloud-services ever and will be putting it into the education sector. They will have a lot of catching up to do seeing as Apple already announced that they already had 20,000 educational apps for their devices.

This new deal with Barnes and Noble could also open up a great opportunity for a spin off business. Newco has a long way to come but they are expected to be one of the great new operations.

Do you think that Microsoft made a good choice with this?

Let us know what you think about this by finding us on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.

Micrositez: Digital Marketing Agency, Social Media

barnes and noble, educational apps, microsoft, microsoft cloud, microsoft tablet, newco, nook app, windows 8

Facebook is one of the biggest social networks around now-a-days and they have so much traffic going through their site. There is only so much a company can do to protect their business’s privacy. Many loop holes are there but only a select few would be able to figure it out. For Glenn Steven Mangham, hacking into Facebook was quite easy. It took him about 2 weeks to fully get into Facebook and he eventually found their source code. He did not copy, publish or sell this piece of information but what he had done was still very illegal. About 3 weeks after finding the code, the FBI and British law enforcement arrested Glenn and said it cost about $200,000 for the investigation of what he had done.

Glenn says that he had no intentions of broadcasting the websites source code, he just wanted to inform Facebook about all of the vulnerabilities. Since Glenn had the code for about 3 weeks and never informed Facebook about his findings, he had to be taken into custody. Joe Sullivan,the chief of security for Facebook, says that Glenn has no excuse for his actions and that is why he was put in jail and was forced to serve his time. Facebook has a White Hat Responsible Disclosure Policy, which reads, “If you believe you’ve found a security vulnerability on Facebook, we encourage you to let us know right away. If you give us a reasonable time to respond to your report before making any information public and make a good faith effort to avoid privacy violations, destruction of data and interruption or degradation of our service during your research, we will not bring any lawsuit against you or ask law enforcement to investigate you.”

This little quote actually means a lot. Glenn was put in jail for 2 months before he bonded out. He was told that he can not get onto the internet or use anything that can access the web. This meant nothing to Glenn because he was sentenced to eight months in prison on three counts of unauthorized internet access. He somehow halved his sentence with a successful appeal to the court. This allowed him to eventually only have to serve 2 months and he was released with an electronic tag.

After being released, Glenn made a blog expressing how he really felt about the whole situation. He still does not believe that he should have been put into jail for this and that he was mischaracterized and publicly attacked by Joe Sullivan. How do you feel about this situation? Should Glenn have ever been put in jail?

Let us know how you feel about this story by finding us on Facebook, Google+ or even Twitter. We would love to hear your opinion.

Micrositez:  Digital Marketing Agency,  Social Media

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Google is practically one of the most used and popular sites on the planet. With so much traffic on this site, there can be so much spam brought in. There has been a new algorithmic update published to tackle web spam. Keyword stuffing and link scheming would be some that is considered web spamming.

Matt Cutts is the head of the web spam team for Google and made the announcement on Google’s new update. Cutts wants everyone to know that the improvement finds all the websites that are using “aggressive web spam tactics.” These tactics are against Google’s quality guidelines and will be stopped.

Websites are trying to make their way to the top spots in Google’s rankings without taking the proper steps. All of the websites that practice keyword stuffing and have unusual linking patterns will suffer the most from this new web spam update.

This algorithm will have a big impact on Polish Google queries because they are heavily spammed. Only 3.1 percent of English Google queries will be affected. Cutts is trying his hardest to get people to know that “white hat” SEO is very important when having a website. Also, he says that it is very important to create great sites filled with high-quality content that will provide good user experience. In conclusion, companies need to start producing quality content to have a presence in the search engines.

The new update will leave a lot of websites very disappointed with where they stand in Google’s rankings. Having stopped a lot of the web spam, most sites that use Google correctly will be at the top of the search rankings. Some people may think that this will ruin the whole meaning of SEO but when done correctly, your site could still be at number one.

At Micrositez, this is all we practice…”White Hat” techniques.  Operated under an ethical ownership and leadership team.

Tell us what you think about this new web spam algorithm by reaching out to us on our Facebook, Google+ or even follow us on Twitter and let us know how you feel about this.

Micrositez: Digital Marketing Agency, Social Media, SEO

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Computers are not the only device that a person should be virus worried about. Now-a-days you have to look out for a lot more because there are so many different mobile devices that can now go online and do everything a computer can.

With all of these new devices, there has also been the creation of many apps. Many apps are used daily and some of them can be very dangerous towards your electronics. Some of these apps ask for a lot of your information and not many people notice it. These apps may seem harmless but some can cause a lot of damage. Some apps are secretly sending all of your usernames and passwords to a hacker and with your personal information. All of these apps that are being used daily are causing a lot of new security threats.

With all of these issues, a startup called TrustGo Security released a free app called “TrustGo Antivirus & Mobile Security”. This app was made for phones running Googles android software, which is the most popular smart-phone operating system. They held 51% of the market at the end of 2011.

This new software scans each app on the mobile device and compares them to thousands of other apps that the company has already scanned.The TrustGo will allow you to search for only the safe version of apps. Not always will these safe apps be hosted on the official Android app store. Also, you can use their could-based data backup system. This can help you locate a stolen or lost phone and has safe web browsing.

There are still many other Malware anti-virus apps but TrustGo wants people to know that they are different. “We look deeper than just malicious apps…we look at the permissions apps are asking for and prevent bad apps from getting on users phones to begin with,” said TrustGo head of marketing Jeff Becker.

So which app will you trust to protect your privacy?

Please let us know on our Facebook page or Google+ pages…or follow us on Twitter!

Micrositez:  Digital Marketing Agency, Web Design

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Facebook is approaching 1 billion monthly active users..making Facebook the biggest social network in the world.  The fourth S-1 has been filed and the results are in. As of right now, Facebook has about 901 million monthly active users. They accumulated about 56 million users in just 11 weeks.

Facebook’s first quarter revenue rose about 45 percent more than last years results. They gained about $1.12 on each of their users this last quarter. Their revenue now is around $1.6 billion. About 500 million people actively get on Facebook daily. A year ago, there was only 372 million daily users. Facebook has about 300 million photo uploads a day. Statistics show that users spend more than 9.7 billion minutes per day on Facebook. There are more than 100 billion friend connections. Facebook accumulates 2.7 billion likes and comments per day and more than 37 million pages with 10 or more likes. 7 million apps and websites can connect with Facebook as well.

Right when you thought Facebook couldn’t get any better, they invested $1 billion on the popular app ”Instagram”. About $300 million of that amount was paid in cash and the rest was in stock. Their mobile app has gained 12 million monthly active users since just March. About 83 million MAU’s get on Facebook solely from their mobile device in the end of March. 

Although it may seem like Facebook keeps rising, they are still having some trouble in certain areas. The net income for the first quarter fell 12 percent, to $205 million from $233 million a year ago. This is also lower than the $302 million from the fourth quarter of 2011.

Facebook is still trying to figure out how to make revenue from the mobile traffic. Facebook is very aware that they can make a lot of money from all of the mobile access but right now they do not know how or what to do with it. So is Facebook really taking over or are they going to fall behind with these small but very important issues?

What do you think will happen with this social network phenomenon?

Let us know what you think on our Facebook page or Google+ pages here…or follow us on Twitter!

Micrositez:  Digital Marketing Agency, Social Media

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A new type of display technology will be used on the next generation of iPhones. Almost every time you see someone with a mobile device… it is an iPhone. Apple is known for coming out with the newest, sleekest products.

A lot of buyers were a little shocked when Apple released the newest iPad. It had gained about a half a millimeter of thickness when normally new products come out slimmer. A new “in cell” technology will change the next generation of iPhones by making them thinner and lighter.

The iPhones that are available now are using “on cell” technology which makes the phone a little heavier and adds another layer of glass. When using the new “in cell” technology, the middle layer of glass on the iPhone would be eliminated. Apple will be sourcing the “in cell” displays from two Japanese based companies, Sharp and Toshiba. 

The current iPhone is layer like a sandwich with the back light at the very bottom, above that you have the LCD section and then there is just a layer of glass. On top of that, there is a capacitive touch layer and above this is a thick layer of gorilla glass. The middle layer of glass is what separates the liquid crystal portion of the display from the touch portion.

Once Apple starts working with the new “in cell” technology, the middle layer of glass will be removed. This move will make the LCD and touch sections turn into one single layer. Right now, there are no devices that use this new technology. This is still an emerging technology so there are no definite decisions yet.

Apple does say though, that they do believe that the next iPhone will implement in-cell touch. Anything could happen with Apple’s new generation of iPhones but, all in all, they definitely want to be a part of this new technology.

Please let us know what you think about this on our Facebook page or Google+ page…and follow us on Twitter here!

Micrositez: Digital Marketing Agency, Social Media

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