The Four-eyed Journal » Social media

Assess Social Media Performance with Wildfire Monitor

jhay — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:00:24 +0000

The increase in social media usage has gone along with a rise in the number of tools to monitor and track that usage. Web users have plenty of choice here, but one tool that’s worth watching is WildFire Monitor. This is one of a range of useful tools from Wildfire Interactive, a technology company that aims to help organizations engage their social media communities. The key question that Wildfire Monitor asks is ‘who’s winning in social?’

Check Facebook and Twitter

The main WildFire Monitor page allows you to type in three Facebook page URLs and three Twitter usernames. Then you hit the compare button to compare how those pages and profiles have performed over time. One of the nicest things about WildFire Monitor is the easy stats view via a color coded chart. You can track weekly, monthly, quarterly or all stats, checking the number of fans or followers. This could be particularly useful for organizations who are trying to see how their social media efforts match up against those of their competitors, measured in simple numbers. If you want to know whether your fan base is increasing or whether your competitors are gaining the edge, then this is the perfect tool.

Get Social Media Alerts

What’s more the daily trend tracking can be combined with weekly alerts which allow you to receive these key metrics in your inbox and WildFire soon plans to add another feature, providing customized social media guidance based on your key metrics. This will be a great feature for those just starting out in social media, and even for those who want to refine the techniques they are using to gain fans and followers.

Build Social Media Campaigns

Signup for this tool is free at the moment, but you’ll have to pay to use WildFire’s other award winning tool, the campaign builder. This is how you can attract and engage your customers. This tool allows you to create branded campaigns such as contests, giveaways, sweepstakes, surveys and so on and publish them both on your website and on your chosen social networks. Interactivity will draw your customers in and keep them loyal – and you’ll be able to track the growth in your fanbase with WildFire Monitor.

Other Users

Who else could use the monitoring tool? Well, it’s not just corporations who can benefit from this type of campaign and monitoring. All kinds of organizations can improve their social media performance this way – non-profits, small businesses, agencies – and even individual bloggers looking to gain some social media traction. Only you can decide whether to use WildFire Monitor as a stand alone tool – and peek on what your fellow bloggers are doing – or to go for the full suite of tools and launch an interactive campaign. Pricing for the campaigns starts at $5 apiece plus $0.99 per day and goes all the way up to customized white label solutions.

WildFire Monitor is a nice addition to the range of social media monitoring tools already available – check it out!

This post is written by Lior Levine, a marketing consultant for a web hosting company that lists the top 10 website hosting companies. Lior also advises for a company that specializes in personalized oncology services.

My favorite/top tech brands

jhay — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 11:32:06 +0000

There’s an on-going poll over at Yugatech.com asking for which brands are the faves of us consumers.

Over the years of craving and owning gadgets and using services, here’s a short list of the brands I consider my preferred, not actually favorites though, choice.

Cellphones: Sony Ericsson and LG

Personal Computing: Intel, NVidia, HP/Compaq

Telecoms: Globe (both mobile and landline)

Companies & Websites: Google & Amazon

Most frequently used but in no particular order: Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Automattic (WordPress), Tumblr and Springpadit

What’s your preferred/trusted/favorite brands? Blog/Tweet/Comment about them below or at Yugatech

Sex Offender E-mail Registry: Will it work?

jhay — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 04:55:44 +0000

Just before this blog had a theme reboot, I blogged about the security of our photos online. Now by ‘security’ I’m not referring to whether our photos would not be destroyed or lost forever thanks to unreliable photo hosting or social media sites or when they suddenly close up shop. The security I’m talking about here is whether the photos we upload online are just viewed by our family, friends and the public, and not used for anything else we might not approve or worse, malign our persons and names.

Meredith, a non-blogger and parent has expressed concern in her comment, saying that she’s looking for a site that offers better privacy for her photos. Another non-blogger, Janet has recommended Pixamo, that according to her has reliable feature that limits access to your photos and videos to certain groups that you identify.

While fellow bloggers Ade and Kat has seen their share of how vulnerable our online photos could be and the horrible effects on innocent victims, Jam and Laice reminds us to be more careful, albeit choosy, as to which photos to upload and which ones to just keep offline.

What’s the point?

Our security and peace of mind. Not to mention, as I’ve pointed out earlier, our reputation, name and very lives. Social media sites, as we are well aware nowadays have not only become online hubs for people from practically every age bracket to meet and socialize, it has also become the new ‘hunting grounds’ or gold mine for sex offenders, stalkers, cyber-bullies and other nasties. The first thing they commonly start with, our very own photos.

An arms race

With the rise of sex-related and other crimes that has stemmed from the internet, law agencies and governments have been struggling to find solutions to stop these cyber-crimes. However, it seems that technology, the internet and people with really bad intentions are always managing to get one step ahead of law elements.

One such effort is from New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo who announced a proposed new state legislation to protect underage Internet users. The measure is called “Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act or E-STOP.

E-STOP requires paroled sex offenders to submit their e-mail addresses and online identities to a central registry that will be used to deny them access to social networking sites. The bill also would forbid sex offenders, on parole or probation, from communicating online with anyone under the age of 18 if the offender is classified level 3 (high-risk of re-offending) or if the offender’s crime involved the Internet or a minor.

An Achilles’ Heal

The proposed legislation is a good measure, I think only for its intents and purposes. However, it’s effectiveness is in question as one can easily see that there’s one critical flaw with it: Anyone can register for a new e-mail address and switch among them as easy as changing one’s underwear.

If I were a sex-offender and my e-mail address, online identity, alias etc. is on the said state registry of online baddies, I’d just get a new one. It’s so easy to create a new identity online nowadays thanks to again, technology itself.

Another flaw with E-STOP is that it could be abused, say I use a friend or just make-up an e-mail address once the authorities ask for it or a website that integrates online features of E-STOP, and presto! I just fooled the system and the poor guy whose email I just used is now a member of the cyber-baddies club.

So what now?

Let’s work together. Both the online public, the social media sites and governments to combat cyber-crimes. Parents should continue and actively get involved in the way their children use the internet, especially if they are minors. Remember, the “Parental Guidance” idea is not limited to TV viewing.

Teens and young adults, the bulk of online users and victims of these cyber-crimes must think twice before uploading photos, videos even text to the blogs and social media sites. Use the site’s privacy and security features to the max, you’re old enough to know that every decision you make will have consequences.

As for the government, any government, it must really exert effort to know the internet and the technologies involved with it so that measures, laws and policies are effective, practicable and sound. It’s high time to get out of the Jurassic age and into the Web 2.0 world. After all, what are we citizens paying taxes for?

Have your say

Having said enough at this point, I’d like to hear from you dear readers what you think and what do you do keep yourself safe and the internet a safer place to be in. Stay safe!

How safe are your photos online?

jhay — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:35:20 +0000

Flickr, Photobucket, Slide, Zooomr just to name some of the most popular image hosting sites in the web. Add to this the numerous social networking sites like MySpace, Friendster, Multiply, Facebook etc, these networks too rely on giving their users the ability to post images online for the whole world or even just their family to view and enjoy.

All this thanks to the increasing power and portability of the digital camera and now, the common-place camera phones, ‘camera whores’ and photo enthusiasts have been given a whole new world to create, capture and store in .jpeg glory.

*photo by naughton321

However, this news from eFluxMedia about photos of Californian teen swimmers that were found on gay porn sites have led me to ask the question that is the title of this post. The story goes,

Numerous photos of teen water polo players from several South Californian high schools were posted on number of gay Web sites, a newspaper reported.

Photos of boys in swimming suit, some as young as 14, were displayed next to other photographs of nude young men and graphic sexual content, according to an Orange County Register investigation.

The result of the investigation caused upset amid parents, coaches and school officials. Some of the boys, which found out that some pictures of them were displayed on gay sites, were traumatized and are reportedly seeking counseling.

“These kids don’t look at what they do as shameful,” said Joan Gould, spokeswoman for a group of Orange County water polo parents.

“For someone to come in and take what these kids are doing and take it out of context and exploit these images, these kids and their schools, because you can see the school name on the caps, is just horrible.”

Scary isn’t it? First you were having a great time taking those photos and being in some of them, uploading them to your online photo album or blog for all your friends and contacts to view then the next thing you know, you’ve now become a pornstar!

This is not something new though, based on my web surfing years and joining numerous social networking sites, I’ve seen my share of stories and cases wherein people would use other member’s photos to be used on their own profiles and accounts as if the photos were of themselves! In some rare cases, evil-doers and cyber-stalkers were using fake photos to scam and trick their victims from doing indecent things on the web cam to fooling them into thinking they have just found the love of their lives and even into stealing their money or financial information.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and that words are mightier than swords so when cases like this do happen, the toll on its victims can be tremendous and its effects equally tragic and horrifying.

Sure there are measures to protect our photos and ourselves. There are watermarks to be placed in images, disabling the right-click function in our webpages, licensing options and restricting access to our online photos. Still, how certain are we that our photos are just viewed or used legally and fairly with all the techniques to crack and by-pass safety measures both new and old, all readily available via the web?

Or are we to blame too? That we should also limit what photos we upload and share into the public via the web?

This questions dwell on the context of the photos that we take ourselves. But what of the photos of our selves that are taken by others? How sure or certain are we that those images are handled and used fairly, legally and with no consequences that we either disapprove of or be harmful to us?

One question has led to a plethora of more questions. Any one who would like to take a few and give their thoughts? I’ll be sharing mine in the next couple of days as I’ll give all of these more thought and reflection. In the meantime, I hope no one gets paranoid and takes down all of their photos from the web.