'There will be bugs' on social media sites

An industry expert has claimed that it is inevitable that complex applications such as social networks will have bugs in them.

Social media websites may still have bugs in them which hackers could exploit, suggested an industry insider.

Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley pointed out that social networks cannot be classified as websites, since are actually very complicated applications.

He claimed that there are hundreds of thousands of lines of code involved in services such as Facebook and MySpace, so there is "no doubt" that some bugs will exist.

Mr Cluley explained: "Any code of that complexity will inevitably contain bugs - there's no such thing as a perfect program."

In his view, the real question is how serious these bugs are and how much of a risk do they pose to users.

The error recently found by Yvo Schaap was a very important glitch that could have had terrible consequences for MySpace and Facebook and all their users.

It occurred because while the sites normally prohibit external applications from accessing the service, it was found that one tool slipped through the net and was able see protected data.

12/11/2009

Social media sites expand their reach

Twitter and LinkedIn have combined to allow users to update their status on both networks at the same time.

Social media sites Twitter and LinkedIn have collaborated to allow users to update their statuses more easily.

By syncing the two sites, users will be able to communicate with both networks at the same time - with both status boxes conveniently allowing users to type 140 characters.

The connection is intriguing since people signed up to Twitter can be nameless and faceless, whereas LinkedIn is all about spreading a person's identity across a professional network.

LinkedIn currently has 50 million members, who usually update their profiles and statuses to get ahead in their careers by posting CVs, achievements and contact details.

Allen Blue, co-founder of Twitter, is reported to have claimed that the social media site hopes to tap into LinkedIn's sense of identity to make tweeters more successful.

Recently, the organisation released a paid-for service called CoTweet, which allows businesses access to various web analytics and product support.

Coca-Cola, Microsoft and Ford have all signed up.

12/11/2009

Make products more accessible 'through internal SEO'

A marketing expert has suggested that advertisers can improve the visibility of online products by investigating the results of internal SEO tools.

Online retailers can improve their conversion rates by making their internal search engine optimisation (SEO) tool as educational as possible, an industry insider has suggested.

Chris Casarez, internet marketing specialist at 4 Wheel Parts, told Marketing Sherpa that being able to see search data entered into an internal application can be very useful.

He recommended gathering a "meaningful amount of data" regarding queries that consumers had entered in, so that behaviour could be measured more accurately.

This allows marketers to see which products are searched for the most and also shed light on another issue, he continued.

Mr Casarez explained that if a customer is browsing through a series of products in one category and cannot find a particular item, then it may be that it is not displayed prominently enough.

Marketing Sherpa recently advised advertisers that in some circumstances, it can be more profitable to work on improving conversion rates rather than focusing on lead generation.

12/11/2009

Email marketing 'should be permission-based'

Customers need to be the focus of marketing campaigns, so new legislation on opt-in emails should be welcomed, says an expert.

Email marketing campaigns should always be permission-based, so any new legislation regarding this would be welcome, remarked an industry insider.

Peter McCormick, co-founder and general manager of ExactTarget, made his comments following news that email opt-in laws are being introduced in Germany.

He pointed out that an individual's text, email or voicemail inbox is part of their personal space, so they should be allowed to decide who can gain admission to that area.

Mr McCormick stated that the only way for one-on-one marketing campaigns to ensure a good return on investment is to make relationships based on permission.

"We have always believed that marketers should build their digital marketing efforts on the foundation of permission - to their subscribers, customers and partners," he explained.

In his view, any legislation that is introduced in the UK could be a problem for those companies who do not have their customers at the "heart of their philosophy".

Recently, Dealer Marketing Magazine suggested that email marketing campaigns are replacing direct mail and newspaper advertising for many companies.

11/11/2009

Social media users could have been "exploited"

MySpace and Facebook users could have had their identities stolen through a security leak on the site, according to an expert.

"Enormous" damage could have been done by a security flaw that appeared to allow hackers access to users' social media accounts, asserted an industry expert.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, pointed out that these security holes have now been plugged, but they could have affected millions of people.

Last week, a developer found that hackers could access users' pictures and data on MySpace and Facebook, due to a coding error.

Mr Cluley observed that the developer acted very responsibly by contacting the relevant security teams before going public.

He explained: "A malicious hacker could have exploited this vulnerability to gather information about users and potentially collect data, which would have helped them steal identities."

In his view, people expect social networking sites to look after personal information and not share it with strangers.

The security flaw in this case related to the way that social media sites handle cross-domain policy requests and the data that could be shared in this way.

11/11/2009

More languages 'may increase social media usage'

The decision by Twitter to translate its website into Spanish could improve traffic figures, according to an expert.

An industry insider has suggested that by translating its site into another language, Twitter may encourage increased usage of the social media service.

Tim Gibbon, co-founder and editor of the Social Media Portal, commented that Spanish-speakers were already using the site before it was translated into their language.

He noted that there is a huge mixture of languages being spoken across global communication sites such as Twitter, just like in internet chatrooms and forums.

However, the decision to make Spanish the third language after English and Japanese for the social networking service to be available in was a logical choice because of the number of people that speak it, continued Mr Gibbon.

"It is likely to increase usage of the site due to audiences that are not mainly English speakers as different types and levels of conversation may occur," he added.

Last week, Twitter announced that it had translated the website into Spanish using a group of volunteers.

11/11/2009

Social media site's "space" invaded

MySpace has suffered in terms of web traffic recently because other companies stole in ahead of the organisation, asserted an industry insider.

Social media site MySpace found a niche in the online market, but other firms were able to exploit it, according to an online expert.

Founder of content networking site Dadooda.com Neil Stapley claimed that this does not necessarily mean NewsCorp are likely to sell the social networking website.

He pointed out that the media giant paid a large sum of money for MySpace and other Web 2.0 entrepreneurs then saw a good opportunity.

Mr Stapley highlighted the deal that the social media service struck with Google - with $900 million (£538 million) promised to MySpace if it could keep web traffic up - as an example of why other investors saw the potential in such websites.

"I suspect the effects of new competitors entering MySpace's space, so to speak, may have been underestimated. MySpace found the space - others moved in to it," he explained.

Recently, NewsCorp announced disappointing user figures, with Google's huge payment no longer guaranteed.

11/11/2009