A new study from security firm Barracuda Labs provides some interesting insights into the state of the Twitterverse. Unfortunately for the microblogging startup, the stats say that most of its users aren’t very active. The study looked at around 19 million Twitter accounts (PDF) in order to figure out how people are using Twitter. It started with one assumption: an active or “True” Twitter user has at least 10 followers, follows at least 10 people, and had tweeted at least 10 times. By tha..   show all text

It seems like every city in America wants Google Fiber. And who can blame them? Ever since Google announced its plan last month to bring ultra-high speed Internet connections (as in, up to 100x faster than what most of the country has today) to between 50,000 and 500,000 people, cities across the U.S. have been clamoring to curry the favor of the search giant. First there was Topeka, KS, which renamed itself by proclamation to Google, KS. Then Duluth, MN upped the ante by promising (comedi..   show all text

When it comes to competition, CNN president Jon Klein fears Facebook. The man at the top of the news network believes that the social network is more of a threat to his business than other broadcast media organizations. In a recent question-and-answer session with BusinessWeek, Klein specifically states, “We want to be the most trusted source,” and, “I’m more worried about the 500 million or so people on Facebook versus the 2 million on Fox.” The intriguing statements come just weeks after..   show all text

Two years ago customer support startup Get Satisfaction turned its ear to Twitter to help its clients monitor Twitter for mentions of brands. Get Satisfaction makes a network of customer support forums where customers can post their own questions, ideas, problems, or conversations about a product. Companies can also claim their board and put their own employees on to moderate the boards. Tapping into the conversations taking place Twitter and other social media sites is now integral to bra..   show all text

Brands are engaging in the conversations that are taking place on social media sites now more than ever. But in order to tap into the social conversations that are taking place on the web, brands and agencies need to have a powerful tool to track, measure and engage sites such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and others. One of the leaders in the social media tracking space, Radian6, is launching a new Engagement Console to streamline this process. A desktop client built on Adobe AIR, the eng..   show all text

A new study by Comscore will be released on Wednesday that may give hope to social gaming startups trying to monetize users. 35% of the survey respondents said that they engage in “marketing actions” to earn virtual currency (such as watching a video, filling out a survey, etc.), and 53% said they be willing to consider marketing action for currency if given the choice. The study was conducted by Comscore, sponsored by Offerpal, and included responses from 799 Comscore panelists who play ga..   show all text

Back in October we wrote about Appboy, a social network for mobile app developers and users. Since launching, Appboy has continued to evolve into a community for both developers and users to find and rate apps, as well as submit ideas for new mobile applications. Appboy has just rolled out a big update to its site which improves the design, adds stronger integration with Facebook and Twitter, and makes it easy to keep up with what your favorite app developers are doing. The site has also l..   show all text

As Director of Twitter's Trust and Safety team, a big part of my job is focused on the detection and prevention of spam and abuse. A couple weeks ago, Biz explained how Twitter users were being victimized by phishing scams spread primarily through links in Direct Messages. Basically, people click the link and bad things happen. My team can only detect these scams after malicious links have already been sent out. Today, we’re launching a new service to protect users that strikes a major blow ..   show all text

The social networking site plans to roll out features next month that will give its 400 million users the option of sharing their location with friends as part of their news feeds.

Foursquare, a location-based social network, is rolling out new tools that will give businesses more information about their customers and allow them to target special offers.

Love Twitter? Love tweetups? You will obviously love Customised Twitter T-shirts. We at chethstudios, are excited to bring up this fun and exciting contest and you stand a great chance to win Customised Twitter T-Shirts designed by us directly from Pringoo. To Participate in This Contest you have to check out the pringoo website and tell us which t-shirt you would like to win and why, and Click on the Tweet button. We require you to mention the hashtag and @cheth username so that we can track..   show all text

Tomorrow it will be exactly one month since the launch of Google Buzz. The song remains the same: it’s a mess. Normally, that wouldn’t bother me so much — after all, a lot of services are a mess — but Buzz has a lot of potential. But again, it’s been a month. I’m starting to wonder if it will ever reach that potential. I’m also starting to wonder if it shouldn’t have been introduced as something entirely different. Despite its many annoyances, I’ve been using Buzz regularly over the past mont..   show all text

Today at the #140tc Twitter Conference in Seattle, Washington (which I keynoted this morning), HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes announced that its popular Twitter application will be integrating with both MySpace and Foursquare, starting this week at the South by Southwest Interactive conference. HootSuite is one of the more popular Twitter applications, one specifically geared towards power users and businesses. It has been on a roll recently, launching integration with Wordpress and rolling out..   show all text

The Social Analyst is a weekly column by Mashable Co-Editor Ben Parr, where he digs into social media trends and how they are affecting companies in the space. Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; YouTube; Wordpress: these companies, built from the ground-up, are mainstays in social media. None of them were created by a large tech company, and all but one remains independent. It’s an interesting phenomenon, when you think about it. Large tech companies have had limited to no success creating their..   show all text

The Real Results series is supported by Gist, an online service that helps you build stronger relationships. By connecting your inbox to the web, you get business-critical information about key people and companies. See how it works here. Whether you’re looking for your first job, exploring a career change, or just setting yourself up for future success, social media sites have proven themselves as important platforms for facilitating connections, demonstrating passions and interests, and..   show all text

This is deceptive. You don't rock all the time. No one does. No one is a rock star, superstar, world-changing artist all the time. In fact, it's a self-defeating goal. You can't do it. No, but you might rock five minutes a day. Five minutes to write a blog post that changes everything, or five minutes to deliver an act of generosity that changes someone. Five minutes to invent a great new feature, or five minutes to teach a groundbreaking skill in a way that no one ever thought of before. Five..   show all text

BBC News has a very cool interactive chart up, showing how Internet had grown from 1998 to 2008 in various parts of the world. In 1998., the only countries with significant Internet usage were USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden. Of course, I remember using the Internet in Croatia every day back then, but it’s true: for most people, it was “this new thing” and it didn’t play a very important part of our everyday lives. Moving the slide..   show all text

According to The New York Times, the United States Treasury Department will tomorrow give Internet services license to export consumer-aimed services like instant messaging and photo sharing to countries with which trade has previously been restricted, including Iran, Cuba and Sudan. The United States defines these nations as “closed societies” because their governments sometimes try to restrict the free flow of information between citizens, however in many cases trade is restricted by the..   show all text

Tumblr, one of the simplest blogging platforms around, is doing really well. Situated between Wordpress, which requires a bit more effort to create and organize content, and Twitter, which requires almost no effort but also doesn’t offer many features, Tumblr is the perfect tool for users who want to have a blog with photos, videos, and other content embedded, but simply hasn’t got the time or the will to struggle with a complex blogging platform. How is this working out for them? Well, ac..   show all text

The iPad is breaking out in a very mainstream fashion: an ad for the Apple device just aired during the Oscars. The ad explains why Apple CEO Steve Jobs was spotted on the red carpet earlier. We’ve got a screenshot and we’ll post video as soon as it comes in (update: video added below). Apple iPad Commercial During the Oscars [img credit: TheFullM0nty] Steve Jobs on the Oscars Red Carpet [img credit: Wayne Sutton] Tags: Apple iPad, Commercial, ipad, jobs, Oscars, steve jobs, tre..   show all text

As has been made abundantly clear to me over the past two weeks, just about every location-based service is planning big things for the SXSW festival, which starts later this week in Austin, Texas. A few of the players have already started rolling out small changes, such as aesthetic upgrades. But a new, subtle update by Foursquare may have much larger implications. As we noted last week, Foursquare has begun revamping the “history” area of its website. This is likely part of the larger goal..   show all text

Cliff Atkinson is author of The Backchannel: How Audiences are Using Twitter and Social Media and Changing Presentations Forever (New Riders, 2009). What do you do when you’re giving a presentation, and notice that your audience is looking down, busily typing on their laptops and smartphones? And what about when you get the sense that they are turning against you? When audiences use Twitter and other tools to communicate with one another during live presentations, they create a new “backch..   show all text

It seems hundreds of Twitter accounts have started to Tweet out “weight loss” product spam today. Specifically, users who have had their accounts hijacked are Tweeting the message “I lost 20 lbs in 2 weeks!” and links to diet sites. Our source counts over 200 rogue tweets so far tonight. It’s not just new users getting caught out: famous tech pundit John C. Dvorak (@therealdvorak) got caught up in the attack, and was none too pleased. At this point we’re unsure of the cause: Access coul..   show all text

We just came across Packrati.us, a simple bookmarking service that allows you to essentially sync your Twitter feed with your Delicious bookmarks. Once you sign up with you Twitter and Delicious accounts, Packrati will follow your Twitter feed, and whenever one of your tweets contains URLs, the site will add them to your Delicious.com bookmarks. You can also bookmark URLs in @replies to you. In your Delicious account, the service will include any hashtags you include as tags for your bookmar..   show all text

Enterprising hobbyists Tim Heath and Ryan Hickman have created cellbots — with names like Tankbot and Truckbot — that are simply robots powered by Android devices. With just $30, an Android device, and a little creativity the pair were able to create the cellbots which process commands via telnet on PCs. The bots can move around in specified directions thanks to the built-in compass functionally on certain Android phones. While actual robot activity is minimal, the focus of the project was..   show all text

We had a very hotly contested matchup this week in our long-running Faceoff series, with Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE going up against Sony’s PlayStation Network for favorite online console gaming service. After an astounding 35,055 votes we’re ready to declare the winner… … and Xbox LIVE takes the win! They’ll obviously get an achievement rather than a trophy for this victory. Just a day or so ago the polls were holding steadily even so it was definitely in the home stretch here that XBLA pulled..   show all text