Facebook is maturing as an ad platform, but are brands really seeing ROI? Here’s a case study that examines the true potential of this social network.
When Southeast Toyota Distributors decided to focus ad spend on Facebook, it didnt guarantee dealerships that sales would rise. However, after launching several local Facebook campaigns, revenue with a Facebook footprint started to pour in.
MORE: Do Facebook ads work? – iMediaConnection.com.
Google has announced a revamping of Google Maps and it is much more than a few changes. It is a reworking of the entire Google Maps interface from the group up, designed to make Maps more intuitive for users.
One major change is users can now click on any area of a map, and Google will respond by showing you information about what is in the area that you could be interested in, such as restaurants, businesses, and hotels. This is designed to make it easy for visitors to see what is near a particular location, such as discovering what is located near a hotel when someone is visiting a city.
There is much more connection with Google+ and what they display on the map popups, meaning it is much more critical for businesses to make sure their Google+ page is active with correct information, including hours and photos, and user reviews of their business.
MORE: Google Maps Gets a Brand New Look | ClickZ.
Three months after hackers working for a cyberunit of China’s People’s Liberation Army went silent amid evidence that they had stolen data from scores of American companies and government agencies, they appear to have resumed their attacks using different techniques, according to computer industry security experts and American officials.
The Obama administration had bet that “naming and shaming” the groups, first in industry reports and then in the Pentagon’s own detailed survey of Chinese military capabilities, might prompt China’s new leadership to crack down on the military’s highly organized team of hackers — or at least urge them to become more subtle.
But Unit 61398, whose well-guarded 12-story white headquarters on the edges of Shanghai became the symbol of Chinese cyberpower, is back in business, according to American officials and security companies.
MORE: Chinese Hackers Resume Attacks on U.S. Targets – NYTimes.com.
A cloud of common sense just landed on Google, and instead of offering users separate storage caps for Google Drive, Gmail, and Google+ photos, the sultan of search has decided to offer up 15GB of unified storage for free. In doing so, users are in complete control of how much each of Google’s cloud services can hold, which is particularly great if you’re deeply invested in Drive and/or Google+ Photos, two services that were previously limited to 5GB combined.
“With this new combined storage space, you won’t have to worry about how much you’re storing and where,” Google stated in a blog post.
MORE: Going Full Circle: Google Users Get 15GB Shared Across Gmail, Drive, and Google+ | Maximum PC.
In what may be the first move toward a federal shutdown of the wildly popular online currency known as Bitcoin, the Department of Homeland Security today issued an order that has restricted the transfer of funds in and out of Mt. Gox, the Bitcoin exchange that handles some 60 percent of the transactions.
A creation of bank-fearing techies, Bitcoins are now worth more than $1 billion, and consumer interest has been skyrocketing. For more background, read our Bitcoin explainer.
The DHS is focusing on Dwolla, an online payment system sort of like PayPal that has become a popular way for Bitcoin users to transfer money to and from Mt. Gox. A Dwolla spokesman confirmed to BetaBeat that DHS and the US District Court for the District of Maryland have issued a “seizure warrant” for funds associated with the companys Mt. Gox account, which is known as Mutum Sigillum.
MORE: And So It Begins: The Feds Target Bitcoin Transactions | Mother Jones.
Gladstone, Missouri is the next city to get Google’s ultra-fast broadband service, Google Fiber.
The news comes days after Google announced Fiber would be coming to the tiny town of Shawnee, Kansas. Google has also added Austin, Texas, and Provo, Utah, to the growing-list of Fiber-enabled communities in the past two months.
via Google Fiber Comes to Gladstone, Missouri.
We just recently taped a new round of webmaster videos, and I thought this video deserved a full-fledged blog post. This is my rough estimate as of early May 2013 of what search engine optimizers SEOs and webmasters should expect in the next few months:
via What to expect in SEO in the coming months.
About 67 percent of Interbrands Top 100 Brands use Instagram, according to a recent study by Simply Measured.
Interbrands Top 100 ranks the top global brands each year. Brands in the top 100 include Starbucks, Nike, and MTV. According to Simply Measured, those three brands also have over one million Instagram followers.
The study found that Nike was the most popular brand to use Instagram. Simply Measured found the firm had 1,315,051 followers. Nikes followers reportedly grew over 50 percent on a quarter-by-quarter basis.
MTV was the second most popular brand to use Instagram. The study found that MTV had 1,290,237 followers. The music channels followers reportedly jumped 13 percent quarter-over-quarter.
Starbucks came in third for most popular brand on Instagram. Simply Measured found that the coffee shop had 1,205,752 Instagram followers. On a quarter-over-quarter basis the brands amount of followers grew 12 percent.
Simply Measured reported that Instagrams integration with Facebook has led it to gain ground on competing social networks. According to the study, brands on Instagram have more followers than those on Pinterest.
MORE: Study: Major Brands Cling to Instagram | ClickZ.
Security researchers have uncovered an ongoing and widespread attack that causes sites running three of the Internet’s most popular Web servers to push potent malware exploits on visitors.
Linux/Cdorked.A, as the malicious backdoor behind the attacks is known, has been observed infecting at least 400 Web servers, 50 of them from the Alexa top 100,000 ranking, researchers from antivirus provider Eset said. The backdoor infects sites running the Apache, nginx, and Lighttpd Web servers and has already exposed almost 100,000 end users running Eset software to attack (the AV apps protect them from infection). Because Eset sees only a small percentage of overall Internet users, the actual number of people affected is presumed to be much higher.
“This is the first time I’ve seen an attack that will actually target different Web servers, meaning the attacker is willing to create the backdoor for Apache, Lightttp, and nginx,” Pierre-Marc Bureau, Eset’s security intelligence program manager, told Ars. “Somebody is running an operation that can victimize various Web servers and in my opinion this is the first time that has ever happened. This is a stealthy, sophisticated, and streamlined distribution mechanism for getting malware on end users computers.”
Previously, Cdorked was known to infect only sites that ran on Apache, which remains by far the Internet’s most popular Web server application.
MORE: Attack hitting Apache sites goes mainstream, hacks nginx, Lighttpd, too | Ars Technica.
When some future Mars colonist is able to open his browser and watch a cat in a shark suit chasing a duck while riding a roomba, they will have Vint Cerf to thank.
In his role as Google’s chief internet evangelist, Cerf has spent much of his time thinking about the future of the computer networks that connect us all. And he should know. Along with Bob Kahn, he was responsible for developing the internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, that underlies the workings of the net. Not content with just being a founding father of the internet on this planet, Cerf has spent years taking the world wide web out of this world.
Working with NASA and JPL, Cerf has helped develop a new set of protocols that can stand up to the unique environment of space, where orbital mechanics and the speed of light make traditional networking extremely difficult. Though this space-based network is still in its early stages and has few nodes, he said that we are now at “the front end of what could be an evolving and expanding interplanetary backbone.”Wired talked to Cerf about the interplanetary internet’s role in space exploration, the frustrations of network management on the final frontier, and the future headline he never wants to see.