Social Items

Social marketing is taking a huge chunk out of internet marketing budgets, and the notorious visual bulletin board, Pinterest, in order not to be left out in the windfall, is exploring ways to open up the platform to advertisers as it announced plans to launch "Promoted Pins".

Pinterest's great appeal to users, coupled with beautiful interface and compelling contents are what may perhaps endear the social platform to retailers for marketing purposes.

Promoted Pins is certainly a preview on how the company will go about pursuing a scalable revenue generation system, and see how it appeals to its ever growing user base, according to Ben Silbermann, Pinterest's CEO in a blog post.

And the initial test-run will include promoting a few pins in search results and category feeds, which the company has assured will not be obstructive as the usual banner ads we're accustomed. Silbermann, however, promised pinners that the promoted pins will be relevant, and improved based on users' feedback, and of course, no flashy banners or pop-up ads.

The company also assures on transparency by letting users know when a pin is actually paid for. The testing has not started, but will be rolling-out soon.

Finally, Here comes Promoted Pins

Facebook video ads rumor which has been making round since late July, now substantiating on the hints, the company have gone ahead to announce the test run for the new feature. The TV-styled ads, according to the Facebook Newsroom report, has already commenced with a select group of Facebook mobile users.

The new video feature automatically plays video to users who pause on the box when scrolling through their news feed.

This feature will be limited to videos posted by individuals, musicians and bands with verified pages. And that only videos uploaded to Facebook; not videos posted from YouTube or elsewhere are supported.

The company, however, declined to specify when the video feature will be opened up to advertisers. 

The implementation on desktop is quite different from mobile application, as clicking on video on desktop opens up a new window. While Facebook mobile users who do not wish to watch the video ads can simply scroll through to other items on the news feed.

Facebook: Gearing up for Video Ads?

The growing trend of web technology vendors persistently tracking users activities online for ads targeting purposes have continued to be debated across different fora. And recently, the NSA was reported to be circumventing manufacturers' controls to access users data on mobile devices, all these pointing to the fact that users cannot rely on vendor provisions in guarding their privacy.

Smart mobile devices have made it almost impossible to maintain effective privacy control online, and the debate as reviewed on the prolific mobile lifestyle blog, Mobility,  posits that the National Security Agency (NSA) can go as far as hacking into these devices to get information, according to documents released by the German news magazine, SPIEGEL.

The report maintains that the issue is not about having access through the companies behind these smart devices, but actual hacking of those devices.

Now, what other options do users have, since smart devices cannot be trusted? Encryption is perhaps the only solution, albeit, not 100 per cent foolproof, as even encrypted messages can be decrypted. However, it remains that the act of deciphering a single word in an encrypted message is a task not many such agency can be subjected.

So, smart security approach is the way out - the data itself should be protected. And to ease the process of the encryption on social networking platforms, BlockPRISM can be availed to cover such social privacy issues.

How Encryption can Eliminate Web Tracking

Google's web-based application revolution with its operating system, Chrome as the pivot of the new beginnings, is hitting up the debate over native-application continuum. Albeit, native applications have hitherto shown a better performance rating compared to web apps, innovations coming to the later has demonstrated that equal, if not better feat is possible.

Google had earlier released Chrome Apps Launcher for Windows, allowing users to launch Chrome standalone apps directly from Windows taskbar, even without launching the browser. Now, Chrome Apps have landed on the browser in a near-native experience, capable of working in offline mode, and storing data locally.

The new Chrome Apps can interact with PC hardware as a native app, while still retaining the everywhere availability advantage of web-based applications. Google on Thursday announced the availability of the new Chrome Apps on Chrome Web Store.

Mac users, however, will have to wait till the next version, Chrome 30 to enjoy the new feature, as its currently available for only Windows and Chrome, starting form OS 29.

Native Experience comes to Chrome Apps

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