In an age of pervasive digital entrepreneurism, there is a social network for practically every subculture under the sun. Take Codias, for example — it is a network for political conservatives. There’s Sermo, a forum for doctors. And HoffSpace is an internet fan club dedicated to television star David HasselHoff. But one of the fastest-growing niche networks has nothing to do with politics, profession, or celebrity obsession. It is called Fishbrain, and it is a social network for fishermen.

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Syndication represents a very useful way to expand your reach, build your audience, and contribute to your industrys thought leadership. The quality of your message influences the quality of your customer development and engagement results, but this is often not enough.

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Social media is quickly becoming the most important tool used for businesses. If you think social media is not worth your time then surely you are missing out on one of the most powerful social media marketing tools available to you. A number of brands have experimented with social bots that can help them improve their customer process. A growing amount of social media content is generated by autonomous entities known as social bots.

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Back in 1970, the technology writer Alvin Toffler published a book called Future Shock, which became an international bestseller. The book is about how humans struggle with too much technological change in too short a time—and it is all-too relevant today. Social media now dictates how people interact with friends, read the news and navigate their day-to-day existence.

What is all that doing to the human psyche?

Is Social Media Making Me Miserable?

The popular social media platforms are obvious to most people – Facebook has a UK audience of some 40 million, LinkedIn and Twitter both exceed 20 million, and Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat have close to 10 million each. The reach of these platforms makes it clear that social media is now ubiquitous. But for all the big name players, what is the definition of social media? Where did it come from? And how did it gain such an important role in our lives so quickly?

What is social media and how did it grow so quickly?

Many information junkies keep up with their favorite Web sites by subscribing to their RSS feeds, pulling the latest updates from those sites into a central location for efficient perusal.

I rely heavily on RSS to keep me abreast of the latest tech news. I am also addicted to political sites during this years bizarre presidential election, and I have tapped into a host of feeds to keep me up to date on the latest antics from the candidates.

Feed Hawk Is Useful But Not Essential for RSS Junkies

Content marketing paved its way into the global village a decade back and has immediately shone up to fame with the coming of new media. Business houses across the globe are increasingly developing solutions for content marketing.

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It is important for entrepreneurs to understand how social media is evolving and changing -- 2.8 billion people use social media. In terms of advertising new products and services, there are few things more potent and ubiquitous than social media.

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Your Twitter feed is going to get even busier thanks to the microblogging service unlocking auto-playing video ads for advertisers. Starting today Video Website Cards are available to every ad-buyer. In limited beta tests (like the one embedded below; videos do not seem to work with embeds), Twitter has found them pretty successful, with a 200 percent higher clickthrough rate compared to the leading standard. So yeah, expect to see an awful lot more of these coming soon.

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Social networking sites have moved to the foreground of news consumption for the masses. Politicians now take to Twitter to reach citizens directly: Facebook has algorithms to decide what news will encounter the highest click baits and Snapchat offers ‘snap’ news stories at the bottom of your friends update

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Twitter has been in hot water as more evidence emerges showing how Russia used the social network to influence public opinion. Ahead of a November 1st Congressional hearing on Russian manipulation, Twitter has introduced sweeping new rules for how it shares data on political posts. The network will launch a Transparency Center that lists all ads appearing on Twitter, including promoted ones that previously only appeared to targeted demographics, and will clearly label them when they appear in user feeds.


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Over 90% of medium and large businesses have used social media in their marketing for five years or longer. Yet the CMO Survey reveals that nearly half of marketers are unable to show the impact of their social media investments. That’s why, no matter what your social media strategy is, it is always a good idea to go back and make sure you have the basics covered. Your company may discover that it needs a strategic do-over.

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Instagram is starting to roll out recommended posts directly into users’ home feeds, according to TechCrunch.

Previously, the home feed was dedicated to posts from accounts that users follow as well as ads, whereas recommended posts were located solely in the Explore tab.

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Ten years ago if we told people that social media management will be a full-time job, they might have laughed at us. As simple as they are to use, managing a number of platforms for businesses can be quite challenging. With so many platforms and changing algorithms, and hashtags to choose and use, you can easily feel that things are getting out of control.

I spoke to my colleague Sarah who manages different social media accounts for our clients and asked her about the common mistakes that people make when managing their brand accounts, and what should business owners avoid doing on social media:

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As you get older, one of the ways life remunerates your increasing irrelevance is you gain a measure of self-knowledge. And I know my brain is, essentially, like a bird pecking at a mirror.

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Facebook is taking a hard look at the impact it has on the democratic process after announcing it could no longer guarantee that social media is beneficial to democracy. One critique of social media is the ability to create echo chambers -- online spaces that only surround users with like-minded people and ideas.

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Generally speaking, there are two main ways that you can store your RSS feed:

1) On Your Own Website (self-hosting your RSS)
2) On Your Media Host’s Website (the place where you store your files)

The reason why I have often elected for self hosting (option 1 above) is a simple one: 100% control.

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In another blow to RSS fans everywhere, Digg announced that it would soon be shuttering Digg Reader.

As of March 26, the RSS service will no longer work on the web or in Digg's mobile apps. The company didn't say why it was closing the service, which it started in response to Google killing off its own RSS service in 2013.

Naturally, the news was pretty upsetting to Digg Reader fans who had turned to the service as a replacement for the once beloved Google Reader.

But if you are one of the many folks still clinging to RSS feeds in 2018, you are not entirely out of luck. There are a number of capable alternatives out there. Here are five of our favorites.

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For years, we have known that social media platforms inspire jealousy. A 2013 study showed that people fall into a spiral of envy when Facebook reveals that their friends are excelling or leading glamorous lives. Scientific American reported that many studies indicate that spending a lot of time on Facebook is linked to diminished well-being, with Facebook-inspired envy increasing feelings of depression. FOMO (fear of missing out) has become a very real thing

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Facebook began testing a  breaking news label for developing stories back in November, and now the social network is expanding the option to more publishers. Starting this week, the company says 50 more outlets in North America, Latin America, Europe and Australia will be privy to the tag. That is in addition to the small group of local and national publishers that are already using it. If all goes well, Facebook said it may offer the option to even more publishers in the future.

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Earlier this week, we endured another school shooting. This time, in Parkland, Florida, where at least 17 students were killed. During the shooting's aftermath, hoaxes and disinformation spread on Twitter. It is a phenomenon that happens after every tragedy, and it doesn't seem to be going away.

As is common in these cases, many of the initial fake tweets misidentified the gunman.

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According to a new study, people with certain personality traits are more likely to develop a social media addiction.

The study found that three personality traits in particular — neuroticism, conscientiousness and agreeableness — were related to social media addiction. Two other personality traits, extraversion and openness to experience, were not linked with social media addiction.

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RSS died. Whether you blame Feedburner, or Google Reader, or Digg Reader last month, or any number of other product failures over the years, the humble protocol has managed to keep on trudging along despite all evidence that it is dead, dead, dead.

Now, with Facebook’s  scandal over Cambridge Analytica, there is a whole new wave of commentators calling for RSS to be resuscitated. Brian Barrett at Wired said a week ago that … anyone weary of black-box algorithms controlling what you see online at least has a respite, one thats been there all along but has often gone ignored. Tired of Twitter? Facebook fatigued? It is time to head back to RSS.

RSS is Undead

Everybody uses Facebook because everybody uses Facebook.

But lately Facebook — and all the other social networks, for that matter — seems to be turning into a distracting, time-wasting and manipulative surveillance machine that does more harm than good.

This is a huge problem for professionals and businesses of all sizes, including enterprises.

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The appropriate frustration and disappointment resulting from the recent Facebook and Cambridge Analytica disclosures are making it easy to forget the personal and economic benefits of social media.

For example, let’s not forget that we choose to integrate these services into our daily lives because they allow us to deepen social connections and enable us to exercise our individual agency in a fashion that was impossible before their emergence. Or that these services have created millions of jobs, new business ecosystems and helped fuel the rise of the digital economy that brings broad societal benefit.

But it is important not to forget the learning of lessons and the hoped-for change. We are seeing some of these changes now. There is no playbook for addressing the principles at play here, and so it will not be all smooth sailing. But you can be certain that the effort will be earnest and that these services will be better as a result.

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People are angry at Facebook. People are angry at YouTube. People are angry at Twitter.

With Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg set to testify before Congress less than a week after an enraged YouTube user wounded three people before killing herself at the companys headquarters, the growing debate over what Silicon Valley’s social media giants do with the content and information we give them has hit a new pitch.

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The perfect social network would have the following characteristics:

It would have a lot of users — at least as many as Facebook.
It would filter spam and harassment, but otherwise not algorithmically sort or filter.
It would enable us to interact with people on all the social networks.
It would have no advertising.
It would be user-controllable and user-automatable.
It would be usable on both mobile and desktop.
It would have great search (unlike Facebook).

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What predicted Facebook’s FB, +1.63%   scandal involving data firm Cambridge Analytica and the private information of 50 million user profiles without their consent?

How about the 2010 film The Social Network?

The movie, directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, was a fictionalized account of how Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg messily developed the social-networking site while at Harvard.

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Half a million doctors worldwide are sharing their knowledge on a social network for medics to find answers for their patients.

On MedShr, set up in 2014 by a London cardiologist, doctors can post details of cases and other medics can give their input.

A doctor treating a young Afghan refugee in Serbia, who needed plates and pins in his legs, received advice from other specialists that helped formulate a plan to help the boy walk again. In Kenya, hospitals run by junior doctors are able to get remote support from seniors.

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According to a survey in 2017 by the Royal Society for Public Health, Britons aged 14-24 believe that Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter have detrimental effects on their wellbeing. On average, they reported that these social networks gave them extra scope for self-expression and community-building.

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Every social media network relies on certain metrics to measure their social media success. Each of these social media metrics plays a critical role in the modern marketing strategy. Global brands utilize social media marketing tools to engage their customers effectively, informing them about the products and services accurately and with better relevance. Companies not using social media analytics for their marketing campaigns find it harder to connect to their online customers, leading to a vortex of unaligned marketing campaigns.

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Twitter is cracking down on bots after it announced changes to its API that will massively reduce the impact of services that allow links and content to be shared across multiple accounts, i.e. the software that powers Twitter bots.

So that means an end to services that let those controlling large numbers of accounts to batch tweet, follow users, retweet or like tweets. Twitter will continue to allow content to be posted to accounts using software, for example, weather alerts, RSS feed updates and more, but they will now be limited to a single account going forward.

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A US law gives parents control over what information websites can collect from their kids.

The Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, imposes certain requirements on operators of websites and online services -- including social media sites -- so that personal information from children under 13 is not collected, disclosed or used without parental consent.

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Times change. People change. And that means you need to change too — here is how to establish your digital presence quickly and efficiently

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Some social media-content is easy to evaluate. Cute cat pictures? Great. Helpful how-to videos? Perfect. Unfortunately, parsing posts gets a lot more complicated when the content flowing through the tubes of social media involves news. Earlier this week, the House Judiciary Committee brought in representatives from Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook to discuss the companies policies and practices for evaluating and moderating content (mostly political in nature) and the internet scourge that is fake news.

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This month marks the fifth anniversary of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, which was first coined following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin. In the course of those five years, #BlackLivesMatter has become an archetypal example of modern protests and political engagement on social media: A new Pew Research Center analysis of public tweets finds the hashtag has been used nearly 30 million times on Twitter – an average of 17,002 times per day – as of May 1, 2018.

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As Reuben alluded and our sources VERIFY, the claim is false. Facebook did announce, in January, it would be changing its status update philosophy.

The social network explained it is going to try to show users more posts from friends that have "meaningful interactions." It plans to do that by reducing the number of articles and videos that appear on news feeds.

But, Facebook never said it is limiting news feed updates to 25 friends. Rather, the social network is just prioritizing the statuses users will be more inclined to see.

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The U.S. is quickly becoming a podcast nation. According to a 2017 survey, nearly 25 percent of Americans — around 68 million — said they listened to podcasts. Forty-two percent were even willing to pay to do so. The largest contingent of podcast listeners (44 percent) are millennials, and that coveted cohort's tuned-in attention has attracted advertisers, whose podcast-generated revenue rose from $69 million in 2015 to $220 million in 2017. In the last four years alone, the popularity of podcast listening has doubled.

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You have none of the usual constraints of traditional forms of media in terms of length, deadlines, format or language.

Plus -- and this is no small plus -- podcast listeners are some of the most loyal consumers of any form of media available today. If they listen once, they're likely to come back, again and again.

There are multiple reasons for that, and multiple ways to do it well, which we'll explore below.

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RSS was first invented by Netscape. They wanted to use an XML format to distribute news, stories and information. Netscape refined the version of rss and then dropped it. Userland Software to control of the specficiation and continued to develop it releasing a newer version. A non-commercial group picked up RSS at the same time and based on their interpretation of the Netscapes original concept of RSS they too released a new version. UserLand was not happy with the non-commercial version and continued development of their own version of RSS (Really Simple Syndication), eventually UserLand released RSS v2.

The History of RSS

RSS is the standard for the syndication of published content across the open web. For law firms, RSS is how their content reaches many readers, especially their blog content.

But of late, I am finding many law firms not using RSS in publishing, even in their blogs.

Other firms have their RSS feeds set up incorrectly. All of their blogs in one RSS feed so users receive content they do not want. RSS feeds kicking out some content, but missing other content – almost like a magazine with blank packages here and there.

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Enterprise marketers face more challenges than ever in executing their customer-driven, high-ROI strategies. When customers search nowadays, they are looking for more complete and more specific answers provided for their queries: whether they are searching on a smartphone, looking for results specific to their city, or keeping up with the news of the minute. And Google is constantly improving how it delivers those results.

Conductors goal is to make sure the marketing team has all of the data and insights, features, and reporting capabilities customer need—so marketers can deliver for their customers and achieve above and beyond their goals.

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Every marketer today wants to make their brand presence felt. That is the reason why social media is being leveraged on a big scale.  Whether one owns an established business or a startup, social media marketing is something that everyone is using to reach and communicate with the customers. Doesn’t it make sense to be in a place where the crowd is? One often comes across some social media marketing activities that fail. While, on the other hand, some Facebook and Twitter pages become popular than the others. Many times, marketers observe that their competitors are doing better than them in social media marketing!

Everybody does make mistakes. How can social media marketers be any different? But the fact is, making too many mistakes can see the followers dwindle and their count drop. Indeed, it does affect the revenue of a business. As with all mistakes, the first step is understanding and becoming aware of them. It then becomes easier to avoid them in the future.

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Social media is a crucial component of any small business marketing efforts. When done well, a strong social strategy helps you connect directly with your customers, and can even create some free publicity along the way.

For all of social media's advantages, there are pitfalls as well. The internet can look like a cavalier place when it comes to copyright rules, but there are plenty of no-nos that you need to follow if you want to stay out of legal trouble.

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Nearly two months ago, Twitter began testing a feature that made it easier for users to see the latest tweets on their feed first, rather than the ones pushed by the companys algorithm. It is a toggle dressed as a sparkle icon that lives above the home timeline, which keeps you from having to go deep into your Twitter settings to get that purely chronological view. Certain iOS users have had access to this since October, but today Twitter is making the change permanent and rolling it out to everyone on Apples platform. Twitter's Android app as well as its website are getting the new magic button, too, but that won't be coming until after the holidays.

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Most modern businesses understand the importance of using social media to promote their brand and interact with consumers. Indeed, social media is at the core of many companies’ digital strategy, often delivering measurable results in terms of sales, leads and customer service. That said, there are many social media mistakes that we see time and time again: strategic errors that leave leads on the table and opportunities unexplored.

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Google Assistant will soon be capable of delivering a personalized audio news feed after users say OK Google, play the news.

This new feature is a collaborative effort with publishers around the world, which brings the artificial intelligence of Google News to the voice context of Assistant.

Google Assistant will be able to assemble an audio news playlist on demand when users issue the appropriate voice command.

News feeds will be created based on what the individual user cares about. Similar to what happens when opening the Google News app.

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The modern web contains no shortage of horrors, from ubiquitous ad trackers to all-consuming platforms to YouTube comments, generally. Unfortunately, there is no panacea for what ails this internet we have built. But anyone weary of black-box algorithms controlling what you see online at least has a respite, one that's been there all along but has often gone ignored. Tired of Twitter? Facebook fatigued? It's time to head back to RSS.

For many of you, that means finding a replacement for Digg Reader, which went the way of the ghost this month.

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About a decade ago, the average internet user might well have heard of RSS. Really Simple Syndication, or Rich Site Summary—what the acronym stands for depends on who you ask—is a standard that websites and podcasts can use to offer a feed of content to their users, one easily understood by lots of different computer programs. Today, though RSS continues to power many applications on the web, it has become, for most people, an obscure technology.

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For many consumers, spending too much time on social media often happens subconsciously. We pick up our phones, and before long, hours have passed.

While many of us think nothing of the extra time spent scrolling on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, a new study conducted by researchers from Michigan State University found that too much time on social media can lead to bad decision-making.

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