Tag Archives: twitter

Twitter launches two-factor authentication, too late to save The Onion

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On the heels of the Syrian Electronic Army compromising a number of high-profile accounts—including those of the Associated Press, The Guardian, and The Onion—Twitter has introduced a two-factor authentication feature that should make such attacks more difficult. In a blog post today, Jim O’Leary of Twitter’s security team announced the release of “login verification,” an optional security measure that requires a verified phone number and e-mail address.

Twitter is a bit late to the two-factor authentication party. Word first spread that Twitter was working on a two-factor authentication scheme in February when the company advertised job openings for security engineers to develop “user-facing security features, such as multi-factor authentication and fraudulent login detection.” Google has offered two-factor authentication since February of 2011, and Facebook introduced two-step login approval in May of 2011.

Like Google’s two-factor authentication, Twitter’s login verification sends a code via SMS to be entered to confirm login. But unlike Google’s system, the code will be sent every time users sign into Twitter through its website. This is the case even if it’s from a computer or device that they’ve logged in from before. The phone has to be enrolled through Twitter’s existing SMS service first—you have to text a code to Twitter to verify the phone first, which may not work with some phone carriers. The relationship between phones and accounts is also strictly one-to-one: if you have a shared business account, you’re going to need to share a phone number too. If you have multiple accounts and only one phone number, then you can only secure a single account.

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If You Can’t Afford $605K For Coffee With Tim Cook, Jack Dorsey’s Charity Auction Is At $5K With Four Days Left

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It’s nice to see people in a power position in the valley give up their time for charitable causes. Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, recently offered up his time for probably the most expensive cup of coffee ever, to benefit The RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights. The current top bid is a whopping $605K, and the auction ends in two days if you’ve got the cash to donate.

If the “Cook Experience” is a bit too rich for your blood, then you might be interested in hanging out with Twitter co-founder and Square CEO, Jack Dorsey. His recent auction, benefitting BUILD.org, gets you a full-on lunch with the man at Square’s office in San Francisco.

Whereas Cook’s auction took off with huge bids immediately, Dorsey’s hasn’t quite gotten off to the same start. There’s only one bid right now, and it’s for $5K. Sure, Apple is a company with more mainstream appeal, and a visit to the offices in Cupertino does sound fun, but Dorsey came up with Twitter. That’s worth at least $100K, right?

All kidding aside, the BUILD organization is doing great things for entrepreneurs, stating their mission as: “…to use entrepreneurship to excite and propel disadvantaged and disengaged students through high school to college and career success.” Here’s the pitch for Dorsey, whose auction ends in four days:

Learn from one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time, Jack Dorsey, as you and seven of your closest friends sit down to lunch with him at his newest business, Square, headquartered in San Francisco.

At the end of the day, this is a great way to raise money for charities, but the winning bidders probably have a plan as to what they’d like to get out of the meetings. It would be interesting to get to talk to the person who meets either Cook or Dorsey, so if you’re that person, definitely reach out to us. Even if it’s under strict NDA…which would be nice to know, too.

If you score the Dorsey lunch, you can even bring seven of your friends. Maybe you’ll even get invited to cameo in one of his infamous Vine selfies:



The Charles Ramsey-McDonald’s Episode: How a Viral Marketing Opportunity Can Backfire

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Using a story about women being kidnapped and held against their will for years for marketing purposes is questionable enough. Now that the hero in the story turns out to have a history of domestic violence convictions, the Charles Ramsey-McDonald’s episode is shaping up as an argument that perhaps brands should respond to viral marketing opportunities slowly, cautiously—and sometimes not at all. The accepted wisdom today is that when a brand is suddenly front and center in the news for almost any reason whatsoever, the company must seize the moment and take advantage of the situation as a marketing opportunity. Responding with speed is deemed to be absolutely essential. Oreo, for instance, was widely lauded for its quick-thinking Tweet during the Super Bowl blackout. The Tweet, featuring a photo of the iconic cookie and the caption “You can still dunk in the dark,” was put up in 10 minutes—before the lights were back on at the New Orleans Superdome—and was immediately retweeted and liked on Facebook tens of thousands of times. (MORE: Stealth Celebrity Endorsement: No Money Changes Hands, Just Free Burritos) The Etch a Sketch toy and Sesame Street’s Big Bird both had big moments in the news during last year’s presidential campaign, and Poland Spring bottled water received plenty of attention thanks to Marco Rubio’s “Gulpgate” during the Republican Address to the Nation in February. These odd spectacles were all viewed as prime branding opportunities that fell into the laps of their respective marketing departments—an opportunity that Poland Spring, for one, was criticized for botching. This week, McDonald’s was suddenly, bizarrely in the news in a big way, when a man named Charles Ramsey became a viral sensation. Ramsey is the neighbor who helped rescue three women who had been abducted and held captive for a decade in a home in downtown Cleveland. In interviews that have been shown on TV stations around the world—and viewed millions of times online—Ramsey mentioned that he was “eating my McDonald’s” when he heard screaming, leading him to save a woman trying

Skip Google+ Sharing And Tweet Photos Directly From Google Glass With GlassTweet

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3404873694_ca1e52d95f_zWe’re on the ground in New York City at the Disrupt Hackathon and there are a lot of interesting things being created. Since I’m walking around wearing Google Glass, I’ve obviously been looking for teams building apps for it. I met up with Jonathan Gottfried, Twilio’s Developer Evangelist, and he built a quick and dirty app called GlassTweet, which lets you share photos to Twitter, rather than the out-of-the-box experience of sending shots to Google+. Once you’ve installed the app and connected it to Glass and your Twitter account, a new contact comes up that you can share to, called “Tweet”: The excitement about developing for Glass reminds me of the early days on Apple’s App Store. Gottfried explained: “It’s a great platform and being able to create all of the fundamental apps for people is a tremendous opportunity.” There are only a few people testing GlassTweet out right now, but I imagine that small apps like this will be installed by most of the community who are looking for inspiration. It would be interesting to see a photo gallery of those who are using the app as well, perhaps with some geographic location attached to the photo. You can’t tweet videos yet, but Gottfried tells me that the feature is coming soon. During the Glass Collective announcement this month, Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr mentioned that Twitter was thinking about working on its own app, and it’ll be interesting to see how they adapt their service for the small screen. Surely you don’t want every mention or reply lighting up in front of your face. At least I don’t. Gottfried has built a few Glass apps so far, including ones that lets you purchase a dedicated number through Twilio for texting. Let the Glass games begin. [Photo credit: Flickr]

Ars Technicast Ep. 25: Would you like some social media with your news?

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These days, when a big story breaks, one of the first places that people go to for information is social media, as was the case in the recent attacks in Boston. The hack of the Associated Press’ Twitter account and the drop in the financial markets afterward also reflects how much the public at large has come to rely on social media for news delivery.

In turn, public reaction on social media has become part of the headlines themselves, as social networks like Facebook and Twitter are used to both distribute and consume news. It’s a big change from the news cycles of the past.

With so much immediate information bombarding us, we set out to discuss what makes news today different from the pre-social era. Join Senior Apple Editor Jacqui Cheng, Ars Contributor Casey Johnston, Microsoft Editor Peter Bright, and Social Editor Cesar Torres in this episode of the Ars Technicast.

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Twitter Settles With PeopleBrowsr, Gives The Company Firehose Access Until The End Of The Year

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The saga of PeopleBrowsr vs. Twitter appears to have come to a close, AllThingsD reports. Last November, PeopleBrowsr took Twitter to court after the company had informed them that they’d be losing access to its full firehose of data. This was a move happening with nearly all third-party developers, but PeopleBrowsr contested that its four-year long relationship with Twitter could not be cut off that easily.

After a somewhat astonishing public back and forth between the two companies, it sounds like the terms of the out of court settlement will be that PeopleBrowsr keeps firehose data until the end of the year, at which time it will shift over to one of Twitter’s approved data partners, Gnip, Topsy or DataSift.

A Twitter spokesperson issued the following statement to us:

We’re pleased to have this matter dismissed with prejudice, and look forward to PeopleBrowsr’s transition by the end of the year off of the Firehose to join the ecosystem of developers utilizing Twitter data via our reseller partnerships.

While it’s not a win, it is the close of a case that kicked up dust from developers, some seeing PeopleBrowsr as fighting for the “little guys” who were slowly losing the access to Twitter’s data that they once enjoyed. This was not the case though, as PeopleBrowsr’s products, namely Kred, rely on this data to function. Basically, it had been paying Twitter $1 million a year to keep their business going. That’s not little. There’s no word on what it will have to eventually pay someone like Gnip for the same access.

A spokesperson from PeopleBrowsr says that it’s “business as usual” now. Good, because it got really ugly there for a while.

[Photo credit: Flickr]

Google’s Got A Problem. Search Ads Aren’t Just For Search Engines Anymore

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The juggernaut that is search advertising grew so popular and lucrative because it offered businesses the ability to reach and persuade people with true purchase intent. But now keyword targeting is available on Twitter and Facebook, which could loosen Google’s stranglehold on ads that convince us what to buy.

Demand Generation Vs Fulfillment

A solid model for understanding web advertising is the purchase-intent funnel. At the wide top of the funnel is demand generation — raising awareness about a product and engendering the brand to the consumer. Demand generation is more about ad views and changing your perceptions than clicks and driving immediate action. Imagine banner ads for Coca-Cola, Facebook sidebar ads for a movie coming to theaters next month, or a Twitter Promoted Tweet about Clorox bleach. They’re designed to keep those brands stuck in your mind so you pay them later, and they’re targeted based on your demographic and interests.

At the narrow bottom of the funnel is demand fulfillment — convincing someone ready to make a purchase of what specifically they should buy. These ads typically seek a click through to a purchase page or sign-up form. Imagine searching for “Buy camera” on Google and seeing sponsored results for Best Buy’s website and specific Canon camera models that you can click through to purchase. Or searching “San Francisco lawyer” and seeing ads for specific local firms you could click through to book an appointment. They’re designed to attract the final click before you purchase, but to do that they need to know you’re actually in the mood to buy something. Since they directly inspire purchases and are more easily tied to return on investment, these ads can command high prices.

Until recently, Facebook and Twitter were stuck in the demand generation part of the funnel. With all their biographical and interest data, they were good for brand and institutional advertising but not at delivering dollars directly into advertisers’ hands. Google has long ruled demand fulfillment with its AdWords product that lets advertisers compete in auctions to show their ads to people who’ve searched for specific keywords that demonstrate purchase intent. But those dividing lines are rapidly blurring, and it could shift the axis of power in online advertising.

Mining The Bottom Of The Funnel

Twitter and Facebook are now aggressively trying to drill down the funnel into demand fulfillment, and they have the data they need to succeed. They might not have traditional web search engine queries, but they have plenty of internal searches and a near infinite amount of chatter.

Intentful Tweets

Twitter last week announced the launch of keyword advertising, which lets businesses target ads to people who recently tweeted or engaged with tweets containing certain keywords. Tweet about a band and you might see ads for an upcoming concert by them. Retweet someone saying they haven’t been to the dentist in forever, and you might see ads for nearby dentists.

Searching for and tweeting a word are two very different things, but Twitter keyword ads are certainly much closer to purchase intent than targeting based on who you follow. And with some savvy multi-keyword targeting, for example “[Product name]” and “want”, businesses could deduce purchase intent out of 140 characters.

Social Invading From All Sides

Facebook meanwhile currently offers “search typeahead ads”. When you search for a specific Facebook Page or app, businesses can set up ads to to show their own Pages or apps above or just below the organic results. If you’re searching for “Candy Crush Saga”, you almost surely want to play a puzzle game. Search typeahead ads for other puzzle games at the moment could be very effective. Gadgets, games, professional services and more brands can all take advantage of this signal of purchase intent.

And that’s just the beginning for Facebook. Last week it revealed its first ads within its new Graph Search feature. For now, these ads can’t be targeted by keywords, just the standard biographical targeting. But it’s very likely that keyword targeting is on the way.

Along with creating big advertising opportunities for online conversion businesses, they could be with local businesses. Facebook is making a big push right now to challenge Yelp as the place you find a business’ address, open hours, photos, reviews, and recommendations. Just yesterday Facebook redesigned its mobile Pages for businesses to highlight this info. That shift in focus means people looking for Facebook business Pages aren’t just trying to see their news feed updates. They’re trying to find out how to get there because they want their service right now — aka purchase intent.

Now imagine if you query Facebook’s Nearby local business browser or Graph Search for nearby Italian restaurants. Graph Search keyword ads could let an Italian restaurant show up more prominently in results, even if Facebook’s quality and relevance algorithms didn’t peg it as the best.

Then there’s Facebook Exchange. These are real-time bid, cookie-retargeted ads based on what websites you’ve visited. For example, you might see an FBX ad for a flight to Hawaii you looked at but didn’t pull the trigger on. While retargeting is in a whole different category than search keyword ads, they have the same ability to reach people who are deciding where to spend their money. And in the past, Facebook has tested sidebar ads related to the keywords you post in status updates. Facebook is trying everything it can to get to the juicy bottom of the funnel.

Fragmented Budgets

Many businesses keep essentially separate ad budgets for search, display, and retargeting. Until recently, Twitter and Facebook were only tapping the display budgets. But now they’re smashing open the other piggy banks. Businesses aren’t likely to suddenly expand the total amount of the spend on online advertising, even as the market steadily grows. Instead they experiment a bit at first with some spend borrowed from what’s usually devoted to Google, and if the ads work, they’ll cleave that Google budget and divvy it up among the newfound channels.

That is not what Google wants.

Search ad money is what funds its moonshots and sustains its enormous engineering staff for free products like Chrome. Despite Google’s legacy, Twitter and Facebook have formulated advantages. Twitter’s relatively un-ad-cluttered interface keeps people’s guards down which likely contributes to the reportedly high click-through rates on its ads. And Facebook has the might of the social graph to throw in the ring. Sticking the face of a friend who Likes Canon cameras on an ad for Canon cameras shown when you search for “Cameras” or “Nikon” could persuade you to click the ad, when on Google you’d ignore it. Plus there’s Amazon. The traffic to the ecommerce leader comes with implicit purchase intent, and whose shopping history data helps it target ads on-site as well as in its burgeoning off-site and mobile app ad network.

Now, Google is still the heavyweight of purchase-intent web ads. That’s not going to change overnight. But the Lilliputians have finally developed the technology to drag down the search giant’s revenues and claim some of those ad dollars for their own.

[Image Credits: Bryce Durbin for TechCrunch, John Swift / Inyamuakut / WebBooks]

Social Media Manipulation? When “Indie” Bloggers and Businesses Get Cozy

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Brands have sought to partner with influential bloggers for nearly as long as there have been blogs, with ads, sponsored posts, and more. Lately, however, a new relationship between brands and popular social media practioners is emerging: It’s not a traditional endorsement deal, and yet an “independent” endorsement for the brand is all but guaranteed. So how exactly does that work? Well, for the companies involved, there is a simple two-step approach to establishing such relationships: 1) Locate people who love your brand and hold influence in the social media world; and 2) give these people even more reason to love your brand, so that they’ll use their influence to somehow help promote that brand. Chipotle is following such a strategy by giving free burritos for life to pro athletes. Free burrito cards aren’t being handed out willy-nilly to every well-known athlete, of course. Instead, the criterion is pretty obvious: The freebies are given to athletes who have already stated publicly (via Twitter, most likely) that they love Chipotle. [CLARIFICATION: A firm representing Chipotle reached out and clarified that these cards don't guarantee free burritos for life. Instead, cardholders get one free burrito per day for one year, with the opportunity to renew when the 12-month period is over.] The fast-casual chain is banking on the strong likelihood that if these athletes are munching on its burritos for free regularly, they’ll plug the brand occasionally. The athletes aren’t official spokespeople and aren’t featured in company ads. But in essence, they are endorsing Chipotle, and they’re being “paid” for their endorsement in the form of free burritos. (MORE: Stealth Celebrity Endorsement: No Money Changing Hands, Just Free Burritos) Popular bloggers, on the other hand, often agree to relationships with brands that might include official sponsorships, invitations to focus groups on products in the works, or special perks such as freebies or sneak peeks at merchandise before it’s in stores. In 2009, the FTC released guidelines that require full disclosure of “material connections”—sponsorships, free products and perks, and any money changing hands