نصائح هامة تجنب سرقة معلوماتك الشخصية من الهاتف

كيف تجنب سرقة معلوماتك الشخصية من الهاتف؟

يتعين على الشخص أن يتخذ كل الإجراءات اللازمة لحماية هاتفه المحمول قدر المستطاع، ولهذا الغرض تنشر دوريات الأخبار من حين لآخر نصائح هامة لحماية المستخدمين من سرقة معلوماتهم الشخصية.

نقدم لكم سلسلة من النصائح التي يتعين الالتزام بها من أجل حماية المعلومات الشخصية على الهاتف المحمول:

أولا: تنظيف الهاتف وتحديث نظام التشغيل: حيث يتعين التأكد من تحديث أنظمة التشغيل على الهاتف، لأن الأنظمة القديمة قد تحتوي على ثغرات أمنية يمكن إستغلالها بواسطة قراصنة الإنترنت.

ثانيا: مسح أي تطبيقات غير مستخدمة على الجهاز، لأن بعض التطبيقات تكون مزودة بخاصية التعقب، وتحديد المواقع أو تجمع بيانات شخصية خاصة بالمستخدم، وبالتالي لا يوجد داع للمخاطرة بوصول هذه المعلومات إلى الأيدي الخاطئة.

ثالثا: تنشيط خاصية كلمات المرور والبصمة البيومترية إذ لا يعتمد حوالي ثلث مستخدمي الهواتف الذكية على خاصية كلمات المرور للدخول على هواتفهم. بالرغم من أن كلمات المرور هي حصن الدفاع الأول لحماية بياناتك في حالة تعرض هاتفك للسرقة.

رابعا: إغلاق تطبيقات التعقب وتحديد المواقع، وإعادة ضبط إعدادات الخصوصية على الهاتف. رغم أن تطبيقات تحديد المواقع تنطوي على أهمية كبيرة في كثير من الأحيان إلا أنه لا داع لتشغيلها طوال الوقت لاسيما في أوقات الرحلات والسفر.

خامسا: الاحتفاظ بنسخة إحتياطية من البيانات من قائمة الاتصال والصور الرقمية ومقاطع الفيديو بحيث يستطيع المستخدم إسترجاع هذه البيانات بسهولة في حالة تعرض الجهاز للسرقة.

سادسا: الحذر من شبكات الواي فاي في الأماكن العامة لأن هذه الشبكات تشكل مصدر تهديد للهاتف، خاصة إذا كانت غير محمية بواسطة كلمة مرور حيث يستطيع قراصنة الإنترنت إختراق هذه الشبكات، وسرقة كلمات المرور، وأرقام بطاقات الائتمان وغيرها من البيانات الشخصية على الهاتف.

سابعا: إغلاق خاصية البلوتوث والاتصال بشبكات الواي فاي في حالة عدم إستخدامها. في حالة عدم إغلاق خاصتي الاتصال عن طريق البلوتوث والواي فاي على الهاتف، فإن الجهاز يكون في حالة بحث مستمر عن شبكات مفتوحة للاتصال بها، وهو ما قد يسفر عن إمكانية تحديد موقع المستخدم كما أنه يستنفد طاقة الجهاز/البطارية.

ثامنا: تنشيط خاصية “إعثر على هاتفي” التي تمكن من تحديد موقع الجهاز في حالة سرقته أو فقدانه، وكذلك خاصية “مسح البيانات عن بعد” التي يمكن الاستفادة منها في مسح البيانات الشخصية الموجودة على الجهاز عن بعد في حالة ضياعه، بحيث لا يستطيع أي شخص الاطلاع عليها أو الاستفادة من الهاتف. ويلاحظ أن هاتين الخاصيتين لا تعملان إلا في حالة تنشيطهما على الجهاز أولا.

المقال الأصلي على:نصائح هامة تجنب سرقة معلوماتك الشخصية من الهاتف

What does Clash of Clans maker’s $10 billion sale say about the future of gaming?

Developer says it has over 100 million daily players for 4 games, including Clash of Clans.

Congratulations, guys… you and the rest of the Clash of Clans crew now anchor a $10 billion mobile gaming powerhouse.

We’ve been hearing for years how mobile gaming has been growing at nearly inconceivable rates and will soon become the dominant force in the gaming business. Today’s $10 billion (£7 billion) purchase of Clash of Clans maker Supercell by Chinese gaming giant Tencent drives home just how big that shift is—or at least how big the market thinks it is.

Tencent paid $8.57 billion for about 84 percent of the Finnish Supercell (which is owned by Japanese parent Softbank), valuing the mobile game studio at about $10.2 billion. That means a mobile game company with four titles is now worth more than twice as much as both Minecraft-maker Mojang (acquired by Microsoft in 2014 for $2.5 billion) and VR company Oculus (acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion) combined. Looking outside of gaming, Supercell sold for nearly twice as much as the combined purchase price of both YouTubeand LucasFilm.

Candy Crush Saga maker King!

The only gaming acquisition that even comes close to the size of the Supercell deal is Activision’s purchase of Candy Crush Saga maker King, another mobile-focused studio. That move represented a $5.9 billion bet that franchises like Call of Duty, Overwatch, and Destiny aren’t going to be enough to sustain growth for the mega-publisher going forward. But King is largely a one-trick pony at this point, relying heavily on the Candy Crush games for the vast majority of its players and revenue. Supercell’s success runs a bit deeper, with mega-hit Clash of Clans backed up by smaller-but-still-big hits like Clash Royale, Boom Beach, and Hay Day.

The relative value of mobile gaming largely comes from the simple fact that so many people worldwide have smartphones in their pockets, and they are willing to download and try free-to-play titles. Supercell claims more than 100 million daily players for the four games mentioned above; that’s a little under 10 percent of the total market for mobile gamers worldwide, according to one estimate. For a console game to have 100 million players, it would have to be sold to roughly 50 percent of all console owners worldwide, according to other estimates. PC gaming looks relatively strong on a worldwide revenue basis, but these days the business is utterly contaminated by free-to-play MOBAs and MMOs, rather than more traditional single-player games or direct online competitions.

Asia is the key to this change, which helps explain why Tencent is willing to put so much money into acquiring a growing competitor. A recent Digi-Capital report estimates Asia will represent more than 50 percent of all mobile gaming revenue by 2018, leaving Europe and North America to divide up the remainder. That same report estimates the total market for mobile games will be $45 billion (€43 billion) in two years, representing a 40 percent plurality of the total gaming market.

That’s an amazing statistic when you consider mobile gaming was barely a statistical blip just under a decade ago. But non-mobile gamers shouldn’t necessarily worry that their preferred platforms are going away any time soon. Digi-Capital estimates that the console and offline PC gaming spaces will actually grow a bit over the next few years in terms of actual revenue dollars. Activision predicts the same thing. It’s just that the mobile game business will be growing even faster, increasing the size of the pie but not really eating into the existing slices spent on other games.

In other words, today’s Supercell acquisition shows that mobile gaming is increasingly going to be the first thing that the global game industry focuses its money on in the coming years. But that doesn’t mean it will be the only thing the industry focuses on for the forseeable future or that mobile games will crowd out the kinds of gaming people still love to do on other platforms.

Original post:
What does Clash of Clans maker’s $10 billion sale say about the future of gaming?

Gain High Quality Facebook Fans

Gain High Quality Facebook Fans. Gaining fans is a great way to promote your Facebook page, promote your website and your products!

What are fans and how do they help your business?

Worldwide, there are over 1.19 billion active Facebook users. (Source: Facebook). Facebook is the world’s largest social network, 728 million people log onto Facebook daily. And 42% of marketers report that Facebook is critical or important to their business. Facebook is a social networking website; its purpose is to provide connections between users and also to provide interesting content for the users to find while they are browsing. That’s where you come in; you’ve created the interesting content, now you just need the users to find it. Once they do, you can provide them with information promoting and supporting your business to help promote growth. This helps you become more available and attractive to your users. Sometimes it can be difficult to first draw enough attention to your page. That’s where The Red Elephant comes in. We can help you get started with attracting users and promoting your business!

What are likes and why are they useful to you?

Numbers are very important and specially on Social Media. Facebook has become infamous for its “like” feature! In today’s world, everyone loves to express his or her opinions. With the Facebook “like” button, they can express their opinions in just one click! And with just that one click, they help give you some publicity. Posts with more “likes” generally get more attention from other users. Also, when a user “likes” a post, it may appear on their news feed, showing the post to their Facebook friends and helping to draw even more attention to your page. With The Red Elephant, we provide an easy and efficient method to start gathering likes!

Why should you buy fans and likes?

We know you have interesting and useful content that should definitely be shared with the world! But there is a lot of content on the Internet; sometimes it can be difficult for users to find your information. To achieve Facebook fame, you need a lot of users to view your content, become fans, and like your posts. The process of getting enough users to fan and like your content is a daunting task to undertake on your own. That’s where we come in. We make the process as easy as can be. Instead of struggling for months or years to develop a Facebook following, with The Red Elephant, you can purchase your fans and likes, and have them delivered in minutes. It’s quick, efficient, and relatively inexpensive (Facebook prices are 20-55 likes for €22,-). And it can make a huge impact on your business. It doesn’t get much better than that! And don’t forget if the search engines, if Google sees how many people like your products, a page, then it seems to it that this products is very important therefore become that product high in search results!

How do your fans compare with your competitors?

When it comes to fans and likes, quality makes a big difference. Many of our competitors may say they offer fans and likes, but their fans might be fake. Ours are always the highest quality; we get real Facebook users to visit your page and like your posts. Our competitors use robots and fake accounts to give you the appearance of popularity; but Facebook knows about this trick, and they can monitor or ban your account if they find out you’ve enlisted fake fans. At The Red Elephant, we want to make sure your account stays active so you can get the success you deserve, so we offer only real fans!

When will you see results?

In today’s fast paced world, we know how important it is to get your projects moving as quickly as possible. So as soon as you you tell us about your order, we start working on it for you. And when you see the result and you are satisfied then we will send you our invoice. At The Red Elephant, not only are our results high quality, they’re also unbeatably fast. You’ll start seeing results the same day you place your order! It doesn’t get much better than that. If you order what do you like from my account on Freelancer then you get 20% discount!

Are there any negative ramifications?

Not at all! Since we offer only real fans, there are no reasons for negative ramifications to occur. While some of our competitors use ethically questionable techniques such as computer codes and robot fans to fulfill their service, we never do. The integrity of your account is important to us, and we would never do anything to jeopardize that. You can count on us!
If you order what do you like from my account on Freelancer then you get 20% discount!

Twitter Followers

Looking for help driving traffic to your Twitter account? Look no further, we’re here to help. We offer 100% real followers complete with bios, tweets, and profiles to increase your page’s popularity.

We know how important it is to get projects going right away. That’s why we’re the fastest Twitter service around; we deliver your product within 24 to 48 hours. If for any reason you are not receiving your order or have any issues at all with the service, please let us know by contact us or sending me a message my account on Freelancer. And don’t forget If you order what do you like from my account on Freelancer then you get 20% discount!

Tagged

• 1000 google plus followers
• 5000 twitter followers
• 5K facebook likes
• youtube views

 Gain High Quality Facebook Fans

Search Engine Optimization & Social Media Marketing

All your Social Media in your hand!

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Marketing (SMM), some call it SEM (Search Engine Marketing) or SMO (Social Media Optimization).
An important aspect of Search Engine Optimization is making your website (and/ or your products) easy for both users and search engine robots to understand. Although search engines have become increasingly sophisticated, in many ways they still can’t see and understand a web page the same way a human does. SEO helps the engines figure out what each page is about, and how it may be useful for users.

Get The Ultimate SEO Package With Top Google Rankings for €75,- ONLY!

Money Back Guarantee, Great Mixture of Quality Links Panda/Penguin Safe.

What you can get for this small amount?

1. High PR Web 2.0
2. Social Network Links
3. Forum Profiles
4. Social Bookmarks
5. Contextual Wiki Links
6. 2nd Tier Links for extra Boost
7. Pinging and Indexing Service
8. RSS Feeds
9. Full Reporting of all Links.

The Benefits

Since the Google Penguin update, you can no longer rank your website unless you have a huge diversity of quality backlinks. So we can with this offer cover everything you would normally need to purchase separately to get result!

Please contact me here or on my account on Freelancer!

I have already got many clients to page 1 for their low/medium competition keywords.

Some positive reviews from satisfied clients!

Because of the huge diversity in links and domain IP’s, everything looks completely natural in the eyes of the search engines. You will get a mixture of Do-follow, No-follow, High PR and Low PR to make it look even more natural and increase the chances of getting you to that number 1 spot!

This offer is ideal for both brand new sites and those that are more mature. All links will be pinged and submitted through Linklicious.me for super fast indexing! You will not find another services with such a huge variety of quality back links on any SEO site.

Why Pay More For Less. Boost Your Site Straight To The Top Now!

Please note this job will take around 7-12 days to complete, however, the results are surely worth the wait!

Reminder: Your site needs to be optimised for your chosen keywords in order to rank high in the search engines.

Get even better results by adding the extras below!

1. provide you 600 Social Bookmarks with pinging and indexing for €39,-
2. get you over 150 web 2.0 profile links with pinging and indexing for €39,-
3. get you 1000 Wiki Links including .EDU links for €39,-

Please contact me here or on my account on Freelancer!

Social Media Marketing SMM Is Important To Your Business

Social media, has rapidly turned into a valuable tool for many businesses marketing strategies in this fast pace technology era. Social media marketing quickly became an important part of companies marketing efforts when seeking to secure a spot not only in the digital market place, but on traditional as well. Before I go further on explaining you how importance social media is for your business, I want to give you some eye opening statistics about social media marketing that might help you understand my point. According to 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report:

1. 94% of all businesses with a marketing department used social media as part of their marketing platform.

2. Almost 60% of marketers are devoting the equivalent of a full work day to social media marketing development and maintenance.

3. 43% of people from ages 20-29 spend more than 10 hours a week on social media sites.

4. 85% of all businesses that have a dedicated social media platform as part of their marketing strategy reported an increase in their market exposure.

5. 58% of businesses that have used social media marketing for over 3 years reported an increase in sales over that period.

If these statistics above weren’t enough… here are 3 more reasons why Social Media Marketing is important to your business.

The three main reasons why you should utilize social media marketing are relationship building, customer service, and reach. Let’s start with relationship building, social media allows you to create a connection with your current customers and future customers. The beauty of social media is that you can connect, interact, and built a relationship with people you would never have meet through other platforms. For example, Facebook permit your friends and friends of your friends, which are not directly connected to you, to share your posts. This allows your massage to reach and bring a lot more people to your website that you could ever imagine. Second, social media can be used as a great source of customer service, turning possible negative experiences your customers get somewhere else into a positive experience to you. With positive experiences and customer satisfaction comes retention and in the long run customer loyalty. Lastly, social media leads to a massive exposure due to its large reach. If your goal as a business owner is to expose your product or service to as many individuals as you can, than social media is the place to be because of the huge amount of people that use it daily.

Image sourced from edudemic.com

Search Engine Optimization & Social Media Marketing

Malware Attack Hits Thousands Of Visitors To Yahoo.com

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer

Two internet security firms have warned that hundreds of thousands of Yahoo.com visitors may have encountered malware from Yahoo’s advertising servers, The Washington Post reports.

In a blog post on Friday, Netherlands-based Fox-IT wrote that it ”detected and investigated the infection of clients after they visited yahoo.com.” Some advertisements displayed to Yahoo visitors — which are served from ads.yahoo.com – were malicious iframes, hosted on a number of domains, the firm reported.

From The Washington Post about Yahoo.com:

Ashkan Soltani, a security researcher and Washington Post contributor, alerted me to the issue. Often, he says, such attacks are “the result of hacking an existing ad network. But there’s another possibility, he says. The culprits may have simply submitted the malicious software as ordinary ads, sneaking past Yahoo’s system for filtering out malicious submissions.

…

The fact that the malware targeted flaws in the Java programming environment is an important reminder that the software has become a security menace. When it was created almost two decades ago, the Java programming language was hailed as a way to make Web sites more interactive. But it has been largely superseded for this purpose by technologies like Flash and JavaScript.

Mark Loman, a security researcher who developed the Hitman Pro anti-malware software, also confirmed the issue on Twitter:

Mark Loman @markloman
Yahoo’s ad[.]yahoo[.]com redirecting to exploit kit, malware ht @lennartdegraaff
1:23 PM – 3 Jan 2014

The earliest signs of infection were on Dec. 30, but could have been earlier, reports Fox-IT. The firm also updated their original blog post, writing that Yahoo was aware of the problem and “taking steps to fix” it.

Ranked fourth on the web, Yahoo.com receives 280 million visits and 1.6 billion pageviews per day, according to Alexa estimates.

Business Insider PAUL SZOLDRA

Malware Attack Hits Thousands Of Visitors To Yahoo.com

Syrian Electronic Army Says It Hacked Into Skype’s Twitter

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

By Dan Whitcomb

Syrian Electronic Army Says It Hacked Into Skype’s Twitter

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Syrian Electronic Army, an amorphous hacker collective that supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, claimed credit on Wednesday for hacking into the social media accounts of Internet calling service Skype.

The group also posted the contact information of Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Corp’s retiring chief executive, on its Twitter account along with the message, “You can thank Microsoft for monitoring your accounts/emails using this details. #SEA”

That message was an apparent reference to revelations last year by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden that Skype, which is owned by Microsoft, was part of the NSA’s program to monitor communications through some of the biggest U.S. Internet companies.

A message posted on Skype’s official Twitter feed on Wednesday, apparently by the hacking group, read: “Don’t use Microsoft emails (hotmail, outlook), They are monitoring your accounts and selling the data to the governments. More details soon. #SEA”

Similar messages were posted on Skype’s official Facebook pages and on a blog on its website before being taken down in late afternoon. The SEA later tweeted out copies of the message “for those who missed it.”

Representatives for Microsoft could not be reached for comment.

The NSA’s practices essentially made Microsoft and other technology companies partners in government surveillance efforts against private citizens in the United States and elsewhere.

Last month Microsoft joined seven other top technology companies in pressing President Barack Obama to rein in the U.S. government’s electronic spying in a meeting at the White House.

Media companies, including the New York Times and the BBC, have repeatedly been targeted by the Syrian Electronic Army and other hacker activist groups that deface websites and take over Twitter accounts.

Obama and his national security team are trying to decide what recommendations to adopt from an outside panel’s review of the NSA’s activities.

A U.S. District judge in December ruled that the U.S. government’s gathering of Americans’ phone records is likely unlawful and raised what he called “serious doubts” about the value of the so-called metadata counter-terrorism program.

A second federal judge ruled later in the month that the program was constitutional, raising the likelihood that the issue will be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court.

This week, a monitoring group said the death toll in Syria’s civil war, which began in March 2011 as peaceful protests against four decades of rule by Assad’s family, had risen to at least 130,000.

Syrian Electronic Army Says It Hacked Into Skype’s Twitter

Samsung pays Apple $1 Billion sending 30 trucks full of 5 cent coins

30 trucks full of 5 cent coins!

Lawsuit Paid In Full: Samsung pays Apple $1 Billion sending 30 trucks full of 5 cent coins!

This morning more than 30 trucks filled with 5-cent coins arrived at Apple’s headquarters in California. Initially, the security company that protects the facility said the trucks were in the wrong place, but minutes later, Tim Cook (Apple CEO) received a call from Samsung CEO explaining that they will pay $1 billion dollars for the fine recently ruled against the South Korean company in this way.

The funny part is that the signed document does not specify a single payment method, so Samsung is entitled to send the creators of the iPhone their billion dollars in the way they deem best.

This dirty but genius geek troll play is a new headache to Apple executives as they will need to put in long hours counting all that money, to check if it is all there and to try to deposit it crossing fingers to hope a bank will accept all the coins.

Lee Kun-hee, Chairman of Samsung Electronics, told the media that his company is not going to be intimidated by a group of “geeks with style” and that if they want to play dirty, they also know how to do it.

You can use your coins to buy refreshments at the little machine for life or melt the coins to make computers, that’s not my problem, I already paid them and fulfilled the law.

A total of 20 billion coins, delivery hope to finish this week.

Let’s see how Apple will respond to this. This only goes to show the sense of humor of Asians. Very clever marketing move. You just got $1 Billion Asian market excited.

Samsung pays Apple $1 Billion sending 30 trucks full of 5 cent coins | The Red Elephant

Mark Zuckerberg Was Highest Paid U.S. CEO of 2012

Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg was by far the highest paid public CEO in the United States last year, according to a new report.

The Facebook CEO’s total compensation for 2012 was nearly $2.3 billion, more than twice that of the next-highest paid CEO, according to GMI Ratings, which analyzed compensation for more than 2,000 CEOs of publicly traded companies.

Almost all of Zuckerberg’s compensation for the year comes from income related to Facebook’s IPO. On the day Facebook went public, Zuckerberg exercised 60 million stock options worth nearly $2.3 billion (though much of it was used to cover his taxes). He also received a base salary of $500,000 for the year, though starting this year, his salary changed to the symbolic $1 a year.

Richard Kinder, CEO of energy company Kinder Morgan, was second on the list with a total compensation of $1.1 billion. Other tech execs cracked the top 10 list as well, including Apple CEO Tim Cook (with $143 million) and Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff (with $109 million).

Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004

Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with more than 1 billion users. Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004 while he was an undergraduate computer science student at Harvard University.

Then called “thefacebook.com,” the site was an instant hit.  Now, nine years later, the site has become one of the biggest web sites in the world. The controversy surrounding Facebook began quickly.  A week after he launched the site in 2004, Mark was accused by three Harvard seniors of having stolen the idea from them.

This allegation soon bloomed into a full-fledged lawsuit, as a competing company founded by the Harvard seniors sued Mark and Facebook for theft and fraud, starting a legal odyssey that continues to 4 years ago.

New information uncovered by Silicon Alley Insider suggests that some of the complaints against Mark Zuckerberg are valid.  It also suggests that, on at least one occasion in 2004, Mark used private login data taken from Facebook’s servers to break into Facebook members’ private email accounts and read their emails–at best, a gross misuse of private information. Lastly, it suggests that Mark hacked into the competing company’s systems and changed some user information with the aim of making the site less useful.

The primary dispute around Facebook’s origins centered around whether Mark had entered into an “agreement” with the Harvard seniors, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and a classmate named Divya Narendra, to develop a similar web site for them — and then, instead, stalled their project while taking their idea and building his own.

Like The Red Elephant on Facebook for the latest news updates and resources.

Mark Zuckerberg Was Highest Paid U.S. CEO of 2012 | The Red Elephant

Facebook Removes Search Privacy – Say Good-Bye to Anonymity on Facebook

Good bye the privacy on Facebook!

As you may or may not know, Facebook previously gave users the option to hide their names from public search. This meant that users who wanted complete privacy could opt to have their name hidden from Facebook’s search field. Well, over the next few weeks, this option will no longer be available as facebook removes search privacy. Facebook will be removing the search privacy on your personal timeline. In fact, for the past year Facebook has been silently removing the ‘who can look up your timeline by name’ option for those who were not already using it. If you are one of the small percentage of Facebook users who opted to keep your name hidden from search, you should soon receive an alert at the top of your timeline letting you know about this change.

Facebook removes search privacy?

So, why is this option being nixed? According to Facebook, the change is necessary to avoid confusion and to help users get the most out of Graph Search. “The setting was created when Facebook was a simple directory of profiles and it was very limited. For example, it didn’t prevent people from navigating to your Timeline by clicking your name in a story in News Feed, or from a mutual friend’s Timeline. Today, people can also search Facebook using Graph Search (for example, “People who live in Seattle,”) making it even more important to control the privacy of the things you share rather than how people get to your Timeline.”

What if I want to stay hidden on Facebook?

Most of us won’t even notice the removal of this setting. However for those of you who have, for whatever reason, been using Facebook semi-anonymously, don’t be surprised when you start receiving more and more friend requests in the coming weeks! So what do you do if you want to continue to stay completely hidden on Facebook? Well, unfortunately there’s really no way to do this within Facebook’s terms of service. Since Facebook requires you to provide your real name and information when you register, using a pseudonym would be a violation of Facebook’s policies. There are a couple of ways, however, you can keep a handle on your privacy, even though your name will now be searchable.

Privacy Shortcuts

1.   Make sure only friends can see your future posts. The most important privacy setting you’ll want to check is ‘Who can see my stuff’. To make sure only friends can see what you post, go to the ‘Privacy Shortcuts’ tab at the top right of your page (click on the little padlock icon). From here you’re able to select who will see your future posts.

2. Make sure only friends can see your old posts. With the impending changes to Graph Search, it’s more important than ever that you double-check the visibility of your past posts. To change the audience settings for your past posts, you’ll need to access the regular privacy  settings tab (this option is not available through privacy shortcuts). To access privacy settings, simply click on the gear icon at the top right hand corner of your screen. If you’d like to review your past posts on a case-by-case basis, you will need to, unfortunately, scroll through all your past posts and change the audience on each post. However, if you would like to simply make sure all your posts are searchable only by friends, there’s a way to do this with one click: click ‘Limit Past Posts’. This will change all the content on your timeline that you’ve shared with friends of friends or public to friends.

Privacy Settings and Tools

Facebook Removes Search Privacy – Say Good-Bye to Anonymity on Facebook | The Red Elephant

How Twitter DM Will Impact Brand Marketing

Twitter’s Inbox

As news broke that Twitter is rolling out a new option for its Direct Message (Twitter DM) feature, reactions ranged from indifference to downright panic.

A Twitter user reported that Twitter plans to let users opt in to receive DMs from anyone, regardless whether that person follows back or not. Traditionally, two users had to mutually follow each other for DM to work. Now that no longer has to be the case.

If you don’t see this setting in your account, that’s because the feature isn’t available to everyone yet (although it appears that some have had the option since late 2011).

Early analyses tend to conclude that this move is good for brands, good for spammers and bad for consumers. I see myself straddling both the brand marketer and consumer worlds. As a business owner, I welcome any opportunity to connect with customers and potential customers. As an everyday Twitter user, I’d prefer if my DM inbox wasn’t flooded with spam (more than it already is).

Twitter DM: The Impact on Customer Service

This new change will benefit brands that use Twitter as a customer service channel. By allowing their accounts to accept DMs from anyone, brands can receive private customer service messages from customers, without having to first follow them. That may prevent customers from broadcasting their frustrations publicly, not to mention their sensitive account information. This could greatly benefit larger brands that receive thousands of daily requests via Twitter.

For airlines, cable companies and other industries with high numbers of service complaints, this new feature also lets brands move a complaint or other conversation offline as soon as possible. I imagine customers may benefit here as well, as some people may prefer to use Twitter as their communication channel, but don’t necessarily want to be publicly followed by Brand X, Y or Z.

DM The Impact on Spammers

To Twitter’s credit, the company made this change an opt-in feature. If you are happy with the status quo, you don’t have to change a thing. I imagine most Twitter users (at least, the non-branded accounts) will not opt in to receive DMs from unknown users.

However, for those users and brands who do switch over, spam could become an issue. Unscrupulous spammers may have an easier time reaching the DM inboxes of brands and company accounts. That means users will have to exercise extra security caution when opening DM links.

DM The Impact on Marketing

While the new DM feature’s impact on customer service is easy to grasp, its application for marketers is yet unclear. My business rarely uses DMs as is. If someone is looking for information or has a specific question, it’s better for us to send a public tweet in response. That way, the hashtags and discussion thread can be located by anyone else looking for advice on a similar topic. The very beauty of Twitter lies in its public nature; that’s what sets it apart from Facebook, LinkedIn and email. There’s no reason to hide many of these conversations.

However, there may be occasional situations where a business prefers to communicate privately via Twitter. For example, a brand may want to send an exclusive coupon code to its top customers, without broadcasting the action to its entire community.

Likewise, a marketer may want to pitch a journalist with an embargoed piece of news or story idea. Twitter may be that journalist’s preferred communication channel, but as a marketer, you can’t exactly expect reporters or editors to follow you. Now marketers can privately contact journalists via Twitter (provided the journalist has opted in).

Bottom Line

As a newer and smaller company, ours will be opting in to receive DMs from anyone. After all, if a customer wants to reach out to us through this avenue, we don’t want to shut off the opportunity. Twitter’s change may help open the service for better access and communication, but time will tell whether it becomes a hassle.

These days Twitter has become the preferred communication channel for many, serving as a remedy to the overuse and abuse of email. As DM becomes closer in line with email functionality, will the DM inbox become just as cluttered? Will it become overwhelmed with spam? Will users start to look for a cleaner, less cluttered option elsewhere?

How Twitter DM Will Impact Brand Marketing | The Red Elephant