social

Sunil Tripathi, falsely linked on social media to Boston bombings, found dead

Sunil Tripathi, the Brown University student falsely identified by people posting on Reddit and Twitter as a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, is dead.

The 22-year-old's body was recovered from the waters around India Point Park in Rhode Island. In a post on Facebook, Tripathi's family confirmed Tripathi's death and offered the following note:

As we carry indescribable grief, we also feel incredible gratitude. To each one of you-from our hometown to many distant lands-we extend our thanks for the words of encouragement, for your thoughts, for your hands, for your prayers, and for the love … Read more

Top-trending music topics on Twitter to fuel new TV show

Do you like music and want to know what the hottest music-related stories are? A new TV show that features the top trending music topics on Twitter hopes to have you covered.

Known as "Trending 10," the new show is being produced for music-oriented cable TV network Fuse, in partnership with Twitter and gum company Trident.

The idea, the companies said in a release, is to build "Trending 10" around the Top 10 music-related Twitter topics of the day. Those stories will be selected based on Fuse's "heat tracker" algorithm, a system that … Read more

Twitter to roll out new password security control?

After the Associated Press' Twitter account was hacked into on Tuesday and the accounts of CBS News programs "60 Minutes" and "48 Hours" were hacked over the weekend, it's been made clear that Twitter needs to boost security. But, it may be doing just that.

According to Wired's Mat Honan, the social-networking site has reportedly been working on creating a two-factor authentication for user password verification. Honan writes that the company is currently carrying out internal testing before rolling out the new security control.

This isn't a huge surprise considering Twitter posted a job advertisement … Read more

Salesforce.com launches self-serve social ad app

Salesforce.com is turning things up a notch for its Marketing Cloud platform with a new product styled similarly to its other cloud-based products: Social.com.

Social.com stems from Salesforce's acquisition of Buddy Media and its subsidiary, the London-based Brighter Option.

Thus, the Marketing Cloud now boils down to three core areas: social media listening (Radian6), publishing content (Buddy Media), and branding (Social.com). The new service is described as a self-serve application for use by agencies, brands, developers, retailers and advertisers in developing, automating, and managing social ad campaigns.

Touting it as the first platform that connects … Read more

Securities regulators balk at employee social-media privacy

Securities regulators are advocating for special exemptions to new and pending state laws that prevent employers from snooping on employee Twitter or Facebook accounts.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, an independent U.S. securities regulator that seeks to protect investors, is asking lawmakers in around 10 states to amend their legislation to allow financial firms to peak at social media accounts when employee misuse is suspected, a spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.

The fear seems to be that brokers could use their social media accounts to spread information that would influence stocks, and that misdeeds would go unchecked without … Read more

Authorities in Boston bombing helped, hindered by social media

Authorities pursuing a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing have a love-hate relationship with social media. After initially asking for help via Twitter, law enforcement later requested that social-media users be a little more conscientious about the kind of information shared (or fabricated) on social networks.

In the immediate aftermath of the dual blasts that killed three and injured dozens near the marathon finish line on Monday, law enforcement turned to the public via Twitter and other platforms for help crowdsourcing leads. On Thursday, the FBI released video footage of two young men carrying backpacks near the finish line of … Read more

With #Music, Twitter speeds its media domination march

When Twitter opened up its #Music app to everyone on Thursday, it was the strongest sign yet that the social-networking giant is aiming to become a media machine that dominates popular entertainment channels.

There's no doubt that many of Twitter's vast user base already have a deep interest in music, but until now there's been no structured way for artists or fans to leverage that. With the public launch of the company's new discovery service, Twitter has seemingly taken the next step to becoming an indispensable destination both for people to find new music to listen … Read more

Finally, Twitter Music is available to all

You don't have to be the host of "American Idol" to use Twitter Music anymore.

A little more than a month after CNET broke the news that Twitter was working on a stand-alone music discovery app and a week after that app was rolled out to an invite-only group of celebrities and others -- including Ryan Seacrest -- the general public can now get its hands on the music discovery app.

Twitter officially unveiled #music on Thursday during "Good Morning America." The company later provided more details about the service in a blog post, saying … Read more

Twitter adds tweet keyword targeting for advertisers

Twitter said today that it has added the ability for advertisers to target ads at people based on keywords from those users' recent tweets.

In a blog post this morning, Twitter characterized the new feature as "an important new capability -- especially for those advertisers looking for signals of intent -- because it lets marketers reach users at the right moment, in the right context."

To be sure, millions of people are letting the world know what they're thinking in real time by sending out tweets about what they're doing, links they've noticed, news they'… Read more