Fashion’s Tumblr Takeover

Combining the layout and mixed-media potential of a blog with the efficiency and built-in community of Twitter, Tumblr has officially become the new new media platform of the fashion industry.

Though launched back in 2007 and now featuring thousands of sites encompassing myriad subjects, the micro-blogging network has gradually proven to be an ideal platform for both fashion brands and amateur fashionistas alike due to its visual emphasis and visceral appeal.
Last fall, Tumblr founder David Karp told TechCrunch that he hopes to see the network become "the best place in the world for the best creative communities." And, just months later, it looks like this is increasingly the case. Tumblr sites dedicated to style, design and fashion account for an overwhelming percentage of the platform’s use — 20 percent of the top 1000 Tumblr blogs, to be precise.
These sites naturally vary from personal style blogs to street fashion spotters to vintage aficionados, but such variety and prolificacy simply reflects the potential that the platform represents.

On the brand end of things, for instance, the masterminds behind Alexander McQueen’s youth-oriented line McQ saw Tumblr as a mirror for McQ’s implicit message of self-expression. "The core of McQ’s brand value lies in youth culture so it is important for us to speak to the younger audience through platforms that are routine to them," explains Jonathan Akeroyd, CEO of Alexander McQueen.
"This is a fresh and innovative way of communicating where we get to interact with the audience directly. Through social media we forge relationships and get them involved with McQ’s creative world." As a result, McQ strategically launched its spring/summer ‘11 collection via a road trip-themed photo narrative on the label’s Tumblr page.
Although Tumblr users are given the option to upload text, links, audio and video, the overwhelming majority of the content consists of photos. Unsurprisingly, this has proven to be highly compatible with the fashion industry’s own image-heavy emphasis.
"Tumblr has struck a chord with the fashion community because, like fashion itself, the platform is both immediate and highly visual," Vikram Alexei Kansara observed in an article on Tumblr’s rise for The Business of Fashion. As such, everyone from powerhouses like Vogue to newcomer prodigies like Tavi Gevinson have launched their own Tumblr accounts.
Given the simplicity and straightforward access that Tumblr affords, it’s easy to see why it has been embraced within the new democratized ideal of fashion. Whether a playground for pure passion or a more demographic-oriented marketing platform, Tumblr reflects the same expressive compulsion that also characterizes the fashion industry’s inherent creativity.

Source: www.theibtimes.com

Up to 1.5 Million Websites Hit with Mass-Injection Attack

(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) –- Security firm WebSense (www.websense.com) discovered an attack last week where malware writers used website flaws to inject malicious scripts into hundreds of thousands of websites.
The attack came in the form of an injected domain called LizaMoon, which WebSense says is a part of a larger attack that redirects users to a website that dupes them into downloading rogue anti-virus software called Windows Stability Center.
WebSense says that LizaMoon uses SQL injection to upload malicious script to compromised websites.
Other domains have since followed LizaMoon in these injection attack, and WebSense has posted a full list of these URLs on its website.
On March 28, WebSecurity initially found 28,000 URLs had been compromised. However, the security firm later discovered a total of 226,000 compromised URLs, many of which were iTunes URLs. Apple has since rid these URLs of the malicious code.
At the time of this article's posting, a Google Search shows that there are well over 1.5 million infected URLs.
However, this number may not be entirely accurate, as WebSense says that a Google Search is an inaccurate metric since it shows unique URLs and not unique hosts.
As the attack continues to make its rounds across the Internet, WebSense is warning users not to install any web-based anti-virus software that claims your computer is full of bugs.
In another attack reported last week, the Oracle-owned MySQL.com website was compromised by two Romania-based hackers, who published usernames and passwords for some users of the site.

Source: www.thewhir.com

Facebook vs. Twitter: Which is Better for Marketing?

The Facebook vs. Twitter debate --and which one is a more effective marketing tool -- continues as another conflicting headline makes its way into the social media ecosphere.
Despite daily coverage of the social network leaders, questions like this one found on Quora, "Are Facebook Likes social proof of anything other than mass opinion," are not uncommon. Though business owners may possess more savvy, the tangible benefits of social media are often difficult to assess, particularly when there is lack of context for a given statistic or success story.
Consider these two headlines: "Facebook entitled 'Likes' more profitable than tweets" via Mashable on CNN and "When It Comes To Marketing, Twitter Destroys Facebook," by Business Insider.
In the Mashable article, the social media centric event company Eventbrite is profiled whereas the company claims that "an average tweet about an event drove 80 cents in ticket sales during the past six months, whereas an average Facebook Like drove $1.34."
Using in-house custom analytics, Eventbrite provided the following social media marketing data on its blog last October: "Facebook equals $2.52, a share on Twitter equals $0.43, a share on LinkedIn equals $0.90, and a share through our "email friends" application equals $2.34."
Given the inherent social nature of events and that people want to attach their name to one as well as encourage participation, Facebook makes good sense. Twitter is useful as well but is less integrated and socially focused, among other limitations it possesses.
Conversely, a December 2010 Business Insider article broadens their Facebook vs. Twitter analysis to include aggregate data from a social media referral platform SocialTwist. Here the company found that "after analyzing more than one million links on both platforms, researchers found that Facebook's shared links average only 3 clicks, while Twitter's embedded tweets generate 19."
SocialTwist is geared toward small business, affiliate marketers and bloggers in particular. As such closer social ties may be less relevant than exposure in generating interest.

Source: news.yahoo.com

Twitter disables new version of website

Reuters) - Twitter experienced service disruptions on Tuesday, displaying an older version of the social networking website to some users and becoming completely inaccessible to others.

A message on Twitter's Web page that provides updates on the service's status said: "We've temporarily disabled #NewTwitter. Our engineers are working on re-enabling it and we'll update you shortly."

Twitter, which allows users to send short, 140-character messages to groups of "followers," has more than 200 million registered accounts and has become a popular communications service with businesses, celebrities and protesters in the Middle East.

Last month Twitter announced that it had moved its infrastructure to a new home at an undisclosed location, which the company said would allow it to constantly "stay abreast" of its capacity needs and provide greater reliability.

But a custom-built datacenter in Utah that was meant to house Twitter's gear has been plagued with problems, according to people familiar with the matter, forcing Twitter to move most of the site's operations to a facility in Sacramento, California instead.

Tuesday's disruptions meant that some people were using the version of the Twitter site that preceded a redesign unveiled in September. Other Twitter users were unable to log on at all, and were greeted with a page informing them that "something is technically wrong" and promising to have things "back to normal soon."

A Twitter spokeswoman said the company had no details to provide beyond the statements on its special technical status Web page.

Source: www.reuters.com

Twitter’s Tax Break Clears One Hurdle

Twitter is well on its way to getting a tax break in San Francisco after threatening to leave the city for the suburbs.

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted 8 to 3 to preliminarily approve a tax break that could allow Twitter to avoid tens of millions of dollars in taxes. A second vote expected next week would make the legislation official.

As I recounted in an article Monday in the Times, Twitter had said it planned to move out of San Francisco, where it is based, because of the high cost of doing business.

In particular, Twitter complained about the city’s payroll tax, which requires companies to pay the equivalent of 1.5 percent of all employee compensation. The tax is based on employee salaries, bonuses and, most importantly to companies like Twitter that are contemplating initial public offerings, gains on stock options. To avoid losing Twitter and the prestige that comes with it, city officials rushed in with an offer: Move into a building on Market Street, in a neighborhood known for its panhandling, and get a tax break. Twitter agreed to the deal, pending the tax break’s approval.

Any company with a payroll greater than $1 million that moves into the “rehabilitation zone” would be eligible. They would pay their current tax for the next six years, no matter how many employees they added during that time or how much money they made from stock options.

“Today’s vote is a vote to keep jobs in San Francisco,” David Chiu, president of the Board of Supervisors, said in a statement. “This policy is a crucial positive step in the ongoing effort to revitalize the Central Market and Tenderloin neighborhoods.”

He continued: “Twitter’s commitment to move to this challenged stretch of Market Street and stay in San Francisco shows that we are not content to simply become a bedroom community for Silicon Valley. The companies that are born here should grow here.”

Fellow San Francisco Internet company Zynga quickly started agitating for a similar tax break after, of course, threatening to leave. However, Zynga, a hot Internet company in its own right as maker of the Farmville online video game, is not located in the rehabilitation zone.

Ross Mirkarimi, a member of the Board of Supervisors, has proposed legislation that would address that problem by creating a two-year tax break for any technology company in the city that has more than 100 employees, but are not yet publicly traded.

Source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/