Fortune 500 companies give social media a thumbs-up

It appears the world's biggest moneymakers are paying increasing attention to social media.

A new report by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth takes a look at how often companies on Fortune Magazine's Fortune 500 list are using social-media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, YouTube, Foursquare, and Pinterest. And the answer is: a lot.

Of those Fortune 500 companies, 77 percent keep active Twitter accounts, 70 percent have a Facebook page, and 69 percent have YouTube accounts. All these stats are up over last year -- with 4 percent more companies keeping Twitter accounts, 4 percent more having a Facebook page, and 7 percent more on YouTube.

Other social networks aren't as popular with the Fortune 500 companies, but they still have some presence. According to the report, 35 percent of companies have an active Google+ account. Of the 500 companies, 44 are on Instagram, 44 are on Foursquare, and 45 have Pinterest accounts.

"Due to the hugely influential role that these companies play in the business world, studying their adoption and use of social-media tools offers important insights into the future of commerce," the report reads. "These corporations provide a look at emergent social-media trends among America's most successful companies."

Not surprisingly, the company that tops the list in social-media activity is a social network itself -- Facebook. Ranked 482 on the Fortune 500 list, Facebook has more than 8.5 million Twitter followers and more than 92 million Facebook fans.
Other leading companies on Twitter include Google, Starbucks, and Whole Foods. While popular Facebook companies included Coca-Cola, Walt Disney, and Starbucks. (See graphs below.)


In addition to being more active on social media, Fortune 500 companies are also blogging more. This year, at 34 percent, more companies than ever have a public facing blog. Currently, 171 companies blog, including two of the top five Fortune 500 companies: Walmart and Exxon.

"This is a group that now seems comfortable and even excited with its newfound ability to engage its vendors, partners, customers, and others in ways that could not have been imagined when most of their corporations began," the report reads. "Judging by the increased use of tools, fans, and followers, they are making some very powerful new connections."

Source:Cnet

Syrian Electronic Army Hacks “The Onion” Twitter and Facebook Accounts

Hackers of the Syrian Electronic Army have hijacked the social media accounts of yet another news organization. Their latest victim is The Onion, the famous American news satire organization.

The hackers say they’ve hijacked a total of five Twitter accounts – TheOnion, OnionSports, ONN, TheAVClub and OnionPolitics –, and two of the publication’s Facebook accounts.


“Syrian Electronic Army Hacked today Twitter accounts and Facebook pages of The Onion satirical newspaper. And that came after that website published a news that harms the reputation of Syria and its leader,” the hackers wrote on their website.

SyriaNews has caught a glimpse of the messages published by the pro-Assad hackers from the compromised accounts.




“UN’s Ban Ki Moon condemns Syria for being struck by israel: ‘It was in the way of Jewish missiles’,” one of the tweets read.

“UN retracts report of Syrian chemical weapon use: ‘Lab tests confirm it is Jihadi body odor’,” the hackers wrote.

Shortly after recovering their accounts, representatives of The Onion have confirmed the incident, in their own manner.

“Following today’s incident in which the Syrian Electronic Army hacked into The Onion’s Twitter account, sources at America’s Finest News Source confirmed that its Twitter password has been changed to OnionMan77 in order to prevent any future cyber-attacks,” reads an article published on The Onion shortly after the breach.

The Onion has published several satirical posts related to the incident, including “The Onion’s tips on how to prevent your major media site from being hacked” and “Syrian Electronic Army has a little fun before inevitable upcoming deaths at hands of rebels.”

 In addition to compromising The Onion’s social media accounts, the Syrian Electronic Army also appears to have hijacked the email accounts of at least a couple of staff members


Source:Softpedia

How Twitter fueled a market swoon

A fake report posted by hackers on the Associated Press Twitter feed caused the S&P 500 to drop 0.9 percent

A single tweet can be enough to cause a stock market crisis, says Christopher Matthews at TIME. We learned that last week, when hackers posted a fake report on the Associated Press Twitter feed claiming that Barack Obama had been injured in an explosion at the White House. The AP quickly flagged the tweet as fake, but not before it "sent shock waves through the market," causing the S&P 500 to drop 0.9 percent and temporarily wiping out $136 billion in stock value. The real culprit behind this latest "flash crash" isn't a hacker — it's "the proliferation of high-frequency trading." Wall Street firms use computer algorithms to make millions of trades per second, triggered by automated scans of news sources- — including Twitter — for specific words or phrases. They make money, but "when the going gets tough, these computers tend to sell quickly and run for the hills, actually reducing liquidity when the market needs it most."

Don't blow this out of proportion, say Jared Keller and Evan Applegate at Businessweek. Cases of false tweets and news reports wreaking havoc on the markets are rare. In 2011, for instance, Apple shares dipped just 1 percent (and quickly rebounded) after a false report said that Apple founder Steve Jobs had died. And when a Twitter account impersonating prominent short-seller David Einhorn tried to "induce fluctuations" in Herbalife's stock in February, the company's value underwent "no noticeable change." Still, the AP episode "highlights the potential pitfalls of relying on social networks for tradable information," especially on the heels of the Securities and Exchange Commission's announcement that companies can use social media sites, including Twitter and Facebook, "to share market-moving company announcements."

The solution is better security, says Caleb Garling in the San Francisco Chronicle. The First Amendment "prevents the government from controlling what users say on Twitter," but regulators can make social media firms beef up their protocols. False information "has the potential to be damaging to more than the financial world." Just imagine: "If the hacked AP tweet had been more believable and not as easy to discredit — say, 'U.S. Navy moving into strategic positions around North Korea' — a global emergency could have ensued." The technology sector may disdain regulation, but "other kinds of information, such as financial and health-care data, are already strictly regulated by law." It's up to the consumer to decide what to trust on Twitter, but messages shouldn't be so easy to fake.

"Other than self-restraint, which is in short supply these days, nothing much can be done to prevent any of this," says George Packer at The New Yorker. Social media sites will seek new means to "spread information, for better and worse, farther and faster than the Spanish flu." And unless regulators crack down on high-frequency traders, they "will go on using algorithms that turn milliseconds of information advantage into huge profits" — even if that information is wrong.

New Zealand's internet bad boy wants to see top U.S. lawman

WASHINGTON/WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A trip to New Zealand will put America's chief prosecutor on the same soil as a flashy internet mogul who is fighting extradition to the United States on charges he assisted massive piracy of copyrighted movies and music.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder visits New Zealand next week for an annual meeting of a "quintet" of attorneys general from mostly English-speaking countries - and not to meet up with the entrepreneur Kim Dotcom.

The founder of defunct file-sharing service Megaupload, Dotcom has oscillated between assailing Holder's trip and wanting to hear what he has to say in person.

It was unclear on Thursday whether Holder would appear in public. His speech at the University of Auckland is planned primarily for students and will be closed to the public and the media, although his U.S. speeches are usually open to the media.

In Twitter posts, Dotcom requested a ticket to the speech, offered to send T-shirts and an ethics manual to wherever Holder is staying and challenged his followers to film Holder while a Megaupload theme song plays for a $500 prize.

Dotcom tweeted that he would like to understand Holder's definition of cybercrime, one issue the quintet works on.

An extradition hearing for Dotcom is scheduled for August, although appeals could further delay it, said Ira Rothken, a lawyer for Megaupload. He told Reuters by phone he had no reason to expect a meeting between Holder and Dotcom.

Holder declined an interview through a spokeswoman on Thursday. Federal prosecutors in Virginia who are handling the case declined to comment on how it is proceeding.

Dotcom got rich from founding Megaupload, which allowed users to upload and download movies, music, television shows, e-books and software. The site once commanded 4 percent of global online traffic before U.S. prosecutors shut it down.

The United States began a criminal copyright case against Dotcom in January 2012. At Washington's request, New Zealand law enforcement officers conducted a dramatic raid on his mansion outside Auckland.

Attempts to have him sent to the United States for trial were delayed after a New Zealand court last year found that New Zealand used unlawful warrants in his arrest and illegally spied on him in the lead-up to the raid.

PRECEDENT SETTER?

Dotcom and six associates face U.S. charges that they conspired to infringe copyrights, launder money and commit racketeering and fraud.

The copyright case could set a precedent for internet liability laws and, depending on its outcome, may force entertainment companies to rethink their distribution methods.

Dotcom maintains that Megaupload, which housed everything from family photos to Hollywood blockbusters, was merely a storage facility for online files, and should not be held accountable if content stored on the site was obtained illegally.

The Justice Department counters that Megaupload encouraged piracy by paying money to users who uploaded popular content and by deleting content that was not regularly downloaded.

It said Megaupload cost copyright holders such as movie studios and record companies more than $500 million and generated more than $175 million in criminal proceeds. It called the case among the largest ever involving criminal copyright.

Dotcom launched a new file-sharing service, Mega, in January.

Many New Zealanders view Dotcom, born in Germany as Kim Schmitz, as a folk hero fighting for online freedom and willing to stand up to the U.S. and New Zealand governments.

Dotcom, who has been released on bail and is suing the New Zealand government for illegal surveillance, predicted Holder would keep a low profile during his visit.

"It's probably risk management and avoidance of bad PR because the story has not yet arrived in any big way in the U.S. media," he wrote in an email to Reuters. "Any bad coverage here might spill over to the U.S."

Holder's visit to Dotcom's country of residence is not his choice. The attorneys general of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States began meeting as a quintet in 2009 to discuss legal matters including cybercrime.

After a gathering in Ottawa last year, it was New Zealand's turn to host.

(Reporting by David Ingram in Washington and Naomi Tajitsu in Wellington; Editing by Howard Goller and Xavier Briand)


Source:Reuters

Former Obama CTO slams Twitter over lack of two-factor authentication

The chief technology officer of the Barack Obama re-election campaign has branded Twitter “ridiculous” for not offering two-factor authentication security.

Harper Reed (pictured above), who managed the technology team overseeing the president's 2012 campaign, said they regularly contacted Twitter to ask for the capability, but were ignored, for reasons that remain unclear.

“I think it’s ridiculous. It was something we constantly called and complained about but apparently they didn’t want to,” he said at an event organised by the Direct Marketing Association.

“The only thing Twitter does is monitor verified accounts so we had that but two-factor authentication is one of the most important things for email and social.”

The comments come as the demand for two-factor authentication from Twitter grows in the wake of numerous high-profile hacks on account such as Burger King, Jeep and the Associated Press.

As such, Reed urged any firm using services that have two-factor authentication capabilities, such as webmail systems or Facebook to take advantage of the protection this offers.

“If you’re a brand on Facebook or using internal or external email systems that have two-factor authentication, please turn it on,” he added.

Reed also explained that the campaign team were deeply concerned by security issues during the re-election campaign, given the rise of hacking incidents and the methods of putting information online, used by groups such as Anonymous.

“We weren’t so worried about people stealing information but about information being leaked and the embarrassment that would cause to the Obama campaign,” he said.

Source:V3