#INFOGRAPHIC: Choosing the Most Effective Social Media Platforms

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn. Etc. So many social media platforms. And so little time. (And manpower. And ideas.) There are costs involved to maintaining a social presence. It is vital for brands / companies / organisations to market on the right platform(s) in order to optimize their resource allocation. Use this infographic to help you choose the most efficient social media platform(s) according to factors like your goals, target audience and capabilities.


This Infographic is Published by Infographics.SG

Choosing the most effective social media platforms infographic

INFOGRAPHIC: A Marketer’s Guide to Reddit

By Devon Glenn at Social Times: 
Marketers who threaten the Reddit community with spammy links and boring content will likely be destroyed, says Prestige Marketing. On the link-sharing site known as the “Front Page of the Internet,” only the strong survive.

Reddit receives 2.5 billion page views per month, and thus any content that reaches the front page receives millions of views. The only way to do that without spending a lot of money is to get Reddit’s 34.9 million monthly unique visitors to “vote up” your content.

In general, content should be original and clever. It also helps to make use of the site’s 164,678 subreddits, which are niche topics like “gaming” or “funny.” Redditors create a lot of the content that gets spread around to other sites, so advertisers who try to ingratiate themselves with the community by playing on internet memes should be careful.

But for those brave enough to try, just remember who your audience is. The average Redditor is a 20-something, college-educated male who earns between $25,000 and $50,000 per year. Redditors are internet savvy, typically liberal, and will reject anything overtly solicitous.

See an explanation of how Reddit works in this infographic below:

The Reddit Marketing Field Guide [Infographic]

INFOGRAPHIC: The Current State Of Social Networks 2012

By Shea Bennett  at Media Bistro:
Did you know that Twitter is the social network with the strongest growth rate in 2012, ahead of LinkedIn, Pinterest and Reddit?

Facebook? That didn’t even make the cut. Still, when you’re closing in fast on one billion users, your annual growth rate does tend to slow down a smidgen. Still, don’t shed a tear for Mark Zuckerberg – save those for the owners of Digg, Bebo, Friendster and, of course, MySpace, who are the four social networks most in decline, reminding us that success in this space can be both dramatic and fleeting.

This data comes courtesy of Ignite Social Media, who have compiled the infographic of infographics about the state of social media, worldwide, in 2012. Ignite’s research revealed that while social media as a whole continues to plateau – we haven’t seen any real growth, planet-wide, since 2009 – there are many success stories to be found. Pinterest has quickly established itself as the de facto social network for women, and Plaxo (who knew that was still going?) is incredibly popular with senior citizens.

Check out all this, and more, in the visualization below.

INFOGRAPHIC: Social Media Leaders

By Shawn Hess at WebProNews:  
So you think you know everything about social media and networking? Well the truth is, it has been around a lot longer than Facebook, but like a lot of things on the internet, we don’t hear about them until they are trendy and popular, or somebody gets sued over them.
This infographic from Socialjumpstart.com shows us who the big names in social networking are and how long they’ve been around. It covers everybody who has a presence online today. Of course, Facebook comes out on top, no surprise there.
Reddit, Club Penguin, Tagged, Spotify, and even the big guys like Twitter, and Linkedin show up on this graphic. So if you want to get the lowdown on what’s happening in social networking today, you need look no further. Enjoy!

Browse more Social Media infographics.

Meet Reddit’s New CEO: Facebook Alum / Quora Star Yishan ‘Sparklepants’ Wong

By Rip Empson at TechCrunch:
The front page of the Internet, also known as the social news community reddit had seen its fair share of ups and downs over the years, but in September of last year, many in its community saw a silver lining when its owner, Conde Nast, spun it out as a standalone site, and recruited co-founder Alexis Ohanian to sit on its new board of directors.
As it so happens, when reddit became a (somewhat more) independent entity in September, it also launched a search for a CEO to lead the site to infinity and beyond. Today, reddit is finally announcing the hiring of (what I believe) is its first CEO, Yishan Wong. In a blog post to the reddit community today, Wong said of hearing of the hunt for a CEO:

I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t immediately cross my mind to imagine what it would be like to do that job. I’d left my previous company (Facebook) over a year ago and been doing random startup consulting ever since … So imagine my surprise when two days later, I was contacted asking if I was interested in talking about the position … At first, I didn’t really quite believe I was a serious candidate. It didn’t seem real, and I knew that I didn’t match the profile of what you might consider (or so I thought) a CEO candidate. I don’t have the polish and the poise and the schmoozing, and I don’t play golf.

 The new CEO’s Facebook profile officially lists his name as Yishan “Sparklepants” Wong, so there’s little doubt that, in spite of his lacking proficiency at golf, he’ll fit right in at reddit. And while Wong may not have experience as a chief executive, Wong was formerly the Director of Engineering at Facebook, where he worked as an early employee from 2005 to 2010, helping to build Facebook’s engineering staff into the army it is today.
As was first reported by Kim-Mai Cutler on Inside Facebook (soon to be a TechCruncher), he was also an early employee at PayPal, starting at the company in 2001, prior to its acquisition by eBay, through 2005, when he joined Facebook. After leaving Facebook, as he says in his address to redditors, he has “been doing random startup consulting ever since.” Wong, as indicated in the headline is also an avid user of Quora, where he is known for offering some terrific, irreverent answers to the questions of the day.
As part of his new role as CEO, Wong reiterated that reddit has established a new board, including Ohanian, along with revamping its capital structure to allow the company “to manage its own finances and operations, including the ability to provide competitive equity compensation to its employees, which [it hasn't] been able to do in the past.”
Wong says that these moves were made so that the company can gain further flexibility and get full control over its resources, as it works to meet the demands of its growing user base. That being said, the new CEO is not looking to make sweeping changes to the community itself:

I’m not looking to step in and make “big, bold changes” – I think reddit is great, and the team has a lot of good features already in the pipeline to improve functionality for users and mods, help with subreddit discovery, improve the API, and help bring reddit to more people – so the primary goal for my first few months is to listen and try to learn as much as I can about the details of the product and the community.

And just in case you’re wondering what the ever-active, plucky group of reddit users are saying about the new hire, you can check out their reactions here. And for more on Wong, check out his page here, and his blog post to the reddit community here.

Reddit appoints Yishan Wong as new CEO

By Laura O'Brien at SiliconRepublic: 

A former director of engineering at Facebook Yishan Wong has become the new CEO of content-sharing website Reddit.

Wong was previously a director of engineering at Facebook and left to do start-up consulting. He has also been a member of Reddit since 2005.
Wong announced the news in a blog post, saying he was surprised to get the job. He believed he “didn’t match the profile of what you might consider (or so I thought) a CEO candidate.” However, he said he soon learned Reddit was not looking for the typical candidate.
“I don't have the polish and the poise and the schmoozing, and I don't play golf. Instead, I'm an engineer and a leader of engineers and I play Starcraft (poorly),” said Wong.
“But as I continued the conversations, I came to understand that Reddit wasn't looking for a conventional CEO candidate, because Reddit is not a conventional company,” he said.
Reddit was previously acquired by Condé Naste Publications in 2006. In September 2011, it announced it would spin out to become its own independent company under the firm which owns Conde Naste Publications, Advance Publications. As a result, it was looking for a CEO to help complete the spin-off.

Read the full article here

Getting Started with Reddit [The Marketers Guide to Reddit]

By Sherice Jacob at KISSmetrics: 
Reddit calls itself “The Front Page of the Internet”, and there’s never been a more appropriate slogan.  It’s s a fascinating mix of interesting news, cool links, social commentary and computer nerdiness all rolled into one.  Sounds like the ideal place to promote a website, right?
Well, it can be, but like all online communities, there’s a certain degree of “reddiquette” to follow.  Do it right, and you’ll be seeing a measurable stream of targeted traffic.  Do it wrong, and you’ll be downvoted into nothingness.  Here’s how it works.

Getting Started with Reddit

At its core, Reddit is made up of a bunch of “sub-reddits” on just about every category and topic you can imagine.  To find them, you can do a search on Reddit itself, or go to www.reddit.com/r/yourtopichere. Like reddit.com/r/music or reddit.com/r/politics.  Posting to the correct one is vital to making sure your submission doesn’t get downvoted and lost in the sea of other “me-too” posters.

Reddit shows its light-hearted side even when it crashes

When you first get started with Reddit, you can register an account without having to verify your email. It’s a good idea to go ahead and verify it though since as you comment and post links, you’ll build up karma.  Karma reflects your standing in the community based on comments you’ve made or links you’ve submitted – although it won’t help ratchet your posts up any higher than someone who just joined. It is, however, a good indicator of your status among your fellow “redditors” – and people do look at it.

Another important point about joining – choose your username wisely, as you cannot change it once it’s registered.  Every post you start, every link you submit, and every comment you make is stored under your profile page, like an archival trail of where you’ve been and what you’ve said.
It’s also worth noting that if you’ve already built up link and/or comment karma, these can’t be transferred to another account you create.

Reddit Marketing 101

Redditors love things that are unique, funny, interesting, cute and courageous.  Unlike other social sites, Reddit isn’t about who your friends are – so being BFFs with the highest-ranking Digg member means nothing here.
Reddit’s popularity can be directly traced to this free and open sharing site. Just about anything and everything goes. According to statistics from Ignite, most Reddit users are male, between the ages of 35-44 (with 25-34 year-olds not far behind), and with income levels generally around $25,000-$50,000 per year. Most Redditors have a bachelor’s degree or at least some college education, and the overwhelming majority of their users come from the U.S. (in particular San Francisco and Seattle) with Canada (Toronto) a close second.

Reddit’s traffic has grown steadily since 2006.

As of June 2011, Reddit’s traffic hit nearly two million unique visitors.

An Information Buffet

Reddit users can easily spend hours on the site, and they’re always looking for something to click on.  That being said though, because of the potential for sites that trick users into clicking shortlinks (and then installing malware and other junk), URL shorteners generally go nowhere with Reddit users.  If you’re going to post a link, go ahead and post the whole, exact thing. This isn’t Twitter, so you aren’t restricted by the number of characters.
Overall, the best way to get the most out of reddit is to interact with it.  Post incredible photos, videos, ask for help or suggestions (and be prepared for answers you might not have expected!) . Upvote relevant comments (by pressing the orange arrow beside each comment or post), and leave your own comments.
Upvoting is what helps your content get to the top of the heap. It’s the same as other social networking features (Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.) in that the more you have, the higher your post will go and possibly make it to the front page.

Using Subreddits Effectively

There are some cases where the subreddit you’re interested in is a bit TOO targeted.  Like /r/copywriting . There’s not much action going on in there (probably because it looks too much like work!) but /r/starcraft, /r/gaming and /r/politics are positively overflowing with submissions and thus – traffic.
With this in mind, and if your topic is relevant, you may be able to squeeze it into one of the broader (traffic-getting) subreddit categories. For example:

• /r/todayilearned – These submissions start with TIL for Today I Learned… If you have some interesting tidbit or factoid of news that would appeal to a large group of people, this is the best place for it.  Current top trending TILs include: TIL about Adam Rainer, the only person in recorded history ever to have been both a dwarf and a giant.. Or, TIL Titanic survivors were charged $1 per word to send telegrams from their lifeboat. One man used his last dollar to send the word ‘Safe’ to his mother
• /r/askreddit – This is where you can ask the masses of Reddit their ideas and opinions on just about anything.  Examples include: What is the correct answer to “what is your greatest weakness” in a job interview? And If your computer could talk, what would yours say about you?. Beware that if you’re on the squeamish side, you may not want to read some of the questions.
• /r/IAMA – Unusual professions and situations are found at IAMA. Current submissions include everyone from paleontologists to pushcart vendors.  If you have or ever had an interesting profession or background – this is the place for you.

Make Reddit Your Own

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information on “The Front Page of the Internet” (and who wouldn’t?), you can easily customize the front page to reflect your interests while getting some interesting tidbits of news you may not find yet on other sites.
When you’re on a subreddit, just press the “frontpage” button on the top right to make it part of your Front Page. It will also appear along the top “most frequently used” categories that stretch across the site.  You can also see how many other users have this same subreddit as part of their front page.  It’s a great way to filter out the noise and get updates on exactly what you want to see – from all over the web.
This way, you can also see what kinds of post topics are popular with readers. In some cases, particularly if your content is extremely popular, it may also be cross-posted from one subreddit to another. So, for instance, if your post is gaining lots of upvotes over in /r/YouShouldKnow, don’t be surprised if it gets mentioned over in /r/TodayILearned.
The most important point to keep in mind when posting to Reddit is to tweak your post titles to take full advantage of the curiosity angle. Instead of posting a title like “Dealing with a Disrespectful Boss: 5 Ways to Make Sure You Don’t Get Fired”, a more provoking personal-style title will get more hits, votes and traffic – such as – “Got Fired! How Would You Deal with the Boss from Hell?”

Who is Reddit Good For?

Even though Reddit is a massive sharing community, it’s not exactly endearing to your average marketer. That’s because time and time again, people register accounts and post up articles or sales pitches expecting to siphon some of Reddit’s traffic.  Instead, they get torn to shreds in the comments, flagged as spam, submitted to abuse, and basically never heard from again.  There are, however, some blogs and subjects that do extremely well on Reddit, including:

• Personal stories that are heartwarming and tell of challenges, survival, or facing incredible odds.
• Educational sites and stories that have unusual or obscure facts about history, a condition, disease or movement.
• Photography and art
• Politics (both in the U.S. and worldwide), Religion (including atheism),  Marijuana
• Video games (console and MMORPGs)
• Technology (computers, browsers, gadgets, programming)
• Science
• Music
• Comics
• Food
• Fitness

If your blog or website doesn’t fit into one of these types, check to see if there is a /r/subreddit already made for it. If not, you can always create one yourself and invite others to participate. Overall, you want to be sure that your best content shines on Reddit. This isn’t a place where you can manipulate the system or post half-baked content. It will never see the light of day.

How Do You Market Yourself on Reddit?

If your website content tends to be more progressive, unique, curious or simply eye-candy, there’s a strong chance it will do well on Reddit. All social media sharing sites have their own underlying pulse – and if you can tap into that by posting relevant content, you’ll be rewarded with a massive boost in traffic. Remember that here, people are actively looking for something that piques their interest. Tailor your posts to meet that urge head-on, and you’ll start reaping heaps of traffic.

Reddit Ads can Drive More Traffic than Advertising on StumbleUpon or Facebook

If you’d rather jump to the front of the line when it comes to marketing, you can guarantee your post a spot on the front page through Reddit advertising.  You can target your ad to show on ALL of Reddit (untargeted), or only certain subreddits you choose (targeted).  The self-serve advertising FAQ will answer all your questions about how to set up an ad campaign and promote with Reddit.  Gabriel Weinberg of search engine startup DuckDuckGo, experienced phenomenal success advertising with Reddit, as he was able to reach the kind of brand-engaged audience he wanted (plus get valuable feedback to make his product even better).

The Final Word on Reddit Promotion

Reddit is an eclectic blend of quirkiness and geekdom that, for the right kinds of websites, could make all the difference in getting your brand in front of engaged eyeballs and visitors who have something to say. Many business owners unfortunately dismiss Reddit as being the red-headed stepchild of the social media world, but if you’re targeting certain niches, aren’t afraid of criticism and want to reach trendsetters – there’s no better place.

About The Author: Sherice Jacob helps blog owners improve website design and increase conversion rates with custom blog theme design and SEO copywriting through her company at iElectrify. Get more from @sherice on Twitter

INFOGRAOHIC: Key Statistics Of The Top 5 Social Media Sites

By Shea Bennett at MediaBistro:
In less than a decade, social media has grown from fairly humble beginnings to an integral and increasingly important part of the everyday lives of hundreds of millions of users around the world, as well as playing a vital role in the marketing and branding aspirations of businesses of all shapes and sizes.
Facebook alone is closing in on fast on the mind-blowing one billion users tally, and collectively the major social networks, which also includes Twitter and Google+, command the attention of a huge percentage of the global internet population.
A new infographic from the Graphic Design Blog takes a look at the key statistics of the top social media sites, which in this case includes Facebook, Twitter and Google+, plus Reddit and Stumbleupon.
Which, you’ll agree, is an interesting selection. Reddit is certainly a community, but it’s highly debatable that Stumbleupon is a social media site. Social bookmarking, perhaps, so I guess it kinda qualifies. Only a passing mention is given to LinkedIn, and rising star Pinterest could certainly warrant an appearance, perhaps at the expense of the flagging Google+. Still, however you feel about the networks included, this infographic is jam-packed full of data.

New Data: Pinterest Referring More Traffic Than LinkedIn, Reddit, Google+

By Jason Keath at SocialFresh: 

Pinterest is the pretty new girl in school, getting all the attention, but it turns out this new face means business as well.
According to Shareaholic’s findings (based on aggregated data from more than 200,000 publishers that reach more than 260 million unique monthly visitors each month) they have discovered that Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Google Plus, LinkedIn and YouTube combined.
That is pretty significant for a social network that most marketers still do not even know exists. And yes, they are still an invite only community.

This data does not include EVERY referral source out there on the web. But it does put Pinterest into context compared to other major social sites. And it can give anyone doing business online a good sense of where strong referral opportunities might exist for their business.
The Highlights of the Data
Here are a few key takeaways from the Sahreaholic findings:

• Pinterest grew from 2.5% of referral traffic in December to 3.6% of the referrals in January. That’s impressive growth from just owning .17% of the traffic back in July.

• Referral traffic from Google+ dropped slightly in January, although Google’s product set (Google news, Google images, Gmail) continues to be a top referral source. With Search Plus, Google continues to integrate Google + into its various offerings. So no, the jury isn’t out on Google+ yet.

• On the brink of its IPO, Facebook continues to dominate referral traffic. Facebook mobile traffic alone accounting for 4.3% of overall referrals. Referral traffic grew by about 1% in January, making it the second fastest-growing site for referral traffic after Stumbleupon.

• Social bookmarking sites aren’t talked about nearly as often as the new kids on the block like Pinterest and Google+. However Stumbleupon was the number two referral source can’t be denied. Reddit wasn’t too far behind at #2. Comparatively, similar bookmarking sites Delicious and Digg didn’t make the top 150.

• Checking up on MySpace is always an intriguing trip down memory lane. The once-dominant social network lingers as a small source of referral traffic with no sign of growth this month.

Read the full article here

Internet Justice League: Superheroes of the Online World [COMICS]

Via Mashable:
What if the titans of today’s Internet turned into superheroes? Here’s the Internet Justice League, a pantheon of superheroes infused with awesome Internet powers.
Each represents an Internet entity, including Facebook, Google, Google+, Amazon and more, all jostling with the other superheroes for Internet dominance.
Too bad many of their superpowers are sometimes questionable. See if you agree with College Humor cartoonist Caldwell Tanner’s assessments of these Internet behemoths, their relationships with each other and their various archenemies.
Illustrations courtesy College Humor, used with permission

Reddit, Tumblr and Firefox vs Stop Online Privacy Act

Reddit, Tumblr and Firefox took a stand against a proposed U.S. law by drawing broad black lines on their websites. The proposed law is being described as “censorship” by Internet companies and “piracy protection” by entertainment companies.

The broad black lines made a symbolic stroke as the Internet advocacy organizations declared Wednesday, American Censorship Day. The day marks a time when large web companies dedicate their efforts to encourage users to publically speak out against the Stop Online Piracy Act (Protect IP Act). The bill gives the U.S. Justice Department more authority to pursue websites that host copyright material such as YouTube and Tumblr. Both sites carry user-generated content that easily could have copyright violations.
Tumblr was pretty aggressive in their overall campaign on American Censorship Day. The platform blacked out all user-generated content the moment you first logged on. Once you clicked on the gray lines a message appeared, informing you: “Congress is holding hearings today and will soon pass a bill empowering corporations to censor the Internet unless you tell them no”. You were then given an option to leave your phone number, so you could be connected to your elected representative.
If you left your phone number, a recording of Tumblr CEO David Karp called you back with key points on the issue and then said, “thank you for doing your part to protect the Internet” and then dialed the phone number for your representative.
Other social networks participated in the protest as well. Mozilla and Reddit censored their logos. Users simply clicked through to instructions for getting in touch with their representatives.
Other Internet companies did more traditional methods of protest against censorship – delivering letters and running a full-page ad in the New York Times.
The protest campaigns were being heard on Capitol Hill. A Reddit user posted “I have a friend who works for a congressperson. Her comments: “Our phones have been ringing about this all day. Just got back to my desk and see the news coverage. Whatever group spurred this phone campaign did a good job. BTW – I appreciate you asking folks to be polite. People do usually tend to yell at us.”

By Kenna McHugh at SocialTimes

Reddit Hits 1.8B Monthly Pageviews, /r/Funny Subreddit Snags 1M Subscribers

 Reddit has hit several fascinating milestones as the social news website continues to grow in popularity. In addition to hitting 1.8 billion monthly pageviews, one of the site’s sections (or subreddits) now has more than 1 million subscribers.
Over the last month, Reddit has seen 28 million unique visitors, who have generated 1.8 billion pageviews. That is almost double the 1 billion pageviews Reddit had at the start of this year.
The /r/funny subreddit has become the first to have more than 1 million subscribers, while 265 sections now have more than 10,000 subscribers. However, it should be noted that every new registered account is automatically subscribed to /r/funny, so it’s unclear how much value should be placed on the subreddit hitting the milestone figure.
The site’s general manager Erik Martin told The Daily Dot that approximately 80 percent to 90 percent of Reddit’s traffic comes from people who view content but do not register an account on the website.
Reddit was recently restructured to give the company a little more operational freedom while still being owned by Advance Publications, the parent company of Condé Nast. The website has been hit by controversy in recent months over the Jailbait subreddit, which featured photos of underage teens in underwear, swimsuits and lingerie. The section was closed earlier this month.
Another popular subreddit called IAmA, where users are able to ask the creator of a thread any question, was shut down by its creator and moderator in August. However, the redditor backtracked on his decision and handed control of IAmA over to another moderator.

by Chris Holt at Scribbal

Warner Bros. Buys Reddit Short Story…But Who Really Owns The Content?

Author James Erwin scored big when he sold the movie rights for “Rome, Sweet Rome,” a series of short stories that he wrote on Reddit.com about a group of U.S. Marines that travel back in time to fight the Roman Empire, to Warner Bros.  But the deal, which Warner Bros. is referring to as “exclusive” brings up a lot of questions about who really owns the content and whether Erwin really was in a position to sell.

Eriq Gardner of Hollywood Reporter pretty much sums up the controversy in one single question, “Warner Bros. aggressively snapped up rights to this story upon seeing it, but does the studio really hold exclusive rights to a film adaptation?”  After all, Reddit’s User Agreement explicitly states the following:

“…you agree that by posting messages, uploading files, inputting data, or engaging in any other form of communication with or through the Website, you grand us a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, translate, enhance, transmit, distribute, publicly perform, display, or sublicense any such communication in any medium (now in existence or hereinafter developed) and for any purpose, including commercial purposes, and to authorize others to do so.”

By posting the “Rome, Sweet Rome” stories to Reddit Erwin therefore gave over the rights to Reddit.  Reddit, according to their User Agreement, has clear permission to adapt the stories and basically do anything they want with them, from making their own movie to licensing anyone else to create a movie using the story.  So how can Erwin sell Warner Bros. “exclusive” rights?
Gardner also brings up the fact that other Reddit users, aside from James Erwin, made suggestions that could ultimately find themselves included in the final story if and when Warner Bros. does turn it into a film.  In fact, the story was born thanks to a question from a different Reddit user who asked, ‘Could I destroy the entire Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion of MEU?’ So now we’re dealing with a story that is somewhat of a collaborative piece.  Did Erwin and Warner Bros. take that into consideration when they penned their deal?
As the guy that came up with the concept for “Rome, Sweet Rome,” odds are that Erwin would be most likely to win in a battle over who owns the concept.  Additionally, once he writes the screenplay (outside of Reddit) he will be able to copyright that.  However, until that happens is there anything stopping others from using the content that he posted to Reddit and turning it into a screenplay themselves?  If Reddit’s policy has anything to say about it, there’s not.
Reddit’s copyright agent, Jerry Birenz said that this case raises an “interesting issue” and that surely several different sides could legally claim rights to the story, yet a Warner Bros. spokesman still told the Hollywood Reporter that they stand by the fact that Warner Bros. “has obtained exclusive rights to Rome, Sweet Rome.”
Most of the stuff that we post online these days is just for fun or for personal use and copyright isn’t so much of an issue.  However, if you are dealing with property that you created, whether it be a story like James Erwin’s, photographs, animation, video or anything else, it’s important to keep these licensing issues in mind as things can get pretty tricky.  What’s your take on the story of Warner Bros. and “Rome, Sweet Rome?”  We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.  Oh, and while your here, check out the fun fan trailer for “Rome, Sweet Rome” below.

By Megan O'Neill  at SocialTimes

Reddit Launches New Mobile Site, Optimized For Touch Screens

Reddit has launched a new version of their mobile website. They fixed some major errors and bugs that were reported by users and took users’ advice when rolling out some of the site’s new features.
Starting Thursday, users who load Reddit on their mobile devices will receive a notice to upgrade to the new version of the site. Like the previous version, the new site is still optimized for devices that run on WebKit only, so browsers like the mobile Internet Explorer will not properly load Reddit.

The mobile website also has an updated user interface which makes the buttons easier to click if you’re using a touch screen. Here are some of the new features:

• Infinite scrolling saves if you refresh when you’re on the listings page.
• The size of the comments page has been cut down to 5 comments being visible at a time.
• The option button is now represented by a gear and when you click on it, a horizontal bar pops up with options and icons.
• Arrows are 50 percent larger so they’re easier to click.

While this version is certainly an improvement, there are a few bugs that Reddit is still working to solve. Commenting, messaging and submission, Reddit’s most important functions, have been tested and work properly.
In addition to the new version of their mobile website, the company plans to open-source their iPhone app, iReddit, but are limiting their future developments to enhancing their mobile app. They’ve been undergoing the process of turning their web interface into a mobile app.
Reddit admits that there have been a lack of updates for their iPhone app, but the company has been having issues with the App Store. Various bug fixes have been rejected by App Store testers based on Reddit’s content, but users can expect a cleaner version of the app to be available shortly.

Internet Activist Aaron Swartz Indicted for Data Theft: Downloading Millions of Academic Articles

For a long time, it was the folks who downloaded music or movies illegally that faced the wrath of government prosecutors. So the unsealing of an indictment today against Aaron Swartz, former Reddit-er and founder of Demand Progress, for the illegal download of some 4 million-odd academic journal articles may sound a bit unusual.
Demand Progress has issued a statement suggesting Swartz's actions were akin to "checking too many books out of the library." But the government clearly disagrees as the charges include wire fraud, computer fraud, and unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer. Schwartz now faces up to 35 years in prison and up to $1 million in fines. See How and Why he did it?

How He Did It

The indictment (a full copy is here) details Schwartz's purchase of a laptop, which he used to "systematically access and rapidly download an extraordinary volume of articles from JSTOR." JSTOR is an online database of academic journals. It provides the full texts of digitized journals, with back issues for some of the most popular ones dating back hundreds of years. A non-profit organization, JSTOR offers its service to primarily academic libraries, who in turn make the content available to their patrons
In a statement today, JSTOR says that last fall and winter it "experienced a significant misuse of our database. A substantial portion of our publisher partners' content was downloaded in an unauthorized fashion using the network at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of our participating institutions. The content taken was systematically downloaded using an approach designed to avoid detection by our monitoring systems."
The indictment details that how Schwartz did just that, from the purchase of the laptop to the creation of ghost accounts on the MIT network, to the break-in of a wiring closet where Swartz had his equipment stored.

Why He Did It

Why would Aaron Swartz want 4 million academic journal articles? Blogger Jason Kottke says "it's not too difficult to guess," and points to Swartz's earlier efforts to download and distribute files from Pacer the government-run Public Access to Court Electronic Records system. When Pacer was opened to a limited number of libraries, Swartz among others, the New York Times reported, tried to "download as many court documents as they could, and send them to him for republication on the Web, where Google could get to them."
It's not clear if this is what Swartz had in mind by copying the JSTOR database: "liberating," if you will, the journal articles for more open consumption. But in its statement, JSTOR says that it had already reached an agreement with Swartz and had "received confirmation that the content was not and would not be used, copied, transferred, or distributed."
Whatever the intention, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts makes clear the government's position: "Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data or dollars." Even though it appears as though JSTOR was not interested in pressing charges (it has declined to comment specifically about that), the government has leveled some serious felony charges against Swartz.
But rest assured scholars everywhere, even though Swartz allegedly "stole" 4 million journal articles, they're still all available in JSTOR.
In court in Boston today, Swartz plead not-guilty on all counts. His next court date is set for September 9.

Is Reddit Eclipsing Digg in Traffic?

Digg’s precipitous plummet has left Reddit with a bigger-than-ever piece of the Internet pie, according to stats from three major traffic-tracking organizations.
In fact, according to two of these sources, Reddit is already the larger web property in terms of page views and visits.
For the first time ever Thursday, Alexa showed Digg’s reach being eclipsed by Reddit. According to the online ranking service,
Reddit is now the 117th most popular site on the web, while Digg has fallen to 138th.
To quote a famous animated bird, “I’m think I’m going to have a heart attack and die of not-surprise.”
Digg has been waning in every sense — staff, effect on the wider community of content creators, traffic — for quite some time. In fact, we can pinpoint the start of Digg’s serious troubles: the user-led revolt against the “New Digg”.
Simultaneously, Reddit was showing signs of significant growth. In fact, the site claimed it passed a billion page views per month this February.
Let’s take a look at the stats from a few sources. While their methods differ, most of these numbers tell the same basic story. Digg is trending downward, while Reddit is still on the rise.
Here’s a look at both unique visitors and site visits from Quantcast:


And here are similar stats from Compete.com:


Finally, we have data from Alexa showing reach and pageviews from the past six months (where you can see the trend gaining momentum) and the past seven days:

Will Digg’s not-so-slow decline end in obsolesence or acquisition? Let us know what you think in the comments.

[Article from Mashable]