Pressure on Facebook Grows

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes wrote a long opinion piece in the New York Times calling for Facebook to be broken into smaller, separate companies. Hughes is far from the first to do so. Presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren also has a proposal for breaking up Facebook, Google and Amazon for anti-trust reasons that has been attracting praise and attention. The fact that a co-founder is now adding his voice for ending Facebook’s monopoly shocked many in the tech industry. Hughes provides historical context, solid reasons for why and ideas as to how to do it.

Meanwhile, Natasha Lamb, managing partner at Arjuna Capital, which is a Facebook shareholder, wrote an opinion piece that makes a case for why Mark Zuckerberg should exit Facebook. The article endorses a “Vote No” campaign, started by civil rights groups and shareholders, promoting a vote against Zuckerberg as a member of Facebook’s board. The annual meeting on May 30 also has votes scheduled on several shareholder proposals to create independent oversight, long term accountability, bring on independent advisers and to review content policies.

Not surprisingly, Facebook is having problems hiring, according to a report by CNBC. Former Facebook recruiters told the business news network that since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, Facebook has had a sharp decline in job offer acceptances. The more than a half dozen former recruiters said that of those candidates taking interviews with Facebook, they’re asking much tougher questions about how the company works and its privacy policies. Carnegie Mellon University graduates had the steepest decline to just 35% of recruits accepting Facebook job offers. Facebook spokesperson Anthony Harrison disputed the report but refused to cite any specific inaccuracies. This follows earlier CNBC reports that more current Facebook employees are reaching out to former coworkers for new job leads and that start-ups are finding it easier to sway staff to leave Facebook and Google due to scandals.

Is Google Boosting GMB to Monetize It?

Google My Business has undergone many changes in the past year, all of which allow small, local businesses to better promote their products and services to clients. From product and offer to posts to better CTAs, Google has been working to make GMB essential to local marketing. Analysts have long thought that it was only a matter of time before Google started charging for access to features or some other monetization plan. Now RankRanger has put together an analysis of Google’s actions in regard to GMB and how it might lead to monetization.

Italian Regulators Examining Google’s Abuse of Market Dominance

The Italian Antitrust Authority has approved an initial preliminary procedure against Alphabet Inc., Google LLC and Google Italy S.r.l., which is collectively referenced to as “Google” in the documentation, for allegedly abusing its dominance in the smart device market.

Just a month ago, the Italian Antitrust Authority began a similar investigation into Amazon. CNBC has more details on the investigations.

Instagram Adds In-App Checkout for Brands

Instagram has added a “Checkout on Instagram” button on the product page for certain retailers, allowing customers to purchase items without ever leaving the Instagram app. Checkout is currently being viewed as an attempt to challenge Amazon, which is taking a larger share of the digital advertising market.

Currently, more than 130 million Instagram users click products in shoppable posts each month, according to Instagram. Keeping them within the app for the entire purchase experience would be a boon to the social media platform. Instagram will also send shipment and delivery notifications within the app.

Checkout is currently in a closed beta stage for a limited but growing list of retailers and Instagram users within the U.S. Brands currently allowed to use the Checkout button include Adidas, Burberry, Dior, H&M, MAC Cosmetics, Nike, Prada, Uniqlo, Warby Parker, and more.

For the full list of participating retailers and other details, see Instagram’s announcement.

Facebook Agrees to Change Discriminatory Ad Targeting System

Facebook settled a series of anti-discrimination charges leading to sweeping civil rights changes at the tech giant that will deter discrimination in the social media platform’s credit, employment and housing advertising.

The cases began in late 2016 when the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenged Facebook’s ad targeting system because it allowed companies to exclude people from seeing ads based on their race, sex, age and other protected federal and state civil rights classifications. The cases eventually involved the Communications Workers of America, job seekers, consumers, fair housing advocates, Outten & Golden LLP, and civil rights organizations in addition to the ACLU.

Under the settlement, Facebook will take action to prevent advertisers from illegally discriminating against Facebook, Instagram and Messenger users in targeting employment, housing or credit ads. Among the terms agreed to in the settlement, Facebook will set up a separate portal for credit, employment and housing ads that limists the targeting options to avoid discriminatory practices. Advertisers will also not be able to use factors such as age, gender or ZIP code when creating lookalike audiences for ad targeting.

For more details, see the ACLU’s article on the history of the case and who it affected. Full details of the legal settlement can be found here.

Twitter’s New “Timing Is Everything”

Twitter has introduced a new insights tool for video tweets. It utilizes user engagement to determine the best day and time to tweet videos. Called “Timing Is Everything,” the tool took months to build. The goal is offer Twitter users more actionable data.

Timing Is Everything shows historical data about when an aggregate audience are  on Twitter watching and interacting with video. Once the user selects the best time to publish content, the tweet can be scheduled directly from the Timing Is Everything insights panel.

Even though the new insights tool is supposed to provide better results, Twitter is still advising users to tweet throughout the day, even if it’s not an opportune moment according to the tool.

The new feature can be found in the Analytics dropdown menu. Go to Media Studio and select insights.

Check out Twitter’s official announcement.

Internet Archive Will Save Google+ Public Posts

With the closure of Google+ looming, the Internet Archive announced that it will be saving Google+ public posts via the Wayback Machine for historical purposes. Posts that were limited to a specific audience cannot and will not be preserved.

For more information, see the announcement on Reddit.

Google Showing Images in Snippets More Often

Google has again increased the number of search results that have an image thumbnail – by some analysts, dramatically so. This isn’t technically new. Google has been periodically increasing the number of images in SERP results. As of March 7 though, it appears to have increased by 40% again so that about 67% of page one mobile SERP results have an image.

While results without thumbnails show next to the image results, studies show that people are more likely to click the result with an image than those without. Also, while previously results would only show a max of four image results, that appears to have been boosted to five. This analysis is based on averages since some searches may have less.

RankRanger has a more thorough analysis of the change. Eric Hedekar of Moz also confirmed having seen the same trend.

YouTube Hires NBC Universal Executive

Lori Conkling is YouTube’s new global head of partnerships for YouTubeTV and Google Fiber after a six year stint at NBC Universal as executive vice president of strategy and business development with a digital focus. Conkling will oversee lead program and packaging strategies, and negotiating content deals.

Prior to NBC Universal, Conkling worked for the Walt Disney Company, Lifetime Networks and A&E Networks. Conkling heavily involved in the launch of ESPNU, the college sports network, while at Disney. Conkling’s new appointment comes shortly after the nationwide expansion of YouTubeTV, which began in April 2016 in just five markets.

YouTubeTV competes with both TV providers, whether cable or satellite, and subscription services like Hulu Live TV, Sling TV, Sony’s PlayStation Vue, FuboTV and more.

For more information on Conkling’s background, see the announcement in Variety.

Twitter Hires Google Exec

Twitter has announced the selection of Doug Brodman to be its new U.S. agency development director where he will lead the division that works with large agencies to create programming and content for Twitter. The position was previously held by Stephanie Prager, who has been promoted to Twitter’s head of global agency development. Brodman will report to Prager.

Brodman comes to Twitter after spending five years on Google’s U.S. agency team. There, Brodman developed partnerships between large American media agencies and Fortune 100 brands.

YouTube to Offer Fact Checking

YouTube is planning a worldwide expansion of a fact-check box for search results that it has been testing in India. The fact-check box will appear in the results for topics that prone to distortion.

A YouTube spokesperson said about the change, “As part of our ongoing efforts to build a better news experience on YouTube, we are expanding our information panels to bring fact checks from eligible publishers to YouTube.”

YouTube is working with third-party verified fact checkers for the new feature. The plan is for the fact-check panels to debunk the lies by linking to information from those fact-checking sites. The fact-checking partners frequently rely on schema.org to pull in data. However, the videos with the erroneous information will still appear in the search results, which means the fact-checking panels will function more as a warning than a replacement.

YouTube says it cannot remove misinformation unless it also violates its community guidelines. That said, YouTube routinely changes and updates its Terms of Service so it could change them to allow such a change, but doing so would put the onus of determining what is true and isn’t onto YouTube itself. YouTube believes adding the fact check panel will deter the spread of lies and misinformation, though nothing will prevent people from clicking through to the bad informations.

For more information, see the CBS News report.

Facebook Sets Its Sights on Washington, D.C.

Facebook is on a hiring spree in the nation’s capital and it appears to be directly geared to fighting off privacy legislation, and possible fines and antitrust actions against the company. Facebook is hiring Beltway insiders with deep knowledge of and influence within the nation’s capital.

Among the many people recently hired by the social media giant are Joshua Althouse, who was outreach director for former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, former Senator Gary Peters and Melinda Claybaugh, former member of the Federal Trade Commission. With regulatory and privacy concerns getting a larger focus in D.C., the new hires appear to be focused on combatting or minimizing their effectiveness.

Gizmodo has even more details on the people Facebook is hiring and comments from experts who are concerned about it. Facebook did not respond to Gizmodo’s request for comments.

For more information on the record-setting, multi-billion dollar fine Facebook is reportedly negotiating with the Federal Trade Commission, The Washington Post has a good breakdown.

Google Testing Ads in Assistant

According to a tweet posted by Gennaro Cuofano it appears Google is testing ad delivery within Google Assistant results. Cuofano performed the search on an Android phone. According to the screenshot he posted, organic results appear below the fold.

While ads in Assistant are probably inevitable, they also raise some questions for marketers. For example, Assistant cannibalize traditional search results, and it seems unlikely that Google would place multiple ads in Assistant results. That could drive up the cost of CTRs.

Twitter Changes Metrics as Users Decline

In its latest performance report, Twitter reported another decline in total users, which is it attributing to its efforts to remove spammers and fake accounts. While that is a good thing, Twitter seems to have decided that a change of metrics is warranted.

Twitter will stop reporting monthly active users and instead report Monetizable Daily Active Users (mDAU or Monetizable DAU), which it’s defining as “Monetizable DAU are Twitter users who log in and access Twitter on any given day through twitter.com or our Twitter applications that are able to show ads. Our mDAU are not comparable to current disclosures from other companies, many of whom share a more expansive metric that includes people who are not seeing ads. We considered changing our disclosure to be comparable to other companies, but our goal was not to disclose the largest daily active user number we could. We want to align our external stakeholders around one metric that reflects our goal of delivering value to people on Twitter every day and monetizing that usage.”

After the announcement, Twitter shares went down 6%, though it’s hard to determine if the drop was due to the metric change or because its revenue projections were lower than Wall Street’s estimates or, more likely, a mix of both.

Amazon Launches a Marketing Loyalty Program

The mega-retailer announced Amazon Moments, a self-service loyalty program for marketers that offers both digital and physical rewards that are fulfilled by the online shopping giant. Rolling out to more than 100 countries, Moments is a cross-platform feature, also available on iOS and Android. It’s the company’s attempt to earn more brand dollars by providing an easy solution for companies while tying them to Amazon’s e-commerce platform. Amazon has been testing Moments through collaborations with Sony’s Crackle, the teen app TikTok and the TV network Bravo. The dedicated Amazon Moments console has is currently featured on their site.

Facebook adding household income targeting based on zip code

Facebook is allowing businesses to target ads to American Facebook users based on the income levels within their residential ZIP code. The new filter allows advertisers to select income levels based on where the user’s household income falls in terms of percentages, such as top 5 percent, top 10 percent, top 10-25 percent, etc. Facebook says that its income data is based on public information. Advertisers must comply with Facebook’s non-discrimination policy. Facebook has more information on the new feature on its business page.

LinkedIn Adds New Groups Features

LinkedIn is revamping LinkedIn Groups after years of spam hindered participation and engagement. Changes to notifications improved engagement. Now LinkedIn is launching five new features to increase group usage and effectiveness.

1. Notifications of new posts

The new versions seek to consolidate notifications so they’re a bit less like spam while still making it easy to know when new conversations begin.

2. Group post notifications based connections

This is designed to improve group engagement by letting you know when your colleagues are commenting.

3. Highlight relevant conversations

This would allow group admins to spotlight important conversations.

4. Post review and approval

Unlike some other platforms, LinkedIn currently doesn’t have a way to allow admins to block group spam by reviewing and approving or deleting posts before they go to the group at large.

5. Group cover images

This would allow LinkedIn group admins to have the personalization capabilities similar to those that Facebook group admins have. It technically doesn’t affect group engagement but does allow for more customization.

The new features were announced on Twitter.

Wrapping Things Up…

Facebook Debunks Myth that Facebook Limits Post Reach to 25 Friends.

Facebook’s Updating It’s ‘Why Am I Seeing This?’ Ad Info with More Specific Detail.

GMB hotel changes.

A Look at the Google Search Console Updates

Search Engine Journal released an excellent assessment of changes to Google Search Console in the migration from old to new. Rather than try to summarize it, check it out for yourself.

Facetime Bug Lets People Eavesdrop on Friends

A bug in iOS 12.1 allows people to hear and possibly even see the people they call on Facetime even if the recipient doesn’t accept the call. The recipient has no indication that the caller can hear or see them. The bug affects both iPhones and iPads running iOS 12.1 and Apple computers running macOS Mojave.

The bug was found by 9to5Mac and replicated by everyone using iOS 12.1, including several CNN Business staff members. Apple said it has a fix or the problem and will release a software update later this week to address it. In the meantime, Apple has disabled Group FaceTime for all users.

Starting a FaceTime video call triggers the bug if, before the other person answers, tapping “Add Person” and then adding in your own phone number. You will then hear audio of the person you’re call even if they don’t answer and sometimes get video.

To protect yourself until the bug is fixed, on an iPhone or iPad go to Settings -> FaceTime and turn off the button the top of the screen. On a Mac, open the FaceTime app and at the top of the screen select “Turn FaceTime Off.”

For more information on the bug and other recent Apple issues, Wired magazine provides context.

Twitter Failed to Protect Android Users

A Twitter bug meant that when Android users selected “Protect My Tweets” they actually weren’t – and the breach lasted for years.

On January 17, 2019, Twitter disclosed that the Protect Tweets setting was disabled for Android users if certain changes, such as an email change, were made. It is now turned back on. The bug did not effect people using iOS apps or web-based Twitter.

While any privacy breach is disturbing, in this case, the fact that it existed from November 3, 2014, until January 14, 2019, without notification makes it worse.

According to Bloomberg Law (link https://news.bloomberglaw.com/privacy-and-data-security/twitter-faces-new-eu-query-into-data-security-flaw-corrected ), the Irish Data Protection Commission is investigating the protected tweets security flaw. Since Twitter is already under an EU investigation for GDPR-related data-collection issues, a finding against Twitter could lead to the top GDPR penalty, which is 4 percent of the company’s annual revenue.

For more information on the issue, Twitter’s official statement can be found here. If you think you were affected and have further questions, Twitter set up a data protection information form.

Facebook Integrating WhatsApp, Instagram & Messenger

The New York Times is reporting that Facebook plans to integrate WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram. While the three platforms would look the same to consumers after the change, their backend infrastructure would become the same, merging user profiles to make it easier for Facebook to target ads more precisely.  When questioned about the report a spokesperson touted end-to-end encryption as a possible benefit. Increased data sharing behind the scenes won’t thrill privacy advocates but since the interfaces are expected to look the same, consumers are unlikely to notice or complain until the next Facebook data breach.

Google Partnering with WordPress

Google is working with Automatic/WordPress to create a low-cost system for publishing local news. Called Newspack, Google invested $1.2 million into its creation.

Google says Newspack is being developed to help small publishers write more stories and follow Google’s best practices without having to spend a lot of time on website design.

The Google blog has the official announcement and more details on the partnership.

Google’s Board of Directors Sued for Misconduct Cover-Up

Shareholders are suing the board of directors of Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, for covering up alleged sexual misconduct by Andy Rubin and other executives and approving Rubin’s $90 million exit payment. The complaint targets top executives including Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, investor Ram Shriram, venture capitalist John Doerr, Alphabet Chief Legal Officer David Drummond and others.

The investors’ lawsuit claims that the board did not perform its duties by doing nothing about the alleged harassment, approving the large financial payouts and covering up the details after an internal investigation found the accusations of Rubin’s sexual harassment to be credible. The complaint, which was filed in California state court, claims that during his tenure at Google, Rubin was also engaged in human sex trafficking.

According to the complaint, the board’s audit and compensation committees, which includes Page, Brin and Schmidt, reviewed the findings of the investigation into Rubin. The complaint alleges that directors were informed, “the allegations are credible” yet they granted Rubin the hefty payout anyway.

A second lawsuit filed by the Northern California Pipe Trades Pension Plan and Teamsters Local 272 Labor Management Fund makes similar claims about Rubin and the board’s actions.

Rubin created the Android operating system and ran Google’s mobile division for years before leaving in 2014.  In October 2018, The New York Times reported that an employee accused Rubin of sexual harassment and Google executives approved the financial package. In November, thousands of Google employees staged a protest in regard to the tech giant’s workplace sexual misconduct policy. Google’s board is also accused of behaving in a similar fashion when Amit Singhal resigned in 2016 after sexual harassment claims. Singhal was fired in 2017 from Uber Technologies for failing to disclose the accusations against him while at Google.

For more details, see Bloomberg’s official report.

Facebook Changes Group Rules

It’s been a long-standing point of complaint that people used to be able to add friends to Facebook groups without their approval or permission. Some people meant well but just didn’t take their friends’ preferences into account while other group owners used the method to inflate membership, even if it meant some people never participated in the group. Finally Facebook has updated the rules and procedures for adding to groups.

Under the new procedure, when a person is invited to join a group they’re added to a new “Invited” list the group admin can see. The person invited must manually accept the invitation and only then will they be counted in the membership numbers. Admins can sent prospects one reminder to encourage them to join the group.

If a group has a large number of people of who were invited to join but never interacted with the group, the group’s numbers could drop as a result of this change. However, it is a logical update that should please most Facebook users, even if it is long overdue.

The official Facebook announcement can be found here.

Twitter’s New Beta App

Twitter is giving select users access to a standalone app designed to test new features and ways of showing and organizing conversations. It’s no secret that Twitter has had a problem with abuse and toxic behavior. Finding a way to curb and manage abusive behavior without hurting the positive aspects of the platform is the challenge, hence the app.

For more information, read the Tech Crunch interview with Sara Haider, Twitter’s director of product management.

Facebook Political Ad Changes

2018 was a bad year for Facebook. Among other things, its leadership was called before Congress to answer questions about how the platform was used to influence votes and related data breaches.

Since then the company has introduced an authorization process for those wishing to place political ads in the United States. Now with elections looming in Brazil, Nigeria, and the United Kingdom, limitations have been placed on political ads in those countries, too.

Facebook has also stopped accepting political ads for local and state elections in Washington state. The Washington State Public Disclosure Commission adopted new rules for political advertising disclosure. Facebook is declining ads while it examines the rules. Facebook had to pay $238,500 to settle a lawsuit in Washington state alleging violation of political law.

See Facebook’s official announcement about Washington State ads for more information.

Twitter Timeline Switch Temporary, Android Users Delayed

Nearly a month after Twitter announced a “sparkle” button that allows users to switch back to the original, chronological timeline, Android users are finally getting access to it as well.

However, for all users, switching to the chronological timeline will require more work to maintain it. Twitter is “experimenting” with how often the choice lasts before defaulting users back to the “home” setting, which is the algorithm “top tweets” feed. The company says it could learn user preferences over time, but for the moment, it means you’ll have to regularly check which version of the timeline you have regardless of whether you’re an Android, web or iOS user.

Google Search Console Discontinuing Features

Despite previously indicating that all old features would be moved over to the new Google Search Console, John Mueller, the company’s senior webmaster trends analyst, said that some features from the old Search Console will be discontinued. As an example Mueller cited the crawl errors section because it’s not useful. The company might also get rid of reports that are common in third-party tools.

You can watch Mueller’s exact comments in the webmaster hangout video. Search Console comments begin about 28 minutes into the video.

Old Tweets Reveal Your Location

An algorithmic tool developed by a group of international researchers can use Twitter to predict where you live with greater than 90 percent accuracy and do it in minutes. LPAuditor, which is short for Location Privacy Auditor, can also predictor where you work and worship as well as more potentially sensitive information, such as if you went into a rehab facility or strip club.

The tool utilizes Twitter’s “invasive policy” when it introduced the ability to add a location tag to tweets from 2009 to 2015. During that period users who added a geotag to tweets, even if it was a broad range such as “New York City,” would automatically provide Twitter with their exact GPS locations. The person tagging their tweet wouldn’t see the coordinates and neither would their followers but the GPS data would be in the tweet’s metadata, and therefore accessible through Twitter’s API.

Twitter changed the policy in April 2015 so that users must opt-in to share their precise location but the GPS information previously collected is still accessible within the API, and LPAuditor uses it for its predictions.

The LPAuditor team described its process in a peer-reviewed paper that will be presented at the Network and Distribution System Security Symposium in February.

An unnamed member of Twitter’s site integrity team told Wired magazine that sharing location data has always been voluntary and users can delete data. However, few users realized that adding a broad geotag like “Houston” could disclose exactly where in Houston a person lived, worked or visited.

For more information on how LPAuditor was developed and works, check out Wired’s story here.

Pinterest Names Chief Marketing Officer

Pinterest has named Andréa Mallard as its first Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Mallard was hired away from the Gap-owned Athleta, a line of athleisure clothing, where she also served as CMO. Mallard will report to COO Francoise Brougher, who joined Pinterest in February himself. Pinterest is filling out its C-suite roles in preparation for a possible initial public offering (IPO) in 2019. Learn more about Mallard and her new role by reviewing Pinterest’s official press release.

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