Rickrolled by the White House

This week the White House started a new social media strategy on Twitter called “Office Hours”. It’s intention was to help U.S. citizens feel better informed in the debt ceiling deficit reduction negotiations. President Obama’s economic adviser, Brian Deese and fellow National Economic Council member Jason Furman have been responding to Twitter users via the White House Twitter.

On Wednesday, bored of the White House’s tweets, Twitter user David Wiggs tweeted: “This WH correspondence briefing isn’t nearly as entertaining as yesterday’s.” Deese retweeted the post and then replied with: “@wiggsd Sorry to hear that. Fiscal policy is important, but can be dry sometimes. Here’s something more fun: tinyurl.com/y8ufsnp”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ[/youtube]

Google+ a month on….

google plus icons 3601 150x150 Friday Social Round up: Rickrolled by the White House, Twitter parental control, Google+ cooking lessons.So it’s been a month since Google+ launched and as you probably have heard, it’s done very well, managing to rack up 10 Million users in just 16 days.

Google+ is a huge contrast to Google’s previous failed  attempts at Social Media, this is quite possibly due to it not being a response to Facebook but rather a widening of their already extensive services.

Can they expect this success to last? Well, Google + has become the fastest-growing social networks in history but at the same time, there are also signs that Google+ popularity is falling.  Experian Hitwise  reports  that traffic has fallen 3% and that users are spending 10% less time on the site.

As with everything only time will tell, but with plans to beta business profiles later on this year and the initial concerns about gender domination slowly falling it looks like Google+ is here to stay.

Cooking lessons on Google+?

Sounds interesting doesn’t it? Well this is just one of many ways people are using Google+ Hangout. Lee Allison, self confessed “food geek” has launched the Google+ cooking school after seeing the potential of the Hangout tool. Users pre-buy the list of ingredients, as posted on Google+ by Allison. Other uses include a “Writers Hangout” where writers from all over the world can interact whilst they write and also live concerts are being held by musicians all over the world.

Mark Olsen of FamilyLink.com and Phillip Olsen have started a Google+ “Marathon Hangout”. The video chat started on July 20, 2011 at 5.45pm and is still going today. Olsen estimates that as many as 5,000 people have joined in and more viewing the stream at HangOutOnGplus.

marathon1 300x182 Friday Social Round up: Rickrolled by the White House, Twitter parental control, Google+ cooking lessons.

Twitter parental controls

Twitter has added a new feature which is currently in testing phase. The new feature will be able to flag links within users tweets and mark them as ‘possibly sensitive’. Twitter announced on Thursday that a new field has been added to the API that will show up whenever a tweet contains a link, giving users a warning that the link could be unsuitable for the workplace or younger people.

Twitter is still reluctant to censor material according to Gizmodo, but Twitter’s media policy document outlines that the company will “remove media that might be considered sensitive such as nudity, violence, or medical procedures.”

Facebook Facial Recognition

Last month we talked about Facebook’s upcoming Facial Recognition feature which had caused a bit of a commotion after it being rolled out as a default setting with little warning.

Called ‘Tag Suggestions’, the feature works by offering you the chance to tag groups of your friends in an album using facial recognition technology and previously tagged photos to suggest a the name of the person you want to tag.

To combat the privacy fears of Facebook users, the company have “made significant changes that will provide better service and greater privacy protection to it’s users” says Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen in a Statement. Jensen contacted Facebook to voice his own concerns over user privacy.

Facebook are now running ads instructing users how to opt out of the feature and insuring that their facial recognition data will be deleted.

marathon2 550x341 Friday Social Round up: Rickrolled by the White House, Twitter parental control, Google+ cooking lessons.

Another uplifting Social Media Video

I’m so sorry I love watching them…..

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOqRjNXxXBA&NR=1[/youtube]