Twitter Opens its Self-Serve Advertising Platform to All U.S. Users (SocialTimes)
Twitter will open its advertising platform to all users in the United States, the company announced on Tuesday. The self-serve advertising suite allows account administrators to run their own campaigns by promoting their accounts or individual Tweets to specific groups within the social network, and to track the results through Twitter analytics.
Find out how to use Google Tools to manage social media content and campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp, an interactive online event starting June 6. Monica Morse (left), head of social & SMB solutions at Google, will familiarize you with a wide range of Google tools such as trends, Google+ and Hangouts. Learn more about our our twelve event speakers and register here. 
Facebook Exchange Ads Being Tested on Desktop News Feeds (AllFacebook)
The lines between different ways to advertise on Facebook are beginning to blur, as the social network Tuesday announced what it called a “small alpha test” of running ads delivered by its Facebook Exchange real-time-bidding ad-purchase platform on the desktop version of its News Feed, while at the same time assuring users that the number of ads in their News Feeds would not increase. Facebook added that it would expand availability of this new ad format in the coming weeks.
Mobile-First Instagram Brings its Content to the Web (SocialTimes)
Instagram users can now access their photo feeds via the desktop Web, according to co-founder Kevin Systrom. Instagram, perhaps the most successful mobile-first company to date, is nevertheless playing catch-up on the Web.
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Pandora Shares How Much it Pays Artists (SocialTimes)
Pandora has revealed how much certain top artists are paid in royalties for licensing their music to the Internet radio service. More than 2,000 artists will each receive $10,000 over the next year, and 800-plus will get more than $50,000. The Next Web “For top earners like Coldplay, Adele, Wiz Khalifa, Jason Aldean and others Pandora is already paying over $1 million each. Drake and Lil Wayne are fast approaching a $3 million annual rate each,” says a blog post by Pandora Founder Tim Westergren. TechCrunch Westergren denied that his quest to reduce the per-song royalty rates that Pandora pays is fundamentally anti-artist. He said that lower fees would leave more resources to dedicate to building better services. CNET Right now, traditional radio broadcasters pay a lower rate to play songs, and the music industry wants terrestrial radio to pay a rate that is more in line with what Pandora pays. GigaOM One other interesting tidbit revealed by Westergren on Tuesday: The company is now streaming more hours of music each month that YouTube streams hours of video. Westergren reminded his audience that his company is forking over 55 percent of its entire revenue stream to Soundexchange, the collection agency that is in charge of compulsory licenses for performing musicians. Read more
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Twitter Co-Founder Jack Dorsey’s Role ‘Reduced’ Over Co-Worker Difficulties [REPORT] (Mashable)
The role of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who returned to the company as executive chairman after a two-and-a-half-year hiatus from day-to-day operations, has been “reduced” after co-workers complained he was “difficult to work with” and “repeatedly changed his mind about product directions.” Although he is still involved in strategic decisions as executive chairman, no one directly reports to him anymore. AllTwitter Dorsey, of course, is also founder of Square, and, at the time, pledged to continue his prominent role at both companies. Not anymore. The New York Times Dorsey declined to comment on how people feel about working with him. But, in a statement, he said he considered Twitter CEO Dick Costolo to be one of Twitter’s founders. “He’s had a dramatic impact on the company and the culture,” Dorsey said. “He’s questioned everything we started with and made it better.” WebProNews Twitter has launched (without any formal announcement) a new profile directory, which will allow you to browse through Twitter users in alphabetical order. Some accounts do seem to be missing, however. AllThingsD The social network has scooped up Mike Davidson as the vice president of design — a newly created position — according to a recent post on Davidson’s personal blog. Before joining the company, he was CEO and founder of Newsvine, a collaborative journalism Web site acquired by NBC News in 2007. Read more
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Is Spotify’s Business Model Broken? (CNET)
Spotify’s financial performance in 2011 was abysmal. As revenue increased 151 percent from 2010, the on-demand streaming music service saw losses widen 60 percent for the same period, according to documents posted by PrivCo, a company that sells data on non-publicly traded companies. BetaBeat Virtually every new dollar of revenue went directly to music companies as royalty payments, evidencing the fact that the more members Spotify adds, the more money the company loses. This is a clear indication that the online licensing fee/royalty model is increasingly restricting Spotify’s ability to generate sustainable margins using its freemium model. The Next Web Spotify’s 311 employees grew salary costs 173 percent year-over-year in 2011, outpacing revenue growth, according to PrivCo. Business Insider Unlike Groupon, Spotify can’t just trim its marketing spend to cut its losses. It either has to completely change its business strategy, or get much better at its business. TechCrunch In related news, Warner Music Group’s owner Access Industries and previous investor Idinvest are investing $130 million into music streaming startup Deezer. Even though the company is doing well in its country of origin, France, it is still at the very beginning of its international expansion. Read more
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Police: Hostage Taker Was Updating Facebook During Ordeal (CNN)
Police involved in a Pittsburgh, Pa., hostage situation on Friday were faced with an interesting decision. It wasn’t whether to send in a robot or storm into a building, it was whether to have the hostage taker’s Facebook page shut down. AP The suspect, 22-year-old Klein Michael Thaxton, made Facebook posts during the five-hour ordeal, authorities said, and they feared that responses from friends, family and others might goad him into violence. In the end, police said Thaxton surrendered peacefully and released businessman Charles Breitsman. USA Today Early in the standoff, which began at 8:10 a.m. ET, Thaxton posted this message on his Facebook page: “i cant take it no more im done bro.” The police chief said authorities shut down Thaxton’s access to his Facebook page “so that we could have his full attention.” The New York Times It was the people with access to Thaxton’s Facebook account who may have had the best view into his thinking as the ordeal unfolded in the 16th floor in the offices of CW Breitsman Associates. For several hours, as Thaxton sent updates and Facebook friends wrote back, the flow of status messages chronicled the narrative of a man who seemed to have lost hope and a community that said it could relate, urging him to stay strong, to push through life’s hard knocks or to pray. The Verge Watching something like a hostage situation unfold on TV, in real time, has become sadly commonplace. On the other hand, watching a suspect update his Facebook status and accept friend requests during a hostage situation (as SWAT teams surround the building) is more than a tiny bit surreal. Read more
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Apple OS X Mountain Lion Goes on Sale Today (Mashable)
In its earnings report Tuesday, Apple announced that the long-anticipated Mountain Lion, otherwise known as OS X 10.8, would go on sale first thing Wednesday morning — just as predicted. Costing $19.99, it will be available in the Mac app store, and anyone who bought a new Mac on or after June 11 is entitled to a free upgrade. VentureBeat The company has thus far gone the whole month without a peep on when we’d be able to download the latest OS, until Monday, when it accidentally opened up the “Up-to-Date” portal, which was quickly taken down. The operating system comes with 200 new features, which were shown off at WWDC. CNET They include Reminders, Notes and even the Notification Center. There’s also a new security feature, Gatekeeper, which aims to reduce malware by blocking uncertified apps from being installed. PC Magazine Other features are iCloud integration, a new silent updating option known as Power Nap, as well as 1,700 new APIs. On the iCloud front, Mountain Lion will make it easier for users to sync documents between Macs and iOS devices, and Apple’s popular iMessage service has displaced the venerable iChat on Mountain Lion. Reuters Apple’s results fell short of Wall Street’s expectations as the European economy sagged and consumers held off on buying its flagship iPhone ahead of a new version expected in the fall, hitting its stock price. Shares of the world’s most valuable technology company shed more than 5 percent of their value after Apple – which beats Wall Street expectations with near regularity – reported its second quarterly miss on results in less than a year. Read more
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LinkedIn Confirms, Apologizes for Stolen Password Breach (Mashable)
LinkedIn has confirmed that some of its user passwords have been compromised. The company has also issued an apology “for the inconvenience this has caused our members.” PC Magazine “We can confirm that some of the passwords that were compromised correspond to LinkedIn accounts,” LinkedIn director Vincente Silveira wrote in a blog post. “We are continuing to investigate this situation.” The company did not, however, confirm how many passwords were involved, though it reportedly affected about 6 million of LinkedIn’s 161 million users. ars technica Every single member of the list of the 25 worst passwords of 2011 was leaked, along with others such as “ihatemyjob,” “nobama,” and “iwantanewjob.” At least one unhappy job hunter apparently used “linkedinblows.” Even the password “strongpassword” was leaked and cracked. VentureBeat The security breach is due to an exploit with the way LinkedIn’s mobile app handles a user’s calendar data. A hacker was able to steal and publish around 6.5 million hashed passwords from the company using the exploit, which was flagged after someone requested help deciphering the encrypted password data this morning. The Verge Affected users will receive an email from LinkedIn with instructions on how to reset their password. This doesn’t appear to be the standard password reset procedure, either — any affected user will automatically be locked out of their account, and the password reset email being sent by LinkedIn won’t contain any links to the site. Read more
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Twitter’s Redesigned Discover Tab Is Watching You (AllTwitter) Twitter announced that it has added “improved personalization algorithms and real-time indexing.” What does this mean? Through a new Discover tab, Twitter is making search more personalized (just like Google). Let us know if you like what you see or if you have any other general impressions. PC Magazine The update is currently rolling out to Web users accessing Twitter.com, as well as those who use the Android and iOS versions of the Twitter app. The process will take weeks, Twitter said. GigaOM Recommendation services are a little like voice-recognition, in that no one notices when you get it right but everyone hates you when you get it wrong. But more than anything else, that is what Twitter has to figure out — and soon, before someone else does it better. Read more
