On Friday Twitter published Website Cards, another commercial ad unit that highlights a little photograph, a line of content, and a URL to a publicist’s site page. Twitter accepts this combo of a picture and a call to movement will help drive more activity for sponsors than a basic picture and URL blending, the organization composed on its blog.

The new commercial ad units will show up in users Timelines overall starting Friday on both desktop and mobile.

Site Cards are the freshest kind of Twitter ads, joining application introduce promotions that began showing up for clients not long ago. Twitter additionally permits promoters to push particular tweets or records, and a late report from The Wall Street Journal claims the organization is arranging more than twelve extra notice units in the not so distant future, including the likelihood of shoppable tweets.

The new ad unit comes short of what a week in front of Twitter’s Q1 income publication. The organization is not yet productive, and moguls who helped inflatable the organization’s stock emulating a late 2013 IPO will be tensely anticipating news on the Twitter’s promotion execution. News of better, more proficient promotion units ought to help pacify moguls.

Source : Mashable

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The new profile features a larger user photo and customizable header image. Twitter highlights your tweets that have the most engagement by displaying them slightly larger than the rest. You can also pin one of your tweets to the top of the page.

Furthermore, you can now choose which timeline to view when checking out a profile page. You can see all tweets, tweets with photos and videos only, or just tweets and replies.

As for the similarities of Twitter’s new user profiles to Facebook’s profile page, well, they’re inescapable. There’s a square profile photo in the top left, and a large “cover” photo on top dominates both pages, for example. Below the profile photo you’ll find the basic info about the user, and under that is photos and friends. The only real difference there is that on Twitter’s user profiles, photos are placed below your followers, and Facebook has it the other way around. It’ll be interesting to see what the users think of the new look — especially those that are not overly fond of Facebook.

The new profile design is already live for a handful of celebrities, including Zac Efron, Channing Tatum, Floyd Mayweather and John Legend, and it will also show up for new users. The rest of us will have to wait as the new look rolls out over the “coming weeks.”

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Social media junkies know there’s nothing better than humble-bragging about food.

And this Twitter-themed cake from YouTube channel How To Cook That is sure to grab your followers by the taste buds.

Ann Reardon, the baker behind How To Cook That, created a thorough video detailing how to create this impressive cake. While the recipe is admittedly complicated, the end results are a dessert fit for even your verified pals.

This isn’t Reardon’s first social-themed cake. Earlier this year, she wowed the Internet with an Instagram cake and a Facebook cheesecake.

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Twitter jumped 8.4% to $69.96 at the close in New York after rising 7.5% yesterday. The stock has surged 169% since going public at $26 on Nov. 6, giving Twitter a market value of almost $40 billion — larger than Time Warner Cable Inc., media company Viacom Inc. and retailer Target Corp.

Investors are betting San Francisco-based Twitter can attract more ad dollars, as companies seek to market their wares through wireless devices and tie-ins with television programming. As the unprofitable company’s sales growth outpaces that of competitors such as Facebook Inc. and Google Inc., the stock has “graduated to cult status,” according to Blake Harper, an analyst at Wunderlich Securities Inc. in Baltimore.

“While the company is growing revenues faster than its fastest-growing peers and we do recognize the potential for the company to capture larger portions of the mobile and TV advertising market, it appears valuation metrics are irrelevant and that investors are betting aggressively on Twitter being the next great media-technology platform,” Harper, who recommends selling the stock, wrote in a note Tuesday.

“We don’t believe the current valuation justifies the risk,” wrote Harper, whose price target for Twitter is $34. “Especially with the company having yet to report a quarter as a public company.”

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Image: Mashable, Christina Ascani

Source : Mashable 

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The brand will run such ads before videos from Fox shows including Glee, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and So You Think You Can Dance, among other shows, Jean Rossi, EVP of sales for Fox Broadcasting, told Variety. The first such ads launched last week.

Twitter began running Fox clips as part of Amplify, a program that brought sponsored clips to users’ news feeds in May. As Gawker points out, that means that the AmEx ads are, in effect, ads on top of ads.

Though Twitter’s IPO was considered successful, the company is not expected to post a profit until 2015 at the earliest. Since the company’s main source of revenues comes from advertising, Twitter has to walk a fine line between pleasing advertisers without compromising the user experience.

Twitter’s recent expansion of photos in timelines was one recent test of this middle path as Promoted Tweets suddenly got more real estate in the feed. Twitter isn’t alone in testing the boundaries for users’ tolerance for advertising; Instagram also recently introduced ads and Google has been testing banner ads for brand searches.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Image: Getty/ David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

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Facebook and Instagram each captured the hearts of 23% of survey respondents. Clearly, Instagram’s rising popularity among teens took a toll on both Twitter and Facebook’s popularity; Facebook saw a 10% decrease in the survey since six months ago and Twitter saw a 4% decrease.

“The data point is likely unsurprising as the trend in our survey has been moving toward Twitter over the past couple of years,” said analysts Gene Munster and Douglas Clinton in a note to clients.

Statista’s chart, which uses data from Piper Jaffray, shows the changes in teens’ favorite social networks for shopping among fall 2012, spring 2013 and fall 2013.

Image: Image: Sean MacEntee

The post Twitter Dethrones Facebook as Teens’ Favorite Social Network for Shopping appeared first on Digitrock.

In comparison to Facebook’s numbers leading up to its IPO last year, Twitter has far fewer active users, far less ad revenue and far greater losses. On the other hand, Twitter is planning a much smaller IPO, which may insulate it against some of the sell off Facebook experienced, and it has at least one key asset that Facebook didn’t have at this point in the process: significant mobile ad revenue.

Here are a few key stats comparing the two companies:

Twitter plans to raise $1 billion from its public offering. Facebook initially planned to raise $5 billion in its IPO, but increased that to $16 billion by the time it went public.

Twitter reported having 218 million monthly active users and more than 100 million daily active users in its S-1. Facebook’s initial S-1 revealed the social network had 845 million monthly active users and 483 million daily active users. By the time Facebook went public, those numbers had increased to 901 million monthly active users and 526 million daily active users and it now has 1.15 billion and 699 million, respectively.

Twitter reported generating $317 million in revenue in 2012. Facebook generated $3.7 billion in revenue — more than ten times as much — in 2011, the year before its IPO.

In an unorthodox move, Twitter did not disclose revenue per user. Instead, Twitter said its ad revenue “per 1,000 timeline views” was $2.17 in the second quarter in the U.S. and $0.30 in the rest of the world. Facebook generated $3.67 in ad revenue per U.S. and Canada user in the second quarter of this year and $1.41 per user worldwide.

Just as importantly, Twitter is still not profitable. Twitter lost nearly $80 million in 2012 and reported a net loss of $69 million in the first six months of this year. Facebook reported a profit of $1 billion in the full year before its IPO.

Twitter’s S-1 proved that it is already a mobile-first company: 65% of Twitter’s ad revenue comes from mobile products. Facebook, by comparison, had only just started to advertise on mobile by the time it went public and reported that mobile accounted for 41% of its total ad revenue in the most recent quarter.

If the IPO paperwork is any indication, Twitter also appears to be more mindful of Facebook than Facebook was of Twitter at this point. Twitter mentioned the word “Facebook” 9 times in its S-1. Facebook only mentioned “Twitter” twice.

Image: Steve Jennings/Getty

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Twitter, which announced the move on its blog on Thursday, illustrated the upgrade with this Aug. 11 tweet from astronaut Chris Hadfield:

Good morning! Perspective – Sunday is a fine day to go for a walk with a friend. pic.twitter.com/P3uDfjYsEU

— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) August 11, 2013

“As you can see from @CMDR_Hatfield’s Tweet embedded above, we’ve put the photo front and center, with a bigger and bold visual focus on the media,” Brian Ellin, Twitter’s project manager, platform, wrote in the blog post. “Both landscape and portrait photos now have more room to show their pixels when the Tweets are embedded online.”

Reemerging into society after backpacking ~35 miles through Yosemite’s Grand Canyon of Tuolumne River. My legs hurt. pic.twitter.com/TkjNgKn6b8

— Bill Couch (@couch) July 7, 2013

Improving the photo experience make them more viable for inclusion in articles now that there’s competition from Facebook. Facebook’s embeds came as the company was revving up its real-time marketing opportunities (shortly before, the company introduced hashtags). Instagram, a unit of Facebook, launched embedded posts in July, shortly before Facebook did the same. Instagram’s embeds include video as well as photos. Twitter’s Vine videos are also embeddable.

For a short period, Facebook had not only caught up with Twitter, but also surpassed it by letting news organizations run richer embeds in their stories. Now, the two appear to be on equal footing.

Image: Mary Turner/Getty Images

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In addition to the texts and notifications, ‘alert’ tweets will appear alongside an orange bell icon in the Twitter stream.

“Twitter Alerts [is] a new feature that brings us one step closer to helping users get important and accurate information from credible organizations during emergencies, natural disasters or moments when other communications services aren’t accessible,” explained Gaby Peña, a product manager at Twitter, on the company’s blog.

Twitter already has more than 70 participants for the new system, including The American Red Cross, FEMA, and global non-profits like the World Health Organization. In addition to state and regional accounts (like the New Jersey State Police), Twitter Alerts also partners with a number of international accounts, mostly in Japan.

Users can specify which accounts they’d like to receive alerts from at their setup page: twitter.com/[username]/alerts.

Twitter has already solidified itself as a valuable communication tool during times of crisis. Following events like the Boston Marathon Bombings and Superstorm Sandy last October, Twitter was used by media organizations and authorities to share news quickly and to those without cable or landline access.

This new feature comes on the heels of another alert feature Twitter announced yesterday. Twitter’s mobile users can now receive follow recommendations via push notifications, too. Users will be alerted when a number of people in their network follow a new user, or retweet or favorite the same tweet.

Will you sign up to receive Twitter Alerts? Tell us in the comments below.

Image: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images; Twitter

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What’s notable is that these spammers weren’t sending tweets or direct messages. Instead, they made use of Twitter’s list function, adding people to various lists and indirectly pointing thousands of users toward spam sites.

Lists are typically used to organize Twitter users into more distinct groups. You might have separate lists for celebrities, colleagues and friends, which allows you to monitor several different streams at the same time through tools like TweetDeck. A few months back, Twitter increased the number of lists each user can have from 20 to 1,000 and the maximum number of accounts in each list from 500 to 5,000.

While not entirely new, as noted by BuzzFeed’s Charlie Warzel, it’s a capability that is now being abused by spammers, who are adding users to lists populated with links en masse. Each time you’re added to a list, you get a notification on Twitter and perhaps via email. Naturally, you’ll be keen to find out why you were added to the list and, spammers hope, click their links.

One of the biggest offenders in the current wave was an account called Celeb Phone Numbers. Before Twitter suspended it, the account automatically added tens of thousands of users to lists. It promised to reveal the phone numbers of stars like One Direction singer Tomlinson and Lady Gaga through an associated website.

Warzel reported the person behind the Celeb Phone Numbers account used a Twitter keyword marketing tool to find people who had tweeted about those stars and added them to its lists. That person shared their finding on marketing forums, spurring other spammers to try the tactic. The spammers make money if you complete surveys or view ads on their sites.

The Celeb Phone Numbers account was immediately reported as spam by many users Sunday night:

you cant spam add me to your list now can u pic.twitter.com/sStoEvemkE

— katie (@seasidenouis) September 15, 2013

Twitter is fighting a war against spammers. A study published last month showed how vendors created thousands of phony accounts and sold them to spammers wholesale. Twitter is adding the researchers’ methods for finding such accounts into its abuse-detection systems. Tracking down and killing spam accounts is a high priority as the company prepares to hold an initial public stock offering.

Image: Andy Melton

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