Who Are You, LinkedIn Viewers?

Where do LinkedIn Readers Come From?

Want to Reach 82% of Online Users? Try Social Networks

According to comScore, in 2011 social networking sites reach 82% of the world’s online user population.

G+ or FB–Weigh in

Here are the results of a poll Mashable is running comparing readers thoughts about the major Social Networks–FB, G+, Twitter. I voted so I could see the results. Here they are:

Did You Know: How Big Twitter is

The numbers

• There are 175 million registered users on Twitter (source: Twitter)

• There are about 95 million tweets every day (source: Twitter)

• Around 42% of users check Twitter to find out about products (source: Edison Research/Arbitron: Twitter usage in America)

• About the same number tweet about brands they follow (source: Edison Research/Arbitron)

• 67% of brand followers will purchase that specific brand (source: DigitalSurgeons)

 

Social Networks are the Matrix

First, this post about Second Life being used for business meetings and research labs. Now this story about the Supreme Court delivering official documents via Twitter. If you were the last hold out that social networks were just a fad, read on:

Court serves injunction via Twitter

Updated on 01 October 2009

By Benjamin Cohen

In a landmark decision, the high court allows an injunction to be served via Twitter in a case that could set a precedent for dealing with anonymous bloggers. Benjamin Cohen reports.

The case surrounds a Twitter account @blaneysblarney, which purports to be that of the well-known right-wing lawyer Donal Blaney, who blogs under the name BlaneysBarney.

The account, which was registered on 17 September, even features a photograph of the real Donal Blaney and posts rather provocative tweets including –

“So the Iranians were lying all along. Time for the RAF to start practicing bunker bombing…”

“Now Obama, who the eurofederasts [sic] love, is happy to leave us to the mercy of the mad mullahs…”

//

Mr Blaney became aware of the Twitter account, which has 79 “followers”, a week ago, and last night he decided to take legal action.

He told Channel4 News: “I know that is quicker to say contact Twitter and say someone is impersonating me and they’ll take the account down.

“But that’s not good enough any more. People want to know who’s doing this and to force them to stop.

“Too many people abuse the anonymity on the internet, and it’s right that they’re stopped from doing so.”

This morning the high court issued an injunction requiring the user to (i) stop posting messages on Twitter, (ii) preserve the accounts (i.e. not delete it), and (iii) contact Mr Blaney personally. (more)

How I Use My Computer: The Poll

Based on the huge response to my post yesterday on a Slashdot poll itemizing how people use their computers, I’ll add my own poll. Let’s see if my readers are similar to those of Slashdot.

How Do You Use Your Computer?

I guess my ‘research’ goes as ‘work/school. How about you?

From Slashdot--over 19,000 voters

Biggest Threat to Network Security: People

Network security is becoming more and more difficult to maintain. Even as firewalls and spy detection programs get better at beating back cybercriminals, they just don’t work against the loose lips of employees. It’s human nature to gossip. Even before we became human, we liked to share secrets, though at that time it was called ‘grooming’–sitting together, grunting and barking, as we picked lice and dirt from our best friend’s fur. Now, that’s replaced with emails, blogs, tell-all websites. They accomplish the same social network stuff, but on a much larger scale.

Here’s a report from the Wall Street Journal that expands on this growing problem:

Email Still the Biggest Threat for Insider Leaks, But Blogs, Video on the Rise

A report from security firm Proofpoint shows that email isn’t the only inside threat companies face — confidential information is leaking out via blogs, mobile devices and social-media sites.

AFP/Getty Images

In a survey of some 220 companies, Proofpoint found that email is still the No. 1 offender when it comes to data leaks. About 43% of respondents had investigated an email-based security breach during the past year. Nearly one-third of the companies surveyed had fired an employee for violating email confidentiality policies, a 26% increase from 2008.

Blogs and videos are increasingly channels for leaks as well, with 18% of respondents saying that they looked at those media when investigating an information leak. Social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace have also seen jumps in privacy-related incidents — 17% of respondents reviewed social-media hubs, up from 12% a year ago.

In a Proofpoint video, the company’s director of market development, Keith Crosley, said that shrinking information-technology budgets and the economic downturn itself contribute to the problem. “Layoffs themselves are often the cause of data breaches,” he said. “When employees leave a company, they sometimes take confidential information with them.”

Half of the survey respondents said that cuts in their IT staff had damaged their ability to protect confidential information, and 42% said that ramped-up job cuts heightened the risks of data leaks.

And while nearly half (48%) of surveyed companies with 20,000 or more employees have hired workers to read or analyze outbound email, only 38% of companies overall employ such staff. That figure, however, is the highest Proofpoint has seen in the study’s six-year history.

While most companies had policies for the use of email (96%) and messaging overall (90%), fewer had developed rules for the acceptable use of blogs and social networking — 72% and 67%, respectively.