Rosana Ubanell | Managing Director | Intuic Miami 05/12/2011
MASH MY WEEK! Summary of outstanding news about the Internet, technology, and social media from November 28–December 2
This weekly summary starts with news about social platforms. First comes Foursquare, the mobile geolocation platform, which expands its Internet presence with the addition of a button for directly storing places to visit based on recommendations selected online.
This week’s second innovation comes from the online video giant YouTube, with an upgrade in its performance analysis program, offering more detailed statistics on the audience and published content.
Last but not least, we acknowledge International Information Protection Day and offer advice for protecting your own information on the Internet.
Foursquare “To-Do List”
Foursquare, the mobile geolocation platform, has continued to grow. Today it has more than 10 billon users worldwide, it registers billons of daily check-ins, and more than 500,000 businesses use it for their brands.
Last week, Foursquare announced the addition of a new plug-in for its service: “Save to Foursquare.”
How does it work? First, the user enters a website to see a place profile, a restaurant or museum review, or a tourist guide. The user clicks the “Save to Foursquare” button on that page, and the information is stored in the Foursquare account on a “To-Do List.”
The platform will send a reminder when the user is physically near a “To-Do” site or it will suggest a “To-Do” site when asked for recommendations on “Explore.” The “Radar” function will also send a reminder as the user approaches the site.
However, not every website has installed this button, so Fourquare has made available a plug-in that can be installed on the web browser.
We recommend watching the instructional videos in the Foursquare official blog.
YouTube Analytics
YouTube announced on its official blog a new measurement platform, called YouTube Analytics that replaces YouTube Insights.
This new measurement tool provides better information about your audience and published content. Some features of the new platform are:
- General view: A quick visual summary of general information offers the option to access more specific data.
- More detailed reports: The analytics will include more detailed statistics for better understanding audience behavior and content effectiveness.
- Audience creation: You can discover which videos attract more viewers, which are the most viewed, and which achieve a higher number of subscriptions.
- Audience retention: See how much playing time your videos get.
Check out YouTube Analytics and learn all about your audience and content. Based on these statistics you will be able create better videos, gain new followers, and improve your earnings through the platform.
YouTube Analytics is available to anyone with a YouTube account.
International Information Protection Day
Since 1988, International Information Protection Day is celebrated every November 30th to raise users’ consciousness of the importance of protecting their information and the systems and environments that operate with it.
For those using new information and communications technologies, we offer some advice about how to protect information on the Internet to avoid becoming a victim of cyber-crime:
1. Use strong passwords… with at least 8 characters that combine capital and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. Change your password periodically and use different passwords for different accounts or services.
2. Use an antivirus… and make sure to keep it updated.
3. Keep all your applications updated… including your operating system, with the latest security updates provided by the software provider and those applications that can be accessed directly from the browser, such as the PDF files viewer or the Flash extension files.
4. Backup… your files and important folders periodically.
5. Screen email… and do not open attachments or click on links from unknown senders.
6. Screen downloads… and do not download or open files from untrustworthy sites or sources.
7. Screen websites… to verify the identity and security indicators of a website before entering a password or completing forms in order to use coded channels (https://).
For other recommendations, go to here.