Thoughtpick: A unique perspective of the Web and social media...
A unique perspective of the Web and social media...

March 18, 2010

What Is It Like to Work With Facebook & Zuck?

We have all heard about how it feels like to work at Google and how Google is the trend setter of creating the perfect environment for creativity and employee retention. But Facebook is different. Rarely have we ever heard about how it feels like to work with Mike Zuckerberg, a company that employs more than a 1,000 able people must have a story or two to share.

The fact that rarely anything about working at Facebook, or with Zuckerberg, is featured in the media made me curious to learn more about.

The Beginning

450px-markzuckerberg

Zuck Man

Mark Zuckerberg was somewhat of a local celebrity at Harvard in the fall of 2003. His first site Facemash was a hit at campus; a hot-or-not site for Harvard. Due to that popularity, he was recommended to code another project.

During that time Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra were on the lookout for a programmer to code their idea for them. They wanted to create a social media network for students at Harvard and then potentially expand it to other universities. Based on the recommendation they received, they contacted Mark, and both parties agreed to start working on the project. While at first Mark was enthusiastic about the project, shortly his tone and enthusiasm waded. He went from saying “I read over all the stuff you sent and it seems like it shouldn’t take too long to implement, so we can talk about that after I get all the basic functionality up tomorrow night” to “The week has been pretty busy thus far, so I haven’t gotten a chance to do much work on the site or even think about it really“.

[read full article >>]

March 10, 2010

Be Ware! Top 8 Social Media Scams So Far [videos]

Every time I turn around there’s a new scam.” Maryanne Bessette

Scams, scams, scams… All around, everywhere… Now and before, here and there!

And for the past few years, scams are spreading even more and taking on a new face for everyone using social media to be seduced and deceived by!

Can you believe that there are websites, such as scambusters.org, dedicated to unavailing scam online?

Therefore, and in efforts to keep you safe, at least from social media inflicted scams, here’s a mixed list of top 8 scams you should know about and probably take to mind when using Facebook, Twitter and social media in general:

1. Free Facebook iPad Offer is a scam, Sophos reveals

iPad FaceBook scam automatically signs you up for a $10 a week premium cell phone service post from: FSMdotCOM.

[read full article >>]

March 8, 2010

Is Twitter Finally Choosing a Business Model?

Ever since Twitter secured as much as $100 million dollars funding last year, speculation went wild on what kind of business model they will adopt. In November, Twitter COO Dick Costolo confirmed that the first piece to fall into place is the Ad platform which he described as “fascinating. Non-traditional. And people will love it… It’s going to be really cool.

What We Know So Far?

Now we are getting closer to the day when this Ad-platform will be introduced publicly and it maybe as soon as next month during the South by Southwest Conference. According to the Wall Street Journal, the long awaited Twitter platform will look something like this:

  • The ads will be tied to Twitter search, displaying only the ads that are relevant to the search term.
  • The ads will be 140 or fewer characters, 3rd party applications will have the option to display the ads and Twitter will share revenue with them if they do.
  • Twitter will work with ad agencies at first but will move to a Google like self-serve model later on.
  • Non invasive and will be clearly marked as “sponsored” tweets

What we already know about the Ad-platform leaves a lot of speculations running in everyone’s head in relation to how it will work and what impact it will have on Twitter’s ever expanding user base.

What Will the Ads Look like?

An Ad.ly ad

An Ad.ly ad

Will the ads be clearly labeled like ad.ly’s In-Stream ads? Or will they be more like “I am having the new Italian burger at McDonalds” and “My favorite Chips is so-n-so or the direct in your face kind of “Click this link and 20% off of your next purchase”.

[read full article >>]

May 20, 2009

13 Viral Twitter and Flash Games Analyzed!

ThoughtPickers dove into the world of simple viral games – mostly twitter and flash based games –. We played, researched, and investigated (but mostly played ;) ). We used to think that simple games can’t be funny or addictive, but we realized otherwise. We found out that some games are simply brilliant, others have good potential, and some are significantly flawed.

We list them in three categories below.

Brilliant Games

Fast140 - How Fast can you Tweet?

Fast140 - How Fast can you Tweet?

1. Fast 140: Fast 140 measures one’s typing speed. It picks a tweet randomly and asks you to write it as fast as possible. How fast can you type?

Thoughtpickers’ opinion: Try it once, and you will keep on banging your keyboard for better results. It has an addictive and competitive nature. @Fast140 has now 12,066 followers.

Sock and Awe - Bye-bye Bush

Sock and Awe - Bye-bye Bush

2. Sock and Awe: A flash based game that was built on a hot news topic. You just click on your mouse to throw shoes on George Bush.

Thoughtpickers’ opinion: People behind the game were brilliant enough to take advantage of this hot news incident. Today Sock and Awe enjoys around 92 million shoe-click online! It is not surprising to know that Bush’s viral games increased in the run up of Obama’s inauguration.
[read full article >>]