The Facebook generation is so over Facebook, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.

After surveying 802 teens, ages 12 to 17 about their online habits, it turns out that Facebook has become a "social burden." "While Facebook is still deeply integrated in teens’ everyday lives, it is sometimes seen as a utility and an obligation rather than an exciting new platform that teens can claim as their own." 

While 94 percent of teens are maintaining their Facebook accounts, more and more continue to migrate to Twitter and Instagram as largely parent-free zones that give them a greater ability to freely express themselves. According to the survey, 11 percent of teens had Instagram accounts, 5 percent have Tumblr accounts and 7 percent have accounts on Myspace.Continue reading...

Twitter Ads is now open for business to all U.S. users! More info here: bit.ly/1574r1p. Get started today: bit.ly/13r84xk

— Twitter Small Biz (@TwitterSmallBiz) April 30, 2013

All is a-twitter at the micro blogger as hacks continue to occur of high-profile accounts. In April, hackers broke into and tweeted from the accounts of CBS, NPR, and the Associated Press, posting messages that the US government was “in bed”  with terrorists, and that there had been a (fake) explosion at the White House.

“That one bogus AP tweet caused the Dow Jones Industrial Average to drop 1 percent almost immediately, highlighting just how much people trust Twitter as a breaking news resource," VentureBeat points out.

A group called the Syrian Electronic Army took credit for the hacks, but the potential for other copycats is so great, Twitter is urging companies not to share passwords in emails or over the Internet and to limit the number of people with access to the their Twitter account. The company is even advising publishers to designate one computer exclusively for tweeting. Additionally, publications are advised to use two-factor authentication on email addresses, use strong passwords and store passwords on LastPass or 1Password.Continue reading...

Twitter just broke the ad barrier with a new tool that lets marketers deep dive into users' tweets to serve up the most relevant ads, rather than just analyzing their "interest graph."

Tests of the keyword-based targeting mechanism indicate a click rate of 11 out of 100 times an ad appeared, which "shows the power of the intent expressed in users' public tweets," Kevin Weil, a senior director of product at Twitter told Reuters. The ad tool leverages the essence of Twitter’s DNA—the ubiquity of hashtags. "It's already used today as a way to focus conversation," Weil added. "Now it's also a way for users who are talking about something to see really relevant [ads]."

Twitter, now valued at $9 billion with 200 million users worldwide, is preparing an IPO possibly by 2014. With that, the social service has set its sights on another engagement driver: video.Continue reading...

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings on Monday, many took to social media to help locate loved ones and confirm safety, while brands spoke out, offering consoling thoughts along with offers of free services and aid to victims and locals affected by the attack — and then retreated to the sidelines, cancelling promoted tweets and Facebook status updates unless they could be of service.

In that vein, Google quickly developed a Boston version of its Person Finder tool, while JetBlue, Airbnb and other brands and businesses (big and small) that could help the distressed and stranded sprang into action. For some, like Adidas, sponsorship of the event led to an unfortunate juxtaposition with terror, as the brand's logo and "All In" tagline was featured at the finish line, and thus the front page of the Boston Globe.

Ford's head of social media, Scott Monty, tweeted some advice to brands for those unsure of how to respond—but sadly, with horrific events becoming more frequent these days, marketers are getting more adept at what to do (and more importantly, what not to do).Continue reading...

As millenials continue to flap around aimlessly in the job pool, one social network is extending what it hopes will be a candy-striped life saver.

Collegefeed is directly challenging the current king of recruiting, LinkedIn, with an “early career marketplace” that plans to create “improvement in the quality, speed, cost and efficiency of the connection between college students, employers, alumni and industry insiders.”

The public beta, currently open to students and new grads from the University of California-Berkeley, Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon aids students in creating resumes, portfolios and streamlining their job interests, while companies can create a page to push content to particular groups of students.Continue reading...

If you remember when social integration meant how well you played on the playground or lined up for lunch in second grade, you’re probably an analog native.

For the digital native, it means the growing integration of social networking on sites heretofore not inherently social. At the front of the pack? Netflix. 

Netflix has finally debuted Facebook integration for U.S. subscribers, who can now opt to see what their friends have been watching and like the most, as well as post films or TV shows to their Facebook wall and comment on viewing activity.Continue reading...

The originators of social media as we know it today—Facebook and Twitter—are dealing with a lack of interest from once-dedicated users: young smartphone-attached digital natives who grew up on mobile and social.

Facebook is busy revamping the social site's News Feed while Twitter is turning its focus towards the bevy of brands and advertisers that are trying to capitalize on the site's RTM capabilities. The trial and error of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter has in turn birthed the next generation of social media as younger digerati take to their devices and craft social platforms that are better-suited to their likes and habits.

Pheed, the social media platform that lets users share text, photos, videos and audio describes itself as “the evolution of social sharing,” combining elements of those platforms preceding it and adding capabilities of SoundCloud, Tumblr and Ustream, with no limits on content size, videos that can run as long as 4 hours and 20 minutes and photos in any resolution and shape. Notably, a copyright button lets users put a watermark on their content that is legally binding.

The website and mobile app are particularly popular with teenagers, who made it the App Store's number one social networking app in February, with a “user base [that] is 81percent between age 14 and 25.”Continue reading...

#anglee @vanityfair #Oscars2013 #innoutburger twitter.com/EMenicheschi/s…

— Edward Menicheschi (@EMenicheschi) February 25, 2013

The Academy Awards produced the latest missed opportunity in branded social media when a two-time Oscar winning director Ang Lee was tweeted chomping down on an In-N-Out Burger, his golden trophy in tow. The photo, taken by Vanity Fair's Publisher Edward Menicheschi, was tagged #innoutburger and retweeted fewer than two dozen times. It was the perfect opportunity for a California burger icon to bask its brand in Oscar glow. Too bad In-N-Out's last tweet was in June 2011.

In-N-Out Burger's failure is worse than Poland Spring's. Far worse. 

The pic of Ang Lee eating In-N-Out with his Oscar was copied and tweeted and posted by others. The most retweets was just over 350, from a post by movie writer R. Emmett Sweeney. Compare that to the 5,350-plus retweets of Marco Rubio's State of the Union response Poland Spring water bottle or the 16,000-plus retweets of Oreo's Super Bowl "dark" Tweet. In-N-Out's Facebook page also failed to acknowledge the free gift handed to it—a fact that its Facebook fans pointed out on its page. Continue reading...