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  • Megaupload case timeline

    The following social media timeline has been compiled using Storify to show the evolving story and reactions to the Megaupload case, following the dramatic arrests of Kim Dotcom and his three colleagues earlier this year.

  • Facebook adds 'subscribe' button

    Facebook is extending the scope of its site into Twitter and Google+ territory by making it possible for Facebook members to subscribe to each other's public posts without necessarily having to be approved friends.

  • #RIPforTwitter? Not so fast

    There's been a lot of discussion lately about Google+ and why it will render Twitter obsolete. Technology and tech-culture writer Mike Elgan makes a good argument and suggests that "It's only a matter of time before Twitter becomes a ghost town."

  • Twitter causing shift away from call centres: Australian bank

    The National Australia Bank’s (NAB) customers are increasingly turning to Twitter to have their customer complaints and enquires dealt with, the bank has claimed.
    Speaking at a roundtable discussion on the role of social media in business, general manager of digital at the bank, Chris Smith, said NAB's contact centre is no longer the first port of call for customers.
    “We get 30 million calls a year — is it [our use of social media] measurable and can we achieve that ROI? We’re getting there,” Smith said. “Are people using social media instead of calling in? There is some channel switching happening.”
    Smith said the bank’s use of social media only took off recently, with , and its 'break up with your bank campaign' being a major step up for NAB, which now employ five employees primarily for social media.
    “We’re quite new and don’t have much of a background in social media,” Smith said. “We’ve had some footprints here are there, but last year our CEO said we had to get out into the Twittersphere and use social media better.
    “We wanted to differentiate ourselves from the other banks... we really used Twitter for our first entry to the social media space.”
    The bank said it focused on using social media first rather than as a last resort, which helped it differentiate itself from competitors in the industry.
    “Often in marketing campaigns, digital strategy comes last,” Smith said “We turned this on its head and said let’s start with a social media campaign.
    “The journey we’re on is not just educating our customers but taking on the rest of our banking culture.”

  • Salesforce.com to buy social monitoring vendor

    Salesforce.com plans to buy social media monitoring vendor Radian6, whose technology tracks conversations occurring on social sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, the company said Wednesday.

  • Webstock praise from international presenters

    At the fifth Webstock conference, held in Wellington, visiting speakers said they wouldn’t have missed it – and somehow you knew they weren’t just being polite.

  • Webstock: Facebook leads the way with HTML5

    Probably the most attention-getting feature of the HTML5 web standard is support of video as a standard web feature, making it unnecessary to use proprietary plugins such as Adobe’s Flash to support web video.

  • Webstock: Accessibility an advantage to all

    For the past 10 years Glenda Sims has specialised in the discipline of web accessibility – an area, she acknowledges, that has not always been well regarded among developers. Speaking to Computerworld, she says it is often regarded as just another legal requirement, imposed on them by the Americans with Disabilities Act and similar provisions in other countries.

  • Why some users freak out over Facebook

    The saying goes that "You can't have too many friends," but that might not be true in the world of Facebook, according to a new study by Scottish researchers.

  • Google adjusts search to remove rankings reward for complaints

    In an uncharacteristically public way, Google has acknowledged modifying its search engine so it can identify businesses that provide bad service and lower their search results rankings accordingly, reversing an anomalous situation in which an eyewear retailer claimed that negative comments about his business pushed it up in Google's rankings, getting him more exposure.

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