eSocial Reports

Source - Shelly Palmer

Source - Shelly Palmer - 

Robocalls are so universally hated that the United States House of Representatives (a group not known for their bipartisan approach to legislating) passed the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (TRACED) 417-3. I am wondering what the three representatives who did not vote in favor of the bill like about robocalls…

The good news is that is it expected to pass in the Senate, and then carriers will have 18 months to install the required technology and offer the service free of charge.

Source - WebProNews - 

Science journal Nature is reporting that accurate weather forecasting may be an unintentional casualty of 5G deployment.

At the heart of the issue is the frequencies that have been approved for use in 5G networks, specifically frequencies around 23.8 GHz. Evidently, “water vapour in the atmosphere naturally produces a weak signal at this frequency, which satellites use to measure humidity.

Source: Business Insider

Amazon is increasingly ramping up on ad offerings across its ecosystem, in a mounting bid to lure ad dollars away from platforms like Google and Facebook, YouTube, traditional TV, and the connected-TV device maker Roku.

Amazon will continue to invest in expanding its ad business beyond display ads on its e-commerce platform and mobile shopping app, yielding both powerful opportunities for brands and rising threats to incumbents. Although Amazon ad revenue growth has decelerated in recent quarters, it could meaningfully resurge as Amazon develops new offerings around its owned-and-operated platforms and devices.

Source: Shelly Palmer

 How valuable is Facebook to its users, and how can you measure the value of the site when access is free? Three economists and a social media researcher pooled their work and expertise to assess Facebook's value to its users, in contrast to its market value or its contribution to gross domestic product.

Using a series of auctions—in which people were actually paid to close their accounts for as little as one day or as long as one year—the researchers found that Facebook users would require an average of more than $1,000 to deactivate their account for one year. The study is published today in PLOS ONE.

Source: Shelly Palmer

Known simply as 5G, the next-generation wireless network has been touted as “world-changing” and a quantum leap in the evolution of communication. There’s a good reason: it will be. If you’re wondering how and why, here are 5 things 5G should make you think about.

1. Fixed Wireless, No Cables

Imagine hooking up a huge, paper-thin, 5G-compatible flat screen and just plugging in the power cable. No other cables required. You won’t need a cable box; you’ll just login to your various video accounts and start watching video.

eSocial Reports search the internet for articles and information that is vital to your survival in an environment that is information overload. 

Source: By Kelly Shelton - Social Media Today

Social media is constantly evolving, so the life expectancy of any given social marketing strategy can be perilously short. Unfortunately, some tactics don’t seem to die when they should - instead, they stumble along like some sort of marketing zombie, totally unaware that they should be laying in a grave for good.

Source-eMarketers

• Traditional brands are no longer staying in their lanes

Omnichannel retailing means meeting shoppers' expectations in their channel of choice, digital or physical. But more retailers are breaking out of their molds and experimenting with new models, including using stores as pickup-only locations, online retailers embracing brick-and-mortar and traditional brands trying subscription commerce.

Here are three areas in which retailers are expanding the business models they were founded upon. 

Source: Muck Rack

It's not exactly breaking news to say the journalism industry -- and by extension media relations and PR -- are in a state of flux. However, new employment data from the US Department of Labor illustrates just how dramatically the media relations landscape has continued to shift.

As journalist Mike Rosenberg explained in a 2016 piece for Muck Rack, if you search terms like “journalism” or “reporter,” in a job search, you’re more likely to find a list of jobs that have virtually nothing to do with news or news production.

Source - Forbes

One of the toughest things about starting your own business is that period of time when it’s just you. You are the founder, the marketer, the publicist, the developer, the list goes on and on. And wearing that many hats becomes nearly impossible very quickly as your business grows. But with a growing headcount of 17.7 million independent workers, and a large percentage of them being solopreneurs, it’s clear that many are successfully making it happen.

I spoke to successful entrepreneurs to find out which technology tools, apps, and innovations help them do it all solo.

Source - Marketing Land

Facebook says it is notifying those who shared information with the myPersonality app, which was mostly active before 2012.

Facebook has banned another app on its platform since announcing in March it had banned Cambridge Analytica for misusing user data via the ThisIsYourDigitalLife app.

The myPersonality app banned by Facebook was active prior to 2012, according to the company, and was used by approximately 4 million people. This is the first app Facebook has banned since it started its app investigation following the Cambridge Analytica crisis.

Source - Washington Post - 

Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey said he is rethinking core parts of the social media platform so that it doesn’t enable the spread of hate speech, harassment and false news, including conspiracy theories shared by prominent users like Alex Jones and Infowars.

In an interview with The Washington Post on Wednesday, Dorsey said he was experimenting with features that would promote alternative viewpoints in Twitter’s timeline to address misinformation and reduce “echo chambers.” He also expressed openness to labeling bots -- automated accounts that sometimes pose as human users -- and redesigning key elements of the social network, including the “like” button and the way Twitter displays users’ follower counts.

Source CNET.Com

Once limited, Alexa Routines can now control your home and stream music on a schedule.

A few months ago, Amazon rolled out one of the larger feature updates for Alexaspeakers to date: Routines. This lets you automate lights and other connected devices on a schedule, or lump multiple commands into one. "Alexa, good night" could be programmed to turn off smart bulbs around the house, lock the door, set a specific temperature and more, for example. Routines further cement Alexa as the brains of the smart home.

Source: BY LAURA HAUTALA - IAN SHERR - - CNET.Com

CEO Mark Zuckerberg says in a post that one Russian agency has "tried to manipulate people in the US, Europe, and Russia -- and we don't want them on Facebook anywhere in the world."

Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday said Facebook will take down "more than 270 pages and accounts operated by a Russian organization called the Internet Research Agency."

We at eSocial Reports are always looking for great articles that we can share with our readers.  Today, I am sharing an article by Scott Rosenberg - Axiom that Journalist and the media at large will find interesting.

Facebook and Google execs privately complain about the barrage of critical coverage they face, charging that media companies have a financial incentive to attack them and that media execs are settling scores. They're right.

Be smart: Outrage over Facebook's misuse of user data and failure to rein in election fraud is real. But the zeal that media outlets bring to their Facebook coverage is personal, too. It's turbocharged because journalists, individually and collectively, blame Facebook — along with other tech giants, like Google, and the internet itself — for seducing their readers, impoverishing their employers, and killing off their jobs.

• Source: Devin Coldewey - Techcrunch 

Facebook  CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been rather scarce lately, despite a host of woes besetting his company — but Wednesday he emerged from his cocoon to offer a limp apology, admit they had no control over data like that used by Cambridge Analytica, and that he “will happily” testify before Congress if he’s the right person to do so.

Well, Congress has taken him at his word. “You are the right person to testify before Congress,” wrote the leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in a letter detailed early this morning. His capacity as CEO and “the employee who has been the leader of Facebook through all the key strategic decisions since its launch” make him the best person to testify.

Earlier this week Senators Klobuchar (D-MN) and Kennedy (R-LA) from the Senate Judiciary Committee specifically asked for Zuckerberg as well.

SpaceX is launching a Falcon 9 on February 17 (should the current target date stick) and the rocket is carrying a primary payload of a Spanish satellite for client Paz.

The secondary cargo on the launch is more interesting, however, since it’s two of SpaceX’s own satellites – demonstration satellites the company is putting into orbit to test its plan to offer satellite-based broadband internet communications services.

The rocket will include Microsat-2A and Microsat-2B (via TheNextWeb), small satellites with a planned useful lifetime of just 20 months. Both will contain Ku-band broadband transmitter radios, allowing them to test their ability to offer Earth-based connectivity from low-Earth orbit.

WhatsApp has begun testing a new payments feature in India that will allow people to send money to other WhatsApp users, excluding merchant accounts. The feature is currently in beta, according to sources familiar with the company’s plans, but hasn’t been publicly announced because it’s not widely available at this time.

The company has been  working on support for a payments feature for some time, which would take advantage of UPI (Unified Payments Interface) and include support by a number of Indian banks, including State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, and Axis Bank.

Beta testers have now found that this functionality is live, with a large list of supported banks displayed in the WhatsApp user interface.

Source: Axios.Com 

The social network really, really wants to be a "source for democratic good." The trick will be making that happen.

Facebook suddenly can't stop thinking about what happens to democracy when social media gets involved.

The company acknowledged in three blog posts Monday that social media can be a simmering source of problems for democratic societies. It's an issue that Facebook's been grappling with since the controversies of the 2016 US presidential election.

Source: Techcrunch

WhatsApp today officially launched its new WhatsApp Business app in select markets, including Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, the U.K. and the U.S., ahead of its planned worldwide rollout. The addition of business profiles and new messaging tools aimed at business customers is part of the company’s broader plan to generate revenue by charging larger enterprises for advanced tools to communicate with customers on the platform now used by over a billion people worldwide.

The WhatsApp Business app is the initial entry point in this market.