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Facebook, LinkedIn club hands to boost women participation in tech sector

In a bid to boost the dwindling numbers of women studying computer science and engineering, social networking giants Facebook and LinkedIn have clubbed hands for a collaborative initiative of bringing mentoring and support programs at colleges and other educational institutions.

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and LinkedIn CEO Jeffrey Weiner on Friday announced the joint initiative, hoping this will eventually help in filling thousands of attractive Silicon Valley jobs which have been long dominated by men.

Facebook and LinkedIn will jointly organize support and mentoring programs at colleges in order to get more female students enrolled in technology courses and make their presence felt in the technology jobs market, particularly for both companies.

According to Facebook’s 2014 diversity figures, 15 percent of tech jobs’ employees and 31 percent of its all employees are women.

On the other hand, LinkedIn Corp has 17 percent of its tech employees and 39 percent of overall employees in the female category.

The gloomy representation of women employees is not the only case for Facebook or LinkedIn, but almost all the Silicon Valley companies share similar demographics.

Telle Whitney, Anita Borg Institute president and chief executive official, said more diversity among the professionals means greater innovation in technology.

Anita Borg Institute has also partnered with Facebook and LinkedIn which in the collaborative initiative.

“Think about it. If everybody who creates a product looks the same, you know the results won’t be nearly as interesting. We want for the sake of our future to have women involved in all the projects that will change our lives,” Whitney said.

Facebook’s Sandberg has unveiled an international conversation about the poor representation of women at the powerful positions her 2011 book titled “Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead”.

“A lot of our consumers, at least half, sometimes more, are women. We build a product that gives people a voice. We know we can’t build a product for the world unless our teams reflect the diversity of the people who use the product,” she said.

Batting for the need of gender equity for better serving the users, Weiner said, “To limit the perspective of the people building our product and services, if that’s too narrow, it’s going to lead to suboptimal outcomes.”

The percentage of female enrollments in the undergraduate programs of computer science peaked at 35 percent in 1985, but now has fallen down to nearly 17 percent.

Facebook created 4.5mn jobs, added USD 227bn in global economy: Study

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A new report by consultancy company Deloitte has showed that social networking giant Facebook has created an impressive 4.5 million employment opportunities and enabled economic impact of USD 227 billion globally in the year 2014.

The fascinating report card has been mentioned under the title “Facebook’s Global Economic Impact”.

In the report, the researchers analysed how the platform, marketing, and connectivity of the world’s largest social site have facilitated growth and job opportunities around the world.

Jolyon Barker, Deloitte Global Managing Director –Technology, Media and Telecommunications, said, “Our study finds that Facebook enables significant global economic activity by helping to unlock new opportunities through connecting people and businesses, lowering barriers to marketing and stimulating innovation.”

According to the study estimates, the social networking company has about USD 8 billion cost base and it has successfully enabled global economic impact of USD 227 billion along with 4.5 million jobs globally in the year 2014.

In a statement, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said, “Across the world there is a greater urgency about creating jobs. The good news is that the tech industry is powering the economy and creating jobs within and beyond its own campuses. Every day, businesses of all sizes, sectors, and skill sets are using the Facebook platform to grow and expand.”

In the report, the experts also closely examined how the social forum stimulates economic impact by providing effective tools for the marketers, demand for connectivity and a platform for app developers.

The study was commissioned by Facebook.

Facebook enjoyed a user base of more than 1.3 billion people from across the globe.

Facebook unveils ‘Facebook At Work’ purely for professionals

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Social networking giant Facebook is going to integrate its social network into the framework of ‘Facebook at Work’ that intends for the professional users only.

The social media company on Wednesday unveiled its latest product named ‘Facebook at Work’.

Facebook’s innovative idea intends to bring all the businesses at one platform for the creation of very own self-contained social network for the professional world that can be accessed only by their employees.

Commenting on the new product, Facebook’s engineering director Lars Rasmussen, said, “Facebook at Work’s strength is that we’ve spent ten years and incorporated feedback from one billion active users. All of that is embedded now in the same product but adapted for different use cases.”

“When CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes an announcement he just posts it on Facebook at Work. All of that is embedded now in the same product but adapted for different use cases,” Rasmussen, who is heading up the project, said.

According to the tech analysts, the main idea behind the project is to effectively replace or find a better alternative to a company’s email system.

Detailing about the features of ‘Facebook at Work’, the social network giant said that the interface of this new medium will look and behave exactly in the similar manner as the regular Facebook does. Just like the traditional interface of the Facebook, there will be profiles, Likes, News Feed, Wall Posts and everything that the regular FB user has become accustomed to.

What is only needed is that the employers create their separate log-ins for employees in order to use their respective Work accounts under the new system.

The users will be able to access their business accounts via their regular Facebook profile. However, the activities carried on ‘Facebook at Work’ account won’t appear on an employee’s personal profile.

The users can easily log-in their Facebook at Work accounts through the desktop and new Android and iOS via apps called “Work.”

Facebook teams up with NCMEC to find missing children via Amber Alerts

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In the Internet age when social media forums are becoming the most important phenomenon for almost everyone, social networking sites can prove highly beneficial in finding the lost ones.

Social networking giant Facebook has launched a new program called ‘Amber Alerts’ help find and return missing children by tapping its 185 million American users.

The social media company launched the new program in collaboration with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).

The new program will pinpoint the Amber Alerts geographically so that they appear in timelines of the users of Facebook who are near the search area.

“This is a game changer. Facebook is the 700-pound gorilla. It will put information about missing children into the hands of Facebook users immediately,” said NCMEC founder John Walsh.

The complete program is known as the Amber Alert system, which is named after a nine-year-old girl, Amber Hagerman, who was kidnapped 19 years ago in Arlington, Texas, and then brutally murdered.

The Amber Alert system started in the Dallas area in 1996 when the broadcasters joined hands with the local police to enlist the help of public in finding abducted or missing children.

According to NCMEC reports, Amber Alerts have helped police in finding 728 children since the program started.

The law enforcement officials who work with NCMEC issue nearly 180 alerts each year.

Emily Vacher, Trust and Safety Manager for Facebook Security, said that the idea behind the program is that our social media network will help in sharing the available information, including photographs, of the missing child across its network.

The users need not to sign up for the alert service. The site will automatically deliver the alerts if a missing child is suspected to be present in a user’s area.

“If you see an Amber Alert delivered, it means you are actually in a position to be able to help. The best chance of finding a child comes when the right information gets to the people at the right time,” Vacher said.

According to Vacher, the Facebook users can share information with their listed friends using ‘Buttons’ on the alert. Another button called “Learn More” will help the FB users connect to the NCMEC missing child poster as well as the most updated information.

Facebook unfriends Microsoft’s Bing web search results

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The relationship status between social networking giant Facebook and tech bigwig Microsoft is no more “Complicated” but they have ‘unfriend’ each other and ended a four-year online relationship.

Facebook on Friday said that it will no longer continue using Microsoft’s search engine Bing for web search results.

In a statement, a Facebook spokesman said, “We’re not currently showing web search results in Facebook Search because we’re focused on helping people find what’s been shared with them on Facebook.”

But Microsoft will continue owning a small but valuable stake in Facebook.

Echoing similar sentiments, Microsoft released a statement confirming the development.

“Facebook recently changed its search experience to focus on helping people tap into information that’s been shared with them on Facebook vs. a broader set of Web results,” a Microsoft spokesman said.

Both the companies, however, remained committal of support in other areas.

Experts call the pseudo-breakup as both surprising and expected. They say the social networking site is developing its own search mechanism which is primarily focused on helping the Facebook users find information within its social network.

Two years ago, the company launched “Graph Search” that offered users to sift through friends with questions like “College classmates who like X-Men movies and Coldplay and live in San Francisco.”

Facebook is making various updation and taking crucial initiatives to develop its search mechanism.

Instagram defeat Twitter with over 300 million monthly users

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Photo and video sharing service Instagram now enjoys a massive user base which is bigger than micro-blogging site Twitter.

According to the reports, it has now gained over 300 million monthly active users across the world. This is a significant 50 percent increase in the last nine months.

Debra Aho Williamson, a principal analyst at eMarketer, said, “With 300 million monthly users, Instagram’s audience is becoming very attractive to marketers, especially brand advertisers and its rapid growth will only make it more appealing.”

Experts find the big growth in user base as an encouraging news for the photo-sharing platform as it will result in attracting more advertisers.

Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, has recently introduced video advertisements and sells sponsored photo posts.

The photo-sharing platform has been making rigorous efforts to remove fake accounts and spam and will soon begin verification of accounts belonging to celebrities, athletes and brands.

In a blog post, Instagram’s CEO Kevin Systrom, wrote, “As Instagram gets bigger, we’re focused on helping you discover photos and videos from people who you care about, whether it’s a friend or your favorite musician.”

According to Systrom, the users share over 70 million photos and videos per day.

Both Instagram and Facebook have been witnessing a stronger user figures lately.

66 percent of its monthly visitors, Facebook holds the top spot in the United States that comes to its service every day. It has 1.3 billion users worldwide. Instagram is at the second position with 43 percent followed by Twitter at 40 percent.

The figures were found in a survey which was released this week by stock research firm UBS.

Facebook to upgrade ‘Keyword Search’ for mobile app

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Social networking giant Facebook is going to upgrade the search mechanism for its mobile app, which will allow the users to hunt through the posts made by their near ones who they follow or the pages that they have liked.

With the new rollout of the ‘keyword search’, the Facebook users will be able to find the posts of friends they follow or which have been shared with them.

In the initial stage, the update will only be available for the US English language users.

According to a Facebook spokesperson, the update will be launched today only on the iOS mobile app and the desktop.

“We want to make sure these updates work really well before rolling them out to other platforms,” the spokesperson said.

Any timeframe for the roll out of update for the search on Android has not been provided by the social networking company.

According to the sources, Facebook had earlier planned to display search results that have public posts even from the unfollowed people but they later realized that the users are most interested in scrolling through the posts made by their friends and pages they liked.

Tom Stocky, Facebook’s vice president of search, said, “Usually when you think about information retrieval, it’s all about matching content to queries or content to intent. But what we found is that on Facebook people care as much if not more about who is posting the content as they do about what the actual content is.”

Tech experts are seeing the ‘keyword search’ as a giant step for Facebook. The search will offer the users to get indexed content and posts that otherwise might have lost in the midst of rushing feeds posted one after another.

Facebook’s Zuckerberg launches veiled attack on Apple’s Cook

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Tech giant Apple Inc and social networking site Facebook seems to be tied into a slugfest, with both the companies playing war of words against each other.

Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg launched a veiled attack at Apple CEO Tim Cook over his remarks on the social networking site.

Talking in context of sites like Facebook, Cook had said that free services that are supported by ads convert their users into products.

Zuckerberg criticized the high price of Apple products.

In an interview to Time, Zuckerberg said, “A frustration I have is that a lot of people increasingly seem to equate an advertising business model with somehow being out of alignment with your customers.”

His full interview was published in the article “Inside Facebook’s Plan to Wire the World”.

“It’s the most ridiculous concept. What, you think because you’re paying Apple that you’re somehow in alignment with them? If you were in alignment with them, then they’d make their products a lot cheaper!” Zuckerberg told Time.

In an open letter posted on Apple’s Privacy page, Cook had said that the users in free online services are not the customers. Rather they are the products.

The letter came as Apple’s response in addressing privacy concerns within their devices.

Recently, Apple’s iCloud service was hit by a massive hack following which many personal and nude pictures of celebrities were leaked and posted to other social forums. The incident has invited severe criticism for Apple.

This is not the first time when such a kind of argument over free and paid services has flared up. The companies and advocates have been debating over the consumer privacy concerns for years.

Companies like Google, Facebook, and Yahoo! And others mainly rely on advertising revenue for generating their profits. However, in exchange for the free services the users are mainly exposed to targeted advertisement based on the data gathered from them.

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