Twitter: delete a retweet or undo a retweet !!!

Holy twitter!!! I had accidentally retweeted one post. How do you remove that retweet from my profile. Twitter has a confusing UI. And my Google search took more than few clicks to the top pages to final get the trouble shoot.
As easy as retweeting and exactly opposite !!!
Just press on retweet again on the tweet you have retweeted. Magic, you get the option to undo the retweet as below.
I cracked it and hopefully many you also will be able to do it swiftly.

WhatsApp and Facebook’s data sharing agreement: Guide to opt out

Facebook has finally realized that it wants to gain something from it’s multi billion dollar buy. So it simply wants too improve Facebook ads and product experiences by using your whatsapp data. So in case you find it too intrusive and desire to opt out. Here are two methods to do it right now even if you have already agreed to the terms  

Method 1

• Tap “Read” before you tap 'Agree' to accept Facebook's updated 'Terms of Service and Privacy Policy',.
• Toggle to the bottom of the screen to see “control”
• ‘Uncheck' the box or 'toggle' the control

Method 2

So if you have already agreed to Facebook's updated 'Terms of Service and Privacy Policy’, still there is a way out but you only have a 30 days window period to roll back your agreement. 

• Go to Settings > Account > Share my account info inside the app. 
• ‘Uncheck' the box or 'toggle' the control.

Finally, Facebook plays a classical Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) game
Once you uncheck the box or toggle the control, you will be asked,
“Are you sure you don’t want to use your WhatsApp account information to improve your Facebook ads and products experiences? If you tap don’t share, you won’t be able to share this in the future.”
So it is a take it or lose it offer where many people would prefer better losing it.

Beware: Click-bait is omnipresent

The definition of "click-bait" goes like this,
"content, especially that of a sensational or provocative nature, whose main purpose is to attract attention and draw visitors to a particular web page."
I just stumbled upon a news article titled "Jail for all adults of a family if alcohol found in house" in the Facebook feed. The bait is that they fail to mention that the law is being considered only in the state of Bihar. So the article headline creator has used the perfect bait to draw maximum visitors. 
Though the page appears in the Patna city section of the news journal; the facebook post does not mention it making the Facebook post a clear click-bait. 

Orkut is becoming obsolete officially

Google has announced the decision to shut down the once popular social networking site Orkut on September 30, 2014. Creating a new account and the Orkut app is being taken down starting today. The social networking had already lost it's sheen long back when Facebook emerged and escalated to the top unchallenged.
Google plus gets the push
Google finally has decided to back it's ubiquitous Google Plus and it was a bit surprising why it kept Orkut alive all these years. Now, that Orkut is officially getting closed, the early birds in social networking sites will not be shocked rather will get a nostalgia thinking about it.
One of the new version of Orkut introduced 4 years back but unfortunately failed to take off in the expected way. Bye bye Orkut....

Facebook's 1$ delivery system !!!

Facebook has gone to all corners to monetize its social networking capabilities. The 1$ delivery scheme is one of them. The Facebook messages has an inbox where all the messages sent by the friends get delivered. The messages delivered to one who is not friend of yours will go directly to this "other" folder. I hope it's a gentle way of calling spam : others!!!

Pay a $ for slipping from other's to inbox.
The Facebook allows users to overcome this other folder by offering a single $ offer for posting messages directly to inbox even if you are not a friend. The 1$ delivery system seems an innovative idea to monetize, but is a bit intrusive also. Its just like

• I know Facebook 
• X knows Facebook
• X pays 1$ for Facebook to introduce to yourself 

The offer has failed to make a dent and is nowhere near to become a viral thing. In the meantime, some die hard iTunes fans complained that it is costly as it is priced a cent north of what iTunes charged for a song.

Google plus silently scoring over facebook

Google plus might not be the place where you are spending majority of your free time. The facebook has the statistics in its favor in terms of time spent. But still Google plus is a silent winner in the social media arena.
Google plus engagement is specific
Google plus provides a great platform for engaging with people who are genuinely interested in your product. On the other hand, Facebook is a ocean where you can even fish likes (buy). The more engagement does not necessarily reflect the actual scenario. But Google plus, with its no advertisement model is proving to be a great platform for online service providers. The deep integration of Google plus into the search engine is also helping the cause.
The search always ends in Google !!! 
Facebook provides a great platform for brand engagement and awareness. But the consumers usually redirect to search engines like Google to check out for detailed reviews and price comparisons. Until the Facebook comes up with a very innovative idea to offer a more complete experience(graph search is not enough), the game is always in favor of Google.

The small right mark beside twitter's profile name

The small right mark often comes against names of several celebrities and famous personalities in twitter.


The symbol signifies that the twitter account of that particular name is verified and it is not a fake account handled by others. This is often the problem with celebrities where others tweet in their name. So whenever you want to follow famous personalities on twitter, make sure that the above symbol is present before believing the tweets of them.

WhatsApp's mind wobbling stats

New Year's Eve had made WhatsApp break one of the records; of course it is its own. The total number of messages reached a whooping 18 billion on that day. 11 billion outgoing and 7 billion incoming messages.
Concerns regarding the safety
Ever wondered how much safe is the messages sent over WhatsApp? Nobody knows exactly the answer for this. There have been many security issues particularly of hacking. But people are not yet ready to buy that argument and the above numbers are the indication of that.
Monetization or taking over : death recipe ?
WhatsApp has been in the radar list of Facebook and likes because of the above numbers. But all that is there are about rumors. What would happen if the whats app want to monetize this huge communication? Billions; instead of turning into trillions may plummet into millions.

Twitter : Honey, I shrunk the world

"144 characters to express yourself"
Is our expression that much shrinked or is it only that much the others want to hear of us?
Whatever may be the reason, the twitter is winning and it will continue to do so. Twitter might be the future because of this shrinking; everyone wants a slice of everything in this era of digital world. And the twitter gives it though the never ending tweets. So the tweet bird will continue to make its chirpy sounds in the future as the word becomes more flatter. And finally the twitter has the caption "Honey I shrunk the world"

Facebook's desperate attempts for monopoly

Born in the dorm
Facebook, initially born in the dorm of Mark now wants to monopolise the social interactions that is happening everywhere. Several instances cited below shows the obviousness of the monopoly : either FB or no interaction seems to be the ultimate aim of FB
Conquering Instagram
The photo sharing app was taken over by Facebook for a whooping 1billion $. I would replace the term taken over by "conquered". Instagram was in direct competition with FB over photo sharing. Guess what could have happened to FB, if all of them out in the cyber world connected their social pictures through Instagram; the FB's relevance would be in jeopardy. So FB had two options either compete or conquer. And finally it choose the later. And then comes the ugly face of monopolisation. The twitter viewing option was removed. And you get it right. Instagram your photos through FB. That's it.
Winning over what's app
The what's app is setting unprecedented record in number of messages exchanged which is kissing billions in a single day. Alas!!! the smart people are interacting here outside FB in their smartphones. And here comes the bid to take over the what's app messenger by FB. But wait, the negotiations did not go anywhere. And finally we have Facebook messenger similar to the features offered by what's app.
Stealing from the Snapchat
Snapchat let users to share their personal stuffs only for a moment. User controls the time the recipient can view the message sent. And more precisely this app is a hit among young netizens. The Facebook integration provided by snapchat is meagre and so are the percentage of users opting for it. And finally FB comes out of a similar feature called FB poke.
P.S : Years ago, poking into someone else business was considered a shabby thing. Now it's a billion dollar business. And finally FB wants a monopoly on this poking business to nurture its further dreams.

Instagram's bouncer : I can sell your own photos

The billion dollar baby of facebook, the Instagram has given you a bouncer with announcement of change in privacy policy effective from January 16, 2013. The change makes Instagram have the perpetual right to license all photos on its sites to other firms for publicity. How could the Instagram come up with such a harsh terms? What happens if people tend to move out of Instagram because of the anticipated change?(I don't think they mind it as very few glances the terms in detail).
A surface level look at Instagram !!!
Instagram is now owned by Facebook. In one of the articles, James Altucher digs into the roots of facebook and defines it aptly like this
"The best ideas are when you take two older ideas that have nothing to do with each other, make them have sex with each other, and then build a business around the bastard, ugly child that results. The child that was so ugly nobody else wanted to touch it. Look  at Facebook: combine the internet with stalking. Amazing!"
Now that ugly child has loads of photos which it got through Instagram's take over. Imagine what it will do. Sell the photos acquired for the purpose of stalking.
And the solution is 
Two solutions are possible if you want to prevent your personal photos to be licensed by some one else
Delete your account along with the photos uploaded.
Instagram backtracks with its new encroaching terms and settle for a middle way : most likely will happen but this solution is certainly not in your hands.

Blog, Twitter, Facebook is mightier than bombers, tankers & F-16s

"Pen is mightier than a sword" Now these words has become an old concept. The swords have been replaced by various modern weapons. The refined words will go like this-
"Blog, Twitter, Facebook is mightier than bombers, tankers & F-16s"
Is these twitter, facebook and many other micro blogging sites really such powerful? Infact it is true. The arab uprising, frequently termed as Jasmine revolution was fueled by the anger of people. This anger was propagated and organized into a full blown revolution through the help of these sites. Arab countries like Egypt, Libya has already seen its autocratic leaders going back to home after this revolution. Now autocratic rulers and communist leaders fears that the same fate might be waiting for them. The great dragon that is the China, fears a micro blogging site because it can convert the citizens anger against government turn into a revolution.
Indians has also recently tasted the success of anti-corruption movement, which was spearheaded by Anna Hazare combined with the power of micro blogging. This was even termed as India's own Arab uprising by many foreign media.