Just a friendly update from the social side of TurnKey Internet: Yahoo! has acquired Tumblr! If you’re unfamiliar with either, wake up. Just kidding (kind of). Yahoo! is an Internet corporation best known for its web portal and search engine, and Tumblr is a multimedia microblogging and social networking site.

These days, alliances and acquisitions are forming between prominent Internet sites faster than you can say “prominent Internet sites”. We’ve mentioned a few of them on the TurnKey blog before, like in my tirade about Instagram’s policy changes following Facebook’s billion-dollar buy-out, for example. I still think that was so uncool, but I’ll leave it at that… for today.

Speaking of billions of dollars, Yahoo! purchased Tumblr for $1.1 billion… in cash! I wonder which lucky Yahoo! employee was given the task of making that truckload of bills rain all over the Tumblr team. That probably didn’t happen, but maybe it did, and this is my article.

To give you a snapshot of the information that I’ve dug up in my webscapades (did you like that?), apparently Tumblr will remain its own entity, as a separate business, independently-owned and operated. The deal is being spoken of in an almost partner-like manner, with mentioned plans of integrating search functions into the microblog as a means to surf its content more easily.

I think it was pretty smart of Yahoo! to shell out the big bucks and scoop up Tumblr. Let’s just hope they keep their very public promise to “not screw it up”. I wonder what that was a reference to…

Anyway, I’ll keep this article short and sweet, and leave you with one final bit of cliff-hanging wisdom: When are we going to start mashing up company names like we do with celebrity couples these days? Facebingagram, AndroogleTube, Twittine… and now Yahumblr? How catchy! We’re wasting so much of our valuable time with all of these unnecessary letters and syllables.

Now, you may remember my first blog post here at TurnKey. Remember–the one about Twitter’s video app, “Vine”?

Back in February?

Hello?

Well, regardless of if you read it or not, let me give you a little run-down on what it was all about!

Twitter acquired the company “Vine” back in October of 2012, and released it to the public this January as an iOS app. Vine gives users a “stop-and-go” way to record whatever they want, and to compose it into a six-second video.

For example, this one, of a cute dog.

Or, similarly, this one, of Busta Rhymes and crew.

Vine has quickly caught the attention of Twitter users all around the world, and just last month it was the most downloaded free app in Apple’s App Store. Judges at the Tribeca Film Festival even asked people for Vine entries this year, and said they were “impressed with the creativity at play when it came to the submissions.”

In a response to Twitter’s acquisition of Vine, YouTube has created an app called “YouTube Capture”. Now, while Twitter focuses on the brevity of a six second Vine, YouTube is sticking to its “post what you want” approach. This app makes it easy and hassle-free for users to record videos on their mobile phones, and upload them straight to YouTube.

With YouTube Capture, you simply press a button and the video begins to record. It continues to record until the button is pressed again, then the video is over. Next, you are asked to enter a title, then given options to color correct, stabilize, or trim the video, and even to add a “soundtrack” to it. The soundtracks are pre-made, ringtone-type music clips, which I thought was an interesting idea. Lastly, you press “done”, and the video is uploaded directly to your YouTube account.

So, who do I think wins the Video-App-Super-Bowl-World-Series-Stanley-Cup-Green-Jacket-Gold-Medal-Championship Award?!

I give it to Vine, simply because of its originality and the fact that it’s so easily shared among friends on Twitter. Vine has limited functions, but with a six-second video you’re just trying to get to the point. Vine videos can also leave a lot of room for creativity, like in this one, for example.

YouTube’s app is incredibly easy to use, and very handy if you want to make simple videos of day-to-day things, like a visit to the zoo, or your cat in water. The features that YouTube Capture provide are pretty nifty, but it lacks any major editing tools and the app itself is a lot less interactive, in my opinion. While it depends on the purpose of your video, both apps are great in their own way, but Vine just has that easy-to-use, interactive element. Sorry YouTube, but you are about 100 years old in technology years, and while you are a classic, my friends need to see my life played out in 6 seconds at a time!

As you know, we’re big on making sure that you’re all happy as clams with the service you’re receiving from us. How happy is a clam, you ask? I don’t know. I don’t even know where that expression came from, and that’s not important right now.

Anyway, I feel it is important to give you blog readers a heads up on a crazy, world-wide WordPress attack that might be affecting your service, just in case you haven’t stopped by the TurnKey Helpdesk recently. I just had a chat with our Operations Manager, Brian, and since he basically sleeps in our cold containment pods, what you’re about to read is fresh from the kitchen. Watch your hands—the plate is hot…

There is currently a world-wide attack affecting all WordPress sites at all hosts. This is an attack of unprecedented nature, from a botnet operating on 90,000+ IP addresses.

Due to the nature of the attack, memory consumption on targeted servers has increased. In some cases, this has resulted in degradation of performance and unresponsive servers. This is due to a high volume of ‘http’ requests, which can cause some servers to start swapping memory to disk, and possibly run out of memory. We’ve put measures in place at the firewall and at server level to off-load a lot of the attack, however, there isn’t much more we can do at this time. We have disabled all access to wp-login.php to ensure none of our customers are at risk. For those customers needing to log into their WordPress sites, please open a ticket with our support team, and we can provide access to your sites.

We are working closely with our security and channel partners to further address the issue as it becomes possible.

Again, we feel it’s important to stress that this is not a TurnKey-specific issue. Brian and I took a peek around, and it seems like everyone, everywhere is fighting the same, annoying battle.

We’re super grateful for your understanding and patience while the attack runs its course. If you would like further assistance, or have any additional questions, feel free to contact us by phone or email, Live Chat, Facebook or Twitter—however you would like. Owl? Sea plane? Regardless, we’ll be listening. Sit tight, and we will iron this out as soon as possible.

Hey there, everybody who has been playing our weekly Disaster Recovery Trivia Challenge! Hey, also, everybody who should be! If you’re confused, you should read this article, explaining what the Disaster Recovery Trivia Challenge is. Trust us, it’s not something you’ll want to miss out on. Especially if you like T-shirts and/or United States Dollars in quantities of one hundred.

Now that you’re up to speed and that we’ve gotten the more unfortunate news out of the way, we can proceed to the purpose of this article.

Our Disaster Recovery Trivia Challenge has been such a success, everyone! This is a fact that we are beyond psyched about. However, it’s outgrowing its home on our social sites faster than you can say “Disaster Recovery Trivia Challenge”, so we decided it’s time to relocate it to somewhere it has a little more room to breathe… like our blog, for example.

The game is the same in all other aspects; this is just a relocation of the weekly facts and answer reveals. You can still feel free to chat away on social media, since we–quite obviously–love to.

Here’s a round-up of what has happened so far:

And the winner is… BILL Y.!

And the winner is… DAVID W.!

And the winner is… NICK J.!

And the winner is… ALEX E.!

And the winner is… Russell G.!

And the winner is… Mike H.!

And the winner is… DARREN C.!

And the winner is… Empty Mirror Books!

Now that we are up to speed, here is this week’s TRUE or FALSE question:

So what do you think? Is it TRUE or FALSE? Tell us, and you could win a T-shirt and a shot at the grand prize of $100! You can post your guess here, or continue the conversation on our Facebook and Twitter pages. We don’t care how, we just want to give away T-shirts! Check back here later in the week to see if you’re our new winner! GOOD LUCK!

Even though the Disaster Recovery Trivia Challenge has a new home, you should still follow our social sites. We’re constantly on the look-out for share-worthy content on a vast array of super-cool topics–everything from hosting to gadgets to sustainability–and we’d love to hear your voice in the crowd.

Big news, everyone! Starting Monday, February 25th, 2013–also known as next Monday–we will be holding a contest on our social sites!

After the panic that both Hurricane Sandy and Winter Storm Nemo brought about, it has become clear to us that far too many people are uninformed about the importance of being prepared. Back up your data, guys! Prepare for disaster! It’s so, so imperative in running a business successfully, and ensuring its continuity. You wouldn’t drive a car without insurance, would you? Maybe you would, how would I know? But if you do, cut it out.

With that being said, we decided to take action. Introducing: The Disaster Recovery Trivia Challenge!

HOW TO PLAY:

–   Every Monday morning, stop by our Facebook and/or Twitter page(s). There, among the piles of awesomeness, you’ll find a fact about disaster recovery, or businesses’ lack thereof.

–   Read the fact, and decide if you think it’s “True” or “False”.

–   Once you’ve made up your mind, tell us what you think! You can submit your guess on Facebook in the comment section of the fact post, or tweet it to us on Twitter. Luckily, both “True” AND “False” are 140 characters or less—for all you little blue birdies out there. Phew!

Casting your guess (when and IF—that’s a big “if”, see?—you “like” us on Facebook or “follow” us on Twitter…or both, if you just really like hanging out with us) automatically earns you an entry to win— DRUM-ROLL, PLEASE…

Oooooohhh…

Aaaaaaahhh…

 *

Wooooowww…

—A free shirt! As a proud owner of one of these babies and a lover of all items acquired through winning giveaways, I can confidently tell you that you shouldn’t sit this one out.

At the end of every week, also known as Friday, we will not only be revealing the answer, but choosing a winner at random. Did you see I said “every week”? That means that with every new fact that we present, comes another opportunity for you to win. So, if you play and aren’t selected, bet your bottom dollar that the sun will come out next week.

We have 10 disaster recovery facts to talk to you about, so that means there are 10 chances to win. That also means that there will be 10 winners of TurnKey finery when all is said and done. However, we want to have a grand-prize winner, because, well… why not? At the end of this 10-week period, when we’re done making it rain T-shirts on you all, we will draw one grand-prize winner from the pool of weekly winners. That one, final, lucky winner will receive $100! Don’t spend it all in one place! Unless you’re spending it at TurnKey Internet, that is.

So what do you think? Will you play along? At the very least, check in on Fridays for some valuable information that just might end up saving you.

* Recognize this image, anyone? This T-shirt is the answer to this week’s  “Guess that photo” puzzle! For those of you who haven’t heard yet, “Guess that Photo” is another game we play on our social sites! Tune in every week for a new picture, and see if you can guess what it is.

“Let’s Make a Deal!” was a terrific run, wouldn’t you agree? We had a ton of fun deal-making and prize-awarding, through the original promotion and then again with its revival. However, like all good things, “Let’s Make a Deal!” must, too, come to an end. If you find yourself in tears, we understand. Take a moment. We’ll wait…

We would like to extend a final, congratulatory shout-out to our winners of “The Deal of a Lifetime” (Jesse C., Steven S., Danny F., Hendra S., and Adam B.), and an enormous “Thank you!” to everyone who entered. This will not be the last TurnKey Internet giveaway of its kind—mark my words!

With that being said, we have something brand new to share with you! Come on; would you really expect anything less from us? At this point, we hope you know as well as we do that we would be bored to tears without some kind of event going on.

Without further ado, we would like to introduce… The Truckload Sale!

An 18-wheeler just arrived at the TurnKey Internet data center, bursting at the seams with a medley of 8 GB, 16 GB, and 32 GB Intel E3 dedicated servers. To celebrate the arrival of this glorious mountain of technology, we are packing in the savings and marking every single one of them 40% off! All you have to do is enter the coupon E3TRUCK at check-out. That’s it! We’re all about making things easier.

E3’s are what’s hot right now, and they are being snatched up left and right. Don’t miss your chance to get in on this discount, because—trust us!—it won’t last long! Check out the Truckload Sale > 

Also… Yes, there is an “also”. Have you noticed there’s almost always an “also”? The E3 sale isn’t the only new thing starting up at TurnKey Internet this week. Since the truck arrived carrying only servers, we realized that we needed to show our other products and services some love as well. Naturally, we decided to offer savings on… well, everything. We just feel like a new year is started best when there’s a deal involved, you know? Especially when it’s a TurnKey deal, because those are our very favorite kinds of deals. So, see for yourself! Whether you’re looking for a reseller package or a virtual private server or anything in between, with this sale (and the coupon code TK2013), we know you’ll be able to kick off 2013 correctly.

So, are you as excited as we are? We hope so! But save some room for more, and keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter pages. We may or may not have another contest all cooked up and coming your way in the VERY near future.

Pssttt… I’ll have it be known that by “may or may not” I mean “definitely do without question”, but that’s between you and me…

For the past two decades, social media has enabled people to keep in touch with loved ones, to reconnect with old classmates and friends, and to research floppy trunk syndrome (if you consider Wikipedia social media,which has been a hot debate with a fellow TurnKey team member… but I won’t mentions names), all from within the comfort of your home. It has also allowed us to write about our lives and share it with people all around the world, to find true love (or fake love, if you happen to play football at Notre Dame), and to fill our spare time with videos of cats, funny babies, and Gangnam Style-esque dances!

Lately, however, social media has been gradually encouraging us to condense the way we document our day-to-day lives. Social sites like Twitter allow short interactions and fleeting insights into the way people spend their time. Whether it is people you know or people you don’t, what people want to share of their daily existence has been captured in 140 characters or less.

A new form of this condensing idea recently sparked interest across the web and landed under the wings of Twitter. Its name is, simply, “Vine”. Now, let me take a second (or six) to tell you a little bit about Vine.

Vine is a free app that allows users to record video clips and edit them into a 6-second, repeating video (think your own easy, personal GIF’s, in a way!). Since Twitter recently acquired this company, you can easily upload and tweet your video to your followers. You can also share it with your friends on Facebook, if you please.

Vine says that this app makes “capturing life in motion fun and easy” and that it’s a “shortened form of something larger.” Now, I think this app is pretty cool, but I am not yet a consistent user. It took me a little while to get interested in Twitter, because I didn’t understand the whole constant-status-update deal. 1) Who has the time to do that all day? And 2) Whoever cares enough about what I am doing at all times—besides my mother—is crazy! I’ll admit, it wasn’t until a friend of mine forced me to sign up for a Facebook account about 6 years ago, that I ever really had interest in getting one.

To me, there are clear pros and cons to Vine and other apps like it. To start, Vine is very simple to use. That, right there, is probably the most important part. Second, it is a great tool to give people a quick insight into where you are, whom you’re with, and what you’re doing. It truly is a “shortened form of something larger.”

The Brooklyn Nets hopped on the Vine train right away, posting a video of a few of their players warming up. A picture is worth a thousand words, but a video of Kris Humphries actually finishing a dunk is worth, well, 2 points. Actually, I’ll give him an and-one following his divorce with Kim Kardashian.

You can also be artsy or funny with Vine! In a way, it feels like a stop-motion video. I stumbled upon a Vine video of two men having a staring competition, and since it is a 6-second, ever-repeating video, I waited hours for a winner and ended up falling asleep before the battle was won.

Here is where I am critical: We have seen books “go digital”, and photography “go Instagram”. Now something as a beloved as home videos are “going Vine”—I was happy with stagnation at YouTube for a while. Like I said, the “shortened form of something larger” is great, but with Vine, we will never get to see the full picture, or in this case, video.

Another problem I see with Vine stems from that which we refer to as “selfies.” We all know what those are. It started with teenage girls on MySpace, and has become popular on Instagram. Some people love themselves so much that they feel the need to post 20 photos a day of them sitting in a car, then at a desk, then eating a salad, then with their cat, then in their new outfit, then in a mirror, then close up, then at a low angle, then at a high angle, then at a side angle, and then … well, you get the point. I feel like Vine will be another outlet for this, but on repeat! I do know it is my choice whom I follow, and I will definitely take that into consideration if Vine takes hold.

This is where I shall leave you! My question is: Will Vine really catch on? Is it the new Instagram in video form, or is it something that will come and go? As with any technology, it’s there for everyone to use, and the way in which we do so is what defines its future. I am just glad that Vine was not around when I was a child … It would have made it a whole lot easier for my parents to share embarrassing videos of me with my girlfriends.

I am a huge advocate for Instagram. I think it’s a brilliant concept, on the part of its developers. I know that it has caused a lot of eye-rolling among many professional photographers, but I think it’s fun, okay? I like that relatively poor-quality, often blurry mobile uploads can look a little bit prettier, and I don’t see anything wrong with that. As an Android user, I was thrilled when the app opened to us. I no longer had to watch enviously as my not-even-close-to-artsy Apple friends tweeted and posted all of these artsy-looking pictures, and could join in uploading filtered food photos with the best of them.

I generally try to maintain a less personal, company-encompassing narrative in my TurnKey articles, but the topic that I want to discuss with you today has incited a reaction from me on a personal level, and I feel as though I should discuss it as such. I have an issue with Instagram’s amended Terms of Service.

Basically, Facebook (they own Instagram now, if you weren’t aware) is now asserting their right to sell your photos at absolutely no profit to you whatsoever, and it doesn’t stop there! They also declare a right to employ your image and personal information as they see fit. This is not okay with me at all. I understand that the app is free and Facebook wants to generate revenue and all that good stuff, but there are ways around this. Also—I have to say it—are you really losing that much money over Instagram, Facebook? You invested a billion dollars in a company that you are now this desperate to keep afloat?

Here’s an excerpt:

“Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising revenue. To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.”

Improper usage of photographic material is not a new thing at all, and maybe I’m being hyper-sensitive about this due to a background in photography. However, my pictures are mine, and if Facebook wants to use them, they need to ask me first. Regardless, it is not okay—and shouldn’t be okay—for them to use my personal material and information in a way that exploits me.

Usually, I tend to be rather neutral in regards to topics like this. I think they are largely sensationalized by the media, and that people fly into an uproar when it’s not completely necessary. For instance, Dave wrote a really insightful article about the Google vs. EU issue not too long ago, and I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly with his stance. If you’re interested or need a refresher, you can read the article here.

Anyway, now we’re faced with a choice: do we just divert our gaze and allow them to do this, or do we wash our hands of Instagram? Do we log out of our accounts and set off into the great unknown, desperately seeking to fill the void in our once-filtered mobile existence? That may be a little dramatic, considering Twitter just rolled out replacement filters after the pull on syncing photos, but that’s another article entirely. Luckily, we have until January 16, 2013 to decide which road we want to take, as that is when the new terms go into effect.

Wouldn’t you know it? This all rolls out almost exactly at the same time that I set up TurnKey’s Instagram account, and I almost want to close it to protest! I won’t though, mainly because I’m border-line obsessed with this picture of a lollipop bouquet.

What do you think? Am I over-blowing this? Do you think this is fair and understandable or invasive and downright wrong? I’d love to hear what you have to say.

Thank you Everyone for your direct support during our Summer focus with our TurnKey Social Media Challenge .  We set out here at TurnKey to help you grow your business via social media – by offering tips, strategies, and concepts that can super charge your social media growth.  We launched this program at the same time as we ourselves took the opportunity to focus on growing our social media foot print. Thanks to your support and participation thus far – and your help leveraging your social circles through facebook likes, google plus +1’s and twitter followers, and linked In, you helped catapult TurnKey Internet, Inc to the top of our own local competition for social media awareness, called the Social Madness Challenge   run by American City Business Journals where thousands of companies in 40 U.S. cities competed to increase social media awareness.

TurnKey Internet, Inc was named the winner in Albany, New York for the Small Business Category (1 to 99 Employees) after 8 weeks of competition , beating out over 100 other companies who entered the Albany, New York small business category competition.

TurnKey Internet, Inc now moves on to the national competition of the Social Maddness Challenge – against 63 other companies in it’s size category.  We plan to to focus more on our Green Sustainable Information Technology message as the focus moves beyond the local Albany, New York competition to the national stage- as we continue to drive more social media awareness.  We hope you will continue to pass on the word to your friends, co-workers and family via facebook, twitter, google plus, and Linked In – and help us spread the word about going Green for your IT!

Thank you everyone thus far for your support and participation – you can expect more tips, tools and suggestions how you can help catapult your own business through social media as well as we continue our summer long focus on Social Media!

This summer we have been spotlighting social media here on our web site, blog, and of course on facebook, google plus, Linkedin and  twitter  – all to help you grow your online presence with great tips, strategies and concepts that work on social media and beyond.  We set a goal for our selves to double our followers in the most popular social media forums, and to help our clients, readers and followers learn the ways to do the same and of course benefit from those increased social circles.   It turned out to be a lot more than just adding followers and ‘likes’ for us, and our clients – we found new opportunities, new ways to communicate, and yes we have actually seen a direct increase in sales just due to the awareness of people’s social circles .  We more than doubled our followers, but more than that – we’ve started to communicate through social media in conversations, not just talking to or posting to an audience – but talking back and forth and really listening.  The social media challenge so far this summer has helped us to open new channels to communicate with both current and potential clients.

Part of this social media focus this summer revolved across a national social media challenge sponsored by American City Business Journals in 42 Cities, including here in our home town of Albany, New York.  We competed against 100+ other companies here in our City, and lead the pack almost since day 1 with our “3 C” approach (Content, Communication and Contests!). In fact, our contest to win a free iPad and Visa Gift Cards continues- and we continue new social media related content to bring you the very strategies and tips we have been using our selves.  You can view the competition here, and if you haven’t already shown your support or voted, we would appreciate a vote!  You can vote, and view that competition at http://www.bizjournals.com/albany/exclusives/socialmadness

So a number of people keep calling, emailing and replying to us on twitter and facebook asking for that secret tip that has had us in the #1 seat for over a month, and put us now in the final round against OverIT Media (final round ends July 17th, so if you haven’t voted you still have time!) .  While there is no silver bullet – it is hard work, with real people who create content, intersting conversations, and meaningful information to get people’s attention.  But there is one little secret tip we didn’t mention until now, what we call our Social Media Secret Weapon!  OverIt Media  is a great bunch of people here locally in Albany, and fantastic at the marketing and design work they do – and we feel honored to be among them in the final round of the competition.   While we may not of known we would be competing with OverIT Media in the final round, we didn’t blink when the chance to hire some of their great tallent came upon us!  This summer a new addition to our team, Jared R.,  formerly one of OverIT Media’s team mates the past 2 summers has now taken up the flag of TurnKey, and helped us launch and maintain our entire Social Media Challenge program this summer.   We call Jared, our Social Media Challenge Secret Weapon!  Jared works in our marketing department and fully focuses on the social media platforms.  Jared brings great creativity and ideas to the table, and his previous experience at OverIT Media couldn’t of served him (or us!) better.  And it doesn’t hurt being a little bit lucky either – we are quite fortunate  having a new team member that knows the other team’s play book!  We sure are glad he is on our side as our Social Media Secret Weapon!

Please be sure to give a shout out on our Facebook wall, twitter, google plus or Linkedin to welcome Jared to the TurnKey Family!   In Jared’s own words:

Jared R: I’ve been active on social media websites for years, and I always knew businesses had accounts where you can like their pages, follow them on twitter, subscribe to emailing lists, etc. but I always thought their followers and likes were just for show; like they just want to say “we’re the best company because 5,000 people say they care about our status updates.”  It wasn’t until I started in the design and marketing field that I realized there’s an entire underground (or rather digital) realm of marketing, where these numbers become a matter of life and death.

My first exposure to the business end of social media was right out of my freshman year of college.  With a major in New Media Interactive Development at the Rochester Institute of Technology, I was never really able to learn too much about marketing because of the intensive focus on programming and graphic design.  Before TurnKey Internet, I had my first internship at Overit Media in Albany, NY, where I was able to put my skills from school to use in a business environment.  The experience I gained there has helped me succeed here at TurnKey, where I continue to advance my marketing experience.  The work I do now involves working the Social Media platforms for TurnKey Internet to help amplify its online presence.

So welcome to the TurnKey family Jared, and look for more from Jared in the next few months!