It’s Black Friday! What store are you standing in line at right now? #BlackFriday #Sales #SSLLC

It’s Black Friday! What store are you standing in line at right now? #BlackFriday #Sales #SSLLC

www.scriptablesolutions.com

Today in 1996 - Barry Sanders (#Detroit Lions) set an #NFL record when he recorded his eighth straight 1,000-yard season. Who do you think is the best running back of all-time? #SSLLC

Today in 1996 - Barry Sanders (#Detroit Lions) set an #NFL record when he recorded his eighth straight 1,000-yard season. Who do you think is the best running back of all-time? #SSLLC

www.scriptablesolutions.com

THOUSANDS OF WORDPRESS, JOOMLA AND DRUPAL SITES THREATENED BY CRYPTOPHP BACKDOOR

A large proportion of websites are built on a CMS rather than raw HTML. Three of the most common are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, and security researchers at Fox-It warn that site administrators are at risk of being socially engineered into installing the CryptoPHP backdoor on their server.

Distributed through pirated themes and plugins, CryptoPHP's spread is thanks to the light-fingeredness of site admins. It was first detected in 2013 and is still actively spreading. The capabilities of the "well developed" backdoor include remote control of an infected server, and Blackhat SEO -- a form of illegal search engine optimization.

Fox-It warns that thousands of websites have been compromised by CryptoPHP. The threat is so named because it uses RSA Public Key cryptography to protect communication with servers. A number of sources have been associated with the spread of the backdoor, which is nulledstylez.com, but numerous other sites dealing in pirated plugins and themes that are involved -- including freemiumscripts.com, wp-nulled.com and mightywordpress.com.

Each of the downloads was flagged by the site providing it as being clean from viruses, but Fox-It points out that the versions made available for download differed in that they had been verified as clean by VirusTotal. Upon examining the contents of the pirated downloads, files with different timestamps to the rest were found to include the backdoor hidden in PHP code.

While there is little to stop CryptoPHP infecting other CMSs, WordPress, Joomla and Drupal are the main targets due to their popularity. The backdoor installation varies from platform to platform, but in the case of WordPress an extra administrator account is added so that access can be maintained even if the backdoor itself is removed.

Tracing the activity of CryptoPHP seems to lead back to a Moldavian IP address -- specifically in the state Chisinau. Control centers have been identified in the US, Poland, Germany and Netherlands, and Fox-It has produced a white paper that details how to detect the presence of the backdoor.

Photo credit: Spectral-Design / Shutterstock

Publisher: Scriptable Solutions
Source: http://www.scriptablesolutions.com/article.cfm?ArticleNumber=151

Today in 1983 - In Los Angeles, movie theatres premiered Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video. How many of you can perform at least 3 moves from this video on the dance floor? #SSLLC

Today in 1983 - In Los Angeles, movie theatres premiered Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video. How many of you can perform at least 3 moves from this video on the dance floor? #SSLLC

www.scriptablesolutions.com

Today in 2006 - Sony's #PlayStation 3 went on sale in the United States. #Sega, #WII, #XBOX, or #PS3…which console makes you stay up until 3am? #SSLLC

Today in 2006 - Sony's #PlayStation 3 went on sale in the United States. #Sega, #WII, #XBOX, or #PS3…which console makes you stay up until 3am? #SSLLC

www.scriptablesolutions.com

FB LOGIN, GOOD IDEA OR NO?

Will Facebook’s plans for anonymous login end the use of social logins by brands? Not at all says Jonathan Lakin of Intent HQ.

By Jonathan Lakin

Until a few weeks ago, the words ‘Facebook’ and ‘anonymous’ were rarely connected. Consequently, Facebook’s decision to offer nameless log-ins to other websites and apps through the site sent a ripple of disquiet throughout some sections of the online advertising and marketing worlds. The great prophet of personalisation, had suddenly turned its back on its followers. So, if brands get no value from the data, why bother with social login in the first place?

We’re already seeing a shift in consumer thinking. Increasingly consumers recognise that providing their social data is an exchange - they are allowing brands to understand their preferences so that the brand can deliver a better or more useful experience to them. When brands are upfront and clear about the value exchange, it benefits everyone. Facebook clearly understands this.

It was in reality, a brave and necessary move and one that will clear the online air. It’s all about trust, the pre-requisite of a meaningful relationship between the consumer and their valued brand. And offering a choice signals a far more honest interaction.

This is likely to put intense pressure back onto brands learning to avoid the clumsy, mismatched targeting so often driven by cookies and purchase histories, which frequently produce “stupid” personalisation with little value exchange at all.

Given the time we all spend on social networks, and the breadth of topics discussed within them, social data has the potential to be a gold mine for those who know how to use it. With some additional processing it’s possible to understand someone’s core interests (which interestingly enough remain stable over time) as well as their intent, which is usually focussed on what a person is trying to do at any moment in time, and which by contrast tends to change fast and frequently.

By combining both core interests and intent using new machine learning and predictive methods it’s possible to distil hundreds of thousands of data points on each individual into a highly accurate, ranked list of keyword interests for each visitor, so brands can deliver highly personalised experiences and offers – the kind of experiences where a person actually “wants” to give you their data.

Understanding the contextual relevance of the content itself also has the potential to deliver breakthrough personalisation. As a rule yesterday’s predictive models just didn’t make connections in the same way a human does, but real, human-like context is now a possibility. For example, if someone searches the term ‘soul food’ it could means different things according to their tastes; a Frenchwoman might interpret the term ‘soul food’ as ratatouille, whilst a Texan teenager might interpret the same term as a tasty leg of southern fried chicken.

Put all these new advances together and we have the means to transform a customer’s website visit from boring and generic to friendly, relevant and compelling. Given this – and the knowledge that it is only achievable by providing social log-in details – Facebook’s anonymous option becomes much more of an ‘on ramp’ to the full login, for those brands that can noticeably improve their visitor’s experience.
In a survey carried out recently by Intent HQ, over half (53%) UK social network users said they were willing to share social data for personalised content. And 56% said that they would log-in to another website using the social network profile for personalised content.

Once both publishers and advertisers recognise the value of high-quality content, special deals and insider information, then these percentages look set to rise. We’ve seen click-through rates of 15 to 30 times the average and, in some cases, far more with the same number of visitors, showing how this can really work. Moving forward, at Intent HQ we are currently looking at ways that individuals can possess their own interest graphs, with the transparency, control and mechanics to trade with brands they trust.

Giving consumers this control could change the face of online business – significantly increasing clicks, views, brand recognition and, of course, ultimately revenue too.

About the author

Jonathan Lakin is CEO at Intent HQ.

Jonathan has built his career founding and growing early-stage technology and media businesses in the UK, US and Europe. His focus has always been on analytics, from building OLAP in the 1990s to big data and predictive analytics today. In 2010 he founded Intent HQ to address the lack of relevance of online content and since then his team has developed a deep learning platform to understand, target and activate online consumers in real-time. It does this by creating human-like profiles from what people do on social networks and on a client’s site – essentially producing an always current, ranked and weighted listing of a person’s true interests and intent. Jonathan is also one of three founders of Delaro, a European firm that provides seed capital, people and knowhow to develop and commercialise social and quantified self platforms.

http://www.intenthq.com/

Publisher: Scriptable Solutions

Source: http://www.scriptablesolutions.com/article.cfm?ArticleNumber=138

Today is National #Pickle Day! What’s your go-to comic strip in the newspaper…past or present? #SSLLC

Today is National #Pickle Day! What’s your go-to comic strip in the newspaper…past or present? #SSLLC

www.scriptablesolutions.com

Today in 1969 - "Sesame Street" made its debut on #PBS. How many of you out there can sing all the words to “C is for Cookie” on demand? #SSLLC

Today in 1969 - "Sesame Street" made its debut on #PBS. How many of you out there can sing all the words to “C is for Cookie” on demand? #SSLLC

www.scriptablesolutions.com

DEVELOPMENT OF THE BRAND UTILITY ON MOBILE

The rapid development of mobile marketing and advertising industries inevitably increases the importance of maintenance and improvement of businesses’ brand awareness and reputation on a permanent basis. By Anton Ruin.

By Anton Ruin

In this respect, even though the concept of branding on mobile is seemingly alike to what is common on desktop web, it turns out much harder for companies to acquire and retain mobile audience.

Why are direct ads failing?

Like it or not, but mobile advertising is a tricky niche to step in even if a company has a spotless reputation on the market; and a successful marketing strategy often loses its effectiveness, if there is no careful mobile branding approach.

Undoubtedly, a great share of mobile ads remains barely visible to viewers, not to mention the fact that even fewer ads are engaging enough to attract and convert potential customers into actual clients. Having realized the necessity to create mobile-specific ads, many businesses still struggle to run informative and insightful campaigns on mobile, which would increase their sales rate and profits.

In this respect, most experts see the reason why direct mobile ads can fail in brands’ unwillingness to accept their need to become useful to their clients, not just entertain them.

How to Develop a Mobile Brand Utility?

The world’s specialists have determined a range of recommendations, aimed at giving businesses a clearer understanding of how they can develop a mobile brand utility, both efficient for their direct advertising and branding purposes.

Namely, one of the best methods is to figure out how a brand can reduce people’s time and effort, spent on daily routine tasks. If a company’s “coffee-to-go” mobile app presupposes a simple and fast payment system or a substantial discount for its users, for example, it can work as an effective alternative to intrusive mobile ad campaigns.

Another way of attracting mobile audience using a brand utility is to create inside media channels and/or communities, where people can exchange their impressions and inquiries, regarding a purchased product and enjoy communicating with each other, too. If a seller of shower utilities provides an easy-to-join and informative “bathroom design” photo-sharing section in the mobile app, it gets an opportunity to create a community of loyal clients and learn, which product variation can attract customers in future.

In a whole, one of the recent trends in the global marketing industry shows that businesses should move from being visible to their potential clients to being interesting and useful for them. In this respect, the development of a mobile brand utility is seemingly an effective method to earn and sustain reputation among the top-value target audience segments and increase overall brand awareness among potential buyers.

About the author

Anton Ruin is CEO of Epom.

http://epom.com/

Publisher: Scriptable Solutions
Source: http://www.scriptablesolutions.com/article.cfm?ArticleNumber=137

Today in 1965 - The "#Pillsbury Dough Boy" debuted in television commercials. Have you ever wished that the #Hamburger Helper Hand would up and slap the Dough Boy when he giggles? #SSLLC

Today in 1965 - The "#Pillsbury Dough Boy" debuted in television commercials. Have you ever wished that the #Hamburger Helper Hand would up and slap the Dough Boy when he giggles? #SSLLC

www.scriptablesolutions.com

WE ROCKED IT AT THE ROC DOWNTOWN INNOVATION EXPO!

Scriptable Solutions set-up shop at this years Rochester Downtown Innovation Expo, held at the Hyatt and put on by the Rochester Downtown Development Corporation! We had a blast chatting it up and swapping business cards with companies who came out for this meet & greet. This fabulous event focused on technology based companies located in what is called, the "Downtown Innovation Zone". Since we're located at 195 St. Paul Street and this "zone" stretches from High Falls to the East End - Google maps informed folks that we are one of these companies! This was a great forum for us not only to showcase and highlight our skills, but to also meet some amazingly talented downtown businesses as well. ROC on Rochester!!! Stay Classy!

The Scriptable Solutions talent table at the Rochester Downtown Innovation Expo. Tuesday, November 4th, 2014 at the Hyatt.

View our web design portfolio to see some of our work.

Author: Scriptable Solutions
Source: http://www.scriptablesolutions.com/article.cfm?ArticleNumber=150

Today we are setup at the #ROC #Downtown #InnovationExpo. Stop down to the #Hyatt and visit our table! #LetsTalkWeb #SSLLC

Today we are setup at the #ROC #Downtown #InnovationExpo. Stop down to the #Hyatt and visit our table! #LetsTalkWeb #SSLLC

www.scriptablesolutions.com

Today in 1507 - Leonardo #DaVinci was commissioned by the husband of Lisa Gherardini to paint her. The work is known as the #MonaLisa. If you could pick any painting ever, what would you choose to hang on your living room wall? #SSLLC

Today in 1507 - Leonardo #DaVinci was commissioned by the husband of Lisa Gherardini to paint her. The work is known as the #MonaLisa. If you could pick any painting ever, what would you choose to hang on your living room wall? #SSLLC

www.scriptablesolutions.com

THE MOBILE MARKETING TAKEOVER

The guys and girls at Surge Digital have recently created a new and detailed infographic that discusses the modern world of mobile marketing and the influence it has on both businesses and consumers alike. Mobile sites mean big business especially when it's done right, and more people than every before are incorporating it into their branding strategies. After all, good experiences create happy customers. By Amber Waddy.

By Amber Waddy

Mobile phones were so alien to us back in the day, and yet these days they are completely normal. Smartphones are more advanced and more interactive than they have ever been, and there are still new and innovative developments under way for many key players.

When it comes to things like branding and advertising it is useful to know how to reach mobile audiences as well as those sitting at their computer, as the folks at Surge know well. They have come up with a brand new infographic demonstrating just how important mobile networking really is for everyone.

For instance, were you aware that more people use their cell phones to catch up with backlogged emails than those who use a standard PC unit? And that there are more annual smartphone purchases than tablets, laptops and desktops combined? Why not have a look below to learn more…

About the author

Amber Waddy is a Marketing Consultant at Surge Digital.

Surge Digital is a marketing and media agency that specialises in social media management as well as web design and development.

http://www.surgedigital.co.uk/blog/mobile-marketing-takeover-infographic/

Publisher: Scriptable Solutions
Source: http://www.scriptablesolutions.com/article.cfm?ArticleNumber=136