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More militaries and armed groups are using social media as a weapon of war -- but when ground skirmishes are mirrored by cyber-social battles, managing the message can get messy.

Ahmed Jabari never saw the missile that killed him. As he drove past parked cars and empty intersections on a leafy street in Gaza City in November 2012, a drone circling high overhead took aim at the roof of his nondescript sedan and fired.

In the chaos that followed, little did anyone know that reducing Jabari and his car to a cloud of shrapnel and dust marked the beginning of Israel's Operation Pillar of Defense. Within hours, the Israel Defense Forces made sure hundreds of thousands of people found out.

A senior Hamas military leader whom Israel accused of involvement in several terror attacks, Jabari was a strategic target for the Israeli military in its eight-day air and ground offensive against Hamas' Gaza stronghold.

Shortly after Jabari was killed, the IDF broke the news by uploading a brief, silent, black-and-white video of the airstrike to YouTube. It then took to Twitter to say "Ahmed Jabari: Eliminated" and posted a follow-up on Facebook with a photo of Jabari titled "IDF Begins Widespread Campaign on Terror Sites in the Gaza Strip," inviting its followers to "stay tuned for updates."

"Our blessed hands will reach your leaders and soldiers wherever they are (You Opened Hell Gates on Yourselves)," the Al Qassam Brigades tweeted.

From this point forward, the world was given a couple of front-row tickets -- each with a decidedly one-sided view -- to watch as the conflict was live-tweeted between these bitter enemies.

Operation Pillar of Defense wasn't the first time that feuding armed groups used social media to broadcast a war. Militaries and militias have skirmished virtually in Syria, Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Kenya, Somalia, and elsewhere. But the Israel-Palestine conflict is such a hot-button issue that it was easy for the IDF and Hamas to capture the world's attention. It also was the first time that actual physical hostilities were mirrored by cyber-social battles for hearts and minds.

Palestinians extinguish the fire that engulfed Ahmed Jabari's car after the airstrike.

When the IDF fired up its interactive media branch in December 2009, it started with a few videos on YouTube. Nowadays, it manages nearly 30 platforms speaking six languages: Hebrew, Arabic, English, Spanish, French, and Russian.

Link:
How Israel and Hamas weaponized social media

Keynote Systems, the expert in internet and mobile cloud monitoring, monitors the top 11 UK social networking sites on a monthly basisand analyses how these sites perform compared to their competitors. By Robert Castley.

By Robert Castley

The homepages for the social media networks improved performance-wise in December compared to November. In terms of response time, the sites were 0.1 seconds faster, resulting in the average load time decreasing from 2.27 seconds 2.17 seconds. Reliability also improved and the successful load rate increased from 99.66 to 99.71 percent.

In particular, Pinterest and LinkedIn both improved the experience they offered to users. Pinterest saw its most significant improvement in response time, where the homepage took an average of 1.4 seconds to load in December compared to 1.53 seconds in November. For LinkedIn, reliability improved the most, increasing from 97.75 percent in November to 98.27 percent in December. LinkedIn is, however, still performing much worse than the other sites in terms of availability, as all the other sites are achieving at least the 99 percent recommended minimum load success rate month on month. Flicker was the only site to perform noticeably worse in December, as visitors were left waiting an additional 0.12 seconds for the site to load, amounting to 2.36 seconds total average load time. The site was also less reliable, falling from a 99.97 percent successful load rate in November to 99.51 percent in December.

It was great to see the social media sites performing so well during the busy Christmas period. For a good customer experience sites should load in under two seconds and correctly more than 99 percent of the time. Only one site failed to reach the 99 percent goal LinkedIn and the overall index average response rate became closer to the recommended two second mark 2.17 seconds in December. The site performance success over the Christmas period could be due to a couple of causes; the sites may have ramped up their capacity to cope with demand over Christmas, or perhaps this is an indication of social networking trends. There may have been less traffic to the social media sites during the Christmas period because people may have been more concerned with meeting friends and family in-person, and this would have reduced strain on the homepages. It will be interesting to see how the sites perform in January, when the seasonal Christmas pressure is off and many people return to work and university.

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Performance of social networking sites – Index from Keynote Systems for December 2013

WATERLOO | A killer swine virus that broke out sometime last spring in Iowa is sending a winter chill through hog markets across the U.S., according to agriculture experts.

Porcine epidemic diarrhea reportedly had cut into the U.S. hog herd by 1 percent between September and December. PED, caused by a porcine coronavirus, results in vomiting and occasionally diarrhea in sows and gilts and severe diarrhea and vomiting in nursing and recently weaned pigs.

It is fatal to the youngest animals, agriculture leaders say.

It would be very devastating on a herd, said Bill Northey, Iowa secretary of agriculture.

It also can leave its mark on hog markets.

It is an impact and, of course, it impacts the market, Northey said. Its big enough that people think it could cut the supply enough that it could have some market impact, too.

The outbreaks effect has been dramatic, said Cody McKinley, public policy director at the Des Moines-based Iowa Pork Producers Association.

People moving in and out of operations spread the oral-fecal disease with contaminated boots or trucks that havent been properly sanitized, McKinley said.

Essentially, were having real concerns as trucks are moving around the state, as producers are going in and out of their buildings, he said. We have to take a second look at what theyre doing and how theyre doing it. You can pick it up as easy as going to the local Caseys and picking up a pizza.

It doesnt take much to spread the disease, McKinley said, noting that Dr. Rodney Butch Baker, senior clinician for swine biosecurity at Iowa State Universitys College of Veterinary Medicine, said a thimbleful of PED can affect the entire U.S. herd.

More:
Pork producers fight their way through PED virus outbreak

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DGAP-News: FAST Casualwear AG / Key word(s): Strategic Company Decision FAST Casualwear plans to enter the online shopping business

13.01.2014 / 09:36

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FAST Casualwear plans to enter the online shopping business

Hamburg, January 13, 2014 - FAST Casualwear AG, a manufacturer of casual footwear and apparel in China, plans to expand the distribution of its products to popular Chinese online shopping platforms in order to strengthen the sales of its FAST branded products.

For the new online sales of its products under the company-own label FAST, FAST Casualwear has chosen several well-known Chinese online platforms like TAOBAO (www.taobao.com), TMALL (www.tmall.com), JD (www.jd.com), PAIPAI (www.paipai.com) and VIPSHOP (www.vipshop.com) but also AMAZON (www.amazon.com), the biggest online shopping platform worldwide.

FAST has been aggressively developing new sales models and intends to expand its sales activities to different retail channels. By establishing online sales platforms, the company will not only enter a new distribution channel for FAST products to enhance sales for future growth. FAST will also develop an integrated online to offline operations model. Thus, in the future FAST will be able to offer its customers a synchronized online and offline shopping experience. The combined online and offline distribution permits FAST to achieve an integrated sales promotion and to organize interactive events, thereby creating an organised multi-dimensional online shopping model.

To support FAST's online marketing business activities and to accelerate the further development of its online sales, the company intends to authorise a renowned e-commerce operator to benefit from its extensive online marketing experience, e-commerce business network, its large customer base and competent management team.

'With a compound annual growth rate over 30 per cent, online shopping sales have significantly increased in China during the past few years. FAST wants to take advantage of the opportunity arising from the rapidly growing number of online consumers. We expect to enhance our brand and product awareness by being present in online shopping platforms. And we hope the FAST brand will rapidly achieve nationwide market coverage', says Wing Chi Chong, CEO of FAST Casualwear.

About FAST Casualwear AG

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PRESS RELEASE: FAST Casualwear plans to enter the online shopping business