Cory Holliman

Why Google+ Could Become The Biggest Social Media Site.

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:42:30 -0400

April 24, 2012 3:41 pm
Jamie Brett

In every writers works should be a hyper rational prediction about “the world of the future”. A prophecy of things to come that in hindsight is revered for brilliant prudence, or obliviousness. So here’s my submission into the articles to be reviewed in years to come. My prediction is, between the next six and ten years ‘Google+’ will become the most widely used social media, with the highest levels of web traffic and here’s why…

Google has monopolised the window to the Internet. Sites that offer the same search service are scarcely even acknowledged as competition in comparison with Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s 1996 Stanford Research project. Arguably the most commonly set homepage, Google is the gateway to the Internet for countless individuals and the second most visited site (Facebook being the first). Its email service ‘Gmail’ rivals Yahoo and Hotmail despite its public release a decade later and it’s subsidiary ‘Youtube’ is the third most visited website. All three combined dominate over 13% of all the websites visited That doesn’t include it’s ever growing blogging platform ‘blogger’ which is the second most popular blogging site.

Google+ is the next phase of the totalitarian company. The secret? A large proportion of those reading this have already signed up. Gmail address holders need to do no more than sign in on the Google+ homepage to get started. This is where I think Google+ makes leeway over big competition like ‘Facebook’. What it offers as a social media site is nothing original, celebrities, games, photo sharing, status updates, the difference is, it is every platform in one place.

What caused the cult of the Internet to change allegiance from every ones favourite friend ‘Tom on Myspace’ and migrate to Facebook was its privacy settings. The draw of twitter is the reverse, while 140 characters is more than substantial amount for some celebrities to discus their thoughts, the concept of being able to interact with ‘le people’ gave it a huge allure. Google+ balances both these elements, with its ever growing celebrity following and yet unfaltering on the extent of the privacy settings. Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Tumblr, Linkedin, Flicker and others are all extensions of our virtual ‘weblife’ but Google is at the centre of it. It is where we gain access to the content the web has to offer. So why wouldn’t it be where we develop our connection to the rest of the of our weblife? Part of the unwritten technological bylaws, people want one program, one device, one website to provided us with as much as possible in one place.

So why will people leave their already established social networks? I think its not Google’s presence on the web that will change the loyalty, it’ll be its progression with technological terrors. Google has grown into far more than a webspace. There has been an incredible stride in their software and hardware. Android OS phones are becoming increasingly popular, Google chrome users are in a steep incline, Google Sketch is quickly being recognised as industry standard software and Google Maps and Earth has an acquisition of high regard.

The reason all this is significant is they will all be designed to be compatible with your Google+ account. “Project Glass” Google’s Augmented Reality eyewear project has already made implications that Google intends to cross platform everything it already offers. Many designs and applications are very similar to packages they offer already. Google+ will be extending all the features available in its upcoming developments. Rivals such as Facebook and Linkedin are running out of development they can take within the confines of its mandate and I struggle to see what areas they can expand into.

Despite all of these guesstimates, I was as skeptical as most people will be about what Google+ actually offered. I have to be honest I’m pretty impressed. It isn’t original but it is incredibly user friendly, the “circles” feature is a clever aspect; you can set the privacy of each circle only allowing what you want to be seen by that group. It has a growing celebrity presence; if it continues to grow I could see it being a larger celebrity hotspot than Twitter. The +1 button is already present on most websites and profiles book Google+ can be combined with the websites ‘Analytics’ and ‘Adsense’. This will allow an even bigger visibility and control of your profile, possibly even concluding the option to make money by people visiting someone’s personal page. It’d be like making money through your friends visiting your Facebook profile. The ‘Hangout’ feature is a brilliant Skype equivalent and ‘chat’ feature is a standard instant messaging alternative. Photos and videos are simple to upload and even easier to set who you’d like to be able to view what. It is a social media site with all the bells and whistles even if it is still being fine-tuned.

I’m not proposing that we will all be pawns in a ‘Google government’ or that we should have a ‘G’ proceeding ‘Skynet’ but I do believe that Google will be at the forefront of the upcoming developments this technologic era. Unlike Facebook or other social media, Google+ will be the most dynamic way to interact with all its upcoming ventures and that’s why I predict it’ll become the biggest social media site.

Prediction: Google+ to be largest social network.

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:30:55 -0400

+Jamie Brett predicts that within a decade Google+ will rise to dominance, and gain more users and traffic than Facebook or any other social site.

The reason, according to Jamie, is that Google will increasingly integrate all other Google products, from Search to Android, into Google+ — and also because Google+ will always have more features and flexibility than either Facebook or Twitter.

Do you agree with this prediction?

And if it’s realized, would it be good that Google+ is biggest?

http://whatculture.com/technology/why-google-could-become-the-biggest-social-media-site.php

Why Apple won’t turn you into a cyborg. or Do they have a much bigger plan???

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 18:17:08 -0400

Why Apple won’t turn you into a cyborg.

In the 1984 novel Neuromancer, author William Gibson described a future in which “implants, nerve-splicing, and micro bionics” could turn people into internet-connected cyborgs.

If you like that idea, you’ll be happy to know that Google is working on it.

The company’s “Project Glass” augmented reality glasses is the first step toward Gibson’s cyborg vision. The glasses project images into one eye, enabling real life (what you see with your actual eyes) to acquire menu items, contextual information, turn-by-turn directions and more. You can take a picture by blinking your eye.

If the idea that augmented reality glasses are a first step toward being assimilated into the Borg, you should know that the head of the project in Google’s “Google X” labs, Babak Parviz, has already developed an electronic contact lens that can display data to the wearer’s eye.

The first step is glasses. The second is contact lenses. And the third is internet-connected eye implants.

Google isn’t the only organization taking these steps. Such technologies will soon become generally available. But will they come from Apple, too?

Adam Kazwell asked the question on Forbes.com: “How Will Apple Respond To Google’s Project Glass?”

In a nutshell, Kazwell says Apple will wait and see how the market responds to Google’s Project Glass and he implies that Apple will follow Google into the cyborgification of mankind.

I think he’s wrong. I think Apple will never cross that line. Here’s why: http://www.cultofmac.com/159453/why-apple-wont-turn-you-into-a-cyborg/

* * *

Collapse this post

More photos from Mike Elgan

Google wants to mobilize your Web site – for free

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:35:08 -0400

By Kevin Fitchard Apr. 5, 2012, 8:02am PT No Comments

Google wants to bring more small websites to mobile phones, and to help nudge those sites along it’s willing to foot the bill for a year. Google, with the help of mobile Web optimization startup Duda Mobile, is offering for 12 months free hosting and customization of Web sites for mobile browsers in an effort to make more Internet content mobile-friendly.

Fortune first broke the story Thursday morning, reporting that the initiative as a new service, but according to The Next Web, the offer is really an extension of the Go Mo program Google launched in November. TNW cited a post on Duda Mobile’s blog that has since been removed from its Website:

“Our hope is that by offering both the education AND the service at no cost for one year, we can help businesses make the shift to mobile more quickly, benefiting both their business as well as us consumers who no longer want to pinch and zoom our way through their regular websites on our phones.”

The service wasn’t exactly expensive beforehand, costing $9 a month, but even a $108 annual fee can be a barrier for entry for a mom-and-pop site with good content but no online revenue stream. Duda keeps its costs low by using templates that automatically plugs content optimized for PC browsers into fields designed to fit into the much smaller footprint of the mobile browser. Duda offers free customization tools as well as gratis support via e-mail and phone.

Google has a significant motivation to bring more Websites mobile. The more phone-friendly content available on the Internet, the more mobile searches Google can generate and the more mobile ad revenues it brings in. From the Fortune story:

Even with the advent of fully capable browsers on current smartphones, many companies are still failing to take even the first step into the mobile space, says Jason Spero, head of mobile sales and strategy at Google. According to Spero, 62% of Google’s top advertisers don’t have a mobile site. “Businesses are kind of late to arrive to this consumer trend, and a large part of that is because they don’t know exactly what to do,” Spero says.

Still this particular promotion isn’t targeting those big advertisers or businesses. Duda’s tools are geared at getting small companies a basic mobile Web presence, not building sophisticated mobile interfaces or m-commerce sites. Duda’s templates don’t yet support Flash, framesets or e-commerce.

Companies that depend on the Internet to generate their revenues have already seen the mobile light. As my colleague Ryan Kim wrote in January, companies ranging from Twitter and Pandora to the newest startups are taking a “mobile first” approach to their services, realizing that the phone and the tablet will ultimately be the primary source of their traffic and profits. Those companies don’t need Google and Duda’s help. It’s the legions of sites out there still unfamiliar with the mobile Web that Google is trying to nudge along.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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Google flips backlinking on it's Head - How does this effect you?

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:32:37 -0500

1. Official Google announcement: changes in the algorithm

Yesterday, Google announced 40 changes in the ranking algorithm. The most important changes were another Panda update and changes in the way Google evaluates links. How do these changes affect the rankings of your web pages?

Google’s Panda 3.3 update

Google announced the following:

“Panda update. This launch refreshes data in the Panda system, making it more accurate and more sensitive to recent changes on the web.”

This sounds similar to the Panda update that Google released in January. That update was described as a ‘data refresh’. That means that Google probably didn’t add new ranking signals.

New backlink evaluation

Google’s announcement about the new backlink evaluation leaves much room for speculation:

“Link evaluation. We often use characteristics of links to help us figure out the topic of a linked page. We have changed the way in which we evaluate links; in particular, we are turning off a method of link analysis that we used for several years. We often rearchitect or turn off parts of our scoring in order to keep our system maintainable, clean and understandable.”

Google does not go into more detail and it’s hard to tell what the exact method of link analysis that they used for several years is. It’s likely that they probably turned off a method that is abused by many spammers.

Many more changes

In addition to the changes above, Google announced many more changes: more coverage for related searches, a tweak to the categorizer for expanded sitelinks, less duplication in expanded sitelinks, more accurate detection of official pages, improved local results and more.

What does this mean to the rankings of your web pages?

Google is working hard on eliminating spam from the result pages. If you use spammy techniques to promote your website, chances are that your rankings will drop.

The backlink evaluation change indicates that Google found a way to deal with manipulated backlinks. If you participate in automated linking schemes, your website might get into trouble.

If you want to get lasting results on Google, you have to use ethical search engine optimization methods that play by the rules. Do not use automated linking systems but try to get high quality backlinks to your website.

Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com

2. Search engine news and articles of the week

Google: migrating your website can take a lot of time

Even if you do everything right, it can take a lot of time until Google ranks your new domain. Google’s John Mueller commented in a discussion:

“We worked hard to make our systems as fast and as pain-free as possible when it comes to site moves, so it’s particularly frustrating for us to see situations where algorithmic fluctuations from such a change last longer than we’d want.

Looking into your site, the issues you’re seeing are very likely to settle down over time, as our algorithms get used to the new content and are able to migrate all associated signals properly.

Looking into the details, one thing I noticed was that the domain that you moved to was historically more attached to the UK than the US for some reason. Your site, however, appears to be only focused on the US, right? If that’s the case, one thing you can do is to set the geotargeting setting in Webmaster Tools to confirm the US-targeting.”

Bing announces ‘Linked pages’

“With Linked Pages, we’re letting you link websites related to you in search results. Now your friends looking for you online can find what you want them to find. You can also link pages to your friends to help them shine on Bing as well.”

Interview with Dan Austin, a Google Maps spam fighter

“Google Maps, like all other Google products, is constantly reinventing itself. It seems like every iteration breaks something even if it ‘improves’ something else. Google is also dependent on a wide variety of sources to construct its map system, and stitching it all together, while a remarkable technical feat, means that there’s a lot of bad data.”

Sizing up two Internet giants: Google vs Baidu in China

“Baidu is simply killing Google in its core market, search. Yet outside of China little is known of the company, which s very much like Google but with key differences. […]

Baidu has more than 50 communities and services online, including maps, an encyclopedia, a mobile OS and more. Baidu prioritises paid search terms above organic results without any limitation on the number that appear.”

Yahoo rallies for better search metrics

“Advancements in search and marketing technologies point to inadequacies in long-established methods to accurately measure query volume. Yahoo has begun to test the ability to start a query on one device and continue it on another. For example, searching for a local restaurant on a desktop PC, finding a location and saving the search to continue it on a mobile device, such as iPad or smartphone.”

Search engine newslets

Using schema.org markup for videos.
Google to sell heads-up display glasses by year’s end.
Google is closing the AdSense for domains program.
11 Google job titles you won’t believe actually exist.
Google improves related searches for images.

Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com 3. Success stories

“Hello guys, just wanted to let you know of my story”

“Purchased IBP Standard edition on January the 5th, 2012. I really had absolutely no idea about Search Engine Optimization, how it should be done, where it should be started etc… I only knew that ‘somebody needs to optimize your website if you want to get good results in searches’.

I had a website which I built myself, no big deal - plain HTML with only just text and pictures. It’s www.telefoane-ieftine.biz. I use it to sell mobile phones in my country - Romania.

So I started everything from the beginning as the IBP recommends. By the way, the manual which comes with the software is so easy to read and understand and provides a lot of useful information to beginners.

The IBP manual was my first step to understanding what SEO is about. Generated an optimization report with the IBP software and then I began to improve every feature of my website according to the suggestions that the report offered.

By making small changes according to the suggestions, gradually the percentage to which my site was optimized for certain search terms on Google.ro began to increase.

Whenever you generate a report in the IBP it will show a percentage to which your website is optimized for a certain search term. All you need to do is keep an eye on that report and do according to the suggestions because the report touches all aspects of a good optimization.

Today it’s February the 22nd, 2012 and with last night’s Google SERPs update my website climbed to the first page on Google for two of my main search terms.

I have to say that in this 1 month and a half I have learned a lot about SEO. I even tried bad practices which I read about on the internet, but they were no good and almost resulted in my site getting banned.

Google detects bad practices very fast. My advice is: always do what the IBP report says, the IBP software is created to follow industry guidelines and it always teaches you to employ best practices so as to avoid getting your site penalized or banned by Google.

If you do things chaotically, you risk penalty from Google and then it is very hard if not impossible to come back. That’s why I recommend the IBP software, because it gives you a good plan to follow in order to get your site ranking high in Google searches.”
Andrei Cosmin, www.telefoane-ieftine.biz

Mobile Marketing is on the Increase Among US Small Businesses

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 19:55:28 -0500

More than 20 percent of small business decision-makers in the US plan to commit more resources to mobile marketing in 2012, up from the 12 per cent who said the same last year, according to the results of the annual Small Business Marketing Forecast study from Ad-ology Research. Compared to previous years of the study, the firm says, the increased interest in mobile is striking. In 2009, just 2 per cent of small businesses surveyed planned increased resources for mobile. Online video should also see increased usage, with almost a quarter of respondents saying they plan increased resources for online video, up from 18.4 per cent in 2011. “Marketing opportunities using mobile devices are rapidly emerging, just as they did for the internet many years ago,” says Ad-ology president and CEO. C. Lee Smith. “Small business owners are increasingly connected themselves, and recognize mobile as a viable way to effectively and efficiently reach potential customers.” The Ad-ology study reveals that more than 80 per cent of US small business owners own a smartphone, compared to less than half of the general population. The ability to deliver a new ad message quickly is the number one factor in using online and mobile marketing for small business. Social media for small business marketing has reached its tipping point. Just 10 per cent say they will not use social media in 2012, down from 24 per cent for 2011 and 39 per cent for 2010. For the first time, “improving the customer experience” was ranked at the top of the social media benefits list. While these businesses still want social media to generate leads, they realize the importance of the conversation with consumers. Facebook is again ranked as the social media site most beneficial for business. Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube follow as the social networks with the largest gains in small business adoption from the 2011 study. Other key findings from the study include: 28.6 per cent of small business owners plan to increase budgets for direct mail in 2012 Newspaper, buoyed by its new emphasis on digital, as well as broadcast TV, cable TV and radio are also expected to see increases from Small and medium-sized businesses in the months ahead Nearly a quarter plan to increase their budget for daily deals, with Groupon and Living Social being the most popular providers Almost 7 out of 10 small business owners believe that research provided by media trade associations is “obviously biased to show their media in the best light” 45.3 per cent plan to increase their overall advertising spend in 2012, with just 3.9 percent planning a decrease The latest Small Business Marketing Forecast was conducted in late October 2011 by Ad-ology Research. The company surveyed an online panel of 1,010 owners of US businesses with less than 100 employees. The full report is available for purchase through the Research Store at Ad-ology.com.

Funnies!

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:44:17 -0500

all images courtesy of viktor hertz

viktor hertz is a swedish graphic designer whose ‘honest logos’ project, really tells it like it is. the idea behind the re-appropriated graphics,
are hertz’s means of revealing the actual content and truth behind the company at hand and its products. as of recent,
the designer has developed ten new logos to add to the first series he created. in the wake of ‘revealing the truth’, the new logos also give us
a chance to reflect on our own personal habits of consumption.

—-
below is a look at some of the graphics from viktor hertz’s first series of ‘honest logos’:

via huffington post
—

Mobile Marketing 2015- How do you go mobile with your business?

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 13:26:00 -0500

to the RSS feed or my daily buzz emails for updates!

Microsoft Tag has just released a neat infographic highlighting statistics on how people are using mobile phones in 2011. I also dug up a great video that featured late last year with an array of great mobile “growth” statistics, stats and facts for 2011.

The infographic shows that over 1 billion of the worlds 4+ billion mobiles phones are now smartphones, and 3 billion are SMS enabled (weirdly, 950 million mobile phones still don’t have SMS capabilities). In 2014, mobile internet usage will overtake desktop internet usage and already in 2011, more than 50% of all “local” searches are done from a mobile device.

86% of mobile users are watching TV while using a mobile phone, 200+ million (1/3 of all users) access Facebook from a mobile device and 91% of all mobile internet use is “social” related.

A few of the key take outs from the video is that over 70% of the worlds population now have a mobile phone, that’s over 5 billion mobile subscribers, and in places like the US, it’s 9 in 10 people. With children now more likely to own a mobile phone than a book, with 85% of kids owning a phone as to 73% having books! Now that’s a pretty crazy statistic. Apple has sold almost 60 million iPhones world wide, while Google’s Android OS is growing at 886% year on year and now activating over 160,000 devices a day, across 60 devices in over 40 countries. And at that rate, Android will come from behind to over take Apple as the leading smart phone OS in 2011.

Social Media Press Kit

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 22:37:10 -0500

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TEAM POWER

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:44:23 -0400

TEAM POWER

Video

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:46:34 -0400

The Bank of Facebook: Currency, Identity, Reputation

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:37:00 -0400

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design by ericaglasier.com – @EricaGlasierHow will Facebook and the global economy interact in the future?

There has been much speculation recently about the role Facebook Credits could play in becoming a global virtual currency, and even the possibility of Facebook becoming a bank. In many ways, it already is becoming a bank – just not in the traditional sense. Facebook is harnessing the power of the social graph, and has certainly adopted an expanded definition of what ‘currency’ means. It’s time for the rest of us to hop on board.

As I’ve been conducting research for The Future of Facebook Project, the experts and thought leaders interviewed shared some compelling views about the evolution of virtual currencies, and Facebook’s potential role in their development. A big takeaway is that while we typically associate currency directly with money, the rise of the social web and quantification is shifting that reality to become more inclusive of kinds of capital that were formerly intangible.

Money is a tool we use for arms-length transactions, where there isn’t an assumption of any kind of relationship or trust between parties. But as data is being mapped at an accelerating rate – from self-quantifiation, to the contextual and relational data about our location and interactions, to our preferences and opinions, to our exchanges and transactions – we are being granted access to a much richer base of information in our decision-making toolkit.

What this means is that money isn’t the only kind of currency that can facilitate a transaction anymore. Trust networks are able to be tapped for recommendations and referrals, while predictive analysis algorhithms can suggest the kinds of people, products, services, or events that would resonate with our personalities or value set. A new set of filtering tools are emerging that are shaping where we direct our attention and resources, namely intentions and actions.

These contextual clues around data become currencies in themselves, as they give us more information in order to make a choice or decide who to trust. Below are three examples of currencies that are having an impact on the formation of a new economic paradigm and redefinition of how we define, generate and exchange value: Facebook Credits, online identity, and reputation.

Credits as Currency

Facebook Credits are a virtual currency used within Facebook for the purchase of virtual goods related to applications managed on the Facebook platform. They’re like tokens you’d use to play games at Chuck E. Cheese’s – great for casual entertainment, but not particularly threatening to the real world economy. Yet.

What happens when individuals and companies become more comfortable with the idea of accepting virtual currencies in exchange for various types of interactions, goods or services?

“Increasingly as we move later into the decade, physical currency will be harder to differentiate from virtual currencies like Facebook Credits,” said Brett King, author of Bank 2.0. “We’ll start to see a new economy emerging through social media where virtual currencies will be a very real part of the way people trade and sell information, collaborate on ideas and value various products and services.”

In the near term, we’re likely to see retailers find creative ways to use Credits to entice people to interact with them, evangelize their brands, and gain customer loyalty. For example, every time you take a poll, watch an advertisement, or tell your friends about a purchase you made, you could receive Credits from that company that would then be redeemable for goods or discounts.

“We may see a kind of gamification of the real world take place through Facebook Credits, where a variety of outside vendors, businesses, and service providers can give us Facebook Credits, enable us to pay with Facebook Credits, and reward us with Facebook Credits for taking actions that they want us to take,” explained Nova Spivack, a technology entrepreneur and founder of Lucid Ventures.

In the longer term, Facebook Credits could become truly disruptive by becoming a currency for peer to peer lending, microtransactions, and for usage by the unbanked in emerging markets around the world. For instance, imagine the next time you clicked the “like” button for that social activism campaign you support, you could also add a small donation to the cause via your Credits account. Or what if Facebook evolved to have a functionality like Zopa or Lending Club, allowing you to directly lend and borrow with other Facebook users, and earn a great rate of interest. Extend that one step further to Facebook offering an entire mobile based money transfer system, something like M-PESA, which could then create a simple mechanism for international microfinance. If Facebook goes this far, Credits could quickly face regulatory scrutiny if they actually influence or devalue currencies in other markets.

As venture capitalist Eghosa Omoigui posited, “I suspect that Facebook may eventually have to create a trading platform that allows them to constantly mark-to-market what those Credits look like.”

The possibilities here are only limited by our ability to extrapolate out scenarios of what happens when transactions are made easy, secure, and frictionless. So Credits are a clear example of an emerging virtual currency that could have some far reaching implications, and will certainly face new regulatory challenges as well as a new set of competitors as they expand their offerings. But are there other currencies that Facebook is creating within its ecosystem?

Identity as Currency

How do you construct your online identity, and where is that information stored? Does it matter?

Every time you upload a photo, make a comment, add a friend, click a link, or make a purchase, that data is being harvested to create a map and a simulation of you. This is tremendously valuable information, and Facebook gets that. It hasn’t been by mistake that they’ve created a simple go-to portal to the social web, where logging in via Facebook Connect gives access to any number of other sites and services.

By analyzing even slices of this data, a wealth of information can be extracted and predicted about you. As a related example, Google vice-president Marissa Meyer was said to have claimed at this year’s SXSW festival that credit card companies can look at spending habits and predict with 98% accuracy, two years in advance, when a couple is going to divorce. Interesting. I wonder what Facebook is able to predict, and how that information can be served up to advertisers.

If the trend continues where logging in via your Facebook profile is the simple method for verification, some speculate this could lead to Facebook evolving to being an actual utility for identity. We’re already seeing companies advertising themselves through their Facebook profile (www.facebook.com/company). It seems possible that Facebook users could do the same. After all, if people are willing to trust sensitive data to Facebook, companies could use that info to offer better rates on car or health insurance, or help you secure a loan, via the platform. While this could seem convenient for the average user, it does carry serious implications in terms of how governments will respond.

“[Identity] will become the battleground within which this entire learning will take place, because today all the artifacts of a human being belong to physical and logical governments, and not to social networks. But the ability to move any form of asset between the virtual world and the physical world needs a commonality of understanding of identity,” said JP Rangaswami, Chief Scientist for salesforce.com.

The discussion around who owns your data and online identity and why it matters hasn’t really hit the mainstream yet, though there are communities like the Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium that are pushing for individual ownership, open standards and interoperability. A person’s identity is highly valuable information, and some would argue that despite the convenience of having a third party own that data, it rightly and ethically belongs to the individual. In the meantime, Facebook is playing a strong role in how we use identity on the web, and what information about ourselves and our social graph is shared every time we log in and interact.

Reputation as Currency

If you’re familiar with services like Klout and PeerIndex, you’re aware the task of quantifying reputation, authority and influence online is well underway. Just as a positive score in your eBay account matters if you plan to continue doing business there, we’re on the verge of having robust social scoring metrics that will become increasingly important for businesses and individuals to consider.

For example, when searching for a product or service, not only will we see a range of comparisons between companies with similar offerings, but also how our social network perceives the performance and quality of that brand. We can already see which of our friends “likes” a particular website that happens to display the Facebook social plugin in their sidebar. When the opinions about a brand can be displayed more robustly, we’ll know not only that you “like” a brand, but why. This gives information on both sides – the reputation of the brand, and the values of the individual. So if I choose to only interact with brands that have project both intentions and corresponding actions of what I consider “good,” which could include sustainable business practices, financial transparency, social responsibility, and, dare I say, corporate ethics, only those with a reputation that falls within that spectrum will make it through the filter in my stream.

As Brett King pointed out, “Social metrics, and the use of platforms like Facebook will have very real feedback in respect to the valuation of a brand economically, and obviously that will have an effect directly on revenues that are possible for providers in that space. So unless you’re playing in the social brand space, unless you’re engaged in the conversation, your social metrics are gonna be affected in a negative way, and that will have an effect on revenue, profitability, and the value of your brand.”

The power of this kind of sentiment analysis around brands, issues, events, people, or topics of any kind can’t be underestimated. As these metrics become more granular, it becomes easier to to make purchasing decisions and support initiatives that are more fully aligned with our values. One’s reputation and social standing, and the way they are perceived based on their words and their actions, are most certainly a currency.

Beyond its functionality for how we interact with brands, and perhaps even more interesting to consider, is how this reputation currency could impact peer to peer relationships and potential business partnerships. I’ve always felt rather disappointed in the type of information that passes for a Facebook profile. Sure, you can show where you went to high school and the kinds of entertainment you like, but none of it is particularly useful in terms of finding ways to generate economic value together with others.

Facebook has the opportunity to create a marketplace for intention, innovation, and entrepreneurship, if it expands the degree to which an individual can express their human capital and find others with common interests or goals. When I am able to express the types of skills I possess, resources I have access to, my intellectual capital, my relationships and social connections, and the types of projects or business ventures or causes with which I would like to be involved, a whole new dimension of interactivity will emerge. When others can vouch for the quality of my work or my knowledge or expertise, the kind of robust profile and reputation that then exists is incredibly valuable for me and for the potential economic opportunities that I can get.

None of these examples should seem like a stretch. In some ways, this is the next logical step in the evolution of Facebook. As technology writer Kevin Kelly said, “What we know from our very short history of living online is that community precedes commerce; there’s no commerce without community. What Facebook is doing is sort of blowing up the community to be 500 million or even a billion very soon. When we have a community of a billion, that means that the potential for commerce is enormous, is immense, and we’ve never seen that before.”

To me, that statement is speaking to us as the users, and how we can potentially be interacting with each other, not necessarily how we can interact with corporate entities or brands. Facebook has corralled us all within its walled garden, and created a place to share photos with friends, keep up on events, and perhaps click some ads. But the opportunity to use sentiment and predictive analysis to actually facilitate the connection of people around common desires and goals could be truly transformative in accelerating the rate of social innovation and job creation.

It’s not a matter of if this will happen, but when. Users already pump tons of data into Facebook about their preferences and tastes – it just hasn’t quite been served back to them in a way that’s economically useful. But if and when they do, it’s going to create a marketplace where your reputation is going to be quite important in getting prospects for what may be called ‘the future of work.’

New Currencies = New Banks

I hope this provided some food for thought on the evolving definition of currency and what we may consider a bank. We’re making formerly intangible and invisible things transparent, measurable, and tradeable, and that opens the door to a lot of new possibilities for what economic transactions and exchange look like. Social media companies like Facebook understand the enormous value in being the connective tissue of the social web and provider of your data and the social graph.

Facebook will continue to grow and face new challenges as it threatens the control traditional institutional structures have had over currency and personal identity. The implications of one entity owning this amount of information is beyond the scope of this article, but it certainly deserves a critical assessment. That huge privacy breach and wake up call hasn’t happened yet, so it’s not too late to ask what’s at stake when your data is contained in someone else’s silo.

Content based on ongoing research for The Future of Facebook Project. Big thanks for support from our Corporate Patron, Innotribe, Zev at Averbach Transcription, Executive Producer Sean Park, and Producers Dr. William J. Ward, Debra Farber, Bill Lefurgy, Guido Stevens, andNicky Smyth. Image design by the fabulous Erica Glasier.

Resource BoxThis story is written by Venessa Miemis. It can be viewed in its original format at http://emergentbydesign.com/2011/04/04/the-bank-of-facebook-currency-identity-reputation/.

REPOST by Cory Holliman @ My Social Fusion

MySocialFusion.com is a Social Media Marketing Company that specializes in Branding and Press Kits

Brand Your Business , Brand Yourself!

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:00:24 -0400

Brand Your Business , Brand Yourself!:

The Social Media Press Kit
by MySocialFusion.com

It is a one-of-a kind, web based, product designed to let people know about you. The SMPK(Social Media Press Kit) consolidates all of your social media links (whether you have 1 or 6) into one place which saves you and your potential client’s valuable time. Before people make critical decisions for their business they spend time researching the person and company. Now, a main decision maker can have everything they need right from your SMPK. It is an instant rapport builder. Ever wonder what the other person on the phone looks like? People buy from either people they know or they are comfortable with. SMPK delivers that and a lot more.

Same Message, Different Ways of Spreading it

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 10:40:38 -0400

Written by Carter Gibson | September 23, 2011

I don’t know about you, but I have an online presence everywhere – Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Youtube, Pandora, Blogs, Spotify, a Myspace I can’t delete, and more. Corporations and non-profits like the Ad Council aren’t so different. With all these different ways to use the Internet and, more importantly, represent yourself, it’s becoming harder to maintain a consistent brand image. But with this increased difficulty in keeping a brand’s message consistent across multiple, varied platforms comes the potential to exploit the opportunity for a much stronger brand.

Some brands think that they should use every social platform the same way. If a Facebook post says, “Product X launches today!” so will their tweet and Google+ post (once G+ allows brands that is). This isn’t the kind of brand consistency I’m talking about. That’s just lazy. Do you want to have a lazy brand? Didn’t think so. Rather, brands need to have innovative ways exploit the very best of each platform. If they all did the same thing there wouldn’t be a need to have more than one. Despite their similarities, social platforms have definitive strengths and weaknesses.

Facebook, for instance, is amazing with contests thanks to their support of widgets. Twitter, on the other hand, may be a much better place for engaging people or addressing concerns. When Google+ allows corporate pages, Hangouts (video conferences between up to 10 people) will challenges brands to engage their customers face-to-face – a first for social media. Capitalizing on these innate advantages will only help to round out a brand, not fragment it. For instance, a consumer who doesn’t like the way Facebook works isn’t going to follow that brand on twitter if they treat it like Facebook. But they will follow it if it uses Twitter “the right way.”

It may not be possible for a brand to have a unique presence on every platform, and that’s okay. It’s better to do one thing well than several only kinda well. There’s an expectation that brands use every medium available to them, and while corporate brands certainly have a lot to gain, non-profits are the ones who should be paying the most attention. Successful corporate branding achieves purchases. Successful non-profit branding demands engagement and activism from its supporters.

While an understanding of the platform the brand is using is vital, a genuine desire to collaborate with the very people who make a non-profit successful rewards everyone. The brand is strengthened and supported through customer loyalty while the customer is rewarded with the rush of feeling like they matter. By keeping this consistent brand image across varying venues of dispersal, brands will get the very most out of their social media budgets. And hey, customers might like it a lot too.

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How To Enable Facebook Timeline Right This Second

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 14:39:34 -0400

by Greg Kumparak - Facebook announced Timeline, a crazy (and kind of creepy) omnibus look at everything that has ever happened in your Facebook lifespan. It’s like a story book of your life — or at least the online, documented parts.

Facebook said that Timeline would be on the way for everyone sometime in the coming weeks… which is great and all, for everyone else. You’re the type of person who reads TechCrunch, and are thus likely the type of person who likes their new and shiny things right now.

That’s okay. We can make it happen.

Fortunately, enabling Timeline a bit early isn’t too difficult — but it’s not at all straight forward, either.

You see, Facebook is enabling Timeline early for open graph developers. You, too, can be an open graph developer — even if you’re just looking to dabble.

A few things to note:
- You probably don’t want to do this unless you’re actually a developer. Expect bugs.
- Only you will see your timeline at first (unless you decide otherwise), but it will automatically go public after a few days. My timeline was automatically hard-set to go public on September 29th.
- It seems that if you login into Facebook on another machine, Timeline gets disabled automatically on all of your machines. With that said, it seems you can get back to your timeline (but ONLY after following the steps below) by navigating to http://www.facebook.com/YOURUSERNAMEHERE?sk=timeline
- You’ll need to have a “verified” account for one of the steps, which means you need a credit card or phone number attached to the account.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Log into Facebook

2. Enable developer mode, if you haven’t already. To do this, type “developer” into the Facebook search box, click the first result (it should be an app made by Facebook with a few hundred thousand users), and add the app.

3. Jump into the developer app (if Facebook doesn’t put you there automatically, it should be in your left-hand tool bar)

4. Create a new app (don’t worry — you wont actually be submitting this for anyone else to see/use). Give your shiny new app any display name and namespace you see fit. Read through and agree to the Platform Privacy agreement. This is the step you need to be verified for.

5. Ensure you’re in your new app’s main settings screen. You should see your app’s name near the top of the page

6. Look for the “Open Graph” header, and click the “Get Started using open graph” link.

Create a test action for your app, like “read” a “book”, or “eat” a “sandwich”

7. This should drop you into an action type configuration page. Change a few of the default settings (I changed the past tense of “read” to “redd” — again, only you can see this unless you try and submit your application to the public directory), and click through all three pages of settings

8. Wait 2-3 minutes

9. Go back to your Facebook homescreen. An invite to try Timeline should be waiting at the top of the page

And you’re done! We’ve seen this work quite a few times now, so it should work without a hitch for just about anyone.

Improved Friend Lists

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 18:14:33 -0400

by Blake Ross on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 10:59am

This week, it will be easier than ever to see more from the people you care about and simpler to share with exactly the right people using Friend Lists.

Want to see posts from your closest friends? Or perhaps you’d like to share a personal story with your family—without also telling all your co-workers. With improved Friend Lists, you can easily see updates from and share with different lists of friends.

Lists have existed for several years, but you’ve told us how time-consuming it is to organize lists for different parts of your life and keep them up to date.

To make lists incredibly easy and even more useful, we’re announcing three improvements:

Smart lists - You’ll see smart lists that create themselves and stay up-to-date based on profile info your friends have in common with you—like your work, school, family and city.
Close Friends and Acquaintances lists - You can see your best friends’ photos and posts in one place, and see less from people you’re not as close to.
Better suggestions - You can add the right friends to your lists without a lot of effort.

Friend Lists are completely optional. If you don’t like lists, you don’t have to use them.

Smart Lists

Managing lists is boring. That’s why smart lists do the work for you. To start, we’ll offer you smart lists for:

Work
School
Family
City

For instance, if you list Boston College as a school you’ve attended and your friends John and Sarah do too, then you would instantly have a smart list called “Boston College” with John and Sarah on it. This means that if you’re having a grad party or a college reunion, you can easily share photos with just your college friends, without bothering other people you know.

You can also add or remove friends manually to make the lists even more accurate.

Close Friends and Acquaintances Lists

Close Friends list - Add your best friends to your Close Friends list and you’ll see everything they post in News Feed. You can even jump straight to a view of your News Feed that only shows their photos and news. You can also receive notifications when they post updates, so you don’t miss anything important.

Acquaintances list - Add friends like old classmates or business contacts to your Acquaintances list and you’ll see less of them in your News Feed. We’ll still show you important things they post — like when they get married or move to a new city — so you don’t lose touch completely.

Okay, what about your boss or the few other people you like but just don’t want to share with on Facebook? You can add these folks to your Restricted list and they will only see your Public posts. You’ll still be friends on Facebook so you can send them messages or tag them in a post if you want to connect to them from time to time. It’s totally up to you.

Unlike your smart lists for your work, school, family and city, we don’t create Close Friends and Acquaintances lists for you. Since these types of relationships are unique, it’s important for you to decide who goes in your Close Friends, Acquaintances or Restricted lists — if you use them at all.

If you created your own lists in the past, you can still use them. You can also continue to create whatever lists you want in the future. When you post something to a list that you’ve created — including your Close Friends and Acquaintances lists — no one will be able to see the title of the list.

The people on the list you’ve shared with will be able to see each others’ names. This gives them more context. For example, if I see that a post is shared with my five closest friends, I am much more likely to comment freely on it than I would be if I didn’t know who else could see the post.

Better Suggestions

We provide suggestions for your smart lists, Close Friends, Acquaintances, and your own lists, making them easier to create and update.

When you add someone as a friend or confirm a friendship request, you’ll be able to add the friend to any of your existing lists.

See and Share With Exactly Who You Want

Each of your lists has its own News Feed, where you can see just the photos, status updates and other posts from the people on the list. To view list News Feeds, look for the Lists section on the left side of your homepage and click the list you want to see.

Whenever you feel like sharing something with a narrower set of friends, simply use the dropdown audience selector in the sharing tool and pick one of your lists.

You can also use lists to help control who sees what on your profile, using the audience selector next to each detail on your profile.

Improved Friend lists will be available to everyone this week and will be rolling out on mobile over the next few weeks. We’d love to hear your feedback at facebook.com/ListsTeam.

Tell Your Story with Timeline by Samuel W. Lessin

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 15:51:30 -0400

Since the beginning of Facebook, your profile has been the place where you tell your story. People use it to share everything from the small stuff, like their thoughts on an article, to the most important events of their lives, like the photos of their wedding or the birth of their child.

The evolution of your profile

Back in the early days of Facebook, your profile was pretty basic – just your name, a photo, where you went to school…stuff you’d cover in the first five minutes you met someone.

Over time, your profile evolved to better reflect how you actually communicate with your friends. Now you can can share photos of what you did last weekend, and updates about how you feel today.

But since the focus is on the most recent things you posted, more important stuff slips off the page. The photos of your graduation get replaced by updates about what you had for breakfast.

Say you’re catching up with an old friend – would you rather find out that they had eggs this morning, or hear about their new dream job?

The way your profile works today, 99% of the stories you share vanish. The only way to find the posts that matter is to click “Older Posts” at the bottom of the page. Again. And again.

Imagine if there was an easy way to rediscover the things you shared, and collect all your best moments in a single place.

Introducing timeline – a new kind of profile

With timeline, now you have a home for all the great stories you’ve already shared. They don’t just vanish as you add new stuff.

Timeline is wider than your old profile, and it’s a lot more visual. The first thing you’ll notice is the giant photo right at the top. This is your cover, and it’s completely up to you which of your photos you put here.

As you scroll down past your cover, you’ll see your posts, photos and life events as they happened in time. You choose what’s featured on your timeline. You can star your favorites to double their size or hide things altogether.

Filling in the blanks

If important parts of your story aren’t included on your timeline, you can go back to when they happened and add them.

Or go to your private activity log. This is where you’ll find everything you shared since you joined Facebook. Click on any post to feature it on your timeline so your friends can see it, too.

Add apps to your timeline

Introducing a new kind of social app that lets you show the things you like to do on your timeline – the music you listen to, the recipes you try, the runs you take and more.

These apps also help you discover what your friends are up to. You can even join in if you want: play the song they’re listening to, or watch the same TV show.

You can start adding some of these new apps today, but timeline won’t be available for a few weeks.

When you get your timeline, you can choose to publish it immediately or take a few days to review what’s there and add anything that’s missing.

Now, you and your friends will finally be able to tell all the different parts of your story – from the small things you do each day to your biggest moments. What will you create? We can’t wait to find out.

Sam Lessin, a product manager at Facebook, is looking forward to adding the photo of his elephant-powered wedding to his timeline.

The tale of two media companies: Google and Yahoo (or Facebook and Yahoo)

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 13:21:10 -0400

Robert Scoble - 9:32 AM (edited) - PublicThe tale of two media companies: Google and Yahoo (or Facebook and Yahoo)

Both Yahoo and Google call themselves media companies. There is a HUGE difference between the two, which is why I’m here and not on Yahoo.

What is it?

On Yahoo you have to go TO the media. On Google+ the media comes to you.

I’ve been talking to a lot of people about why Google+ is an identity system. +Kathy Gill is very disappointed in what she terms “bait and switch.” She thinks Google sold her a social network and delivered an identity system instead.

I think she hasn’t really thought it out. By knowing more about who you are (your politics, your religion, your musical tastes, your hobbies, your health, your family, your friends, your favorite brands, your games, your food tastes, your location, your books, your stocks, etc) Google can deliver the content right to you.

Think about this guy who was sleeping on the lawn of the Austin City Limits music festival. Look at what he’s holding: a Blackberry.

If he was in the Yahoo model he would have to wake up and start typing URLs.

In the Google model the phone will buzz when something important TO HIM happens and the media will be on his screen.

Maybe his girlfriend just got in an accident. Maybe his stocks just went down. Maybe his favorite band is about to play and he better wake up and walk to the next field. Maybe his servers are down and need attention. Maybe his favorite sports team just got into the playoffs so he better wake up and figure out how to buy tickets. And on and on and on.

Google will wake him up. Yahoo won’t.

And that’s why we’re all here on Google+ (and Facebook).

I’m off to see +Doug Ludlow CEO of Hipster http://www.hipster.com/ to talk more about this new world.

Now you know why Facebook and Google are the future of Silicon Valley and Yahoo is the past.

Pinterest: Have you been pinned?

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:03:20 -0400

By Sara Alderman | @sea6789

Pinterest is a growing bookmarking site that lets you tag websites based on images, and sort those images onto boards. It’s sort of like virtual bulletin boards with push pins holding images of similar items for you on the web. One of the best things about this website is your friends can see your boards and repin your images and vice versa.

More and more people are using Pinterest every day. It is gaining an audience in the younger tech- savy generations. One thing to note though, is that to join you either need to know someone who has an account to invite you or request an invite (it usually takes a week). When you get an account it installs a push pin on your browser tool bar, click it while on any website and a window pops up asking which board you want it to go on and you’re done.

Pinterest is basically a bookmarking site. Instead of adding a website to your favorites, bar you add it to your account, sort it and then others can see, comment and repin it their profile. While browsing the web you can take picture and save the whole site for later. Say you find an interesting recipe or a do-it yourself project but don’t have time to work on it right now, you can save it for later in an organized, visual way.

I love the concept of bulletin boards and pinning pictures. One of my only hesitations when I started using the site was deciding which websites to pin. One thing I wish you had the ability to do on it was to upload your own pictures onto boards, from your computer and your phone. As It gains popularity I think the technology is there.

It is a great tool to use for recipes, weddings, party planning, redecorating etc. I think that as it gains popularity companies will start to use it to showcase their products and interact with their customers and audience.