The Social Media High School Yearbook

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Although the profession “Social Media Expert” too often sighted is on CVs already, the kids of today have grown up and are ready to graduate as “Social Media Experts”. Although many will argue that Bulletin Boards and platforms such as the Usenet were a form of social media already, it is rather simple to accept that they aren’t representative of Social Media in our day and age.
The students now in high school are the first generation to have grown up with social media omni-present and will soon graduate, and be employed by companies who have social media policies and guidelines. Policies which will restrict freedom to share online. Before being hired job candidates might already be screened and their social media profile might be profiled for your online activity over the last seven years.

Social Media doesn’t have to be as negative or fearful all the time though and the crew at Flowtown have created a great and funny infographic about the social media landscape in 2011. If you were in high school right now, would you be the Digg boy, or the band geek? Or the Jock? [Read more…]

Do No Evil: Google+ Shuts Down Top Brand Profiles, Reaps Ridicule from Tech Pundits

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Do no evilIn an upcoming and expected move, some hours ago Google+ proceded to close a majority of business profiles. We discussed the issue business owners face, due to the lack of profiles for businesses on Google+, recently.

One of the things I said was that Google+ would have to take a clear stand and when, also enforce it:

I do hope you will collaborate and when users do report profiles of brands, no matter how big the brand or website and how popular the page, these profiles will subsequently be deactivated until the pages option for businesses is available.

And exactly that has happened: Christian Oestlien, announced that the Google+ team has deactivated multiple business accounts (also those of Mashable, Sesame Street and many more).

But the story took a rather ridiculous twist and SEO Google spammer par excellence, Pete Cashmore, A.K.A. as CEO and Founder of Mashable, quickly changed the Mashable News account to his personal name and also changed the profile picture, the latter similar to the Mashable Twitter account. [Read more…]

Google+ Early Success: Privacy. Around 2/3 of Updates are Private

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Google Plus CirclesOne of the much hyped features of Google+ are the privacy settings, which are not new compared to Facebook, but easier to configure and actually use. While it is unlikely that we’ll soon get any insight in the user numbers. The number known so far is that more than 10 million users signed up to the service within its first three weeks. If, we can expect more official numbers it will probably be at Google’s next earnings call.

While it is too early to call Google+ a success, more and more we see very interesting numbers emerge, combined with the fact that the immediate reception and hype around the service did push Google’s stock (GOOG) with 13%.
Hitwise estimated Google+ at around 300,00 daily US based visits after two weeks, comScore said on Wednesday that the site had reached 20 million page views already in only three weeks, Paul Allen estimates there’s 18 million users already and Alexa ranks the G+ subdomain at almost 2% of the entire traffic to Google properties.

In an interview with The Mercury News, Vic Gundotra – Google+ Project Lead, disclosed another interesting statistic: around 2/3 or more of the updates posted to Google+ are ‘Limited’ and shared only with a select number of people. Women are also likely to share more content privately than men and early statistics of a low number of female users (less than 15%) are wrong. [Read more…]

Google+ for iPhone Released. Not Compatible with iPad and iPod Touch

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Google+ for iPhone

Google+ for iPhone

After little more than 2 weeks of wait, the Apple App Store crew has finally approved the Google+ app for iOS.

Sadly for many users it does seem that the app only runs on the iPhone, and not on iPod touches (even not latest generation). So far no iPad specific app has been released either and the app does not run on iPads. Rumors around the internet confirm that the Google+ app for iPhone only runs on iPhone 3, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4.

If you can not find the app in the app store, via a search, try this link to the iTunes Store.

Where very often the iOS apps the more polished ones are, Foursquare being the best example, the Google+ app for iPhone does not belong in that category and it seems that the app was developed by developers without any eye to particular design. While both apps are very similar, the Android Google+ app is the clear winner when it comes to polish, design and interface. The iPhone app just doesn’t feel as finished.

At least WordPress fans will love the design of user profiles in Google+ for iPhone. [Read more…]

15 Useful Google+ Browser Extensions for Google Chrome Browser

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Google Plus

Just like many new platforms the Google+ interface is not optimal and every user might want to customize their G+ experience.
Luckily the online community is fast and several Google Chrome browser extensions for Google+ have already found their way to the Chrome Store.

Many users have already mentioned that they wished they could share better or organize their stream better, others wished that G+ had additional features or even a more colorful design. We found 15 Google+ extensions for the Chrome web browser, which can improve your G+ experience.
Neither of them is an extension to -1. ;) [Read more…]

Track Google+ Analytics and Influence with BuzzRank’s Plusalyzer

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Plusalyzer by BuzzRank

In a rather unsurprising move, more and more companies have started to develop online Google+ analytics and tracking platforms, adding to their stable of social analytics. Even before any form of Google+ API has been released so far, and with mixed results.

Only days after Google+ was opened to a select group of people, FindPeopleonPlus was released, tracking 1 million Google+ users. Since the service received its 5 minutes of fame the number of people tracked hasn’t grown anymore and statistics haven’t been updated either, even though Google+ has grown to rather large numbers in less than a month already.

The newest kid in town, Plusalyzer by the German BuzzRank team, now tries to deliver the user a more in-depth level of statistics for their contributions to the social network. [Read more…]

Google+ Exodus, The Simplest Tool to Invite Your Facebook Friends to Google+

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Google+ Exodus

For many the main decision to make when moving to Google+ is whether they will leave their social graph behind and start to rebuild from scratch at a new network. While we know that more than 10 million users have signed up for the new service from Google, Facebook has played a role for many and millions of users have developed their social online network over years.

The decision whether to move to a new network and possibly be alone, or have only is small circle, is one many users will not take easily. The new tool Google+ Exodus could come to the rescue.

Two Tufts University alumnis, Jack Carter and Albert Nichols created Google+ Exodus, which could make the transition easier. [Read more…]

Has Google+ Already Surpassed 25 Million Users?

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Google Plus

Since Google+ launched, we have been left wondering how many users signed up, and were able to join in the first days. Wild estimates and predictions have been made, including complicated prognoses based on surnames. The latest and most widespread one by Paul Allen said that Google+ could surpass 20 million users by this weekend, as we reported here at The Blog Herald.

Until the Google(+) overlords decide they will publish user stats, we can only guess and guesses will continue to be made. But the service could be much more popular than expected already and with help of the Palo Alto search giant’s own tools, I discovered the rather amazing number of 40,100,000 profiles already. [Read more…]

Twitter Continues Its Path to Dominate App Ecosystem: Android App Android App Finally Receives Push Notifications and Multiple Accounts

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Twitter for Android

Twitter for Android

After several months of waiting the Twitter Android app has finally received a much needed update and more even: features similar to the iPhone Twitter app.

The new and improved app for Android users finally has Multiple account management, push notifications and improved home screen widgets, as well as numerous bug fixes.

Fans of Push notifications: Open your account settings and select Automatic refresh. After doing so you can select whether you want Push notifications for Direct messages, Mentions and/or Tweets.

While the Twitter Android app seems to finally catch up with other Twitter clients for Android, especially by adding multiple accounts management, it would be nice to see a visual refresh of the app as well. Most Android apps still severely lack when it comes to visual design , and Twitter is no exception here. Twitter’s design has seen massive improvements over the last 12 months but we hope that Douglas Bowman, Twitter’s Creative Director, would start using an Android phone and subsequently improve the design of the Twitter Android app.

Youtube Releases Experimental New Design Cosmic Panda

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Video hosting giant Youtube has revealed a new design called Cosmic Panda.

Youtube Cosmic Panda Design

Youtube Cosmic Panda Design. Ads continue to be annoying.

The new design, here shown with the viral Nyan Cat video, is more polished than the previous Youtube design. Video player control buttons have been repositioned and are now more prevalent, while being integrated in a nicer way. Ads still continue to disturb the experience. [Read more…]