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Posts tagged Social Network
Is Google+ the answer to social networking behemoth Facebook?
Jun 28th
Google have unveiled their latest attempt at cracking the world of social media, titled ‘Google+’. After previous attempts such as Google Buzz turned out disastrously (and even resulted in privacy scandals), it is particularly important for Google to get it right now before they lose an irreclaimable amount of ground to Facebook.
In fact, Google+ looks very promising. The tool will be baked in across the entire suite of Google products – search, maps, GMail, Reader, YouTube and many other successful services. A notification drop down similar to the red icon you see on Facebook will be accessible and omnipresent across all of these services, ensuring that take up and continued usage is high.
Circles
Google have presented some innovative ideas to the status quo of social networking. They noted that granular sharing is ‘tacked on’ in many current social services, like ‘Friend Lists’ on Facebook, to which you can restrict access to your posts. Google wants to slip this on its head and make their social network reflect reality – hence their ‘Circles’ feature. A fun interface will allow you to drag and drop you friends in and out of your different social ‘circles’ – like ‘University friends’ or ‘Colleagues’ or even More >
Google takes social search a step further with ‘+1′
Mar 31st
Search engine giant Google has announced a new feature called ‘+1′. +1 is essentially the same as Facebook’s ‘Like’ button, which when clicked shares that page on the user’s Facebook Wall. Google +1 will do this as well, listing all links +1ed by a user on their Google Profile.
However, the integration will go deeper than this, as +1 buttons will also appear on search results, and the number of times a result has been +1ed will appear next to its link, potentially influencing which result a user will choose. This could end up being incorporated into the algorithm that Google uses to rank its listings. Also of note is that this does not just apply to the ‘organic’ listings- these +1 buttons will also be a feature of the ‘sponsored’ pay-per-click results that appear at the top and down the side of results pages.
The impact of this new feature on SEO is obvious, so we will be watching this development with great interest. The social aspect to this button highlights how important a social media strategy is when considering the online promotion of your website. If you’re interested in our online promotion services, contact Areatrade on 020 8366 2050 or email More >
Social networking giant Facebook starts rolling out new ‘Questions’ feature
Mar 27th
The massive social network Facebook have started to roll out their new Questions product to their users. The feature allows users and pages of businesses, brands and public figures to pose questions to friends or fans. You can give your two cents by selecting an previously offered answer or by adding a new one of your own. The question will then become visible to your friends, widening the net of people who can answer the original person’s question.
For businesses, this offers a great opportunity to improve engagement with Facebook users. For example, an ice cream parlour could ask the question ‘Which flavour should be Flavour of the Week?’. This would serve as an incentive for users to get involved with the decision making process, and also act as an incentive for the user to visit the business themselves. If one of your fans answers the question, they are also effectively widening the audience to all of their friends, which is fantastic free advertising for your company.
The Japan Tsunami Appeal
Mar 13th
Most people will have heard by now about the horrific disaster which struck Japan over the weekend. We would like to urge our followers to donate to the British Red Cross appeal if they’ve got any spare change – people are desperately in need of rescue and shelter at this very moment.
It has been interesting to see the usage of social media in relief efforts. News of the disaster spread quickly across Facebook and Twitter and videos of the event appeared almost instantaneously on YouTube, Japan being such a well connected country. The phrase ‘Text REDCROSS to 90999′ was trending on Twitter worldwide to encourage users to make an instant $10 donation to the appeal (though this only functioned for American users.)
Google have also set up a version of their ‘Person Finder’ tool, the technology of which was used extensively as part of operations in Hurricane Katrina and the Christchurch earthquake. The tool allows users to search for information about someone they are trying to find or upload information about the whereabouts and state of someone to be found by others. The tool uses a standard, open format to allow different organisations to collate data in one place – reducing the More >
Facebook adds ‘in a civil partnership’ relationship setting
Feb 18th
Facebook has rolled out the capability to set the relationship status on your profile to ‘In a civil partnership’ after the feature was increasingly suggested by users. The Facebook communications manager Andrew Noyes stated that “This has been a highly requested feature from users … We [Facebook] want to provide options for people to genuinely and authentically reflect their relationships on Facebook.”
The changes have been rolled out today in the UK, North America, France and Australia, with the options available specific to the territory of the user.
Google increases emphasis on social search rankings
Feb 18th
Google has announced an upgrade to its social search features. A feature has been available for some time that shows links related to your search at the bottom of the results page that have been shared by your contacts on social networks.
Now Google will be further integrating this feature by moving the social results higher up in the rankings. This feature is only available to users signed into a Google account that is attached to social networking accounts.
What does this mean for people optimising their websites for promotion on Google? It seems clear that a strong social networking presence is becoming a increasingly important component of an effective online promotion campaign.
The Hype Machine re-launch website with HTML5 technology
Dec 17th
Popular music discovery service The Hype Machine has rolled out a major upgrade to its website interface. The Hype Machine is a service with a social media element which aggregates posts from music blogs across the internet and allows users to listen to them and ‘like’ them. The most ‘liked’ songs posted in the last three days show up in the Hype Machine chart, allowing users to get a great overview of what’s popular online at that very moment.
The website previously relied on Flash technology to play music to users, but has now switched to the up and coming standard ‘HTML5′. This allows the website to be used on many of the latest smartphones and tablets, including the iPhone, iPod touch [update: iPhone/iPod touch support is not confirmed by Hype Machine and users are reporting issues with it] iPad, and Android phones and tablets. The website certainly seems to be running much more efficiently after the re-design.
Other improvements include the consolidation of songs posted on multiple blogs into one entry. Instead of seeing the same song from three different blogs as three rows in the playlist, you now see only one, allowing the user to better judge the popularity of the song.
The More >
The real world role of social media: tuition fees debate
Dec 8th
You may have been following the UK tuition fees debate with some interest in the news, and seen how previously apathetic students have sprung into organised protests and occupations with surprising speed and ease. This is a great example of the role of social media in a practical context. Let’s take a look at how social networking has been used, and how it is relevant to the commercial world.
How do you know if anybody is coming to a protest? How do you know where to meet? The popular social network Facebook has been used extensively to organise protests across the country. Facebook ‘events’ have been set up with a wealth of information on dates, times, locations and attendees to organise their exploits. However, event pages are only useful up until that event starts. Which leads us to…
So when the march has started, how do such a large mass of people communicate? Twitter is the popular micro-blogging platform used by celebrities, politicians, businesses, charities, activists and everyday people – including students. When police attempted to use their controversial ‘kettling’ tactic a multitude of warnings would appear instantly on the site warning other protestors to change route. Occupations and sit ins have More >
New Facebook profile roll out begins
Dec 6th
Facebook have started to roll out a new profile page design to its users. Every user has a profile which acts as a hub for their photos, videos, status updates, links they have shared and items that their friends post on their ‘Wall’. The new design rearranges the profile into sections which can be accessed from a menu on the left rather than the previous tabbed interface on the top. Recently tagged photos of the user are shown across the top to make the profile current and add customisation. You can now add even more information to your profile including philosophical views such as religion, people you find inspirational, political views, your favourite quotes, and detailed descriptions of each of these beliefs. You can also add sports you enjoy, and tag friends who you like to do these sports with. The same applies to your favourite ‘activities’. You can now add multiple schools and universities, and tag friends from these places. You can tag friends at your workplaces too, and break down your work and education into individual projects that you have worked on and classes you took, and once again, tag your friends and colleagues.
See the screenshots and a More >
Myspace to get Facebook integration
Nov 18th
As part of the recently unveiled redesign of the Myspace social networking and ‘entertainment discovery’ website, a deep integration with Facebook has been revealed. The integration will allow new and existing users to pull in their profile information and ‘social graph’, linking their Myspace profiles to artists and bands they have listed on their Facebook profile.
The ‘beta’ version of the new site is now available at www.myspace.com, but from my own testing it seems that the Facebook integration is not functioning as announced at this time. Nevertheless, the new features sound very promising. See a video about the new features after the break. Also, try hovering over their logo on the new website – it’s a nice design touch!