Facebook and Google are engaged in a war of words over claims that Facebook is limiting the spread of Google+ invites on its social network.

The controversy erupted Tuesday after Google spokesperson Randall Safara posted a video on Google+ that appeared to show how Facebook was limiting the spread of Google+ invites. In the video, Safara posts a Google+ invite on his Facebook page, then demonstrates that the post with the invite did not appear in his friends’ News Feeds — even though other posts went through with no problem.

Google Senior Vice President of Social Vic Gundotra thenreposted the video. “We are getting reports of Google+ invite links not showing up on Facebook news feeds anymore,” he said. “I wonder how widespread this problem is?”

But replicating the results of the video haven’t been easy. Most Google+ users say they can share Google+ invites on their Facebook pages just fine. Our own testing shows that Google+ invites are not being blocked by Facebook.

For its part, Facebook denies that it’s doing anything underhanded. “We have seen the video but have been unable to replicate the experience it shows,” the company said in a statement. It also explained that the News feed is an algorithmic product that takes hundreds of factors into account. Links or posts may not show up in friends’ feeds for any number of reasons.

Google said yesterday that it hadn’t contacted Facebook directly about the issue; the company evidently decided to take it to the public first.

This is just the latest episode in the drama between Facebook and Google. In May, a plot by a PR firm representing Facebook to plant anti-Google stories in the press was exposed, igniting a firestorm of controversy.

Have you had Google+ invites blocked on Facebook? Let us know in the comments.

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Kenneth Cole, who seemed to shy away from social media after a well-publicized Twitter flap earlier this year, is courting controversy anew with a website that asks consumers to weigh in on abortion, gun control and gay rights.

The new site — wheredoyoustand.com — is divided in two. “What You Stand In” features information and advice about clothing for men and women. “What You Stand For,” meanwhile, asks consumers to post their thoughts about those hot-button topics and posts links to relevant Twitter feeds under the heading “Feeding the Debate.” Those conversations also continue on the brand’s Facebook Page.

The site also maintains the brand’s edgy — some would say tasteless — method of conflating serious topics with sales pitches. A video under the heading “Should the government have the right to choose?” shows a woman who seems to be agonizing over a decision, which turns out to be which handbag to purchase. “Shouldn’t it be a woman’s right to choose?” a message on the wall behind her reads, “…if she’s the one who’s carrying it? — Kenneth Cole.”

Cole raised public ire on the fifth anniversary of 9/11 by noting, “Important moments like this are time to reflect. To remind us, sometimes, that it’s not only important what you wear, but it’s also important to be aware.”

In the video gallery below, Cole explains the reasoning behind the outreach, which is to use his brand platform to “raise awareness about important social issues.”

What do you think? Is this clever marketing or exploitation? Let us know in the comments.

Antisocial Media

Kenneth Cole explains his rationale for the new web site, to use his brand platform to “”raise awareness about important social issues.”

Pro-Choice

A woman is shown agonizing over a decision, which turns out to be which handbag to buy. Shouldn’t it be a woman’s right to choose?” a message on the wall behind her reads, “…if she’s the one who’s carrying it?”

Guns

Two guys face off in what looks like a gunfight, but they’re actually just making gun shapes with their fingers. “Is the person most at risk the one with the gun?” asks some writing on the wall behind them.

Gay Rights

A man and a woman begin kissing. Then a jump cut shows two women kissing. Then two men. A message on the wall reads, “Those against same-sex marriage aren’t thinking straight (or are they)?”

War

A man and a woman are screaming in protest. Then the screaming stops, the woman leaves and the man is left by himself. “In war, is it who’s right or who’s left?” a message reads.

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GOOD, a social innovation website and the publisher of GOOD magazine, has just bought Jumo — the Chris Hughes-helmed social network built around philanthropy.

While the amount and exact terms are unknown, Hughes will be joining GOOD as a senior adviser while keeping Jumo close to its charitable roots. “Jumo.com will be the home for our open source code base, so that nonprofits and developers can use it,” Hughes told Fast Company. The goal is to enable other social entrepreneurs to use Jumo’s own progress to further global projects.

Hughes, who helped create Facebook, continued to rise through the social media ranks as part of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. He started Jumo as a non-profit social network to help people find ways to help the world.

The sale to GOOD marries Jumo’s network of activists and nearly 15,000 socially driven organizations with GOOD’s own community of 3 million monthly users, according to Jumo’s official announcement.

This story is ongoing and will be updated throughout the day.

Image courtesy of Flickr, USV

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Football fans will be able to catch live video of Friday’s “first kick” extra-preliminary match of the FA Cup on Facebook.

The match between non-league teams Ascot United and Wembley FC will be livestreamed on Budweiser’s Facebook page. Budweiser recently signed a three-year sponsorship with the English knockout cup competition worth about $40 million.

This 90-minute live stream of the game will increase its potential audience from a handful of local fans to 700 million Facebook users worldwide. Both of the relatively unknown teams will be paid nominal broadcast fees, Reuters reports.

“To be involved in the first game of The FA Cup this season is an honour in itself,” said Mike Harrison, the Chairman of Ascot United, in a statement, “but to be part of a world first and have our match broadcast to a massive global audience is fantastic for our club.”

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, zentilia

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Football fans will be able to catch live video of Friday’s “first kick” extra-preliminary match of the FA Cup on Facebook.

The match between non-league teams Ascot United and Wembley FC will be livestreamed on Budweiser’s Facebook page. Budweiser recently signed a three-year sponsorship with the English knockout cup competition worth about $40 million.

This 90-minute live stream of the game will increase its potential audience from a handful of local fans to 700 million Facebook users worldwide. Both of the relatively unknown teams will be paid nominal broadcast fees, Reuters reports.

“To be involved in the first game of The FA Cup this season is an honour in itself,” said Mike Harrison, the Chairman of Ascot United, in a statement, “but to be part of a world first and have our match broadcast to a massive global audience is fantastic for our club.”

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, zentilia

More About: FA cup, football, soccer, sports

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• Subscribe to the Social Media channel
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What can you use the application for?


1Calendar provides users with a calendar that can contain all of their important dates. The application is intended to allow the user to combine all of their important schedules into one convenient online calendar. The application works with private events and activities, school schedules, Facebook dates and tasks. Mobile versions are available for Android and iPhone users. 1Calendar can tap into the user’s school time table and automatically notify them when items change. The user can add their Facebook account and allow 1Calendar to automatically sync up when things change on their social network. The calendar works much like a day or month planner, with color boxes and columns for specific time slots. This design allows the user to see available times and upcoming events at a glance. 1Calendar is available in English, German, Spanish, Dutch and Danish languages.

What is the history and popularity of the application?


1Calendar was founded in January of 2009. The company is based in Copenhagen and includes Business Development Manager Daniel Gewecke Daugaard, Development Coordinator Anselm Christophersen and Strategy Manager Steffen Thilsted. Although anyone can use 1Calendar, many users note that current features seem geared towards students. The team behind 1Calendar notes that their goal is to help users simplify their lives through helpful technology and web based applications.

What are the differences to other apps?


At first glance, 1Calendar appears to offer all of the same features that other online calendars include. This works effectively, which means that for some users it may come down to a matter of how much they like the user interface. 1Calendar has more to offer students with school timetable integration. The remaining features allow students to manage tasks as well as their social life on Facebook.

How does the application look and feel to use?


1Calendar uses columns and colors to help users keep their schedules manageable. Items are presented in columns, with dates across the top and time slots running down the left side. Each box is presented in a soft color, with options including green, blue, orange and yellow. Along the left side of the calendar, user can see various item categories in their respective colors. Small white arrows at the top allow the user to page through weeks.

How does the registration process work?


A new user can create a 1Calendar account by clicking either white “Sign Up” button in the upper, right hand corner of the homepage or the purple “Sign Up” button found along the left hand side of the page. The homepage shifts to present the user with the short registration form. The form asks for a username and password. A small box at the bottom of the form is automatically selected to keep the user signed in. The user may want to uncheck the box when using a shared computer. Users can also click the small Google icon found along the left hand side of the homepage to login with an existing Google account.

What does it cost to use the application?


1Calendar is available for free to all users. This is another benefit that is sure to make it appealing to most students. The user only has to provide an email address and password to create an account and begin building a centralized, web based calendar. No premium paid membership is available and the site makes no comment as far as whether this will change later on.

Who would you recommend the application to?


1Calendar.com offers internet users another way to centralized all of their schedules. The application is most appealing to users who have a Facebook account as well as those who are students. Using 1Calendar, users can keep their school, work and social tasks and events organized.

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Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat, just delivered a terrific opening keynote presentation for LinuxCon. Whitehurst isn’t just a businessman, he’s also a geek. He used Linux and open source before joining Red Hat, and the opportunity to be CEO of the world’s most successful open source company was a dream come true for him. After a quick summary of some of the major milestones Linux has seen over the last twenty years, he jumped into the heart of his keynote: what’s next? Whitehurst wasted no time in answering this question: “I have no idea.”

This is a somewhat uncommon response from a CEO, but it makes perfect sense for anyone even moderately familiar with Linux. Linux has seen so much growth in so many markets that it is almost a foolish exercise to try to make predictions about what’s next for Linux. (Indeed, the Linux Foundation’s Jim Zemlin has been saying “This is the year of the Linux desktop” for the last four years!)

Nevertheless, he had some thoughts about what the OS and ecosystem might soon be enabling. Here’s a quick summary of some of the more salient points from Whitehurst’s presentation:

Linux is a transformational technology. “The technology of Linux empowers advancements and innovations that have nothing to do with the technology of Linux.” That is to say, Linux supports the development of new business models, as well as new technologies.

The freedom to use Linux for any purpose, for free, has spawned many of the things we now take for granted: Amazon, Facebook, Google. Could any of these have succeeded to the extent that they have if they were required to purchase expensive proprietary software before they rolled out their products?

Moreover, Linux allows rapid and low-cost prototyping, making it easier to innovate and evaluate what works and what doesn’t. According to Whitehurst, “when you’re looking for innovation, you’re looking for what’s happening in open source.”

Linux has gone from catching up to commoditizing existing innovation in flexible, open ways, and now is moving on to leading innovation. The leading innovations today are happening in open source first and then big companies are working to productize that innovation for themselves. Hadoop, Cassandra, etc. are all examples of open source innovations that are now being warmly embraced by big companies.

Another leading example of this sort of innovation is everyone’s favorite term, ‘The Cloud’. Why is it that there is no single, solid definition of the cloud? It’s because no single company or vendor pitched it, so they didn’t get to contextualize it. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and other big, complex technologies didn’t have a small group of drivers. Rather, they emerged from a larger collection of technical experts working together.

The open source development model used by Linux has seen some remarkable, and in some cases ironic, collaboration. The US Navy, for example, was in need of a real-time kernel with deterministic performance characteristics in order to develop anti-missile technologies for their fleet. Linux didn’t have such a kernel, so the Navy contributed it. This directly benefited Wall Street, where now 80% of all stock exchanges rely on Linux and the real-time kernel for trading.

The National Security Agency wrote the Security Enhanced Linux extensions which are now a fundamental part of Red Hat and a few other distributions. The work the NSA did made it so secure that Linux is now the most secure operating system certified by the Russian government.

The open source ethos runs deep. Whitehurst shared a recent conversation he had with Facebook’s CTO, in which he was asked “Why do you guys release so much of your infrastructure work for free, when you know your competitors are going to use it, too?” The answer: it’s a moral issue. They feel that that have a responsibility to make the world a better place for everyone — contributors and competitors alike. If they can make someone else’s data center more efficient, or more reliable, then it’s incumbent upon them to do so.

Whitehurst wrapped up with the observation that the principles of mass collaboration are changing the world.

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Before you start marketing on social sites, choose the tools you need that will help you reach your marketing goals and save you both time and money. Below are 14 tools you may use to help you more effectively build a social media platform.

1. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a social media dashboard and all in one web solution that allows you to promote to all the most popular social sites. This includes Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and others. It also allows you to track people and businesses you are following and read your social streams in one place.

Free and paid versions are available. Extensive tracking allows you to find media metrics like  your Klout score, which is a measure of your influence across the internet. A blog, frequently asked questions (FAQ), and a help desk will give you full support to create effective social media campaigns for your business.

2. Klout

Unlike Hootsuite, which is an actual tool to help you communicate with your audience, Klout allows you to measure your influence with that audience. Using a scale of 1 to 100, Klout uses 35 different variables on Facebook and Twitter to determine your true reach, amplification probability, and network score. (This simply means how well you are getting your audience to act on your message.)

3. PeerIndex

PeerIndex is similar to Klout because it allows you to measure your overall authority on the internet. This is more than just about being popular; this is about your real authority and true influence on those you connect with. Using eight benchmark topics, your “fingerprint” is built up on a category by category level. How receptive your audience is also influences your overall authority.

4. Traacker

Traacker serves two functions. First, it allows your company or agency to effectively find and connect with the influencers in your industry. Second, you may measure your influence. Unlike the other two tools previously mentioned, which are free or low-cost, this solution will cost you several hundred dollars per month to implement.

5. Radian6

With other solutions you are actually tracking your brand, company, or yourself. With Radian6, you have the ability to track unlimited topics or keywords. Price range is similar to Traacker, with discounts available to non-profit organizations.

6. Bufferapp

A free/low-cost solution that allows you to spread your tweets out throughout the day. Build your followers and even tweet while you sleep. You’ll keep your readers happy and automate your tweets.

7. Chrome Tweetdeck

While our other solutions have focused on online tools, this “Tweetdeck” is specifically for the Google Chrome browser. It’s simple to use, with a sleek design, and best of all it’s free. You’ll easily organize all of your tweeting, and if you use Facebook too, then you’ll be able to handle both your Twitter and Facebook accounts with this one tool.

Don’t have Chrome? No problem because this tool is also available for the Android, iPhone, and as a PC Desktop so you can easily keep track of all of your Twitter activity.

8. GeoTwitr

Simple tool that allows you to sign in with your Twitter account and then mark your location. It’s free, and if geo targeting is important to you and your business, why not?

9. Tweriod

Would you like to know the best time to send your tweets so that your readers act on them? This tool analyzes both your tweets and the tweets of those connected to you so that you know the best time to tweet.

This site is also connected to some really good paid tools that will help you get even more out of your social media efforts. If you want to increase your Twitter following, or build “likes” to your Facebook pages, then definitely check it out.

10. Twitterific

Most tools created for Twitter are available for the PC. Twitterific is different. Similar to Tweetdeck for Chrome, this free tool allows you to use Twitter on either a MAC or an iPad.

Don’t want to see ads? No problem. There’s also a paid version you may buy and remove all the ads.

11. NutshellMail

Wouldn’t it be nice to get all of your social media activity in one email? Even better, wouldn’t it be nice to get it when you want it, not when it happens?

NutshellMail, a solution created by Constant Contact, allows you to save time monitoring your brand on all the most popular networks, including Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Yelp, YouTube, and Citysearch. See what all of your friends and business associates are doing, and get the information in one convenient email.

12. Tweetings

This is the first fully featured Twitter client for iPhone. If you have an iPad, it will also work for you. A desktop version is available for PC users to get live, instant updates.

13. Twimbow

Color code your tweets with this colorful Twitter client. This web-based Twitter client allows you to engage your Twitter followers more fully, as well as effectively because you can now organize your conversations. Keep up with your conversations better and know at a glance not only what you’ve said but answers you’ve received.

14. Seesmic

Seesmic bills itself as “The only social media tool you’ll ever need,” and it really does a good job of meeting that claim. With a version available for every browser, as well as both MAC and PC versions, you’ll find over 80 social services available. Don’t see a service you want? Then add it. You’ll find the most complete solution that’s free, and you’ll more easily track your social interactions, even if you’re on a smart phone.

There are many tools and services available to help you keep track of Twitter, as well as all of your other social media accounts. If you’re a business person, you’ll want to take advantage of as many of these services as possible to not only help you stay on top of your social media campaigns, but save you time.

Measuring your influence on the Web is more than just determining who’s reading you. By measuring your influence, you’ll know where to focus your social media efforts, driving more traffic, and more sales to your business.

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Knowing the popularity of Facebook, it’s commonplace to create a fan page for any community or website launch. This provides an outlet for your fans to get together in one place to share ideas, photos, questions, and reviews. This type of marketing works in any corporate or personal situation, thus it’s perfect for businesses and events.

In this particular post, I’ll be going into a few useful tips to put together an amazing fan page. This will help your website, community, or product sales garner a lot of attention! After all, Facebook is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on the Internet. Why wouldn’t you want your brand spread all over there?

Shortcut to:

• Benefits of a fan page
• Creating a fan page
• Customizing basic points
• Adding in-page apps
• 10 popular apps
• Increase your fan following
• Include your web profiles
• Keep updated!
• Beautiful Facebook Fan Pages

Benefits of a Fan Page

Before we go into creating a Facebook fan page, first we should explain what exactly a fan page comprises. Unknown to many is the fact that each fan page will be presented in public. While user profiles are generally hidden from search engine crawlers, fan page can be created and open to everybody. This is by default their natural state.

Users are able to see your photos, updates, and latest notes published even without a Facebook account. With some newer features you can even import a RSS feed from your blog or Twitter account. Once you’ve created a fan page, you can set up discussion forums too. This is a great place for people to meet and share opinions about whatever your topic may be.

And the most obvious benefit? It’s 100% free of charge! Doesn’t cost a dime. This type of marketing only costs a little time to setup and configure, thus making it possible for you to invest more time and cost on marketing.

With fan page, you’re also able to upload photos and video content and store these contents remotely on Facebook’s server while sharing out directly to your fans. The promotional value is huge from any standpoint.

Creating a Fan Page

For the sake of this article we’re assuming you’ve already signed up Facebook and have an account yourself. If not, feel free to create one, or sign up under your company name with a fake personality.

If you are logged into the site, scroll towards the very bottom of the page. On the right-hand side of the footer you’ll find a series of small links, one of which is titled Create a Page. Click and you’re brought right here to choose the type of page you’re looking to create. Facebook styles the pages differently based on your focus. Some examples include an event or charity, entertainment media, celebrities or bands, and local businesses.

You’ll have to fill in a bit of information and agree to Facebook Pages’ terms and conditions. It’s all fairly straightforward information, so you shouldn’t get lost anywhere in the process. However if you run into an obstacle, you can try to go back to the front page and start again.

If you’ve confirmed your details and everything looks good, congratulations! You’ve completed the creation process and your new fan page is up online. You can now edit settings, upload photos, and invite your friends to join.

Customizing Basic Points

There are some rudimentary steps you’ll want to customize before anything else. After your fan page is online you’ll certainly want to change your default photo. Often a company or brand logo works best. This is recognized quickly by potential fans and will be displayed across the network on their profile pages.

You’ll find an “Info” tab located on the front of your profile. This should contain information about your cause or event, video game, whatever you’ve chosen to market. Try generating unique web copy for your Facebook page as this tends to be very important to Google and other search engines. Even if you change up some sentences, this will go a long way in unique branding for your fan page.

You may additionally wish to create albums and upload more public photos. These could be photographs of your team, or photographs of your work space. They could even be screenshots from your movie or favourite video game title. Either way it’s great to include some extra photos as it’ll add some legitimacy to your page. Viewers also love the extra content and it’ll rope in some potentially wary group members.

Consider welcoming your visitors and explaining a bit about why you created the page. Or if you would rather stay out of 1st person, pretend you are not someone creating the page and write from an external source. Explain a bit about your fan page and why people should join. What information will they access? Can you offer any unique video or image not found anywhere else?

Adding In-Page Apps

It’s very unfortunate that Facebook’s app directory has gone, but a better application searching solution is in the development. That’s not really a problem for you, as we will showcase some best Facebook apps here! If you find anything interesting it’s a simple process to include this new app onto your page in just a few minutes.

(Image Source: E-EXPLORERS)

You can access the apps right from your fan page when you’re logged in. It’s worth to note that the content these apps bring will also be open to all visitors, as no information is hidden from a public fan page.

Truly the addition of apps was a brilliant strategy Facebook created. It allows extensible features to be added into any page, at any time, automatically! And these are turned off by default to keep things clean and organized. It’s only you as the administrator who can place additional content onto the page.

Personally I’d also recommend the Extended Info app (included below as well). With this you can add another portion to your profile such as favourite food, TV show, life interests, etc. You can edit these to fit specific goals or recommendations. As an example a video game website may write about their favourite reviews or latest launches from 2011. If you own a blog you may also share your most popular articles or categories.

The process of creating a Facebook application is a bit convoluted, especially for those not grounded in the basics of programming languages and syntax. But for any tech-savvy individuals you may consider creating a few apps for your personal fan page. The Facebook developer center offers comprehensive documentation and examples. Check out their Getting Started guide for more resources.

10 Popular Apps

It seems in-page apps are the most popular way to gain attention. Pages which are blank and hold no addition content do not stand well in the art of gaining fans. Spend some time browsing these apps and add the one that really helps. Also Facebook lets you disable and remove apps you don’t like or you don’t need any more.

Some of these are included in regular Facebook profiles too, so you may be familiar with the inner workings of the most popular page apps.

1. Blog RSS Feed Reader

The RSS app lets you import any RSS feed and directly output the new content. This includes blog updates and personal website RSS feeds. Businesses and small corporations would benefit most from this functionality to save you time updating an online persona.

The customization options are pretty rich. You may choose to upload a custom photo or logo, include small template changes, and even adding multiple RSS feeds. It is truly a must have application for any aspiring fan page.

2. Official Twitter App

Twitter has taken off like a rocket since its initial launching in summer of 2006. Thus it makes sense that Twitter has kept updated with the most successful social networking website in the world. With their official app you can include tweets from any account you hold.

Additionally a small box is added onto your Facebook page with small Twitter icon. This is perfect for visitors to check up what profiles you’re attached with. There may be other Twitter apps located on Facebook as well, but I find the 3rd party developers often leave out functionality which the Twitter team never overlooks.

3. Static FBML

If you’re knowledgeable in HTML development then you may be surprised to realize Facebook has removed this entirely from fan page. Whereas MySpace initially allowed users to edit their content with custom images and links, Facebook has never even included this option. However with the FBML app you can work with HTML and FBML tags.

You can read more about FBML code right here at their developers’ documentation page. It’s simply a way to include tools and forms within your page without knowing any backend programming.

4. Extended Info

For those who are less knowledgeable in web page development and HTML I highly recommend checking out this app. It works similarly as the Static FBML application above, yet the user interface is a lot easier to go through and doesn’t require lengthy HTML knowledge.

This app has been around for a while and has received a lot of positive criticism from users. It’s widely regarded as a great way to customize your profile page with unique forms, tabs, and input fields. Check out Extended Info if you’re just getting started and need some quick customizations done.

5. SlideShare

The SlideShare application has grown very quickly and is often referenced by techies. It’s a startup community used for sharing live presentations via the Internet. The Facebook app is just another extension of the site’s functionality. With this you may share popular documents and presentations to your entire fan base.

The application includes support for Microsoft PowerPoint and Word documents, along with iWorks and Pages. PDF documents and YouTube videos are also supported. If you’ve already got a SlideShare account with content it’s a simple process to connect and share your account’s content into Facebook.

6. Reviews

Possibly the best way to garner user feedback is through the Reviews app. This app has been given almost 4000 personal reviews by Facebook users. It’s included in many fan pages, ranged from countless categories.

If you are not looking for critiques then I don’t recommend installing the app. My experience talk: as an user interface designer I am particularly interested with how my users feel about my designs. It’s very important for my users to feel comfortable sharing their thoughts. However if you do not feel the same way try the custom contact form instead.

7. Poll

Here we have some basic polling functionality which is just another way of gaining user information. If you have a large following on Facebook this app is a great way to bring in some honest feedback from your visitors.

You may poll about anything and run for as long as you need. The results can be tweeted or shared onto your blog directly from the app. This requires moderator’s status, but it should not be a problem if you’re the page admin.

8. Discussion Boards

Active forums have been running on the web for decades now. These discussion boards are fantastic for sharing opinions and discussing important topics. If you find yourself caught with a large fan base interested in discussing your topic, this app may be perfect for your page.

Users who are logged into Facebook may immediately begin posting or creating topics. Encourage responses by helping the tab stand out, or include a brief link in your page description. If you can, include the app after you have at least 100 or more fans, else your forums will most likely appear as a ghost town and scare off potential fans.

9. Skype Me

Users of the VoIP and IM chat software Skype will redeem this application as a must-have. Chances are you already have a personal account or have created a branded account under your fan page. Either way is fine, Skype offers an organic solution to meet and converse with your fans. You may hold chat sessions or disclose important release information via Skype as well.

10. Livestream

This may as well be my personal favourite Facebook application. The Livestream app lets you tie into your account and start streaming your videos live onto Facebook. Streaming has become amazingly popular amongst the tech-savvy individuals running the Internet. You can share information a lot quicker and more directly.

On the installed Livestream tab your visitors will also be presented with a comment box. They may respond to your streams in real-time and chat with others viewing your content. A bountiful share button is also included so your fans may push out your page links to the dozens of available networks. A similar app Facebook Live has been launched, however it lacks many features where Livestream excels.

Increase your Fan Following

Ultimately your fan page will grow once you’ve gained a small group of initial followers. Fans are just people who use Facebook and have “Liked” your page after finding it through some means. As you gain more fans your profile will gain more exposure, leading to a lot more followers.

(Image Source: fourfiveX)

If you have a famous Facebook account and know a lot of people then it’s easier to gain more attention. Facebook will include a link for your page once it has been created and activated. Update your status and share this link to all your fellow Facebook friends. You may gain some additional followers through this process, and many friends will “Like” and share your link in their network.

On your personal page or website it would be wise to include the same fan page’s link. This could be done in your footer area, or possibly via a small Facebook icon somewhere on the page. Ideally you’ll be pulling the most traffic for your product from the main website.

However if you do not have a website associated with your page that’s okay too, you can try creating a type of promotional media and distribute throughout your Internet profiles. Perhaps a graphic or digital flyer advertisement which you can share on Flickr or Twitter. Create a small introductory video and upload to the YouTube is another powerful attention-grabbing method.

Include your Web Profiles

If you’re running profiles elsewhere on the web, especially if you’re a personal company or blog, add external links into your sidebar or About section. It’s becoming increasingly popular for people to use multiple networks these days. It seems brands like Twitter, Foursquare, Tumblr, Digg, and others are commonplace by modern day Internet users.

If you’re on these networks, keep using them as this will increase your marketing potential and surely land a few more loyal followers.

At least creating profiles on some of the more popular networks will bring in more attention. Twitter and Tumblr seem to be growing out of control. I would recommend capitalizing on them if possible, but follow your intuition.

This rings true especially with the ease of importing RSS feeds. Since both Twitter and Tumblr can be set to auto-publish it’s a breeze to auto-include blog posts directly into your fan page. You may even reciprocate links back to your Facebook fan page for legitimacy.

Keep Updated!

The killer of almost all the brands I came across is they have too little activity. Infrequently checking into your project will not move anything. It’s important for you to set aside time and update with unique information you have.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

This process could be daily, biweekly, weekly, or even multiple times a week. You may even have enough content, like Mashable, to update multiple times a day! Just keep in mind that you probably have followers of your brand eager to hear about the latest news. Information is the flowing economy of the 21st century, this is true especially for networks like Facebook, users are hungry for more information.

Be sure to follow some basic guidelines for writing web copy. Don’t repeat updates or share the same information daily. Users tend to lose faith and become discouraged to your brand. Also ensure that each update can provide further links or external sources for more information. The power lies in your control of information flow. Go figure!

Beautiful Facebook Fan Pages

Below I’ve included a few screenshots for some very popular and professionally designed fan pages to get the inspirational juices flowing. These can be found all around the web with possibly hundreds of thousands of backlinks. It’s important to note many of these fan pages include a counterpart website or blog. This is a great strategy as fans will also visit their official website.

Starbucks

Skittles

Threadless

Daddy Design

Coca-Cola

Vitamin Water

Vizio

Adobe

Dell

Lacoste

Dunkin’ Donuts

Wonka

Social Media Examiner

Aflac Duck

Inception

Sony Electronics

Levi’s

Pepsi

Reference

I’ve gathered some very handy links for you to get started on building a Facebook fan page. This is a sort of roundup collection containing provisions to get you started on the right path. Facebook is a big network and it takes some practice to get comfortable with. Whether you’re a newbie or average Facebook user, these links will certainly hold their value.

• Facebook: Tips & Tricks For Your Business’s Fan Page
• Facebook: Create a Page
• Facebook: Pages
• Facebook: Developers

Conclusion

I hope this guide has driven you to set up a unique and trendy Facebook fan page. Following the steps explained above will get you well into the ranks of fan pages listed on the Facebook network. Besides, your account will also likely to be picked up by Google to transfer some great marketing attention onto your branding or event.

Stay focused and hold your intentions strong. Over time the process of creating a product or website can become stale and boring. It’s crucial to keep your head up and never lose sight of your ultimate goal. From what I’ve experienced a Facebook fan page can bring enormous benefits to those willing to spend enough time. Add your own personal touch along the way and have fun with it.

More

• Facebook Etiquette: Essential Dos And Don’ts
• Facebook: Your Privacy & Why It Matters
• Facebook: Tips & Tricks You Might Not Know
• Social Media: Powerful Branding Techniques

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We’ve been holding out for some kind of partnership that would bring music to Facebook for a while now. Well, no dice on that, kids. However, a recently launched Chrome plugin called Music+ is sure to tide you over until that glorious day comes.

Music+ is a plugin that was developed during the Echo Nest Social Music App Challenge. It uses the music intelligence service’s API (as well as Facebook’s API) to make it easy to find and listen to music while surfing the web.

Simply install the plugin in Chrome, and start discovering music. At its simplest, you can pull up a toolbar in which you can search for playable music to listen to while browsing (courtesy of Rdio and MP3s on blogs). Those songs can be shared with friends on Facebook via message, or they can be posted as a playable stream on your wall.

Start surfing, and the app gets interesting. If you go to a blog and highlight a band name and right-click, you can listen to songs by that artist instantly. However, the app really shines when used with Facebook. You’ll have to disable secure browsing in order for it to work (which is a pain), but once you do, every artist on the site will have a “Play” button next to their name, allowing you to listen to tracks by that artist right within Facebook. You can then surf around the site as usual, without having to stay on the page to continue listening (as seen with Facebook Page apps like Bandpage).

The app also adds a column to the left of any band Page containing similar artists, an awesome addition when it comes to music discovery. It also allows you to add artists to your queue for later listening.

All in all, this is an awesome app when it comes to facilitating music discovery. No more toggling over to YouTube or a music subscription service to check out a band while reading. It’s all woven into the Facebook browsing experience.

More About: Echo Nest, facebook, music, social media

For more Media coverage:

• Follow Mashable Media on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Media channel
• Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

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We’ve been holding out for some kind of partnership that would bring music to Facebook for a while now. Well, no dice on that, kids. However, a recently launched Chrome plugin called Music+ is sure to tide you over until that glorious day comes.

Music+ is a plugin that was developed during the Echo Nest Social Music App Challenge. It uses the music intelligence service’s API (as well as Facebook’s API) to make it easy to find and listen to music while surfing the web.

Simply install the plugin in Chrome, and start discovering music. At its simplest, you can pull up a toolbar in which you can search for playable music to listen to while browsing (courtesy of Rdio and MP3s on blogs). Those songs can be shared with friends on Facebook via message, or they can be posted as a playable stream on your wall.

Start surfing, and the app gets interesting. If you go to a blog and highlight a band name and right-click, you can listen to songs by that artist instantly. However, the app really shines when used with Facebook. You’ll have to disable secure browsing in order for it to work (which is a pain), but once you do, every artist on the site will have a “Play” button next to their name, allowing you to listen to tracks by that artist right within Facebook. You can then surf around the site as usual, without having to stay on the page to continue listening (as seen with Facebook Page apps like Bandpage).

The app also adds a column to the left of any band Page containing similar artists, an awesome addition when it comes to music discovery. It also allows you to add artists to your queue for later listening.

All in all, this is an awesome app when it comes to facilitating music discovery. No more toggling over to YouTube or a music subscription service to check out a band while reading. It’s all woven into the Facebook browsing experience.

More About: Echo Nest, facebook, music, social media

For more Media coverage:

• Follow Mashable Media on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Media channel
• Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

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If you and your non-profit have steered clear of Google+ during its “people only” phase, now is a good time to reconsider. Yes, your Facebook and Twitter presences are still important — and will continue to be — but the new social network in town has lots of great features you can take advantage of right now.

While Google publicly announced that group and business pages are imminent, non-profits should not wait to wet their feet. Non-profit social media consultant Beth Kanter recommends communications staff spend 15 minutes each day dabbling in the new network.

We asked non-profit staff for their best practices experimenting with Google+ and their hopes for the future of the new social network. Here are four ways non-profits can make the most of the growing network.

1. Host Exclusive Hangouts

Looking for a great way to reward your major donors or dedicated volunteers? Use Hangouts, Google+’s video conferencing feature, to host a hangout with a celebrity or major player in your organization. Your supporters will love the individualized attention of a small hangout that rewards their commitment.

Tammy Gordon, AARP‘s director of social communication and strategy, hopes to kick off their 9/11 day of service with an inspiring speech from a celebrity ambassador in a hangout. “It will be a great way to connect with key volunteers,” says Gordon.

The host of the hangout should create a circle for the event’s participants, such as “9/11 day of service volunteers.”

The AARP team is nervous about using a particular staff member’s personal account to host a large-scale hangout. This concern is probably shared by many organizations longing for the launch of group and business pages.

One way to overcome these worries is to have the speaker host the hangout. If the host is a part of your non-profit’s team, consider the hangout an opportunity for your volunteers to maintain a human contact at your organization.

2. Cater to Your Circles

Circles are a great way to target key messengers, rather than bombard non-interested parties. Try organizing circles by unique interests, geographical location or donation history.

Danielle Brigida, National Wildlife Federation’s social media outreach chair, organizes her circles by their interests. Her circles include policy professionals, wildlife enthusiasts and photographers. She emphasizes that followers can be in multiple circles, so arrange circles with greater precision.

Carefully curated circles are a great way to crowdsource ideas from your valued followers. You can ask your volunteers what types of events they would like to see, or ask your donors for upcoming campaign ideas. Spark conversations among people with shared interests.

Gordon hopes that business pages will include opt-in circles so followers can select the type of information to receive. The AARP plans to offer circles on health, social security, consumer entertainment and politics.

3. Huddle or Hangout with Your Coworkers

The Worldreader team jokes that it got a lot done during its “turbo-hangouts,” says Susan Moody, director of communications. With an international team that spans continents and time zones, Worldreader can use Google+’s new option for easy conferencing.

Similarly, AARP’s communications team is planning a hangout this Wednesday for its first Google+ webinar.

While Google+ is not the first platform to host group video conferencing, many companies have long paid for the service. Now, impromptu group calls can simplify and streamline collaborative brainstorming among coworkers.

Huddles are another way teams can stay in touch. Running late for a presentation? Have a brilliant idea to share during off hours? You can share updates with a group by name, email address or circle using the group texting feature of Google+’s iPhone app. Your huddle history is stored in the app, making it easy to connect with your team.

4. Unite Volunteers in a Huddle

If you’re putting on a major event, streamline communications for your volunteers via huddle. Just add the names of everyone who has signed up to a circle and let the messaging begin!

This can be especially helpful if you’re organizing highly coordinated or quickly changing events such as parades, rallies or protests.

Huddles may also be the perfect solution for sharing information with people on different email servers or mailing lists. The groups have no administrators, so people can easily add new volunteers to the conversation. If a volunteer drops out, he can easily remove himself from the list.

While Brigida has participated in some trial huddles among non-profit staff members, she hasn’t fully explored the potential of the Google+ group texting platform. However, its speed and ease will hopefully encourage ample implementation by non-profits.

Still Not Convinced?

Still confused about how your organization can maximize its Google+ experience, where group pages are currently forbidden? Think of it this way: People come to social networks to connect with other people. While each non-profit has a unique voice, it’s really you — the individuals behind the logo and mission statement — who are the heart and soul of your non-profit. Even if most of your audience is not the early adopter, tech-loving crew, Google’s latest brainchild can work wonders for your organization’s internal operations.

Have you and your non-profit tried Google+? Let us know in the comments about your experiments and successes.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, GiorgioMagini

More About: Google, Google Plus, non-profits, social good

For more Social Good coverage:

• Follow Mashable Social Good on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Social Good channel
• Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

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According to data from mobile analytics firm Flurry, more than two-thirds of mobile in-app purchases
for games on iOS and Android go towards buying consumable items — and that, for the most part, means virtual currency.

Mobile game developers are increasingly shifting away from a standard premium pricing structure and instead offering free games that can be augmented with in-app purchases. Last month Flurry reported that revenue from free-to-play games with in-app purchase options now exceeds the revenue of premium games. In fact, Flurry finds that consumers spend an average of $14 for an in-game transaction.

This follows a similar Flurry report from 2010, which revealed that virtual goods revenue is significantly higher than revenue from ad-supported mobile apps.

The new report looks at what kinds of in-app items consumers are buying.

Flurry has designated in-app purchases into three categories:

• Consumable — Items like virtual currency or special items that can help a player get through a game faster and ascend to the next level. These items are designated as “consumable” because once used, they can’t be used again.
• Durable — Items that can continue to be used in a game after purchase. This can also apply to additional levels or add-on packs in a game.
• Personalization — Items that don’t impact game play but can create a more personalized user experience. This could be something like clothes or outfits for an avatar.

According to Flurry, 68% of in-app game purchases are for consumable goods, with virtual currency purchases (think games like FarmVille and Smurf Village) being by far the most popular type of consumable good.

These trends mimic many of the purchasing trends seen in other types of games, such as those on Facebook and an increasing number of MMOs — not to mention World of Warcraft. The challenge for game developers will be to continue to provide new areas of value for the player in a maturing market.

How long will the virtual currency craze last? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

More About: flurry, in-app purchases, mobile games, social games, stats

For more Mobile coverage:

• Follow Mashable Mobile on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Mobile channel
• Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

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We’ve teamed up with Fanurio, a time tracking and billing desktop app for freelancers, to give out 10 licenses (worth $59 each) to this awesome tool. Read on to learn how you can win one of the licenses.

About Fanurio

Fanurio is a desktop time tracking and billing software application, highly appreciated by freelancers for its intuitive interface, flexible timer and ability to produce detailed invoices.

Whether you need to round time, use multiple currencies or create invoices with your own layout (HTML, Microsoft Word or OpenOffice Document), Fanurio has the right tools to help you get paid.

Fanurio is licensed per user and not per computer. This means that the licensed user can install and run the application on one, two or more computers or platforms at no extra cost.

Fanurio runs on Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7 and older, Mac OS X, Linux and other flavors of Unix.

Fanurio only costs $59 and it doesn’t require a monthly subscription.

For more details about Fanurio, you may want to browse the software’s Features page, see the complete list of Fanurio features and read what their users have to say about the app.

Connect with Fanurio on Twitter and Facebook as well as check out their company blog for news on Fanurio.

Try Fanurio for Free!

Interested in giving Fanurio a whirl? Go to their Download page and grab their 15-day trial version.

How to Win a Fanurio License

For a chance to win a license to Fanurio, simply answer the following question in the comments:

• How will you use Fanurio?

Giveaway Details

This giveaway ends on Tuesday, August 23, 2011 after which the comments section on this post will be closed and you will no longer be able to leave a comment. Please leave a valid email address when filling out the comment form so that we can contact you if you’ve won. Please only comment once. The winners will be randomly selected using the same method as previous Six Revisions giveaways. The winners will be announced on a separate post and you’re advised to subscribe to our RSS feed so that you can be quickly notified when the winners announcement post has been published. Please note that comments are moderated and so your comment may not show up right away. Please also note that comments that do not follow the instructions on how to participate (described above) may not be published, or may be removed later on.

Related Content

• Ideas for Expanding Your Web Design Business
• 8 Things They Don’t Tell You About Being a Web Designer
• 7 Common Project Management Problems (And How to Solve Them)
• Related categories: Project Management and Tools

About the Author

Jacob Gube is the Founder and Chief Editor of Six Revisions. He’s also a web developer/designer who specializes in front-end development (JavaScript, HTML, CSS) and also a book author. If you’d like to connect with him, head on over to the contact page and follow him on Twitter: @sixrevisions.

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Advertise here with BSA

We’ve teamed up with Fanurio, a time tracking and billing desktop app for freelancers, to give out 10 licenses (worth $59 each) to this awesome tool. Read on to learn how you can win one of the licenses.

About Fanurio

Fanurio is a desktop time tracking and billing software application, highly appreciated by freelancers for its intuitive interface, flexible timer and ability to produce detailed invoices.

Whether you need to round time, use multiple currencies or create invoices with your own layout (HTML, Microsoft Word or OpenOffice Document), Fanurio has the right tools to help you get paid.

Fanurio is licensed per user and not per computer. This means that the licensed user can install and run the application on one, two or more computers or platforms at no extra cost.

Fanurio runs on Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7 and older, Mac OS X, Linux and other flavors of Unix.

Fanurio only costs $59 and it doesn’t require a monthly subscription.

For more details about Fanurio, you may want to browse the software’s Features page, see the complete list of Fanurio features and read what their users have to say about the app.

Connect with Fanurio on Twitter and Facebook as well as check out their company blog for news on Fanurio.

Try Fanurio for Free!

Interested in giving Fanurio a whirl? Go to their Download page and grab their 15-day trial version.

How to Win a Fanurio License

For a chance to win a license to Fanurio, simply answer the following question in the comments:

• How will you use Fanurio?

Giveaway Details

This giveaway ends on Tuesday, August 23, 2011 after which the comments section on this post will be closed and you will no longer be able to leave a comment. Please leave a valid email address when filling out the comment form so that we can contact you if you’ve won. Please only comment once. The winners will be randomly selected using the same method as previous Six Revisions giveaways. The winners will be announced on a separate post and you’re advised to subscribe to our RSS feed so that you can be quickly notified when the winners announcement post has been published. Please note that comments are moderated and so your comment may not show up right away. Please also note that comments that do not follow the instructions on how to participate (described above) may not be published, or may be removed later on.

Related Content

• Ideas for Expanding Your Web Design Business
• 8 Things They Don’t Tell You About Being a Web Designer
• 7 Common Project Management Problems (And How to Solve Them)
• Related categories: Project Management and Tools

About the Author

Jacob Gube is the Founder and Chief Editor of Six Revisions. He’s also a web developer/designer who specializes in front-end development (JavaScript, HTML, CSS) and also a book author. If you’d like to connect with him, head on over to the contact page and follow him on Twitter: @sixrevisions.

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Web Storage is a new HTML5 API offering important benefits over traditional cookies. Although the specification is still in W3C draft status, all major browsers support it already.

This means you can start using the API’s sessionStorage and localStorage objects (we will discuss these later on) and enjoy their benefits.

The Limitations of Cookies

First, there were cookies. They have been a huge driving factor for the Web since the early days. In both a good and a bad way.

For example, cookies allow us to login automatically to sites we use frequently, such as Gmail and Facebook.

On the other hand, with cookies, our search and browsing history can be tracked and our privacy is a concern.

Another problem with cookies is that they have data-capacity limitations. The data storage limit of cookies in many web browsers is about 4 KB per cookie, based on a deprecated 1997 specification recommending a minimum of 4096 bytes per cookie.

Although most browsers allow 30 to 50 cookies, so if you exceed the 4 KB limit of one cookie you could create another one, this is still a real limitation.

This is why developers usually only store user and/or session identifiers in cookies, and then use server-side databases to store and get the rest of the user data.

Additionally, an often-overlooked side effect of cookies is that they are always sent with every HTTP request (usually even for images) resulting in more data being sent over the wire.

Moving Forward with Web Storage

Web Storage picks up where cookies left off. The strength of Web Storage is in at least two things.

First, ease of use for web developers: It has a simple API to get and set key/value pairs (we will get more into this below).

Secondly, the amount of space it provides: the specs default the disk space quota decision to the user agent (i.e. the web browser developers) and most of them offer no less than 5 or 10 MB to be stored per domain. This means we can store more than just basic user/session info on the client-side: user preference settings, localization data, temporary offline storage for batching server writes and much more.

The data being stored can be accessed using JavaScript, which gives you the ability to leverage client-side scripting to do many things that have traditionally involved server-side programming and relational databases.

Session Storage and Local Storage

It is important to know that there are two types of Web Storage objects: sessionStorage and localStorage.

sessionStorage is only available within the browser tab or window session. It’s designed to store data in a single web page session.

localStorage is kept even between browser sessions. This means data is still available when the browser is closed and reopened, and also instantly between tabs and windows.

Web Storage data is, in both cases, not available between different browsers. For example, storage objects created in Firefox cannot be accessed in Internet Explorer, exactly like cookies.

Where to Use Web Storage

Some examples of implementation scenarios include storing the data for an online to-do list (then pushing to the server in intervals instead of in real-time) or saving products that the user places in his shopping cart. The data can be made available between page requests, multiple browser tabs, and also between browser sessions using localStorage.

Your apps can actually be used offline completely using localStorage. Data can then be sent and stored server-side when the user is online again.

From another perspective, Web Storage can be a great performance win when some static data is stored on the client to minimize the number of subsequent requests. Even images can be stored in strings using Base64 encoding.

For the examples mentioned above, it makes sense to use localStorage. You may be wondering, then, when you should opt for sessionStorage.

In some cases, you simply want to get rid of the data as soon as the window is closed. Or, perhaps, you don’t want the application to interfere with the same application that’s open in another window (e.g. when running two instances of a Scrabble game or running multiple unit tests simultaneously, you don’t want data to collide). These scenarios are served best with sessionStorage.

Using the Web Storage API

It’s really simple. It’s probably best just to show it:

sessionStorage.setItem('myKey', 'myValue');
var myVar = sessionStorage.getItem('myKey');

localStorage.setItem('myKey', 'myValue');
var myVar = localStorage.getItem('myKey');

Note that the interface for creating sessionStorage and localStorage is identical and that they are global objects.

You can use the .setItem method to set the key and its value, and then .getItem to retrieve the value of a specific key.

Note that we can only store strings, which is a significant drawback. However, to get around this, we can store and retrieve string representations of JSON objects by using the JSON.stringify() method to store a string, and JSON.parse() to create the original object from that string.

Web Storage Events

Whenever we store data in localStorage, the storage event is fired in other browser windows/tabs.

What is so great about that?

This event can be used to overcome that so-called race conditions between browser windows/tabs: If the user has the same site open in different tabs, this event can be used to synchronize the data. (This was actually quite an issue with cookies.)

The storage event is only fired when the new value is not the same as the old value. The storage event contains the key, oldValue and newValue properties of data that has changed, which you can access in code.

Example code:

window.addEventListener('storage', function(event) {
  console.log('The value for ' + event.key + ' was changed from' + event.oldValue + ' to ' + event.newValue);
  }, false);

Above, we create an event listener on the window object for the storage event. When the event happens, a function that logs the key, oldValue and newValue to your console (e.g. Firebug or Google Chrome Developer Tools) is executed.

Browser Support for Web Storage

You are encouraged to start using this API today. Web Storage is implemented in IE8 and in all modern browsers (i.e. starting from Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, Google Chrome 4, and Opera 10.50).

The storage event was added later, but is available in at least Firefox 5, Safari 5, Chrome 12, Opera 10.5 and reportedly in IE9.

Security Concerns

Please be aware that using Web Storage is really not more secure than cookies. With greater power, comes greater responsibility.

SSL does a great deal of resolving security issues. (SSL means the client and server communicate only encrypted data). This is why you see more and more websites using the more secure https protocol.

In any case, do not store sensitive data (like passwords and credit card numbers) on the client-side, nor send this kind of data to the client.

Final Notes

Web Storage is sometimes referred to as DOM Storage, this is the same thing. The latter is derived from the fact that the data is actually stored in JavaScript’s window object (i.e. window.localStorage and window.sessionStorage).

And last but not least, keep in mind that Web Storage, just like cookies, can be turned off by the user. So you always need to implement a fallback mechanism in case window.sessionStorage or window.localStorage is not available.

Further Reading

• Using HTML5 Storage
• Web Storage – W3C specifications (editor’s draft)
• Web Storage browser compatibility
• HTML5 Web Storage in Essence
• Using Web Storage in Web Applications

Related Content

• The Only HTML5 Resources You Need for Getting Up to Speed
• How to Make an HTML5 iPhone App
• The State of HTML5 Apps
• Related categories: HTML and JavaScript

About the Author

Lars Kappert is a front-end web developer and IT specialist from the Netherlands. His development style focuses on pragmatism and creating web products for real-world scenarios. Visit his portfolio site: WebPro. Follow him on Twitter as @webprolific and connect with him on LinkedIn.

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Advertise here with BSA

Web Storage is a new HTML5 API offering important benefits over traditional cookies. Although the specification is still in W3C draft status, all major browsers support it already.

This means you can start using the API’s sessionStorage and localStorage objects (we will discuss these later on) and enjoy their benefits.

The Limitations of Cookies

First, there were cookies. They have been a huge driving factor for the Web since the early days. In both a good and a bad way.

For example, cookies allow us to login automatically to sites we use frequently, such as Gmail and Facebook.

On the other hand, with cookies, our search and browsing history can be tracked and our privacy is a concern.

Another problem with cookies is that they have data-capacity limitations. The data storage limit of cookies in many web browsers is about 4 KB per cookie, based on a deprecated 1997 specification recommending a minimum of 4096 bytes per cookie.

Although most browsers allow 30 to 50 cookies, so if you exceed the 4 KB limit of one cookie you could create another one, this is still a real limitation.

This is why developers usually only store user and/or session identifiers in cookies, and then use server-side databases to store and get the rest of the user data.

Additionally, an often-overlooked side effect of cookies is that they are always sent with every HTTP request (usually even for images) resulting in more data being sent over the wire.

Moving Forward with Web Storage

Web Storage picks up where cookies left off. The strength of Web Storage is in at least two things.

First, ease of use for web developers: It has a simple API to get and set key/value pairs (we will get more into this below).

Secondly, the amount of space it provides: the specs default the disk space quota decision to the user agent (i.e. the web browser developers) and most of them offer no less than 5 or 10 MB to be stored per domain. This means we can store more than just basic user/session info on the client-side: user preference settings, localization data, temporary offline storage for batching server writes and much more.

The data being stored can be accessed using JavaScript, which gives you the ability to leverage client-side scripting to do many things that have traditionally involved server-side programming and relational databases.

Session Storage and Local Storage

It is important to know that there are two types of Web Storage objects: sessionStorage and localStorage.

sessionStorage is only available within the browser tab or window session. It’s designed to store data in a single web page session.

localStorage is kept even between browser sessions. This means data is still available when the browser is closed and reopened, and also instantly between tabs and windows.

Web Storage data is, in both cases, not available between different browsers. For example, storage objects created in Firefox cannot be accessed in Internet Explorer, exactly like cookies.

Where to Use Web Storage

Some examples of implementation scenarios include storing the data for an online to-do list (then pushing to the server in intervals instead of in real-time) or saving products that the user places in his shopping cart. The data can be made available between page requests, multiple browser tabs, and also between browser sessions using localStorage.

Your apps can actually be used offline completely using localStorage. Data can then be sent and stored server-side when the user is online again.

From another perspective, Web Storage can be a great performance win when some static data is stored on the client to minimize the number of subsequent requests. Even images can be stored in strings using Base64 encoding.

For the examples mentioned above, it makes sense to use localStorage. You may be wondering, then, when you should opt for sessionStorage.

In some cases, you simply want to get rid of the data as soon as the window is closed. Or, perhaps, you don’t want the application to interfere with the same application that’s open in another window (e.g. when running two instances of a Scrabble game or running multiple unit tests simultaneously, you don’t want data to collide). These scenarios are served best with sessionStorage.

Using the Web Storage API

It’s really simple. It’s probably best just to show it:

sessionStorage.setItem('myKey', 'myValue');
var myVar = sessionStorage.getItem('myKey');

localStorage.setItem('myKey', 'myValue');
var myVar = localStorage.getItem('myKey');

Note that the interface for creating sessionStorage and localStorage is identical and that they are global objects.

You can use the .setItem method to set the key and its value, and then .getItem to retrieve the value of a specific key.

Note that we can only store strings, which is a significant drawback. However, to get around this, we can store and retrieve string representations of JSON objects by using the JSON.stringify() method to store a string, and JSON.parse() to create the original object from that string.

Web Storage Events

Whenever we store data in localStorage, the storage event is fired in other browser windows/tabs.

What is so great about that?

This event can be used to overcome that so-called race conditions between browser windows/tabs: If the user has the same site open in different tabs, this event can be used to synchronize the data. (This was actually quite an issue with cookies.)

The storage event is only fired when the new value is not the same as the old value. The storage event contains the key, oldValue and newValue properties of data that has changed, which you can access in code.

Example code:

window.addEventListener('storage', function(event) {
  console.log('The value for ' + event.key + ' was changed from' + event.oldValue + ' to ' + event.newValue);
  }, false);

Above, we create an event listener on the window object for the storage event. When the event happens, a function that logs the key, oldValue and newValue to your console (e.g. Firebug or Google Chrome Developer Tools) is executed.

Browser Support for Web Storage

You are encouraged to start using this API today. Web Storage is implemented in IE8 and in all modern browsers (i.e. starting from Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, Google Chrome 4, and Opera 10.50).

The storage event was added later, but is available in at least Firefox 5, Safari 5, Chrome 12, Opera 10.5 and reportedly in IE9.

Security Concerns

Please be aware that using Web Storage is really not more secure than cookies. With greater power, comes greater responsibility.

SSL does a great deal of resolving security issues. (SSL means the client and server communicate only encrypted data). This is why you see more and more websites using the more secure https protocol.

In any case, do not store sensitive data (like passwords and credit card numbers) on the client-side, nor send this kind of data to the client.

Final Notes

Web Storage is sometimes referred to as DOM Storage, this is the same thing. The latter is derived from the fact that the data is actually stored in JavaScript’s window object (i.e. window.localStorage and window.sessionStorage).

And last but not least, keep in mind that Web Storage, just like cookies, can be turned off by the user. So you always need to implement a fallback mechanism in case window.sessionStorage or window.localStorage is not available.

Further Reading

• Using HTML5 Storage
• Web Storage – W3C specifications (editor’s draft)
• Web Storage browser compatibility
• HTML5 Web Storage in Essence
• Using Web Storage in Web Applications

Related Content

• The Only HTML5 Resources You Need for Getting Up to Speed
• How to Make an HTML5 iPhone App
• The State of HTML5 Apps
• Related categories: HTML and JavaScript

About the Author

Lars Kappert is a front-end web developer and IT specialist from the Netherlands. His development style focuses on pragmatism and creating web products for real-world scenarios. Visit his portfolio site: WebPro. Follow him on Twitter as @webprolific and connect with him on LinkedIn.

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Facebook has been out for a few years now but marketers still are not quite sure the best way to market with Facebook. You can build a tremendous following using Facebook but there are things that you should and should not do while using Facebook to market your online business. I’ll go through a few of them in this article.

1. Content on Your Page

It is best to post regular content on your page. Your articles should reflect your personality because your messages are designed to keep you involved with your business clients.

One thing that you do not want to do is to continually send sales messages to your clients and you don’t want to spam them. You should build a rapport with your clients. Facebook is not the medium to sell directly to people.

2. Which Type of Page is Right for Your Business?

It is important for you to pick the correct page for the type of business that you have. In Facebook, you will find personal profiles and fan, group and community pages. There is a description about each page, so study the descriptions and pick the page that best suits your business. Each of these pages contain different features and restrictions thus you need to make the right decision early on.

If you have a personal Facebook account, don’t use this for your company. A personal account will limit the number of friends you have and in case you happen to violate the terms of service on your personal page, you may actually have your account terminated.

3. Determine Your Budget

Because Facebook has a great number of users, you should start small. Instead of spending a great deal of money on advertising, you can create viral campaigns and if you use your pages the right way, your clients could do the majority of the work for you.

Be mindful when using PPC on Facebook. You could spend thousands of dollars inside an hour. Set your spending limit small, like $10.00 or $15.00 daily. You should always test a small campaign to see whether it will make you money.

4. Have Your Photo on Your Pages

Having a professional photo taken of yourself for Facebook is a must. You need to look good and that’s what a professional can do for you.

What you do not want to do is to put a photo on your page that is casual or suggestive. That’s a definite no-no.

5. Be Personal With Your Information

Always respond personally to any comments and messages that you get. This is the way you connect with people on Facebook. Answering inquiries personally is what Facebook is all about.

Don’t be impersonal. If you want to be considered a powerful brand, you should connect with people on a personal level.

6. Furnish as Many Details on Yourself as Possible

Fill out everything you can on your bio pages along with your information pages. Make it easy for people to contact you and to also see who you really are.

Don’t let your information get stale. Keep all of your information up to date. People will notice that you are changing your information to keep it current and they’ll appreciate that. You should update your information at the very least once a month.

These are just some of the most common things that you should do to market your business properly on Facebook. It will take time for you to develop your client base, but when you do it right, your clients will appreciate that and they’ll spread the word about you and your business.

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The Best Way to Market With Facebook

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When you are aiming to build your business part time, you are required to pick and choose what to think about to get the most targeted visitors to your site. Do you spend your time on Facebook and Twitter or do you spend your time with SEO? Is one of these marketing tools more valuable than the other? Which one of these marketing tools will
get you where you should be the fastest? Will utilizing only one of these tools help you make more money?

Let’s dive into both of these tools to work out what would be best.

SEO – What Should This Marketing Tactic do for Your Business?

SEO or Search Engine Marketing, when done properly, could possibly get you the number one spot on Google, Yahoo and Bing. How important is this to your website and your bottom line? – absolutely huge! A number one ranking, even a page one ranking will bring you a large amount of traffic.

However, how easy is this for you to accomplish? Do you possess the expertise to get your site on the first page of Google? Just how much time will that take? When you are working on your business part time, you may not have enough time and energy to make SEO give you the results you want. If you have the money, you can have an SEO expert do that part for you.

SEO is a long-term strategy for your business. It also takes a lot more effort than social media and you don’t know if it will work. There are so many different keyword phrases to focus on, and so much content to get written.

Social Media – Would This Strategy Work for Your Business?

Social Media/Facebook/Twitter will bring you faster results. It will be much easier for you to manage and it won’t take so very long for you to receive the kind of traffic that you are looking for. Another vote for social media is the fact that it truly is free. You don’t need to pay anyone to create your Facebook page or your group. You can do that yourself and it won’t take that long.

However, even though you could get a lot of traffic faster from social media, it isn’t precisely the same kind of traffic. Social media prominence is not identical to a #1 listing on Google. If you are concentrating on social media, you really are actually building your reputation.

Social media will benefit your business when you can provide something that your fans will want on a consistent basis. If they’re in need of how-to information, you need to provide that on a daily or weekly basis. If you provide video type products, you have to provide videos on a consistent basis. The key to social media is consistently communicating with your audience.

So which is the best route, social media or SEO?

For me personally, you should employ the two tactics together. As you can see from Google results, many of the top results come from Facebook likes and material you post on your Facebook page. The search engines are using SEO along with what is going on in the social media arena.

And when you really examine the two, social media and SEO, you will see how you actually need to do precisely the same things for both. If you want high rankings in the search engines, provide great content on your Facebook page on a consistent basis based on what people are looking for and you will cover both at the same time. So, is social media more powerful than SEO? No, they’re both powerful. Consider using them together and you will have success with both.

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Someone who could introduce you to a new boss, a person who works at that company you have always been eager to work for, people who have similar interests and that could be great to hang out with.

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Web forms are the crucial element for any website as website visitors use such forms to interact with the webmaster. Therefore, keeping them neat and functional while maintaining their aesthetic appeal is important. Here is the complete list. Enjoy!

Boxy –Facebook-like dialog/overlay ( Demo | Download )
Boxy is a flexible, Facebook-style dialog box for jQuery with support for dragging and size tweening.

A jQuery Inline Form Validation ( Demo | Download )
When it comes to form validation, it’s hard to have a versatile solution that works with every form. Figuring out how to display errors is not a simple task. When an error needs to be displayed, the script creates a div and positions it in the top right corner of the input. This way you don’t have to worry about your HTML form structure. The rounded corner and shadow are done with CSS3 and degrade well in non compliant browsers.

ToChecklist plugin ( Demo | Download )
The toChecklist plugin for jQuery will give you the functionality of a SELECT box without the need to ctrl+click items to select them.

A Fancy Contact Form ( Demo | Download )
Providing a simple and reliable means of feedback from site visitors is a crucial part of any web presence. The most simple and common feedback channel are contact forms. In this tutorial we are going to make an AJAX contact form which leverages modern web development techniques.

Select Multiple Form Fields ( Demo | Download )
asmSelect is a jQuery plugin that answers some of these issues. A progressive enhancement is applied to the select multiple that makes it much easier to use. This enhancement automatically hides the original select multiple, and instead presents a regular select showing the available options, and an HTML list showing the already-selected options.

Creating a Digg Style Sign Up Form ( Demo | Download )
In this tutorial we are going to simulate their signup form, with unique features such as their dynamic tooltips that give you a hint on each field that is to be filled. The same approach will be adopted for displaying validation messages.

jQuery Show Password Plugin ( Demo | Download )
This plugin works by adding a text field that takes the value of what is typed into the password field. Then, when the link is clicked the password field is hidden and the text field is shown.

Create an AJAX/jQuery/PHP Contact Form ( Demo | Download )
This tutorial uses XHTML, CSS, jQuery and a little PHP to make a pop-up/modal contact form that validates whatever is entered into the form and then uses AJAX to send the form without refreshing the page.

LightForm ( Demo | Download )
LightForm is a free Ajax/PHP contact form. It combines FormCheck2 for fields validation and NiceForms to style text fields and textareas.

MeioMask ( Demo | Download )
With meioMask plugin you can create and apply maskstot text input fields.

LiveValidation ( Demo | Download )
LiveValidation is a small open source javascript library for making client-side validation quick, easy, and powerful. It comprises of two main parts. Firstly, it provides developers with a rich set of core validation methods, which can also be used outside the context of forms.

WordPress plugins for contact forms ( Demo | Download )
There are lots of WordPress plugins for contact forms, but wouldn’t it be nice to have more control over the markup? In this tutorial, Trevor is going to show how to use a custom page template to create a contact form in WordPress without a plugin.

How to Enhance Forms Using jQuery UI ( Demo | Download )
jQuery makes creating UI so much easier without compromising speed and quality. In this tutorial we are going to enhance form using jQuery UI, so let’s get started

Submit A Form Without Page Refresh using jQuery ( Demo | Download )
Submit a contact form that sends an email, without page refresh using jQuery, This tutorial will help you creating a form that can be submitted without page refreshing, using JQuery.

Timepickr ( Demo | Download )
jquery.timepickr was created in a attempt to make the process of inputing time in a form as easy and natural as possible.

Password Strength Indicator and Generator ( Demo | Download )
In the example about you will see two password boxes and with them you have a generate password link and an icon showing you the strength of your password.

JQByte StickyForms ( Demo | Download )
StickyForms is a jQuery plugin that automatically saves all form fields into cookies, and then autofills those values on any form that shares element IDs across your site.

File Style jQuery ( Demo | Download )
Browsers do not let you style file inputs. File Style plugin fixes this problem. It enables you to use image as browse button. You can also style filename field as normal textfield using css. It is written using JavaScript and jQuery.

Autocomplete ( Demo | Download )
By giving an autocompleted field focus or entering something into it, the plugin starts searching for matching entries and displays a list of values to choose from. By entering more characters, the user can filter down the list to better matches.

Emblematiq Niceforms ( Demo | Download )
You basically know a web form when you see one as they always look the same and they’ve kept this look over the years. Try as hard as you might but web forms can only change their appearance so much. Some may argue that this is a good usability feature, and I tend to agree, but there comes a time when you just need to style web forms so that they look different. How do you do that? Niceforms comes to the rescue!

A BETTER FORM – SPAM-LESS ROBOT-LESS FORMS ( Demo | Download )
A Better Form is a jQuery plugin I designed to help eliminate spam comments, spam emails and other automated form submissions.

Progress Bar ( Demo | Download )
It’s a very simple widget with a small API that exposes a limited number of properties and methods, but it can still be highly effective and is great for providing visual feedback to visitors on the percentage of a process is left before it is complete.

jQuery AlphaNumeric ( Demo | Download )
jQuery AlphaNumeric is a javascript control plugin that allows you to limit what characters a user can enter on textboxes or textareas.

Build An Incredible Login Form With jQuery ( Demo | Download )
In this tutorial, we’ll create a sliding panel, that slides in to reveal more content, using JQuery to animate the height of the panel. In this case, we will be creating a hypothetical login for the new tutsplus area that’s coming soon.

prettyCheckboxes ( Demo | Download )
This script is for people who wants to have a consistent look for checkboxes across browser or those who simply want them to look better. By using this script you wont loose any of the regular inputs usability.

Improved Current Field Highlighting in Forms ( Demo | Download )
In this tutorial CSS expert Chris Coyier will tell you how to improve your form usuability and enhance them visually.

jQuery Ajax delete ( Demo | Download )
Removing contents with Ajax is a useful tool to have in any web designers kit. Using a few lines of jQuery we can remove a div and simultaneously remove a record from the database with Ajax. In the download and demo you’ll see a small red cross to the right of each comment. Clicking the cross will remove the comment div with a slide up animation which will remove the div. click the image below to check out the demo.

jQuery Auto Complete ( Demo | Download )
Auto-complete takes input from the user, and tries to form a list of words that match the users input. The function attaches itself to the input field selected, and also creates the UL drop down from within so all you need is have the styles for it ready.

Date Picker ( Demo | Download )
Date Picker component with a lot of options and easy to fit in your web application.

Plugin for Password Masking ( Demo | Download )
This plugin gives users the option to see the chracters of the password the are entering, for usability purposes.

jQuery Form Plugin ( Demo | Download )
The jQuery Form Plugin allows you to easily and unobtrusively upgrade HTML forms to use AJAX. The main methods, ajaxForm and ajaxSubmit, gather information from the form element to determine how to manage the submit process.

Input Fields with Images ( Demo | Download )
With this plugin you can add icons or images inside of input fields to add some flair to your forms.

Elastic ( Demo | Download )
Elastic makes your textareas grow and shrink to fit it’s content. It was inspired by the auto growing textareas on Facebook. The major difference between Elastic and it’s competitors is it’s weight.

jQuery Checkbox ( Demo | Download )
This plugin allows you to style your forms checkboxes or radio buttons.

iPhone Style Checkboxes ( Demo | Download )
With this plugin you can enhance standard HTML checkboxes and gives them an iPhone-like styling.

jQuery Autosave ( Demo | Download )
Autosave is designed to save the progress of forms by saving the fields to cookies so you won’t lose anything should anything go wrong. The plug-in saves the form fields at certain intervals (the default is every 10 seconds) and whenever you leave the page.

AutoTab ( Demo | Download )
Autotab provides smart auto-tabbing and filtering on text fields in a form. Simply put: once you have typed the maximum number of characters in a text field, you will automatically have focus on the next defined text field. Target text fields are defined, as well as a defined previous text field.

Magicpreview ( Demo | Download )
Magicpreview automatically updates selected elements on a page based on form fields. Perfect for previewing forms.

Using form labels as text field values ( Demo | Download )
When designing you sometimes have limited space to put and display all of the form elements. Recently that happened to me and when I was trying to squeeze in a simple newsletter form to a 120px wide area (plus a limited height). I realized that some of the elements will have to go. The obvious solution was to get rid of the labels and put only the form text fields. How will the users know what are the text fields for? I will use value attributes and write the explanation in there, something like “Input your email here”. Problem solved? Not quite. Why? Because I am a web standards freak

Checking username availability with ajax using jQuery ( Demo | Download )
The time when username availability is checked after the page is normaly processed is long way behind us. Google has it, Yahoo has it and many many more sites have it, ajax username availability checker. So in this tutorial we will make an ajax username availability checker powered with jQuery.

jQuery Highlight plugin ( Demo | Download )
Highlight increases usability by highlighting elements as you interact with the page. Its primary use is for forms, but it can also be used for tables, lists, or any element you specify. It can also be used to toggle elements on and off, for example, table rows.

A Fancy AJAX Contact Form ( Demo | Download )
Ajax Fancy Captcha is a jQuery plugin that helps you protect your web pages from bots and spammers. We are introducing you to a new, intuitive way of completing “verify humanity” tasks. In order to do that you are asked to drag and drop specified item into a circle.

ASM Select ( Demo | Download )
A progressive enhancement to select multiple form elements. It provides a simpler alternative with lots of advantages.

BABYSTEPS ( Demo | Download )
BabySteps (A ‘What About Bob?’ reference) is a simple and easily configurable tool for turning long forms into broken out steps without going from page to page.

BS FORM ACCELERATOR ( Demo | Download )
BS Form Accelerator will be able to use Enter or Space buttons in your forms replacing the buttons such as Tab for changing focus in fields just with assigning an ID to the form.

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The big question is – how do you make life easy for your site visitors so that they can easily share your content across various social sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Stumbleupon and so on?

One of the best ways to encourage social sharing of your website’s pages is to use blog widgets and buttons. Almost every social network has it’s own widgets page where you can grab some code and embed it on your website’s design template. The widgets and buttons go to work out of the box but there are a couple of disadvantages of using too many widgets and buttons from different social sites.

First, these buttons don’t blend well enough with your site’s design and in some way, they increase visual noise and clutter. Facebook like buttons are blue, Twitter’s retweet buttons are shallow green while Digg’s thumbs up button is grey. When you arrange buttons and widgets from 6 different social networks below your content, they look really bad and knocked out. It’s a general rule that common users don’t like ugly buttons which don’t complement each other

Second, these buttons are fetched from different sites which will eventually slow down your site’s overall loading time and usability.

Third, there is no easy way to integrate these default widgets as an “always on” toolbar which would stay visible, regardless of whether your readers are scrolling all the way bottom to read the content.

Bumpin Social Bar – Ensure Easier Social Sharing of your content

This is why I highly recommend using Bumpin social bar.

Bumpin offers a range of social engagement widgets which are easy to customize and embed on any website or blog, irrespective of the content management system being used to manage it. Bumpin provides a social toolbar and a shoutbox for your website which can be customized with Facebook “Like” button, a Twitter “retweet” button, a visitor chat widget, a site specific search box and lots of other goodies which you can’t afford to miss.

Let’s quickly learn all the features of Bumpin social bar and how you can use this free service to add a lot of social sharing goodness on your site within 5 minutes:

Site Search widget:  On the far left of Bumpin’s social bar, you can choose to include a simple site specific search box which can be used by your site visitors to search for content within your site. This is a great way to let your readers find the content they are looking for. The search box remains visible even if a user has scrolled all the way down to read something, so Bumpin’s search widget clearly holds an upper hand – when compared to regular search boxes.

Facebook and Twitter Integration: Another neat thing regarding Bumpin’s social bar is it’s deeper Facebook integration without any clutter and waste of valuable space. The “Like” button, “activity stream” and “Facebook suggestions” are aligned horizontally and they are revealed only when a user clicks them.

And here is how your Twitter feed and mentions will look like:

Hence, there is no need to hunt down all the codes for Facebook social plugin or Twitter widgets and further tweak them to go with your site. Bumpin takes care of all the hassles and integrates Facebook social plugins and Twitter widgets on your site in a matter of few mouse clicks.

Inline Language Translation of your content: Do you get a lot of readers from different countries and have always wanted a better alternative of Google Translate, which offers no branding whatsoever.

Enter Bumpin’s inline language translation widget – a simple magic button which lets your site readers translate a page in any international language of their choice. The translate button performs inline language translation of your content so your site visitors would never feel the need of a third party translation service. The clear advantage here is that Bumpin’s translate widget makes your site more “sticky” and globally acceptable.

Complete Social sharing:  All other social sharing buttons are organized under a sleek on-click drop down menu. This is more visually appealing and never harms your site’s design template with tons of buttons and independent widgets floating around like anything.

Customization and branding: The social bar can be fully customized to match with your site’s current design and brand. You can choose a skin or theme and define a preferred placement, size or position for the social bar. The bar can be used to look like Facebook-style chat tab to a full horizontal bar with applications and widgets you have chosen.

Rising posts, Random topics and announcements: This is yet another superb feature most social bar providers lack.

Bumpin displays the hottest content on your website as well as random topics from the social bar itself. This helps your readers discover popular content directly from the social bar, without having to search them manually. No customizations are required – it works out of the box.

Bumpin Shoutbox:

Do you have a forum and you want all the registered users or members to be able to chat with each other, without leaving your site? Apart from the social bar, Bumpin also offers a very useful chatbox and shoutbox widget, adding which will allow your site visitors perform a one on one instant messaging chat, without having to leave your site. You do not need to install anything or write any code to enable a shoutbox or chatbox on your site, simply customize your chatbox from Bumpin’s web interface and copy a few lines of codes in your site’s design template. It’s that easy and simple.

The best thing regarding Bumpin is that their social bar and visitor chatbox is super easy to add to any blogging or CMS platform, with drop-in plugins available for WordPress, Blogger, Joomla, Drupal, Movable type, Tumblr and more content management systems.

Overall, Bumpin is a really cool and useful tool for bloggers, webmasters and anyone who wants to add a layer of interactivity on his site. There are no lengthy registrations or paid signups, Bumpin is completely free to use and you can customize a unique social bar for any number of sites you have.

That’s right, Bumpin’s price tag is $0.

Get a BumpIn ShoutBox or Get a BumpIn Social Bar

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This is our weekly column were we share our favorites design related articles, resources and resources all from the previous week.

If you would like to be kept up to date with loads of fresh design news and resources, you can follow us on Twitter, on Facebook, on Stumbleupon or by subscribing to our RSS feed.

Don’t Fear the Internet – Basic HTML & CSS for Non-Web Designers

The Developer’s Guide To Writing Cross-Browser JavaScript Polyfills

Infographic: A Visual History of Design Tools

The Definitive Guide To Forms based Website Authentication

CSS3 Flexible Box Model…Layout Coolness…also Oddities & Confusion

Invaluable Command Line Tools for Web Developers

PressWork – An HTML5 WordPress Framework

Mosaiqy jQuery Plugin – For Viewing and Zooming Images

CSS3 Shapes

Fount – Bookmarklet to identify any web font

Minimus – The OS X JavaScript and CSS Minifier

Flexible Nav jQuery Library

Sliding Download Button Using jQuery (Tutorial)

Unique Contact Form with CSS3 Transitions (Tutorial)

Gallery of Content using Pure CSS (Tutorial)

CSS3 Radial Gradient Syntax Breakdown (Tutorial)

Claire Hand Free Font

BonPress Free WordPress Theme

Previous Weekly Design News…

Design News Roundup Archives →

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This is our weekly column were we share our favorites design related articles, resources and resources all from the previous week.

If you would like to be kept up to date with loads of fresh design news and resources, you can follow us on Twitter, on Facebook, on Stumbleupon or by subscribing to our RSS feed.

Don’t Fear the Internet – Basic HTML & CSS for Non-Web Designers

The Developer’s Guide To Writing Cross-Browser JavaScript Polyfills

Infographic: A Visual History of Design Tools

The Definitive Guide To Forms based Website Authentication

CSS3 Flexible Box Model…Layout Coolness…also Oddities & Confusion

Invaluable Command Line Tools for Web Developers

PressWork – An HTML5 WordPress Framework

Mosaiqy jQuery Plugin – For Viewing and Zooming Images

CSS3 Shapes

Fount – Bookmarklet to identify any web font

Minimus – The OS X JavaScript and CSS Minifier

Flexible Nav jQuery Library

Sliding Download Button Using jQuery (Tutorial)

Unique Contact Form with CSS3 Transitions (Tutorial)

Gallery of Content using Pure CSS (Tutorial)

CSS3 Radial Gradient Syntax Breakdown (Tutorial)

Claire Hand Free Font

BonPress Free WordPress Theme

Previous Weekly Design News…

Design News Roundup Archives →

Advertise here with BSA

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Buddy Media, a company that provides Facebook Page and social media management tools to brands, has raised $54 million in Series D funding led by GGV Capital with Institutional Venture Partners, Bay Partners and Insight Venture Partners. This brings Buddy Media’s total funding to just under $90 million. GGV partner Jeff Richards has joined the Buddy Media Board of Directors. One of Facebook’s first ad sales execs, Kevin Colleran, has also joined the company’s board of advisors.

Buddy Media is best known for its all-in-one social media management system to help create, manage and track social campaigns on Facebook. With regard to Facebook, the platform lets brand managers agencies create, manage and track Facebook pages in a variety of languages to drive and increase user and brand engagement. Users don’t need to have any prior FBML knowledge to create pages on Facebook and can create sleek and interactive pages fairly easily.

But Facebook isn’t the only social media platform that brands need to engage; Twitter has also emerged has a powerful communications tool. And Buddy Media also offers a Twitter Management System as well. As CEO and founder Michael Lazerow tells us, it’s no longer just about Facebook, and as brands engage across a variety of channels, Buddy Media will provide them with a SaaS to manage this. He added that as Google+ scales and eventually adds a brand and company feature, the company will look to provide integration with the social platform.

Earlier this year, Buddy Media acquired social analytics tool Spinback, which develops a social commerce widget allows consumers to share products and purchases via Facebook, Twitter and email. This product is in the process of being integrated with Buddy Media’s SaaS

Of course, as more brands look to social media for engagement with consumers, Buddy Media is reaping the benefits. The company’s revenue has more than doubled since the end of 2010. Last year, Lazerow told us that Buddy Media was on track to make $20 million in sales, so revenue could be at least $40 million.

Buddy Media has added close to 200 new customers in 2011, including brands, retailers and media companies such as Ford Motor Company, Hanes, ESPN, Hearst Corporation (read more about that partnership here), and Virgin Mobile USA.

Buddy Media’s employee headcount has grown from 40 employees in 2009 to almost 200, and the company opened a London office this year as well. Recent hired include a CFO, Dennis Morgan, who led corporate finance and acquisition efforts for Yahoo.

Lazerow says the company is constantly evaluating a few things: how do brands better target content on a Facebook wall or on twitter; how do they get the right content to the right person, and how do you leverage the social graph to make all os this happen. He explains that for large brands and companies, social media monitoring is complicated by provisioning, auditing and scaling across various countries. Buddy Media makes this process simple, says Lazerow.

And Lazerow says that has the company continues to grow, this capital will help scale development, global expansion, hiring, sales, acquisitions and more. One of the challenges, he says, will be hiring the right people, but he plans to double the company’s headcount in the next year.

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Twitter has dabbled for years with providing visibility into the realtime stream of attention and gestures. Its Track functionality allowed users to set up a communications interface around certain keywords, most notably the @username. Born of a user gesture first called the @reply, the feature survived the removal of Track in various forms, most recently as a separate view dubbed the @mention. This week, Twitter expanded that view.

Of course, I had to read MG Siegler or watch Scoble on the Gillmor Gang to experience the two new streams, which apparently roll up not only my and my followers’ @mentions but Favorites, retweets, follows by others, and notifications of domain name cancellations. No, that last part’s not true, it’s sponsored domain cancellations. No, there’s something else but I can’t find it because it’s not available on my iPad or any other client but the Web client, which requires a non-iOS browser. So much for open.

Perhaps I’ll have to wait for iOS 5 to see the new streams. The new update features enhanced cooperation between Apple and Twitter, along with the single most important feature of all, the notification bus modeled after Android’s top-of-screen alerts. By making notifications non-interruptive, iOS effectively supports a mobile version of XMPP notifications on the desktop. This was the vehicle through which Track made its way into Google Talk’s IM windows as a realtime notification stream. It was also the first thing turned off as FailWhales brought Twitter to its knees.

Without Google+ I wouldn’t be so optimistic about @mention stream access via API. But with + citations now being injected into Google Social Search, we have an alternate route for this kind of Track-like functionality. Not because of its current stream, which seems devoid of any actionable information. I did a quick check of Facebook’s stream this weekend and found it much more useful. But now that + threads are promoted in Social Search, that should prove an incentive for people to populate their streams with references to news and posts both external and internal.

Once the stream is seeded with fresh trout, Google can turn to surfacing these objects in its iOS clients. As we get closer to iOS 5, this will put pressure on Twitter to do the right thing with API support, or in the case of its own clients, surfacing the new views in an alert format. But none of the political games would be necessary if Twitter recognizes an opportunity to popularize the @mention stream as the best way of keeping up with realtime.

Let’s reverse engineer this new Twitter release to get at the heart of the problem. Before the change, there were two ways to navigate the stream. A last in, first out stream of those you follow and their retweets of those you might not. And second, the @mention stream of posts containing a reference to your @username. The @mention stream is by definition high value, but it relies on your personal cloud of influentials to keep you up to date with important citations. The aggregate result is sampling the verbose main stream and being alerted by the more sparse one.

Push notification of a group @mention editorial strategy is one way to expand the alerting mechanism and reduce the drive by sampling. The new @mention view extends Twitter’s recent email notification of @mentions and Favorites (follows have always had email notifications), but the second Activities view surfaces the signals of those we follow. Certainly the immediate goal is to amplify the street cred of these messages, generating metadata that can be injected back into the flow in ways more consumable than a realtime LIFO view.

Among the valuable network effects produced by these streams is an aggregated sense of our social graph and its weight in the Activities graph. By comparing the value of these external streams, Twitter can give us access to a socially tuned stream that mirrors our collective interests. In turn, that stream is more likely to produce a push notification stream that will not overwhelm us.

Such a notification stream will produce the long-sought business model Jack and Dick are after. No amount of Google+ maneuvering or Facebook stream rewrites can reduce this opportunity for Twitter. The steps are obvious: incentivize the creation of the data by making it visible, incentivize the partner community by releasing the API, and then lock down its native clients when iOS 5 appears. Or as Walt Disney once said: Hello Dali.

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In the four weeks since the social protests have begun in Israel, hundreds of have been killed, dozens of women have reportedly been raped, a number of children tortured, and countless districts have been looted. The authorities have imposed a complete lock-down on all cellular networks. All access to Facebook and Twitter has been blocked. Little information is going in, or out.

Except the absolute, complete opposite.

The social protests in Israel began 4 weeks ago with a national outcry over the rising price of basics such as cottage cheese. They then snowballed into a full-blown national movement by way of a simple act by a then unknown young woman. The act? Striking a tent in Tel-Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard in protest of high apartment rental costs.

A single tent became the heart and soul of the movement whose main gripe is that the middle-class is bearing the brunt of an imbalanced budgetary spend. “The People Demand Social Justice” is the key chant.

The protests are local, scattered all across Israel, drawing hundreds to hundreds of thousands. Big name musicians volunteer to headline these protests. Barricades and PA systems, all donated. People talk about the movement at every cafe, over every lunch, at every business meeting, at every family dinner.

There have been a few skirmishes with the law. Small stuff though… For example, small groups of protesters were arrested by the police for blocking roads and were released without charges within a day.

Small potatoes aside, it’s been four weeks and zero acts of the barbaric, non-discriminatory violence we’ve seen across the middle east, and even in the UK. No shots fired. No stores looted. No form of communication has been shut down. In fact, not only have the Israeli police and army not taken any role other than safeguarding the protests themselves, they have even been applauded, literally, by hundreds of thousands for their efforts.

While in neighboring countries regimes are slaughtering the opposition, in Israel we have complete free speech to criticize our politicians and leaders. As I’m typing this, on the TV is Israel’s version of SNL doing a parody skit of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s mishandling of the situation (they have him wearing a red t-shirt with Che Guevara on it). YouTube mashups featuring the PM’s soundbites? Posted below for your scrolling convenience. Professional-level videos advertising the protests? Also, posted below.

Sorry Shervin, no need for your curation and retweeting on this one, the Israeli people are doing A-OK. Really, look:

The backbone of the movement has unquestionably been Facebook, via pages, and events, and of course Twitter, via the #j14 hashtag. A revolution needs a site, right? Right.

At this point there’s no guessing which people will next rise-up and demand political and social change. The world is not what it used to be before Tahrir. I wonder though how many of these future civil disobedience movements will be modeled upon Israel, where technology and love trumped violence.

Photo Credits: Itai Bachar

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Is Amazon screwing with Apple? Is Facebook screwing with SMS? Is Google screwing with Facebook? Those are the main points of discussion. We also sort of veer off into a discussion about whether or not Google+ is all one big game in the more metaphorical sense.

And as a bonus, you’ll get to see our awkward transitions between stories.

Here are some of the key stories we talk about this week:

• Amazon’s Answer To Apple’s Terms: A Web-Based Kindle Cloud Reader — Brilliant On PC, Better On iPad
• Facebook Launches Standalone iPhone/Android Messenger App (And It’s Beluga)
• Facebook Just Out-iMessaged iMessage — And SMS Is More Screwed Than Ever
• Google Wastes No Time Putting Games On Google+: Angry Birds, Bejeweled, Zynga On Board
• Facebook And Google Duke It Out Over Gaming (Same Day Announcements, Zynga?)

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The Huffington Post has come across this fascinating five-minute interview of Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook’s Palo Alto office in June 2005. The clip is apparently part of a longer 40-minute-interview from a documentary about millennials shot by Ray Hafner and Derek Franzese.  That interview apparently has never been shown in full, and if I were Hafner and Franzese I’d be figuring out a way to do that stat, especially post-The Social Network.

Zuckerberg’s initial vision, “an online directory for colleges” seems remarkably short-sighted in light of the fact that Facebook users comprise now 11% of the world’s population and 35% of the world’s online population. In retrospect Zuckerberg may have wanted to put the fratty red beer cup down (Fun fact: He had just turned 21, also that’s co-founder Dustin Moskovitz doing a keg stand).

But at the time the site, which Zuckerberg modestly described as an online directory for colleges, had only penetrated 800 schools.The fact that Zuckerberg seems impressed by seeing people using TheFacebook at college parties and by reports of people logging in internationally leads one to wonder just how strategic the social network’s meteoric rise was.

His goal at the time was to expand to all 2,000 US colleges, and when asked what was next the Facebook founder said, ”There doesn’t necessarily have to be more. A lot of people are focused on taking over the world or doing the biggest thing and getting the most users … There’s a level of service that we can provide when we’re a college network that we wouldn’t be able to provide if we went to other types of things.”

This is a far far cry from Facebook’s current motto, “Making the world open and connected.” But sure, hindsight is 20/20. I mean how else do you explain Zuckerberg, and Reed Hastings, making this CNN “10 People Who Don’t Matter List” in 2006. Hilarious copy, below.

In entrepreneurship, timing is everything. So we’ll give Zuckerberg credit for launching his online social directory for college students just as the social-networking craze was getting underway. He also built it right, quickly making Facebook one of the most popular social-networking sites on the Net. But there’s also something to be said for knowing when to take the money and run. Last spring, Facebook reportedly turned down a $750 million buyout offer, holding out instead for as much as $2 billion. Bad move. After selling itself to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox for $580 million last year, MySpace is now the Web’s second most popular website. Facebook is growing too – but given that MySpace has quickly grown into the industry’s 80-million-user gorilla, it’s hard to imagine who would pay billions for an also-ran.

Five years, eternity in Internet time.

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The Huffington Post has come across this fascinating five-minute interview of Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook’s Palo Alto office in June 2005. The clip is apparently part of a longer 40-minute-interview from a documentary about millennials shot by Ray Hafner and Derek Franzese.  That interview apparently has never been shown in full, and if I were Hafner and Franzese I’d be figuring out a way to do that stat, especially post-The Social Network.

Zuckerberg’s initial vision, “an online directory for colleges” seems remarkably short-sighted in light of the fact that Facebook users comprise now 11% of the world’s population and 35% of the world’s online population. In retrospect Zuckerberg may have wanted to put the fratty red beer cup down (Fun fact: He had just turned 21, also that’s co-founder Dustin Moskovitz doing a keg stand).

But at the time the site, which Zuckerberg modestly described as an online directory for colleges, had only penetrated 800 schools.The fact that Zuckerberg seems impressed by seeing people using TheFacebook at college parties and by reports of people logging in internationally leads one to wonder just how strategic the social network’s meteoric rise was.

His goal at the time was to expand to all 2,000 US colleges, and when asked what was next the Facebook founder said, ”There doesn’t necessarily have to be more. A lot of people are focused on taking over the world or doing the biggest thing and getting the most users … There’s a level of service that we can provide when we’re a college network that we wouldn’t be able to provide if we went to other types of things.”

This is a far far cry from Facebook’s current motto, “Making the world open and connected.” But sure, hindsight is 20/20. I mean how else do you explain Zuckerberg, and Reed Hastings, making this CNN “10 People Who Don’t Matter List” in 2006. Hilarious copy, below.

In entrepreneurship, timing is everything. So we’ll give Zuckerberg credit for launching his online social directory for college students just as the social-networking craze was getting underway. He also built it right, quickly making Facebook one of the most popular social-networking sites on the Net. But there’s also something to be said for knowing when to take the money and run. Last spring, Facebook reportedly turned down a $750 million buyout offer, holding out instead for as much as $2 billion. Bad move. After selling itself to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox for $580 million last year, MySpace is now the Web’s second most popular website. Facebook is growing too – but given that MySpace has quickly grown into the industry’s 80-million-user gorilla, it’s hard to imagine who would pay billions for an also-ran.

Five years, eternity in Internet time.

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The world’s largest social network is getting nostalgic. Facebook has quietly rolled out a new feature that displays status updates you posted exactly one or two years ago.

The feature appears as a small box in the right-hand column above the advertising, either titled “On This Day in 2010″ or “On This Day in 2009.” We’ve typically found that the “On This Day” box appears while you’re browsing a photo album. This is how I found out, for example, that I had a terrible day on August 13, 2010.

You can also click the “Show More” button to see more status updates from exactly one or two years ago, if you posted multiple status updates on those days. The feature only seems to go back to 2009. That makes sense — Facebook just didn’t have a lot of users in 2008 or 2007.

Based on a search of public Facebook and Twitter status updates, we believe the feature began rolling out in a limited test on August 11. More and more users started noticing in the last twelve hours, though. This isn’t the first time Facebook has tried to help uses discover their past activity on Facebook. It also has a feature for surfacing photos from your past.

We’re not sure if Facebook thinks of these nostalgic features as just fun little additions to the product, or whether they serve a purpose. Perhaps Facebook wants to remind its users that they have invested years of their lives into their product, so perhaps they shouldn’t switch to something new. Or perhaps its just another one of Facebook’s many product engagement tools.

Has Facebook been reminding you of status updates from your past? Let us know what you’ve been seeing in the comments.

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Google has begun integrating Google+ into search results with public Google+ posts now appearing in Social Search.

Whenever a user publicly shares a link on Google+, an annotation will show up under that link when it appears in a friend’s search results. For example, if I share a Mashable article about Google+ eliminating pseudonyms publicly on my Google+ page, users who have added me to their circles will see a note that I shared that link if they stumble upon it in Google Search.

Google+ now joins Flickr, Twitter, Quora and Google Buzz as other inputs for Google’s Social Search product. Social Search debuted in 2009 at the Web 2.0 Summit, partly as a response to Bing’s integration with Facebook and Twitter. Social Search highlights what links your friends are sharing on the web and returns results it believes are relevant based on your friends’ interests.

Social Search integration is only the beginning for Google’s plans for combining its search engine and social network. Google intends to revive real-time search with Google+ data and will launch a search engine for Google+ posts. Of course, the tech giant did the same thing with Google Buzz, and we all know what happened to that product.

Do you think Google+ makes Google Search a better product? Let us know what you think in the comments.

More About: Google, Google Plus. Social Search, google search, trending

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Google has begun integrating Google+ into search results with public Google+ posts now appearing in Social Search.

Whenever a user publicly shares a link on Google+, an annotation will show up under that link when it appears in a friend’s search results. For example, if I share a Mashable article about Google+ eliminating pseudonyms publicly on my Google+ page, users who have added me to their circles will see a note that I shared that link if they stumble upon it in Google Search.

Google+ now joins Flickr, Twitter, Quora and Google Buzz as other inputs for Google’s Social Search product. Social Search debuted in 2009 at the Web 2.0 Summit, partly as a response to Bing’s integration with Facebook and Twitter. Social Search highlights what links your friends are sharing on the web and returns results it believes are relevant based on your friends’ interests.

Social Search integration is only the beginning for Google’s plans for combining its search engine and social network. Google intends to revive real-time search with Google+ data and will launch a search engine for Google+ posts. Of course, the tech giant did the same thing with Google Buzz, and we all know what happened to that product.

Do you think Google+ makes Google Search a better product? Let us know what you think in the comments.

More About: Google, Google Plus. Social Search, google search, trending

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• Follow Mashable Tech & Gadgets on Twitter
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Facebook and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) are set to meet with Home Secretary Theresa May and other UK officials as the government investigates what roles the platforms played in organizing recent riots in London.

Twitter, a service used by rioters and victims alike, said in a statement that it would not be joining the talks. “We’d be happy to listen,” the statement said.

Facebook’s official statement read a little differently: “We look forward to meeting with the Home Secretary to explain the measures we have been taking to ensure that Facebook is a safe and positive platform in the UK at this challenging time.”

On Thursday, UK Prime Minister David Cameron alarmed free speech activists when he told Parliament that the government is examining whether it is possible to prevent suspected criminals from sending messages via social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

“We’re working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality,” Cameron told the House of Commons.

The investigation, which has been outlined in pretty vague terms, has incited widespread criticism from the media and free speech activists alike.

U.S. journalist Jeff Jarvis asked on his blog: “If you take these steps, what separates you from the Saudi government demanding the ability to listen to and restrict its BBM networks? What separates you from Arab tyrannies cutting off social communication via Twitter or from China banning it?”

“Censorship is not the path to civility,” Jarvis added. “Only speech is.”

[via PC Magazine]

Image courtesy of Flickr, ukhomeoffice

More About: censorship, david cameron, facebook, RIM, twitter, uk

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