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.

More About: facebook, Google, Google Plus

For more Social Media coverage:

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

Go to Source

Hey, Android partners, did you miss out on giving your two cents about Google’s proposed takeover of Motorola Mobility? Well, now here’s your chance.

Someone has created an Android Press Release Generator that funnels your thoughts into a blandly positive template. The one-sentence statement offers several variables on word choices, but they’re all synonyms. The punchline is that the real quotes actually seem to be based on the generator.

Point made, some anonymous prankster. The only thing you left out was that other press release quote mainstay: “We’re really excited.”

More About: android, Google, Motorola

For more Business & Marketing coverage:

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

Go to Source

Hey, Android partners, did you miss out on giving your two cents about Google’s proposed takeover of Motorola Mobility? Well, now here’s your chance.

Someone has created an Android Press Release Generator that funnels your thoughts into a blandly positive template. The one-sentence statement offers several variables on word choices, but they’re all synonyms. The punchline is that the real quotes actually seem to be based on the generator.

Point made, some anonymous prankster. The only thing you left out was that other press release quote mainstay: “We’re really excited.”

More About: android, Google, Motorola

For more Business & Marketing coverage:

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

Go to Source

Go to Source

Go to Source

Go to Source

Go to Source

Go to Source

Go to Source

Go to Source

Go to Source

Go to Source

Go to Source

Go to Source

Go to Source

Go to Source

Great UIs tend to have simple, obvious buttons that are standard across the entire application. Pixify has created Google+ Buttons in CSS that you can apply to your app’s UI. You can also check out Use Apple OS X Lion to Improve Your UI.

Requirements: Firefox, Chrome, Safari, IE7+, IE6
Demo: http://pixify.com/blog/use-google-plus-to-improve-your-ui/
License: Creative Commons License

Sponsors

Aactis Shopping Cart: easy, fast and reliable. Check for special offers.

Go to Source

Read more

Learn more about GroupChat.tv in Dataopedia.com

Find out how much GroupChat.tv is worth with Stimator.com

Have a business question? Ask Startups.com

Go to Source

You are welcome if you want to share more creative resume designs that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at  SmashingApps.com, just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter and follow us on Diggas well to get updated.

Guerrilla Advertising 2011 CV by Aerorato

Personal Resume 2010 by heeeeman

My resume

Resume advice

Fresh Idea for a Resume

Curriculum Vitae by Jonny-Rocket

Resume6 by Ro-elCruz

Resume – Fashion by OrangeResume

Curriculum Vitae by mistis

CV1

MY RESUME by arianedenise

Resume by BLead-GFX

Curriculum Vitae by DieVogelfreie

Google Earth Résumé

2004 resume by killersid

My resume by WishRecurred

2009resume_sidsantos by killersid

Life Chart Resume By benfogarty

Resume Infographic der Lebenslauf By cleantechjobs

CURRICULUM by Dmaghar

Resume by putrixiah

Resume – CV – Curriculum Vitae by habooboo

3-D resume By odgersdesign

Resume Traveling By OrangeResume

My Resume by ZeroNanoBurn

Resume – Fashion: Futuristic by rkaponm

My Graphic Design Resume by MrSunnyBlack

Resume – Industrial Engineer by rkaponm

Resume by AP-3

T-shirt Résumés

Resume Design by MegaBoneDesigns

My Artistic Resume by Naomi89

Resume by aMorle

Cody’s Resume by CodySymes

Resume by heyfreddo

Creative Resume by neilwasabi

Curriculum Vitae by arbrenoir

My Resume by JasonLongo

2010-2011 CV by brankovukelic

Brought To You By

Do you want to advertise here? Click to get more info…

Go to Source

• Plenty of people have made lists of what Google was actually buying with Motorola. One item that nobody seems to have picked up is operator relations. Motorola sells phones through operators, so it has people who negotiate deals with operators. Those people now work for Google. That’s a distinct advantage for the search giant, who previously had no clout with operators at all.
  See the failure of the Nexus as a consumer device. Admittedly, I think it wasn’t meant as a consumer device but as a developer device. Still, the total lack of traction in the operator-dominated phone market must have taught Google it needs better relations with operators. Motorola provides that. Only in the US and China, but still.
• Google was in a hurry. GigaOm reveals Microsoft and others were in the race to buy Motorola, too.
• Cue choir of Android vendors: “Yes, we are all individuals.”
• The consensus is that, despite their performance in the choir, other Android vendors such as Samsung and HTC will not be pleased; see for instance GigaOm. There are a few dissenting voices, however, such as TalkAndroid; and Business Insider, which says
  

  By now, it’s probably too late for Samsung and HTC to switch to another platform, so they’ll have to smile and make the best of it.

  This is obviously complete nonsense: Samsung already has bada, which already has 5% world market share of smartphone sales. Do your homework, Business Insider!

• Business Insider obstinately refuses to do its homework: in another article it studies HP’s chances of licensing webOS (which are indeed decent), but seems to have missed the news HP is already talking to Samsung.
• Will Google buy an operator? At first glance it makes sense. However, it wouldn’t work. In the last Critical Path episode (when’s the next one!?!) Horace Dediu made an excellent point: if Apple buys an operator all others will team up against it, and it would become a massive failure. The same goes for Google.
• GigaOm talks about update issues. Right now Google can’t get vendors to upgrade fast enough, and Motorola gives them a stick in addition to the carrot:
  

  Is an OEM not releasing updates quickly enough? Okay, screw you, we’ll release a Motorola Droid update right now.

  Google certainly wants to do this. Problem is: vendors won’t care. They see their own uniqueness as a brand as more important than the Android version they run. Besides, upgrading is a major headache for them because they have to retest all the UI layers and crapware they inflict on users.
  The update battle pitches vendors and operators, who want differentiation, against Google and developers, who want one unified OS. Consumers would presumably side with Google if they knew enough about the issues involved, and a higher version number is always sexy when you buy a new phone. Still, I don’t buy the idea that Motorola’s acquisition will somehow force the other vendors to upgrade their phones faster.

• Patents are unlikely to be Google’s only reason for buying Motorola.
• Speaking of patents, everybody is elated that Google buys more than 17,000 of them. I always thought quality was more important than quantity, but then I know very little about patents.
• Also, when talking about alternatives for the Android vendors Windows gets rather too much exposure, webOS too little, and MeeGo none at all. Don’t believe everything you read, and keep the entire mobile market in mind when deciding on such fundamental issues.
• Nokia and RIM shares are up. Patents? Or expectations of an acquisition?

Go to Source

Personally I feel this heralds the high-water mark of Android’s OS market share. That’s not the same as its developer mindshare, or customer satisfaction, but I don’t think the other Android vendors are going to be thrilled, and that we’re going to see that in Q1’s sales stats. Android will drop slightly, and one or more new OSs will take its place.

Horace Dediu points to similarities between Symbian’s history and Android’s. Nokia used to be the largest Symbian shareholder, but nonetheless made it an open platform that its competitors could use. However, after initial interest the competitors gradually retreated from the Symbian Foundation because there was a mismatch between Nokia, both licensor and licensee, and themselves, who were only licencees.

Something similar could easily happen to Android. Samsung, HTC, Sony Ericsson, LG, and the rest will view the new combination with suspicion. Even if Google doesn’t give Motorola unfair advantages such as early access to new OS versions, the fact that the platform vendor itself competes with them, and arguably creates a better user experience by tightly integrating hardware and software, will give them pause.

Motorola’s value

Let’s see what the press release has to say.

In 2008, Motorola bet big on Android [...]. It was a smart bet and we’re thrilled at the success they’ve achieved so far.

Funny. Not much success for Motorola. Yes, in the US and Chinese markets, but nowhere else. Currently it’s at 4% of the smartphone market and 9% of the Android market. That’s not huge.

Motorola’s current market share is definitely not the reason Google bought it. It may hope to substantially increase that market share, but that depends on a worldwide strategy, and not just a US/China-based one. That is too narrow a base to become a world player in the mobile business.

Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.

No opinion. I don’t doubt that Motorola holds some interesting patents, but I’m not qualified to judge whether the patents are the only reason for acquiring Motorola. See Mary Jo Foley’s take on what this means in the Microsoft vs. Google battle.

However, Google saying it buys Motorola only for its patents would temporarily placate the other Android vendors. So I wouldn’t be surprised if this will become the official line for the time being, regardless of Google’s actual plans.

Integration

Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers everywhere.

Google wants tight integration between hardware and software, just like Apple has. This is not a bad idea at all. One consistent criticism of Android was the relative lack of UX, when compared to iOS.

Besides, it turned out to be difficult to port Android apps from one device to another, partly for reasons of screen size. (I have always seen this problem as one of the fatal flaws of the native app camp: with a good browser and some clever CSS it’s quite easy to work around this.)

Google tried to give Android developers a standard to work against with the Nexus One and S, but that doesn’t seem to have worked — at least, I see little mention of it in the Android blogs. (Incidentally, I feel that the idea that the Nexuses were aimed at consumers is wrong. Developers were the intended target audience all along.)

Other Android vendors

This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Android as an open platform. Motorola will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. We will run Motorola as a separate business. Many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success and we look forward to continuing to work with all of them to deliver outstanding user experiences.

Don’t worry, dear Android vendors. We still love you.

Fat chance. Samsung will increase the speed with which bada is groomed as an Android competitor. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Galaxy line came to an end — at least, as Android-based devices.

As to the others, they don’t really have an OS ready to roll. Still, HTC may be able to pull through (it said ages ago that it needed its own OS, and I assume something has happened in the mean time), and the cheap Android vendors will continue to churn out cheap Android phones. It’s middle-of-the-road vendors LG and Sony Ericsson that have to make tough choices in a hurry.

MeeGo. webOS. Windows Phone. That’s the choices Android vendors have.

Windows is an obvious candidate, but it has its own problems: Skype (which the operators loathe, so they won’t sell any Windows phones for fear of it being installed), a general feeling that Microsoft doesn’t matter any more, or fear of competition from Nokia. Pick your choice.

So the acquisition could be good news for HP, which holds an important trump with webOS, although it’s clear it doesn’t have the faintest idea how to play that trump by itself. Still, HP is already in licensing discussions with Samsung, and I wouldn’t be surprised if other vendors want to enter the fray, too. Something good might happen with webOS at last, once it’s liberated from companies that don’t understand the mobile market.

Although the Nokia N950 is one slick device that clearly shows MeeGo has potential, it is less finished than webOS. Witness the MeeGo portal, where the main news is that MeeGo 1.2 has been released and supports GSM networks and several others. That’s useful if you want to make mobile phones.

To be honest I have little knowledge of the MeeGo ecosystem. Intel is the main driving force — after Nokia switched to Windows Intel was the only MeeGo founder left. Still, Nokia provided one handset (the N9), presumably because it was contractually obliged to do so.

Still, Intel may be perceived as less of a threat than Google, Microsoft, or HP, which might help some Android vendors to make the switch. I don’t know.

And if it’s neither Windows nor MeeGo nor webOS, you can always branch off your own Android. As far as I know this is still allowed, although Google won’t help you and its updates won’t be suited to your OS any more.

Feeding frenzy?

It’s too early to tell, but it could be that in the wake of this acquisition struggling smartphone vendors (Nokia, RIM, Sony Ericsson) will be bought up by companies wanting to enter the smartphone market before it’s too late.

Tomi Ahonen expects that Nokia will be one target. A Microsoft acquisition has been discussed ever since Nokia announced the Windows Phone deal, and the Motorola deal might be the thing that Microsoft needed in order to start up the process. If they don’t, somebody else might. Horace Dediu pointed out that Nokia’s share price has risen since the news broke — and that’s not because of excitement about the upcoming Windows Phone devices.

In any case, the smartphone wars haven’t stopped yet, and the “inevitability” of Android becoming dominant has received a severe blow. All options are open again, and 2012 will be yet another bloodbath year.

Update: Tomi Ahonen proposes a scenario where Google can both get what it wants from Motorola and placate the other Android vendors.

Google should first cross-pollinate with Motorola for a while, exchange engineers to create the best smartphones possible, and later on spin off Motorola again (minus crucial patents), and eventually sell most of its share. Thus Motorola and Google would get synergy advantages as well as an excellent Android-based smartphone line, and the other vendors would not be quite as afraid of Google as when it kept Motorola to itself.

My only criticism here is that the whole scheme would take about two years, and that is too much time. The other Android vendors are afraid right now, and I don’t think they’d be placated by such a plan. They will still look for an alternative to Android, and by the time Google spins off Motorola the other vendors will already have left Android for greener pastures elsewhere.

Go to Source

The U.S. government is no stranger the to app game: they’ve developed over 50 smartphone apps and mobile sites for everyday use, ranging from apps that find local alternative fueling stations to ones that can identify leaves you’ve photographed. The federal app arsenal runs the gamut for sure, but it doesn’t seem to be enough. The USA.gov blog has announced that until September 15, regular citizens like you and I can submit ideas for the next great government app.

This gesture of openness is now taking submissions on Google Moderator, and a few people have already thrown their hats into the ring. My favorite so far? LarryM from Baltimore has a good one:

“Collect and publish the latitude and longitude coordinates of all government office that are open to the general public (e.g., Social Security District Offices) so that mapping programs such as Bing/Google maps can display locations accurately.”

Personally, I’d like to see an app that uses a device’s location services to figure out what state and district it’s in, and display recent activity from the pertinent Congressman. Nothing like some local accountability in the palm of your hand, right?

Since Google Moderator is being used to manage all these submissions, users are essentially able to upvote good suggestions, so the inevitable vague or trollish submissions won’t make it too far. There’s already a questionable suggestion or two (including one that isn’t a suggestion at all) in the mix, which understandably haven’t garned much love.

The USA.gov blog doesn’t say that the most popular suggestions will definitely make it into the development stage, but if the “winning” choices are technically feasible and novel enough, it should stand a decent chance of becoming a reality. If the chance to have the government bring your app idea to life has you chomping at the bit, then mosey on over to the site and let loose — I’d love to see what a thoughtful audience like ours can come up with.

Go to Source

The U.S. government is no stranger the to app game: they’ve developed over 50 smartphone apps and mobile sites for everyday use, ranging from apps that find local alternative fueling stations to ones that can identify leaves you’ve photographed. The federal app arsenal runs the gamut for sure, but it doesn’t seem to be enough. The USA.gov blog has announced that until September 15, regular citizens like you and I can submit ideas for the next great government app.

This gesture of openness is now taking submissions on Google Moderator, and a few people have already thrown their hats into the ring. My favorite so far? LarryM from Baltimore has a good one:

“Collect and publish the latitude and longitude coordinates of all government office that are open to the general public (e.g., Social Security District Offices) so that mapping programs such as Bing/Google maps can display locations accurately.”

Personally, I’d like to see an app that uses a device’s location services to figure out what state and district it’s in, and display recent activity from the pertinent Congressman. Nothing like some local accountability in the palm of your hand, right?

Since Google Moderator is being used to manage all these submissions, users are essentially able to upvote good suggestions, so the inevitable vague or trollish submissions won’t make it too far. There’s already a questionable suggestion or two (including one that isn’t a suggestion at all) in the mix, which understandably haven’t garned much love.

The USA.gov blog doesn’t say that the most popular suggestions will definitely make it into the development stage, but if the “winning” choices are technically feasible and novel enough, it should stand a decent chance of becoming a reality. If the chance to have the government bring your app idea to life has you chomping at the bit, then mosey on over to the site and let loose — I’d love to see what a thoughtful audience like ours can come up with.

Go to Source

Digital loyalty startup Chatterfly today launched its new rewards program for businesses and consumers in the form of a smartphone application for iPhone and Android. Like similar startups, including the now Google-owned Punchd, Chatterfly aims to replace the paper loyalty card with a more modern, digital version.

But Chatterfly isn’t only focused on making businesses’ punchcards mobile. It’s a complete loyalty system that offers business owners the opportunity to engage their customers in other ways, including through social media sites, via QR codes, in-store promotions and more.

As with any traditional loyalty program, businesses on Chatterfly can reward customers for making purchases in the store, but they can also reward them for sharing their experiences on social sties like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Google+.

With Chatterfly, customers earn points, which is a different model than the typical “buy 10 get 1 free” model that’s popular today. These points can either be redeemed at the local business or for Chatterfly’s own rewards – the choice is up to the consumer.

And because it works as a mobile application, Chatterfly can take advantage of the smartphone’s camera to scan special QR codes tied to promotions. For example, the company suggests that a store could host an in-store scavenger hunt to entice new customers to drop by. Or, if the business wanted to do something simpler, it could just offer points to those who scan a QR code in the shop.

On its own, the idea of rewarding loyalty customers is a good one, but the app itself needs quite a bit of polish, we think. Black-and-white pictures? Uneven layout? Yikes.

Of course, there’s still the challenge of convincing business owners to actually use the service, too. But Chatterfly is a little bit ahead there. Prior to launching, the company ran beta tests in the San Francisco Bay area with over 100 businesses, and said it received many positive responses.

The company itself is based in San Mateo, where it was founded in June 2010 by Charles Michael Yim, formerly in business development at Fortify Software. It is privately funded.

Chatterfly says the iPhone and Android versions of the app are available now and more platforms are coming soon.

Go to Source

Digital loyalty startup Chatterfly today launched its new rewards program for businesses and consumers in the form of a smartphone application for iPhone and Android. Like similar startups, including the now Google-owned Punchd, Chatterfly aims to replace the paper loyalty card with a more modern, digital version.

But Chatterfly isn’t only focused on making businesses’ punchcards mobile. It’s a complete loyalty system that offers business owners the opportunity to engage their customers in other ways, including through social media sites, via QR codes, in-store promotions and more.

As with any traditional loyalty program, businesses on Chatterfly can reward customers for making purchases in the store, but they can also reward them for sharing their experiences on social sties like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Google+.

With Chatterfly, customers earn points, which is a different model than the typical “buy 10 get 1 free” model that’s popular today. These points can either be redeemed at the local business or for Chatterfly’s own rewards – the choice is up to the consumer.

And because it works as a mobile application, Chatterfly can take advantage of the smartphone’s camera to scan special QR codes tied to promotions. For example, the company suggests that a store could host an in-store scavenger hunt to entice new customers to drop by. Or, if the business wanted to do something simpler, it could just offer points to those who scan a QR code in the shop.

On its own, the idea of rewarding loyalty customers is a good one, but the app itself needs quite a bit of polish, we think. Black-and-white pictures? Uneven layout? Yikes.

Of course, there’s still the challenge of convincing business owners to actually use the service, too. But Chatterfly is a little bit ahead there. Prior to launching, the company ran beta tests in the San Francisco Bay area with over 100 businesses, and said it received many positive responses.

The company itself is based in San Mateo, where it was founded in June 2010 by Charles Michael Yim, formerly in business development at Fortify Software. It is privately funded.

Chatterfly says the iPhone and Android versions of the app are available now and more platforms are coming soon.

Go to Source

A serial entrepreneur, Kevin O’Connor’s latest venture is FindTheBest, a company that offers comparisons on everything from credit cards to golf courses. Prior to FindTheBest Kevin was a founder of DoubleClick, which Google ended up buying for $3 billion.

In this episode of Founder Stories, O’Connor takes us back before his DoubleClick days to when he joined Atlanta’s Internet Security Systems during its infancy. He tells host Chris Dixon what a 20-year old college dropout had to do with him signing with the startup. Speaking of those early days, O’Connor says, “I don’t think any of us realized it would be a billion dollar company.”

Below, O’Connor discusses life after ISS and the path he and  Dwight Merriman took en route to creating DoubleClick. He says the two quit their jobs, spent six months brainstorming products and initially struck out with a job service site. As O’Connor tells Dixon, the two “made a fundamental mistake” while pitching potential clients.

Dusting themselves off, they struck gold while conceiving scores of ideas out of O’Connor’s basement. The idea for DoubleClick was crowned the winner and after taking center stage O’Connor says, “I went upstairs and I told my wife… the search is over, tomorrow we start the business.”

Make sure to watch both videos for additional insights along with past episodes of Founder Stories which can be found here, especially this one with former DoubleClick CEO Kevin Ryan.

Go to Source

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.

Go to Source

Since last June, W3C has taken up the task of creating a uniform specification for all browser manufacturers to adopt. This specification includes a suite of JavaScript APIs that enable browsers to determine how much time certain fundamental tasks may consume – changing the active page, loading a page into memory, downloading any discrete amount of data from a server.

Sponsor

The goal is not just to give speed freaks like me a new and unchallengeable method of measuring how long it takes to load a Web page. When a script loaded into a browser is capable of measuring the workload capacity of that browser, it may be able to tailor the workload to suit the browser. This is especially critical, W3C determined, in a broadening environment where Web apps designed to be capable of running entire factories can run on smartphones.

In a test case published last month by Microsoft, which co-chairs the W3C’s Web Performance Working Group, a browser becomes capable of determining when the monitor is ready to receive the next frame of animation, using a new API called requestAnimationFrame. The technique is similar to what developers use today with JS statements such as setTimeout and setInterval, explained IE Program Manager Jatinder Mann. “The key difference is that it notifies the application when the browser needs to update the screen, and only when the browser needs to update the screen. It keeps Web applications perfectly aligned with the browser’s painting, and uses only the necessary amount of resources.”

When W3C fully standardizes this API function, browsers will be able to implement it without use of brand-specific prefixes, which various manufacturers use for safety reasons. The final form of that function in a JS instruction looks something like this: if (window.requestAnimationFrame) window.requestAnimationFrame(draw);, where draw points to the single callback function that executes the drawing.

“Resource Timing, User Timing, and Performance Timeline specifications are all in the Last Call phase of specification,” Mann wrote today. “Last Call is a signal that the working group believes the spec is functionally complete and is ready for broad review from both other working groups and the public at large. This Last Call period extends until September 15, 2011.”

Mann is the co-author, along with Working Group chair Arvind Jain of Google, of the latest draft of the Page Visibility specification, whose Last Call phase expires September 8. The Performance Timing and Navigation Timing specs work in concert to enable scripts to effectively time the complete page loading phase, rather than wait for the entire JavaScript content to be loaded first – which is the current situation. Although W3C specifications clearly state, “The interface provided by this work does not intend to be used as any sort of performance benchmark for user agents,” you can bet that this is precisely what it will be used for the moment it’s made public.

In celebrating the first year of the Working Group’s operation, Microsoft’s Mann wrote, “It’s encouraging to see how much progress we’ve collectively made in just one year. These APIs are a great example of how quickly new ideas can become interoperable standards that developers can depend on in modern HTML5-enabled browsers.”

Discuss

Go to Source

Since last June, W3C has taken up the task of creating a uniform specification for all browser manufacturers to adopt. This specification includes a suite of JavaScript APIs that enable browsers to determine how much time certain fundamental tasks may consume – changing the active page, loading a page into memory, downloading any discrete amount of data from a server.

Sponsor

The goal is not just to give speed freaks like me a new and unchallengeable method of measuring how long it takes to load a Web page. When a script loaded into a browser is capable of measuring the workload capacity of that browser, it may be able to tailor the workload to suit the browser. This is especially critical, W3C determined, in a broadening environment where Web apps designed to be capable of running entire factories can run on smartphones.

In a test case published last month by Microsoft, which co-chairs the W3C’s Web Performance Working Group, a browser becomes capable of determining when the monitor is ready to receive the next frame of animation, using a new API called requestAnimationFrame. The technique is similar to what developers use today with JS statements such as setTimeout and setInterval, explained IE Program Manager Jatinder Mann. “The key difference is that it notifies the application when the browser needs to update the screen, and only when the browser needs to update the screen. It keeps Web applications perfectly aligned with the browser’s painting, and uses only the necessary amount of resources.”

When W3C fully standardizes this API function, browsers will be able to implement it without use of brand-specific prefixes, which various manufacturers use for safety reasons. The final form of that function in a JS instruction looks something like this: if (window.requestAnimationFrame) window.requestAnimationFrame(draw);, where draw points to the single callback function that executes the drawing.

“Resource Timing, User Timing, and Performance Timeline specifications are all in the Last Call phase of specification,” Mann wrote today. “Last Call is a signal that the working group believes the spec is functionally complete and is ready for broad review from both other working groups and the public at large. This Last Call period extends until September 15, 2011.”

Mann is the co-author, along with Working Group chair Arvind Jain of Google, of the latest draft of the Page Visibility specification, whose Last Call phase expires September 8. The Performance Timing and Navigation Timing specs work in concert to enable scripts to effectively time the complete page loading phase, rather than wait for the entire JavaScript content to be loaded first – which is the current situation. Although W3C specifications clearly state, “The interface provided by this work does not intend to be used as any sort of performance benchmark for user agents,” you can bet that this is precisely what it will be used for the moment it’s made public.

In celebrating the first year of the Working Group’s operation, Microsoft’s Mann wrote, “It’s encouraging to see how much progress we’ve collectively made in just one year. These APIs are a great example of how quickly new ideas can become interoperable standards that developers can depend on in modern HTML5-enabled browsers.”

Discuss

Go to Source

Since last June, W3C has taken up the task of creating a uniform specification for all browser manufacturers to adopt. This specification includes a suite of JavaScript APIs that enable browsers to determine how much time certain fundamental tasks may consume – changing the active page, loading a page into memory, downloading any discrete amount of data from a server.

Sponsor

The goal is not just to give speed freaks like me a new and unchallengeable method of measuring how long it takes to load a Web page. When a script loaded into a browser is capable of measuring the workload capacity of that browser, it may be able to tailor the workload to suit the browser. This is especially critical, W3C determined, in a broadening environment where Web apps designed to be capable of running entire factories can run on smartphones.

In a test case published last month by Microsoft, which co-chairs the W3C’s Web Performance Working Group, a browser becomes capable of determining when the monitor is ready to receive the next frame of animation, using a new API called requestAnimationFrame. The technique is similar to what developers use today with JS statements such as setTimeout and setInterval, explained IE Program Manager Jatinder Mann. “The key difference is that it notifies the application when the browser needs to update the screen, and only when the browser needs to update the screen. It keeps Web applications perfectly aligned with the browser’s painting, and uses only the necessary amount of resources.”

When W3C fully standardizes this API function, browsers will be able to implement it without use of brand-specific prefixes, which various manufacturers use for safety reasons. The final form of that function in a JS instruction looks something like this: if (window.requestAnimationFrame) window.requestAnimationFrame(draw);, where draw points to the single callback function that executes the drawing.

“Resource Timing, User Timing, and Performance Timeline specifications are all in the Last Call phase of specification,” Mann wrote today. “Last Call is a signal that the working group believes the spec is functionally complete and is ready for broad review from both other working groups and the public at large. This Last Call period extends until September 15, 2011.”

Mann is the co-author, along with Working Group chair Arvind Jain of Google, of the latest draft of the Page Visibility specification, whose Last Call phase expires September 8. The Performance Timing and Navigation Timing specs work in concert to enable scripts to effectively time the complete page loading phase, rather than wait for the entire JavaScript content to be loaded first – which is the current situation. Although W3C specifications clearly state, “The interface provided by this work does not intend to be used as any sort of performance benchmark for user agents,” you can bet that this is precisely what it will be used for the moment it’s made public.

In celebrating the first year of the Working Group’s operation, Microsoft’s Mann wrote, “It’s encouraging to see how much progress we’ve collectively made in just one year. These APIs are a great example of how quickly new ideas can become interoperable standards that developers can depend on in modern HTML5-enabled browsers.”

Discuss

Go to Source

Since last June, W3C has taken up the task of creating a uniform specification for all browser manufacturers to adopt. This specification includes a suite of JavaScript APIs that enable browsers to determine how much time certain fundamental tasks may consume – changing the active page, loading a page into memory, downloading any discrete amount of data from a server.

Sponsor

The goal is not just to give speed freaks like me a new and unchallengeable method of measuring how long it takes to load a Web page. When a script loaded into a browser is capable of measuring the workload capacity of that browser, it may be able to tailor the workload to suit the browser. This is especially critical, W3C determined, in a broadening environment where Web apps designed to be capable of running entire factories can run on smartphones.

In a test case published last month by Microsoft, which co-chairs the W3C’s Web Performance Working Group, a browser becomes capable of determining when the monitor is ready to receive the next frame of animation, using a new API called requestAnimationFrame. The technique is similar to what developers use today with JS statements such as setTimeout and setInterval, explained IE Program Manager Jatinder Mann. “The key difference is that it notifies the application when the browser needs to update the screen, and only when the browser needs to update the screen. It keeps Web applications perfectly aligned with the browser’s painting, and uses only the necessary amount of resources.”

When W3C fully standardizes this API function, browsers will be able to implement it without use of brand-specific prefixes, which various manufacturers use for safety reasons. The final form of that function in a JS instruction looks something like this: if (window.requestAnimationFrame) window.requestAnimationFrame(draw);, where draw points to the single callback function that executes the drawing.

“Resource Timing, User Timing, and Performance Timeline specifications are all in the Last Call phase of specification,” Mann wrote today. “Last Call is a signal that the working group believes the spec is functionally complete and is ready for broad review from both other working groups and the public at large. This Last Call period extends until September 15, 2011.”

Mann is the co-author, along with Working Group chair Arvind Jain of Google, of the latest draft of the Page Visibility specification, whose Last Call phase expires September 8. The Performance Timing and Navigation Timing specs work in concert to enable scripts to effectively time the complete page loading phase, rather than wait for the entire JavaScript content to be loaded first – which is the current situation. Although W3C specifications clearly state, “The interface provided by this work does not intend to be used as any sort of performance benchmark for user agents,” you can bet that this is precisely what it will be used for the moment it’s made public.

In celebrating the first year of the Working Group’s operation, Microsoft’s Mann wrote, “It’s encouraging to see how much progress we’ve collectively made in just one year. These APIs are a great example of how quickly new ideas can become interoperable standards that developers can depend on in modern HTML5-enabled browsers.”

Discuss

Go to Source

You answered, and we culled your responses from Google Plus, Twitter and Facebook, and used Storify to present it all back to you. If you have additional responses, please leave them in the comments.

Sponsor

View “How do you feel about the 20th anniversary of Linux?” on Storify

Discuss

Go to Source

You answered, and we culled your responses from Google Plus, Twitter and Facebook, and used Storify to present it all back to you. If you have additional responses, please leave them in the comments.

Sponsor

View “How do you feel about the 20th anniversary of Linux?” on Storify

Discuss

Go to Source

You answered, and we culled your responses from Google Plus, Twitter and Facebook, and used Storify to present it all back to you. If you have additional responses, please leave them in the comments.

Sponsor

View “How do you feel about the 20th anniversary of Linux?” on Storify

Discuss

Go to Source

Last week, we reported on a leaked blog post from Google indicating that a new native search app is coming to Android as well, but that update still hasn’t been released.

Sponsor

The Google Search app offers much more power and convenience than the search bar built into the Safari browser. It offers voice queries and even photo recognition queries (in addition to text), it serves as a QR code reader and it’s a quick launcher for Google’s other mobile Web apps. Its main drawback before this update was its fiddly navigation. This update adds a drop-down menu right before the search query, allowing the user to quickly filter the search results by medium, speeding up results and reducing the number of necessary gestures.

The added support for Instant Pages could be a killer feature, but the advantages are not yet clear. Instant Pages pre-loads certain pages in the background, like the next page of search results, page two of a news article or, in some cases, the search result Google thinks you’re most likely to click. This technology requires support from the browser, so it’s currently an advantage of Google Chrome on the desktop. Solid implementation of Instant Pages in the Google Search iOS app could even further widen its advantage over mobile Safari, since speed on a mobile device is at a premium.

But there are some stumbling blocks. Cellular data connections might often be too slow for Instant Pages to pre-load, anyway, although that would merely bring the app onto par with any other way of searching on the device. The real problem is for users with capped data plans, who might not want Google to go pre-loading Web pages willy nilly. There doesn’t appear to be a way to turn off Instant Pages in the app’s settings, so users concerned about data consumption might want to use the app with caution.

Google Search for iPad’s new help interface:

Do you use native apps for Google search on your mobile device, or just the browser bar?

Discuss

Go to Source

Last week, we reported on a leaked blog post from Google indicating that a new native search app is coming to Android as well, but that update still hasn’t been released.

Sponsor

The Google Search app offers much more power and convenience than the search bar built into the Safari browser. It offers voice queries and even photo recognition queries (in addition to text), it serves as a QR code reader and it’s a quick launcher for Google’s other mobile Web apps. Its main drawback before this update was its fiddly navigation. This update adds a drop-down menu right before the search query, allowing the user to quickly filter the search results by medium, speeding up results and reducing the number of necessary gestures.

The added support for Instant Pages could be a killer feature, but the advantages are not yet clear. Instant Pages pre-loads certain pages in the background, like the next page of search results, page two of a news article or, in some cases, the search result Google thinks you’re most likely to click. This technology requires support from the browser, so it’s currently an advantage of Google Chrome on the desktop. Solid implementation of Instant Pages in the Google Search iOS app could even further widen its advantage over mobile Safari, since speed on a mobile device is at a premium.

But there are some stumbling blocks. Cellular data connections might often be too slow for Instant Pages to pre-load, anyway, although that would merely bring the app onto par with any other way of searching on the device. The real problem is for users with capped data plans, who might not want Google to go pre-loading Web pages willy nilly. There doesn’t appear to be a way to turn off Instant Pages in the app’s settings, so users concerned about data consumption might want to use the app with caution.

Google Search for iPad’s new help interface:

Do you use native apps for Google search on your mobile device, or just the browser bar?

Discuss

Go to Source

Last week, we reported on a leaked blog post from Google indicating that a new native search app is coming to Android as well, but that update still hasn’t been released.

Sponsor

The Google Search app offers much more power and convenience than the search bar built into the Safari browser. It offers voice queries and even photo recognition queries (in addition to text), it serves as a QR code reader and it’s a quick launcher for Google’s other mobile Web apps. Its main drawback before this update was its fiddly navigation. This update adds a drop-down menu right before the search query, allowing the user to quickly filter the search results by medium, speeding up results and reducing the number of necessary gestures.

The added support for Instant Pages could be a killer feature, but the advantages are not yet clear. Instant Pages pre-loads certain pages in the background, like the next page of search results, page two of a news article or, in some cases, the search result Google thinks you’re most likely to click. This technology requires support from the browser, so it’s currently an advantage of Google Chrome on the desktop. Solid implementation of Instant Pages in the Google Search iOS app could even further widen its advantage over mobile Safari, since speed on a mobile device is at a premium.

But there are some stumbling blocks. Cellular data connections might often be too slow for Instant Pages to pre-load, anyway, although that would merely bring the app onto par with any other way of searching on the device. The real problem is for users with capped data plans, who might not want Google to go pre-loading Web pages willy nilly. There doesn’t appear to be a way to turn off Instant Pages in the app’s settings, so users concerned about data consumption might want to use the app with caution.

Google Search for iPad’s new help interface:

Do you use native apps for Google search on your mobile device, or just the browser bar?

Discuss

Go to Source

More and more people are becoming aware of A/B split testing and not without reason. Case studies and examples show how greatly testing can improve a site’s performance, usability and conversions. What’s more, it costs you comparatively nothing. There are plenty of useful tools already made like Google Website Optimizer which cost you nothing. Continue reading to find comprehensive guides on A/B split testing, exciting case studies, useful tools and resources.

A Few Quick Tips To Get You Started

Know what to test

The goal of A/B split testing is to improve your website’s performance, not to build a whole website. Find out what exactly you want to test before testing it. Help out with case studies and have a closer look at your own website. If you’re not sure start with a bit. Some of the most popular things to test are call to action buttons, headlines, forms, text length and layout.

Give it time

Don’t jump to any conclusions after you’ve run the test for a couple of days. A solid A/B split test might even take a month. Giving up too early on a test will only cost you time and the results will be marginal. Once you start seeing a solid path where the results are going you can close the test or start a new one. There are also calculators available to test results confidence if you’re unsure.

Analyze results

You’ve run your first A/B test, great, now what? Don’t take it for granted that the test version is always a better solution. Examine your results carefully and see where the flaws were and what you could improve even more. One test often won’t be enough. You’ll have to do several or even a multivariate one. Once you’ve done a decent amount of tests you’ll see where the actual results are going.

Mix it up

Like you just found out – one test won’t be enough. Be creative with your tests. Don’t stick to the ordinary A/B option, 50/50 audience. Create various templates and vary the proportions. Change something else in each test. At the end you’ll have rich and valuable material to analyze. However don’t get too fancy. Don’t torture your regular visitors with too many testing. Address tests to your new visitors then see how they adapt. To sum up, follow the guidelines but don’t take them as a must. Be creative with some limitations though.

Case study

Case study from Visual Website Optimizer blog. Read the full article here.

In the screenshot above you can see Basekit’s original pricing page (on the left) and the redesign (on the right) which increased conversations by 25%. The goal was to increase the number of people who visit the Buy Now page after visiting their Plans and Pricing page.

As you can see the redesigned page is more organized, smoother, cleaner, brighter and more user friendly. This design showed a consistent 25% improvement in conversations for the entire duration of the test.

Even though they accomplished their goal with this redesign, they’re already working on a new redesign to do another split test. As we already discussed – the key to success lots of tests.

This A/B test showed the importance of pricing table design. Remember that pricing table article we did recently? It’s a great example of efficient A/B testing in action.

Articles & Tutorials

1. The Ultimate Guide To A/B Testing

This article by Paras Chopra, the founder of Visual Website Optimizer, is meant to be the best guide you will ever need for A/B testing.

2. Split Testing Landing Pages to Boost Conversions

Running split tests on campaign landing pages is an important way to test and optimise conversions. Learn how to use split tests and optimize landing pages.

3. Using Google Analytics to get insights from A/B testing

In this article Felipe Wesbonk from Traffic Builders explains the integration from VWO (Visual Website Optimizer) in Google Analytics and the way you can use this plugin in making custom reports.

4. How to Do A/B Split Testing on Your Mailing List

Learn how to perform split testing in your mailing campaigns, check out case study and improve your results.

5. A Crash Course on A-B Split Testing

Another article giving you an insight in AB testing advantages and disadvantages.

6. The Pitfalls Of A/B Ad Split Testing, Part 2

Article digging into ad testing and examining some pitfalls of AB ad split testing

7. A/B Split Testing vs. Multivariate: Pros & Cons.

Which of the two primary testing methods should you employ? Find out pros and cons of each test, when to use them together and why.

8. Gathering Variables for A/B Split Testing

This article will take a look at elements of a website that should affect its users, teach you what to test and where to gain ideas.

9. Split Testing

Very detailed and comprehensive article about split testing basics, showing how these tests work, case study and tools to do the job.

10. Fundamentals of A/B and Multivariate Testing

Look at the fundamentals of both A/B and multivariate testing and learn how to create a split test step by step.

Case studies

1. Ecommerce website? Bring price and add-to-cart button closer to increase sales

Insight into Taylor Gifts A/B test they recently did to improve add-to-cart clickthrough.

2. You should follow me on twitter

Dustin Curtis outlines his experiment with Twitter links and shows the power language has on clickthrough rates.

3. Split testing works. A very short case study from AgileTask.

Short case study showing how call to action buttons can significally improve user reactions.

4. Writing Decisions: Headline tests on the Highrise signup page

37signals was experimenting and rotated some headlines and subheads on the Highrise signup page to see if headlines have an effect on signups. Want to know the answer?

5. Split Testing: How To Increase Your Adsense Earnings 94% Overnight

In this post Brian Armstrong from StartBreakingFree.com shares some tips on using Split Testing to increase his AdSense earnings.

6. Skype Boosts Homepage Conversion Rate with Radical Simplicity

Skype designed two new homepages to draw user focus to the call to action. See which was the most succesful option.

7. Google Website Optimizer Case Study: Daily Burn, 20%+ Improvement

This post will show exactly how one start-up improved their homepage conversion rate (visitor to sign-up flow) more than 20%, then 16% again, with a few simple changes and Google Website Optimizer.

8. A/B Test Case Study: Can Split Test Results Be Trusted?

Little A/B experiment done for the Official Vancouver 2010 Olympic Store to optimize conversion.

9. How to Double Your Subscriber Growth With 10 Minutes Work

See some split testing examples, learn how to do one yourself and find out which web elements to test and why.

10. A/B testing browser extensions: do annoying notifications cause uninstallations?

Most people refer to web pages when they talk about A/B testing. However, A/B testing can be useful in other domains too. At InvisibleHand, Visual Website Optimiser was used to test the performance of different versions of a browser extension.

Tools & Resources

1. Google Website Optimizer

Google Website Optimizer is the easiest and cheapest tool to do A/B and multivariate tests.

2. Visual Website Optimizer

Visual Website Optimizer is an easy to use A/B testing tool featuring point-and-click test designer and WYSIWYG editor for creating variations. If you aren’t sure if Google Website Optimizer will work for you this is definitely the second best choice.

3. VWO Free Testing Tools

Visual Website Optimizer also offers four great free tools split testing. These include landing page analyzer, test significance calculator, test duration calculator and A/B Ideafox where you can gain ideas for various A/B tests.

4. genitify

genitfy enables webpage authors to accelerate their development cycles. It is like A/B testing but it goes beyond it.

5. A/B Theme Testing Plugin (premium)

This WordPress plugin rotates themes to assign them evenly between visitors.

6. Vanity

Vanity is an experiment driven development framework for Rails. It will help you to create and run A/B tests though it requires some heavy knowledge.

7. phpScenario

phpScenario is an object-oriented split testing library written in PHP. It’s designed to do simple A/B testing with as little code as possible, but should also be as powerful as you need it to be.

8. ShrimpTest

ShrimpTest is an A/B testing solution for WordPress under development at Automattic.

9. WhichTestWon

A/B split testing showcase with nearly 150 case studies. Yet you can only view one per week for free.

10. ABTests

Showcase of various split tests with screenshots, results and comments.

Go to Source

Chrome Related shows other semi-relevant pages

Google has released a new service entitled Google Related, a "browser assistant" Chrome extension intended to direct users to webpages on the same topic as the one they’re currently viewing. While some applications of the service, like getting extra info during a restaurant search, are useful, some others produce unhelpful suggestions in a framework that should be more trainable than it is.

Once you have the Google Related extension installed, a bar will begin appearing along the bottom of certain types of pages, such as news, shopping, or restaurant websites. Various tabs allow you access to content related to that page–visiting a restaurant’s website may produce a tab with a Google map of the restaurant’s address, a second tab with reviews, and a third tab of related locations (as identified by Google Maps).

The restaurant website suggestions are the most coherent, as the previous list nails exactly what I’m looking for when I look up a restaurant. But some of the tabs are too selective and Google-centric (unsurprisingly), as when the Reviews tab produces Google Places reviews and links to the Urban Spoon page, but not to Yelp.

A Google Related tab produced from a news story concerning an HTC vs. Apple patent spat.

Visiting a page with a news story will produce a dropdown (or more accurately, a shoot-up) of culled news stories on the same topic from other sources. The displayed stories seem limited to the most recent updates you might find at the top of a Google News search, a format better for the rarer breaking stories than authoritative ones getting picked up over and over in brief by multiple news outlets. The pullquote in the HTC vs. Apple-produced tab above is a nice feature, but the content is only barely related to the story.

What the extension lacks the most is the ability to train it. Links offered from the Related bar are +1-able, but if you click the "View More Articles" link from the story above, you get a get a long list of stories from various outlets that can’t be +1′d. This strikes us as a prime opportunity to teach Google Related which sources you trust or would like to see in your related news tab when you visit a news story. Still, true to Google form, Google is collecting statistics on the project, so we may be training it more than we know.

Given Google’s recent "more wood behind fewer arrows" declaration, the only-partially-useful Related is a mystifying addition to the company’s product slate in its current state. The extension is available today for all Chrome users.

This article originally appeared on Ars Technica, Wired’s sister site for in-depth technology news.

Go to Source

Go to Source

Go to Source

  

With Google+ hitting the scene, many in the design and development communities have had their productivity schedules thrown up in the air. This latest development in the social media networking waters has caused many to once more, begin losing themselves and their time to that old familiar interloper. So we have had requests from readers, on ways that we can spend less time with social media and actually get some work done.

This tends to happen with any major development in the social media fields. Suddenly, that finely tuned balance many of us worked to strike for the sake of our professional productivity has to be reworked so we do not fall behind the trends that steer the conversations in the community, or on our responsibilities at work. Some of us have yet to find that balance, and now have a new wrench in the equation to cope with and consider.

Below are some tips that we hope will help out in this respect. There are several suggestions that can keep us on track beyond downright avoidance. And given that most of us rely on social media in one way or another for some aspect of our business lives, we have to make time for this tool.

Rigid Scheduling

One of the most obvious turns that helps with this is to adopt a strict schedule for when to visit these networks, and more importantly, when to unplug and stay away from them. This can be tricky, especially when we consider how effective we need our social media exploits to be, the optimal times for being on to interact with those we follow, and all the other considerations that end up figuring into this equation.

Once you consider these factors, you may find that there are days you can possibly avoid any kind of serious social media engagements altogether. Days where you simply check in and skim the surface. Naturally, it would take some work to get there, but it may be vital to keep this necessary evil from taking over our days. The most important factor to the scheduling though, is keeping to it. Not letting time get away from us, causing us to spend more time than we intended there.

Make it About Interacting

One way to help cut down on the time you end up wasting via the various social media circuits is to strictly make it about the networking. It can be easy to lose sight sometimes that these networks are not about the gaming or anything else that turns meaningful business building time into a time suck. We need to make sure that our time is well spent, and to do so, we have to focus on the interactions. Often the promotion of our content takes precedence, but the two are not mutually exclusive.

The great thing about these platforms is the way that they lend themselves as instigators of discussions. There is so much that we can accomplish for our fields, our businesses, and ourselves through sharing and engaging with our followers and colleagues. So we cannot just write off the benefits of using these platforms effectively to enhance our overall experience in our respective fields by communicating and connecting with others through them.

Ignore the Mobile Draw

One of the reasons that many of us have a hard time turning away from the different networks is because of the amount of access to them we have these days. With so many mobile web devices on the market and in use throughout the field, it is increasingly getting easier to lose an hour or two down the social media rabbit hole. Just as we need to stick to our schedule, we also need to not take the networks with us everywhere we go. The more access we have, the more temptation we face.

Now with the number of apps designed specifically towards allowing for this uninterrupted access, our initial instincts tend to push us in that direction. But just as the old saying goes, ‘too much of a good thing can be bad’, that rule of thumb applies here as well. If we find that we have to have our mobile devices outfitted with social media access, then we might need to try and isolate our network use to only those times when we are using our mobile devices.

Filter Out the Noise

Given that we are now trying to scale back the time we invest, we want to ensure that we are not undercutting our experience overall. So we want to try and filter out the noise from our various social media streams, and cut those followers that are not actually adding any true value to the discussions. Making these cuts is essential for saving time while getting the most out of the interactions. To maximize our social media input/output.

Naturally we will each have to gauge on our own, which followers end up on the cutting room floor, so to speak, and which ones last. Only we know the true value of those we follow, so it will take somewhat of an investment on our part to get the ball rolling. Once we have trimmed the fat from our lists, we can maintain them on a regular basis to ensure that the time we invest continues to yield the best results.

Foster Connections Out of the Arenas

One of the things that we have to start learning to do more with social media, is to use it as more of a launching pad for connections and conversations, but then move those interactions out of those arenas to further develop them. This will also help to prevent us from being distracted from the ongoing dialogs by unrelated interruptions that tend to crop up from our various streams. The various networks may have made the connections possible, but taking them out of those waters can allow them to evolve in new ways. Stronger ways.

Quality Not Quantity

With all of the social media networks that are out there, it is easy to fall into the trap of trying to populate and establish a presence in them all. What is a much better approach is to chose only those networks that suit our needs and business interests the best. More often than not, if we try to take on every network we can get into, we will quickly diminish our voices in them all until we are just part of the noise that others end up filtering out.

Just like we do not tend to just follow back every person or brand that follows us, we cannot try to take our brand effectively across each available network without a dedicated team to tackle only this task. So we have to be somewhat choosy. Not to mention wise, with our choices.

Show Up to the Game

One tempting evolution in the social media playing fields is the automated sharing systems that have cropped up all over, giving users the opportunity to setup their accounts to share information even when they are not actually there. This does little for improving our social media interactions, and in fact, can build the amount of noise we come into when we actually do check in. If we have had our account working in our absence, then by the time we are back in the driver’s seat, we could have a large supply of replies and responses to sort through sapping our time.

Not only do these automated services keep our interactions one-sided and can prevent us from getting much of a return on our social media investment, they can make us seem as though we are ignoring any of our followers who are attempting to connect with us at the time they see us sharing. So it might serve our business interests best to only have our accounts being active and sharing when we are there to actively steer and engage our feeds and followers.

Tools to Help

HootSuite will save you time by allowing you to view all of your social media profiles in one place

LeechBlock is a Firefox addon that allows you to block any site for any time period

StayFocused will do the same thing for Chrome users

The article Automatically Block Websites On a Schedule links to a script that allows you to block sites on your Mac complete with instructions on using it

K9 Web Protection is meant to be used as a parental control but can also easily be used as a productivity booster

To Conclude

Armed with these various tips, we hope that you will find a bit more productive social media endeavors coming your way. We understand that not every tip will work for everyone, but with a combination of one or two you might find a recipe that yields some success. What tips would you offer for spending less time on social media networks, and more on actual design and development work? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

(rb)

Go to Source

Advertise here with BSA

HybridAuth is an open source PHP library for authenticating through multiple social services and ID providers.

The services supported include OpenID,Facebook, LinkedIn, Google,Twitter, Windows Live, Foursquare, Vimeo, Yahoo, PayPal and more.

It can be integrated easily into existing websites by inserting a file and few lines to the sign-in/up pages.

Once authenticated, HybridAuth provides the connected user profile's in a rich, simple and standardized structure across all the social APIs.

And, besides authentication, the library enables us to interact with the social API client that the users are connected to.

Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets

Advertisements:
Professional XHTML Admin Template ($15 Discount With The Code: WRD.)
Psd to Xhtml
SSLmatic – Cheap SSL Certificates (from $19.99/year)

Go to Source

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Tapl.io

Quick Pitch: Tapl.io senses when you visit a Tapl.io-supported site and what place you’re looking at. Then it finds that place’s profiles on other supported sites.

Genius Idea: Simplified Place search.

“We want to eliminate all the unnecessary searches that people are having to make,” Sam Beaudin says of the vision behind startup Tapl.io.

Tapl.io is a new browser application that puts a venue’s various web profiles — across Facebook Places, Foodspotting, Foursquare, Google Places, Yelp, OpenTable, TripAdvisor, Citysearch and others — side-by-side for faster access.

“I don’t want to go to ten sites to learn about one place,” Beaudin says. “Tapl.io was born out of necessity. We wanted to make a seamless search experience and allow all these sites, previously siloed, to work in unison.”

Tapl.io, available as a browser extension for Chrome and Safari, delivers what it promises. Find a restaurant on Yelp (or on any of Tapl.io’s supported sites), as you normally would, and a browser toolbar will appear with tabs for each of the restaurant’s other web profiles.

You can also click the share button to tweet or Facebook share a place’s many profiles — in the same tabbed-view that you see — and share that experience with friends who haven’t installed Tapl.io’s browser extension.

Tapl.io, says Beaudin, keeps track of the tabs you use most and clumps those in the upper left-hand corner for faster access. “It customizes itself to a person’s unique search patterns.”

The startup is currently focused on enhancing the restaurant vertical but is in the process of extending its coverage to include travel and venue sites.

Increasingly, mobile users are turning to applications to look up place-related info. Does Tapl.io translate to a mobile environment? Not in its current form, Beaudin says. But the startup is already testing out a few different mobile applications, he adds.

Tapl.io’s simplified search logic seems to match up with Google’s — the latter released Google Related Tuesday, its own browser toolbar for surfacing similar content as you browse and search the web.

Tapl.io was founded by Beaudin and his freshman college roommate Dave Reiss. The pair are currently bootstrapping the startup, but are in talks with potential investors.

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

More About: bizspark, Search, spark-of-genius, startup, Tapl.io

For more Startups coverage:

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

Go to Source

The Social Analyst is a column by Mashable Editor-at-Large Ben Parr, where he digs into social media trends and how they are affecting companies in the space. You can follow Ben on Twitter and Google+.

Love or hate Larry Page and his decisions, you have to say this about Google’s new CEO: he isn’t scared to roll the dice.

That’s exactly what Page did when Google announced its acquisition of Motorola for $12.5 billion. With that money, Google acquired 24,500 patents, 19,000 employees and a hardware business that is losing money. With an acquisition this big, there are only two outcomes: victory or defeat.

For Google, the Motorola acquisition is a series of gambles. Google is gambling that regulators will approve the deal. It’s gambling that Motorola’s patents will be enough to force a stalemate in the Google-Apple-Microsoft patent wars. And finally, it’s gambling that it has the capability to create the software and hardware for a phone that can truly rival the iPhone.

If most of Larry Page’s gambles pay off, then the $12.5 billion price tag will seem cheap compared to the billions they could print making high-end hardware. If Page’s gambles fall flat, then the company’s stock will tank and investors will be calling for his head.

And you thought playing craps in Las Vegas was nerve-wracking.

Let’s take a look at the gambles Larry Page and his company are making, and what each successive gamble means for one of the world’s largest technology companies.

Gamble #1: Regulators Will Approve the Deal

Before Google can do anything with Motorola, it has to first convince regulators that the deal isn’t anti-competitive. It won’t be easy: Google is already the target of an FTC antitrust investigation. And this is, by far, the biggest deal in the search giant’s history.

Google has a couple of things going for it, though. It smartly secured the support of its Android partners. LG, HTC, Samsung and Sony Ericsson have all come out in favor of the deal because it will help Google “defend Android and its partners.” The truth is that they probably don’t like the Motorola deal, but are willing to swallow it because Android is the best option they have.

Google can also point to a need to control the hardware and software process of creating phones, thanks to the success of Apple and iOS. Apple’s complete control of the software and hardware process helped make it the world’s most valuable company.

If Google’s gamble fails, it will have to pay Motorola a $2.5 billion breakup fee. That is a huge number that shows Google’s commitment to the deal, but also shows that there is a huge risk that regulators will grind the deal to a halt.

My gut says that Page will win on this gamble, but regulators will force a lot of conditions on the deal.

Gamble #2: Motorola’s Patents Will Protect Android

If Google can get the green light from regulators, it will turn its attention toward putting its new patents to good use.

Here’s my bet: once Motorola is safely in Google’s hands, it will quickly bring Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and its other technology competitors to the table to broker a series of patent settlements unlike anything the industry has ever seen. Google will have enough patents to rival Microsoft and overshadow Apple’s smaller patent library. It could be enough to convince all sides to call a truce, which would be the ideal endgame for Google.

Of course, Motorola’s vast patent library wasn’t enough to scare away Apple when Motorola sued Apple. Motorola is also in an ugly patent battle with Microsoft. It’s anybody’s guess how the other tech giants will react.

If Google can’t broker a truce, expect it to bring out the big guns and sue its competitors into oblivion. The patent war is one that Google cannot afford to lose. Larry Page is a wartime CEO, and he will not let Google get steamrolled because it didn’t fight back.

Gamble #3: Google Can Design and Build a Better Phone

If Google can use Motorola’s patents to end the patent war, the $12.5 billion will be money well spent. But Motorola’s business is mobile hardware, and don’t think that Google doesn’t appreciate the hardware assets it could soon obtain.

A lot of people seem to think Google will spin off Motorola’s hardware business. I don’t agree, and here’s why: I believe Larry Page relishes the challenge of dethroning the king of technology, Steve Jobs.

Jobs was able to create a software and hardware company that works with near-perfect harmony. Jobs was able to create a business with high-end products and enviable profit margins. Jobs was able to create the world’s most valuable technology company.

Larry Page is confident, hyper competitive, brilliant and a visionary who isn’t afraid to make big bets nobody else is willing to make. In other words, he thinks he can accomplish what Jobs accomplished. That’s why he’s not about to cede the lucrative smartphone and tablet market to Apple.

It all boils down to this: with control over both the hardware and the software, Google is betting that it can design a phone that can truly compete with the iPhone. It would be the first true Google phone. If the search giant can create a device that is considered an equal to the iPhone, it will hit Apple where it hurts and potentially reap big financial rewards. Failure will forever tarnish Google’s reputation and cement Apple’s position as the technology company of the future.

Larry Page has put a lot of chips on the table. Google’s stock price will determine whether it was a smart gamble.

Lead image via Flickr, Alexcreative

More About: apple, Column, Google, larry page, microsoft, Motorola, The Social Analyst

For more Business & Marketing coverage:

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

Go to Source

The Social Analyst is a column by Mashable Editor-at-Large Ben Parr, where he digs into social media trends and how they are affecting companies in the space. You can follow Ben on Twitter and Google+.

Love or hate Larry Page and his decisions, you have to say this about Google’s new CEO: he isn’t scared to roll the dice.

That’s exactly what Page did when Google announced its acquisition of Motorola for $12.5 billion. With that money, Google acquired 24,500 patents, 19,000 employees and a hardware business that is losing money. With an acquisition this big, there are only two outcomes: victory or defeat.

For Google, the Motorola acquisition is a series of gambles. Google is gambling that regulators will approve the deal. It’s gambling that Motorola’s patents will be enough to force a stalemate in the Google-Apple-Microsoft patent wars. And finally, it’s gambling that it has the capability to create the software and hardware for a phone that can truly rival the iPhone.

If most of Larry Page’s gambles pay off, then the $12.5 billion price tag will seem cheap compared to the billions they could print making high-end hardware. If Page’s gambles fall flat, then the company’s stock will tank and investors will be calling for his head.

And you thought playing craps in Las Vegas was nerve-wracking.

Let’s take a look at the gambles Larry Page and his company are making, and what each successive gamble means for one of the world’s largest technology companies.

Gamble #1: Regulators Will Approve the Deal

Before Google can do anything with Motorola, it has to first convince regulators that the deal isn’t anti-competitive. It won’t be easy: Google is already the target of an FTC antitrust investigation. And this is, by far, the biggest deal in the search giant’s history.

Google has a couple of things going for it, though. It smartly secured the support of its Android partners. LG, HTC, Samsung and Sony Ericsson have all come out in favor of the deal because it will help Google “defend Android and its partners.” The truth is that they probably don’t like the Motorola deal, but are willing to swallow it because Android is the best option they have.

Google can also point to a need to control the hardware and software process of creating phones, thanks to the success of Apple and iOS. Apple’s complete control of the software and hardware process helped make it the world’s most valuable company.

If Google’s gamble fails, it will have to pay Motorola a $2.5 billion breakup fee. That is a huge number that shows Google’s commitment to the deal, but also shows that there is a huge risk that regulators will grind the deal to a halt.

My gut says that Page will win on this gamble, but regulators will force a lot of conditions on the deal.

Gamble #2: Motorola’s Patents Will Protect Android

If Google can get the green light from regulators, it will turn its attention toward putting its new patents to good use.

Here’s my bet: once Motorola is safely in Google’s hands, it will quickly bring Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and its other technology competitors to the table to broker a series of patent settlements unlike anything the industry has ever seen. Google will have enough patents to rival Microsoft and overshadow Apple’s smaller patent library. It could be enough to convince all sides to call a truce, which would be the ideal endgame for Google.

Of course, Motorola’s vast patent library wasn’t enough to scare away Apple when Motorola sued Apple. Motorola is also in an ugly patent battle with Microsoft. It’s anybody’s guess how the other tech giants will react.

If Google can’t broker a truce, expect it to bring out the big guns and sue its competitors into oblivion. The patent war is one that Google cannot afford to lose. Larry Page is a wartime CEO, and he will not let Google get steamrolled because it didn’t fight back.

Gamble #3: Google Can Design and Build a Better Phone

If Google can use Motorola’s patents to end the patent war, the $12.5 billion will be money well spent. But Motorola’s business is mobile hardware, and don’t think that Google doesn’t appreciate the hardware assets it could soon obtain.

A lot of people seem to think Google will spin off Motorola’s hardware business. I don’t agree, and here’s why: I believe Larry Page relishes the challenge of dethroning the king of technology, Steve Jobs.

Jobs was able to create a software and hardware company that works with near-perfect harmony. Jobs was able to create a business with high-end products and enviable profit margins. Jobs was able to create the world’s most valuable technology company.

Larry Page is confident, hyper competitive, brilliant and a visionary who isn’t afraid to make big bets nobody else is willing to make. In other words, he thinks he can accomplish what Jobs accomplished. That’s why he’s not about to cede the lucrative smartphone and tablet market to Apple.

It all boils down to this: with control over both the hardware and the software, Google is betting that it can design a phone that can truly compete with the iPhone. It would be the first true Google phone. If the search giant can create a device that is considered an equal to the iPhone, it will hit Apple where it hurts and potentially reap big financial rewards. Failure will forever tarnish Google’s reputation and cement Apple’s position as the technology company of the future.

Larry Page has put a lot of chips on the table. Google’s stock price will determine whether it was a smart gamble.

Lead image via Flickr, Alexcreative

More About: apple, Column, Google, larry page, microsoft, Motorola, The Social Analyst

For more Business & Marketing coverage:

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

Go to Source

The Social Analyst is a column by Mashable Editor-at-Large Ben Parr, where he digs into social media trends and how they are affecting companies in the space. You can follow Ben on Twitter and Google+.

Love or hate Larry Page and his decisions, you have to say this about Google’s new CEO: he isn’t scared to roll the dice.

That’s exactly what Page did when Google announced its acquisition of Motorola for $12.5 billion. With that money, Google acquired 24,500 patents, 19,000 employees and a hardware business that is losing money. With an acquisition this big, there are only two outcomes: victory or defeat.

For Google, the Motorola acquisition is a series of gambles. Google is gambling that regulators will approve the deal. It’s gambling that Motorola’s patents will be enough to force a stalemate in the Google-Apple-Microsoft patent wars. And finally, it’s gambling that it has the capability to create the software and hardware for a phone that can truly rival the iPhone.

If most of Larry Page’s gambles pay off, then the $12.5 billion price tag will seem cheap compared to the billions they could print making high-end hardware. If Page’s gambles fall flat, then the company’s stock will tank and investors will be calling for his head.

And you thought playing craps in Las Vegas was nerve-wracking.

Let’s take a look at the gambles Larry Page and his company are making, and what each successive gamble means for one of the world’s largest technology companies.

Gamble #1: Regulators Will Approve the Deal

Before Google can do anything with Motorola, it has to first convince regulators that the deal isn’t anti-competitive. It won’t be easy: Google is already the target of an FTC antitrust investigation. And this is, by far, the biggest deal in the search giant’s history.

Google has a couple of things going for it, though. It smartly secured the support of its Android partners. LG, HTC, Samsung and Sony Ericsson have all come out in favor of the deal because it will help Google “defend Android and its partners.” The truth is that they probably don’t like the Motorola deal, but are willing to swallow it because Android is the best option they have.

Google can also point to a need to control the hardware and software process of creating phones, thanks to the success of Apple and iOS. Apple’s complete control of the software and hardware process helped make it the world’s most valuable company.

If Google’s gamble fails, it will have to pay Motorola a $2.5 billion breakup fee. That is a huge number that shows Google’s commitment to the deal, but also shows that there is a huge risk that regulators will grind the deal to a halt.

My gut says that Page will win on this gamble, but regulators will force a lot of conditions on the deal.

Gamble #2: Motorola’s Patents Will Protect Android

If Google can get the green light from regulators, it will turn its attention toward putting its new patents to good use.

Here’s my bet: once Motorola is safely in Google’s hands, it will quickly bring Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and its other technology competitors to the table to broker a series of patent settlements unlike anything the industry has ever seen. Google will have enough patents to rival Microsoft and overshadow Apple’s smaller patent library. It could be enough to convince all sides to call a truce, which would be the ideal endgame for Google.

Of course, Motorola’s vast patent library wasn’t enough to scare away Apple when Motorola sued Apple. Motorola is also in an ugly patent battle with Microsoft. It’s anybody’s guess how the other tech giants will react.

If Google can’t broker a truce, expect it to bring out the big guns and sue its competitors into oblivion. The patent war is one that Google cannot afford to lose. Larry Page is a wartime CEO, and he will not let Google get steamrolled because it didn’t fight back.

Gamble #3: Google Can Design and Build a Better Phone

If Google can use Motorola’s patents to end the patent war, the $12.5 billion will be money well spent. But Motorola’s business is mobile hardware, and don’t think that Google doesn’t appreciate the hardware assets it could soon obtain.

A lot of people seem to think Google will spin off Motorola’s hardware business. I don’t agree, and here’s why: I believe Larry Page relishes the challenge of dethroning the king of technology, Steve Jobs.

Jobs was able to create a software and hardware company that works with near-perfect harmony. Jobs was able to create a business with high-end products and enviable profit margins. Jobs was able to create the world’s most valuable technology company.

Larry Page is confident, hyper competitive, brilliant and a visionary who isn’t afraid to make big bets nobody else is willing to make. In other words, he thinks he can accomplish what Jobs accomplished. That’s why he’s not about to cede the lucrative smartphone and tablet market to Apple.

It all boils down to this: with control over both the hardware and the software, Google is betting that it can design a phone that can truly compete with the iPhone. It would be the first true Google phone. If the search giant can create a device that is considered an equal to the iPhone, it will hit Apple where it hurts and potentially reap big financial rewards. Failure will forever tarnish Google’s reputation and cement Apple’s position as the technology company of the future.

Larry Page has put a lot of chips on the table. Google’s stock price will determine whether it was a smart gamble.

Lead image via Flickr, Alexcreative

More About: apple, Column, Google, larry page, microsoft, Motorola, The Social Analyst

For more Business & Marketing coverage:

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

Go to Source

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

Go to Source

In a move that shows the continuing evolution of its search product, Google on Tuesday introduced Google Related, a bottom-of-the-page bar for the Chrome and Internet Explorer browsers that suggests similar pages you might be interested in.

If you’re on a restaurant’s homepage, for example, Google Related might call up a map of the restaurant, reviews from Google Places and sites from other competing establishments. If you’re reading an op-ed, Google Related might offer an essay that takes the opposite opinion.

The suggestions are designed to be unobtrusive. Displayed on a thin bar at the bottom of your screen, they get magnified if you track your cursor over them. If you like something that’s suggested, you can give it a +1.

Naturally, Related would be prime real estate for advertisers. At the moment, however, it appears to offer only regular search results.

The launch is further evidence of the changing nature of search. Google has tinkered with its results of late by incorporating +1s from users as well as social search results from Twitter, Flickr and Quora. Related may also be a way of evening the score with Microsoft, which currently includes recommendations from Facebook friends in its Bing search engine.

This video from Google explains Google Related further:

More About: bing, Google, microsoft, twitter

For more Tech & Gadgets coverage:

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

Go to Source

The iPad’s popularity has prompted Google to revive a program that aggregated catalogs from major retailers.

The new app, called Google Catalogs, is designed for “all major tablet devices” though it is just available in an iPad version now. The app displays the catalogs in rich media. Dozens of retailers, including L.L. Bean, Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue are providing content for the app.

Google Catalogs includes features familiar with other tablet apps, like zooming and the ability to share content. But the app also lets you buy content via online stores. It also directs you to nearby brick-and-mortar locations.

Google shuttered a similar program, called Google Catalog Search, in 2009 because of a lack of consumer interest.

A video, below, from Google outlines some of the app’s features:

More About: Catalogs, Google, ipad, retail

For more Business & Marketing coverage:

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

Go to Source