Last month, we learned that Esquire was once again going experimental, this time with its December issue featuring augmented reality. The issue is now available, and readers that have it can head to Esquire’s website to check out the special augmented reality features.

In addition to featuring an AR cover, where Robert Downey Jr. introduces you to the issue (and throws in a pitch for his upcoming movie Sherlock Holmes), there are several pieces of bonus content that can be accessed and controlled on Esquire’s website by downloading an app and pointing the AR marker at your webcam.

I got an early look at the issue last week. As Editor-in-Chief David Granger demos below, the AR features all supplement content in the print magazine. So, for example, in one of the magazine’s fashion features, tilting your magazine in different directions controls the weather, and the model adjusts clothing appropriately. There’s also a time-based joke – check out the AR component after midnight and the content is different than what you find during the day.

The goal here, of course, is to sell more magazines, so the AR features will only be accessible to those holding a print copy for the next two weeks. And although Granger told The Wall Street Journal the feature is a “gimmick,” he told me that he does see some potential for bringing AR back in the future.

For example, in addition to the type of bonus content you see in the December issue, other features like “soundtrack of the issue” could include an AR component that lets readers listen to it for free online he says. There’s also advertiser interest (which offset some of the cost) with Lexus taking two AR ads in the initial run.

The savior of print, this likely is not, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see this model used from time-to-time as a way of pushing users to buy the print edition of a magazine, especially when the content on the other end is something unique and exclusive (in Esquire’s case, it’s more fun and cheeky, but so is the publication).

Here’s Granger demonstrating some of the features:

Can AR get you to buy print again? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Tags: Augmented Reality, esquire

Merger Monday is back in the tech space. Just hours after Electronic Arts announced it was buying social gaming outfit Playfish for up to $400 million, Google has announced that it’s buying mobile ad network AdMob for $750 million in stock.

In a statement, Google’s Susan Wojcicki, Vice President of Product Management, says, “Mobile advertising has enormous potential as a marketing medium and while this industry is still in the early stages of development, AdMob has already made exceptional progress in a very short time. AdMob is the quintessential Silicon Valley startup — generating impressive year on year revenue growth — and we’re excited to welcome this talented team to Google.”

Since its inception, AdMob has served more than 125 billion mobile ads (according to the counter on its homepage) across a variety of platforms including iPhone and Android. Clearly, this is a space that’s red hot right now, and while Google already has launched a number of products into it, this deal greatly accelerates the effort.

Google attempts to illustrate the synergies on a website it has setup specifically about the deal, as well as in the image below:

While one of the biggest deals we’ve seen come out of the Web space in some time, it’s not completely unexpected. When Google reported earnings last month, we noted that the company now has $22 billion in cash, and CEO Eric Schmidt said his company feels “confident about investing heavily in our future.” That’s certainly the case here, as Google has just made a very big bet on mobile ads.

Tags: admob, advertising, Google, Mobile 2.0

Sharlyn Lauby is the president of Internal Talent Management (ITM) which specializes in employee training and human resources consulting. She authors a blog at hrbartender.com.

LinkedIn, which recently reached the 50 million user milestone, has long been considered the social networking site for professionals. If you’re in business, it is basically expected that you have a profile there.

But with the more mainstream platforms like Twitter and Facebook being used for business purposes, some professionals are neglecting their LinkedIn profiles. While LinkedIn is certainly not as dynamic as other social media sites, it still provides a lot of value — if you use it correctly. So whether you’re new to LinkedIn or a veteran, here are some of the things you should consider incorporating into your LinkedIn strategy.

1. Include a Photo Avatar

Some media reports claim that because organizations can use any criteria they want to make hiring decisions, photo avatars provide companies with information they may not have otherwise known about you based on a resume alone and could actually hurt you more than help. But, not including a photo with a social networking profile flies in the face of conventional wisdom when your goal is to build relationships and community.

Eric B. Meyer, an associate in the labor and employment group of Dilworth Paxson LLP, reminds us that when using a professional networking site such as LinkedIn, “don’t give a potential employer an easy excuse to remove you from consideration. Use a professional headshot and scrap the picture of you doing a keg-stand.”

He adds that “an employer may not discriminate when selecting one job applicant over another. For example, an employer may not base a hiring decision on such things as race, religion, gender, and national origin. Although actually proving an employer made a discriminatory hiring decision may be difficult.” Businesses who engage in hiring discrimination are the exception, not the rule. Just remember, by using an avatar, you will be providing information about yourself a prospective employer may not have otherwise obtained on its own.

2. Build Your Network of Connections

While we might be inclined to say quality is better than quantity, it could be possible that the number of connections you have says something about you. Greg Koutsis, corporate and international channel recruiter for Aplicor LLC, says, “if someone has 20-50+ connections then I know they probably check LinkedIn at least once a week. If someone has 1-19 then I realize they probably either haven’t begun to pop the hood and look inside or gotten past the initial threshold of their friends, family and past colleagues. They might be a great prospect for me to reach out to but this might not be the best use of my time. This combined with the profile they have listed lets me realize quickly if I am wasting my time with someone who has no interest or trust in LinkedIn.”

So you might say to yourself, if small numbers in the connection department signal you’re a novice, do large numbers mean you’ll connect with just about anyone? Koutsis says not necessarily. “I do not believe there’s a maximum number of connections that makes someone look like they will just connect with anyone. LinkedIn only shows 500 then adds the + sign after the 500 so you never really do know how many more than 500 connections someone has until you connect with them.”

3. Use Status Updates to Your Advantage

Once you complete your profile, there aren’t a lot of places to make regular updates in LinkedIn. The one space where you can keep your connections informed is the status updates section.

Lori Burke, director of human resources at Neighborhood America, explains that updates are not only an interesting read, but very valuable. “I’ve found new networking groups I may not have thought about [via status updates]. Additionally, it allows me to learn what others are involved with or in, who they may be connected to, etc. In total, it widens the scope of knowledge for me.”

4. Seek Meaningful Recommendations

A terrific feature of LinkedIn is the ability to provide recommendations. This is a place for your connections to comment about your work. Recommendations can be thought of as beefed up thank you cards. Instead of telling one person how you feel, you’re telling the world that person does good work.

It’s important to get good solid recommendations and Meyer offers some thoughts on how to do that. First, “think about who knows you best. It could be a co-worker or manager. It could also be a client or customer for whom you just did an incredible job on a huge project. If you seek a recommendation from a client or customer, be polite and remember to thank the person who gives you the recommendation.”

Then, “If you are going to seek a recommendation from a co-worker or manager, keep a few things in mind. Many employers have written policies against giving out anything other than neutral job references to current and former employees. These policies generally focus on giving recommendations, as opposed to seeking them. Still, as a courtesy to the person in your company from whom you seek a recommendation, just be sensitive to your company’s neutral reference policy.”

5. Optimize Your Profile

Your LinkedIn profile should not just be an online version of your resume, optimizing for search engines is key. The format of your LinkedIn profile might depend on whether you are currently employed and whether or not you are seeking new opportunities, says Koutsis. “If you are looking for a new position then you might want your profile to look more like a resume, but maybe not so much if I am currently employed.”

Burke doesn’t mind if the full content of the resume is on the profile as it can be helpful when searching for candidates. However, it is a bonus “when I find networkers who have added more content than you might find in a resume, such as a link to their portfolio.”

When filling out your profile, you should think about your goals for the type of networking you hope to get done. Also, since LinkedIn has the ability to search any word in the content, both Burke and Koutsis suggest listing all relevant keywords at the bottom of your profile if you want to be found easier.

6. Use Groups to Expand Your Reach

Groups are a beneficial networking tool and a great way to expand your network. Koutsis says that he doesn’t look at what groups a person belongs to when he’s searching for candidates but he does find potential resources using the groups function.

However, Meyer reminds us it’s possible to be viewed in a negative light based upon group membership. “For some time now, many employers are going beyond simply running a criminal background check in order to vet job applicants. Employers may be Googling candidates, checking out their public postings on Facebook, reviewing tweets on Twitter, and scrutinizing LinkedIn profiles. In a down economy — as in any economy, really — employers want to fill job openings with the best possible candidates.”

Today’s rule of thumb should be that anything you post in an online profile may as well be listed on your resume or bio. If you belong to a LinkedIn group that is inconsistent with the business image you wish to portray, then that could be a challenge for you. Meyer shared with me the example of belonging to a group called “The Deer Hunters” while applying for a position with an animal rights group (let’s just say, good luck with that).

7. Consider Whether to Link Your Profiles

Burke believes that accounts should be kept separate. “I believe that this strategy allows me to keep my professional personae separate from my personal. Case in point was the one time I posted a social media article to both applications. My Facebook family and friends found the information of little value to them and I believe the same may be true in reverse. However, I will post general information about me (i.e., speaking engagements) with both networks. In essence, it depends on the content,” she says.

On the other hand, Lance Haun, vice president of outreach at MeritBuilder, explains that LinkedIn is “a snapshot of your life at the time you updated your profile so including Twitter, Facebook, or a blog helps to add living context to your profile.” With the lines between work and life being blurred, posting something business related at 1:00 PM and a picture of a cat at 1:00 AM helps “bring the picture of a person together completely.”

In the end, Koutsis asks, “if people see no reason after viewing your profile to connect with you, then why did you reach out to them in the first place?” The most important thing we can do is create a complete and compelling profile. Because the bottom line is the value proposition you propose when you try to connect with someone on LinkedIn.

More business resources from Mashable:

- 5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Business
- Top 5 Business Blogging Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
- 10 of the Best Social Media Tools for Entrepreneurs
- 6 Must-Follow Steps for Selling in Any Economy
- 5 Easy Social Media Wins for Your Small Business

Tags: business, linkedin, Lists, trending

One session I’ve really been looking forward to was the one on social media measurement featuring Katie Paine of KDPaine & Partners. She started the audience off with some numbers, that we all might find useful:

• 48% of respondents to a PRWeek study said that they were moving money from advertising to social media – only 18% said they were taking money from PR
• 78% of people trust peer recommendations, 14% trust advertising
• 91% of Inc 500 companies are using social media
• 38% aren’t monitoring their brand, product or reputation in social media

Next, the audience had to grapple with the idea (read truth) that it’s the end of measurement as we know it. Here are ten supporting facts:

1. Procter & Gamble is now paying for engagement, not eyeballs
2. Sodexo cut 300K out of its recruitment budget using Twitter
3. Comcast avoided government regs and improved customer service via Twitter
4. Immunize BC used social media to boost awareness and increase percentage of population immunized
5. BMC Software measures communications effectiveness based on contribution to EPS (earnings per share)
6. HSUS (Humane Society) generated $650,000 in new donations from an on-line photo contest on Flickr
7. Red Cross judges success in terms of property saved and loss averted
8. IMB receives more leads, sales and exposure from a $500 podcast that it does from a $40,000 advertising program
9. Wal-Mart credits Q109 profits to 11 Moms
10. Stanford University calculates ROI from Facebook based on applications and retention

So, if you are measuring success with any of the following, you might be labeled Old School (and need to keep reading).

• AVE (ad value equivalency)
• Eyeballs
• Hits
• Couch Potatoes
• # of Twitter Followers
• # of Facebook Friends/Fans

Paine explains that the above measurement methods are in fact Old School and the incorrect way to measure the effectiveness of any campaign. Eyeballs aren’t a measurement of success anymore because those eyeballs likely avert your advertisement. Hits aren’t an objective of a website, inquiries and conversions are.

The measurement of success isn’t the creation of a Facebook page or even the number of friends/followers the page has. Rather, success is in the engagement with a particular audience and how that engagement has the potential to impact a preset objective.

So why don’t more professionals update the way they approach measurement? Paine says it’s fear. She adresses many fears that this (or any other) audience may have when it comes to social media and defining metrics.
1. Afraid metrics will reveal the program isn’t working.

• If it’s not working, why keep doing it?

2. Afraid of what you will hear.

• If you’re deaf to the conversation, only your enemies will hear it.

3. Afraid I won’t be able to justify my program/existence.

• It’s not about justifying; it’s about improving

4. Afraid I’ll be fired for not showing the right numbers.

• You should be fired for not showing any.

Social Media renders everything you know about measurement obsolete. The definition of timely has changed, the definition of reach has changed, the definition of success had changed.

The answer isn’t in how many you’ve reached, but how those you’ve reached have responded

Once you have reached the audience, take a look at how they engage and make decisions as it may have changed.

OLD:  Awareness > Consideration > Preference > Trial > Purchase
NEW:  Find > Observe > Participate > Engagement > Purchase/Act/Link/WOM

To get started, set goals for Social Media. Examples of goals are:

1. Marketing/leads/sales
2. Mission/safety/civic engagement
3. Relationship/reputation/positioning

To reach those goals, what do you need to measure?  Paine recommends following the 7 Steps to Social Media ROI:

1. Define the ‘R’ – what are expected results
2. Define the ‘I’ – what’s the investment
3. Understand your audiences and what motivates them
4. Define the metrics (what you want to become)
5. Define your benchmarks
6. Obey the Rules
7. Analysis

In what ways are you measuring social media? What have you found to be the most compelling metrics for getting management and/or client buy-in?

            Subscribe to this Feed

© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | PRSA09: Social Media Measurement – Katie Paine on Establishing ROI | 10 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

La reciente retransmisión de un concierto de U2 en directo en Youtube ha desencadenado cierto furor pro el fenómeno del vídeo en vivo por internet, acrecentado por el empuje de otra de las expresiones de moda, "el tiempo real". Los números del evento de U2 los explicaba Uberbin, mientras que en periodistas 21 se habla de "la era del vídeo en directo en internet".

Aunque ciertamente hay eventos que pueden concitar mucha atención, el tema del vídeo en directo en internet me parece sobrevalorado cada vez que se analiza a partir de las excepciones y no de la norma. ¿Acaso no se ha reclamado la red como el mejor instrumento para el consumo bajo demanda, desde donde quiera y cuando quiera el usuario? Hay muy pocas retransmisiones que vayan a animar a la gente a tener que sincronizarse con ellas: se inauguran los juegos olímpicos, una final deportiva, los grandes acontecimientos políticos... y poco más. El que algunos videobloggers planteen su producto como una "retransmisión en directo" o que las cadenas de televisión ofrezcan programas sólo cuando coinciden con su emisión por señal convencional no es sino establecer una barrera de entrada que será rentable muy pocas veces.

Claro que hay eventos capaces de movilizar a la gente, capaces de provocar la necesidad de ser "presenciados, vividos" más que visualizados a posteriori, pero son muy, muy escasos. Esto es interesante para los medios, siempre necesitados de contenidos en exclusiva para su negocio, pero lo razonable es que no entremos en "la era del vídeo en directo", sino más bien estemos un escenario en el que la tecnología permita retransmitir nuestra vida entera en directo, sin que eso le añada mayor interés para el resto de la humanidad.

Relacionado: Ver la tele y navegar por internet a la vez. Televidentes multitarea

Sorry for the delay in posting--I've been busy in both my developer and personal life and haven't had a chance to sit down over the weekend to write a wrap-up. I've received quite a few emails from people asking after 1.7. No need to worry: development of 1.7 is going well and I'm hopeful to have a developer's preview release out the door by the end of this week, with 1.7 final out sometime in December.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Elgg 1.7 will have no new features, but will focus on standardizing the API, correcting long-standing bugs, and generally making sure that Elgg is a solid platform to develop on. Some of the major bugs that are corrected in already include:

• Rest and services API work now (Thanks Cash Costello!)
• File storage based upon GUID instead of username
• Unit tests added (Yes, this could be considered a feature, but YAY UNIT TESTS!!!!)
• Availability and order of parameters in get_entities*() functions normalised
• UTF8 support added in the database

As I said on the developer's mailing list, even though the new functions will be available for developers, the old functions will still work. There seems to have been some confusion, misinformation and FUD spread around concerning this point so I'll make it again: Elgg 1.7's API will be backward compatible with Elgg 1.6. Feel free to quote me on that. :)

In an effort to help answer the question "What changed in this version of Elgg?" we have started listing major bugfixes and changes in the CHANGES.txt file. It's a good read!

Moving along, this is just a reminder that as of November 2nd, 2009 the Elgg Users Google Group has closed to new members and messages. Existing content is still available to read, but please use the Community Site for all user troubleshooting and discussion. Please read the origina announcement for more information.

Now to the fun: ElggCamp Buenos Aires! Pedro Prez with Keetup Development, Susana Cipriota with Condiminds.com, and the folks from farmsphere.com have organized ElggCamp Buenos Aires on November 19th, 2009. Following ElggCamp Boston this past August, I'm really looking forward to heading to BA and meeting some of the Elgg users and developers in the southern hemisphere! Not to mention it's spring there, and a chilly autumn here in Ohio.

The ElggCamp BA site has loads more information that Google Translate can help with if your Spanish is rusty. If you happen to be in or near Buenos Aires, stop in!

The myth of “Build it and they will come”.  Not many businesses that start blogs have the patience to create great content and wait for others to find that content all on their own as a linking strategy. Without clicking on a link or finding it on a search engine, how will others find your blog?   Content is King but only if you promote it.

Links from relevant, credible sources balanced with on-page keyword optimization make it easier for search engines to find, index and sort blog posts in search results. If there’s an expectation for a company blog to rank well in search results, be sure to consider some of the following link building tactics:

1. Create content worth linking to. No matter how many tactics you find here and elsewhere, there simply is no substitute for creating content that others may find useful. Take the time to look at blog posts that already rank well in search results and notice their structure, quantity of words and word placement.

2. Conduct backlink analysis on competing web sites or blogs – find out who is linking to competitor sites that are not linking to yours. Ask sites linking to multiple competitors to link to yours as well. If another web site or blog is already linking to multiple competitors, there is a chance they’ll link to your blog as well.

3. Make useful comments on other blogs that don’t have rel=nofollow. Comments should always be useful, but if you become aware of a topically relevant blog that does not discourage search engine spiders from crawling links in comments, it’s work spending the extra time to provide helpful insights a links to resources that you’ve published on your own blog.

4. Encourage social bookmarks & news submissions of your content using services without rel=nofollow. Show links to those services like Folkd, Spurl or Feedmarker in the blog post template code so they are visible for blog readers to use. Some social bookmarking services will make a copy of what you bookmark or a static web page of the bookmark including a do follow link back to the source (your blog).

5. Get listed on other blogger’s blogrolls.  It never hurts to ask another blog that you’re active with to see if they’d consider adding your blog to their blogroll or curated lists of blogs.

6. Guest write on other blogs and include a link to your blog in the bio. In the course of getting to know blogs that already rank well on the keyword phrases you’re targeting, you may notice that they often accept guest blog posts from others. Contact the blog owner and suggest a compelling post that would be first and foremost, valuable to their readers. If it makes sense editorially to link from within the guest post to your own blog, be sure to use relevant keywords as the link text.

7. Submit to blog & RSS directories. Many directory links have no follow links or are not visited by a large volume of people, but making sure your blog and RSS feed are included in niche categories and collections of blogs can be a positive signal to search engines as well as to long tail users. Many bloggers that aggregate large lists of topically specific blogs will cultivate blog directories as a easy way to find blogs on similar topics. If your blog isn’t on the niche list in those situations, you won’t be included.

8. Submit to regular web site directories like botw.org. While there are blog specific directories (BOTW has one of those as well) many don’t discern web sites from blogs. If a quality directory has a relevant category with other reputable web sites in it, then it makes sense for your blog to be among them as a useful information source.

9. Be sure to include your blog URL in profiles and bios on social media sites. While most social media sites that allow users to add links to their profiles add no follow to the links, there are many that do not. Public profile links on LinkedIn and YouTube channels for example, are good links. Rather than focus on registering with 300+ sites using Knowem, just make sure that of the social media profiles you do set up inlcude a link back to your blog.

10. Write testimonials for services and software that you use. They may publish with a link back to your blog.  Testimonials must be well written, genuine and specific in order to be useful for the service/product owner. Get at the essence of what’s great about the product or service and even add something unique. If you’ve written a review of the product/service on your blog, that can also get you a link from their press page.

11. Job listings should always have a link back to your blog. Blogs can be useful recruiting tools that help candidates understand the culture of your company. When purchasing job listings on other web sites, add a link to your blog. The listings may expire, but may also introduce your blog to candidates that write their own blog and decide to write about a listing with a permanent link to the hiring company blog.

12. Event listings should always have a link back to your blog. Blogs can be effective tools for promoting events and if you are listing your event with 3rd party services, a link back to your blog post with more details will be useful to readers that want to know more. That link can also be useful to search engines.

13. Contributions to non-profits often have a donor page with a link. These links are now very rare but you should contribute anyway.

14. Article syndication can still result in a few good links. Include your blog URL in the article bio. Take some of your best tips oriented blog posts and re-write them for specific industry verticals or applications. Then submit them to article repositories. When others re-use those articles, the bio link back to your blog can be picked up by readers and search engines.

15. Distribute press releases via a wire service with a link to your blog included. Our client, PRWeb, is a pioneer in providing competitive SEO value with press release distribution. Many blogs and some news web sites will re-publish your press release exactly as it was distributed, including good links back to your blog.  Journalists use News search to look up past press releases and research on stories, which presents an opportunity to be found and included.

16. Contribute Op Ed pieces to Mainstream Media web sites. Contribute a link to your blog of course.  If you suggest content to another web site such as a letter to the editor, why not keyword optimize the title? Why not include a link back to your blog where you’ve written many more articles on the same topic?

17. When you get media coverage (or placements) in online publications, be sure to ask the journalist for a link to your blog. Again, it never hurts to ask. Many publications have a policy not to link out from stories. Many leave it up to the journalist or their editor. If you don’t ask, you will never get the link.

18. Develop social networks and share especially useful content from your blog where relevant. Be useful to others and they will useful to you by promoting your content and attracting links. Don’t be gratuitous when sharing links to your own content, but when you have something particularly special and valuable that’s highly relevant to a particular network, then by all means, share it with them. Some are bloggers as well and may link to it from their own blogs as well as pass the link along to others.

19. Linkbait. Create or aggregate disparate content that provides value and is not easily found elsewhere. Promote it to those that would be interested and in a position to distribute to the right audience. Again, create useful content, but be thoughtful about packaging it in a way that makes it unique and is easy to pass along. Look at other blog posts in your topical category that have “gone hot” on social news sites and understand their structure, format and tone. Leverage what has worked for others in your own content to be promoted.

20. Sponsor content on web sites or newsletters archived to the web that allow you to include a link. It may be a nofollow link, but it may not.  Many newsletters sent via email are archived to the web or have landing pages on the web. Ask those newsletters if you can buy an ad or even contribute a short article.  The article credits should include a link to your blog.

21. Hire bloggers to write content for you. They’ll often cross-post it to their own blog with a link back to yours. Of course, you should be considerate and simply mention that this is ok, don’t ask them or require them to do it.

22. Run a contest that may involve others deciding to link back to your blog. This can be tricky, but Marketing Pilgrim does a great job of this with their SEM Scholarship Contest. Readers write blog posts and the first cut is based on which posts get the most traffic and presumably, links among other criteria.

23. Offer a widget, when posted to others’ web sites, includes a link back to a credits page for the widget on your blog. TopRank’s Thomas McMahon created a RSS buttons tool and it’s use by other blogs has resulted in over 322,000 inbound links.

24. Review other blogs and offer a badge for those that get included. We’ve done this with BIGLIST and it has resulted in over 64,000 inbound links. Focus on quality and be consistent. Also offer a version of the badge that does not include a link for those that want to display the “blog flare” but don’t or can’t link to it. You should include your logo on the badge for improved brand awarness whether there’s a link or not.

25. Create an exceptionally useful tool. Others will link to it simply because it is useful. (See step 1) TopRank created a Social Bookmarking Tool several years ago and still has over 50,000 links as a result.

Bonus tip: When others link to you, THANK THEM!  Building good will is one of the most underrated marketing skills online. Be genuine, thoughtful and courteous. Also be SMART and driven to get links where it makes sense.

What linking tactics for blogs have you found to be most effective? What challenges are you facing in attracting other sites to link to your blog?

            Subscribe to this Feed

© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | 25 Link Building Tactics to Improve Blog Search Engine Rankings | 32 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

This service is intended to inform you about new features that may be implemented as well as major community events and activities.

Feedback

Any suggestions or comments are welcome at:

http://www.farmsphere.com/pg/contact

If you are not still registered, please send us an email to:info@farmsphere.com

Thanks a lot! We’ll keep in touch!

Let it Fly!

This service is intended to inform you about new features that may be implemented as well as major community events and activities.

Feedback

Any suggestions or comments are welcome at:

http://www.farmsphere.com/pg/contact

If you are not still registered, please send us an email to:info@farmsphere.com

Thanks a lot! We’ll keep in touch!

Let it Fly!

The Farmsphere Initiative needs to gain scale for its advantages to become evident. That is why we require support from our initial users.

You can support Famsphere by using the Colleague Importer to invite your colleagues to join. You can do this by clicking on:

http://www.farmsphere.com/pg/importer/

As a way of thanking you for your support, we will offer you a Premium position for free during 2010. (People you invite will become members automatically, without having to seek admission).

If you are not still registered, please send us an email to: info@farmsphere.com

Thanks a lot!

LET IT FLY!

The Farmsphere Initiative needs to gain scale for its advantages to become evident. That is why we require support from our initial users.

You can support Famsphere by using the Colleague Importer to invite your colleagues to join. You can do this by clicking on:

http://www.farmsphere.com/pg/importer/

As a way of thanking you for your support, we will offer you a Premium position for free during 2010. (People you invite will become members automatically, without having to seek admission).

If you are not still registered, please send us an email to: info@farmsphere.com

Thanks a lot!

LET IT FLY!

It’s no secret that Facebook is humongous: 300 million users humongous. Yet it still shocks us that it keeps on finding new users to fuel its ascent into the social media stratosphere.

A little over a year ago (August 2008), Facebook reached 100 million users. And now according to AllFacebook, that number is now a staggering 325+ million users.

So just how fast is Facebook’s userbase growing? We sat down and did the math. First, here are Facebook’s major growth milestones, starting from when it reached 100 million users:

- August 26th, 2008: 100 million users

- January 7th, 2009: 150 million users

- April 8th, 2009: 200 million users

- July 15th, 2009: 250 million users

- September 15th, 2009: 300 million users

- Friday, November 6th, 2009: 325 million users

Half a Million New Users. Every Single Day.

So let’s do the math. From September 15th to November 6th, Facebook grew by 25 million users. That’s 53 days, if we include the start and end days. Divide that by 25 million and you get a daily growth rate of 471,698 users per day for Facebook. That’s a small city joining Facebook every single day.

Even more shocking is that the number used to be higher. Between July 15th and September 15th, 63 days, Facebook grew by 50 million users. If we do the math, Facebook was growing at a clip of 793,650 users per day. We’re barely able to come up with the words to describe this type of growth.

The Facebook train has to eventually slow down; there are only so many people on planet Earth with an Internet connection (yes, that’s how big their potential audience is), and it seems to be already slowing. However, if you consider half a million users per day “slowing,” then you know you’ve done something right.

This train’s going towards the sky for a good, long time.

Tags: facebook, trending

Disclaimer: Ella no es mi abuela - (cc) kxande2

Hace como un año, mi abuela, que tiene 72 años, se hizo una cuenta en Facebook. Aunque al principio le costó un poco, ahora sube fotos, les pone tags, comenta en los muros de sus amigas y es amiga de todos sus nietos (a los que también nos comenta cosas).

Tal vez mi abuela sea un caso un poco extremo, pero la verdad es que Facebook está acogiendo cada vez más a personas mayores, mientras que los más jóvenes están concentrándose en Twitter.

De acuerdo a un estudio realizado por Pew Internet, el promedio de edad de los usuarios de Twitter es 31, mientras que el promedio de los usuarios de Facebook es 33. A primera vista podrá no ser una gran diferencia, pero el dato importante es este: Twitter rejuveneció en un año, mientras que Facebook envejeció.

En Mayo de 2008, el promedio de edad de Facebook era 26 años – lo que implica que envejeció 7 años a la fecha, incorporando a más usuarios mayores.

En Twitter las cosas andan al revés. En Diciembre de 2008, un 19% de los usuarios de Twitter tenía entre 18 y 24 años. En Septiembre de este año, ese porcentaje subió a 37%. Entre 25 y 34 años, el porcentaje pasó de 20% a 31%.

¿Están los jóvenes escapándose hacia otros lugares, a medida que los papás (y las abuelas) entran a las redes sociales que antes “eran de ellos”? Sólo hay teorías respecto a este fenómeno, pero lo que sí es seguro es que las redes sociales están incluyendo cada vez a más personas, sin importar la edad, y jóvenes y adultos están interactuando en un sólo espacio digital, lo que viene a romper en parte la brecha digital – generacional que ha existido durante tanto tiempo.

Link: As Facebook Ages, Gen Y Turns to Twitter (Read Write Web)

El nuevo “bookmark sync” es ahora accesible mediante le menú de la llave inglesa de la interfaz de Chrome, para lo que apenas basta con ingresar los detalles de nuestra cuenta de Google para ponerlo en marcha. Después de esto, cualquier cambio realizado a los marcadores en una máquina dada se sincronizará de manera automática e instantánea en el resto de las instancias del navegador en otros sistemas (que hayan firmado con la misma cuenta, por supuesto).

O, en las palabras del equipo de Chrome:

De manera semejante, Mozilla se encuentra también trabajando en una solución de sincronización de contenido, que ha bautizado como Weave y que, a diferencia de Personas, aún no ha alcanzado la madurez suficiente como para verse integrado en la próxima instancia de Firefox … aún.

• Descarga el último Beta de Chrome en este enlace.

Este post ha sido publicado originalmente en TechTear.com- Blog Magazine de Tecnología, Internet y Negocios

Compártelo

Business social network LinkedIn, fresh off its milestone of 50+ million users, is now getting a makeover, and it definitely changes the way you use the social media website.

In a detailed blog post, the company announced that it has begun a limited test of its new design. It features a newer, longer top-level navigation bar, the removal of the dreaded left-hand navigation bar, and a cleaner overall look.

Screenshots

The best way to describe the new layout though is to place the old design and the new one side-by-side. First, here is the homepage as it currently exists:

Now, here is the new design for the homepage, courtesy of LinkedIn:

You’ll notice immediately that the emphasis is on the top navigation, that the main content has been pushed to the left hand side of the screen, and that each of the top menu items have a deeper web of subcategories under them (just look at the options under “Groups” as an example).

One more comparison. This is a profile page currently:

And here is the new one:

You’ll notice that content has been moved up the page (this is very important – it requires less scrolling and thus less chance of people bouncing off of the page) and a far stronger focus on the profile and its content.

The key to this entire design it seems is the removal of the left hand navigation bar, which we are fans of. It distracted users away from the important information on the page. While the design is still being tested and iterated upon, more and more users should be seeing this layout relatively soon.

Let us know what you think of it in the comments.

Tags: linkedin, trending

Google Alerts, once the secret of savvy online marketers and social media experts, have become the de facto way for the masses to keep one eye always on the web.

While there have been attempts to apply the instant alerts concept to Twitter, we haven’t seen an application get the formula completely right yet. Perhaps we spoke to soon, as we just discovered Listiti, a new web-based application that promises to do one thing: send you email alerts whenever tweets from specific Twitter Lists match your specified query.

The Listiti implementation is both practical and genius. We’ve been talking about Twitter Lists as one of Twitter’s most important features, providing necessary context, and allowing for a variety of creative use cases. Listiti takes Twitter Lists one step further with an extra layer of convenience, so you can keep your eyes on the important tweets in Twitter Lists, without having to be on Twitter all day.

Setting up a Twitter Lists alert is dead simple. Simply identify the List you’d like Listiti to watch, add in keywords to watch, and enter your email.

Listiti also gives you the ability to promote your Twitter Lists, making it convenient for you to direct Twitter followers or friends to a page that is pre-populated with your List name. Here’s how it works: use this structure and replace the necessary fields: http://listiti.com/YourTwitterAccount/YourListName. So if you want to start alerts for our Mashable list, you would just go here: http://listiti.com/mashable/mashable.

A few things to note. Listiti is fresh out of the gate, with the developer Xavier Dammn [@xdamman] posting a request for feedback on Hacker News earlier today. Admittedly, Listiti isn’t as fully developed as it could be, which means you’ll only get alerts hourly – you can’t use OR queries – and you can’t subscribe to an RSS feed of the alerts. We hope to see this one man shop find some funding so he can continue to build out the service.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, inkout.

Tags: listiti, twitter, Twitter Lists