May 15th, 2012 by Adam Webmaster
Facebook tax story, Amazon rumours and Bing surprise with something new
This week’s 3 stories aren’t exactly difficult to find, and the first one regarding Facebook is an update on a story that’s already been news for while.
So, with Facebook about to go public, we begin with co-owner Eduardo Saverin – who successfully sued Zuckenberg after being famously ousted from the firm – and his involvement with Facebook’s attempt to limit the amount of tax the US is allowed to take from both them and him. And why wouldn’t they try and stall the powers-that-be? After all, it was hard-earned, so you can understand Facebook’s owners putting certain things in place to protect their interests. Eduardo’s tactic, then, as was recently alleged, is to give up his US citizenship (which he has held since 1998). With a Singapore citizenship he’ll be in a much better place tax-wise, although, of course, there is less talk of the money side of things from his end – it’s never about the money, is it? – and Facebook say the move is purely about where he’ll be living from now on.
[Image credits: Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook. Photograph: Jason Kempin/Getty Images North America]
Amazon are at the centre of this week’s story number 2, and the subject matter won’t surprise anyone who has been following the ebook-versus-traditional-book debate for the last decade or so: yes, after years of speculation and multiple new Kindle models hitting the virtual shelves, Amazon are finally about to up their technology to the Holy Grail of what we’ve all been waiting for – colour ink screens which further enhance the reading experience. Not great news if you just bought a black and white model, but terrific news if you’re one of the countless hundreds-of-thousands of avid paperback readers who has been biding their time until the Kindle becomes as close to a book as is physically possible.
The story about the new line of Kindle’s, which are set to appear sometime later this year, first appeared via Digitmes, who said that, actually, progression towards the new colour Kindle is a lot further along than most of us had thought possible. This will integrate new touch-pad style function, of course, which will make the new device the hottest reading item anywhere in the world – at least, until Apple challenge the Kindle and produce something of an equal (not to mention the dozens of other companies vying for a place in this growing marketplace).
Whenever these new models appear, it’ll be interesting to see what exact difference it makes for book readers. But whatever the improvements, we’re sure that this new line won’t be the end of the Kindle’s evolution…because when you think about it, we’ve only just started, haven’t we?
This week’s third story is, you guessed it, all about Bing – the search engine which we all say is really cool, but still we end up using Google. Yet this new information we report now might be the thing to finally change your mind. Not heard about the new Bing format yet? Well, allow us to fill you in on all the details: firstly, the new concept is a lot fresher and different from all the search engines you have seen before. Three columns make it up, displaying results in a familiar manner. First there is a column to show regular search results, and this is followed by one showing info which is closest to what the user entered. The last column shows recommendations from friends and acquaintances – something of a nice touch, we think. Will it topple Google? We’re not sure about that, but it’ll certainly rock the boat a bit!
Source for article 1: http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-employee-resigns-citizenship-to-escape-taxes-2012-05
Source for article 3: http://www.webpronews.com/new-bing-is-more-than-just-a-pretty-face-2012-05
Source for article 2: http://www.webpronews.com/rumor-amazon-to-launch-color-e-ink-kindles-later-this-year-2012-05
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April 24th, 2012 by Adam Webmaster
For anyone who has been following the enormous Facebook versus Google power-struggle-debate in past months, it should come as no surprise to learn that advertising revenue is the latest weapon which both companies are trying to win the war with; it’s always been this, but more recently it’s been right there in our faces and impossible to ignore for anyone in the industry. To be expected, of course, seeing as this is the internet’s most powerful global resource. And according to the earning report (for Q1) Google released a week or so ago – one which shows a decline of 12% YoY in CPCs – the company have taken a serious hit. Facebook, on the other hand, seem to be the ones who are laughing in the face of the giant search engine, as their CPCs rose as much as 28% at precisely the same time…
Are Google worried? It’s unlikely, but it does pose a few interesting questions, we think. Facebook are obviously implementing an awful lot of new features…but what are Google doing to fight back with similar rage? Well, now you asked…
Google aren’t sitting around crying onto their laptops, is what. Instead, for the past few months or longer they’ve had their engineers working hard on the Google+ Hangouts feature – something which more and more people are using every single day for their own purposes, creating stunning web applications that are getting more and more interesting.
Want to know more about this API? Just Google this subject and you’ll quickly find the Office Hours video which has been making waves across the world. Discussing these API-related issues, the video in question talks about all the details of what Hangout apps and their publishing involve, as well as terms of service and everything else you could ever want to know. Developers are going gaga over this, and it’s hardly surprising: it isn’t as if we’ve all been waiting for a short time for this kind of cool, interactive technology!
More details on this are available across the web, including at cutting-edge news portal Web Pro News.
And now we move onto Spotify, everyone’s favourite music application and the modern equivalent of the juke-box. Well, if you love fizzy drinks and you love listening to music for free, you’re going to ensure you’re sitting down to hear this news: last week, Spotify announced – or rather, Daniel Elk did – that the conclusion of the meeting of Spotify and Coca-Cola will be an amazing new app which will blow minds everywhere the second it is released. Why? Because they’ve been working on the app for a while, and have designed and created something which will allow users to find and discover music at a mind-boggling rate. Sharing will also be a fundamental part of this new feature, and it’s going to bring social media and music together to form a serious force to be reckoned with!
The partnership’s deal, as reported at many other sources, will be this: Spotify will enable technology which Coca-Cola will use globally. Basically, each and every customer of the fizzy-drinks giant will be able to tap into this fantastic new resource. What’s more, Coca-Cola will be making Spotify available on Facebook using the new Timeline media that has been causing a conflict of opinions. The conclusion of this, they say, will be an approach to social media that is music friendly and takes all the difficulty and hassle out of finding your favourite bands wherever you are in the world.
Story one: source: http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-ads-reportedly-destroying-google-ads-in-cpcs-2012-04
Source: http://www.webpronews.com/google-team-details-hangouts-api-version-1-0-2012-04
Source: http://www.webpronews.com/spotify-partners-with-coca-cola-ipad-app-on-the-way-2012-04
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April 17th, 2012 by Adam Webmaster
Facebook link emails to URLs, a very special birthday and Wi-Fi spying stirs up a hornet’s nest
Another interesting week for social media, with more than a few interesting and noteworthy announcements to make (we only have time for 3 here but there are numerous more all over the web). The first thing to focus on is how Consumer Watchdog made it known to the FCC that they weren’t happy at all and wanted an uncensored full report released, pertaining to the 2012 eavesdropping débâcle that was Google Street View (when a report was released, but found to be shoddy on a number of levels).
In fact, the FCC were so unhappy with Google – stating that Google avoided answering their concerns about security of users’ private information – that they decided to fine them a reported $25,000 dollars, all for driving the Google car around and passing through unsecured Wi-Fi networks which might be sourced for information that wasn’t theirs to take. Not much for the internet giants, but enough to make them at least notice that this kind of thing is not acceptable. And we’re sure that this isn’t the last we’ll be hearing of this story. This certainly isn’t where it ends for Google on a number of other counts, either; with a company that is now so vast, there are as many as 30 law-suits pending, many of which attack on the grounds of invasion of privacy. Not particularly surprising that Google has its hand in virtually every pie going, including quite a few which are still in developmental stages.
And now we come to a slightly more uplifting story concerning Robert Doisneau. Not sure who he is? Well, this week saw the celebration of the famous man’s 100th Birthday, with Google marking it with an eternal Google doodle that the whole world could see. Responsible for some of this century’s most arresting photography, Paris will never look the same again, and this photographer’s inspiration images are sure to remain in the public’s imagination for a long time to come. Enter his name into any search engine and see the vast range of photographs that Robert made look so spectacular and magical.
Lastly, it’s all about Facebook – hardly surprising, considering the firm are constantly on the cutting-edge of steering the rest of the industry when it comes to social media. Google may be making a concerned and dedicated effort with Google+, but Facebook have the experience and the unrivalled knowledge to dictate what happens next, we think, and surely that gives them the upper-hand. Not convinced? You will be when you read about what they’ve just done to link URLs and email…
The idea, say Facebook, is that the new Timeline URL will now become a portal to that same user’s email Inbox, speeding up the social-networking process and streamlining things so it’s all nice and easy. The result? If someone hasn’t got time to flick through countless pages to find that user of choice’s email address, he or she will simply and easily be allowed to take the suffix at the end of the URL and email to that address – hassle sorted. Don’t get too excited, though, because Facebook also said that this feature would take some time to reach all users who enjoy the new Timeline features; and there are quite a few. The reality of all this is, though, that many users won’t be interested either way. Already a lot have complained – rightly, we think – that the Timeline feature doesn’t exactly flow that smoothly and makes life more difficult. At times jumbled and confusing, the intention to create something better is there, but we still think that Facebook have some work to do to make it completely user-friendly.
Source for FCC report: http://www.webpronews.com/consumer-watchdog-demands-uncensored-fcc-report-on-google-wi-fi-spying-2012-04
Source for birthday story: http://www.webpronews.com/robert-doisneau-100th-birthday-celebrated-with-google-doodle-2012-04
Source for Facebook story: http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-urls-and-email-now-linked-2012-04
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April 12th, 2012 by Adam Webmaster
Instagram set to explode and what’s this Google have up their sleeve?
The last week has been as exciting as any other for SEO and social media news, and if you’ve been anywhere near the internet recently then you’ll have heard about global phenomenon Instagram being bought out; add to this a recent announcement by Google that looks to be intriguing for everyone with an interest in current affairs, and we have two new stories for you which we’re sure to be hearing much more of in the very near future.
First Instagram. Now, how does a cool $1 Billion dollars sound to you? Because that’s how much money the valuation now stands at, according to industry sources strewn all over the web.
If you’re still not sure what Instagram is, allow us to clear that up right now: It’s a photo-sharing app that everyone is using, often in conjunction with Facebook. It wasn’t too surprising, then, that Facebook saw the potential and made a swift move.
Speaking on his Timeline, Facebook founder Mark Zuckenberg said that they’d be integrating the Instagram team and resources into Facebook’s headquarters. In an age of unemployment, this is refreshing news, and surely means that Instagram’s already strong core ideas should be given even more ammunition. Which is great for all of us, because it means more money being injected to make this great service even better than it is.
Zuckenberg also stated how Facebook isn’t looking to combine the companies at the cost of the app’s features; instead, he highlighted that the key concern for the coming months will be improving the service to make it even more user-friendly. This should put any fears to rest that Instagram will be integrated in such a way which might spoil the app’s simplicity, which focuses on beautiful photos rather than connecting to every available platform possible.
So, in short, the future looks very bright for this new pairing. The biggest acquisition yet for Facebook, it’s a great match which pairs up what we all love about Facebook (the ability to show everyone our photos) with what Facebook does best (letting all our friends know what we’re up to!).
Another story which we found just as interesting, but which is completely different, was Google’s announcement that they are to stream a kind of “hangout” with the UN Secretary-General. The idea? It’s one that sounds promising: using Google+s new “Hangouts” feature, the company is going to do what it’s already done a few times before with great success – connect people all over and get lots of thinking going on. In this case, Ban Ki-moon will be answering questions to a global audience from New York, the place where the United Nations headquarters are located. And we think it’s going to be exciting. With a strong history of aiding humanitarian crisis and effecting poverty and the environment, we’re sure that it’s going to make for something fascinating.
Sadly, if you’d started to write down a slew of questions with which to dazzle the Secretary-General with, you’d better take a seat…six fortunate young people from across the world have already been chosen to take part in the stream, and they’ll be from everywhere – including Asia, the Middle East and the United States, of course.
The event is taking place today at 3:30 pm EDT, on Youtube – Tuesday 10th – but don’t worry if you’re reading this at a later date and have missed it; watching it live will be interesting, but we’re also certain that the answers and conversation will prove enlightening for some time to come.
Both stories sourced from web pro news:
http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-buying-instagram-for-1-billion-2012-04
http://www.webpronews.com/google-to-hangout-with-un-secretary-general-2012-04
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April 3rd, 2012 by Adam Webmaster
Ever overheard a conversation about the hash-tag (#) and turned the other way? Or maybe you’ve been involved in a heated debate in the pub about how Facebook’s web design is brilliant, when you think it’s a waste of time? In either case, personal opinion is fine, but when it comes to not heeding the power of Social media where your business is concerned, it could be the kiss of death.
Here are a few pointers for both people who love and hate the idea of all of us connecting:
1) There are firms out there who can handle this for you. If you have the budget, there are numerousSocial media companies who’d be happy to take this kind of work on. Not sure how it all works? By employing them to do it all, you benefit from all the results and spend none of the time. Of course, not everyone can afford this, but in that case that’s no reason to worry – why not give a member of staff the job and give them a couple of hours throughout the week to achieve it? Alternatively, if you live in Cheltenham or Gloucester, head over to About Online to see how they do things.
2) You can’t afford to stay away from LinkedIn: as a company, LinkedIn are seriously going places, and redefining the way we think of connecting online. Designed primarily with professionals in mind, think of it as more of a refined Facebook – a community of potential where collective minds think alike.
3) You need a Facebook page, and a quality SEO blog would be a great idea, too: Facebook pages are great because they are easily found – all you have to do is add some content and pictures and put the word out on Twitter. Then we come to blogging, the new secret weapon of any social media entrepreneur. Not convinced? You will be once you’ve signed up to either WordPress or Blogger and discovered the number of web design possibilities…add videos, put up regular posts about your company news or add a humorous slant. Then, once you’re done, link it to Facebok, Twitter and LinkedIn to ensure people can find you in a number of intriguing ways.
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March 3rd, 2011 by Tracey_Ber
After chatting with Adam over a week ago about this blog, it has finally taken shape driven partially by the fact that a lovely friend/client David Wood is getting national media exposure thanks to his fabulous out of the box idea, the Press release and eBay advert I wrote for him, in order to help him find a job. In light of this I thought that I had better get this post done as it is very fitting and highlights alot about communicating, personal branding and online reputation.
In the last few days I have been watching more and more people around me talk, interact and post their stuff in many different forms on the web. In particular the social media arena. This all resonates with me as an NLP fundi and my company after all is about communication, branding and marketing in the social media world. I tend to read peoples language patterns and see things that other people have not noticed where their ‘communication’ is concerned and there is one thing that needs to be addressed quite seriously: Your online Reputation management (ORM).
What will happen to the web in the next 5 years or so will show you that YOUR online reputation and personal branding is out there forever. What is this I hear you say, well let me give you a very brief outline about ORM. This article can be found on Wikipedia and is the most comprehensive and the simplest outline of it.
“Online Reputation Management (ORM) is the act of monitoring, addressing or mitigating SERPs (search engine result pages) or mentions in online media and Web sphere content. ORM primarily involves tracking what is written about a client on the Internet, then utilizing sophisticated online and offline techniques in promoting positive and neutral content, while at the same time pushing down those links the sponsor (in most cases business or individuals) may not want to show when their name is searched.
Rather than working to raise link results with a particular search term in order to (ostensibly) generate more commerce or page views, the goal of ORM is to push already highly-ranked negative posts off the results pages so that they are seen by fewer people, thus creating a more positive results environment for the sponsor of the effort. ORM is the specialization in prevention and repair of online reputation threats, and has less to do with directly promoting businesses.
The term arose from a recognition of the importance that influencing how someone or something is perceived based on an internet search has to a business. As the amount of user-generated content on the internet grew, it began to affect internet search results more meaningfully, and the desire to change those results naturally followed.”
(Link to the full article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_reputation_management)
Now, there are plenty of tools out there to counteract anything negative about you, but is this the real you then? Shouldn’t you be managing this at a base level of communication to ensure that what you see is actually who you are and what you are communicating out is the good, positive side of you and using anything negative that gets said as an opportunity to stand out from the crowd, correct it or deal with it.
In NLP there is a great line that says: There is no such thing as failure, only feedback. In other words, use the feedback as a positive tool.
I love to use the analogy of human life where social media and reputation is concerned. I see it like a mirror image of who we are when you take the technology away.
Imagine this real life scenario:
You walk into a bar to meet friends, you start chatting and enjoying your evening, occasionally other people walk over who are friends of friends and you get introduced. The conversations gain momentum and the excitement of meeting all these people bubbles all around. Then all of a sudden somebody says something you don’t agree with and you get angry, you are rude to the person and everybody gets upset with you. The most of them leave. That little incident will get talked about to various other people about what an aggressive angry person you are and so your personal reputation in that particular circle is damaged. It is locked into their unconscious forever, if anyone mentions your name again, that memory is retrieved instantly and a bad picture pops back into their minds. Not a pleasant picture is it??
NOW.. the internet and any form of online communication takes this a step further, it is stored forever. Yes.. I said FOREVER. The tools that people use to manage this more often than not it is implemented incorrectly and they don’t work fast enough to counteract it or in an average person case, they don’t have funds to purchase such tools. There are also monitoring tools that can bypass this and they capture information in a nano second! A brilliant example of this was Russell Brand tweeting a picture of Katy Perry first thing in the morning. A screen shot was captured within seconds of it hitting the net. It went viral in a few hours, even though the tweet was only up for a very short time. To prove this point, I give you a link to just one the articles that was run about it:
http://www.inquisitr.com/94352/katy-perry-no-makeup/
If you search it, it still brings up a lot of articles on it. I have to admire them in a sense as there doesn’t seem to be any online reputation software cleaning up after them. It is who they are and they are people too. In retrospect considering their position in society as celebrities somebody should be guiding them as to the damage they do their reputations sending out stuff like that.
In the future and when we achieve Web 4.0 status everything you put out there will influence people around you and your life will not be a secret in any way if you interact on the internet. A lot of this is already happening although it has yet to be a norm. A good example is the recruitment industry where in a few years a possible employer will profile you off the internet before an interview. A few do it already, although when it reaches its peak, you won’t have a choice but to be found.
My suggestion is: Search yourself on Google or any other platform.. are you there? How do you look? If you aren’t at this point being seen and you do not come up in any search results, not even for your facebook page, may I congratulate you for having brilliant security ‘saviness’! In the future, it won’t be so easy, make sure you are putting out the BEST of you now because people around you will want that information on a daily basis, you won’t really be able to do anything without a good online presence.
Dave’s online presence is in the spotlight now and this will be captured forever. Just Google him – David Wood Ebay – to see for yourselves! Congrats Dave! I hope you find that dream job!
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September 23rd, 2010 by Adam Webmaster
We hope you find some useful info on our blog, we believe in sharing knowledge and experiences. Based in Gloucestershire in the UK we work with many clients helping them achieve an online presence that works. Your online presence is not just a website any more, it much more than that – it is your network online. Your network should tap into your clients & customers and those in your industry. Dont forget you can get in touch with us to discuss any time!
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June 13th, 2010 by Adam Webmaster
Hi all,
We have seen Google change the way searching is done over the last few months, we have noticed the testing at weekends and finally the new side options when searching. With Google still representing approx 80% of meaningful searches for products and services you can never ignore Google changes to searching. If you do you could see your website/online presence decrease and not even realise until you notice the negative impact on your business. What does the changes mean to you without being to nerdy or technical?
Well basically Google has started to give fresh content some meaning, new content will come up near the top, then when aged a few days will go back down the search engine rankings – having been judged on how popular web surfers have found it. This is a way of Google trying to get rid of that out of date info that plagues the searching and really it is a good thing for the users. We have been promoting Blogs & social media for sometime now and it is has just become more important than ever in keeping fresh relevant content to your business online. It is exactly what Blogs are designed for!!
We say dont let your online presence fade, keep your content up to date on your website, failing that get some kind of Blog going to help keep your content fresh and relevant.
Of course we can help with that 
www.gloswebsitedesign.co.uk
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April 24th, 2010 by Adam Webmaster
Business Blogs
Business Blogs are becoming an important marketing and sales tool for Companies in the UK, we now see forward thinking Companies & Organisations having a website blog, a business blog connected from your website. Creating a business blog for website will allow for a more relaxed way to communicate, distribute articles and interesting information and providing a Company personality online.
We have seen successful business blogs creating an online buzz in a local area, UK wide or across the World connecting potential clients to informative well written information that is fresh, updated and search engine friendly. A well managed effective business blog will promote your website and business online.
We work with our clients to design, host and maintain an effective business blog for our clients
Click here for more info about our business blog service
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April 17th, 2010 by Adam Webmaster
Blogs provide the latest information about a product or service that is offered by a company or an individual. This is the reason why more and more people depend upon blogs for information availability. However, this fact alone does not qualify in determining the authenticity of the information provided. With the inclusion of blogs, websites keep a track of people who are visiting them and also seek comments from the visitors to enliven their website’s coverage over the Internet for longer periods of time. People who write blogs are known as bloggers. These people are being paid by website owners for writing blogs on their websites.
There were times when blogs were an obscurity. Nobody was able to tell that what exactly a blog is. However, blogs are one of the important aspects that are ruling the market of late. Besides providing updated information, blogs contribute in the diversion of traffic for a certain website. These are known as online links or back links. They redirect the users who click on those links and in turn this increases traffic for that certain website. The amount a blogger receives depends upon the number of clicks a website receives on which that particular blog is posted. These clicks on the blogs are also known as “hits”.
The enhancement for blogs are blog networks. It is nothing but a network that has been created by bloggers for mutual aiding while they create blogs for various websites. Some bloggers create latest blogs based upon the topic and later interested parties will purchase that blog. The number of back links a blog contains the number of keywords it consists of. The arrangement of keywords must be unique or else those blogs will be considered to be blacklisted by search engines for keyword spamming and copy scape. In order to avoid such situations, bloggers need to be creative and implement their own ideas. This leads to the generation of more income.
Whenever a blog has been created, it should be known to the general public. For this purpose, we recommend using Twitter. In fact, we are able to place reTweet buttons directly on to you blogs for ease of use! Blogs visited in such way can generate huge volumes of money. Also, the amount generated by a blog also depends upon the blog. The more updated the blog, that better the scope of earning will be. In order to achieve this to a maximum extent, bloggers need to choose the current topics and keywords that are in demand and can organise their blogs based on that content.
We specialise in Social Media Optimisation, including Blog/Twitter Services.
Get in Touch Today!
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This week’s third story is, you guessed it, all about Bing – the search engine which we all say is really cool, but still we end up using Google. Yet this new information we report now might be the thing to finally change your mind. Not heard about the new Bing format yet? Well, allow us to fill you in on all the details: firstly, the new concept is a lot fresher and different from all the search engines you have seen before. Three columns make it up, displaying results in a familiar manner. First there is a column to show regular search results, and this is followed by one showing info which is closest to what the user entered. The last column shows recommendations from friends and acquaintances – something of a nice touch, we think. Will it topple Google? We’re not sure about that, but it’ll certainly rock the boat a bit!