Bringing Google Plus To Work

Google has been evolving with their social network Google+, pushing updates that help people in more than one way. So while the recent updates have been focused around individual profiles on Google plus, on Wednesday Google announced a tool inside Google plus but specifically designed for business. The features accompanying the tool will be in a full preview mode for the Apps (Google Apps) customers. The preview mode will be free till the end of 2013 after which the cloud base storage charges (it seems) will apply.

In a nut shell here are the features that are available to start with for the organizations that have gone Google. They will be able to use and test these while Google will continue to add more features and admin controls that are tailored for organizations. 

Private sharing for your organization
For Google Apps users, there is now an option to mark the posts that they create as 'restricted'. These posts will be like locked and there will be no option to re-share them in anyway. However, there is a flexibility to share the posts with your partners and colleagues outside your organization but only while you are creating the post. Once the post is published, that is how it remains. 

Video meetings integrated with Gmail, Calendar and Docs

Back in July Google integrated Hangouts in Gmail. So while you were separated in your geographical locations you could be face to face in discussions and also while editing a doc right within the hangout session. With the current updates already rolling out from Wednesday, user will have an option to add hangout to a Calendar event "allowing attendees to join the meeting directly from the invite or Calendar entry."! 

Administrative Controls
Admins will have the rights to set company-wide defaults for post restrictions or to enable any restricted Hangouts so as to facilitate the private meetings within an organization.
 

It looks like with this push Google is not stopping, at least for a while. Clay Bavor the Product Management Director at Google Apps said in a post on Google' official enterprise blog that they "have a lot more planned for the coming months, including a mobile version of Google+ for enterprise users and more administrative controls. "

If you are a Google Apps customer and believe in this trend called "going Google" by the search giant then here is the link that should interest you. Have a good time with the tool and do let us know in case you go by it in your company!

[Image Credits: Google' official enterprise blog]

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Facebook iOS Camera App Updated

The Instagram deal may not have closed fully yet but Facebook seems to be showing the cards and the next steps on mobile arena. The company is really taking the mobile market seriously and in fact seems to be going ahead from where they were some time back, plus improving on the web user experience as well. Back in May this year, they introduced the iOS Facebook Camera app which though didn't full fill all the expectation of the Apple smartphone users but promised enough to be an exciting prospect. At the time of the launch the app received a mere 2.5 rating on the app store, with user commenting on the lack of features that disturbed everyone, the support for albums!

The new update in the app store which is version-ed at 1.1 provides users with the ability to create albums. This is a straightaway sign that Facebook is listening to its users, at least as far as the camera app is concerned. iOS users will now be able to create and edit photo albums from within the Camera app itself. The current version update also provides a few other features apart from the bug fixes:

• Notifications for tags, likes and comments
• It’s possible to add photos to an album you choose, or create a new album
• Likes and comments are available for posts with multiple photos
• Likes are available for individual comments
• Names and profile pictures display for everyone who liked a photo
• Long captions are easier to read when you expand photos to full screen
• Translated to 10+ languages including French, German, Japanese, Italian, Chinese, and Spanish
• Bug fixes
  

While you click a pic using the Facebook Camera app, the photos go to a default album labeled 'Mobile Uploads', this has been the case since the launch of the app back in late May 2012. What changes now is the appearance of a new albums icon as you click a photo in the app. Once you tap this icon, you will be given a choice to either create a new album or choose an existing one to which the photo will be added. The update provides a new tab called 'News' in the app which will notify you of all the likes and comments on the uploaded photos. Users are also able to now like and comment on a photo feed which has multiple photos.

As per Facebook the Camera app has been taken to a standalone thing since looking for a notification about the photo that you were tagged on shouldn't have to have you looking at the whole web application of the social network site. So ideally if you are looking for some information about your photos, it should be the Camera app that catches your attention rather than the whole web app and its features. Which according to us, seems to make sense.

The update to the Camera app comes soon after the company released a new version of the main native app on iOS as well as Android suggesting that they are really serious on what goes out to the users using the smartphone version of the social media site. Why the Camera app(with the new updates of 1.1) isn't there for the Android users yet is a mystery even we are trying to get answers for. Till then enjoy the new album creation feature and do let us know how you like the new notification enabled News tab in the Facebook Camera app!

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Brand Ambassadors of ApnaCircle.com

Last month we covered the start of the Brand Ambassador Competition on ApnaCircle.com. The competition which was to end around the beginning of this month was extended, it seems due to the number of entries and responses received in the Brand Ambassador group on ApnaCircle.com. The competition finally came to an end yesterday, while the winners were announced on the same group as well as ApnaCircle' Facebook and Twitter accounts.

We present to you the 4 Brand Ambassadors of ApnaCircle.com. Starting from the top left and moving clockwise we have; Ankit Sharma, Smriti Srivastava, Ghanshyam Mishra and Seema Sharma.

The announcement that was made yesterday from ApnaCircle' official Id didn't mention what next steps would be. If the Ambassadors would be called for an official meeting with the office staff or the certificates and goodies would be couriered to them is still not known. The Brand Ambassadors however have been informed to inbox their numbers to the ApnaCircle official account on the site so the company officials could get in tough with the winners. The winners were obviously very excited to have won the competition and the chance to be related to one of the leading Indian professional portals. The enthusiasm was apparent in the as one of the winners, Ankit Sharma already has updated his background information with "Brand Ambassador, ApnaCircle.com" information.

Here is a brief intro about the winners and their respective videos that won them the competition.

Ankit Sharma: B.Tech. student from ITS engineering college, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. A blogger and a webmaster by choice. Runs MTU Khabar. He also suggests SEO related work to some sites so connect with him in case you are looking for some help on SEO front. His video post on the ApnaCircle group received around 18 views but on YouTube he collected a good 342 views. 
On your left is the video that Ankit uploaded to his account on YouTube. Enjoy his video and the confidence that the young budding entrepreneur shows off :)

Smriti Srivastava: She is also a B.Tech Engineering student from the central part of India, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India to be precise. Pursuing her degree in the IT field from one of the top colleges in the city, LNCT which is affiliated to Rajiv Gandhi Technical University.
Her video post on the ApnaCircle group collected a massive tally of 90 plus views and more than 20 comments, which considering the competition were healthy enough. Her YouTube video uploaded from her official Id and presented here on your right again had a decent 70 odd views. Have a look at her video here and decide for yourself on the confidence the lady has in herself and her prospects as a Brand Ambassador.

Seema Sharma: A HR in recruitment with a total experience of more than 3yrs, Seema is very active on the site and has the biggest and widest network on ApnaCircle.com amongst the 4 Brand Ambassadors with a whooping 1500 odd contacts in her profile.

She is currently stationed in Chandigarh and works with Siddhivinayak Corporate Services. The only one of the  to have gone past the 3 figure mark as far as the views on ApnaCircle' group video post is concerned and was able to impress 12 profile on the site to comment in her post. The YouTube video was again a good hit with 16o odd views there. We give you her video here on the right to see, know and connect with her on ApnaCircle portal.

Ghanshyam Mishra: Another one of the winners from the Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh are of India. Gaurav is very active on the ApnaCircle portal and loves to "create opportunities to meet new people".

He is an MBA student from the very famous Galgotias Business School in Greater Noida. Another ApnaCircle member with 1000 plus contacts on the site. His video post on the site collected only 9 views but the YouTube video, shown here on the left, collected a good 238 views. Connect with him and expand your network. We leave you with his video, enjoy the day!!

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Jumpin Naani vs Naani Campaign

Time and again we all get surprised on the ways web users and even brands use their social media presence. And not only how they use it but also for what they use it for. Considering these two areas, we bring to you today a very nice way of helping an NGO by a very popular brand of juice drinks, Jumpin!

Remember the scorching summer afternoons when after running around the playgrounds all we required was a nice place to sit under a tree shadow and some cold juicy drink? I never mind the Jumpin anyway. That however is a different nostalgic story where this brand always a friend :) What we highlight today is a fun way to help that Jumpin is bringing in with its Naani vs Naani Face-off campaign that is currently doing the rounds.

The idea of the campaign is very entertaining and has bought back the, much loved by children (as well as elders), yesteryear's song "Naani teri morni ko mor le gaye". This was a melodious song from the film Masoom in 1960.

Coming back to Jumpin' campaign. As part of the campaign Jumpin has come up with the Share the Video thing where for every video share the company will donate 2INR to a NGO called Save the Children. Save the Children is world's leading independent organization for children that works to inspire breakthroughs in the way children are treated to around the world. The idea is to achieve immediate and lasting change in the lives of these children.

Here is the video that Jumpin created and we talked about a little here. Its also uploaded on Jumpin's YouTube channel in case you want to take part in the campaign.

Let's see if Naani' moonwalk can impress you ;). We will be sharing the video to do our part, will you?

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Google Testing Gmail Results in Search

Ever experienced the results for which you were Google-ing for some time was available in your mail (Gmail to be more specific)? You are not alone, once or twice we all landed on our face as we already had what we were searching for. Google thinks and says "you shouldn’t have to be your own mini-search engine to find the most useful information— it should just work,".

That's precisely why the search giant has started a pilot program for its search results. The program will let users have results from their Gmail in normal search queries. Users will be able to signup to have the feature enabled n their account. Google plans to include mail service other than Gmail in their search queries but there is no news if other services have shown interest in the offer. The feature is only available in English to start with and will work only with the @gmail.com results and not with a Google Apps account. You can register for the feature here, and hope that you will get picked up.

The more official announcement about the feature was made in the blog post by their SVP Amit Singhal on company' official blog. He mentions about the more useful features that they are working on. Like, searching for [my flights] will have your flight confirmation emails organized and presented on your search screen in a beautiful manner that will make the search more exciting.

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Google Plus Launches Vanity URLs

After Facebook and Twitter offered the feature to its customers some good time back, its seems the Vanity URLs are again in fashion. Not that they ever went out. So after ApnaCircle launched Personalized URL feature a couple weeks back, its now the turn of the search giant to finally announce the feature a good 3yrs later Facebook started it for its users. More reasons why it was long due.

Vanity URLs, to reiterate again, are also called Personalized or Custom URLs and are a good way especially if you want to pass it along to your network. As is it becomes easier for people to remember them that way, rather than having to deal with a URL like https://plus.google.com/110591781802668078167/posts, where no one (apart from Google itself) what the numbers mean. For records, by the way, the URL that we just provided is Social Crunching' profile on Google Plus! With this feature in place now, we would be able to create a URL for our profile like: https://plus.google.com/+SocialCrunching/posts, ensuring a good time for our readers to remember the link.

The only problem however is that the feature is, as of now, open only for some verified profiles and brands. This is the post from Google Plus' official page on the social network:

If you are interested in the full post here is the link to it. Like Saurabh mentions in the post the feature will be available to people and pages worldwide but currently is available to a restricted verified profiles and brands.

The selected celebrities whose profiles are now using the new feature include the English football start David Beckham', Madonna and Hollywood start Hugh Jackman to name a few. The brands that have moved to on the custom URLs include names like Hugo Boss, Delta, Ubisoft, Toyota.

Though he mentions in the post that the feature will be rolled out to all the users and pages, the time frame of the same wasn't to be mentioned. As it stands we will wait for another official announcement straight from the horse' mouth. Here is how we found it on the Google Plus own page on the social network:

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Google Acquires Frommer's

Ever heard about Frommer's? If your answer is no, chances are you will hear the name quite a few times in days and weeks to come till the acquisition completes and the company finally merges into and becomes a part of the search engine giant. Yes, Google acquired Frommer's a travel guide service from John Wiley.

The acquisition amount is undisclosed as of now (and seems it twill be that way) and it also is pretty unclear on what the search engine giant have in mind. Its known that Wiley already made it clear around the end of quarter of this year that he will be putting all services from Frommer's under the hammer. Although its pretty sure that this deal was not in his mind. Frommer's is mainly a producer of travel guidebooks but what may be more interesting as far as this acquisition is concerned is that they also provide reviews. Although the integration plans are not that clear from Google, it is being heard that the company data will be integrated with Zagat restaurant reviews. Google acquired Zagat last year and then integrated the data in the search results, seems like the plans will be the same here.

Google nearly had no coverage in the travel medium and now suddenly is making a steep progress, good enough to send ripples down to its competitors.The presence came in with Zagat first and now with Frommer's. The company rolled out the Google plus Local update that used quite a lot of Zagat. Apart from these acquisitions there was also the acquisition of the travel software provider ITA, which allowed Google to offer flight search capabilities as well as airline reservation services.

Google also has been running into legal issues with these acquisitions of late. After some issues Google finally got the ITA acquisition cleared and then there is a fine of 22.5Mn USD to pay regarding the breach of user privacy of Apple Safari browser. With FTC (Federal Trade Commission) on its tail the search giant should be a worried lot. What do you think are the best results fr you on these as far as these acquisitions are concerned?

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Vanity URLs Now Possible On ApnaCircle

Facebook denied having it but there was a way to do it after all. Though its possible to do so only one time, you can change and create your own Vanity URL on the world's leading social media site. Vanity URLs or Personal URLs, as they are also called, is a way for you to be able to choose and change the user name that is part of the URL of your page/profile so as to be able to remember and help your network remember your web link easily. ApnaCircle, India' leading business and career networking portal has finally started providing this option to its Members. Vanity URLs are also called your public profile URL on ApnaCircle!

The changes were rolled out in the later half of last week and you will have to head over to the privacy section of your settings on the site, to be able to perform the changes. Inside the privacy option you will now find another option which shows you the current public profile URL with an Edit option which after a click shows you like this:

As you see, apart from the option where you can edit your user name to create a new Vanity URL for your profile, the system provides you with some options based on your first and last name. If you like any of these, just click on that option and the text box gets updated with your new chosen option. All that is left now is to click "Save" (We rather would have preferred the label "Confirm"). As in the default options that the system provides you with, you are not restricted to use your first or last name. So if you wish to use an altogether custom name, go ahead and do it. The only restriction is that it should be available for you ;)

The idea (and we make a guess here) should be to provide the Member with an option to link their business name with their online profile on ApnaCircle. Like in our case we did that since the start, so our Vanity URL already has the company name in it. But if its not the case with you, this should be a very handy option; especially if you have allowed ApnaCircle to index your profile in Google search results. The confirmation message looks like as in the below image. Points to ponder here is that you are allowed any number of changes to this Personalized URL of yours in a day, but then there is a wait period of 2 months before you are able to change it again. This is unlike Facebook where you are only able to do it once in the whole life span of your profile.

 Also an interesting point to note here in the message is that since your old public profile URL is already (in case) indexed in search results, it will automatically redirect to your new Vanity URL. Again, unlike Facebook where using a old URL will give you a 404. However, after a change in your Personalized URL you may have to wait for a day (since the edit option is available the first day) before you can start using your new Vanity URL.

After the first day you will start seeing a message like below, making sure you are aware of how many days are still there before you can do another edit to the public profile URL.

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Outlook.com, The New Hotmail?

1996 was it when Hotmail was introduced and straightaway became the holder for your mail accounts? Long time it was and people were already filling up the base. may be a couple out of 10 visiting cards mentioned a email Id other than hotmail.com. Then a sudden drift when other players started making ground and it was time to make some updates. So they did and people loved the new look on Hotmail. But apart from the preview pane that seemed not to exist on other email systems and the so loving sweep system, there still was some problem that despite millions being there was making it a thing of the past. The Ads may be? Or something else, but there was starting to happen, a shift!

The love started dying out and the Google mail happened to millions of millions. The competition was tough and strong enough to send a chill down the spine of the once most famous mailing service. But after years of slumber there seems a new mailing system from the same parent (read Microsoft) and it looks like will create the same kind of ripples that we felt near the end of last century. Outlook.com is here and by the looks of it, seems to be a fascinating service to watch and wait for.

Microsoft announced some 10 days back a new web mail service with an old name, Outlook. The whole so familiar Microsoft Outlook that we are is used to in Schools, Colleges, Offices and even homes is getting a sibling with the same name but still different. Microsoft says the two will work well together, you won't be required to have the paid software client on your system to use the web and newer of the siblings. You are welcome to sign up for an email account on Outlook.com since the past few days. If you already have a Hotmail address, the whispers are that they will finally merge in to the new Outlook, but not straightaway. Microsoft isn't calling it Hotmail 2.0, the reasons are obvious!

People who aren't used to Gmail will find it easier to move to the new Outlook.com. People who are already using and love it, may have some hard time thinking as Outlook.com preview looks as fresh as Gmail did in 2004. Microsoft has done away with the graphical ads that were a feature of Hotmail. Text ads still stay but would be less disturbing. So if you were a previous member of Microsoft Outlook or currently are and were tired of complaining about problem with Microsoft mail on the go, seems the company heard you. The word is that Microsoft has plans to make Outlook.com the web email service to go to.

As for the features, Outlook.com as we said has a clean and fresh look to it. There seems to be a lot of work that has gone into the design to make it a good rival fro Gmail. The photos and videos in mail attachments can show up as a slideshow with an overlay to the main page. Better yet, if someone shares a web album with you; this slideshow still works as Outlook.com will be able to pull the photos from the actual web album for you (you will need Microsoft Silverlight installed for this).

Just like Google docs, there is also a feature to use, share and edit the office docs within the browser itself. To handle all your attachments the company has a 7GB space on SkyDrive for each account. The attachments that you send gets stored on your SkyDrive with an accessibility in email.

Address book on Outlook.com stays updated with all the status of your friends via the integrated Facebook and LinkedIn features.

Future plans are to integrate Skype inside Outlook.com so users may be able to call their contacts even though none may have Skype installed on their systems.

Chat window in Outlook.com is at the right top corner as against the bottom right in Gmail. There is no priority inbox like Gmail but the greymail is taken care of. So Outlook.com is able to recognize the Newsletters and social update mails and puts them in one place so you may be able to delete them in one go.
Do you think you will shift from being a Gmail only to Outlook.com ?
[Image Credits: Microsoft.com] 

Francesco

Post Credit

Business IT Student at Tavistock College aiming for a career at Google, Apple or Twitter. Hopeful Entrepreneur with strong passions for Technology.
Follow or add him to your circle on Google plus.

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Google+ Tops Customer Satisfaction, Facebook Suffers Setback

Did we see this coming? Well the answer would be affirmative in majority of the cases. The social media giant suffered with a low score compared to the expectations on the customer satisfaction chart. The near 1yr old Google plus scored more than Facebook in the same category, in fact going past everyone and shares the top spot with none other than Wikipedia.

The survey done by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) a couple of weeks before revels the numbers as shown to you in a screen grab from their site. As you see here
Facebook has gone to the bottom with a score of 61 which is around an 8 percent decrease from its last year count (on a scale of 100). And while the social media category itself has a score of 69 against the 70 that it kept scoring for the last 2 yrs, we see the new baby of the town and search giant' very dear Google+ getting to the top spot with a score of 78. Which makes the nearly 1yr old player the fastest to the top and a shared position with Wikipedia. Google plus as we all know has been dubbed as a ghost town on numerous occasions but it seems they are doing well as far as the pleasing the user on board is concerned. Considering Facebook still has the unchallenged 800Mn user base while Google plus although picking up very fast since its introduction last September, this numbers and rankings from ACSI report must have some as a shocker at this time for Mark Z and co. specially as they are still not able to recover from the drubbing they are receiving from Wall Street. Social Media' overall score of 69 wasn't as impressive considering the type of players involved and the amount of user base currently carrying the category with them.

These rankings were released by ACSI in partnership with analytic company ForeSee. As per them it seems Google Plus is scoring in market on all the key areas that Facebook seems to be faltering on off late. The areas particularly of interest were advertising, privacy issues and mobile experience.

Facebook' traditional advertising has received negative reactions from the crowd, while quite a few still treat the platform as useful for the advertisement areas. Google plus n the other hand as not yet played full cards but they seems to be not interested in this area of marketing. Though we can always trust the search giant to bring up a surprise or two. Facebook users have time and again raised issues on the privacy concerns, while Google plus keeps in mind this area and seems to be doing good as far as user's reaction are concerned. Google plus also seems to be winning hearts as far as the UX is concerned both on web and mobile while Facebook' users have complained majorly on the introduction of Timeline feature, especially when that was forced on users with no way to go back.

"Facebook and Google+ are competing on two critical fronts: customer experience and market penetration. Google+ handily wins the former, and Facebook handily wins the latter, for now," Larry Freed, ForeSee's president and CEO, said in a statement. "It's worth asking how much customer satisfaction matters for Facebook, given its unrivaled 800 million user base. But I expect Google to leverage its multiple properties and mobile capabilities to attract users at a rapid pace. If Facebook doesn't feel the pressure to improve customer satisfaction now, that may soon change." 

Another thing to note may be is that the scores that other players have. Although Twitter and LinkedIn are ahead in numbers from Facebook, they weren't to ahead. Pinterest seems to be making ground quickly with a near 70 score and is someone Google would be able to have a corner eye view of.

What do you think made Facebook falter while the ghost town still in its infancy is flying high? Let us know in the comments!!

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Facebook Beautifies Photos & Notifications

Facebook has started rolling out changes to its photos page on Timeline as well as on the notifications that you receive about your photo posts. As per our last update today, users have started seeing the changes on the notifications drop, although major of the users have still confirmed the photos page to be still the same (read the-update-not-yet-received).

With this update (as you see in the capture above) the Timeline photos get bigger and cover almost the whole of the page, unlike it was (or is for most) on the older version of the page. The top menu has (sort of) tabs that let you find photos you were tagged in, the photos that you may have shared and also your albums. The first look gives you a cleaner and professional feel for the page updates.

You friends would be able to able to like and comment on these photos right from this page itself. The new look will also be available on the Timeline of any friend you may be looking at, which makes it worth it! Emil who reported the feature on CNET also points out that "tagged names in photos now include the number of tagged photos in brackets. This is actually a link that will take you to the tagged person's photo page (facebook.com/name/photos)" which indeed is really a well thought UX design for the user.

You could, if you wish, showcase the photos on your Timeline and make them standout from the crowd so your friends know they are special or stared photos for you. To do so just click on the start that you see on right top of each pic as you move your mouse over the pic. The same is shown in the image on your left here. For the official announcement you may always head over to the Facebook page here.

Another noticeable change (or rather update) the social media giant bought to their in the last couple days was the way the notifications notify you of the updates and activities that are performed on your shared pics. Confused? Here is a pic that our reader who gets the Post Credit today shared with us:

  

If there is any activity(a like or a comment) on a pic that you shared on your wall, the resulting notification also shows up a small thumbnail of the actual pic to let you know which pic the notification is talking about. We find it great since people do get confused on which pic the notification was talking about.

This update should already be visible to you. If not, well wait for a couple more days I guess and you should have the small but very neat and clever update from Facebook.  
 

Grace Arreza

Post Credit

A Social Media butterfly who likes to be called just "butterfly". Currently lives in Cebu, Philippines. Grace is a social media coordinator and a pro-active customer representative at Clickinglabs.com.
She is a social media marketer so if you are looking for some social media inputs or optimizations, she is the one to add to your circles on Google plus and follow her on the BuyRealMarketing blog for tips and tricks on social media marketing!!

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Google Plus and Blogger Integration

This shouldn't come as a news to you in case you already logged in to your blogger dashboard since last week. But in case you haven't there is a nice surprise there that may miss the eye. Blogger now has another option in the form of a new tab in the vertical menu that sits in the left side of the dashboard. See that? Yes, Google+ is now a new family member in between the other useful tabs.

We know what you are thinking and we agree with you. This is yet another jab at integrating the different products owned by the search giant with their social network Google plus. The

new tab sits pretty neatly in between the Comments and Stats tab on the left side menu. Come to think of it and we agree with Google that its a seamless way of getting Blogger in to the Google plus community. For those bloggers who have their blogs hosted on Bloggers, its just what they would have asked for, for quite some time. We for example were very dejected not to have had an option to link the official Google plus page with our blog hosted here. So this comes as a surprise but a very nice one too!

If you are still scratching your head on why is this tab a great deal. Well, here is why:
In the past, when you created a blogger account (read 'a blog') the only place you could link it up with was your Google+ profile. You now have an option to connect your blog to your Google+ page as well.
Secondly, the above association will help you reach your followers in the most obvious way on your page. Before this update, you were able to auto share the new post through the share box on your profile to your network which stayed on your profile. So what happened to your page followers? For them you had to share the post separately for them to keep up with the news. With this integration that we talk about here, and the Google+ share box that will pop up you will be able to share the new post with your page followers. This new direct share of your blog content to your followers will create what Google says is the "ripple effect" which will expose the link to your content to a much wider and interested audience.

For linking or changing the way your blog is linked currently with your page or profile on Google plus you may visit the tab as shown in the above image. The tab will show you how your blog is currently linked. You are at your disposal to change the linkage as you like. If you are still guessing or are unsure on how the linkage will benefit you. Keep in mind the rel=author criteria. It may not be the straight forward goal of this integration, but Google for sure is looking for some search experience here. For you as a pro blogger, this will be act as a business tool where you can benefit from the way crawlers may be linking to some relevant information data points. And by the way, you are also able to link to any blog you contribute to with a brand' Google plus official page.
Enjoy the integration between the two communities and the direct and indirect benefits that it comes with!

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Google Acquires Wildfire

Two founders, a 4yr old service, platform for brands like Virgin and Spotify to manage and build up on their social efforts across the social websites, manage their pages, apps, tweets, advertisements and promotions etc..... leading to a startup that was valued somewhere between $250Mn to $350Mn. The deal closed a couple of days back with Google announcing the acquisition of Wildfire!

"Four years ago, we set out on a journey to make social media marketing easier and more effective. We thought our idea had potential, but little did we know what an incredible ride it would be. Not only have we helped to define and build an entirely new industry, but we’ve created a company that’s larger (from 5 to almost 400 employees in two and a half years!) and more successful (we’re proud to serve 16,000 customers including 30 of the top 50 brands) than we ever imagined." This is what the guys at the Wildfire had to say to start with on the Wildfire official blog.

The acquisition is going to boost the social marketing efforts on Google' side. Especially helping their social network Google plus take the most benefit out of it. Wildfire has been a marketing tool for companies like Facebook, Google, YouTube, Pinterest and while their main concentration and line of work would now be with Google, they will continue to be what they were for their customers before as is evident when they said that "there will be no changes to our service and support for our customers." 

What exactly the role of the company would be within Google, but it seems they will continue with the same pattern and in line to what they were before being acquired by the search giant. Google plus would be a  first in the priority line for sure but Google but considering that Wildfire was serving their biggest competitor, Facebook, as well we and everybody would be quite interested to see how do they go about the business; considering that Wildfire is tipped to be the biggest marketing partner for the social media giant. There is still some time as the acquisition is still quite fresh, so we will let things settle down there!

Google has been in pursuit for a social media marketing tool for quite some time now. It was already kind of getting lat when we saw the Buddy Media deal taken up by Salesforce and then Virtue and Involver going with Oracle. With social giant taking up Wildfire, its going to be a nice duel in the marketing competition.

[Note: Image source,Wildfire blog]  

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