Google+ Users Spend 3 Minutes Per Month

While we agree that with the amount of users growing on Google plus Facebook should have some eye on its competitor, the new data is that users prefer Facebook when it comes to staying on the platform. And the data is a real surprise as well. Courtesy comScore the new data reveals that users spent just around 3.3 min on an average on Google+ in the January month as compared to 7.5hrs on Facebook. These new stats obviously makes Facebook the clear winner. Note that in this study comScore maintains that they have studied only the desktop traffic and not the mobile traffic. Facebook however should already be a favorable runner in that area as well, although Google+ plus recent updates have been providing user with some interesting stuff; they need to do some more work to be competing neck to neck with the social media giant.
Time spent on the site is obviously a better metric in the social media world as compared to the number of users with a valid account. Google+ CEO Larry Page already have declared that they now have 90 million users; the number which is still small compared to the count Facebook boasts of. No one however has talked about the number of active users on Google+. There was also some news that Google changes its account creation process in a way that all the new users now have a Google+ account by default. This would obviously be putting more weight in the count-of-users in the bucket. The stats for the last 2 months of previous year weren't pretty as well, with comSocre saying users were there on Google+ for only 4.8 minutes in December and 5.1 minutes in November on an average.
With the company integrating Google+ results into its searches last month through a program it calls “Google Plus Your World”; the relationship between Google+ and search is that much more with Google showing more content from Google+ in its main search results.
Google’s Bradley Horowitz tells the WSJ that Google+ is not just a destination site like other social networks; its features are increasingly being baked in across Google products and services. Mr. Horowitz declined to share data about how much time people spend on Google+ but said “we’re growing by every metric we care about.” A Google spokeswoman said comScore’s data is “dramatically lower” than Google’s internal data.
Food for thought: SEO might be a good enough reason for presence on Google+, irrespective of the comparison taking place between the social media giants!

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Online Contact Cards: Future Networking

Circulating the paper business/visiting cards at all meetings and gatherings is s much last century now. We agree its still famous among quite a few, OK let us be true to ourselves; the physical business/visiting cards are in good circulation at all meetings and we love carrying them, in our wallets and in our card holders!
The paradigm has started to shift though. We see people moving from social gatherings to social platforms and from paper contact cards to online cards. In case you missed one of our older post, we mentioned our online business card that we created on ApnaCircle.com portal. 

Here is a look for you, on your left is our Business card that we created on ApnaCircle.com. And what better example to pick since we already have one here.
As you can see, the card has provisions for:

• Your chosen name
• Your profile pic
• Your profile title that you choose
• Your business email id
• Your contact/business address
• Links to your websites/blogs/profiles
• Your Instant Messaging handles
• Some free fields (our Mission and Punchline nicely sitting there)

You can always edit these details as and when you like. Plus you may add more instant messaging handles from a list of around six options as you see in the image here. You can see in our online card that we have added our Gtalk handle. Suits fine for us!!
So much so for the view of the business card. Lets have a look at the page where you can create the card itself and can edit its details anytime you want. 

As you can see this page has all the fields that we have mentioned before. Also, as you may already have seen; you can preview the card on your left side as you fill in the details. 
For most of the fields you are provided with the 'Add' option so you can add more business email ids or contact numbers. The form is pretty much strict with what it provides you to create/fill, but what we found good and a relaxing option was that there are a few Open Fields where you can put some name/value pairs. For us we added our 'Mission' and 'Punchline' details. If you would want to add some of your specials, this is the place for you!

At the bottom of the create card form page detailed above, you will find the option to share the newly created/edited business card with either all of your contacts or a few ones chosen by you as shown in the image here.
The button at the bottom however reads 'Save all', we don't know why!!
In case, however, you are not interested in sharing the card just now; you may wait for a later time. Like, adding someone as your contact or accepting a contact request that is waiting for your reaction. Both the actions have a check-box where you may choose to share either your business or your personal card or both. And since we mentioned the Personal cards, we may also mention that the same features apply to your personal card as well; offered alongside the business card feature. The context, as obvious from the names, is different. So you may share the business card with your colleagues and business clients/partners, while your personal card with your close friends and family.

One of our colleague, just in time, pointed out that from the address book (where y manage your contacts on the site) you could view any of your contacts business or personal card (provided that contact shared their' with you) right there. What's more, as pointed out on the image at left, is that you could download the virtual card in a .vcf format. Very beneficial if you want to import the contact details in your outlook for example. And this is not it, with the 'Add more information' link (pointed out as well in the image), you could add more details to the card like address, phone, email etc.. Awesome, isn't it?
So what are you waiting for guys, try it out now!


Our Views
The feature may not be unique, but from a perspective that a professional portal has this for its users, is really a good idea. The virtual world and some virtual perks to go with it. The social and professional networks are a place where millions share billion things and their expertise, irrespective of the geographical location they may be in. So, looking at this option where you are able to float your contact cards (business or personal), is really a very beneficial scenario or a feature as you may like to call it! Thumbs up from our side on this one!
Just one point to mention out on the label of the button on the share card part, we think it would make more sense to make it read "Share Now" instead of  "Save all" !! We aren't saving any data anyway. Hope like the inconsistency in the Groups label names, ApnaCircle will be hearing us here as well :).
Also, it would have been a gem of a feature if there was an option to get the cards printed. And ApnaCircle could have their own logo as a watermark. But the printing idea would surely benefit the user more, just for the sake of fun ;)
We sure hope you try the feature once and let us know how was it! Share your cards here in the comments section and we will be happy to look in to them. Let's see who has what details, especially the Open Field items! Happy Crunching then!!

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Pinterest: Pin Or NoPin...

Pinterest

Our first and last post about Pinterest on how to use the web-pinboard for spreading your business awareness. The whole web is flooded with news on how Pinterest is a hit and all so quietly. They now are supposed to be generating more leads to third party sites than even Google for Facebook. The UI has been and we now have a online catalog that might just be a threat to quite a few businesses related to image collection and artwork.  But wait what about the copyrights issue we all are so fond of ?
There have been allegations on Pinterest to be allowing the misuse and breaking the copyright laws since it in no way prevents users from pinning images that may well be protected by copyright laws. Although the policy of Pinterest clearly states that the pinner (the person pinning on Pinterest) is sole responsible in either obtaining the original owner's (of the image) permission to pin or claim to own the image being pinned himself. Josh Davis of LLsocial.com claims that 99% of the pins on Pinterest are against the company's own Terms of Service. Although Pinterest may be doing enough to remind users to credit the original resource of the pin, but is that really enough? Seems Pinterest realizes it isn't. In an effort to keep itself away from all the allegations, Pinterest has released a piece of code that once embedded by the website owners, will prevent users from pinning any image from that website. Thus providing a way for you, the website owners, to protect your stuff. A start, we say! In addition to this Pinterest, currently following the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, will remove any image that someone claims is violating the copyright laws.
And this is not it, Pinterest let you put a 'Pin It' button on your website in an agreement way that the users of your site can publish your images on Pinterest. And, yes there is more, Pinterest is thinking of limiting the 500-characters pin caption limitation in order to stop people from stealing the different posts around the sites.
As for the code that Pinterest provided, website owners can use the below meta to stop its users from pinning anything and everything from their site:

<meta name="pinterest" content="nopin" />

This meta could be used as is and when a user will try to pin any content from that site there will be a pop up to ensure the message is delivered effectively: "This site doesn't allow pinning to Pinterest. Please contact the owner with any questions. Thanks for visiting"

WordPress users can now use the nopin plugin, developed by Shawn Hooper, which actually implements the above functionality as detailed for the meta.

Flickr already seems to have implemented the functionality in an effort to prevent the copyright images of its users. 

Website owners (especially small business owners) will have a tough time deciding on the approach to take. Its important to protect your content and is equally important to consider the traffic the online web board seems to be generating. Pinterest however will have a few more things to work on. Your thoughts?

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Spread Your Business On Google Plus Circles

Since Google plus in introduced its brand pages, people have been looking forward to use it for their business promotions. The feature itself has been a recent hit, like we mentioned in one of our previous posts here. For spreading the business and for people to follow your business, you would need users/clients to be in your circles and also have them add your business page to their circles. So how do you it since its pretty obvious you wouldn't know all people and spreading the news is just as difficult as starting the business in the first place. We provide you with some tips here that may well be just basic in nature but for a start would serve as some essentials in making your business page travel pages and be known.

Entice The Users 

Most pages make a false start when they just put an empty page and start spreading the news. Remember you are actually selling something so an empty shop is of no interest to any client/buyer. Give people something to like so they can start to think to add you up in their respective circles.

Spread The Word: Use Google Plus Badges On Your Websites/Blogs 

Simple and effective way to market the business. We all know how effective Fb like button is when it comes to people checking on your business. See we have one too here:

Google Plus Badge

Transitive Effect: Let Others Help n Spread
Once you build up on your fan base. Ask for help. Your fan base already have a big circle, so if they start spreading the word the fire will spread even that much more.

Innovate and Idealize: Make It Unique And Different

Invention and innovation were, are and will be the key to success. If you have a idea, don't be afraid to try it out and let your fans experience the 'new' that are looking for in the business they follow. So, put your innovation cap on and let the ideas flow. Before you know, things will spread up making it just the more fun to innovate.

Hangouts: Use To Your Advantage

The hangout feature is very helpful if you know how to use to for your business benefit. Attend some if you want to, to know how to be effective while using it. And then of course once you know how to, be as creative as you want.

Keep It Rolling

Once you have a basic start on the business page, just don't leave it alone. Keep it rolling with different and interesting content. That way people will keep coming to new and informative stuff.

Give To Take: It's Social Marketing 
Remember, You are not alone. Just as you are looking to spread the word there would be others with the same intent as well. So if they add you to their circles, return the favor and the vice versa will follow. It is a social world after all. 

Do The Job Yourself Too: Use  Other Platforms 
We gave you an example in one of our earlier post on how to populate the intro section on other platforms and provide links to the different pages. Here is the image from our ApnaCircle profile:

ApnaCircle Intro Section

It's a way of sing the contacts from other social platforms and its going to be useful for your business as well.

Direct Connect Code
Direct Connect code could be inserted in your webpage and is able to get your page be eligible to be listed in Google Search results this benefiting your business.


We are not expert in this field, and if you think there are a few other points that we missed out; please let us know in the comments section. As always we look forward to benefit you in any way we can. Good luck to your business promotion and Happy Crunching!

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Google New Privacy Policy And Your Web History

From 1st March Google will start merging your web history with other Google products, like Google plus and YouTube. This is since the search giant is now implementing its unified privacy policy from that date. This policy will then start affecting the data that Google already collected from your profile before March 1st and then in future as well. The data that we are talking about involves the searches you made on Google and the sites that you visited.
What does this mean? It means Google will now be able to reveal particular information about you that could be considered very sensitive in nature. This may include data about your location, religion, age and interests and so forth; and then combine this web history data with the data that it may have collected about you form its other products like YouTube. That is why this may interest you more now. If you don't want to have this data combination, then you could follow below steps to remove your previous web history from Google and be safe from this data collaboration.
Be aware that removing this data also means that your web history collection is now paused and Google will not enable it unless you yourself do it manually. However, Google will still be able to use the same data for its internal assess purposes like it does now. And in no way does this mean that the data may not be used by other agencies for seeking law enforcement.
Here are the steps for you accompanied by the images for convenience:


Sign into your Google account

Google Web History Sign In

Go to https://www.google.com/history

Web History and Remove Page

Click 'Remove all Web History'


See above Image


Confirm

Confirm Web History Removal

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Profile Timeline On ApnaCircle Too!

[UPDATE 2/25/2012: One of our readers who happen to be a ApnaCircle team member (and part of the team that build up the Profile Timeline feature on the portal), answered a few of our questions/suggestions that we put in "Our Views' section at the end of this post. We are so thankful to Nicolas Karlen for taking out time to visit the post and reply to the questions and happy that our users are getting the benefits by way of these question/answers in the section termed as 'Our Views' in nearly all of our posts. Here are the comments for our users to read on.]
I used to be a software engineer some time back. In one of the first project meetings that I attended in my initial days we (I was a mere participant, not that experienced yet) discussed a whole lot issues on the product that my company was in to. Out of all the pressure that we faced, the only thing I could remember was 'Change is inevitable' or put in a more pun way 'The only thing that is constant is the Change'. Since then I moved on but the thought has stuck. Settled now as well. The only thing that has grown is the understanding of the concept. More deeper and more wider.
Innovation has always been the key in the competitive world. And we all agree on that. You have to show your users that you are different every now and then. But that doesn't mean you land up putting a wrong foot forward. The thought process should be good and there needs to be a lot of research that needs to go in to the build up to any change that you bring about, and that is irrespective to the kind of product you might be selling.
In our recent posts we have been mentioning of the changes that the different social/professional platforms have been up to on their product. So we gave you news about social platforms like Twitter bringing in new Brand Pages, then there was news about Facebook getting ready for Brand Timeline and Google plus wasn't left behind on their Android app updates. On professional portals we informed you about the smart news on ApnaCircle.com. Today we bring to you the recent changes (seems were done in the past day or two) that were done on ApnaCircle.com. The changes were accidently discovered by one of our team members while trying to fill in some details on Social Crunching Profile on ApnaCircle.com. We however didn't see any notification on the Dashboard for the site, which was a bit awkward, as people might still take their time to discover them. May be accidently like we did, or may be on their usual course to wondering around the portal.
We cam up with the below list of changes that we could see. If you know there are more since the past few days, let us know in the comments section or contact us through our contact form and we will be happy to update the post with all details for our users.


Forums or Groups
The first time when we created our profile on ApnaCircle.com; we started looking for a section called Groups. Amazed as we were, we didn't find it. One of our colleague then told us 'they call it Forums here'. For a moment we both argued on what is the best terminology on this and we finally gave in with a consensus as there are quite a few online sites which believe in the former while others in the latter.
This morning we just happen to click on the Forum/Community link on the portal and voila, there was the message. A nice image/layer with enough information on the point that me and my colleague were arguing a few days before. Here's the look for you:

ApnaCircle Groups

So, finally ApnaCircle has started using the Groups terminology.


Questions Keyword Suggestions: Populated by Default Based on Your Profile
The other day we were just wondering if there is a way you could create company pages/profiles on ApnaCircle.com. We couldn't find it; neither on the Sign-Up page nor on the Login page of the site. One of our senior member suggested we post a question on the portal so someone (hopefully) will reply.
We finally decided to put one today and discovered this thing that no one in the team noticed as yet. So this, it seems, is a new feature. Read on...
On the questions page on the site there is a small search form for both the open and closed (navigation through the tabs). This form as obvious will assist you in case you need to find some questions based on your interest or some specific keywords. So far so common! What we noticed different however was, the keyword text field was already populated for us with a sample keyword. And this was for both the forms. On a little introspection it was revealed that the keywords were changing anytime you came on to this page, even when you clicked on the tabs ('Search' and 'Closed Questions') and they were from what the application found in your own profile. Basically from you 'Introduction', 'Keywords', 'Interests' etc. sections that you filled up during your profile creation. Here is a image from our profile for you to view:

Questions Keyword Suggestions

Profile Timeline
We kept the big change for the end!
We heard about Facebook and Twitter timeline. This is completely new to us. But we loved it. From your complete profile page the moment you say 'Add' or 'Edit' on either your 'Professional experience' section or the 'Education' section; you are taken to a section which looks like a education/professional timeline view (at least the URL of the page calls it a timeline as we see a 'profileTimeline' in it). You could see a year wise horizontal graph of your career and can add or edit the details.
For the details part near the fold you see which company you worked for in which year (and similarly which school or university you went to), plus the advantage here is that you see who are the Alumni of that Company or University (that will be on the right section). Again, here are a few images from our profile:

ApnaCircle Profile Timeline

Our Views
Change is constant and constant is good!
Yet again, we like the changes that we saw on the portal. No major changes as far as Groups and Questions were concerned but yes the Timeline feature is a good start. Especially when we still haven't heard any of this kind on any other professional portal (are we wrong, feel free to let us know). Although there are a few things that we were surprised at, things that we think the portal still need to look at and revisit with their ideas on. Here is a list:
- Groups
When you see the submenu under the 'Engage' topic, it says 'Communities', the moment you click and land on the page, the page heading says 'Groups'. So everywhere its either 'Create Groups', 'Add Groups' or 'Groups by category'. This inconsistency in the terminology is a bit confusing at first. 
[Update 2/27/2012: As of today morning we see that the Communities sub-menu title has been changed to Groups. Seems ApnaCircle heard us :)]
- Questions Feature
The questions keyword suggestion feature needs to take a closer look at the keywords that it suggests. For example, when we included keywords like 'hehe' and 'the' in our interest and keywords section they just showed up in our questions keyword suggestion. Similarly a Sr. in our title also showed up. Doesn't make sense does it?

Keyword that didn't made sense

We however removed these useless words from our profile.


- Profile Timeline

• The look is definitely a good start like we said earlier, but we didn't understand the 'Translate into another language' on profile timeline. Our assumption is that ApnaCircle.com is for Indian users so not sure why an Indian user will be using these languages apart from English!
• In the members pics shown on the right section (Alumni of the your present/past employer or University), we see some members that do not have any profile pic attached to their profile (and the same on the 'Members you may know' section on right of Dashboard). We think it would be good idea not to show the profiles that do not have profile pic. Since the profiles shown are a selection from a large number, it doesn't go with the professional view.
• When we land on our timeline, the page automatically shows the layer to add an employer or education details. We thought this is a little irritating if the user already has these details filled in. Shouldn't it be shown only for incomplete profiles?

Member with no profile pic

These are just a few suggestions based on our thoughts here. If you don't agree or have some more stuff to add, we are just a message/comment away!!
Happy Crunching!

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Handle Unknown Friend Request: Should You Accept?

Familiar is it? Receiving a request on social sites from a person whose first-name you have hardly heard of is a common scenario these days. If you are also suffering from this syndrome, read on!
In the pre-Facebook era there were social gatherings, not that they aren't prominent today, but in those times that was the only means to get to know people that you now see as 'Friends-of-friends'. And then in the gatherings, you could hardly see any unknown person coming to introduce himself with you. A one off case was always there to prove the "exceptions always exist" hypothesis true. So the only means apart from this left was when a guy was attracted to a girl, or a person wanting to be in contact with another person since the target here was either a big shot or someone who was considered worthy or beneficial enough from a business contact perspective. So it always used to be what we now know as 'Introduction flow'; from a known contact to an unknown one who is already in the first person contact list, group, address-book or circle what ever you call it. Being a female myself I could tell you to believe it did happen like this a few years before. The custom has expanded in to the virtual world now with social sites like Facebook/Google+ etc and professional one like ApnaCircle.com
People have their own idea about how to handle these kind of requests, they have it for the physical gatherings and they have it for the online presence as well. So what happens if your husband's boss or some colleague sends a friend request to you on any of the mentioned platforms? Does rejecting the request sounds rude or unprofessional? It may to some but there would be others who would accept these kind of requests. What it comes down to is how you handle your address-book/contact-group then.
What ever you action plan is will(or ideally should) depend on which kind of platform you are on. So an unknown contact request on a social site should be treated in a manner which will be completely different from the one on a professional portal. More or less you are on a social platform for either your friends or for your family or both (majority is here) and on professional portal for either extending your business clients or being there as a technical person looking to share information and gather some for the areas you like. The purpose, as stated, is clearly different so the handling of your circle or contacts should be different as well. Don't make the mistake of treating both the platforms same, at least as far as your contacts are considered.


Social Platforms
Most of the time what you share on these platforms is pretty private or family stuff. Something that you wouldn't want to be viewed outside of your family and friends group. If you agree with this, then you are sure not to accept any request from anyone who you are not familiar with. I for once happen to be in this group as well. So all my contacts on Facebook are actually people whom I have worked with or are my close friends or is a family!
Google+ allows you to create circles and every post that you share could be easily chosen to be not-shared with some. Not that Facebook lists are left behind here but then I feel the circles are more obvious choice. The UI of post sharing is much more easily handled when it comes to discarding some circles of your shared post.
Facebook, however, has a mechanism in place where if someone does start getting a freaky with sending friend requests to people he/she is not known to; Facebook will block the account for a few days with a warning to start with where it asks you to confirm if you actually know the person you are sending the request to.


Professional Portals
The scenario is different there and most of the time depends on your profile role. So if you are looking for a job you could be friend with some HR or recruiting people you are not familiar with otherwise. Similarly if you are there to sell, then you may be adding contacts people who are interested in your products but personally are not familiar with you. 
These portals too have a way of 'introduction' and as well to ascertain that you know the contact one way or another. And if not then they explicitly ask you to mark the relation as you-don't-know-Mr X-yet. We found both these ways on ApnaCircle.com and were impressed with the UI and ease of use of these add-contact flow. Here are the screen-shots for both these procedures. Try it out and we are sure you will love them. We agree there is nothing special and the same you may find on other professional domains but when we first tried it on our profile with ApnaCircle.com, the experience was just smooooth! Although we are still unsure of what ApnaCircle.com  does if you send too many request with you-don't-know-Mr X-yet option chosen in the flow. Any ApnaCircle.com person listening, feel free to drop in a comment with details here and we will be happy to update this post with the details.

Friend Request on ApnaCircle.com

Get Introduced to a Contact

Our Views
We live in a crazy world and there are numerous fake profiles, just make sure you inquire well about the profile you are going to add! If you are an individual on social platforms like Facebook or G+ then you may want to ignore them in the first impression(debatable yes, and depends on individual to individual basis). Just make sure that instead of ignoring the request, you either accept them or reject them. Ignoring might not be a good idea! Although G+ will disagree as once a person adds you to his/her circle, he/she is sure not to see your updates/posts till you oblige by adding the in your circle.
For professional profiles like ApnaCircle.com, just see the profile of the person who send you the request. Profile details are a good way to know about the person, especially since people now a days provide details/links about their profile on other platforms. You may wish to check them out as well before accepting the request. 
We know a few who doesn't care whether they are on social or professional platforms, they will just reject or ignore (preferring the former) the request if it is outside of their known circle. And we sure respect the privacy. Happy Crunching then, and do let us know in case we are wrong in our views, we would be happy to include more details or correct them as the case may be!!

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Google Plus Brand Pages And Should Facebook Worry

Facebook fan pages have now existed or some time and Google introduced them around 3 months back. People and brands are already familiar with Facebook pages and are rather comfortable with the features especially the  apps and ads that the site offers. Should there be a worry about the search giant introducing the brand pages with its Google plus?
BrightEdge, the search and social management platform has reported explosive growth for the top 100 brands that are there on Google plus. They seems to have reported a massive growth in the number of people included in circles in these brands pages. As per them the number has grown from a good 222K to around 3 million in the period from Dec 2011 to Jan 2012. The percent increase is staggering but the number in  comparison to Facebook top pages is still quite decent and we don't think there is any need for Facebook to start sweating yet.

Google+ Brand Pages vs Facebook Pages

Brands will have a benefit with Google plus pages as far as the find it helpful with the organic search results in the ecosystem of the search giant. Other benefits would be since Google is the search giant and it has its benefits. The hangout features with video chat is something that brands could heavily leverage on.
Facebook however is the social media giant people are addicted to starting and ending their day with it. The major benefit that Facebook will start to have may be after  Facebook launches its Timeline for the brands. Although Google has what they call the scrapbook for profiles and brands on their respective pages but the cover photo feature is surely a up start for the social media giant version of pages.
Our Views
Facebook sure has a head-start in the duel. But if the recent growth with Google plus pages is anything to go by, the social media giant should have something to think about. We agree that the brand pages timeline will have its benefits but the reaction with users is still to be seen. There is no official word on how the brand timeline will be structured so that may be a surprise for both the user and the search giant.
Google on the other hand has an advantage to carry with the search plus thing. The percentage growth indicated by BrightEdge is impressive for a data analyst and threatening at least to a certain amount to Facebook.
Google will have to carry on with the growth and Facebook will have to have innovation time and again.
We are sure the duel will rewrite the history books. Let us know who do you think will have the knockout punch and how early?

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Facebook Launches Verified Profiles, Nicknames/Pseudonyms Also Allowed

Is this Salman Rushdie effect(we refer to the Nicknames/Pseudonyms thing here) ? Well, for a start we do not know since that wasn't a case for either a Nickname or a Pseudonym. But it sure was a Fb-users-allowed-to-choose-their-names case. Our best guess is that it sure was one of the reasons! Who is complaining anyway. People would be happy with both the features, at least most of them!

facebook verified account

The feature should be live since a day already as we write this post. Although the news is that the users with verified profiles will only be able to get to choose their nickname and its display. For the account verification user will have to upload a scanned copy of his/her photo identification. The identification could be either government proof like a passport, driving licence etc or a school or work id. The word is that Facebook will be deleting the documents once the account verification process is complete.
Verified accounts will have their benefits as Facebook will be including them(with their names including the Nickname) or prioritizing them in Facebook' "Subscribe Suggestions". The idea actually is to make sure users don't end up subscribing to wrong/fake profiles.
If you are looking to get the update and searching on how to get your account verified, hold on. This isn't something that you are going to look up and find somewhere just like that. You cannot volunteer for now at least. Based on your subscriber numbers you will be chosen and should get an intimation on your profile page to apply for a account verification and upload the required scanned document.
The feature is in accordance to be with Facebook' birth/real name policy as the verified account' birth name will still be the one displaying on the About Page for that profile. So for example, Bruce Mathers III could always let the About Page display this name and always have his famous name Eminem (yes the famous one!) display on the Subscriber' Suggestion list or on his profile.
We will wait for the first verified profile and see if there would be any sort of badge like the Twitter and Google plus verified profiles have. Although the news is that they won't. Although not having the badge will sound a bit awkward. The move/feature although will be a threat to Twitter' growth as the feature itself offers solution to graph subscription.
Time to wait and watch now! Hope you enjoyed this Crunch, Happy Crunching!


[Image Credit: TechCrunch]

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Facebook Timeline For Brand Pages : Are You Ready?

It wasn't long that since we posted about Facebook' Timeline for Individuals and gave you a things-to-watch-out-for. Timeline for profiles was launched last September and gradually came of for the global users. Some we are sure were caught napping and unaware!
This time we bring to you news about the much awaited Timeline for Brands, rumored to be in bought in existence  by the end of this month, more precisely on 29th Feb, at the first ever Facebook Marketing Conference to be held in NYC.

Facebook Brand Timeline

Rollover of existing brand pages to the new Timeline should be quicker than it is/was for the individual profiles, considering the 845 Million user profiles vs. 20 Million brand pages which have more than 30 fans on them. 
Like for individual pages, the brand Timeline will have an option to go back in time till when the brand was born and you should be able to list down the important events in your brand's life as and when it happened. To us, this makes more sense and in case of individual profiles is sort of good-to-have. Don't trust us? Go ahead get a cont on how many of your Fb friends did actually see through the whole f your timeline!!
We are sure the cont will surprise you and don't forget to drop in a comment about the number here and yes, we are serious on this!
Image Credit: The New York Yankees Timeline Page designed by Skinny and as featured on Mashable.com
For now you do have some time till the D-day. But if you do have a brand page in there, get yourself going. There is work to do, for simply you wouldn't like the idea of your users getting live feed of what you are trying to do with your Timeline. Here is our list to watch out for, so you don't end up hating it for getting caught off-guard...


Time to open the old records
Decide before hand what events to put in your brand's Timeline. Like profile Timeline, yo should be able to go to the inception time for your brand. So make sure you are very clear on what to put so users are interested in it.


Cover photo: choose wisely and in advance
This is the first thing your users will see once they land on your profile. And we are sure will cover half of the screen; smart-phones, tablets, laptops..whatever. Make sure the choice is wise and one of the early things you do in the preparation. Its sre is one thing that will put you on advantage over other brands!


Be ready for surprises
With only news around, till 29th Feb 2012, and no official details on how the brand Timeline will look like; be ready as you may end up with a lot of surprises. Make sure you have your technical team ready for the case when the apps just doesn't function out of the box on migration. 
There may be space and pixel adjustment issues, actually more than you would initially think and you wouldn't like any pages/functionality broken.


Get your users ready
We agree the custom landing tab is such a nice feature to use for the brands pages currently. But we do not know how they will work, if they will, once you move over. So if you rely heavily or even somewhat to guide your users to pertinent news sing the same, just make sure you are ready with some back up plans. Prepare a post for the users, just in case you will need to tell them of the changes in places of where to look the info that previously they were used to locate in a different manner.


You think we should have included a few more steps to watch out for in the preparation of the rollover? Then jump on and let us know in the comments section. We wold be happy to include them with details here. But, wait..don't forget to read our views on the news; just below...


Our Views
We are curious on how the new design will be, especially about the placement of the apps and how brands will be allowed to handle the custom landing page, post movement. Also, if the profile Timeline is anything to go by, majority of the posts (that were previously visible clearly) are sure to go below the fold..making the interaction just a little less on this page itself. As it is the interactivity on the news feed that the Like-ers receive on their wall should remain the same. The cover photo should and will stay just like it is for the profile Timeline, so brands will be able to provide a punch right away.
The feature should benefit the brands much much more than what it is doing for the individuals. As is, it may make no sense for an individual to list the first kiss, but it will make it that much more special for a brand to list the first major sale milestone. If you have a brand page on Fb, don't and we repeat don't let Mark Z catch you off-guard this time. Get your arms n ammunition ready and the transition would be much more fun, oh and by the way Happy Crunching!!

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Smart News: Right There On ApnaCircle.com

Smart Search Box On ApnaCircle.com

Ever wondered about a social media platform who provides you with news based on your usage and activity on the platform? Sure we all agree it would be so nice to log on to the site and be presented with news right there on the Home Page that is served absolutely to your needs. Yes we have heard about the LinkedIn news but for now since we are not there on the site, we will keep this post about the Smart News on ApnaCircle. LinkedIn post will follow once we have an account there!!
The smart news box that you see in the pic above is what we were presented with when we landed the first time on the page after login that the site people call their 'Dashboard'. For a moment we wondered what it is and why it didn't go even after a few days we already spent on the site. So we went discovering about it, though we agree it wasn't that difficult to figure the usage, but it took us some time to get the feel of it.

The page or the dashboard (it will take some time for us to call the mail page the dashboard) tabs came to the rescue. Very nicely placed above the fold and in a very neat fashion, it wasn't hard to find them. On the initial front we landed on the 2nd tab, the 'My Network'. This tab provides you with all the news about what your contacts share with you. 'Smart News' tab, on which we discuss mostly on this post is where you get the news based on the keywords that either you provide, or the application decides are best for you based on your usage & activity on the site.
The best thing on the 'Smart News' tab is that the customization is pretty easy. We look at the different areas in there.


Add your Keywords

Keywords add on Smart News tab

Apart from the 'My Network' tab, the keyword add form is here as well. Which to us makes more sense and we think the one on the 'My Network' tab is more of a "for a new user" kind of thing. So, here you just add the keywords separated by comma and click the button and you are done. For us it took only a fraction till we saw the news according to the keywords that we added.


Smart gets Intelligent

smart news is intelligent

Like we said, smart news is based on your keywords as well the usage and activity that you do on the site. We loved the idea of the preference where we could ask the application to monitor our activity and provide news based on it. If you want, however, you could turn it off here only. Simple!


Adjust the weightage of your keywords 

smart news keywords preference

Here you can see both type of keywords, the one that you explicitly added and the one that the application picked for you, and can adjust the importance of them as per your preference. Again, we found the usage and interface very good to use and most importantly simple.


Mute what you don't want

mute keywords on smart news

Just as we were thinking that there should be a way to tell the application what I "really" don't want to get pissed-off with. And here we were. This section just quietly took some words that we put in here(don't ask us what) and they simply filtered the smart news based on those keywords. Super cool!
With all this settings done just like that, we were impressed to see the way the smart news was presented to us. At first it was from whoever shared it and secondly it was nice to see that moving the cursor over to particular news gave us the keywords that this news was associated with. Have a look for yourself:

Smart News Post

This is for our Jelly Bean post, as you can see we have 'plate' and 'jelly bean' keywords associated with this. And again, this was when we moved the cursor on the news. It was nice to see that you could sort the posts based on either 'Date' or 'Relevance'.


Our Views
We found the feature really cool, especially since it lets us browse through the topics that we are interested in and out of our contact group. The interface is really ease-to-use and the results are accurate enough to depend.
One thing that we really missed, like Google plus, it would have been really good if we were presented news from the web based on the settings we did.
Let s know what do you think about it! 
Oh and by the way, if you happen to log on to the site, don't forget to search for us there. Here is the link to our profile on ApnaCircle! Happy Crunching then!

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