ApnaCircle Revamps Settings Pages

India's answer to LinkedIn and French based Viadeo's Group company ApnaCircle.com gave their site' setting pages a new look. The new look was pushed live somewhere mid last week. The changes, detailed later in this post, will help members making changes to their privacy and account settings a bit more easy as compared to the previous look/flow that the company had. Its yet another change on the professional portal that is striving to make the members experience smoother on their site in a bid to challenge LinkedIn with what they call their Glocal approach.

Although the difference is still a tough task to bridge between the two but the companies group under the Viadeo' umbrella seem to be making some constant progress especially with the Premium-ship and advertising area. We will look at these two areas in some other post. On this one we focus mainly on the changes that were made available for members last week, especially the Member Settings, MBA and Member search part.

We will start with the Settings page as that page seems to have taken the majority of the changes this time around. If ApnaCircle thought the previous look was a little boring, we don't blame them; not at least looking at the new look that has been pushed and is now available. The new My Account menu also got new labels for the different settings available, as you see on the image on your right here. We will give a brief view on each of the pages that the My Account sub-menu items links to and apart from that will let you on your own to get accustomed to the new look and links/flows.

The Login and Personal Info Page lets you all your basic account information in sections. What's now cool is that you can edit the information right here, as you see with the Edit links, and with less clicks. Something users always prefers online. This however will not be true for the Business Cards that you have, since ApnaCircle already has a good looking page for the editing of this online business card on the site.

Another cool thing to notice here on the page is that you are able to swap your Primary and Secondary right here and without any delay. Poor us that we don't have another email Id here. But hey try this and we are you you will love this. Simple steps, no fuss!

The Confidentiality page lets you configure you account' privacy details. The page has 3 tabs. The first tab, Who can see my Personal information? looks like below and yet again, we will let you explore the features but do pay special attention to the Yes/No choose buttons and the new super option where you can choose who sees your contact list. We found this one a really good one, especially on a professional portal.

And we loved the image that gets displayed as you change the My contact list drop :).

The usual news settings that you were used to seeing sits on the second tab, so we don't really go in details here but yes on the 3rd tab is a new feature whereby you are able to see all the 3rd part apps that you have provided access to, cool isn't it? Here is a look for you:

As you can see for yourself the applications that you may have granted permissions to access your ApnaCircle account are displayed here. If you wish you may cancel the authorization to the app from here itself, something that should please members for obvious reasons!


The new Contact Preference page allows you, as the name suggests, to manage your contacts on ApnaCircle. These settings previously did exist but were both not obvious and below the fold on the settings page. 

 This new look makes life easier for members and the new Yes/No buttons makes the page look good. The color combination chosen suits the eye as it blends with the rest of buttons and notification colors on the site.


The page for your Newsletters and Email Alerts settings gets a new look as well. Much cleaner than it was before.

Set the frequency for your email alerts here. Also, all your ApnaCircle Groups alerts sit here as well. If you wish you may edit the registered email id for your account here. It takes you to the Login data and Personal information page, already detailed above.


This is so much for the new look and settings available for your account on the site. The other noticeable changes comes from the MBA page and the Member Search pages. On the MBA pages the listings of the courses gets a cleaner look, plus you will now see the MBA box on the right side on your Dashboard; just below the Jobs page that existed previously as well. Which considering the way the section works is a good idea but we doubt the usage criteria since the box is well below the fold to be attracting many eyes.


The Member search results page has some subtle changes. The navigation and filters all have moved to the left of the results page, providing a lot of white space on the right. We are currently not sure of why that white space is there, unless the company has plans for some advertisement show in that area. Which again, won't be a bad idea!!


We finally leave you with a couple of points to ponder. Some translation work. The first to let us know what those French words are doing on our profile on the Member Search page will win a complementary shout out from us on our Twitter profile ;). Have fun and yes Happy Crunching!!

and then, look at the link that is for the Member name on the top right of the page. Why does it now points to the current page you are on? As far as we remember, it used to link the previous Member Settings page!!

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Google May Prefer Multi Makers For Jelly Bean

Nexus One on HTC, Nexus S with Samsung and so was Galaxy Nexus. But this time, as reports from WSJ suggests, Google is pretty much on way to put another Google phone in to smartphone competition but with multiple mobile device makers.
 

Google May Prefer Multi Makers For Jelly Bean

The new phone will, easily guessed, be running on Android's new version(possibly 5.0), codenamed Jelly Bean and it seems the search giant has plans to make it available for this year' Thanksgiving. According to the reports, Google is also planning to selling the new flagship phone directly to consumers and also make the new release of Android(read Jelly Bean) available to multiple mobile makers earlier than it normally does. This is a deviation from 2010 when Nexus One was launched (with HTC) and 2011/2012 when Nexus S/Galaxy Nexus were launched(with Samsung). At these times the devices were made available for consumers through wither the wireless carriers or retailers.
 

The move it seems has been thought of in an effort to gain more control over the key features and apps that run on Android devices, be it smartphone or tablets. This possibly will take all control of sales and marketing pressure exerted by the wireless carriers while providing a base for the devices to run on. The other reason(not major) would be that device makers who are not yet chosen to work with flagship phones do get upset with Google on lead-devices. The reports hint towards device-maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc to be involved this time for the Jelly Bean powered devices, more because of the pending nature of the acquisition the search giant made with the company. The reports are that a total of five manufacturers might come on board for the next flagship Nexus line phone and tablets. In which case (as already stated) the company will sell the devices through its website and possibly a few retailers in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
 

Whether or not the move and a new Android version with another Nexus line device will improve the competition that the company has from its biggest competitor (read Apple), is the biggest point today and for some time to come. It remains to be seen how consumers react to Google/Android selling the device directly to them and that too through the websites as we are used to testing/trying the devices a bit in stores before finally settling to buy any.

Would you like a HTC or Samsung or multiple mobile maker phone? Will you rather buy the next Nexus from Google or still prefer the retailer option? Let us know in comments!! Till we meet again, Happy Crunching!!

Vaibhav Bansal

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A Sr. Java developer with ApnaCircle.com Vaibhav lives in Noida, India. A very keen follower it seems about the happenings in the political world and someone who has a sharp neck of surprising you with the 2 liners on his Facebook Timeline.
Connect with him on Facebook and for his professional life on ApnaCircle.com.

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Gmail Search & Circle Integration

Google just seems to be going all out with the feature roll-outs and integration in between its products. We have been trying to cover all of the news from the search giant and in process may have missed a couple for sure ;). Google is Google after all! OK, so this time what they bring-in is cute and little but a handy feature when it comes to users interacting with their network on Gmail. The new features will have new way of presenting you the contact search results and working with your Circles within the mail client.

Search for your contacts in the Gmail search box and you will be presented with the contacts details of the person searched plus, the profile photo and the mails that were sent to that contact and by that contact. And that's not all, you could even start a chat with that contact and call them right from the result presented to you with this new feature. Another obvious but good part is that if the contact you are searching for has a Google+ profile, the information that you see here in the search result will always stay updated. Here is a look for you on this search part:

Apart from the search menu, the same result can be viewed when you search from either the people' widget or your contacts & chat list.

Last December Google did the integration of your Circles in the left menu on Gmail. They just made it appear better. As you click on any of your Circles, you will see the profile photos of people in that Circle (on top right of page). Clicking on the pics will take you to the search results that we just detailed above.

So, who know you could do in:spam in your search box in Gmail and you will be taken to the spam folder? Well the search integration with Google+ Circles just got better. Circle search is now integrated well in to the search and filter features.

For searching messages from any of your specific Circle just type this in the search box: circle:[circle name]
For finding a mail from any of your circled contacts by doing this: has:circle

Enjoy this integration and have fun as you are now able to view all unread emails from your ‘Friends’ Circle or mark all the emails from a particular Circle as important. More details and the official word here on the Google' Official blog.

And yes, for enjoying these features you will need to be on the search giant' social network Google+ !!

[Image Credits: Google Official Blog]

 

Hemant S.

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A Software Engineer belonging to Rajasthan, India and currently put up in another lovely city of India, Pune.
Hemant works with one of the leading software companies in India, Tata Consultancy Services. And he is yet another of our readers who is a proud owner of an Android Phone!! Connect with him on Facebook for his day to day life!

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Facebook App Center Launched

In its effort to be what no one can chase, Facebook is becoming more of a platform rather than a product it was some years before when it first came in to picture. Facebook has now launched its own application center which is on the same lines as that of Apple and Google.

Facebook App Center

Facebook users will be able to add apps to their Timeline with ease now. You may download apps that are available both as free and paid modes. App developers will have to pay a transaction fee (around 30%) for trying their hands on the application development for the social media giant platform. Users will be able to rate the apps they use based on their experiece and Facebook will move the high rated apps for a display on the front page of Facebook' App Center.

As Facebook is offering developers to introduce the paid apps, interested ones may register here for the beta version.You could do setting for the Timeline apps, as in to show or hide them as you may like...

And the apps in options on your own Timeline will look like this:

If you would like to check your activity log as regard to the apps, use this type of URL: https://www.facebook.com/YOUR_USER_NAME/allactivity. Just replace the YOUR_USER_NAME with your actual username on Facebook. If however you may want to customize the app settings and take some help on it click here for some help.

Deepak Arora

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Works with ApnaCircle.com and lives in Faridabad, India. Deepak is a very regular and interactive reader of our posts. Loves to get involved and share ideas. Currently is on a lookout for a nice Android Phone in the market. Suggest him some if you know of some good Android smartphones in the market, preferably those that are upgradeable to Android ICS(ver. 4.0.x)
Connect with him either on ApnaCircle for his professional life or add him to your circle on Google plus.

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Bing Search Going Social

Microsoft revamped its search engine Bing with a major redesign calling it to be around the Search Goes Social theme. The redesign came into existence last Thursday when Bing sent out the following tweet and thus making the multiple alliances with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora and FourSquare official:

Bing Search Going Social

Analysts suggest the move from Microsoft to be a very good and impressive one. They are hailing the new design that Bing has got, more so as the new revamped version is more social networking friendlier. That however was confirmed with the series of partnerships that Bing made with the social platforms and a move that also makes Google look stupid because of its shaky kind of relations with other social networks. We hope you remember when Google pulled off its real time Twitter integration some time back. And now with the search giant involving its own social network Google+ since its launch last year, they have made some distance if not more with other players in the market.

Bing has been able to float the search space dominated by Google and has been experimenting with social and search arenas since they launched Bing Social, a service that integrates well with Facebook and Twitter. Users of Bing will also be aware of its ability to allow them to Facebook like the webpages. So what's new with Bing Search Going Social? Bing is now able to incorporates user comments, likes and activities posted in the social networks like Facebook and Twitter. The new look is a 3 column boasting of sidebar that will focus on those in the user's social networks with their different opinions and, not surprisingly, search queries. 

And that seems not all yet as the sidebar will also let its users interact with their network via conversations on topics they like, while the friends will be able to respond either through Bing itself or through Facebook. A feature that seems pretty familiar to what what Google did with their Google+ integration in to Google News.

To add to the features, the sidebar will include a section for What Your Friends May Know. Your searches will crawl through your whole network on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Foursquare and LinkedIn for experts on the topic. The search feature will identify any posts(related to your search query) that may have been shared by any of your friends in your network in the past. You will be both able to ask questions to your friends as well as see real-time social network activity all from Bing. And as the major surprise of the news, Bing will be including the Google results in its searches!!

Microsoft is calling the revamp “the most significant since Microsoft launched Bing three years ago.” They have announced that as of now the new version is what they call private but will soon be available for public in a beta test period.

The new design will roll out in the coming days/weeks and you can sign up here to be among the first ones to try the new revamped version. Till then you may learn the features and get to know them more in this video.

Francesco

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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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Apple's iCloud Photo Sharing Features

At a time when deals of companies buying the photo sharing app (read Facebook buys Instagram) is doing the rounds, the idea in the market is pretty much clear. Photo sharing apps are here to stay and smartphone usage in the arena is nowhere but in your hands playing with your fingers.

Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2012 is a few weeks ago, and the news circling around is that Apple' iCloud Photo Sharing Features are only to get better with new additions to (hopefully) be announced at the Apple' event. The new updates are to include photo sharing features where by users will be allowed to comment on images. This will be more familiar to the users of Instagram or other social apps. Thus tilting the Apple' iCloud photo sharing feature more towards the social taste!

In addition(and as obvious) these photos would be open to comments by other iCloud users you share the pics with. A user's photo stream currently allows a storage of latest 1K pics clicked with their iOS device or uploaded via their computers and the pics on the iCloud will be separate and outside of this storage limit.

Current users of iOS devices will know that Apple unveiled this data storing service at last year's WWDC which provided a way for the users to sync photos and other data across their iOS devices. Concept similar to the Google Drive that we posted a few days back about. But as of now limits users to store a single set of photos online through the photo stream feature over iCloud. Enabling users to share the pics with the new social features is only going to make the iOS feature more powerful.

The move is considered to be a real thoughtful one especially after the MobileMe, Apple' cloud solution in use before iCloud, wasn't that much a success and is said to be taking its last breathes before being shut down in a few weeks form now on. With it the users will also say goodbye to the Gallery feature which let them upload and share photo galleries until now.

The whole news broke on Wall Street Journal that also hinted about Apple building a syncing service for Notes and Reminders, which is said to debut with the new iOS6.

If any of this is concrete and true we are sure to find Apple' event this June in SF a pretty amazing experience in itself and something to worth wait for. Attending the event? Share with us your expectations on the news!!

Vaibhav Bansal

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A Sr. Java developer with ApnaCircle.com Vaibhav lives in Noida, India. A very keen follower it seems about the happenings in the political world and someone who has a sharp neck of surprising you with the 2 liners on his Facebook Timeline.
Connect with him on Facebook and for his professional life on ApnaCircle.com.

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Google+ iPhone Makeover

Not surprisingly for some but a very huge surprise for others. Especially the Android users I guess ;). Google pushes a makeover of their Google plus smartphone app on iOS which apparently is not only works for iPhone users but is compatible with iPad as well. The update of the app which is pretty much an effort to mach the Google plus 2.0 version on the web is being pushed only to the iOS as of now and as per the search giant the Android version is Coming Soon.

Vic Gundotra, the senior VP at Google, thinks the new app is with a sense and soul. According to him the new update is a feast for the eyes. And looking at the reaction of iPhone users it seems he got it pretty much on the nail of the head. The much criticized iPhone app now has some lovers from the top competitor of the search giant (at least in the smartphone market).

The new app focuses on (sort of) the concept of cards. As it is, the app treats the data in form stacked cards that can be flipped to see the other data as well of beauty related to the cards. Gundotra calls it the rich carousal of beloved memories and breaking news. According to him the new app is both a feast for the eyes and it will create a stream that you can swim in!!

The top layer provides a drop menu where you can switch from your All Circles to a specific circle or specific category. f you would like to change the circle name or add one, this is the place you will be hitting your index finger or thumb to. As can be read on the official Google blog, the below features can be deemed as the highlights of this update:

• Whether you post photos or articles or text, we’re making ‘em look gooood
• We’re adding crisper fonts, larger profile pics and a friendlier homescreen
• We’re making the stream easier to scan, and easier on the eyes with overlays, gradients and other visual elements

After you choose your desired Circle from the top drop menu, you may then share your status updates, upload and share photos and even the web pages from the pen menu available in the top menu bar. And this is not all, like the Android version iOS users will also be able to see the What's Hot section where you will see the current hot and top trends on the search giant' social network. 

Although the look on the iPad version is still a long way to go but the move to release the update first to the App Store and let the Android Google play still wait is a surprising step from the search giant looking to gain more and more market share in the smartphone arena. Gundotra says the Android version will come soon and with a few surprises.

For the iPhone/iPad users, give it a try if you haven't already and let us know how you find it. For the Android users, well you gotta wait a bit but it the meantime share with us on what you think the extra surprises will be that the senior VP at Google hinted at?

Francesco

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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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