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

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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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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

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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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