Key-Lime-Pie To Follow Jelly-Bean

Is Google really slogging? Shouldn't be a surprise for all out there who know Google. So, while only a handful of Android sets are on ICS (Android 4.0) and the code named Jelly Bean' is yet to be served to your plates; we hear that the new version, specifically the sixth, is due to be christened as Key Lime Pie. This is yet another American dessert and as we know the Android history the different versions since, 1.5, are named after the desserts and that too in the alphabetical order.


The news comes out after The Verge, reported that they have been tipped by a reliable source on the name. They also claim that the source is the same who tipped them about the Jelly Bean. Any other details on the version number and/or its release date were not reported. You may read the whole story here.


Don't forget of course that Jelly Bean is yet to be officially released by Google. Looking at the number of android handsets starting to receive the ICS update, we can safely assume Jelly Bean wouldn't be out before late in to summer this year. Which means that the sixth version, tipped to be named KLP, wouldn't be there for use anytime before 2013.


Is Google going too fast with Android releases? Did you get the Android 4.0 yet? What do you think about the new code name KLP? Let us know in the comments!  

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Facebook, FriendSheet and Pinterest

Since Pinterest became a hit, it isn't a surprise that someone was already thinking of an app around the concept (or the look for that matter). There would have been another sites (like Pinspire and Stylepin) in the cloud already but when Mark Z gave a 'Thumbs Up' to Friendsheet Facebook app it's not as much an eyebrow raising issue that the app is already gaining momentum. After all, his Facebook Timeline will soon be reaching 12 million subscribers.

Although the app creator, Zachary Allia, mentioned on Facebook that the aim was to take the Timeline photos and create a visual experience while maintaining the speed, performance criteria; and of course a great intuitive experience; the first impression strikes the Pinterest impression.
We take word from Zachary, that the inspiration of the app was from the Facebook Timeline and Pinterest! The idea is a good one irrespective of the inspiration source.

For all the Chrome users out there, there is an app available there for you as well.


Our Views
Friendsheet hasn't been kind to us :(. On using our Facebook credentials on the page (provided in the image above), all we could get was a "We couldn't get the photos" message. Of course that was apart from the top menu bar. Getting a 'Like' from the Facebook inventor is surely a way to go. We keep an eye on how big a favor that would be for Friendsheet!
Try it out for yourself and tell us how you find it, and if you also get the impression of Pinterest on the first look!
Happy Crunching!!

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Salamworld: The Halal Network

While Facebook is already dealing with the hype and competition that Google plus created since its launch, a Serbian entrepreneur is eyeing a split in the user base the social media is expanding with. While reports suggest, the search giant may well be on a different path as far as the users spending the time on it goes, Facebook has been going ahead with the changes to make life easier and interesting for its users and thus going more favorable for people. The next thing we were waiting for is a new social media network/platform.

Salamworld

Being called the 'Halal' version of Facebook and already termed as the 'Muslim Facebook' by the Washington Post and PRI's the World, Salamworld is getting ready to be launched this July; just at the right moment to coincide with the Muslim holy month of Ramzan. Abdulvahed Niyazov spoke to a Turkish daily Hürriyet on why he intends to launch a network and on why he calls it the 'Halal' version of Facebook. The site is supposed to be launched from Turkey as Niyazov told the daily; "Muslims in the world are not well represented on the Internet, we want to change this situation." "However, we are not constructing an Internet mosque, we are just creating a Halal network for Muslims".
In a video available on youtube, this social network is described as "The world's first global, innovative, protected by harmful content, multi lingual and multi cultural IT language." The network is to fulfill the requirements of the modern Muslims.
According to Niyazov the content available on other networks is not very secure and they would not like young people to be absorbing all the ideas that are not familiar to them.  We will wait to see how it comes up, especially since they already have set a target of 50m users in 3 years time. Good Luck!

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ApnaCircle's Blackberry App

In its continuous effort to make professional networking easy for its users, ApnaCircle.com; India's first Business and Career Networking portal, released its Blackberry app some time back. This is supposed to be their 2nd smartphone app after the iPhone app that was launched some 15 months back.
The app which may download the app from the Blackberry AppStore will help you in tasks like:

• Develop your contacts and add contacts quickly
• Keep in constant touch with your network
• View other professional' profiles
•  Keep up to date with and share all latest news

With more and more professionals now preferring to be connected while on the move, this app will be to an advantage to the portal. More so in this case as Blackberry is considered to be a high usage platform for quite a professionals. Apart from the other benefits already outlined above, since Blackberry OS (like other smartphones) offer multitasking as a user you can always put the app in the background and still be connected on the move and round the clock. With Blackberry you also get the benefits associated with their pushmail service. Pushmail allows the notifications to be real time so you may see all the messages and the contact requests as they come to you, like in the desktop version of the site.

With the official update already out since a month and  a half, we still don't know why the app page on the site itself doesn't offer users the link to download the app. We have subscribed to the update, let's see when it comes ;)

Our Views

Blackberry being a very robust and formidable player in the smartphone market (and specially since its very famous among the professionals group), we consider this a very smart and profitable move. But hey, didn't Google say they are aiming at an Android in every pocket!! So, where is the Android app ??

Deepak Arora

Post Credit:

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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Facebook Brand Timeline: Its Your Turn Now!

A couple of weeks back we posted about Facebook being ready with the Brand Timeline by the end of February 2012. And here we are, Facebook Brand Timeline is available now for all brands to move on. The decision now lies with the admins of each brands weather to switch now (if they are ready) or be moved on by Facebook by the end of this month (March 30th to be precise).

Facebook Brand Timeline Notification

Some brands like Coca Cola are already on it with a few more giants. But don't rush in to it. The big giants may already have had access to test them out and play with it before they made the turn. If you are still to assemble all the pieces together, we suggest you take your time till March 30th and think about what to put where. The features list that we bring to you below may help in the process.

Cover Photo is Still Here

Just like the individual Timeline, Brand Timeline also have a cover photo. Take time to choose one that fits perfectly with the image of your Brand and will catch your users eye. Remember, the cover photo is what takes nearly half the page above the fold. Strike the eye in a never forgetting way; its the first impression after-all!

From the brands that we saw, Coca Cola and Macys stood out for us in this respect. With the former being just apt, look at the bubbles right up on the profile pic bottle. Macys were good with their The World's Largest Store image.

Choose one for yours that suits the best, for your brand and for your users!!

No Welcome Page

One of the to-look-out-for feature that we mentioned in our previous post about brand Timeline was the Welcome page (or the default landing page) that was so used in the previous format of the fan page. Facebook hasn't surprised us by removing that feature. So, there will be no left side panel containing different tabs and there will be no default landing page to go to.

What does this mean for you?

You will need to pay more attention now to the Ad Campaigns for your brands. It will not be easy now to create that first impression, which was so characteristic of the Welcome pages. So your messages and campaigns become that much more important now. Pay that much more time designing the content there! And a new feature to pin messages will help as detailed next...

Highlight Content: Pin Your Messages

If there is a message that you want stay on top of Timeline always, pin it. The pinned post will precede all and any of your Timeline posts. It is distinguished by a small orange colored flag on the top right corner (as you see in the image below, the pin message on Macys Timeline). This message will stay in your timeline at two places, one at the top and the other at its normal order/place in your Timeline. But only till its unpinned, at which stage it will only appear at its chronological order within your Timeline.

With Welcome page being not an option, you could highlight your content in this way!! As you can see, Macys has done a good job to attract its users.  

Choose The Tab Panels Wisely

The new layout means, there will be only 3 (or max 4) tabs visible at any time on your Brand' Timeline. Choose them wisely, as these will be the first things a user may try to interact with after landing on the Timeline.

For the rest of the tabs, user will have to click on the small arrow on the last partially visible tab to see them. So all you got for the first impression and catch the user is choose the first 3, 4 tabs wisely!

New Admin Panel: All In One Place

The new admin panel will have all things then and there. So all your notifications, new links, insights and messages with tips; all at one place.

You may also manage the activities and build and audience with Ads or invites and sharing the page itself. 

Help is not too far !!

Facebook is due for some changes in insight area as well (news is that you will soon have some real time data in there).

Private Messages With Your Users

This was so waited we are sure!

You will now be able to exchange private messages with your users. Thus in a way, getting a lot of things off the Timeline and providing resolutions with much cluster on your otherwise clean Timeline!

 

Our Views

Take your time!

Like we said in the start, the giants already had planned the move. So if you are still either not sure or putting the pieces together, we suggest you wander around a bit. Take a tour both provided by the platform and on the Timeline(s) that are already live and beaming. That will provide you with an idea on what you want from yours.

The story so far!!

Team up with all the members of the team who are responsible to do the job. Be precise on what you want and how and yes, don't forget to decide where. Feel free to put down the journey in the way you think is the characteristic of your brand, but don't over do it. Just that right mixture is what your users will love!

Oh by the way, as you go around watching the Brands new Timeline, don't forget to see the Founded area on it. You may be amazed to what brands chose to display in there ;)

Did you know what was Manchester United's initial name? See Founded area in their Timeline to find out !!

Let us know how are you structuring your Brand on this new Timeline, or if you are an individual; tell us which is the best Timeline you saw till now. Happy Crunching then!

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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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