Google Makes Social Search Available in Beta

Sometime last year, Google rolled out its social search experiment with the aim of making search, well, more social. No, specifically to make relevant web content available of Google search results. By relevant Google means contents from your friends and contacts. So, today after getting good feedback from those who tried out the feature, Google has just released it in beta available to everyone.

But in addition to providing contents published by your friends or online contacts as additional search results Google has also added the social search feature to Google Images. So when you do your search on Google Images you will also see photos published online from your social circles on either Picasa Web Albums, Flickr or other photo-sharing sites. Social search results will be displayed under the heading “Results from your social circle.”

Now, when Google displays these social search results you can see two links labeled “my social circle” and “my social content.”  The second option lists public pages that might appear in other people’s social results. It’s Google’s way of helping you build your social circle as well as connect you to the contents published by people in your social circle.

The social search features works best if you’re signed in to your Google account and have a live Google Profile.

source :-http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-makes-social-search-available-in-beta/16831/

Google Gtalk tips

Google Gtalk is light and fast. CPU memory usage is lower than MSN Live Messenger. Here are some tips to make your Gtalk experience more interesting.

Line Break

Hold SHIFT and hit ENTER

Bold text

To bold your text, put an asterisk (*) before and after content. [Example] *these will be bold*       

Italic text

To italic your text, put an asterisk (_) before and after content. [Example] _these will be italic_       

Switch between chat windows

Hold CTRL, click on I will cycle you through each chat window

Minimize chat window

ALT + ESC minimize chat window. (For Gmail talk, it only work when chat window is a popup)        

Restore chat window

WINDOWS + ESC will restore your Gtalk from minimized mode.        

Open multiple Gtalk application

Click Start -> Run and enter the following in Open dialog.

    "C:\Program Files\Google\Google Talk\googletalk.exe" /nomutex

Misc Gtalk information

# You don’t have to say YES or NO when someone adds you. Simply ignore it and the request will go away.
# A message can be 32767 characters long.
# You can change your Gtalk chat name in Account Page
# Adding a web URL in custom message will result it to be clickable.
# Gtalk supports these following emotions and they are in blue colors

    :-| :-O :-x :-P :-D ;-) :-( :| :O :x :P :D :) :( ;-| ;-O ;-x ;-P ;-D ;-) ;-( ;| ;O ;x ;P ;D ;) ;( B-| B-O B-x B-P B-D B-) B-( B’( BO Bx BD B) B( B)

# Gmail talk supports these following emotions and they are animated

       :-| :=P :-D ;-):-( :P :D :) :( ;-) ;) B-)

More parameters for Gtalk Start -> Run

Here’s a complete list of what you can do with Gtalk in run command prompt.

C:\Program Files\Google\Google Talk\googletalk.exe" /parameter

    * /nomutex: Open more than 1 Gtalk.
    * /autostart: Check the registry settings to see if Gtalk needs to be started. If the “Start automatically with Windows” option is unchecked, it won’t start.
    * /forcestart: Similar to /autostart, but forces Gtalk to start.
    * /S upgrade: Used when upgrading Google Talk
    * /register: registers Google Talk in the registry, including the GMail Compose method.
    * /checkupdate: check for newer versions
    * /plaintextauth: uses plain authentication mechanism instead then Google’s GAIA mechanism. Used for testing the plain method on Google’s servers.
    * /nogaiaauth: disables GAIA authentication method. The same as above.
    * /factoryreset: set settings back to default.
    * /gaiaserver servername.com: uses a different GAIA server to connect to Google Talk. Used for debug purposes only, there are no other known GAIA servers.
    * /mailto email@host.com: send an email with Gmail
    * /diag: start Google Talk in diagnostic mode
    * /log: probably has something to do with the diagnostic logging

If you have additional Gtalk tips, I would like to know.

Firefox 3.6 is coming soon!

Mike Beltzner,

Director of Firefox, gives us an overview of what's new in Firefox 3.6

for more check this Video

Capture Screen Shots Of Websites

Here is Firefox Add-On called ScreenGrab! It’s not a new tool (about 3 milion people have downloaded it) but it does-what-it-says-it-does and is very cool so I thought I would share…

Free Screen Capture – With it, you can save anything that you can see in a browser window – from a small selection, to a complete page…. is an extension that makes it easy to save a web-page as an image – it’s a screen capture tool for Firefox!

On my Mac to take a picture of, for instance, small parts of a screen – I normally use the keyword command Command-Shift-4 (I don’t know how PC users do it) but where this software comes in useful is if I want to take a a picture of an entire web page that is too big to fit in your browser window. It does not capture screen video though if you are looking for that function.
Here’s the link to the extension on Mozilla.
If you’ve got better screen capture software for the Mac (oh well, or PC) let me know in the comments…

Video Sharing is becoming critical to your online success

Web videos are so popular on the internet these days. With the advent of video sharing web sites, many people are encouraged to produce their own videos. There are thousands of reasons why people create such outputs. For one, video sharing has opened many opportunities for individuals to be noticed over the internet. There are many artists who were discovered through these video sharing sites and many online marketers have also ventured into this type of online advertising. Video sharing is free that is why many affiliates are taking advantage of this method. Promoting your online business through visual media is the trend in internet marketing these days.

It is just similar to having a television advertisement at the least cost possible. This makes online marketing very interesting because with today's technology, there are just so many ways you can promote your online business. Aside from having streaming online videos on your site, you can also take advantage of video sharing sites such as YouTube and MySpace.

Participating in these sites is free and does not require a too much expertise from your end.

Creating, discovering, searching, sharing, storing etc for videos

Here is the List of Video Sharing Site.

1. BigContact : social podcasting/videocasting
   
2. blinkx : tv / video / podcast search
   
3. blip.tv : video/podcasting sharing service
4. Bolt : video/photo/music sharing service
   
5. Boltfolio : video sharing service
   
6. BroadbandSports.com : sports video portal
   
7. BroadSnatch : podcasts/v-logs
   
8. Castpost : social video hosting / sharing
   
9. Clipshack : social video sharing
   
10. Dailymotion : video sharing
    
11. DiviCast : social podcasting/videocasting
    
12. Dropshots : social video sharing
    
13. EveryBit : search multimedia web content
    
14. EyeSpot : simple video mixing and sharing
    
15. FireAnt.tv : social video sharing
    
16. Flukiest : music/photo/video sharing
    
17. Freevlog : video logging tutorial
    
18. GetDemocracy : internet television
    
19. GlideDigital : social photo/music/video/file/etc sharing
    
20. Grinvi : social video sharing (spanish)
    
21. Grouper : social video sharing
    
22. Kolablog : multimedia blogging service; free
    
23. LifeBlogger : free blogging service
24. Loomia : podcast/video search engine
    
25. Magnoto : free modular blogging service
    
26. MediaMax : online media / file storage ; free (25 gb) and paid accounts
    
27. MediaTurner : rich media player service
    
28. mefeedia : social video sharing
    
29. MetaCafe : social video sharing
    
30. MyVideoKaraoke : social karaoke video sharing
    
31. Openvlog : video recording and sharing
    
32. Orb : secure access to media (music/photo/video)
    
33. Ourmedia : online storage
    
34. Phanfare : social photo / video sharing
    
35. PicPix : photo/video sharing/tag/organization application
    
36. PiXPO : video sharing service
37. poddater : video personals with tags
    
38. Podesk : video podcast/blog software
39. Pooxi : video search engine (french)
40. Popcast : social video braodcasting
    
41. Revver : social video sharing
42. SelfCastTV : social video sharing
43. SevenLoad : social video sharing
44. Sharkle : social video sharing
    
45. ShoZu : social photo / video / text mobile sharing
46. Stickam : social media sharing
47. Stridr / swapzies : social media storage
48. Strmz : videos from TV channels
49. Trueveo : video search engine
50. TurnHere : film of the day
    
51. VideoBomb : social video hosting / sharing
52. VideoEgg : video publishing
53. VideoSift : social video sharing
    
54. VidiLife : social video sharing
55. Vimeo : social video sharing
56. vlogmap : video blogs on google maps
57. vMix : social video sharing
    
58. Vongo : high-quality full screen video plugin software
59. vSocial : social video sharing
60. woomu : social video sharing with user tags and votes
    
61. YouTube : social video sharing
62. Zippyvideos : social video sharing

Compare Google Caffeine

Search Google & their new sandbox version Google (Caffeine) at the same time and compare results on one single page. See what this new version of Google offers. Some noticeable points is you will see that the rendering speed is reduced. More about the changes can be read on the google webmaster blog post

http://www.comparecaffeine.com/

AdWords Display URL Policy Change For Hosted Domains

The Google AdWords blog announced a new change to their display URL policy for ads leading to hosted domains. The change is fairly simple, if you are hosted on a blogspot.com, wordpress.com or similar type of domain, Google wants you to show the subdomain portion of the domain, in addition to the main domain.
For example the destination URL for the AdWords blog is http://adwords.blogspot.com, so the display URL has to be adwords.blogspot.com, it cannot just be blogspot.com. Same with WordPress, such as the destination URL http://maximumbob.wordpress.com must show the display URL of maximumbob.wordpress.com and not just wordpress.com.

source: http://searchengineland.com/adwords-display-url-policy-change-for-hosted-domains-33437

Google Adds “Near Me Now” to its Mobile Homepage

Google has just added a useful button to its  mobile homepage – tagged “near me now”, this feature lets you search by using your location as the query.  Currently available for iPhone and Android phone users in the U.S., “Near me now” utilizes GPS for determining your whereabouts and then searches for results near your location.

The new Google mobile homepage feature lets you easily search for popular categories of nearby places. Just by clicking or tapping on the “Near me now” link right on the Google mobile homepage, you will find categories of places. And if you want more you can just select the “browse more categories” link.
You can also explore the whereabouts of specific locations including reviews or rants of other people about a specific restaurants and their menus and services.
To use this feature, make sure that the location feature of your iPhone, Nexus One or other Android phones is activated. Then visit google.com your phone’s browser and you can easily spot the “Near me now” tab.

Source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-adds-near-me-now-to-its-mobile-homepage/16108/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SearchEngineJournal+%28Search+Engine+Journal%29

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Building Links

SEO: If you do nothing else, build links!

It’s more-or-less official: link-building is quite possibly the most important part your SEO campaign if you’re at all serious about breaking into the ranks of page-1 Google results.
But the more we hear people talking about building links, the more mysterious the whole subject becomes: surely there’s a lot the average person can’t know about it?
Actually, it’s not that mysterious. Here’s a breakdown of what you need to get right to create a world-class piece of linkbait that will garner valuable links as well as get people talking about you and your blog or website!

1. First, be very clear about what linkbait–or link bait–really is: it’s plain, old fashioned quality content. Even super-quality content, no matter what it actually is. It can be an article, a blog post, a photo, a cartoon, a video or an audio post. If it’s good, people willl link to it and it will be linkbait.
2. Decide if Linkbait is what you need or if you should be buying plain old links. Here’s a discussion debating paid links v linkbait.
3. Read up about specific definitions of different types of linkbait is so you can do a better job. Here’s Matt Cutt’s post on the subject, and here’s celebrity blogger DoshDosh’s take on list building, which is a very successful form of linkbait creation.
4. Choose a subject for your linkbait that is 100 percent relevant to your site, and that will have benefits for readers. Making linkbait useful is critical to its success.
5. Be sure that the linkbait you choose isn’t going to compromise your brand in any way (hence the caption above).
6. Create a title for your Linkbait that will compel the reader to continue. Copyblogger’s post on creating magnetic headlines will help you get started on creating your own masterpieces.
7. While press releases are not strictly speaking Linkbait, I’m including them on this list because they can get you a lot of incoming links and can enhance your brand image when done properly. Chris Crum over at WebPro News gives us a lot of information about press releases.
8. To be sure there are examples of linkbait that are scaremongering, lies, disinformation or all of these and more, but in my experience if linkbait is to have long-term value it’s better to stick to the truth and keep within the guidelines of ethics.Providing your linkbait is not unethical, you should be OK with Smashing Magazine’s Golden Rules of Linkbaiting.
9. Some ideas to get you started: you could write an expose of something you think is wrong, a review of a product you like, create a controversial opinion piece that you know some people will hate (no such thing as bad publicity), create a list of tools or services that will be useful to your audience, come up with some breaking news that no one else has yet and make sure people know you had it first, conduct a poll or a survey,  come up with a video that is highly popular (this is a good one–get it right and you’ve got it made!), create a top 10, top 20 , or top anything list (go as high as you like).
10. Assess the level of emotion your article is going to trigger. If it doesn’t elicit emotion you are dead in the water, as Search Engine Journal’s Dave Snyder explains.
11. If your linkbait is the written kind, don’t forget to link out to anyone who provided information or inspiration–they’ll probably link back to you so your piece will have a built-in linking mechanism.
12. When you’re done, promote, promote, promote. Some sites that you may find useful for buzzing up your linkbait are Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, Plurk, Posterous, Digg, Mixx, Delicious, and Tip’d if your piece has anything to do with the world of finance. OK I know there are scores more, but this should be enough to seriously get anyone started promoting their pieces.
13. Notice I didn’t talk about paid links: if you buy (or sell) links, and Google catches up with you, you’re sunk!

Source: http://www.wellwrittenwords.com/101-linkbait-resource-everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-building-links/comment-page-1/#comment-1677