Monday, November 2, 2009

The New Orkut Hype – A not so positive review.

Orkut has launched a promotion campaign which is by far their best attempt to promote their new design features to their dissatisfied users who are gradually losing all hope and strong loyalty bias towards orkut which they had previously held. Promotion activity includes a community linked to their sub-domain “The New Orkut Community” which hosts contests which would be providing invites to the declared winner termed as “Orkut Champ”. Frankly speaking the members activity is motivated with the sole intention of gaining invites  to tryout the new interface (and not out of passion or interest). From our experience of community management, this community would have moths and cobwebs after they officially release this feature to everybody.

There are very limited invites provided by Orkut team themselves to famous Orkut Members, Orkuteers and Orkut Bloggers thus generating hype and at the same time engineered scarcity which has triggered a massive response of desperate members wanting to try out the new interface which Orkut promises to make their social networking easier or rather less painful.

The New Orkut Promo Video

Verdict:

Many famous bloggers like Orkut Plus and Orkut Heroes have provided their review on the new orkut.

What’s new on Orkut ?
  1. Added scroll bar for Communities & Friends List
  2. Ajax color changer added for profile wrapper
  3. Accepting members to the communities done with ajax, you can accept many people. at once
  4. Accepting friends request done with ajax. you still have to accept individually.
  5. Recent visitors and recent birthdays shown with profile picture.
  6. Icons changed for chat availability status.
  7. Adding comments to status updates of friends. (You cannot hide or delete status messages which is vulnerable to spam.)
  8. Drop down CSS menu made for different tabs like profile, photos & videos.
  9. More updates load below with ajax loader.
  10. Link to other google services added on top.
  11. Drop down menu added to orkut logo (useless)
  12. Friends suggestions are in ajax ring like loading
  13. Manage button added to friends & communities link.
  14. Basic formatting options added to scraps with google chat smileys.
  15. Video chatting enabled just like gmail.

 

You can look back to see how far we have come by seeing the rare screenshots of the first version of Orkut. After using this new interface for last 3 days for all our Orkut activities, we do not deny that few activities have been made simpler, For Example browsing through friends list from profiles and communities list or adding members to your community but we are still not very happy as the changes because most of the changes are cosmetic in nature. It was a bit slower to load as reported by our invited team members who had slower internet connection. Sadly there were almost no changes in the Orkut Communities interface. It’s just like the saying goes “Same wine in a different bottle”.

We doubt that this new interface by itself would keep the user’s from rapidly losing interest. More changes and updates are urgently needed as the web technologies used  and features provided are inferior to the competition. Users are demanding more features everyday in the help forum for more interactivity and ease of use. Most people are satisfied with the overall security and privacy features. Orkut is now at the crossroads and its destiny would soon be clear to everybody. New Orkut is just like your ex-gf trying to patch up with you but her same old problems persist.

Thanks to the Orkut Team for the privilege inviting the Blakut Team to preview the new orkut version, but this was just our opinion, we hope that it would be taken constructively. Users please don’t ask for invites we do not give them for promotional purposes/ money, we only give them to the deserving volunteers who have been helping others out consistently for a “long time” in our communities as a gift.

 

Related Articles:

Thursday, August 13, 2009

[Video] How to use Orkut Promote


Google has released a official video on its youtube channel on "How to use Orkut Promote", Give it a view.
~~The End~~
RATE IT: (1) Sucks (2) Stupid (3) Kewl (4) Rad (5) Wicked

Orkut Warning Their Users To Remove IE6

orkut_ie6 Image Source: Ars Technica

Orkut has started warning Internet Explorer 6 users that the browser will no longer be supported. When you log into Orkut with IE6, you are prompted with the above message.

Last month, Youtube made a similar move. Digg has also shown interest in blocking IE6 users from certain activities and Facebook has been prompting IE6 users to swap out their browsers since February 2009.

Orkut Poll Bug – Where are my votes ?

Poll Bug

This bug is a bug which might go unnoticed. As many people vote on polls, there is no way to figure out if your vote has actually been counted or not. As you can see in the above screenshot that I have already voted on a poll (about 14 hours ago) and it is acknowledging that with a tick but it has not been counted.

Post Count 

Most of aware that Orkut is unable to count some posts, this has been an issue for more than 2 years and still needs to be fixed.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

JamLegend – An Online Music Gaming Site - Upload Your Songs & Tap Your Keyboard to the Beats.

 

JamLegend is one of the best Online Music Gaming websites we have ever come across. If you’re a music lover and would like to play some music then this site is for you.

If you want to try it out first, they’ve got a few demo songs which you can play without registering. From our experience it was very entertaining, hence we went ahead and registered to review how it’s like.

Jamlegend

You can login with your Facebook Login and follow through with the prompts. The best part is that you can play against a computer or invite your friends to play with you in duels and showdowns agaisnt other registered members who are not your friends.

JL 2

You also have a list of Achievements with come into categories of Scoring, Songs, Social and Multiplayer. You can start with beginner level, and Advanced level is very hard.

Visually it was pleasing and it was really good fun to play.

Overall if you do not have Guitar Hero equipment and you still want to experience the fun of it on your keyboard without any software which slows you down, Give JamLegend a visit.

How to Advertise your Business, Product or Website on Orkut

ad on orkut

You can reach out to the millions of youth and masses logging on to Orkut everyday. Promoting your business by easily creating text and image ads . Target the users by their age, gender, location and their interests.

You ads would appear on the profile page, homepage and popular communities. And you choose how much you pay per impression and click on your ads.

You would have to create an Adwords account with Google which requires a credit card. You can choose the amount you would like to advertise it ranges according to your need.

For more information visit Orkut’s Advertising Microsite

New Feature - Orkut Promote

 

Orkut has rolled out it’s latest feature to few people, which attempts to integrate social bookmarking. You can create promotions to share text, pictures and YouTube videos.

promote 2

You can view your previously created promotions. There is a restriction of 5 promotions per day. There is no feature with which the people who are spreading the promotion can leave any comments.

promote 1

I’m not sure how many people would use this feature for social bookmarking and how many would use this feature for spamming their own communities and websites. I would not be surprised if this feature fails, there isn’t much into this really!

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Yahoo gives up search for Microsoft

 

Microsoft is going strong with their products lately to compete with Google,  Yahoo would soon be shutting down it’s search engine and would be handling ad sales whereas Microsoft would be directing the traffic to the data with Bing.

95659-500-352

The combined search market share of Yahoo and Microsoft would approach 30%. That's still far below Google's 65%, but analysts say it may provide enough of a critical mass at least to stave off further Google advances and help the enlarged search engine gain some ground.

Soon you would be searching with Bing from Yahoo’s Homepage.Bye bye Yaaahhoooo---ooowoooh!.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Starting a Blog? Read this first! – A short guide to start blogging for success.

Start a BlogBlogging is an important part of the world of Internet these days, it is an easy and effective way to become popular and earn some money. Setting up a blog with the free tools like Blogger or Wordpress is a very easy job, but managing your blog and keep it running is difficult for many. This post is for new bloggers who are willing to start a blog but are confused with how to start, where to start and lot more questions. So, these are few tips, you should know if you want to start blogging.

 

Most important :First answer yourself! Why you want to start blogging?

It is very easy to create a blog with lot of tools available but it is not that easy to manage it, so first decide why to start. IF your answer is ‘I want to help other people or I can provide lots of useful tips or Useful News to readers’, then you can start blogging, It is of no use if you want to start only to check how it works or to show to your friends that you have a blog.

Another question: What you are going to blog about?

Starting any journey without any aim is not good; similarly starting a blog without any idea in your mind is also very bad. After setting up your blog, what will you write there? Decide this first. For finding blogging ideas, think what interested you most or what do you know about. At the beginning, start from a specific topic and later you can expand your topics slowly. It will surely help you to manage your blog properly. You may also consider reading this article on  BlogKori.

Selecting Blog platform and Domain

There are lot of tools and softwares available to create a blog, it depends on you and your future plans about the blog. If you are new to the world of blogging then you should use free tools, so that if you fail in blogging; you can quit without any loss. Blogger is the best platform for this. Later you can also set up your own Domain for your blog.

Selecting Domain for your Blog is also a very important part, select a unique and Professional looking Domain name, for starting you can also use sub-domains like yourname.blogspot.com but it is always advised to use a TLD. It gives your reader a better impression and also it performs better on search engines.

Selecting Blog Template

There are lot of free and premium templates available on Internet and also you can easily modify a default template, but one thing you need to remember is to use a clean and SEO friendly template. Blog with Flashy widgets and images look good but those are not good for SEO and your blog readers, they need a clean template. Always try to use most important widgets and images on your blog and use nice color combinations. For speeding up the blog loading time, you can take help from Google.

Writing your First article!

So, now you have decided your Blog topic and also you have set up a blog. It is time to write your first post. In the beginning a blogger is always full of ideas because he has started about what he knows much, so ideas flow from your brain, but once you have written many articles, you find it difficult to get a new idea. For this you can use Twitter, Digg and subscribe to other blogs in your niche to find new ideas to write.

So these were our Tips for new bloggers to start their blog, tell us if it has helped you and also share your views about blogging with us.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Twitter changes followers page design – Now easily find Good people to follow

Twitter recently changed the ‘Followers’ page that shows a recent tweet of your follower along with the basic information of the user. Twitter users daily follow many people and get many new followers. Twitter is also full of spammers, so it becomes difficult to decide to follow a user back or not. Twitter has now made this much easier to decide to follow a user by showing his/her recent Tweet on your Follower page. You can follow people back by seeing their recent tweets without visiting their profiles.Twitter followers

The Newly designed page gives you a better view of the user and also better controls. You can send that user a reply or direct message and follow him back. So, Twitter has simplified your this work too.

Twitter is always improving its structure to save genuine users from spammers. Few months ago, Twitter also improved  the new followers Email notifications to help you identify your followers.

Twitter Email notificationSo, what do you think about the Twitter’s one more step to help users identify spammers and save their selves from them?

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

The Pirate Bay sold – A New Beginning or the End ?

The World’s most popular Torrent site ‘The Pirate Bay’ has been sold out to a software company for $8 million. The company ‘Global Gaming Factory X’ will acquire it in August, 2009. Read the Official Blog post from The Pirate Bay for more info. regarding this.

The New owners have stated that they are going to change the business model of the site. The Pirate Bay is used for download Movies, Games and Software for free. But the new owners are likely to make it paid or remove all the pirated stuff that is more than 90% and keep only legal content on the site, that changes the meaning of the word ‘Pirate’. They have also stated that they will also pay Copyright holders for their stuff which is downloaded from the site. The site will also close its Trackers soon and would be no longer hosting torrent files.

So what does it mean! New Beginning or The END?

End of the Pirate Bay

So, according to officials, The Pirate Bay is changing completely. We are yet not sure completely how they are going to manage the site now, but The Pirate Bay is saying it will not change, only owners are changed, read what it says -

“A lot of people are worried. We're not and you shouldn't be either! If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That's the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to. And - you can now not only share files but shares with people. Everybody can indeed be the owner of The Pirate Bay now.”

The Pirate Bay blog post gives fans a relief but it is clear that Pirate Bay will continue but not in the same way, if users have to pay for the content, they will use other official sites instead. What do you think about The Pirate Bay? Is it going to die or it will remain the same Pirate Bay?

Now Hide your Facebook status from selected Lists – A new approach for More Status messages

facebookFacebook is a very popular social networking site and it has improved a lot to provide a Twitter type environment to its users. But users are not using status messages as they use for Twitter. Might be a reason for that was users were also using it to connect with their personal friends and they didn’t want to mess up their personal and professional life by updating status related to their profession or interest like posting news, updates etc. So this was preventing them to less update the status messages.

To solve this issue, Facebook recently added a new privacy feature for your status messages. Now you can select who can see your this update.

Facebook StatusYou can select people from your Lists or type their names to exclude from your feeds. You can also select your status message visible to all, it is a good feature for professionals.

Facebook Privacy

Facebook is soon launching a new Real-Time search, so it would be good if you post useful links, updates or your new Blog posts on your status like Twitter. It will help you to grow your network and also to get extra Traffic to your blog/site.

So, with this new feature, we can post more and better excluding our friends from our Professional updates. How do you use Facebook and How you are using this feature?, share with us through comments.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Top 4 Free web-hosting providers

Some time ago we were having some discussion on our DFS community about the best Free web-hosting providers. After some investigation on this topic we ultimately found best ones in this field. Although there are many Free web-host now a days giving loads of bandwidth and space, they are indeed over used resulting in slow server speed and huge load time. Also many web hosts shows their advertisement on your web-page which does not look good!

So here is a complete list of FREE web hosting providers giving ad-free hosting and plenty of space with relevant bandwidth.

1. 50 webs (unlimited Bandwidth):

50Webs best server so far The best at this service. Gives only 60 MB of space but the bandwidth is unlimited and also it is the top rated by all users. Below given are some of the features:

Overview

  • Monthly price /paid annually/:$0.00 /mo
  • Hosted domains: Unlimited
  • Disk space: 60 MB
  • Bandwidth: Unlimited
  • Setup fee: FREE
  • Ads: No ads of any kind

Domains and subdomains

  • Domains hosted : Unlimited
  • Subdomains: Unlimited
  • Full DNS management
  • Custom WHOIS details
  • EPP transfer protection
  • Registrar lock

Site management tools

  • Easy Control Panel
  • FTP accounts: 1
  • Web based file manager
  • Integrated WYSIWYG / HTML editor

Misc features

  • Instant account activation

OS, connectivity and back-up
  • Stable Linux with Apache
  • Unrestricted bandwidth

The only disadvantage of this is that it does not give PHP support for Free hosting. If you want to make your Web-site totally HTML based then this will be the best choice for you.

Link: Click Here

2. Awardspace (Best PHP scripting server support):

Awardspace Web hosting The second best for Free web-hosting and best when we talk about features. Supports Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP4/6 [LAMP] and also Perl and CGI. Below are some Features:

Overview

  • Monthly price /paid annually/:$0.00 /mo
  • Hosted domains: 2
  • Disk space: 200 MB
  • Bandwidth: 5GB/month
  • Setup fee: FREE
  • Ads: No ads of any kind
  • Advanced control Panel

Emails, Scripting & Databases

  • MySQL database: 1 with 10 MB storage
  • PhyMyAdmin: Yes
  • Email account and Alias: 5 each
  • POP3/IMAP: POP3
  • Firewall Protection: Yes

It is good if you want to design your own PHP based web-site from scratch. Awardspace server is pretty fast and they don’t give scripting errors. So for newbie PHP developers awardspace is the best option

Link: Click Here

3. Zymic (5GB space with 50GB bandwidth):

Zymic Web hosting This web-host serves best for bloggers. Supports PHP, MySQL [All you need to install wordpress]. The only disadvantage is you will not get an automated installer for Blogging software like Wordpress. So you need to install them manually [Which generally does not take more than 10 mins]

Overview

  • Monthly price /paid annually/:$0.00 /mo
  • Hosted domains: allowed
  • Disk space: 5000 MB
  • Bandwidth: 50GB/month
  • Setup fee: FREE
  • Ads: No ads of any kind
  • ZHCP (Zymic Hosting Control Panel for easy management)

Emails, Scripting & Databases

  • MySQL database: Supports 5 databases
  • PhyMyAdmin: Yes
  • PHP version: 5.1.6

As said above, Zymic is good if you can install PHP based software at your own. Also their servers are pretty fast and they give unlimited number of websites to be hosted.

Link: Click Here

4. 07x (5GB space, 50GB bandwidth & 50 MySQL db):

07x Webhosting The best web-host for beginners. Supports PHP, MySQL and also gives advanced Vista Panel from where you can install popular Blogging and site-builder tools at one click. Below are some features of 07x…

Overview

  • Monthly price /paid annually/:$0.00 /mo
  • Hosted domains: 50 addon domain
  • Parked domain: 50 allowed
  • Disk space: 5000 MB
  • Bandwidth: 50GB/month
  • Setup fee: FREE
  • Ads: No ads of any kind
  • Control Panel: Vista Panel

Emails, Scripting & Databases

  • MySQL database: Supports 50 databases
  • PhyMyAdmin: Yes
  • PHP version: 5
  • Support for Web mail
  • POP email accounts
  • One click script installer for PHP-BB, Wordpress, eCommerce and many more software

If you wish to start a Blog on wordpress without a paid host and don't have any php knowledge then 07x is best for you. But note that you won’t get server response similar to awardspace.

Link: Click Here

So that was our complete list of 4 top free hosting providers available on Net. Choose the one that fulfills your criteria. If you are serious about blogging then having a paid host is always recommended. (Else use blogger). Also do let us know if you have found any better free hosting service than this!

Now Download your YouTube videos legally in MP4 Format

youtubeYouTube now allows you to download your uploaded videos, there were many other ways like scripts/download manager tricks, but this is the official method. If you have uploaded videos on YouTube but don’t have them on your HDD, then this update is good for you. For downloading go to your Videos page and click on ‘Download MP4’ next to each video.

Download YouTube Video

You can download your Videos in MP4 format and quality of downloaded video may be less than your original video. But this feature is good if you want to backup your videos or want to save them for watching offline and this allows you to download without any waiting.

Download Youtube videos

So how is the official method of downloading videos? Share your views with us through comments

Friday, June 19, 2009

Google and Facebook now gives Persian language support [Good news for Iran!]

A good news for all the people from Iran. At this very moment of Political Crisis of Iran, two Internet Giants Google and Facebook has just rushed to support Persian [Farsi] translation. Obviously this is going to have a huge effect on Iranian turbulent politics. For surely this will open up a new console to the Iranian youths to communicate with outer world and vice-versa.

Translate to Persian using Google translate Yesterday, Google first launched this service and it was announced under the Google Blog. According to  Franz Och, Principal Scientist

“We feel that launching Persian is particularly important now, given ongoing events in Iran. Like YouTube and other services, Google Translate is one more tool that Persian speakers can use to communicate directly to the world, and vice versa — increasing everyone's access to information.”

Obviously as it was released under a rush so it is not yet fully perfect. But Google team surely is working to fix any possible errors that may creep in. Also it is clearly mentioned there that it is under Alpha release. To try out the Google Translator now, click here.

New facebook at Persian language Only after a couple of hours of this announcement, Eric Kwan announced on Facebook blog that they have also launched a Persian version of Facebook. On explaining it he said that

“Since the Iranian election last week, people around the world have increasingly been sharing news and information on Facebook about the results and its aftermath. Much of the content created and shared has been in Persian—the native language of Iran—but people have had to navigate the site in English or other languages.”

From the above discussion it is already cleared that Google and Facebook together have taken their step to stretch their hands towards the needier people of Iran. Lets just hope that youths there manages to take full advantage of it!

Thursday, June 18, 2009

CrowdEye ~ New Twitter search engine by “Ken Moss” -ex-leader of Microsoft old search engineering

CrowdEye logo It has only been a few day we have discussed about the Google’s upcoming search engine for Microblogging services like twitter, Microsoft ex search engine team leader, Ken Moss has gone a step ahead. He has spent a whole 9 months to build a new Twitter Search engine named “CrowdEye”. Today it has been released publicly as beta. Below given is a screenshot (Credits: CNET news)

New CrowdEye search engine for twitter

Best Features and Advantages:

  • Historical view that allows one to see how the discussion on a topic has evolved. [Although for now it has a maximum limit of three days]
  • Offers latest tweets on a topic along with a lost of most popular links and a tag cloud of associated terms

Some words from the creator:

On explaining CrowdEye Moss has emphasized that

I think that real-time search is the next big thing in search, It's an area that has been underexploited to date

On saying about the features that CrowdEye can give, Moss said

Right now that's all we support, but its definitely something I'd anticipate growing over time

Obviously working with his only co-worker Becca Moss, [his wife as well as former ‘softie] all these features that CrowdEye can give are really amazing!

Have your say:

Obviously although the CrowdEye has launched, but still we can see a “Under Construction” tag there. What ever it is, all the features mentioned above seems to be really something we want from a better twitter search engine! What do you think? Can CrowdEye beat its competing search engines like Topsy, OneRiot, Tweetfind, Twingly etc? Or better say can it stand against the upcoming twitter search engine by “Google”? Do share your views through your comments…

Read more: CNET, ZDNet, TechFlash

Google Adsense now allows you to change Font size of Ad units

AdsenseGoogle adsense just announced on blog about introducing Font size choice, you can now select size of fonts of your Ad units. Till now Publishers were not able to change font size and default font size is slightly small, you can now select your preferred font size from available options. Publishers were already allowed to change font faces and with this new addition, you can fully customize your Ad unit to math your template and increase performance of Ads. Font sizes will apply to Ad title and body.

Adsense font sizes

So What should be your Font size choice?

Mainly it depends on your blog template and the ad placement but According to Adsense official resources and most of the publishers, ads with bigger fonts perform perform better, Adsense is also soon going to set ‘medium’ font size as default to increase performance of ads. For blogs with normal fonts, you should use Adsense ‘medium’ font size. It will help you to increase your ads performance and increase your earning.

What do you think about this feature, which font size you like to use?, Share your thoughts with us through comments.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

TweetDeck launches new version with Great new Features

Tweetdeck TweetDeck, the most popular Twitter client just launched its new version with amazing new features, the new updates are highly focused on bringing new features to beat the Seesmic Desktop. With these new and improved features, TweetDeck has become more powerful and Stable. Go here to download the latest version.

 

Synchronization with iPhone

TweetDeck

TweetDeck recently launched its Twitter app. for iPhone, if you are using both, you don’t need to manage your groups and settings differently, by signing up for TweetDeck, you can automate the work, you can also backup your columns and then restore them at any time.

Faster than ever

The latest update made it Fastest Twitter client, previous version was taking long time to load all tweets, but the new version loads all tweets and groups in a go. It has also fixed the bug with columns not being updated, so it is now fast and stable.

Reply to All

TweetDeck Reply to all

This is the new feature, you can reply to all users mentioned on one Tweet by just clicking one button, you don’t need to copy or use any other method.

Reference to (RE)

Ever wanted to reply to a user but you don’t have space to reTweet his message?, this new features solves your problem, you can give reference to that Tweet and it will make a short url of that Tweet. e.g RE http://bit.ly/DJx80 my message.

Block and Report Spam Button

Block user and Report spam With this option, you can easily Block that user and Report spam him, TweetDeck will delete that Tweet and Block that user’s Tweets and also reports him to Twitter @spam.

Support for Multiple Accounts

Multiple Twitter Accounts

This was the only feature in TweetDeck was lacking behind, but now they have added it, you can manage multiple Twitter accounts and also manage your Facebook account from it.

See What is Popular on a Column

Popular Twitter Content

By Clicking on the ‘Popular content’ button on each column, you can see popular Tags and links. This is the easy way to watch the trends.

These are the main features of latest version, it has many more such as Auto-suggest username when adding to groups or Support for playing videos inside TweetDeck. So TweetDeck has again left rivals far behind.

What do you think about the new features, Share your thoughts with us through comments.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

HowTo Share images on Twitter easily with Flickr Email

flickr Flickr just made it much easier for sharing your pictures on Twitter without need of tweeting again or using any other service or script. Now you can do this by linking your Flickr account with Twitter.

How to Link Flickr account with Twitter

  • For Linking your Flickr account with Twitter, Login to your Flickr account and Go here and click on ‘Head over to Twitter’ button.Link Flickr with Twitter
  • Then you will be redirected to your Twitter account where you need to allow access to Flickr.
  • After allowing access to Flickr, on your Flickr page, you will get a email address. Save that Email address.

How to Share Images on Twitter with Flickr

Image posted on Twitter via Flickr

Now whenever you want to share an image on Twitter, just email that picture to the Email address provided to you by Flickr. Subject of the email will become image title and email body will become description. It will be posted immediately on your Linked Twitter account. You can send the image directly from your Phone or from your PC, so this is a much easier way compared to TwitPic or other services to share images.

How do you share images on Twitter? Tell us through comments.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Does Facebook also needs Verified Profiles like Twitter?

Before adding the Custom Profile URLs feature, vanity URLs were only available to Celebrities or big brands like Firefox or Maria Sharapova etc. Users were sure about originality of these Public profiles. But with this feature, all users get this feature to have custom Profile URLs and no one is sure about someone's Profile. Many users have selected Profile URLs that are similar to celebrities or Brands.

A Verified Facebook Page

The problem is similar to Twitter, Twitter solved it by adding ‘Verified Profiles’ feature, which is not available to all yet, but they will roll it out soon to the public. Facebook again needs to copy Twitter and add ‘Verified Profiles’ feature to save the users from Fake profiles of celebrities or brands.

Facebook is perhaps already aware of this threat. http://facebook.com/obama will redirect you to Original Barack Obama page. But it is not possible to redirect all similar URLs to Original page, it can be only saved by Verifying Profiles or something similar to that.

What do you think about Facebook’s new custom profile URLs and their threats to celebrities and brands? Do you think Facebook will add ‘Verified Profiles’ feature to its profiles and Pages?, share your thoughts with us through comments.

Twitter Launches Verified Accounts [Currently for high profiles only]

Are you a verified Twitter user Twitter has finally launched the “Verified Accounts” Feature. Now it is giving a Verified Account tag to some users mainly to high profile users like celebrities, athletes, musicians etc. Note that this feature is currently under “Beta” stage. As said by twitter

“To prevent identity confusion, Twitter is experimenting (beta testing) with a 'Verified Account' feature. We're working to establish authenticity with people who deal with impersonation or identity confusion on a regular basis. Accounts with a Verified are the real thing!”

So currently this feature is available to users like Oprah and Diddy and so [Thanks to webpronews]… Below is a screenshot of how their profile looks…

Example of a verified twitter user

Pros and Cons:

The real benefit of this feature is that we will get to know about the actual profiles of celebrities and High profile users. So while clicking on the follow button we will not get confused thinking whether it is a real profile or not. Also according to twitter

“With this feature, you can easily see which accounts we know are 'real' and authentic. That means we've been in contact with the person or entity the account is representing and verified that it is approved. (This does not mean we have verified who, exactly, is writing the tweets.)”

But on the other hand this feature Currently is limited to very short number of users. To explain that twitter has included

“This also does not mean that accounts without the 'Verified Account' badge are fake. The vast majority of accounts on the system are not impersonators, and we don't have the ability to check 100% of them. For now, we've only verified a handful of accounts to help with cases of mistaken identity or impersonation.”

So its not currently you and me who are getting this feature. Or maybe twitter will start including this for all! So what do you think on this? Do share through your comments…

Read More: http://twitter.com/help/verified

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Google’s Micro blogging Search Engine is going to hit the market Soon

Yes! You have heard it right! Google the king of search engines is soon going to launch its new Micro blogging Search engines for Twitter and other sites. Micro blogging has acquired much significance in this world of Web 2 and it is now a popular way for people to share real-time information with others [or better say whole world]

Twitter no doubt is the most used Micro blogging service these days but one of its drawback is search algorithm. Although previously we have talked about the improvement of twitter search engine but still it sorts the results by date not relevance. There are services like Tweetfind, Twingly which try to sort them but those are not that good. So if now Google is putting its hand onto it we can really expect something big.

According to Googlesystem Blog

“Much like Google Blog Search, Google's micro blogging search service will sort the results by relevancy and it also be integrated with Google's web search engine: the keywords that are frequently used in recent posts will trigger a MicroBlogsearch universal search group.”

Also there has been a Hint on this upcoming Google Service in Google’s Translation console [where Google harvests voluntary human translation services they use to make their product multilingual] which is quoted below:

"Recent updates about QUERY. This is the MicroBlogsearch Universal result group header text. A Micro blog is a blog with very short entries. Twitter is the popular service associated with this format."

See this image also from googlesystemblog where there is a clear indication of this:Google to say about Microblogging

While discussing the significance of Twitter for Google, Marissa Mayer [search product chief] has said:

“"What's really happening in Twitter is that there are a lot of clues in it in terms of what's happening that's interesting overall. It's similar to what we see in Google Trends, where people will often type what they're interested in into the search box, and we can make some predictions off of that. So we are interested in being able to offer, for example, micro-blogging and micro-messaging in our search. Particularly in Blog Search and possibly in Web Search, but we don't have any particular plans to announce.”

So, overall there are many clues now by which we can confirm this news. If you have seen anything better than this or wish to say something on this matter feel free to do so through your comments!

Source: Googlesystem Blog

Friday, June 12, 2009

Youtube enables linking accounts to Facebook & Twitter. Auto-post Videos to your accounts

YouTube YouTube just enabled to link your Twitter, Facebook and Google Reader. You can connect your Facebook or Twitter account in seconds and it will auto-share your uploads to Twitter or Facebook accounts. Sharing YouTube videos on Twitter and Facebook was already easy but this update has made it much simpler.

Youtube auto sharing

For connecting accounts, go to your Upload page and select from the available services. It will open a new window asking you for verification, you may need to login to the services first to continue, Click on ‘Allow access’ and enjoy the feature.

The feature makes it easy to share your uploads, in near future you can think of more additions like auto-sharing our favorite videos to your accounts. What do you think about it, share your thoughts with us through comments.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Facebook announced to allow custom profile URL

Facebook today announced to allow custom profile URLs from May 13, The feature was first available only to Celebrities and Big brands. Now you would be able to choose a custom profile URL like www.facebook.com/yourname. On Saturday, you will get a notification on your homepage to choose a username for your Profile.

facebook usernames

Facebook just made another step to stop the Twitter Mania, Brands, Celebrities and bloggers are using Twitter because it allows them to use a custom username which gives ability to share it with others and is easy to remember. With this new addition, Bloggers and brands will surely return to Facebook making their Profiles a Brand.

There are some people opposing this feature too, because this feature can lead to a battle between different products as they can grab other’s names to get popular and decrease their competitors popularity. However this small issue can be ignored, the usernames would be given on ‘First-come’, ‘First-serve’  basis. So be ready for a Facebook Usernames rush and secure yours.

What you say about this feature? Is it good or Bad. Share your views with us through comments.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

HowTo Increase your Blog Traffic by submitting your blog to Bing

Bing

Bing is the new and powerful Search engine by Microsoft which replaced Live.com. Bing is a strong competition to Google and it has already left Yahoo search behind, If you are a site owner, then you must add your site to Bing to get high traffic. Bing is already having a huge database but by following these simple steps, you can improve your site’s visibility in search results.

  • Go to Bing Webmaster’s page and Sign with your Windows live ID.
  • Click on ‘Add a site’ button and enter your Blog/Site address, sitemap address and submit. Bing webmaster Tools
  • It will open a new page asking for verification, you can do that by uploading a xml file to root folder of your site or inserting a <meta> tag to your Blog’s Head section.
  • Wait for few days, Bing will then stat crawling your Blog’s pages, helping you to rank higher in search results.

Enjoy Traffic from Bing, any problem in Submitting your Blog?, ask us through comments or discuss with other Webmasters in Bing’s webmaster forums.