All posts in Networking

Facebook Timeline has been around for a while now and I’ve noticed that most people have activated it and in general are enjoying it. Well, Facebook obviously wants to try and get more people using it and those who are using it, using it more and they’re trying to achieve this through adding some new applications into the mix:

Here are some of the applications they’ve added:

• Foodspotting
• Foodily
• Ticketmaster
• Pinterest
• Rotten Tomatoes
• Pose
• Kobo
• Gogobot
• TripAdvisor

The whole idea behind these applications is to make your Timeline more interesting. To get started with some brand new Timeline applications or to learn a little more about what’s available, click here.

Here are some examples:

G+ Twitter for Google Plus is a chrome extension that brings your tweets right into your Google Plus Streams. So, if you’re starting to take Google Plus more seriously and you’re quite active on Twitter (you can follow me on Twitter: @ChristopherM), then it might not be a bad idea to bring the two together. Personally, I prefer social networks to sit separately, but a lot of people like everything in one place.

The extension has a number of cool features:

• Realtime Timeline & Search
• Tweet inside Google Plus
• Dynamic tracking of keywords or hashtags
• Enable/Disable the Timeline
• Hover Cards
• Share
• Conversations

You can install a copy by clicking here, make sure you’re in Chrome of course. I gave it a go, it’s a cool addition but I still prefer my streams separate.

Let me know how you like it please?

I’ve reviewed Path previously here on iMod, and it looks like the little private social network is growing in leaps and bounds. It’s evolved into more of a ‘smart journal’ allowing you to document your life as you go along.

Path is focused on sharing with your close friends and the people you love. Unlike Facebook, where although there are new lists and filters for your friends, we still friend people that aren’t very close to us. This means we either have to think twice about what we share, or we share things that we should have thought twice about sharing.

With Path, however, you’re limited to 150 friends, up from the previous limit of 50, and it connects to all our favourite social networks like Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter and Tumblr, which lets you update your status, check-in, tweet, blog or upload photos and videos right from within the app.

The user interface has also changed quite a bit, making the app very slick. There’s a little time stamp indicator that floats into view while you scroll through events in your timeline. There’s also the smooth little animations when you tap the + button to call up the control panel. Path has also added icons for activities, which are clean and simple, making the app a pleasure to use.

The timeline feature is also very similar to Facebook. You can choose a cover image and the activity presents itself in a time-organised stream, but unlike Facebook, it isn’t littered with app updates and other irrelevant information. Instead, because of the limited activities, your timeline stays clean, relevant and provides plenty opportunities for interaction.

A few other cool features include are sharing what music you’re listening to through integration of your iPod app, sharing when you go to sleep and when you wake up, and when you wake up, Path gives you a weather forecast for the day. Feedback can be given simply, via icons, or you can choose to leave a comment. The advantage of this over Facebook is that you’re not limited to only ‘liking’ something.

A little bit of Instagram influence can be seen in the app too, with the option of adding filters to your photographs, five of which are available as an in-app purchase for $0.99.

There has been a lot of talk online that although the app has a slick interface, increased the friends limit and re-invented itself as a ‘smart journal’ that it just doesn’t have what it takes to be up there with the heavy hitting social networks. However, Path has shown phenomenal growth since their redesign and they have a very niche audience, who chooses who they want to share with.

Me? I’m not totally convinced yet, but I suppose if more of my friends became early adopters, this could be a viable option.

You’ve probably heard of Pinterest, the site that’s started off small, but has gained a lot of interest and attention lately. In fact, the site has in excess of 4 million users.

You’re probably wondering what Pinterest is. Shane Barnhill said it best on Twitter, Pinterest is a visual like button. It’s a social bookmarking tool that allows you to share, like and comment on the images that are pinned onto various boards, or categories. You can also follow other users and tag them in your posts. Furthermore, you can also follow your Facebook and Twitter friends.

At the moment, Pinterest is invite only, but you can request an invite or ask a friend already on Pinterest to send you one. Once you’ve signed up, you can either login normally, or with your Facebook or Twitter account.

While Pinterset is a fantastic way of sharing pictures and videos, it is also a fantastic way to organise your ideas. Think about it. Looking at creating a mood or vision board? Pin all your motivational images on a board. Redecorating the house? Create a board for each room and go wild with ideas. The possibilities are endless.

Pinning images is also really easy. There’s a bookmarklet that you can drop in your browser’s bookmarks bar, and whenever you come across a picture you’d like to pin, simply click the button, and select the relevant picture. From there you can add a description to it, and it’ll get pinned on your boards. For the iPhone users among us, you can take photos on the go and share themwith the Pinterest iPhone app.

Pinterest is very similar to Twitter in that you don’t need permission to follow anyone. You can choose to follow a specific board’s updates, rather than all the updates from a specific user.

Because of the Facebook and Twitter connectivity, you can share your Pinterests across both these social networks and get more of your friends involved.

Not sure which boards or users to follow? Click on the Popular button to follow boards and connect with Pinners who share your interests.

I like the idea behind Pinterest and have already gotten my boards going and have liked, commented and re-pinned many images myself. While it can be a time-sink, it all depends on how you use it.

Swaylo have created a Facebook app that allows you to see who you interact with most on Facebook. The app’s name is Social Statistics and it measures who your biggest ‘fans’ are, based on the amount of wall comments, and likes and comments they’ve added to your status updates. The app seems relatively popular, as it has 1,6 million Facebook likes.

To get the app, type in Social Statistics in the search bar, and choose the application. From there, grant the application permission to access your Facebook account. Once you’re in the application, there are three options in the sidebar on the left.

The first is top fans, which presents you with a pop-up Facebook window, showing you your top ten fans and the option to publish it to your wall along with a message. I chose to skip it, because, personally, I hate being tagged in these kinds of posts.

Once you’ve chosen to publish or skip sharing your top ten fans, you’re presented with number ten of your fans with their relevant stats that got them on the list. You can also choose to share this with them and add a message. You can also choose to share or skip these posts, and the list will run in reverse order until you get to number one.

The next option is recent fans, and once again, for no particular reason, the Facebook window pops up again. Just in case you didn’t get to tell your friends about it the first time. The screen that awaits you gives you the option to get weekly updates showing your newest fans. I would rather give it a skip. The less email, the better. Below that you’re given information on how many fans you have if you have any Facebook Pages.

Below that is your global ranking. I see that in the past week I’ve increased by social standing to being in the top 5% in the world. Pretty impressive. Below your social standing is your top ten fans list. Again. This time, however, it also tells you how they ranked last week. If you hover over a friend’s area in the standings, a pop-up window shows you the amount of wall posts, likes and comments they’ve shared with you and how many points they’ve earned.

The third and last option is Top 10 Posts, but these aren’t your top ten posts, but rather those of your friends, and possibly yours if you qualify. This list is also in reverse order and goes backwards from number ten through to number one.

While this app seems pretty informative initially, it gets a little annoying with the constant pop-ups to share your results with friends and on the odd occasion a pop-up to invite friends to use the app. Being a social media power user, it’s great to know what your reach is and how you rank amongst your friends, but most of the information presented in this app is pretty irrelevant.

Do you use any useful social tracking apps on Facebook?

So Lady Gaga’s just sent out a tweet as follows:

“Monsters, I’m giving away FREE iPad 2′s to each one of you in the spirit of the holidays :) Go to bit.ly/vWQdfP”.

Following this link to the statistical view on bit.ly by adding a + at the end of the address reveals that the actual link is: http://premtrack.com/?a=151956&c=1&s1= Doing a lookup on the address (http://whois.domaintools.com/premtrack.com) reveals a hidden URL and some other details which ring alarm bells immediately.

If you visit PreMtRack.com, you see the following, Home Cash System:

Yup, that’s clearly a hack on Lady Gaga’s Twitter account.

Over 15,000 clicks already on the link!

Update: Lady Gaga’s account has sent another hacked tweet out!

I’ve voiced my opinion many times on what I think about Google+. I’m not a big fan, but I’ve noticed that it’s one of the few social networks besides LinkedIn that you can access on your company network, seeing that Facebook and Twitter are usually blocked.

I’ve started a new job recently and want to get out there and network in order to make some new contacts and generate some business for myself. I was playing around on the company network and noticed that Google was not blocked. Naturally, I tried to see if Google+ worked, and it did.

Getting started is quite simple, really. Firstly, go to http://www.google.com/+/business/ and click on ‘Create your Google+ Page’.

Next, pick a suitable category for your business’s page. The following categories are available:

Local Business or Place is for your local stores, restaurants or services.

Product or Brand is for your more well established brands, for example clothing, electronics and even cars.

Company, Institution or Organisation is for companies, institutions or organisations.

Arts, Entertainments or Sports is for films, art galleries, drama societies, music, sports teams and clubs, theatres and shows.

If your business doesn’t fit into any of the above categories, you can simply just classify it as Other.

The next thing to do is to add your business’s name and website in the provided fields. Once you’ve entered this information, you can choose another category which better defines your business, and this is dependent on the primary category you choose. When you’re done with that, you can choose who can view your page. By default, it’s any person using Google+, but you can also put an age restriction of either 18 or 21.

Next up is your tagline and photo. Google+ restricts you to only 10 words to describe your business, so choose those words wisely. Once that’s done, add a photo or image for your Google+ brand page.

Once that’s all done, you can tell your circles about your page on Google+.

You can now easily access your page from your Google+ profile page, simply by clicking on the arrow under your name. From there you’ll be able to use Google+ as your page and start posting updates and putting people into circles.

The one reason I did this was because even though I didn’t have access to my preferred social networks, I was still able to put together a page fairly quickly, and all the additional exposure surely wouldn’t hurt.

What do you think of Google+ pages? Good idea or waste of time?