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I analyzed the average (interquartile mean to be specific) number of times articles were shared on Facebook based on the time of day they were published and I found that Facebook sharing seems to peak on articles that are posted in the morning, 9AM EST specifically.

I’ve previously found that ReTweeting peaks a few hours later in the day so the takeaway here I think is to publish your articles in the morning and then Tweet about them later in the day.

Another interesting data point here is the volume of stories posted at different hours. Notice the light gray bars at the bottom of the chart, they peak two hours after the “sharing peak”.

If you’re curious about my methodology, read this.

* Tweet This!
* Share this on Facebook
* Share this on del.icio.us
* Share this on LinkedIn
* Share this on Reddit
* Sphinn this on Sphinn
* Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon
* Share this on FriendFeed

-------------------------

Buy The Social Media Marketing Book here.

Download the Science of ReTweets Report here.

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter
.It’s been a while since I last published Facebook sharing data and I was waiting to gather a large enough sample set to produce this graph.

I analyzed the average (interquartile mean to be specific) number of times articles were shared on Facebook based on the time of day they were published and I found that Facebook sharing seems to peak on articles that are posted in the morning, 9AM EST specifically.

I’ve previously found that ReTweeting peaks a few hours later in the day so the takeaway here I think is to publish your articles in the morning and then Tweet about them later in the day.

Another interesting data point here is the volume of stories posted at different hours. Notice the light gray bars at the bottom of the chart, they peak two hours after the “sharing peak”.

If you’re curious about my methodology, read this.

* Tweet This!
* Share this on Facebook
* Share this on del.icio.us
* Share this on LinkedIn
* Share this on Reddit
* Sphinn this on Sphinn
* Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon
* Share this on FriendFeed

-------------------------

Buy The Social Media Marketing Book here.

Download the Science of ReTweets Report here.

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DanZarrella/~3/EC-8_xZdTqs/new-data-articles-published-in-the-morning-shared-more-on-facebook.html

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The latest data from the Pew Research Center indicates that growth has slowed in the 18-29 and 30-49 age groups but is taking off for those aged 50-64 and 65+. Some 47% of internet users ages 50-64 and 26% of users age 65 and older now use social networking sites. People aged over 50 now account for 42% of all social networking users, up from 22% a year ago. The main social networking sites used by older people are Facebook and LinkedIn.

The research suggests three reasons why social networking might be taking off for Baby Boomers and seniors. Firstly, social networking is great for people who want to reconnect with friends from their past – and by definition, older people have more of a past than younger people. Secondly, social networking can help bridge the generation gap, by letting grandparents and parents keep in touch with their offspring. Finally, quite a few people with chronic diseases use social networking to reach out to other people with similar conditions – and older people are more likely to have chronic illnesses.

Meanwhile, teens seem to be losing interest in Facebook. A July 2010 research study suggested that one in five teenagers with a Facebook account had stopped or decreased their usage of the site since April 2010. Nearly one in 10 teen internet users said they had a Facebook profile but had completely abandoned it.

Could the two trends be linked? Facebook has become mainstream and that’s great for those of us who enjoy connecting with different generations of our family and friends from all walks of life. It’s also great for Facebook and its advertisers. But it comes at a price – mainstream and cool or cutting edge don’t go together. Many teens likely don’t want to hang out on a site with their parents or grandparents.Once considered the province of the young, social networking is increasingly a pursuit for people over 50, new research suggests.

The latest data from the Pew Research Center indicates that growth has slowed in the 18-29 and 30-49 age groups but is taking off for those aged 50-64 and 65+. Some 47% of internet users ages 50-64 and 26% of users age 65 and older now use social networking sites. People aged over 50 now account for 42% of all social networking users, up from 22% a year ago. The main social networking sites used by older people are Facebook and LinkedIn.

The research suggests three reasons why social networking might be taking off for Baby Boomers and seniors. Firstly, social networking is great for people who want to reconnect with friends from their past – and by definition, older people have more of a past than younger people. Secondly, social networking can help bridge the generation gap, by letting grandparents and parents keep in touch with their offspring. Finally, quite a few people with chronic diseases use social networking to reach out to other people with similar conditions – and older people are more likely to have chronic illnesses.

Meanwhile, teens seem to be losing interest in Facebook. A July 2010 research study

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/allfacebook/~3/l-9kok53wcA/facebook-older-people-2010-09

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Here is what is new in SEO Doctor 1.3

* SEO Score algorithm tweaking
* Redesigned the right-click menu, added new services
* Added Send Feedback feature
* Firefox 4 compatible
* Various bug fixes and tweaks

It now features five ways to get traffic statistics  and a total of 9 ways to get backlink information for any site.

Grab SEO Doctor and diagnose your site right away - no excuse not to as it takes only five minutes.

Related Articles:
* SEO Doctor is operating now
* More links = less page rank?
* SEO Doctor – Free SEO Tool
* SEO Smart Links
* Do it Yourself: Optimize your WordPress Page Headings

Original Link: http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/seo-doctor-updated-to-v1-3

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Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter, gave some telling stats on the Twitter blog

Mobile users have jumped 62% since mid-April

16% of all new users to Twitter now start on mobile (it was 5% before Twitter started doing branded mobile clients)

46% of active users use some sort of mobile Twitter experience

78% of people who interact with Twitter still do so through twitter.com — though that number includes people who use more than one app

m.twitter.com is the second most-used Twitter interface at 14%

SMS and Twitter for iPhone are tied at 8%

Here is a chart showing the most used ways to access Twitter. One thing I will note that while the post started out concentrating on mobile numbers it becomes less and less clear which numbers are about overall Twitter usage and which are about Twitter use overall (at least for me that is).

Of note as well, there are now more than 145 million registered Twitter users that use some 300,000 registered applications to get the most from the service. Remember the days of being excited about hitting 20 million users? Those are getting smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror for sure.

Twitter keeps rolling along but there was no talk about making money. That might ruin the mood of the celebration.

Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook CommunityTwitter has made some strides to get the mobile experience working better as of late. They have been very successful in this area which is critical since the geo-location movement promises to make mobile even more important in the not so distant future.

Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter, gave some telling stats on the Twitter blog

Mobile users have jumped 62% since mid-April

16% of all new users to Twitter now start on mobile (it was 5% before Twitter started doing branded mobile clients)

46% of active users use some sort of mobile Twitter experience

78% of people who interact with Twitter still do so through twitter.com — though that number includes people who use more than one app

m.twitter.com is the second most-used Twitter interface at 14%

SMS and Twitter for iPhone are tied at 8%

Here is a chart showing the most used ways to access Twitter. One thing I will note that while the post started out concentrating on mobile numbers it becomes less and less clear which numbers are about overall Twitter usage and which are about Twitter use overall (at least for me that is).

Of note as well, there are now more than 145 million registered Twitter users that use some 300,000 registered applications to get the most from the service. Remember the days of being excited about hitting 20 million users? Those are getting smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror for sure.

Twitter keeps rolling along but there was no talk about making money. That might ruin the mood of the celebration.

Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community

Original Link: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2010/09/twitter-gives-a-peak-under-the-mobile-nest.html

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“Registered users” is very different to “Active users”. Facebook, for example, announced in July that it had over 500 million active users. This is a statistic that Facebook recently tweaked to improve its accuracy and should give a good indication of how many people regularly interact with the site.

Twitter, however, doesn’t give this figure, making it difficult to determine the true size of its userbase. Third party developers who work with the API have their own ideas. Jesse Stay is the man behind SocialToo, a service that provides useful tools for Twitter and Facebook users. Commenting on Twitter’s latest stats via Google Reader today, he says:

“I wish they’d go with the number their competitors are going with – number of active users. Just stating # of registered users is an unfair comparison (unless they really want Facebook to start touting the number of registered users on their system). My own estimates show only about 30% of Twitter’s numbers are active, based on a sample of 5-10 million users I have cached.”

Now, that’s only one developer and we’ve no way of verifying what he says. However, when you bear in mind all the people who try the service and leave; people who have registered themselves but not used their accounts; not to mention spam accounts,  there’s bound to be a significant drop-off from that 145 million figure.

Twitter’s latest stats say that 78% of users access its service via Twitter.com. According to Comscore, the site received nearly 93 million unique visitors in June. However, visitors don’t necessarily equal active users as some are likely to visit, for example, individual celebrity pages without actually signing up themselves. Yet more traffic will come from search engine results too.

In short, we don’t know how many people are actively using Twitter and until they release such a figure, we can but guess.

Original title and link for this post: How many people are actually using Twitter?As we reported earlier, Twitter has published new figures showing that it now has 145 million registered users. The thing is, that doesn’t really tell us much about how many people are actually using the service.

“Registered users” is very different to “Active users”. Facebook, for example, announced in July that it had over 500 million active users. This is a statistic that Facebook recently tweaked to improve its accuracy and should give a good indication of how many people regularly interact with the site.

Twitter, however, doesn’t give this figure, making it difficult to determine the true size of its userbase. Third party developers who work with the API have their own ideas. Jesse Stay is the man behind SocialToo, a service that provides useful tools for Twitter and Facebook users. Commenting on Twitter’s latest stats via Google Reader today, he says:

“I wish they’d go with the number their competitors are going with – number of active users. Just stating # of registered users is an unfair comparison (unless they really want Facebook to start touting the number of registered users on their system). My own estimates show only about 30% of Twitter’s numbers are active, based on a sample of 5-10 million users I have cached.”

Now, that’s only one developer and we’ve no way of verifying what he says. However, when you bear in mind all the people who try the service and leave; people who have registered themselves but not used their accounts; not to mention spam accounts,  there’s bound to be a significant drop-off from that 145 million figure.

Twitter’s latest stats say that 78% of users access its service via Twitter.com. According to Comscore, the site received nearly 93 million unique visitors in June. However, visitors don’t necessarily equal active users as some are likely to visit, for example, individual celebrity pages without actually signing up themselves. Yet more traffic will come from search engine results too.

In short, we don’t know how many people are actively using Twitter and until they release such a figure, we can but guess.

Original title and link for this post: How many people are actually using Twitter?

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheNextWeb/~3/JJQC3Flmgck/

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Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers, co-authors of the soon-to-be-launched book What's Mine Is Yours, call this groundswell Collaborative Consumption; a powerful cultural, and economic force transforming business, consumerism and the way we live. The following infographic—content by Botsman, design by Design Motion—examines a transition from a society based on ownership to one defined by access.

View the full-size infographic here.
 "Sharing is Contagious" charts how we are increasingly growing up sharing files, photos, knowledge, and daily thoughts—and how these collaborative behaviors are moving into other areas of our lives. From bike-sharing to co-working to peer-to-peer rental, a dotted line is forming between "what’s mine," "what’s yours," and "what’s ours." Technology and peer communities are enabling old market behaviors including bartering, swapping, trading, renting, lending, and sharing to be reinvented in ways and on a scale never possible before.

Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers, co-authors of the soon-to-be-launched book What's Mine Is Yours, call this groundswell Collaborative Consumption; a powerful cultural, and economic force transforming business, consumerism and the way we live. The following infographic—content by Botsman, design by Design Motion—examines a transition from a society based on ownership to one defined by access.

View the full-size infographic here

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/good/lbvp/~3/o7DGVNwHpY8/sharing-is-contagious-the-rise-of-collaborative-consumption

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Here’s how you can create your Facebook Lists Today:

1. Once logged into Facebook you will want to go to the top left where it shows the shadow of a person (where it shows people who want to be friends with you) and click on it. A drop down will appear and you will want to click on the link “Find Your Friends”.

2. After clicking on “Find Your Friends” a new page will appear with a button close to the right-hand side that reads, “Create a list”.

3. Click the button “Create a List” and a popup of all of your friends and pages that you have liked will appear. At the top you can name your list and then click on the faces of your friends that you would like to add to the list – you are able to add the same people to a variety of lists if you choose. – When you have added the people to fit the list, click on the button “create list”.

4. Now that your Facebook lists have been created go to the left column on your newsfeed and click on “friends” to see the list of your lists. When you click on the name of your chosen list – the people you added to the list will be seen in your newsfeed. P.S. You can create Facebook Lists for your pages that you own or are admin to as well.

Facebook Lists can serve a great purpose when you want to see what is happening with your friends and family. It’s an easy way to target events, and will save you tons of time from clicking friends one by one. Make your Facebook lists today and take control over who you want to see in your newsfeed, when you want to.

Original Link: http://soshable.com/how-to-categorize-your-friends-on-facebook/

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This search for the word “Discovery” brought up a TBD.com and WashingtonPost.com story on the Discovery gunman. Clicking on the headline takes you straight to the story. The stories are ranked by “the number of likes and the number of friends who liked that object,” explains AllFacebook, and by the looks of it, stories are getting premium placement.

Is it the beginnings of a competitor to Google News? Perhaps. As Flipboard has shown us, it wouldn’t be difficult for Facebook to whip together a social news experience that would be pretty compelling. By the way, people are so desperate for a Facebook iPad app (there currently isn’t an official one), they’re paying for third-party bootlegs.

Related posts:
* Facebook unveils local ‘Places’ feature
* Props to TBD for Discovery Channel hostage coverage
* Foursquare preps new features, links coming?It looks like Facebook has added most-liked stories into its on-site search results.

This search for the word “Discovery” brought up a TBD.com and WashingtonPost.com story on the Discovery gunman. Clicking on the headline takes you straight to the story. The stories are ranked by “the number of likes and the number of friends who liked that object,” explains AllFacebook, and by the looks of it, stories are getting premium placement.

Is it the beginnings of a competitor to Google News? Perhaps. As Flipboard has shown us, it wouldn’t be difficult for Facebook to whip together a social news experience that would be pretty compelling. By the way, people are so desperate for a Facebook iPad app (there currently isn’t an official one), they’re paying for third-party bootlegs.

Related posts:
* Facebook unveils local ‘Places’ feature
* Props to TBD for Discovery Channel hostage coverage
* Foursquare preps new features, links coming?

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LostRemote/~3/xFiuPjrYaI0/

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BONUS: Watch Our Interview With Groupon Co-Founder & CEO Andrew Mason

Don't Miss...

– Here's What People REALLY Think Of The iPhone 4

– What Do People Really Think Of... Twitter?

– MySpace Is A Creepy Place Overrun With Ads, Ex-Girlfriends, And High Schoolers

Produced By: Kamelia Angelova & William Wei

More Video: CLICK HERE >

Join the conversation about this story »We asked people on the street what they think of daily deals company Groupon. Most of them hadn't heard of it. But once we explained what the company does, most of them got pretty excited. That's probably why Groupon revenues are supposedly going to reach $500 million this year. Watch above.

BONUS: Watch Our Interview With Groupon Co-Founder & CEO Andrew Mason

Don't Miss...

– Here's What People REALLY Think Of The iPhone 4

– What Do People Really Think Of... Twitter?

– MySpace Is A Creepy Place Overrun With Ads, Ex-Girlfriends, And High Schoolers

Produced By: Kamelia Angelova & William Wei

More Video: CLICK HERE >

Join the conversation about this story »

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/EPDs7p5if_0/what-do-people-really-think-of-groupon-2010-9

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Seriously! If you found me at one of the big conferences in the early 2000s you would have likely heard me discussing the importance of keyword research. “Keyword research is the most important aspect of SEO,” I would say. “Target the wrong keywords and it won’t matter if you are #1 on Google or not.”

Yeah, I took it seriously.

I still do, and that’s why I’m sharing this experience from the WebmasterWorld forums. WMW member vivalasvegas follows-up on a report he submitted previously about the sudden loss of almost 5,000 visitors a day for one keyword combination.

My conclusion after doing some more research: the apparently popular 3 word phrase was made popular by the Search suggestions feature. It seems that people were typing in the first 2 words (or even just one word and a half) and the first suggestion was my phrase. Combined with the fact that the first 2 words make a very popular phrase with several million searches reported per month – the result was some nice traffic spilled in my direction. Needless to say – the 3 word phrase is no longer a favorite suggestion.

Bottom line. Google stopped using the keyword combination in Google Suggest and vivalasvegas lost 5k visitors a day. Ouch!

My point?

When you do your keyword research, you absoluteley need to ensure you are checking Google Suggest as part of that research. Start typing in the keywords that Google “suggests” and see what other phrases Google will likely be presented to your target audience.

For example, if you are targeting SEO related queries, try this:

Some queries will throw up local intent suggestions, but you’ll get a good feel for the keywords you should be adding to your mix. For bonus points clicks, don’t stop with Google Suggest. Take a look at the bottom of the results page and see what Google says are related searches:

Hey, you never know when these suggestions might result in an extra 5,000 visitors a day for your web site!I used to be a keyword research freak.

Seriously! If you found me at one of the big conferences in the early 2000s you would have likely heard me discussing the importance of keyword research. “Keyword research is the most important aspect of SEO,” I would say. “Target the wrong keywords and it won’t matter if you are #1 on Google or not.”

Yeah, I took it seriously.

I still do, and that’s why I’m sharing this experience

Original Link: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2010/09/keyword-research-google-suggest.html

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The new feature may be a move to make someone’s news feed more specific and relevant to users. With the average user having 130 friends, it can make it difficult to stay up-to-date on what everyone’s doing. With the “subscribe” feature, a user could choose the top friends they want to follow and see their updates in the notification stream, similar to what happens when someone comments on one of your updates. It also sounds much easier than managing your news feed settings for multiple groups of Facebook friends.

As pointed out by All Facebook, it isn’t know what will happen if someone “Likes” a page or “checks-in” to a location through Facebook’s new Places feature. The following Facebook statement was provided to All Facebook:

“This feature is being tested with a small percent of users. It lets people subscribe to friends and pages to receive notifications whenever the person they’ve subscribed to updates their status or posts new content (photos, videos, links, or notes).”

The new Facebook feature may remind you of the main feature of popular social network Twitter, which has built its entire 145 million member network on following other users and seeing only their updates. One can’t help but wonder if Facebook is making a move to be a more complete social network, offering Twitter users the same features. And here comes more speculation about whether Facebook will kill Twitter.

Tags: follow, social network, Social networks, SocialBeat, updates

Companies: Facebook, TwitterFacebook confirmed yesterday that it has begun testing a new “subscribe” feature for users and pages. The feature lets users follow a user or page and receive notifications when a new update or piece of content, such as a picture or video, occurs.

The new feature may be a move to make someone’s news feed more specific and relevant to users. With the average user having 130 friends, it can make it difficult to stay up-to-date on what everyone’s doing. With the “subscribe” feature, a user could choose the top friends they want to follow and see their updates in the notification stream, similar to what happens when someone comments on one of your updates. It also sounds much easier than managing your news feed settings for multiple groups of Facebook friends.

As pointed out by All Facebook, it isn’t know what will happen if someone “Likes” a page or “checks-in” to a location through Facebook’s new Places feature. The following Facebook statement was provided to All Facebook:

“This feature is being tested with a small percent of users. It lets people subscribe to friends and pages to receive notifications whenever the person they’ve subscribed to updates their status or posts new content (photos, videos, links, or notes).”

The new Facebook feature may remind you of the main feature of popular social network Twitter, which has built its entire 145 million member network on following other users and seeing only their updates. One can’t help but wonder if Facebook is making a move to be a more complete social network, offering Twitter users the same features. And here comes more speculation about whether Facebook will kill Twitter.

Tags: follow, social network, Social networks, SocialBeat, updates

Companies: Facebook, Twitter

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Venturebeat/~3/MuNcZI3tG28/

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I like the jeans you are selling on your website . I like them because I already own a pair.  I am not giving you permission to contact me and try to sell me something or to suggest to my friends that they should buy them because I like them.

I like the book you just read. I would like to buy a copy. It would save me time if by liking this book someone would contact me from Amazon with a link to quickly allow me to buy it.

“Liking” something can have any number of meanings.  Unless FB comes up with a solution for the problems caused by the misinterpretation of these meanings, the Like button will quickly become a nuisance.

So whats the solution ?

Colors.

Let us click on the Like button until the color and meaning we agree with shows up.

A green like button with the word (BUY) next to it would send a message to the website to send me a link to allow me to buy it now

A yellow like button with the word (Info) next to it would send a message to the website to send me general information

A red like button with the word (Stop) could send the message to leave me alone. I just wanted to say I liked it.

There are lots of colors that can offer lots of different action/non action suggestions.  Cycling through them when you click the like button would be easy. Sending the appropriate information to a monitoring program would be easy.

It’s the Like 2.o solution .

And while FB is at it, can we do the same thing for Poke…..

m

Original Link: http://blogmaverick.com/2010/08/07/the-future-of-the-facebook-like-button/

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I’m tired of regular people thinking they’re special unique snowflakes and deserve their own fan page just to boost their own egos. Non-public figure fan pages cheapens the value of fan pages for those who actually are public figures.

I wrote a comment at the time, referencing fan pages I maintained here and there. (They’ve since been replaced by facebook.com/aribherzog which exists as a distribution channel for things I am writing and liking, and which 89 people have opted into being a fan of today.)

Stacy understood where I came from and admitted she was not writing about folks like me, but about other people, as she elaborated in this response:

They are not elected officials, they don’t have high-volume blogs like yours, they are not celebrities even in the most minor sense, and they have no real reason to have a fan page other than to make themselves feel better about themselves. If that’s what it takes for them to justify their self worth, then fine, but to the outside world, including me and others who have privately messaged me and don’t want to publicly comment here, it looks ostentatious.

If you search this blog for the word Facebook, you’ll see numerous results about the social networking site. I’ve struggled for 18 months whether I should accept friend requests from the world, as I used to do, or if I should keep my friendships to only people I know intimately and have either physically met or spoken to on the phone, as it is now. It frustrates me that Facebook friend requests require mutuality.

Rereading Chris Brogan’s short-lived experimentation of having a Facebook page to boost branding — explaining why he created the page in January 2009 and why he deleted it by June — I blinked and had an epiphany.

See, I receive a lot of Facebook friend requests. Some people read this blog and want to befriend its writer. Some people see me speak at a workshop and want to befriend and learn more. Some people live in Newburyport and want to befriend their city councilor. Some people went to high school or college with me and want to befriend a classmate. Some people this, some people that.

Considering 99% don’t write anything in the optional box explaining why they want to be my friend, I am forced to guess — and for the better parts of 2009 and 2010, I encouraged those relative strangers to like my page instead.

No more.

My Facebook usage changes today.

I don’t know what I want to do with the facebook.com/aribherzog page, and I am open to your suggestions.

Not unlike Chris’ explanation why he deleted his page, I don’t want my page to be about how many people like it. I want your time on Facebook to be productive and being forced to like a page to interact with me is counterproductive. If you prefer to be my friend, send me a friend request. If you prefer to be my fan like me, you can do that too. I want you to use Facebook how you want to use it, and not abide by arbitrary rules I create.

I recognize Facebook users have their own reasons for accepting all friend requests versus being selective in their mutuality.

But I also recognize it is silly to force you to adapt to my Facebook rules, so I am saying goodbye to them and saying hello to efficient organization of my web experience.

If you want to say hi to me on Facebook, you may do so here. If you like me, I’m here too.

Make sense?

--Thank you for reading Hello Facebook and Goodbye Rules at AriWriter

Related posts:
* 3 Steps to Attract Fans to Your Facebook Page
* Insights of Facebook Fans Liking My Pages
* How to Revoke Editing Rights on Facebook Pages

Tags: branding, Facebook, newmarketingStacy Lukasavitz passionately argued six months ago that Facebook Pages should exist for organizations and celebrities, but not everyday people.

I’m tired of regular people thinking they’re special unique snowflakes and deserve their own fan page just to boost their own egos. Non-public figure fan pages cheapens the value of fan pages for those who actually are public figures.

I wrote a comment at the time, referencing fan pages I maintained here and there. (They’ve since been replaced by facebook.com/aribherzog which exists as a distribution channel for things I am writing and liking, and which 89 people have opted into being a fan of today.)

Stacy understood where I came from and admitted she was not writing about folks like me, but about other people, as she elaborated in this response:

They are not elected officials, they don’t have high-volume blogs like yours, they are not celebrities even in the most minor sense, and they have no real reason to have a fan page other than to make themselves feel better about themselves. If that’s what it takes for them to justify their self worth, then fine, but to the outside world, including me and others who have privately messaged me and don’t want to publicly comment here, it looks ostentatious.

If you search this blog for the word Facebook, you’ll see numerous results about the social networking site. I’ve struggled for 18 months whether I should accept friend requests from the world, as I used to do, or if I should keep my friendships to only people I know intimately and have either physically met or spoken to on the phone, as it is now. It frustrates me that Facebook friend requests require mutuality.

Rereading Chris Brogan’s short-lived experimentation of having a Facebook page to boost branding — explaining why he created the page in January 2009 and why he deleted it by June — I blinked and had an epiphany.

See, I receive a lot of Facebook friend requests. Some people read this blog and want to befriend its writer. Some people see me speak at a workshop and want to befriend and learn more. Some people live in Newburyport and want to befriend their city councilor. Some people went to high school or college with me and want to befriend a classmate. Some people this, some people that.

Considering 99% don’t write anything in the optional box explaining why they want to be my friend, I am forced to guess — and for the better parts of 2009 and 2010, I encouraged those relative strangers to like my page instead.

No more.

My Facebook usage changes today.

I don’t know what I want to do with the facebook.com/aribherzog page, and I am open to your suggestions.

Not unlike Chris’ explanation why he deleted his page, I don’t want my page to be about how many people like it. I want your time on Facebook to be productive and being forced to like a page to interact with me is counterproductive. If you prefer to be my friend, send me a friend request. If you prefer to be my fan like me, you can do that too. I want you to use Facebook how you want to use it, and not abide by arbitrary rules I create.

I recognize Facebook users have their own reasons for accepting all friend requests versus being selective in their mutuality.

But I also recognize it is silly to force you to adapt to my Facebook rules, so I am saying goodbye to them and saying hello to efficient organization of my web experience.

If you want to say hi to me on Facebook, you may do so here. If you like me, I’m here too.

Make sense?

--Thank you for reading Hello Facebook and Goodbye Rules at AriWriter

Related posts:
* 3 Steps to Attract Fans to Your Facebook Page
* Insights of Facebook Fans Liking My Pages
* How to Revoke Editing Rights on Facebook Pages

Tags: branding, Facebook, newmarketing

Original Link: http://ariwriter.com/why-i-accept-all-facebook-friend-requests/

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The Ignite events are a fun blend of performance, technology, and speaking skill. Each presenter gives a five minute talk with twenty slides that auto-advance after 15 seconds.

The title of my talk is a classic geek reference (you can get the t-shirt). I’m very interested in developing automated techniques for handling the massive and growing amounts of information that we all have to deal with. I started with e-mail and twitter, both of which are easy to access programmatically (via IMAP and the Twitter API).

In the talk, I went through several of the simple and successful e-mail management scripts that I’ve developed.

I decided to talk about this project because I’m not sure where this should go next, but I got some great feedback and I’m looking forward to future work on the project!

The slides are below, and the full talk will be online soon.
IgniteNYC: How to Replace Yourself With a Very Small Shell Script

View more documents from Hilary Mason.I recently gave a talk at IgniteNYC on How to Replace Yourself with a Very Small Shell Script.

The Ignite events are a fun blend of performance, technology, and speaking skill. Each presenter gives a five minute talk with twenty slides that auto-advance after 15 seconds.

The title of my talk is a classic geek reference (you can get the t-shirt). I’m very interested in developing automated techniques for handling the massive and growing amounts of information that we all have to deal with. I started with e-mail and twitter, both of which are easy to access programmatically (via IMAP and the Twitter API).

In the talk, I went through several of the simple and successful e-mail management scripts that I’ve developed.

I decided to talk about this project because I’m not sure where this should go next, but I got some great feedback and I’m looking forward to future work on the project!

The slides are below, and the full talk will be online soon.
IgniteNYC: How to Replace Yourself With a Very Small Shell Script

View more documents from Hilary Mason

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/3greeneggs/~3/-zRHbEDExLM/

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It’s helpful if the stuff you post is worth something. I try hard to make that always the case. Others don’t try as hard, and yet, their traffic climbs when they post more stuff.

You can reply in the comments and tell me that you’d rather put out great stuff once a month, or once a week, or whenever the great stuff mood strikes you. That means you didn’t really read the first sentence of this post.

I’m not saying what you should do. I’m not saying what’s better or worse. I’m not telling you how often to write on your blog.

I’m telling you that there’s a reason why the top blogs on the Internet all post more than five times a day. All of them. It’s surely not because there’s always more than five amazing things to tell you every day.

But it’s 100% related to traffic and what we’ve observed by posting more.

Even now, while I’m writing these posts about six days ahead of when they go live, I’ve got two a day ready to go. Maybe when I get better at it, I’ll give you three or four amazing things to think about. Not likely. In a new project, I’ll have more than one writer, which will help.

My story still stands: the more you post (provided it’s reasonably useful), the more traffic you get.

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/chrisbrogandotcom/~3/lDHFbf8pfzw/

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The 15 Worst Reasons to Use Social Media For Your Business

by Eric Fulwiler

I am a heavy supporter of social media as a valuable business tool, but only when it is used for the right reasons, and in the right way. Sometimes it’s easy to convince yourself that your reason for using social media for your business is right when it’s actually wrong. So, here it is, in black and white, the 15 worst reasons to use social media for business.

15. Because it’s free to sign up

14. Because you like the idea of going viral

13. Because you heard the buzz about the South by Southwest conference

12. Because you have friends who are successful bloggers

11. Because you can automate many social network feeds

10. Because the 400 million people on Facebook are a new population to advertise to

9. Because other companies have made millions of dollars on Twitter

8. Because the other companies who have used social media have received positive PR

7. Because you read that people trust social network contacts

6. Because you think it’s all return and no investment

5. Because you read a case study in which another business used social media successfully

4. Because consumers are spending more time online

3. Because someone told you that social media was the next big thing

2. Because everyone else is doing it

1. Because you should

For the rest of Eric’s article where he  tells you why these are the worst.  Click Here

Article Courtesy of

Steve Pohlit

New Digital Media, Inc

“Building Social Media Networks That Build Revenue and Profits”The author has a great reason why his 15 reasons are the worst ones for using social media for your business. This is a recommended read.

The 15 Worst Reasons to Use Social Media For Your Business

by Eric Fulwiler

I am a heavy supporter of social media as a valuable business tool, but only when it is used for the right reasons, and in the right way. Sometimes it’s easy to convince yourself that your reason for using social media for your business is right when it’s actually wrong. So, here it is, in black and white, the 15 worst reasons to use social media for business.

15. Because it’s free to sign up

14. Because you like the idea of going viral

13. Because you heard the buzz about the South by Southwest conference

12. Because you have friends who are successful bloggers

11. Because you can automate many social network feeds

10. Because the 400 million people on Facebook are a new population to advertise to

9. Because other companies have made millions of dollars on Twitter

8. Because the other companies who have used social media have received positive PR

7. Because you read that people trust social network contacts

6. Because you think it’s all return and no investment

5. Because you read a case study in which another business used social media successfully

4. Because consumers are spending more time online

3. Because someone told you that social media was the next big thing

2. Because everyone else is doing it

1. Because you should

For the rest of Eric’s article where he  tells you why these are the worst.  Click Here

Article Courtesy of

Steve Pohlit

New Digital Media, Inc

Original Link: http://thesocialmediasource.com/2010/04/15-reasons-not-to-use-social-media-for-your-business/

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This could also serve as a new engagement opportunity for Pages if Facebook enabled users to subscribe to their activities as well. The result would be a fan count and a “subscriber” count, which is the number of people who are guaranteed to get all of your updates. For the time being it appears to just be a test, however this would definitely change the communications flow within Facebook. It’s also the ultimate stalking tool!

While I’m not quite sure how advanced this feature will be, you could imagine a system in which you get a mobile notification every time one of your friends that you’ve subscribed to makes an update. I think that stalker aspect of the feature could also result in some backlash. Previously, it was chance if a friend’s information was displayed in your feed, however this will remove chance from the process.

As the image below illustrates, you’ll be able to subscribe to the user and then a notification (like the one pictured in the second image) will alert you whenever the person updates their status, posts a photo, or shares a link. However I’m not sure if a notification will also show up if they like things or check in places. We’ve reached out to Facebook for more information about the feature, however we’re not sure if they’ll provide any details as the product is currently in testing.

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/allfacebook/~3/L10eT-Z4v2k/facebook-subscribe-to-2010-09

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With that out of the way, I have started to see image tagging units in the advertising panel on Facebook image pages. It probably appears on
But my first reaction was actually neither of these things. It was a recollection of Google’s Image Labeler game / tool from a few years ago. Speaking od game mechanics and Mechanical Turk – Image Labeler was ahead of the curve.

Google would have you paired with another user in real time. The goal of the game is to both type the same word – any descriptive word- about a series of images. Upon user pairing, it would reveal an image synchronously and a list of obvious words that you can not use in the game. Once you both enter the same descriptive word not on the banned list – points are awarded (function of speed, accuracy) and the next image is loaded.

Its simple to play. Its synchronous. Points are awarded and leader boards are displayed throughout the experience – so its competitive. And it assists Google and their various image / algorithm / matching technologies.

Original Link: http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2010/09/02/facebook-images-channels-its-inner-google-image-labeler/

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