Here’s the evolution of SEO – Search Engine Optimization – a nice visual of the SEO historical timeline.

I remember lots of these early search websites and web directories. I even remember SEO developments like metatags, keywords and link-back strategies. What do you remember? Any SEO tips you care to share?

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Infographic by the PPC Blog.com

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Google+ is the new hotness on the web. Unless you’ve been living under a rock,  you’ve probably heard about this new bright, shiny new toy social media platform from the team over at Google.

It’s the best social platform I’ve seen from Google so far; in fact, it’s better than nearly every social platform out on the web today. Clearly, Google absorbed the painful lessons learned from prior experiments like Google Wave, Buzz and even Orkut, and applied that wisdom to building Google + into a very robust, solid experience. I’m very impressed and thoroughly enjoying this new application.

Accordingly, I am being flooded with requests for invites to help others join Google+ (Plus) http://Google.com/+. I’ve invited well over 200 people so far. Now, I want to share how to send Google+ invites with you.

Follow these steps below to begin sending Google+ invitations to your friends too:

Step 1. First, you must already have access to Google +. I know that might seem kinda obvious, but a few folks have tried and asked for my help who didn’t already have access?! Be sure you’re already logged in to Google+ on your desktop computer or laptop. (The invite process is similar using the Google+ android app.)

Step 2. Using the web Google + desktop application, select the “Share” button in the upper right.

Step 3. Write a note to your friend, e.g. Google+ invite for you! (this becomes the subject line of your invite email).

Step 4. Important! Remove the circles that appear by default, i.e. Public, Your circles, Extended circles. Select each one and click the little “x” that appears on the right. Now that you’ve removed all three, progress to the next step.

Step 5. Select “+ Add more people” to type in your friend(s) email address(es). Each time you enter an email address, it will appear in a small gray box (select that to confirm). Then it will appear as a blue button (similar to how “Your circles” appears below as a blue button. Once you’ve entered all the email addresses you want to send invites to, then click the “Share” button to send. You’ll get a confirmation for successful send. That’s it!

Be aware that Google + is gradually adding people. So your friends, may not gain immediate access. Be persistent and keep trying! It works eventually.

Now that you’ve sent your friends Google+ invites, you’ll see them adding you to their circles (see notification area) after they login. Add them to your circles to “follow” them back. Next send them this blog post so they know how to send invites too!  Oh, and connect with me on Google+ too.

Let me know if you have any problems following these steps above. I want to update it if there’s anything that needs clarification.  Be sure to leave a comment if you tried this and have any feedback.

Update 1 – based on reader feedback (thanks): You need to only send the invite 1 time. Recipients of your invites my get an email message back from Google indicating that they are limiting access, which means they won’t be able to login just yet. KEEP TRYING anyway, it works eventually!  :)

Update 2. It looks like Google might be holding  invite emails back?
Just got feedback from a Google+ user Nilay Shah — “I tried a test post just now. No email received. But i guess the invite still gets listed with google. Some of my family members and friends didnt received an email but were able to login after sometime using their gmail ids.”

Here’s what a Google+ email invite looks like (mine).

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ICANN approved new top level domain (TLD) names today. Does this mean major brands now have a shot at having their name as the TLD name? interesting move! So, will we see Dell.dell or IBM.ibm? The web will sure look different!!

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via news.cnet.com

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As I am sure you’ve all seen the fairly new “retweet” (RT) feature released by Twitter, it has not been fully understood to date.  Influence on twitter was previously quite easy to track, but now with the new RT feature, it’s becoming less clear who’s influencing who.  For example, prior to the new RT feature a user would “RT” a tweet by simply copy/pasting the content like so: “RT @username: original content” (sometimes a comment was added too).  Then, the RT would be published out to the RTer’s followers.  Some of those followers would then RT the RT, thus establishing a clear line of influence, stemming from the originating tweet and RTs (to a point, of course).

What the old RT model showed was a path of influence on twitter (and how information travels – interesting stuff for sure!).  Now comes the new RT feature and this “influence” model is completely disrupted.  No longer can we track who’s RT’ing what.  It’s been completely flattened out. So, folks who RT can no longer see who is RTing a post after them.  So we lose the whole influencer in the middle (middle man influencers).  Now it’s all flat – just the original post and a lateral line to the RTs.  Whereas, previously we had the original post and a plethora of tangential RTs, with some fairly obvious track-backs, so to speak.

Why would twitter do this?  Two good reasons are potentially driving this decision.  First, data management and data storage optimization.  Second, establishment of twitter as an authentic news source (more on this in a bit).

Data management is a tricky proposition when a web startup takes off and begins to manage millions of records in their database(s).  The new RT feature is a smarter implementation at the database level.  Now with the new RT feature, the database could store just 1 original tweet plus a bunch of variable flags turned on/off (1 or 0) for the RT usernames versus the old RT model of originating tweet plus copies (e.g. 72 copies of that same tweet +/- variations thereof).  Thus, this is a very smart approach to shrinking the data footprint of RT content.

The whole “News industry” is currently undergoing a rapid change much akin to the industrial revolution.  Companies and jobs are folding every day as the old model of journalism is eclipsed by the new real-time web and emergent citizen-journalism model.  Twitter is a major component of this new version of “news.”  Thus, it is in twitter’s best interest to develop a trusted system for delivery of real-time news that is timely, reliable, authentic and trackable.  Since, the new RT feature preserves the originating author’s name and content, this perfectly fits with the news model.  Now we can see who tweeted what without alteration.  That is a huge move towards authenticity on the web – a must for reliable and trusted news content.  Twitter is positioning itself to be the most trusted news source on the web and this new RT feature goes a long way to provide just that.

Originators of news on the web will feel this impact in a number of ways.  Specifically, if they are RT’ed, then their tweets will show “Retweeted by x and x others ” (shows amount of RTs by users – think “reach” on the web).  For what I call the “middle man” influencers – the RTers out there – they will feel a negative impact as they no longer are associated with the originating content (and downstream RTs) as in times past.  Now, when a user sees a RT it just shows a pile of #s, so the middle man no longer benefits, i.e. their name is not associated with the originating post as it used to be (middle man influencers will see a drop in engagement levels based on RTs).

Overall, I think this is a fabulous move by twitter and applaude them for making the switch.  It’s smart and disruptive.  I like it.  It shows twitter has smart folks at the helm who understand the web and the future of it very well.

For me, I will definitely  use the new RT feature anytime I want to preserve the original tweet author/content.  If I need to add something (and there’s char space!) then I will add my 2 cents and RT that.  What’s your take? Do you like or dislike the new RT feature?  Think of other reasons why twitter would implement this new RT feature and let me know what you see.  I’d love to hear all your feedback and ideas on this!

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The average Facebook visitor views 661.8 pages on the social network each month, reports Website monitoring service Royal Pingdom (citing Google AdCounter).

Facebook blows away the competition when it comes to this single engagement statistic.

Visitors to Facebook’s nearest rival, Hi5, only view an average of 351.2 pages per month. MySpace comes in at 261.8 monthly page views per visitor.

Point is: Not only does Facebook have a huge user-base — about 350 million people check the site at least once a month — it has a very engaged user-base. No wonder Facebook ads are finally gaining traction.

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Click to enlarge / view dynamic source

Source: http://www.axiis.org/examples/BrowserMarketShare.html

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Earlier today, I was inspired by Tris Hussey to provide a comprehensive list of Google Chrome “power extensions.”  So, here is my exhaustive list of forty “must have” Extensions for the Google Chrome browser.  But first, to get started you’ll need to download the Dev version of Chrome (it works great on my new Windows 7 PC laptop).  Mac users can get the mac Dev version here.   Google Chrome is by far the best performing browser ever released to the web.  It will liberate you from the frustration so common with other browsers.

There are hundreds of Google’s extensions, so if you’re looking for something not on my list, then go here and search for it!  Please do let me know if have any feedback to share.  Feel free to recommend different extensions, or perhaps you know of a better version, than I have listed here:

AdBlock
Aviary Screen Capture
Better Gmail

Facebook for Google Chrome

Feedly

FriendFeed
OpenID AutoFill

Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer (by Google)
FlashBlock
Fittr Flickr
Google Apps Shortcuts

Google Tasks

Google Voice Notifier (by Google)

Ok, phew you installed all these great extensions!  Ok, now go tweak the “Options” for each extension here –> chrome://extensions/ You can also disable or uninstall extensions.  (I had to disable the “Cool Iris” one as it was crashing too much).

Subscribe to this blog (RSS or email) and follow me on twitter.

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Microsoft will close the decade the same as it started, as the worlds biggest tech company, as measured by market capitalization.Will Microsoft still be on top come December 2019? It doesnt look likely. Its a whole different world for Redmond. At the start of the decade, Microsoft seemed invincible. Now, its just trying to catch up as Google and Apple blow past it with search and mobile.

via CHART OF THE DAY: Microsofts Decade Of Dominance MSFT, IBM, CSCO, AAPL, GOOG.

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Infographic: RIT on Social Networking Sites

Click to englarge

via Reporter Online | Infographic: RIT on Social Networking Sites.

Update:  Ashley Hennigan @ROCtoNYC wisely noticed that the RIT Fan page has over 5,000 fans!  (Note: Ashley tweets for @RITAdmissions)

Click to englarge

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I came across this really neat “Evolution of Storage” infographic on FriendFeed, which linked to Gizmodo, which linked to the source image by Curtiss Spontelli

via Curtiss Spontelli

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Posted via web from Susan Beebe’s posterous

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