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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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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The first ever RIT48 competition kicked off this weekend at RIT University where students from various majors came together and were challenged to do the following:  form a team, plan, design, develop and launch a new web startup in less than 48 hours!  There were 10 teams competing for cash prizes, awards and recognition for their efforts.

I was honored to be selected as a Judge and Mentor throughout the weekend of March 19-20, 2010 for the first ever RIT48 event.  The teams all did a fantastic job of preparing Business Plans and Demoing their websites.  This was quite a treat for  me as I love to mentor and provide assistance to young startups.

“RIT48 aims to bring together RIT students from various disciplines to pitch, plan, develop and launch a startup in one weekend — or, as the name suggests, 48 hours.”   – RIT48

I will be uploading more event pictures later, but in the meanwhile I thought I’d provide a link to the Ustream live feed Video that was taped during our final judging of the RIT48 competition.

See next page for video…

At the Judges’ table (seated left to right):  Aaron Newman, Liz Lawley, Susan Beebe, Lee Drake and Jon Schull.

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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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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).

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Posted via web from Susan Beebe’s posterous

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Posted via web from Susan Beebe’s posterous

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