Thursday 31 May 2012

Google: Knowledge Graph Search More




Google revamped its core product — search — in a major way a couple of weeks ago. Now it looks like the change is paying off.
Since the introduction of its Knowledge Graph on May 16, overall search activity has increased, Google representatives told The Wall Street Journal.
The company didn’t offer any numbers, but did say people are interacting more with their search results, and performing more searches.




One Google executive, Amit Singhal, said people were doing more with search partly because the new features were “stoking people’s curiosity.”
The Knowledge Graph (more generally known as “semantic search”) goes beyond matching search terms to pages. In short, it tries to discern the meaning of the phrase a person types in.
For example, if I’m searching for “Facebook movie,” Google infers I’m probably looking for information about The Social Network. It pulls data from open databases such as Freebase and Wikipedia to create a visual block of results to the right of my search results. Thumbnail images of the cast, and the movie poster, are shown alongside basic info about the movie.




Singhal said the increase in use of its product has benefits for others sites as well — if people are performing more searches, they’re visiting more non-Google sites via those links.
Google’s Knowledge Graph is only available for U.S.-based searches right now. Since the feature appears to be popular, however, it’ll likely spread to other English-language countries soon.
The Knowledge Graph and semantic search are tools within the larger trend of evolving search results. Services such as the Wolfram Alpha search engine, interfaces like Apple’s Siri and projects like IBM’s Watson are all designed to steer people to a small — or singular — number of useful results, as opposed to a grab bag of links that may or may not be what you’re actually looking for.
Have you been seeing Google’s Knowledge Graph in your search results? Do you think it’s affected how often you search? Share your experiences in the comments.

Monday 28 May 2012

Techie Ways to Share Your Wedding Photos




Remember when disposable cameras were a regular wedding standby? Thanks to technology, photo sharing has definitely grown easier. Long gone are the days of having to develop film, make copies, and send prints to friends. Now it’s as simple as snapping, uploading, and adding a tag.
Looking for a simple way to swap event photos with your friends? Here are five easy ways to share:
  • Facebook group: Before the event, create a Facebook group and invite other guests to share their photos on the group’s page. Take it a step further by making multiple groups according to who will be there – for instance, one group for friends, one for family, coworkers, etc.
  • Twitter/Instagram: When it comes to Twitter and Instagram, it’s all about the hashtags. Ask friends to add a specific hashtag, like #KellyandMattWedding720, so that everyone can click on the tag and easily access all the event photos in one place.
  • Picasa album: Do most of your friends have a Google account? Try creating a Picasa album where they can add their own snaps. Send an email invitation for friends to access the album, and then share the link with pals who’d like to see the photos.
  • Hipstamatic D-Series app: The free Hipstamatic D-Series app allows you to share a “roll” of up to 24 pictures with friends, each of whom can upload their own perspectives of the bash. Even better? You can order prints straight from the Hipstashop.
  • Flickr group: If all your friends are on Flickr, then go for a group where you can each upload your favorite shots from the day. Make it completely public to give anyone access, go invitation-only to keep it private, or stay totally private if you have no intention of making the album public in the future.
Do you have any tips for sharing event photos? Let us know in the comments below!

Saturday 26 May 2012

In Push for Lists Facebook Wants You to Star




Facebook is testing a new feature called Close Friends, which lets you know every action the people you add to the list take on the social network. Facebook told Mashable it began the push to some users Thursday.
When you sign into Facebook, you’ll be prompted to “Star Your Close Friends” to guarantee you don’t miss their important moments. In other words, you can now stay close to people you indicate as high-priority friends without ever interacting, visiting their profile or catching an update in your news feed.
Facebook’s explanation of the new features emphasizes organizing your friends into Smart Lists, based on where you work, live, went to school or family, to ensure you share with just the right people.


You can also view a news feed of your Close Friends update — much like a feed of a certain Google+ circle — by selecting the list from below the Friends tab on the left-hand side.
I decided to try out the new feature Friday morning, by adding about 20 friends to my Close Friends list. I added stars — Facebook conveniently suggests a pretty good idea of who you consider your close friends based on your interactions — and was ensured my friends wouldn’t know they’d been added to my list. Within an hour, I’d received a handful of notifications — only none of them had anything to do with me. My friends had joined events, shared stories and posted to their Timelines and I didn’t miss a beat.


I was eager to test out the feature because it seemed like an easier way to create lists — something I’ve been meaning to do on Facebook since Google+ rolled out its Circles feature. But the Close Friends feature became annoying as soon as my phone was flooded with status updates that looked like this one (taken from the phone of someone who put me on their Close Friends list):


If you receive mobile notifications from Facebook, it will send you an update every time someone you add to the list takes an action. If you’ve never restricted your push notifications on mobile before, this feature might be the one to drive you to cut some of them.
Do you organize your Facebook friends into lists? If so, do you only share certain posts with certain people?

Thursday 24 May 2012

What Green Day’s Singer Performed on Mark Zuckerberg’s Wedding


If you got married the day after your company went public and was valued at over $100 billion, wouldn’t you want the frontman of your favorite band to entertain guests at your wedding?
Billie Joe Armstrong, the lead singer of pop punk band Green Day, reportedly performed at Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s surprise wedding on Saturday to his longtime girlfriend, Priscilla Chan. The private wedding was held in the backyard of their home in Palo Alto, Calif. in front of about 100 guests.
Guests arrived to their home under the impression that they were celebrating Chan’s medical school graduation. Zuckerberg first announced the news by adding the event to his Facebook Timeline.
A clip posted on TMZ indicates that Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong played the song “Last Night on Earth” for the couple, who shared a dance in front of clapping guests.
Zuckerberg has long been a big fan of Green Day. Not only does he Like the band on Facebook, he has referenced his love for the group in presentations.
And Zuckerberg has developed a close friendship with Armstrong over the years, according to a People report.

“Mark wanted me to play this song,” Armstrong said. “This song is one I wrote for my wife of 18 years.” He also called it a “wedding present to a friend.”
Zuckerberg and Chan — who met while attending Harvard — have been together for nine years.
If you were a billionaire, who would you want to play at your wedding? Let us know in the comments.

Wednesday 16 May 2012

New Research Tool in Google Docs Use tips

Whether you’re a student facing final papers or a parent helping kids with research assignments, Google has just made the process a lot easier with a new tool that automates the research process.
 
Simply called “Research,” the tool lets you conduct searches for terms related to your document or search for just quotes or images from a panel that appears to the right of your document. Searching for a location automatically brings up a Google map  that you can insert as is or edit by zooming in or out. Photos can be filtered to include only those that are licensed for free use — a good idea to avoid copyright problems.  For Web page results, hover over the link to see a preview of the page. Like what you see? Click “insert link” to add it to your text.
 
Further, the Research tool lets you insert a citation, automatically formatted, into your document. Here’s how it works: After you’ve inserted a link, click “cite.” Google  will add a superscript footnote number to the link in your text and generate a properly constructed footnote at the bottom of the page.
 
There are three ways to activate the research panel. Within an open document, go to the “Tools” menu at the top of the page and select “Research.” You can also use a keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+Alt+R on a PC and Command+Option+R on a Mac.  To jumpstart the process, you can right-click on a word or highlight a phrase to launch a search for your term.

Tuesday 15 May 2012

Annoying Things About Your Website That Drive People Away


How many times have you ever visited an internet site and ended up sorely disappointed? Or worse, irritated as all get out? on behalf of me, the solution is a straightforward one: a lot!

So, I place along a listing of the twelve things that annoy me the foremost regarding websites. perhaps you’ll agree; perhaps you won’t.

Let’s see…

12. Music

Music blares the minute I visit your website. that's surprising, disruptive, and downright rude, from a client expertise standpoint. And, in case you weren’t positive, it ticks me (and most people) off over near to something. rouse and smell the coffee! that's therefore 2001. Frankly, it wasn’t cool even back then—but nowadays, music on your web site will mean the kiss of death.

11. Flash

Your “awesome” Flash web site takes forever to load and then blasts me with of these neat-o visuals that need me to twiddle my thumbs and waste precious time. i want data, not entertainment. live through yourselves. Quit taking note of your artistic team (and if they’re recommending Flash, rent a replacement team), and maximize the 3 seconds of attention I’m willing to convey you by telling me one thing i need or have to be compelled to apprehend.

10. Pop-ups

Pop-up ads (and that’s what they are) build me need to kill you. Yeah, i do know they’re effective at boosting click-through rates. I still hate ‘em. Stop it. Using pop-up ads tells me you don’t care regarding my experience—you simply need to sell me crap. It’s like happening a primary date, and having the date say, “Let’s fool around” before dinner hits the table. It’s an excessive amount of. Too soon. I don’t care what the consultants say. Pop-up ads build me need to depart.

9. Walking Ads

[Cue scream here.] Speaking of pop-ups, walking ads stink even a lot of. they're annoying, disruptive, and inconsiderate. I came to your website for data. you simply have one probability to create an honest initial impression, and walking ads don't seem to be the thanks to do it. I don’t care who sold you on it. It’s a foul plan.

8. Contact data

Sure, I actually have lots of patience and free time. i actually need to own to dig through your bleepin’ website to search out your contact data. that produces my life super-easy. Go ahead, hide it! Or higher nevertheless, don’t place contact data on there in the slightest degree. That’s a method to confirm we have a tendency to don’t ever work along.

7. Mystery

Websites that don’t tell me what you are doing, why i want what you are doing, and what it’s gonna value me are downright ineffective. I don’t need to dig for pricing. i need the data, and that i need it currently. Being coy may work when you’re dating, however when it involves business, I’m like Sergeant Friday on Dragnet. simply the facts, ma’am. You’ve got regarding 3 seconds of my time and attention—use it wisely. and replica that’s “mysterious” isn't.

6. Down the Rabbit Hole

Contact pages that build us feel like Alice in Wonderland? Not prudent. And when your contact type leads us to default email programs that we have a tendency to can’t stand, they cause us to right away leave your website. for example, I don’t use Mail; I don’t need to use Mail. And when your contact type automatically hundreds Mail on behalf of me, it makes curse words flow out of my mouth that are terribly unladylike. WHAT are you thinking? Stop it. Please.

5. Black Backgrounds

Black backgrounds and white or gray sort are nearly not possible to scan. With only a few exceptions (there are some sites done all right by those that apprehend what they’re doing, however they're rare), cut it out. Black backgrounds stink. And if your Web-design team thinks those backgrounds are cool, do your homework. raise those that {know regarding|realize|understand|comprehend|fathom} changing the leads that come back to your web site to sales about the performance of web sites with dark backgrounds. After all, isn’t that what you’re extremely interested in—leads that you simply will convert to sales?

4. minute Text

Fonts that are too tiny are often remedied by a surfer; I’ll offer you that. however it annoys me after I need to manually bump up the sort. And I’m thinking that if you actually have confidence what you would like from a website visitor in terms of actions, it’s not creating them do one thing to find out a lot of. Tell your internet developers with young eyes that it’s typically previous people like me who are creating the shopping for choices. The “default” font most internet developers use is sort of continuously too tiny. Bump it up a notch. Or three. You’ll be amazed at what proportion happier your internet surfers are. apprehend who your customers and prospects are; serve them data that's straightforward for them to consume—without the necessity for modifications.

3. An Undesired Delivery

I consume lots of content. And after I realize yours—and i prefer it—I need to scan a lot of. and that i need it delivered to my email inbox, not my Reader, that i exploit for various things. When your blog doesn’t take that into thought, i do know you’re not taking note. and that i apprehend you don’t care regarding me as a client, you’re solely wondering how you wish data delivered. Newsflash: It’s not regarding you. an enormous majority of content shoppers are a bit like me. they require content delivered to their email inbox instead of subscribing via an RSS feed. once you overlook that and once you don’t supply me an choice that suits my consumption preferences, it tells me you’re not taking note.

2. looking for Search

What are you doing to create it straightforward for individuals to go looking your site? You’d be amazed what number sites don’t have an easy-to-find search perform—or that don’t have a hunt function in the slightest degree. That’s simply plain dumb. make certain your web site has an easy-to-locate, easy-to-use search button.

1. Anti-Social

Where are the buttons displaying where to search out you on the Web? I keep running across websites that have social sharing buttons on them, however once you click on the buttons, rather than taking you to mention, for example, someone’s Facebook page, it permits me to share your page of content on Facebook. Seriously? As if i need to share your “About” page on Facebook? No, dummy. What I’m longing for is your complete presence on Facebook (or Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)—maybe as a result of i need to “like” you there and listen to what you’re doing. Not having social sharing buttons confirmed that you’re not collaborating within the social media house (whether that’s extremely the case). And it conjointly confirmed that you simply don't have any concept that I’m judging you—and your level of savviness regarding the digital house and also the importance of social networks—based on their absence. Is that what you want? Really?

Monday 14 May 2012

Free Ways to Improve Your Business’s Google Ranking







Even if most small businesses don’t understand search engine optimization (SEO), that doesn’t mean they can’t be helped by it.  For those who don’t know SEO from their CEO, it is in essence a means of improving the ranking of your business in the Google search algorithm. This in turn, can help a business move up in Google’s search listing. 
Use WordPress
“WordPress is the most SEO-friendly blogging platform,” Lama said.  “It is also one of, if not the best, content management systems when it comes to SEO. Optimizing your site using WordPress, instead of the outdated website platforms which most local businesses use will help your optimization efforts.”
Keyword Research
“This is the foundation of SEO and increasing your ranking on Google and the major search engines,” Lama said. “Once you created or switched over your site to WordPress, you want to do some keyword research. Look for at least three relevant keywords you want to target.”
 Onsite Optimization
“Once you’ve identified those highly searched keywords, sprinkle them onto your site and spread them around in various places,” Lama said. “You don’t want to stuff them everywhere, though, since this will be considered ‘spamming’ by Google.”
Google Places
“After you have your website properly and effectively optimized for the search engines, you want to claim yourGoogle Places business listing,” Lama said. “You do this adding basic information about your business and being as detailed as possible in each section. For example, give your complete phone number, address, business description, keywords, hours of operation, etc.  You can further improve rankings by adding photos and asking for reviews of your business.”
Back linking
“Finally, once you’ve optimized your Google places listing, you should be ranking within a few days to a week,” Lama said. “Those rankings occur within the local listings (the top portion of Google where you see the red tabs: A, B, C, D, etc.).”  
The job, however, doesn’t end there.  According to Lama, businesses can also boost their ranking in the natural Google search results by back linking. 
“My top methods of back linking for local business keywords range from social bookmarking to profile submissions on high page rank sites among several others,” Lama said. “Each of these methods will allow you to create a valuable link back to your site, which will increase its value and relevancy in the eyes Google.”

Sunday 13 May 2012

Addicted to Facebook how to tell others tips




If your friends and family joke that you’re addicted to Facebook, they may be right. Researchers in Norway have identified six signs that you may be addicted. They’ve used those signs to develop a test to help you figure out of your suffer from a social media addiction.
The test, called the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale, is based on six basic criteria, where all items are scored on the following scale: (1) Very rarely (2) Rarely (3) Sometimes (4) Often and (5) Very often. The signs are:
  • You spend a lot of time thinking about Facebook or plan use of Facebook.
  • You feel an urge to use Facebook more and more.
  • You use Facebook to forget about personal problems.
  • You have tried to cut down on the use of Facebook without success.
  • You become restless or troubled if you are prohibited from using Facebook.
  • You use Facebook so much that it has had a negative impact on your job/studies.
If you are, indeed, addicted, you’re not alone, the researchers say.
“The use of Facebook has increased rapidly. We are dealing with a subdivision of Internet addiction connected to social media,” said Cecilie Schou Andreassen, who conducted the study.
Andreassen heads the research project “Facebook Addiction” at the University of Bergen (UiB) in Norway. The results of her research have just been published in the journal Psychological Reports.
Andreassen said she sees some clear patterns in Facebook addiction.
“It occurs more regularly among younger than older users. We have also found that people who are anxious and socially insecure use Facebook more than those with lower scores on those traits, probably because those who are anxious find it easier to communicate via social media than face-to-face,” she said.
People who are organized and more ambitious tend to be less at risk from Facebook addiction. They will often use social media as an integral part of work and networking.
“Women are more at risk of developing Facebook addiction, probably due to the social nature of Facebook,” Andreassen said.
Andreassen said the research also shows that Facebook addiction was related to extroversion. People with high scores on the new scale further tend to have a somewhat delayed sleep-wake rhythm.
The study was based on 423 students — 227 women and 196 men.
Despite Andreassen’s findings, others are not as convinced about Internet-based addictions.
“There are often underlying or co-occurring psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety, depression or a disturbance in interpersonal relationships, all of which may explain the person’s Internet problems,” Ronald W. Pies, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Tufts University told BusinessNewsDaily sister site LiveScience for a 2009 article. “The question is, do we need another ‘disorder’ in the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), if the manifestations of Internet addiction can already be accounted for by well-described and better-validated conditions?”
That, however, doesn’t mean that Pies is writing off the possibility of Internet-based addictions. Rather, he believes that better research is needed to quantify these behaviors.
“We may eventually come around to the view that Internet addiction is a discrete mental disorder, but that will require carefully designed research aimed at linking Internet addiction with family and genetic factors, biological concomitants and responses to specific treatments,” Pies said.
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