4Nov

Beyond Barrel Roll: 10 Hidden Google Tricks

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Oh, those whimsical Google nerds. The Mountain View-based search giant may not have Apple’s design chops, but it certainly knows how to code a good joke.

We got a taste of that fact on Thursday with the highly popular “Do a Barrel Roll” search trick, which went viral on Twitter and brightened a million work days. But that’s only the latest in a long line of quirky features Google has embedded in its products. We’re not talking about useful stuff like the in-search calculator, or Google’s much-documented April Fool’s jokes. These are all fun built-in tricks you can amuse yourself with right now.

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26Oct

Twitter Is Testing An Expandable Timeline

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Twitter is testing out new design changes which makes the main Twitter timeline expandable so that you can see media and related information right in the timeline instead of off to the side or clicking off to another page. We’ve gotten a couple of reports about this change, which only a few people are seeing, (and Twitter confirms it is a “small test”). Patrick Bisch of Pinglio blogged about the changes and even made a screencast (which you can watch below).

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16Sep

Zuckerberg Converts His 5+ Million Facebook Fans into Subscribers

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Zuckerberg Converts His 5+ Million Facebook Fans into Subscribers

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Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has accumulated more than 5 million subscribers, thanks to a simple trick. On Wednesday, Facebook rolled out a Subscribe button. The button allows a user to follow anybody’s public updates, regardless of whether or not they are Facebook friends. This one-way subscription model is like following somebody on Twitter or adding somebody to a Google+ Circle.

While some users are worried about the privacy implications of the the opt-in feature, many others are using it to subscribe to other users, particularly Mark Zuckerberg. In fact, the Facebook CEO is amassing subscribers at a breakneck pace.

Since Wednesday morning, Zuckerberg has acquired more than 5+ million subscribers, and that number is rising by the minute. The count is rising so quickly that the site can’t even properly display his total subscriber count (check out the screenshot to see what we mean).

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15Sep

Facebook Launches Twitter-Like ‘Subscriptions’, Lets You Share With Unlimited Users

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Facebook Launches Twitter-Like ‘Subscriptions’, Lets You Share With Unlimited Users

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Today, in the buildup to its f8 conference, Facebook is rolling out another key new feature: a one-way follow model called Subscriptions. It’s sort of like Twitter, sort of like Google+, and it massages one of the service’s biggest pain points for users who have a lot of friends (or who want to share their status updates broadly).

Here’s how it works. As you browse around the site, you’ll notice that some users have a button at the top of their profile that says ‘Subscribe’. Click it, and you’ll start seeing that user’s status updates in your News Feed, just as if you were their Facebook friend. But there’s a big difference: unlike normal Facebook friends, the people you subscribe to don’t have to approve your subscription request, and there’s no limit on how many people can subscribe to any given user.

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10Sep

How Social Media Affects Content Relevance in Search

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Shane Snow is co-founder of Contently.com, an “agile publishing” platform for brands-turned-publishers and freelance journalists.

Old school SEO pros cover your ears, or be prepared to adapt your craft: Search engines are changing, and social media is a huge part of that change.

Bing, Google, and an increasing swath of nimble little search engines like Blekko and DuckDuckGo are incorporating social data into their results. This is potentially great news for new businesses trying to achieve visibility in search. It’s less great news for sites that rely heavily on link buying (illegal, but hard to catch), producing huge volumes of borderline-useless content (long-tail, content farm approach), or just really old domains (previously an SEO trump card).

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9Sep

Infographic: Twitter: The Fastest-Growing Social Network

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Infographic Twitter The Fastest-Growing Social Network

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Twitter’s 32% increase in traffic in 2011 is enough to see the network leapfrog LinkedIn as the number two most-visited social network overall, behind Facebook, says TechVibes, touting data from Comscore.

Twitter’s traffic growth has been tops amongst all social networks for the past three years. The site saw 32.5 million visitors in July, and is now the 34th most-visited site in the U.S., leap-frogging the stagnant LinkedIn (ranked 36th).

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9Sep

HOW TO: Send Tweets To Facebook

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HOWTO Send Tweets To Facebook 2

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Twitter has made it easier to send tweets to Facebook. All you have to do is click one single button. Here’s how:

First, log in to your Twitter account.

Next, click the “Profile” tab at the top of the screen, and then click “Edit Profile” just below your profile picture. Scroll down to the bottom of this page, and click the button that says “Post your Tweets to Facebook”. And that’s it!

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8Sep

Facebook Adds Microformats To “Download Your Info” Feature

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Facebook Adds Microformats To “Download Your Info” Feature 2

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Facebook has quietly added support for Microformats to its “Download Your Information” feature, it appears. The addition provides developers with a way to parse the profile information, posts, photos and videos contained in a Facebook user’s account. Although the change doesn’t have a direct impact on what a mainstream user can do with their Facebook data – you still can’t export your Facebook contact list, for example – it’s an important step for Facebook to make in terms of loosening its formerly tight control over user data.

If case you’re unfamiliar, “Download Your Information” is a relatively new Facebook feature, that, upon request, bundles your personal data in a large zip file and makes it available for download from Facebook’s “Account Settings“ page.

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26Aug

HOW TO: Customize the Photo Gallery on Your Twitter Profile [VIDEO]

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You may have noticed a change on your web-based Twitter profile. The service recently rolled out an image gallery feature that displays recent photos that you’ve shared or retweeted from other users.

It got us thinking that this profile real estate could be put to some creative use. As luck would have it, our pal Jeremiah Warren whipped up a great step-by-step video (above) on how to slice and dice your Twitter slides, Photoshop style. He’s even provided a template file, which you can download here to get started. (A PNG file is also available for those not using Photoshop).

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24Aug

The Newest Version Of Yahoo Mail Now Has 100 Million Monthly Active Users

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The latest version of Yahoo Mail opened up to users a few months ago and the company is announcing a new milestone today—100 million monthly active users. Additional features in the new version of Yahoo Mail include integrated notifications and messages from Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and other email providers within the interface. Yahoo has also made the client more customizable with 50 themes, improved search and made the client is speedier. Within Yahoo Mail, users can also use IM clients from Yahoo, Facebook, and Windows Live.

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