Facebook opens messenger to non-Facebook users

SAN FRANCISCO: Social networking giant Facebook has rolled out its new messenger app, allowing mobile phone users without Facebook account to sign up the service with a phone number.

With no Facebook account and email address required, app with the new feature will be first available to users of phones running on Google'sAndroid platform in India, Indonesia, Australia, Venezuela and South Africa, reported Xinhua citing the company.

The sign up option using phone number will be rolled out globally and its version for users of Apple's iPhone as well as other smartphoneplatforms are also under way, said Facebook.

Facebook Messenger is an instant messaging service and software application which provides text and video communication.

Its mobile version was released last year for major smartphone platforms, but users need to sign up with a Facebook account.

The latest move is expected to help Facebook reach a larger audience, attracting smartphone users with no Facebook account to gradually use more Facebook services.

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US Facebook Users by Age- Inside Facebook.com, 10/01/09

US Facebook Users by Age

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I've got added in the waitlist for the new Profile of LinkedIn.

Thanks! We've added you to the waitlist for the new Profile.

We'll let you know when it's ready.

A new design to share your professional story.

Did you know 175 million members share their professional stories using LinkedIn? Now you can bring your experience, skills, and accomplishments to life with our new design.

Rich insights about your network and yourself.

How many of your connections already work for your dream company? Who's been viewing your profile? That's easy to answer. Now you can see interesting and useful stats about your network and yourself.

More ways to connect and build relationships

Millions of connections are made every day on LinkedIn. Now it's easier to connect and build relationships by discovering what you have in common with others.

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Google Rolls Out with “Top Heavy 2″ Update To Its Page Layout Algorithm

Another week, another update to part of Google’s search algorithm. This time, Google announced a refresh of its Page Layout filter that it first announced back in January, or what’s often called the “Top Heavy” update.

Updates, Updates
It’s the fourth Google update in the past two weeks. The rundown so far:

• Panda Update 20: Sept. 27, 2012
• EMD Update 1: Sept. 28, 2012
• Penguin Update 3: Oct. 5, 2012
• Top Heavy 2: Oct. 9, 2012

The Latest On Top Heavy


The head of Google’s web spam team Matt Cutts announced the update today on Twitter and called it “minor,” saying it noticeably affects 0.7 percent of English-language queries:

Minor weather report: Update of goo.gl/OpIDL launching today. ~0.7% of English queries noticeably affected.

The link in Cutts’ tweet points to Google’s original post about the Page Layout algorithm from January, which explains the algo thusly:

We've heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren't happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away. So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change.If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn't have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

Visualizing The Top Heavy Impact

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Visit Facebook redesigned Help Center here:

Facebook just launched the redesigned Help Center to help make it easier for you to use Facebook. The updated Help Center homepage features six major topics many of which can help you grow your business on

Facebook! Visit out redesigned Help Center here:

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Introducing Google Play - Play everywhere you go

Now your favorite music, books, magazines, movies, TV shows, apps, and games are all in one place that's accessible from the Web and any Android device. Explore what's new

Google Play is your one-stop shop for all your favorite entertainment.

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New Layout Update of LinkedIn

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New layout of Facebook Images :) look Nice...

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PENGUIN 1.2 OR PENGUIN 2.0

...Coming Soon.

The next Penguin update, if the trend continues, appears to be coming soon. As touched upon earlier, Matt Cutts recently commented on the issue when asked questions at the end of his keynote at the SES San Francisco.

In response to a question regarding the Penguin updates his comments were:

“Hey Barry, I wasn't saying that people needed to overly stress out about the next Penguin update, but I'm happy to give more details. I was giving context on the fact that lots of people were asking me when the next Penguin update would happen, as if they expected Penguin updates to happen on a monthly basis and as if Penguin would only involve data refreshes.

If you remember, in the early days of Panda, it took several months for us to iterate on the algorithm, and the Panda impact tended to be somewhat larger. Later on, the Panda updates had less impact over time as we stabilized the signals/algorithm and Panda moved closer to near-monthly updates. Likewise, we're still in the early stages of Penguin where the engineers are incorporating new signals and iterating to improve the algorithm. Because of that, expect that the next few Penguin updates will take longer, incorporate additional signals, and as a result will have more noticeable impact. It's not the case that people should just expect data refreshes for Penguin quite yet.”

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LinkedIn Profiles – New Look and Added Features

Have you been on your LinkedIn profile today? If so, you might have noticed your profile has a new look and some added features. I first found out about this via TheNextWeb and as soon as I logged on to my profile, sure enough, I was greeted with their new Post-It note checklist.

The post-it note guided me through some items I still needed to add to my profile, like a better description of what I do at my current position, as well as past employment.

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How to do Onsite-Social Media Optimization?

" Social Media is about the people! Not about your business. Provide for the people and the people will provide for you." - Matt Goulart

Social Media Optimization is an outstanding way to promote your business on the web and create strong brand recognition in a very short period of time worldwide. By doing SMO, it can help build market reputation and ensure success of your business. As in our previous email, we have covered the topic on How to think Social ? In continuation to that, we will tell you more on how to do Onsite Social Media Optimization: Your website is your command center - Place social media communication front-and-center on your website. This provides another way for people to discover your social media channels and increase your visibility. Consider adding following to your homepage- tweet stream, a link for users to "Like" your page, blog, testimonial and customer feedback. Instant Personalization - We all want to see stuff that matters to us, our friends, our job etc. Facebook and LinkedIn cater to that need by providing features like personalized search results, news feed, invite friends etc. Few things that you can do on your site are - At login screen, show other friends who are using your website (take FB like button) Once logged in, show his network's activity e.g. Spotify shows what my friends are listening to or, have listened in past. Recommendations can also be made relevant through personalization. e.g. TripAdvisor Make your content easily shareable - Ensure that content is sharable across the web e.g. Slideshare's "Embed Slide" option, or, YouTube's "Embed Video in your page" option. Also, add other sharing options like Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn. Recognition always works well - if you have users who contribute by going above and beyond, recognize them. E.g. SEOMoz Top Users, Top Fans app and other leader boards are powerful tools to motivate customers. Stay tuned to get tips on off-site social media optimization. Cheers SocialAppsHQ

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I M (is) fun!!!

Disclaimer : People who didn't actually get my pun, IM in the title meant Internet Marketing.

Back in the day, when I was still a kid, or maybe a grown up kid, I used Internet just for fun and you know what and of course to download movies and projects.

Then came Facebook and I became one of its foremost addicts. Facebook was all about friends and of course chicks. Well, more about chicks...anyway, what I mean is, it was all about time pass and enjoyment.

Then I was introduced to the amazing world of Internet Marketing and for the first time in my life I felt 'Wow!! I never knew this.' I have been in awe of the web and the socia media ever since.

This is not something I do for a living, yes of course for a living, I am not doing this for charity. What I meant was not 'just' for a living. I actually kind of like it. I like exploring the new dimensions of web everyday and there's really too much information to grasp. Having been in this arena for quite a few years now, I can definitely say, I am a pro. Or, may not be a pro, but definitely I am better than an amateur. I am still in the process of learning and will always be.

This virtual world is changing and growing too fast and I don't want to be left behind.

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Expanding Google Analytics Social Reports: Tracking Links To Your Site Content

Have you ever wondered which other pages on the web link to your own? Wouldn’t it be nice to know which sites are talking about your content, and in which context? Well, a problem no more: now you can see all the backlink URL’s, post titles, and more right within the new Social reports.

The concept of trackbacks, a protocol by which different sites could notify each other of referencing links, first emerged back in 2002. Since then, the blogosphere has grown in leaps and bounds, but the requirement for each site to explicitly implement this protocol has always stood in the way of adoption. If only you could crawl the web and build an accurate link graph. The good news is we already do that at Google, and are now providing this insight to Google Analytics users.

If you’re not familiar with Trackbacks, then think of it as automated Google Alerts for all of your pages: you publish new content, we scour the web for pages that link to it and build automated reports for you right within Google Analytics - simple as that.

These reports provide another layer of social insight showing which of your content attracts links, and enables you to keep track of conversations across other sites that link to your content. Most website and blog owners had no easy mechanism to do this in the past, but we see it as another important feature for holistic social media reports. When you know what your most linked content is, it is then also much easier to replicate the success and ensure that you are building relationships with those users who actively link to you the most.

To learn more about the new Social and ROI reporting, take a look at our announcement last month, and also take a look at in-depth example of how to use these new reports to measure your user’s engagement in Google+. Posted by Ilya Grigorik, Google Analytics team

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LinkedIn Sit tight Can't wait?

LinkedIn 

Sit tight 

Can't wait?

They're taking a moment to clean things up. They'll be back by 9:30pm Pacific Time, 04:30 GMT.

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Google Maps Now Includes Real-Time Traffic Data

Now if you’re trying to figure out how to get to your job interview or dinner with friends you can also account for what route might be the fastest. Google Maps has added the ability to see the estimated time of your journey using real-time traffic data.

The new-and-improved feature offers estimated travel times within Google Maps based on current traffic conditions. So, if you’re heading across town to meet a new yoga instructor you’ll be able to see how long several routes might take with no traffic, as well as how long the expedition might be based on the traffic conditions right now.

Depending on where you live, the shortest distance may take the longest time to travel depending on the time of day your journey begins. Traffic data is constantly refreshed where available, offering the latest possible information.

Google previously offered traffic data, however, this is the first time data has been available as part of directions.

“The previous traffic feature that was removed from Google Maps last summer provided users with the worst-case traffic scenario based on historic traffic data — e.g. ‘up to 50 minutes in traffic.’” a Google spokesperson told Mashable. “That feature was removed because we wanted to improve the freshness of the data. The feature that we’re introducing on Google Maps today works differently and serves a different purpose. The new time-in-traffic feature provides users with the ability to check current traffic conditions and estimates the length of travel time based on constantly refreshed data.”

Data is gathered through third-party services and through information from Android users who have opted in to the My Location feature on Google Maps. Google would be able to tell, for instance, if there were several Android owners moving slowly on the freeway and determine that there was traffic slowing them down. The more people opting into the service in the area, the better the traffic information available will be.

If you want to help provide data for the service and help your fellow driver in the process, you can do so byturning on the My Location feature for Google Maps on your Android phone.

Let us know in the comments what you think about traffic data being incorporated into Google Maps in the comments.

Google Maps Now Includes Real-Time Traffic Data

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Facebook Announces Tight Integration of 60 Apps to Timeline, More on the Way

In a press event in San Francisco, Facebook Director of Platform Products Carl Sjogreen announced further extension of the Open Graph, which will now allow developers to build a variety of apps that let users add anything they want directly to their timelines.

Sjogreen announced that more than 60 apps are immediately going live, including such favorites as Pinterest, eBay, Foodspotting, Airbnb and Foursquare. He said that when people add an app to their Facebook timelines, they can control whether activities they do on that app appear on their timelines. They can also determine who gets to see these updates.

SEE MORE: Facebook’s Big Announcement [LIVEBLOG]

This is just the beginning for Facebook and its relationship with apps, where Sjogreen said the company’s vision is, “whatever you’re using, you can add it to your timeline.”
Here’s the list of apps Facebook released Wednesday night, with more on the way:

TRAVEL

Gogobot

Airbnb

TripAdvisor

Wipolo

Where I’ve Been

FOOD

Foodspotting

Cookpad

Snooth (wine)

Urbanspoon

Yummly

Foodily

SHOPPING / FASHION

Pose

Pinterest

Polyvore

Oodle

Fab.com

eBay

Giftrocket

Payvment

Livingsocial

FITNESS

MapMyRun

Runkeeper

ENTERTAINMENT

Rotten Tomatoes

Dailymotion (French video site)

Cinemur (French video site)

Metacafe (videos)

Ford (game)

Wooga (Bubble Island, Diamond Dash)

OMGPOP (Draw My Thing)

Zynga (Words with Friends, Castleville)

GIVING

Causes

Fundrazr

Artez.com

MORE

BranchOut (job search)

BeKnown from Monster (job search)

Color (photo and video sharing)

Courserank (education)

Grockit (education)

Foursquare (location)

Goodreads (books)

Kobo (books)

StubHub (ticketing)

Ticketmaster (ticketing)

Ticketfly (ticketing)

ScoreBig (ticketing)

Appsfire (app discovery)

Artfinder (art)

Autotrader (cars)

Add apps to your timeline contact here.

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SEO Secret Leaked - The use of Authority Backlinks

The Secret is:
- Using authority links to gain Google's love (highly effective in Panda age)
- And what if you can AUTOMATE this process!

Yes, can you imagine that? If you just add an outbound link to an authority page like wikipedia or answers, you'd have gained more authority than the rest of the pages.

I talked about this in Rank Mover as one of the check-point more than a year ago, many picked up and have since seen their ranking shooting over competitors, all the way to #1 ranking.

The crazy part is, no one has ever thought about automating this except Matt.

Matt created this plugin that will automatically insert Authority Links into your content and turbo-charged your site's authority rating.

It's really different. A site with an authority link vs a site without an authority link.

Therefore, I really need to send this to you so you can consider if you need it. It's on a dimesale, so be quick.

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The Top 50 Branded Facebook Fan Pages of 2011 versus 2010

For two years now, I’ve been tracking the Top 50 Branded Facebook Fan Pages by size. We typically do this every month, and we’ve also ranked them by the impressions they generate, by how many friends their fans have, by percentage of active fans, and by how often they post.

From 2009 to 2010, we saw 19 new brands come on to the Top 50 list. In 2011, the list stabilized, and only 6 of the Top 50 are new.

The Top 50 Branded Facebook Fan Pages of
2011 versus 2010.

Current Rank (12/29/11)	Sites	Rank by Fan Count (12/28/10)	Change in Rank		Fans as of 12/28/10	Fans as of 12/29/2011	% increase
1	Facebook	1		0	31,101,542	57,063,294	83%
2	YouTube	2		0	25,347,918	48,429,625	91%
3	Coca-Cola	3		0	21,379,704	36,550,760	71%
4	Disney	6		2	15,503,025	29,774,063	92%
5	MTV	9		4	13,080,317	29,561,231	126%
6	Starbucks	4		-2	18,982,636	26,545,854	40%
7	Red Bull	8		1	14,555,661	25,192,426	73%
8	Oreo	5		-3	16,153,388	23,726,721	47%
9	Converse All Stars	10		1	12,150,955	21,006,933	73%
10	Converse	12		2	10,268,722	20,797,579	103%
11	Skittles	7		-4	14,560,811	19,627,492	35%
12	Playstation	20		8	7,514,658	18,367,552	144%
13	iTunes	13		0	9,719,768	17,915,092	84%
14	Victoria’s Secret	11		-3	10,838,550	16,330,801	51%
15	Pringles	15		0	8,639,166	16,251,773	88%
16	Live Messenger	14		-2	9,354,915	14,390,925	54%
17	Monster Energy	16		-1	7,914,762	12,853,342	62%
18	Ferrero Rocher	23		5	7,002,242	12,623,150	80%
19	McDonalds	26		7	6,654,420	12,188,826	83%
20	Xbox	30		10	5,659,832	12,100,906	114%
21	Nutella	22		1	7,150,781	11,905,158	66%
22	adidas Originals	25		3	6,663,658	11,469,479	72%
23	Walmart	new				11,144,098
24	Disneyland	27		3	6,650,632	10,931,713	64%
25	Dr. Pepper	19		-6	7,517,036	10,919,436	45%
26	Zara	17		-9	7,674,496	10,789,792	41%
27	Victoria’s Secret Pink	18		-9	7,652,191	10,677,457	40%
28	Disney Pixar	24		-4	6,850,695	10,356,352	51%
29	Starburst	21		-8	7,318,221	10,184,110	39%
30	Burberry	47		17	3,636,234	10,069,386	177%
31	Levi’s	new				9,530,173
32	Nike Football	35		3	4,360,048	9,171,304	110%
33	Subway	37		4	4,312,319	9,065,885	110%
34	Blackberry	36		2	4,320,222	8,916,815	106%
35	H&M	29		-6	5,901,253	8,883,490	51%
36	Reese’s	28		-8	6,365,407	8,221,632	29%
37	National Geographic	43		6	3,924,632	8,080,827	106%
38	Starbucks Frappuccino	31		-7	5,456,418	8,074,557	48%
39	Target	50		11	3,537,480	7,924,384	124%
40	Taco Bell	32		-8	5,216,580	7,660,957	47%
41	Walt Disney World	34		-7	4,998,360	7,568,390	51%
42	Google Chrome	33		-9	5,182,937	7,564,216	46%
43	BMW	39		-4	4,187,602	6,982,735	67%
44	Pepsi	new				6,880,095
45	Lacoste	38		-7	4,206,561	6,866,403	63%
46	Zoosk	new				6,771,471
47	Mozilla Firefox	58		11	3,284,280	6,500,288	98%
48	Hollister	42		-6	3,974,089	6,403,039	61%
49	Mountain Dew	40		-9	3,993,312	6,306,033	58%
50	DC Shoes	new				6,277,843

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