Social media optimization expand your horizons

Word of the mouth might not be enough if an effective networking has to be achieved. This is done with an active assistance of networking tools such as social book marking, video and photo sharing websites and an engagement with blogs which share the content through the use of RSS in the blogosphere. Other special blog engines which perform in the same way like Technorati are especially popular with the younger lot. Techniques like these help in building new opportunities for the marketers and for even those who are new entrants in this field. Social media optimization is basically, a set of methods for generating publicity through the social media, online communities and community websites. The method is similar to search engine marketing differing though, in a number of ways from it. Actually, the focus is on driving traffic from other sources apart from the search engines whereby improved search engine ranking is emphasized.

For those with skepticism towards the latest optimization technique, Rand has something to suggest. He says that awareness should be there because in its absence, one can get a double listing by the competitor. This is made possible by some advanced planning on the competitor’s part to do some ‘virtual drafting’ and thus appear directly behind you. Social media optimization however, has its positive aspects as well. Like Rohit Bharghava, the man behind the coinage of term, explains it in yet simpler way and suggests the implementation of changes to optimize a site. In this way, it is easily linked to more highly visible sites in social media searches on custom search engines such as Technorati. Besides, these changes are introduced frequently in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs. Social media optimization assists in building search engine friendly sites resulting in generation of large traffic. Bookmarking a website is yet another feature that helps in the increased visibility of a webpage.

Social media sites on most of the occasions operate as a magnifying glass, in that they help in tapping into many other links. These links usually flow back helping with the search engine rankings on an increased scale though. Cameron Olthius’ introduction to Social media optimization provides further insight. It is a common knowledge that in SEO method, a single website is present with a common domain rather than its division among various places. An added advantage of having the multiple sites is understood by the SEO whereby a corporate blog and a corporate website double the representation in top search results. Limitations are however, there because of the traffic directed towards your own places. With SMO, one can own multiple sites while they being still valuable to you.

Social media optimization utilizes several methods by which one can advertise their products in an appealing way. Communication is a prominent factor here and besides that, interesting web content still decides the viability of a site. Opinions are expressed freely and other people come to know about your services and products. Here, target audience has to be identified which in turn, facilitates in marketing the services and products offered by the companies. SMO has made the communication between the common people a lot simpler and thus made your business touch the heights you always dreamt of.

Source: Click Here

Social Media Optimization: The Power of Popular Opinion

Why should I care about Social Media Optimization?

You should care about Social Media Optimization (SMO), because you care about your company’s image. There’s an old saying that goes something like, “A happy customer will tell one other person about his good experience. A disgruntled customer will tell ten people about his bad experience.” Good or bad, that’s powerful marketing. Social Media Optimization gives you the power to take an active role in managing your brand by interacting with your current and potential clients by discussing your products, their comments and concerns and continually promoting your brand.

Social Media Optimization Defined

In its most basic form, Social media optimization is any method used to raise your website’s online visibility through meaningful communication. SMO opens a dialogue between you and your clients, using the power of popular opinion to fuel your marketing campaign. The open format strengthens your search engine optimization efforts by fostering a mutual connection with your clients through the myriad of online communities, also called social media sites. Current examples of SMO include:

· Creating profiles in social media communities such as MySpace, Facebook, and VIRB.
· Participating in and/or creating blogs.
· Disseminating your blogs or articles using RSS feeds.
· Creating and sharing content through community based sites like Flickr, YouTube and more.

Not to incorporate unnecessary buzz words, but SMO is a very Web 2.0 approach to Search Engine Optimization. Of course, Web 2.0 merely refers to the perceived second generation of Web-based communities and hosted services - the social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies, which facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. SMO allows you to become an active member of your online community, quite an important aspect of marketing your brand. Through participation, you establish yourself or your company as an industry leader and increase your online visibility.

As you can imagine, Social Media Optimization is most effective when the viral nature of the technique and its communities are utilized in a positive manner. Creating legitimate content, building relationships and instilling trust in your community is the very backbone of SMO. You may initiate the process, but effective SMO will take on a life all its own. A true forum is bred through the act of continual communication between your company and your online audience.

Of course, not everyone plays by the rules. In every aspect of life, you will find those who would cheat the system to receive short term gains. Like most schemes, the underbelly of SMO may seem attractive to anyone looking for a quick fix, but don’t make that mistake. Just as it’s true with SEO, erroneous SMO will backfire. Using questionable techniques will very likely yield the exact opposite results you were hoping to see.

SMO Etiquette

Legitimate SMO techniques are centered on sharing information and exposing your community to your interests. As such, you want to focus on promoting proper SMO etiquette. The MySpace super friend, the guy or gal who adds anyone and everyone, would be a good example of improper Social Media Optimization. The whole concept behind Social Media is to create a community with similar interests for meaningful discussion and let the power of popular opinion increase your online visibility. Of course, you may belong to several different communities and you may even have some of the same friends in those different communities. That’s perfectly fine. The idea is to remain active in your communities by adding friends and contributing relevant content. Adding friends in bulk, for no reason, is no way to optimize.

Communal sites like MySpace and Facebook, or even YouTube and Flickr to some extent, are indeed popularity contests. However, simply trying to catalog massive amounts of unrelated, uninterested “friends” is totally counterproductive. Let the high school kids worry about who has got the most friends. For the purpose of SMO, you should concern yourself with quality, not quantity.

Using unsavory SMO techniques is the Web 2.0 equivalent to spam. Unfortunately, we’re all far too familiar with spam. Unsolicited bulk messaging and link heavy advertisements instead of useful comments are two of the more prevalent methods of Social Media spamming. However, Social Media spamming is even more atrocious than email spam, because the offending text is visible to everyone on the site. It doesn’t hide in your inbox, so it can really dilute the appeal of the site. Your kindergarten teacher was on the right track. If you don’t have something relevant to say, don’t say anything at all.

Is SMO right for my firm?

There are many different types of Social Media sites currently available. To put it in perspective, think about all the different interests you have in life. Now, consider the possibility that there is at least one Social Media site for each of your interests. Of course, you’re not the only person on the Internet, so it’s a safe bet there are literally millions of sites dedicated to countless interests around the world. Believe it or not, there is a group out there looking for your company, product or service. You just have to make it available. Therefore, understanding how to submit to and maintain your content on each community is absolutely crucial when developing a successful SMO strategy.

A few examples of the different Social Media genres include:

• News - These sites allow users to submit news articles. Once an article is published, users can submit their comments and vote to promote the story and/or author. Examples include Digg, Propeller and Newsvine.
  
• Media - These sites allow users to upload and share a variety of different media files. The overwhelming majority of these sites are dedicated mainly to photo and video files. Examples include YouTube and Flickr.
  
• Wiki - These sites allow users to add and edit informational articles as determined by the individual users. Examples include Wikipedia, WikiHow and Million Dollar Wiki.
  
• Networking - These sites allow users to create profiles and network with others according to similar traits, tastes and interests. Examples include MySpace, Facebook and Virb.
  
• Bookmarking - These sites allow users to compile public bookmark collections of sites they find interesting, informative or helpful. The more a site is bookmarked, the higher the ranking. Examples include StumbleUpon, Technorati and Del.icio.us.

When executed properly, Social Media Optimization can be quite a beneficial marketing tool. However, SMO may simply not be the right fit for your organization. Some questions you might like to consider before launching your SMO campaign are:

• Most SMO sites share very specific information. Would your products benefit from this type of content specific market?
• The audience for most Social Media sites is more of a young, tech savvy group. Would your company, product or service appeal to their fickle nature?
• Does your website contain a blog, or similar media outlet, you can regularly update with relevant content?
• Given the fact that community based sites focus on individual profiles and commentary, are you comfortable with developing unique profiles across multiple sites?

In Summary

Social Media Optimization has become a successful marketing tool for one simple reason. It works. The gap between old media and new has gotten smaller and smaller with the majority of the prominent television and print media outlets finally embracing the Internet by launching sites of their own. The different Social Media sites, like MySpace and Facebook, have exploded with profiles for everything from 8^th graders discussing their favorite bands to full scale ad campaigns for Blockbuster movies.

If done correctly, SMO can expose your brand to markets you never thought possible. Whether it is used alone to drive a campaign or in conjunction with your current interactive marketing strategy, Social Media Optimization offers you a significant advantage.

Source: www.techlinks.net

Link bait in search engine optimization

The quantity and quality of inbound links are two of the many metrics used by a search engine ranking algorithm to rank a website. Link bait creation falls under the task of link building, and aims to increase the quantity of high-quality, relevant links to a website. Part of successful linkbaiting is devising a mini-PR campaign around the release of a link bait article so that bloggers and social media users are made aware and can help promote the piece in tandem. Social media traffic can generate a substantial amount of links to a single web page. Sustainable link bait is rooted in quality content.

Types of link bait

Although there are no clear-cut subdivisions within link bait, many attempt to divide them into types of hooks. This is a short list of some of the most common approaches with brief descriptions:

• Informational Hooks - Provide information that a reader may find very useful. Some rare tips and tricks or any personal experience through which readers can benefit.
• News Hooks - Provide fresh information and garner citations and links as the news spreads.
• Humor Hooks - Tell a funny story or a joke. A bizarre picture of your subject or mocking cartoons can also prove to be a link bait.
• Evil Hooks - Saying something unpopular or mean may also yield a lot of attention. Writing about something that is not appealing about a product or a popular blogger. Provide strong reasons for it.
• Tool Hooks - Create some sort of tool that is useful enough that people link to it.

Examples of linkbait

For example, Fetch Softworks has just announced their Take Fetch Back to School, Win a MacBook Contest (4 runners-up win new iPod Nanos). This contest should be great linkbait because it is geared to students, staff and faculty just beginning the academic year; offers great prizes; and is happening at a time when some of those prizes, the new iPods, are making a lot of news. As a user of their product I've already started pondering what to write, and as a blogger I've already linked to them. So I think it's working!

When to use linkbait?

Like your birthday present, linkbait is for special occasions, meant to add to your content rather than replace it. The bait is only part of the overall mix. If you tried to use linkbait in every blog post you would soon end up with a site lacking in continuity. That wouldn't really serve your goals. But on occasion, if you come up with a clever idea that is related to your goals, adds value to your regular content, and attracts attention, then go for it. Strategic bits of linkbait can help you expand your readership, acquire more incoming links and raise your rankings while adding a bit of excitement for your regular readers.

I could proceed to bore you with more details, caveats, pros and cons, but plenty of others have already written on the topic. If you are considering adding linkbait to your marketing toolkit, the following resources should give you much of what you need to know.

Linkbait Resources

• Andy Hagans’ Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and SMM
• The Art of Linkbaiting
• Leveraging Linkbait
• 5 Link Baiting Methods
• Wikipedia: Link bait
• Matt Cutts: SEO Advice: linkbait and linkbaiting
• An Introduction to Linkbaiting
• Golden Rules of Linkbaiting
• 2007 Guide To Linkbaiting: The Year Of Widgetbait?

Source: http://www.cornwallseo.com

SEO Training & Website Optimization Steps

For an advertising agency to employ staff and train them on website design search engine optimisation, you can imagine the task to advise the account mangers on all aspects of online media solutions. Most advertising companies that deal with internet marketing promotions train their staff to know mainly about banner advertising. Any form of banner advertising is real easy pitch to learn. The employee just needs to be aware that it is one banner, one placement and it appears on a search engine.

SEO is a vast and rapid growing market in this day and age.

SEO training takes time and patience as there is so much to know and learn about that at first seems pretty daunting. Any advertising company that do SEO training will know that the employee will have to need to be aware of banner advertising in all shapes and sizes, cost per click advertising, cost per acquisition advertising, pay per lead advertising and the list goes on for your internet marketing strategy.
Before anyone wants to attempt SEO training be prepared for a long windy road as you integrate the knowledge of website design, keyword analysis and density checks, together with time taken for the actual SEO advertising campaign to have a good impact on your website. SEO training requires the employee to explain to potential customers the reason why SEO is the way to go for their online media solutions.

SEO Training - Website Design

When doing SEO training Weblinx let their account managers be aware of what a website design requires to be effectively picked up by search engine spiders not the web design itself. SEO training makes the account managers aware of page layout, internal and backward linking strategy and the text that is required on the web page for effective Google SEO.

SEO Training - Internal and External Linking

Another important factor of search engine optimisation we take into account in SEO training is the use of a proper internal and external; backward linking strategy of the website.
An internal linking structure is how you can guide a search engine spider around the site easily and effectively. The most common form is the use of text navigation menus or links on each page of the website. These are extremely beneficial to your search engine promotion campaign, as a search engine spider can easily navigate around the site and access all the other pages on the site rather than just coming into the one page and being stuck on it and then leaving your website.
The external or backward linking also needs to be put in place or implemented as it can improve the way in which a search engine would position or rank the site.
The more relevant external links you have in place going to the relevant sections of your website the more beneficial it is to your website promotion as a whole. This is because search engine spiders can easily come to your site from various locations and visit the site and view the content more often.
We go through how linking for external and internal links should be put in place during our SEO training sessions for your most effective online media solution.

SEO Training Cost Per Click

With SEO training CPC our account managers are trained to let you know that we are an internet marketing company who design at least fifty new pages for your website. It will be these pages that get found in the listings on Google delivering potential buyers to your website. When a costumer searches for the keywords you have secured with us it will be the page optimised by Weblinx.biz that they click on to enter your website. Weblinx.biz SEO Training lets the account managers know that you pay on a thirty day invoice only when you have agreed to the charge on the invoice and sign it then fax the invoice back to us. Our SEO training covers the use of a stat counter to monitor your clicks and keep in communication with you throughout the campaign. SEO training also covers the fact that Weblinx.biz need your campaign to be successful if we are to cover our costs so we keep optimising the pages when appropriate to deliver a profitable website design search engine promotion.
More info on SEO cost per click

SEO Training Pay On Page Placement

SEO training pay on page placement covers the fact the customer only pays when the website pages that Weblinx.biz design, reach within the agreed search engine positions (top twenty and top ten) on Google. There is a charge for the top twenty placement and the top ten position. SEO training covers the value of advertising on Google for just one keyword. How much are you willing to pay to have your website appear in the search engine rankings on the search engine Google? All prices for gaining search engine ranking will be agreed to at the onset of your website design search engine optimisation campaign. All of these aspects are covered in our SEO training sessions.

Best SEO Tips

Below is an easy to follow SEO training steps compiled by professional search engine optimisers to assist the businesses with their search engine optimisation and to help you understand how to implement the changes to your website that are required for successful SEO on the major search engines. The following may be considered as SEO secrets for onsite SEO optimization but in order to deliver a successful SEO campaign on the search engines you require external resources to compliment onsite SEO. The steps below are guidelines and a lot more is required but they are the fundamentals in preparing your website to have the right tools to compete in the front pages using basic SEO techniques.

SEO - Process	SEO - Descriptions	SEO Significance
SEO 1 - Keyword Analysis	The first step of any website optimization for SEO is to define which keywords or search terms you would like to be found under. The keywords selection is usually defined by the client; along with suggestion from your Weblinx account manager. Keyword sources generally tend to include search tools such as Google Suggest, overture and keywords related to the website/business the client is involved in - other keywords will generally be defined by client recommendations. This is because in all likeliness clients generally tend to already have an idea what they need to target for the SEO campaign.	Keyword selection is imperative for SEO and can often decide how effective your website can be. If the right keywords are targeted you would expect to see a much better return of click and enquiries as opposed to 'less relative' phrases for your SEO.
SEO - Process	SEO - Descriptions	SEO Significance
SEO 2 - Keyword grouping	Keyword grouping involves an analysis into the keywords which have been agreed by client and Weblinx for the SEO package. This SEO process is to define which keywords are to be targeted on certain pages. An old method many SEO's use is to create a new page targeted for each keyword. Due to Google algorithm changes a more efficient way we feel is to group 'like/related' keywords together and target these phrases across one optimized page. This reduces the risk of content repetition across the site which can have the effect of holding the site back from obtaining its anticipated search engine ranking for the SEO	It is important to target key phrases on website pages which are relevant for successful SEO online. For example if a keyword 'cars' was optimized on a page related to 'walking' the likeliness of an increase in enquiries would realistically be small thus the SEO campaign will be unsuccessful.
SEO - Process	SEO - Descriptions	SEO Significance
SEO 3 - Content Generation	We create content around the agreed keywords for your SEO to reap rewards. This content is then placed onto the web pages targeted to ensure the density of the keywords targeted is ideal for ranking on search engines.	Content plays an important part in any website. In SEO content plays a vital part. Google algorithms prefer sites which have relevant content rich information related to the targeted keywords.
SEO - Process	SEO - Descriptions	SEO Significance
SEO 4 - On Page Optimization	This SEO technique is to ensure the pages targeted have the correct foundations in place. This usually involves ensuring titles, meta tags, alt tags, h1, h2, bold text, underlined text are in place	To ensure your site is in the right state for optimization is to ensure the page is laid out correctly containing the tags which Google search spiders look out for
SEO - Process	SEO - Descriptions	SEO Significance
SEO 5 - Internal Linking	Internal linking is the SEO process of ensuring the site has a strong linking structure internally. This ensures Google spiders stay in the website longer and can easily navigate around the site to the pages you want to focus on for the SEO campaign	Linking can play an essential part in SEO. The bulk of optimization for SEO is done mostly on-site and internal linking via keyword anchor text links.
SEO - Process	SEO - Descriptions	SEO Significance
SEO 6 - External Linking	External linking is the process of ensuring the site has a strong linking structure externally (often referred to as backward links). The process is to generate links to the website from sites in a clean cache on Google. This is what is known as quality linking	External linking (provided the internal on site optimization is done correctly) hugely compliments work done to a website for SEO. It is through external linking and on site optimization that best results are achieved for SEO

Source: http://www.weblinx.biz

SEO : Google,Yahoo,MSN

Google (SEO) Search Engine Optimization

A well built site is useless unless people know where to find you. This is where need of search engine optimization arises. The methodology of Search Engine Optimization depends on your knowledge as to how Google ranks it index. Since only the engineers employed by Google know the answer, it is up to the rest of us to speculate on what may work, and what we know doesn't work. The easier your make your site to be understood by Google, the better chances you'll have of getting top spots in Google's index.

There are some guidelines or techniques which are helpful to get higher ranking in google as follows:

• On page optimization
• Keyword analyzing
• Meta tags analyzing
• Checking Page Rank Leak
• HTML Validation
• Broken link checking
• Assurance of unique content
• Off page optimization
• Link building
• Reciprocal link building
• One way link building
• Three way link building
• Site submission
• Directory Submission
• Article writing
• Article Submission
• Press Release submission
• Software submission (If any)

SEO for Yahoo

Yahoo! is the second most popular from the three major search engines and includes an enormous network of websites. The algorithm of Yahoo itself can pose a problem for some SEO's as we optimize client websites to rank highly on multiple search engines due to the way that it differs from Google and MSN. That said, any issue can be addressed provided that the right attention is given to the right details.

There are some guidelines or techniques which are helpful to get higher ranking in Yahoo. On Yahoo! the major areas are as follows:

• Keyword density
• Site structure
• Backlinks

Keyword Density

Keyword Density is the most important factor that yahoo cosider while ranking websites. Generally you will see a range that appears much higher is 5.0 to 8.0%. Beyond this range or crossing this range your ranking in yahoo will go down on regular basis and after certain time your website will be removed from Yahoo's index.

Site structure

Site Structure is more important factor on Yahoo! for two key reasons. First, the site structure determines the order in which your page content gets seen by the search engines and thus, which content will be given the highest priority. Content that occurs higher up in the code of your page is given a higher weight than content lower down in the code. Second, a properly structured site will be lower in code through the use of CSS, reduced or eliminated table use, etc. The reduction in code will push the content higher up the page as far as a search engine is concerned and thus, it will be given more weight.

Backlinks

Like in the other major search engines, having a solid backlink count from relevant sites using good anchor text practices is a major factor on Yahoo! for any reasonably competitive phrase. When it comes to calculating backlinks Yahoo! is far more similar to Google than MSN.

SEO for MSN

Like all of the major search engines, MSN also builds their index of sites using spiders to crawl the web finding new and changed information. This information is then processed by the MSN servers using complex algorithms to determine which sites are most relevant to the search query entered. All search engine algorithms are mathematical and thus, there is a fixed set of rules and factors which, if addressed correctly, will result in a high ranking.

Factors to be considered while optimizing for MSN:

• Page Content
• Linking Structure
• Number of pages
• Title, Meta & head Tags

The above factors if addressed correctly, will have very significant results on your rankings.

Page Content:

The content of your page must be perfect. What I mean by this is that the content must appeal to both the search engines and the algorithms. In order to write properly for the visitors you must be able to write clearly and in language that is both appealing and understandable to your target market.

Internal Linking Structure:

The way your pages link together tells the search engines what the page is about and also allows them to easily (or not-so-easily) work their way to your internal pages. If your site has an image or script-based navigation it is important to also use text links either in your content, in a footer, or both. The text links are easy to follow for a spider and perhaps more importantly, the text links allow you the opportunity to tell the spiders what a specific page is about though the anchor text and, in the case of footers, allows you to add in more instances of the targeted phrases outside of your general content area.

The Number Of Pages & Their Relevancy:

MSN wants to please their visitors. For this reason they want to insure that highest likelihood that a searcher will find what they need once they get to your site. For this reason a larger site with unified content will rank higher that a smaller site or a site with varying content topics. (note: this assumes that all else is equal in regards to the other ranking factors)

When you are optimizing your site for MSN be sure to take some time to built quality content. Do a search on your major competitors to see how large their sites are, over time you will want to build yours to the same range through general content creation or the addition of a blog or forum to your site.

Titles, Heading Tags & Special Formats:

Titles are the single most important piece of code our your entire web page for two reasons. The first is that it holds a very high level of weight in the algorithm. the second reason is that it is your window to the world. When someone runs a search the results will generally show your page title in the search results. This means that a human visitor has to be drawn to click on your title or rankings your site is a futile effort (this isn't about bragging rights, it's about return on investment).

Heading tags are used to specify significant portions of content. The most commonly used is the H1 tag though there are obviously others (or they wouldn't bother numbering them would they). The H1 tag is given a significant amount of weight in the algorithm provided that it is not abused though overuse (it should only be used once per page). Try to keep your headings short-and-sweet. They're there to tell your visitor what the page is about, not your whole site.

Source: http://www.indianwebseo.com

Mobile Social Networking on the Rise

Mobile media authority M:Metrics today released its first ever measurement of mobile social networking, revealing that 12.3 million consumers in the United States and Western Europe accessed a social networking site with their mobile device in the month of June.

Not unexpectedly, America had the largest audience for mobile social networking sites with 7.5 million (3.5% of all subscribers) accessing a social networking site from their device at least once in June. The U.S. was followed by Italy (2.8%), the United Kingdom (2.5%), Spain (2.3%), Germany (1.9%), and France (1.7%). MySpace and Facebook were the most popular sites accessed in the United States and United Kingdom, while MSN reigned in the rest of the countries surveyed. MySpace’s U.S. and UK numbers were 3.7 million and 440,000 respectively, while Facebook came out to 2 million and 307,000 users, respectively. YouTube was third the United States with 901,000 mobile visitors, and Bebo rounded out the top three in the UK with 288,000 mobile users. Unsurprisingly, those under 25 are the most active users - the 13 to 17 demographic reigned in France, German, Italy, and Spain while the 18 to 24 college crowd were the most active in the U.S. and UK.

Of course, a lot of these numbers are dependent on the availability of these social networks across operator portals. MySpace had strong distribution, appearing on the Amo’d, AT&T, Helio, and NExtel decks. Facebook was distributed on Spting, AT&T, Virgin, and Amp’d decks and YouTube was available on the Verizon deck. YouTube’s numbers are likely to go up because of its inclusion in the iPhone deck, which was not released at the time of the survey. In the UK, MySpace has distribution on Vodafone and Bebo on 3, but interestingly MSN is not offered on-portal anywhere. This shows that while there is strong correlation between popularity and being on-portal, off-portal activity is emerging as well.

It’s clear that the industry is noticing the compatibility between mobile devices and social networking sites. Some more on this from Mark Sullivan at PC World:

“Still, a lot of people believe that mobile social networking is going to be huge, especially as faster wireless networks become available. Meanwhile, mucho venture capital continues to flow into mobile social networking tech in its many forms.

What is it about mobile devices and social networking that make them a match made in heaven? Is the urge to social-network so strong that we simply can’t wait to get home to do it? Or will new mobile social networking services simply do things that static, desktop-based sites cannot? Will mobile devices take social networking to a whole new level? If the future is really ‘unwired’ and ‘always on’ as they tell us, then people will demand it.”

We’ll have to keep our eyes open for the next advances in mobile social networking. Pretty soon we may see contact lists consolidated between Facebook and your phone book, for example. Either way, if you’ve ever felt that getting home to check who just posted on your wall takes too long to bear, rest assured that you’re not alone.

Source:www.searchviews.com

Social networking evolves

"Evolution is fascinating to watch"
Shana Alexander

We are an electronic civilization and as it spreads deeper our family, professional and social lives are getting increasingly electronic. While sms today speaks the language of our personal and professional relationships, the web and internet are increasingly driving our personal and professional lives. Consider the case of social networking. Orkut probably has been the largest facilitator of getting old friends and family together in the recent history. Perhaps Google itself didn't anticipate the revolution Orkut would bring about and has only recently started taking the "Orkut business" seriously. Social networking has become such a huge revolution that by the time I write this there must be atleast a good triple figure clone of social networking sites on the web. It isn't any longer about just a forum where millions of Internet users connect, express themselves and communicate. Social networking is now evolving to another level and getting into areas as interesting as jobs to food and much more. Revenue models unknown before are evolving around social networking sites.

Food on your network - iFood.TV

How about a site where you can connect with other people with diverse backgrounds, ethnicities and countries, make friends, chat about shared interests etc. All this sounds quite mundane for a social networking site, right? Ok then how adding an ingredient of culinary traditions and culinary curiosity. IFood.tv does exactly that. It's probably the only site that focuses on connecting people through food. What's more you can load and create your own videos, you can use text (blogs, comments) or pictures or video to interact with other foodies. Hence people who love food can create their own online food channel, it could be either textual (blogs, comments), pictures or video. There is more you can upload your own recipes along with learning and sharing with others foodies. iFood.tv goes further you can even view multiple channels or simply decide which cuisine you want to focus on. According to the iFood.tv founders Nitin Agarwal, Sharib Khan and Alok Ranjan "The common thread is simple- share and spread your love for food."

Online Recruitment gets a social networking twist

The growth of social networking can be gauged by the fact how it is spreading into our social and professional lives. If iFood.tv was about taking food on the network and a bit on the personal front then on the professional front sites like techtribe.com and yellojobs.com are adding a twist to online recruitment by combining a social networking angle to it.

We all have heard about job sites. Techtribe.com and yellojobs.com have brought the power of personal referrals in recruitment. While techtribe.com has a program called 'frontfoot' which they claim is the world's first referral recruiting service of its kind. A simple successful referral could earn Rs 10,000 plus more for other referrals. Plus they have a quality control mechanism to keep the weed out.

Yellojobs.com on the other hand recently introduced a referral driven online recruitment service, called YelloRewards, under which employers can offer cash rewards to those who refer their friends to the posted jobs. The company hopes to place over 50,000 candidates annually by this model. The revenue model is also a bit different in terms of subscription. While other job portals charge a subscription fee from companies, yellojobs.com allows them to place ads for free, provided they pledge to pay cash reward to the referrer when they hire a candidate. The reward amount could be Rs 5000 or more.
Taking social networking seriously
Social networking is about serious business now. Consider the case of Google renewed emphasis on Orkut and the activities it is conducting there now. Earlier this month Google conducted an opinion poll on the Orkut site to celebrate India's 60th Independence along with its users. The seriousness can be gauged from the fact none other than Google India's Managing Director, Shailesh Rao sent a message to its users saying, " We are proud to be a part of India's 60th Independence celebrations and know that the energy, enthusiasm and conviction so apparent throughout Orkut communities will be on display as we ask users for their opinions through this poll. Orkut has always been associated with youthfulness and zeal and w e are very pleased with the response and affection that Indian users have shown towards Orkut."
On the other hand the success of these sites can be seen from the fact iFood.tv is about to launch a new feature called the ifood explorer based on a p2f2p (person-to-food-to-person) concept. According to the founders "The purpose of this is to simply reflect the interconnections or the links between multiple individuals in the network, a host of foods, food products, restaurants and relevant information."

The Last Word

Social networking with a twist is the new mantra in the world of ecommerce. As our friends, jobs, foods get transformed into their electronic avatar one wonders what's next on the agenda.

Source:www.hindustantimes.com

Facebook DMCA Notices Silence Digg and Google

Google has shut down Facebook Secrets, the Blogger blog that gained notoriety when the anonymous author posted code from the recent Facebook server snafu. The mysterious owner of Facebook Secrets is not going down without a fight, however. S/he has posted a new site called Facebook Secrets Again, though the Facebook code is not included.

Instead there are two DMCA notices from Google. The second, which appears to be a response to some sort of challenge about the site removal, reads:

As mentioned in our previous email, we work with a third party to post DMCA notices we receive. The notice we received because of the content on your site can be found here (once the notice has been posted):

http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=3836

We have had to remove the content mentioned in the complaint from your blog. If we did not do so, we would be subject to a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits.

The link above leads to a page on Chilling Effect, a site which tracks DMCA notices. The page reads: “DMCA (Copyright) Complaint to Google. The notice is not available.”

But Facebook Secrets isn’t the only site that’s been served with a DMCA takedown. Digg also received a takedown notice and complied. So far, the Digg community has remained oddly silent. Apparently Digg users aren’t as interested in Facebook code as they are in DVD unlocking codes.

Earlier this week, Facebook contacted Wired News to give an official statement about the code leak, which read:

A small fraction of the code that displays Facebook web pages was exposed to a small number of users due to a single misconfigured web server that was fixed immediately. It was not a security breach and did not compromise user data in any way. Because the code that was released only powers the Facebook user interface, it offers no useful insight into the inner workings of Facebook. The reprinting of this code violates several laws and we ask that people not distribute it further. (emphasis mine)

Requests made by Wired News for clarification from Facebook regarding what specific laws were broken have gone unanswered. The complaint filed against Digg cites copyright violations, which isn’t exactly “several laws,” though it is enough to file a DMCA complaint.

Source:www.wired.com

Orkut faces Facebook challenge

Social networking site Facebook is growing rapidly in India according to a report by comScore. From 238,000 users in January 2007, Facebook has grown by 230 per cent to 785,000 users from India in June 2007. According to the report, Facebook's growth in India was remarkable between April and June 2007, when it added 323,000 users.

I created my Facebook profile in the same period and I find that Facebook is a much better product that Orkut.

But Orkut is still ten times larger than Facebook, with 7.2 million Indian users as of June 2007. It added nearly a million new users during April-June 2007.

Among social networking websites - Orkut, Facebook and Linkedin are very popular in India. While the world leader MySpace does not have much traction here, slugging with 399,000 Indian users.

Here are the Alexa rankings of popular social networking sites in India.


* Orkut = 2

* Facebook = 21

* Hi5 = 53

* Myspace = 65

* Linkedin = 75


About 40 per cent of Indian Facebook users are women, while they constitute 28 per cent in Orkut. Indian companies like NDTV, Info Edge, SBI and Indiatimes are already advertising on Facebook. (Source: Agencyfaqs)

Orkut's popularity is also landing the site in trouble with Indian authorities. It was involved in quite a few controversies, most of which are cases of obscene or defamatory fake profiles and hate communities.

Homegrown social networking sites like BigAdda, Rediff iShare, Fropper, Yaari and Minglebox are gearing up to challenge the international heavy weights. Their success will depend on whether they are able to leverage their local knowledge and understanding of Indian sensibilities to differentiate their offering. The global social networking giants start with a huge advantage - that of a large exisiting userbase - which helps in creating the network-effect and boosting viral growth.

Source:www.cnet.com

Mobile operators see 10 times more potential in social networking

The success of social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo and even YouTube could represent the next boom for the mobile phone operators.

Revenues from putting so-called user-generated content - meaning content such as videos and blogs created by consumers rather than media organisations - onto mobile phones is expected to rise more than tenfold over the next five years, according to estimates by Juniper Research published yesterday.

Allowing the legion of bloggers, Facebook posters and comedy clip makers to upload and view each other's every movement on their mobile phone could be worth $5.74bn (£2.87bn) by 2012, according to Juniper, from just $576m this year.

"One of the most attractive elements of social networking on a mobile phone is that it's universally accessible so people can look up their friends, update their status or whatever on the move, which for the young demographic is particularly appealing," according to the study's author, Dr Windsor Holden.

Social networking has become one of the fastest-growing internet trends of the past two years. According to internet metrics firm Comscore, Facebook saw users increase 270% from June last year to June this year. It now has more than 52 million users worldwide. MySpace registered lower growth of 72% but still leads the market with 114 million users. Bebo, with a majority of users in Europe, grew 172% to more than 18 million users. The mobile phone companies reckon the people who are using sites like Facebook are exactly the sort of people likely to be interested in using the internet on a mobile phone.

Further research by Comscore shows that people who are already experimenting with the internet on a mobile phone are younger than users who access the web only on a computer. In Britain, more than 25% of mobile internet users are aged 15 to 24, compared with 20% who go online using a computer; a further 41% of mobile internet users are 25 to 34 compared with less than 20% using a computer.

The concern for the mobile phone companies, however, has always been that offering the sort of flat-rate mobile internet access packages likely to lead to an explosion of usage would leave them as little more than big dumb pipes in the air. Their worry has been that once they offer fixed-rate packages, all they can compete on is price and over time they will end up as sidelined as internet service providers (ISPs) have become in the fixed-line internet world.

Some mobile phone companies have tried to retain their position in the value chain by setting up their own UGC services. For instance 3 has scored with its SeeMeTV portal, which lets users upload clips and share them with other 3 customers. SeeMeTV has also created its own social networking service called Moko (formerly Kink Kommunity) with users paying £2.50 a month to keep in touch.

But Frédéric Huet, director at Greenwich Consulting, says that the mobile operators have a real opportunity to persuade more customers to use their mobiles to access the internet by "mobilising" sites such as Facebook.

"I would not be too dismissive of data revenues. If the mobile operators can start increasing take-up of data services they will increase revenues for quite a few years before commoditisation and price competition sees those revenues erode again," he said. "By then the operators will be in a position to offer other services such as mobile advertising.

"The trick is to start building an audience now and the mobile phone operators are starting to understand that."

Sensing this opportunity, several mobile phone companies - such as T-Mobile, 3 and Vodafone in Britain - have launched flat-rate mobile internet tariffs.

Facebook, in fact, is already available on mobile phones in the US through the AT&T, Verizon and Sprint/Nextel networks, with users able to update their profiles and check on their friends. Several of the UK's mobile phone networks are understood to be eagerly chasing deals to add Facebook to their mobile web offerings. In addition, Vodafone has signed an exclusive deal to put YouTube clips on its mobile internet service.

Juniper Research's Dr Windsor, meanwhile, points out that the transition from social networking on the fixed-line internet to the mobile internet could allow new entrants to muscle in.

One such new entrant is Itsmy.com, owned by German tech company Gofresh, which has already signed up more than half a million users.

But these new entrants are going to have a fight on their hands once people can easily update their Facebook status to "I'm on the train" using their mobile.

Source:www.guardianweekly.co.uk

Top 5 new Facebook applications: Buffy, Beer Diary, Heat and more...

You can't beat a good Facebook application, although you can bury it with hundreds of rubbish ones - something that due to the popularity of Facebook's development platform, is in danger of happening.

I wonder if the site will introduce proper five-star ratings for apps, so you can sort through them that way. In the meantime, I've been combing through the list of recent new apps to find five worth putting on your profile. Starting with...

1. Buffy Photos, Quotes and Trivia (pictured). It's new, but has already sailed past the 2,500-user mark. Show your Buffy fandom by adding it, and you can even chat to other fans from within the app.

2. Interactive Friends Graph. Another neat app that plots your friends and their interconnections, but the big selling point here is the way you can actually interact with it, sending messages, pokes and add people from within the graph.

3. Beer Diary. Keep an accurate record of just how many units you've drunk, and then show it off to the world (and, er, your boss / mother / AA counsellor).

4. Heat RSS. Simple way to get the latest gossip from Heat magazine's website on your profile. You didn't know Heat had a website? Join the club!

5. Social Chat. The latest Facebook chat app to set up private rooms for friends, or meet random strangers for red hot cyberlove stimulating interaction.

Source:www.techdigest.tv

BigAdda, an Indian Youth Networking Site launched by Reliance ADA Group

Social networking sites are the fad of the present day. They offer entertainment, interaction and a lot more. But somewhere they are becoming so common that one cannot go wrong if they are literally compared to the stereotype reality shows too. Both equally hyped but eventually fizz out as time passes by. And there’s yet another social networking site adding to the bandwagon.


Monday, the 13th of August 2007, saw the launch of Reliance ADA group’s ‘BigAdda.com’ which touts itself to apparently be the ‘Indian Youth Networking Site’. BigAdda.com makes possible networking and self-expression by creating, uploading and sharing of videos, photos in a public, yet private, space. Some of the interesting features of this networking platform includes blogs and scribbles, which help the users express, comment and connect, Addas(communities) and forums - all of these catering to one of the most important needs of the youth today - ‘Self Expression’.

Indian social networking site BigAdda.com, plans to gather a user base of 10 million users by 2010 they have already taken a significant step in this direction by acquiring over a 100,000 customers in the last 6 weeks. The company plans to introduce a Music vertical for uploading, streaming and sharing of user playlists. Web Instant Messenger (IM) and wireless interface would also be introduced shortly, which acknowledges the youth’s asynchronous messaging habits and need for connectivity.

Since BigAdda.com has been made with the prime intention of catering to the youth, the panel of speakers too was celebs that are highly popular in their own respective fields amidst the Indian youth community. Present at the event were 5 youth icons to drive their communities online, namely popular glamour photographer Atul Kasbekar, music maestro Shankar Mahadevan, leading Indian female golfer Irnina Brar, top filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar and stunning Bollywood actress Diya Mirza.


So what exactly are these youth icons going to do on BigAdda.com? As communities are a key driver for growth in the networking business BigAdda has these 5 youth icons joining them for the initiative.

To begin with, Kasbekar will be offering a sneak peak into his shoots and would head a Mobile Photo Contest where users would be induced to shoot and upload photos from their mobiles of which Kasbekar would shortlist the best. And this lucky member would get a chance to work on an assignment with the man himself.

If music is your passion then you can head to Shankar Mahadevan’s Music Adda, who will be encouraging the youth to compose and share their original music. One short-listed member would then get a chance to meet with Shankar and release an album through Big Music Label.

If you prefer being on the golf course, then Irina Brar’s Sports Adda is where you need to be, where she drives a community specially focusing on Girls in Sports. Now this is surely interesting keeping in mind how stereotyped somewhere India is with regards to its choice of sports, sport stars and of course gender too.

Ever dreamt of being Spielberg? If yes, then you can kick start here, not with Spielberg of course, but the Indian directing genius Madhur Bhandarkar, who would steer the Video Category and promote youngsters to share original scripts and video stories.

And if you are simply in awe (just the way our videographer was after seeing the ethereal beauty) of the lovely Dia Mirza, join her Adda, which would steer the Movies category and promote her fan club.

Also present at the event were two leading men from the Reliance ADA Group, namely Rajesh Sawhney, President, Reliance Entertainment and Siddhartha Roy, Chief Operating Officer, BigAdda.

Speaking about BigAdda.com, Sawhney said, “According to the 2007 NASSCOM Report, it is estimated that by 2010 there will be 20 million Broadband subscribers, up from 1 million and 100 million Internet users, as compared to 40 million today. The number of Internet users has witnessed an upswing, and so has their need to socialize online and gain acceptance in the virtual world. Virtual hang-out plays a key role, because it gives them the space to be amongst friends and peers, while sharing an image of their own, which they would like to project. BigAdda.com aims to evolve a youth community, inclusive and aspirational and create a youth culture that will be cool and aspirational for them.”

“Music, Fashion, Movies and Sports are something that cuts across all segments and age groups. The idea was to create a platform where the fans/users can talk/share with their icon. Going forward, we plan to increase our community drivers and supplement it with innovative marketing and promotional activities,” continued Mr. Sawhney.

Giving his take on BigAdda.com Siddhartha Roy, Chief Operating Officer, BigAdda said, “As a society, we are at a moment of transition when social relationships may no longer be restricted to face-to-face interactions in our own immediate surroundings, but also include a large number of relationships conducted over vast geographic distances. Photos, Videos and Music are the key drivers of online consumption today. Hence, we wanted to let our users upload content of their choice, as one of the many features on BigAdda.com, as it gets to showcase and express their personality. Till date, there has not been one particular destination for Indian and International video content, a void which BigAdda will fill. In just 6 weeks of the site being in the test phase, BigAdda.com has over 12000 videos with over 5,000 television advertisements.”

One really wonders that with the likes of highly renowned social networking sites like Orkut, Facebook, MySpace and zillions more, where does BigAdda.com actually stand? Perhaps as the site is banking on the power of the youth, especially keeping in mind the fact that around 54 percent of the present Indian population is below 25 years of age, there may be a bleak possibility that this very youth may consider BigAdda.com as their haven. A place to express, learn and share.

Source:www.techshout.com

Facebook and social networking sites drive web filtering technology

The latest internet phenomenon, social networking websites offer an interactive network of photos, user profiles, email and chatrooms.

Unlike MySpace, Bebo, Faceparty, YouTube and most other mainstream social networking websites, Facebook is currently favoured amongst young professionals and consequently take-up of the service within the corporate environment has been extremely swift, with many companies creating their own groups on the site.

Although there are undoubtedly some commercial benefits for using the service, particularly for smaller businesses, Facebook in particular relies heavily on email to inform users of new messages received and other activities taking place on site, thereby incentivising users to return to the site again and again for activity updates. With 40%+ of emails at work being non-business related already (IDC research) this adds significantly to un-required traffic.

The sites represents a number of other risks to business, with many staff choosing to use their time online to discuss their employer and air grievances in the public domain. Moreover, with users of social networking sites freely offering personal details to many, there is also an increased risk of identity theft.

As a result, adoption of web filtering technology is currently being largely driven by the phenomenal take up of social networking sites such as Facebook.

Indeed CTOs and IT administrators are increasingly choosing to specifically block access to Facebook, alongside the other chief time-sapping websites – hotmail and gmail. 47% of Email Systems’ web filtering customers have already blocked Facebook as an implicitly selected site and 83% have blocked it by category (social networking). Additionally, Email Systems has identified a trend for blocking viral video sites, such as YouTube, with over 53% of its customers choosing to block this site during work hours and 64% of customers blocking streaming and download video content from its users.

According to a recent survey, nearly one in five companies has disciplined an employee for violating blog or message board policies in the past year, while 7.1% of companies fired an employee for such infractions and 10% investigated the exposure of financial information via a blog or message board posting in the past year.

With several city firms – including Credit Suisse and Dresdner Kleinwort - having announced a ban on the site earlier this week and many of Email Systems new web filtering customers citing Facebook explicitly as one of the key catalysts for adopting web filtering, the issue is fast becoming a top concern.

It is estimated that over 60% of UK companies have no web filtering in place today. These social sites pose a real threat to business productivity, confidentiality and possibly reputation with many staff often discussing company issues and opinions in public.

According to the DTI: “Inappropriate web and e-mail usage is the second largest cause of reported security incidents”. The same report indicated that 52% of organisations have reported misuse of internet resources with the two most common being access to inappropriate websites (41%) and excessive web surfing (36%).

With child violence sites currently in the headlines as another example of undesirable web-content, Email Systems web filtering service allows customers to block internet access for specific sites, types of sites or users, whilst providing detailed real-time reporting.

Neil Hammerton, CEO of Email Systems commented: “Facebook is a growing concern for many of our customers, mainly because the site is so addictive and encourages constant, repeat usage throughout the day. Clearly many businesses have long considered webmail services to be a significant risk in terms of time, productivity and security – but Facebook is the latest incarnation to really get the industry stirred up.”

Source:www.securitypark.co.uk

Facebook Source Code Leaked to Internet

Social networking site says the leak didn't compromise user data.

The source code that powers the user interface for popular social networking site Facebook was inadvertently exposed over the weekend due to a misconfigured Web server.

The source code, which was posted Saturday to a blog called Facebook Secrets, was still posted Monday on the blog.

A spokeswoman for Facebook said in a statement e-mailed to Computerworld that "a small fraction of the code that displays Facebook Web pages was exposed to a small number of users" because of a misconfigured Web server that was fixed "immediately."

The incident was not a security breach "and did not compromise user data in any way," the spokeswoman said. "Because the code that was released only powers the Facebook [user interface], it offers no useful insight into the inner workings of Facebook," she added.

However, Pete Lindstrom, a senior security analyst at Burton Group, said that anytime source code is accidentally revealed, "there is potential for an increase in risk." He added that when a company dismisses the security implications of such an incident, there likely really are security issues.

"There are enough folks out there trolling the Web sites and pull that code who will be perfectly happy to try to identify vulnerable areas that could be exploited," Lindstrom said. "If you're release source code to the wild, you're going to have some level of increased risk associated with it. I can't think of a case where you wouldn't."

Nik Cubrilovic, a developer and contributor to TechCrunch, which originally reported the source code leak, blogged that the code could be used by outsiders to better understand how the Facebook application works. With that knowledge, Cubrilovic said, those outsiders can find additional security holes or bugs.

"From just this single page of source code, a lot can be said and extrapolated about the rest of the Facebook application and platform," he wrote. "At a quick glance, I know that I can see some obvious things in the code that both reveal certain hidden aspects of the platform and give a potential attacker a good head start.

"[Facebook] will also need to take some very quick short-term measures to mitigate the risk to users since you can bet that right this minute there are hundreds of potential attackers pouring through the leaked code and probing their systems," he added.

Source:www.pcworld.com

Google launches YouTube-style embeddable maps

Google Australia this morning showed a new iteration of Google Maps, launching about a week from now.

First up, if you know how to embed a YouTube video in your blog, you'll be able to embed Google Maps in your website, Google promises.

It'll be as simple as cutting and pasting a bit of HTML code into your website, just like a YouTube video.

The embedded maps have the full functionality of Google Maps -- they provide satellite view, map view or hybrid view, and users can click and drag the maps around.

The development has substantial ramifications for the web: any business will now be able to include a map of their location (or locations), and users going to their website will be able to get driving directions to the business in a couple of clicks.

Petrol prices plotted onto Google Maps

Find cheaper petrol via Google Maps: any third party data provider such as a petrol prices website can plot their data onto Google Maps using Mapplets

Google also showed how people can now integrate data such as petrol prices with maps. Google showed a Google Mapplet provided by a petrol prices website which shows the cheapest petrol stations and their locations in your area.

Mapplets can also be combined together. For example, a website that provides vineyard listings has the results plotted onto Google Maps, and this can then be combined with another Mapplet from a website called Panoramio, which shows photos from different places. Result? You can see photos from vineyards in a region to plan a scenic weekend away.

Paid listings for maps

Google also revealed that it is now be accepting paid listings for maps. Businesses will be able to go to the Google "Local Business Centre" and bulk-upload all their locations in an Excel spreadsheet.

Paid results will appear in mapping search and are clearly differentiated with a blue background, different icon and "sponsored links" label -- just like web search. However, the sponsored results do appear at the top of the list of map search results.

"The key thing here is you control your messaging," said a Google spokesman. "You get a huge branding opportunity, you get a great location element... at least 50% of search queries are of a local nature. You can take advantage of this and also stand out."

Google showed an example of Hertz located on a search for "car rental Melbourne", which included a Hertz special offer and logo appearing on the search result.

Paid results on Google Maps: Hertz has marked its territory in trademark yellow.

Google says it has already seen significant uptake of this kind of ad from advertisers. "Companies are taking this up at a very quick rate," he said.

Google working on integrating Australian public transport info

According to Google Maps' Carl Sjogreen, Google Australia is "actively looking for data in Australia" for Google Transit, which is a Google Labs product that provides public transport-based routing.

"We're somewhat dependent with local government agencies," he said.

"Some of them have expressed concerns about how frequently they can provide information to us so that it's accurate, so we're working on those issues."

However, Sjogreen said there were various websites that already provide public transport routing and that "mapplets is another great way to expose some of the existing transit routing sites in Google Maps."

Write reviews on businesses on Google Maps

Restaurant review: reviews have to be longer than a certain length as an anti-spam measure, according to Google.

Google is now allowing users to add reviews to any business or location listed on Google Maps.

However, it admitted that there is a challenge around defamation laws. Restaurants have been particualrly litigious

The challenge with reviews in general is it's hard for us to know in a one-off case whether it's a legitimate user or a competing business.

We have systems in place to stop widespread spamming of reviews, but we'll also look into complaints on individual reviews.

Google maps in cars and planes

According to Google Australia, BMW and Volkswagen are installing Google Maps and Google Earth into their cars, and Virgin America and JetBlue are also installing it into the back of their planes so that people can zoom in on the ground and see what exactly they're flying over.

Hi-res satellite imagery coming back to Australia: no APEC conspiracy

Google claims the disappearance of hi-res satellite imagery in Australia is not a conspiracy with the Australian government to protect the 21 world leaders, including US President George W. Bush, visiting Australia in September.

"It's a commercial issue with one of our photography suppliers," says Google Australia's Rob Shilkin. "We're really hopeful of getting high-res imagery for Sydney and other cities in Australia back up as soon as possible. I hate to ruin a good conspiracy theory, but that's the boring reality."

Source:www.apcmag.com

MySpace Page Educating People About Prescription Drug Addiction

According to the Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals, Inc. press release, Addiction411 has started a new MySpace page to educate people all around the world regarding Opioid addiction.

For those who do not know what Opioid addiction is, let me educate you. Opioid addiction is the addiction to prescribed pain killers such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, heroine, and methadone. An estimated number of 6 million Americans of all ages will misuse or become addicted to prescribed pain killers at one point in time of their life. Opioid addiction has increased so drastically over the past few years that the National Institute for Drug Abuse now considers Opioid dependence as a chronic brain disease.

With all of the new information and statistics coming about regarding Opioid dependency, Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals has become the first company to become partners with MySpace and offer people from around the world important information regarding Opioid addiction. The MySpace page which is located at MySpace.Com/Addiction411 has much needed information for anyone who is interested in educating themselves regarding the dangers of Opioid addiction.

The Addiction411 page at MySpace offers an interactive online addiction questionnaire. A doctor locater in your area to help with the Opioid addiction. Information regarding how prescription drug use can lead to addiction, as well as information regarding the dangers and the red flags you should look for if someone you love or care for is misusing prescriptions drugs. Unfortunately those who are misusing prescription drugs do not realize it until it is so bad that they are embarrassed to even mention it or get help. With the Addiction411 MySpace page, abusers can help find the resources they need to get their life back without announcing to everyone around them that they have an addiction.

Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals, Inc., is a specialty pharmaceutical company that makes Suboxone, a drug that treats Opioid dependency in a medical based setting. Suboxone and Subutex, also made by Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals, Inc., are the only two drugs approved by the FDA to be used in treating Opioid dependency inside a medical facility. To learn more about these two drugs, please visit opioiddependence.com.

For all other information regarding Opioid dependency and what you can do if you know someone or if you are that someone who needs help. Please visit the TurnToHelp.com website and order your free information kit regarding Opioid dependency and it's dangers.

Source:www.associatedcontent.com