The New Facebook Profile - Explained

Until now, the Profile has included basic information about the user: our name, hometown, schools we attended, the place where we work. In the new features, which will be gradually rolled out to the user base over the next few weeks, the Profile now includes the last five photos in which the user was tagged. If you're wondering why would photos come in the limelight first - here's the motivation Facebook supports: “There's often no better way to learn about a person than through photos,” as mentioned by engineer Josh Wiseman on the Facebook blog. Also, according to Facebook - every day, a staggering 100 million photos are uploaded on to the site. You may see an example below:



New Options?

The new profile lets users list a wider variety of experiences. For example, under the Education and Work section, you can list more than just the schools you’ve attended and the jobs you’ve had. You can also list meaningful projects you’ve worked on. And the top interests on your profile page will now appear as a row of images, instead of just text.



"You can see all the things that you have in common with that person," Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg told "60 Minutes" interviewer Lesley Stahl Sunday night. "It gives you this amazing connection with that person in a way that the current version of the profile that we have today just doesn't do."

At the same time Facebook becomes increasingly bloated with user-created content, which means that it also becomes easier for users to feel overwhelmed and view "Facebook as a time suck" (Kit Eaton, www.fastcompany.com.)

You may now wonder:

So What's Different about the new profiles?

Current Facebook profiles list personal information such as birthday, relationship status and city of residence in a left-rail column underneath the user's single profile photo. The new design moves that information up higher, in a more conversational format - offering basically a "mini-portrait" of a person.

Another new feature, called “the friendship page,” pulls up a history of your relationship with any of your Facebook friends. It displays such details as comments you've exchanged and places you've visited together.

Moreover, Facebook engineers have came up with several new features, including a new section, located on the left of the profile page: where you can now list the important people in your life, like your parents, siblings, spouse, roommates, or friends.

So - Does my profile page have to change?

Eventually, yes.

The new profile page will be rolled out over the next month or so, according to a blog post from Facebook. If you do nothing, you'll log on to your profile page one day soon to find that Facebook has rearranged your information to fit the new layout.
But users who want to update now can do so by following a prompt from their profile pages.

How will this change impact the information I choose to share on my page?

According to Facebook blog, the change does not affect users' existing privacy settings. A quick attempt to web-search for a user's Facebook page (which had been updated) on Monday revealed the same information that was public before the switch.
And if you don't like the five photos of you that appear near the top of your page, you can hide them or swap them out for different ones.

What should I do to update my profile?

• Log in to Facebook and go to www.facebook.com/about/profile/.

• Click the green "Get the New Profile" box.

• Your new profile page will appear. At the top, you can update personal information about things like your job, current city and relationship status.

• You can click the "Edit Profile" link to change any other information.

• If you don't like the photos that appear, hover your cursor over them one at a time. A box will appear at the top right that you can click to remove that photo.

This will not make the photo disappear entirely or remove your tag; it will just mean it won't be one of the ones people see at the top of your profile.

Ok, so the info can be edited - a relief. Still, I'm just wondering who would rate their friends, relatives, etc - by matter of importance? Isn't that just too private to make it public? Or, should there be in time options to create Tier 1 TOP Friends List, Tier 2 TOP Friends List? As ridiculous as is sounds..is Facebook just getting too bloated or it's becoming a "necessary evil" we have to keep up with but know how to protect ourselves from?



Curious to hear your say,

Yours,

@Digilunch

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Facebook - launching "New Generation Email"

In February we've heard about a new project Facebook was secretly working on, called "Project Titan" (a web-based email client) which according to TechCrunch findings was internally unofficially referred to as “Gmail killer”. This has now officially turned into a personal @facebook.com email addresses for users!


As Telegraph mentions - "Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and chief has effectively hailed the end of email for the next web generation calling the system ‘too slow and formal’, while launching the social network’s new messaging service".

Although it might be too early to end a long-lasting dispute of Facebook vs. email vs."battle", the social network founder insists on its several competitive advantages:

- the new system will combine Facebook’s instant messaging system, SMS, Facebook messages and email in one place,
- it will also keep all conversation history in once screen shot (on both emails or IMs);
- also, it would allow people to reply seamlessly across multiple devices to different types of messages.
- an finally - the new system will be based on the premise of the ‘social inbox’: it would have certain "filtering options", which are announced to be able to work better than email spam detectors and will prioritise key contacts’ messages. Quite frankly, this statement reminds of Google's Saint Graal "relevancy, relevancy and again - guess what?.."

Thus, the intended aim is to combine all types of messaging in one place, allowing people to reply in real-time.

In terms of future plans, Zuckerberg has announced that the system is intended to be able to sync with other email accounts in the future - in which case an alliance with current competitor Google would be inevitable?

Keeping an eye on e-curiosities,
Yours,
@Digilunch

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New Drop Down Adwords Ads - PPC gaining or losing?

The below might be a proof for a new PPC-oriented beta-project launched by Google and currently being tested in the US. Although there's no official statement made by the company yet, the screenshots I've collected today on the web have just been placed on some US-based PPC/SEO blogs who may have noticed a new feature for web search users - the new drop-down Adwords ads.

The screen shots below show how AdWords top ads can expand to eight additional ads. When expanded, you may see a total of 11 ads, followed by the free organic Google search results:



and an expanded view:



An other US-based PPC blogger has noticed a 3 ads drop-down listing:



Quite an interesting move, right? Although both sources are seeing it mostly beneficial for traffic drive I'm just wondering:
- what if the new drop-down arrow will prove less popular than expected?
- what if the add-on ads will remain mostly..unnoticed?
- would that really be an "additional" #1 spot or just a new advertising push - relevant (according to Google) but "fluffy" enough to eclipse natural search listings?

In a dilemma..

Yours, @Digilunch

P.S Many thanks to Boris who has shared with me the 1st source, so that I could pick it up and share the news.

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Measuring Phone Calls via Google Adwords : introducing AdWords Call Metrics

Google has aired today an announcement regarding its trial for a tool that lets advertisers measure how effective their mobile search ads are at generating calls:



For some time now, Google has allowed mobile advertisers to add their phone number to AdWord text ads. The aim of that was to let customers just click on the number and place a call. Yet, so far it was hard to track how well these ads really performed, as Google didn't give advertisers a convenient way to track these calls. Today Google announced the launch of AdWords Call Metrics with a limited set of U.S.-based advertisers. The company plans to open this beta up to more advertisers in the coming months.

The tool registers every phone call generated when a consumer clicks on an advertiser’s AdWords campaign. Call Metrics uses the technology behind Google Voice to assign unique phone numbers (both toll free and local) at campaign-level and then tracks the number of calls generated by each campaign:
-total nr. of incoming calls,
-received calls and
- missed calls, plus the average and total call duration. Furthermore, in the near future Google plans to add caller area code. However marketers will only get reports on area codes in the aggregate - they won’t get individual call records.

This project falls in line with newest e-marketing trend announced by phone-tracking companies and known as “Call Conversion Optimization”.

Although Google says that Call Metrics will be “available to a limited number of US advertisers”, in the coming months more people will get access. You’ll know when the option shows up in your AdWords account. Here’s what it will apparently look like:



Google claims the feature will allow advertisers to accurately refine their mobile AdWords campaigns according to users’ responses.

“For example, you could test different ad text variations to see which results in the most calls, or reallocate budget to campaigns that truly bring you the highest ROI,” wrote Chatterjee.

Google gives a case study example on its new tool efficiency - a campaign involving furniture retailer Room and Board (which is shown in the below screenshot):



The retailer claims that about half the people who called the 800 number in the Room and Board ad bought something online. However the other half who called the number ultimately bought something in a local store!

The company insists that precisely the latter 50 percent was almost entirely invisible in determining ROI prior to AdWords Call Metrics. The company’s SEM firm figured out the in-store conversion rates by comparing the Google call data with in-store sales records and discovered “the other half”..

Let's see what other successful case studies the new tool will bring along. Until then - as always happy to keep you in the loop of e-marketing diverse menu - yours, @Digilunch.

Any ideas/suggestions - feel free to join in!

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Exclusive: Facebook deep-integrating with Skype

What does Facebook lack in to make its communication platform more..catchy? Its founders are now proudly announcing that the time people spend on Facebook worldwide is longer than..on search engines! Why not enhancing user experience by adding to it a competitive advantage - a bonus that would make us spend our time even longer on Facebook, since we'll be able to hear, apart from mearly see. So, how about - video chatting? apparently that's just a slice of a pie..

Facebook already integrates with GMail, AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ Chat, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger… and now Skype. And for Skype, Facebook has specifically promoted the integration very carefully.

According to the Wall Street Journal Facebook and Skype are poised to announce a significant and wide-ranging partnership that will include integration of SMS, voice chat and Facebook Connect - all that as part of a one-stop shop.

Facebook’s goal, according to sources is : To mesh communications and community more tightly together and add more tools to allow users to do so.

Since it was not going to create an Internet telephony service of its own, Facebook has apparently turned to the Web’s Internet telephony leader.

The curious fact is that Facebook has previously tested a video chat product, but so far with no vsisble effect.

So what are the projections? Skype had 124 million people using it at least once a month and 560 million registered users, which will be bolstered by the 500 million Facebook users who will now be able to use it more seamlessly within Skype.

That will include allowing users to SMS and call Facebook friends from Skype, which will now deploy Facebook Connect.


Take a look below at a screenshot displaying the future Skype' look on Facebook:



Also, according to All Things Digital, here's what Facebook will look like on Skype:



Finally, same sources insist that this trial will be available in Skype’s newest version, 5.0, which emerges from beta in a few weeks.

Any thoughts? What do you think - is it a good idea? Eager to hear.

Yours,
Always positive,

Nadya @Digilunch

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Online Advertising gets Product Extensions - now live in UK!

Google has launched Product Extensions, its new AdWords feature, in the UK, which aims to further enhance ads by including more relevant and specific information.

Product Extensions, first trialled in the US last November, is rolling out to UK advertisers today as an added-value feature which won’t incur any additional charges.

According to Google's official blog, Product Extensions lets advertisers select specific products within their AdWords account that appear within paid ads if triggered by certain keyword searches. These can also include product titles and prices.

Important Take-Away:

The same cost-per-click fee will be charged regardless of whether a user clicks on the main text ad or offers within the plusbox, which in turn will click through to the site. But there’ll be no charge if a user expands the plusbox but doesn’t click through to the advertiser’s site.

So-far results (as seen on the US market):

Google's blog: "Advertisers using product extensions have found that the additional product information has helped improve the performance of their search campaigns. For example, SonyStyle.com, reported seeing a 9% increase in conversion rates for their ads with product extensions."

How to Set it Up?

First, log in to Google Merchant Center and add your AdWords customer ID to your account. Then, simply log in in to AdWords, select the campaign and navigate to the Ad Extensions tab. To add product extensions to an existing campaign, click the ‘New Extension’ button. No need to create new campaigns or ad groups, update your keywords or change your ad text.



Recent important Updates from Google:

- Earlier this month the search giant launched Google Instant, a function designed to speed up searching by serving natural and paid search results as a user types in their query, prompting suggestions for what they’re looking for.

- Google has also changed its UK policy to let some advertisers use third-party trademarks in their ad copy without necessarily having approval from the trademark owner. This went live on 14 September.

Keeping track of Online AdNews,

Yours,

@Digilunch

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Weekly Review - Introducing AIType Text Predictor

Hi everyone. I've started a new section aiming at reviewing sites that either I or you stumble upon while browsing the web and find it both handy & entertaining, basically anything you'd consider worth sharing.
I'll start the ball rolling out with AIType - a handy online text predictor for those finding writing texts both challenging and time-consuming.

AIType kicked off as a tool for folks who generally speak and understand a language but aren’t quite secure with some of the rules and conventions:



The tool promises to become very helpful to foreigners who find it often difficult to build up phrases in the context a native speaker would do. Some of its major advantajes:

- Auto-Correction and Auto-Replacement (The Text Predictor will suggest the correct spelling of words);

- Getting Translation to your native language (currently 13 languages are supported). The translation is online, and it helps you pick the right word by looking at the desired translation:



and...

- Suggests words and phrases according to their context The Text Predictor claims to be able to understand the context in which the text is written and suggests accordingly the next word to be written.


Being based on a catalog of phrases, the system searches for the next applicable word and lets you translate that word into your own language, ensuring you mean what you say. To be fair, as any beta-verson t’s not perfect. For example, some words feature more prominently than others in the list, leading to mistakes in word choice.

Nevertheless, tools like AIType are meant to help folks write better. It works like a 3 in 1 "writing kit": a combination of spell check, grammar checker, and Google Scribe. AIType is free and you can download it right now to add its features to almost any Windows application (no OS X support yet).

Hope you found it useful. Also, if you've spotted a nice handy website, offering some tools/add-on benefits - feel free to share!

Always positive,

Yours,
@Digilunch

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