Is Email The Future Of Social Media?

Facebook isn't ignoring it

It’s quite interesting that despite all of the social media offerings and new features from social networks that have come out over the last several years, we continue to see not only email continue to thrive as a communication channel, but increased focus put on it even by the major social media channels. This seems to indicate that email is here for the long haul.

Which would you rather give up, social media or email? Let us know in the comments.

Email is still bigger than social. A recent study by Ipsos for Reuters indicated that (85%) of online-connected global citizens in 24 countries use the internet for emails while six in ten (62%) use it for social networking.

The actual social significance of email is interesting in itself. Another recent study found that the contents of your email inbox reflect your real life ties to the people in your life, as Drew Bowling reported.

Facebook introduced its own email addresses and its social inbox in 2010. Now, the company is again putting email in the spotlight as it has linked users’ timeline names to their Facebook email addresses. The company writes:

Starting today, we’re updating addresses on Facebook to make them consistent across our site. Now, the address people use to get to your timeline and send you email on Facebook will be the same.

Updated addresses will be rolled out over the next few weeks. Note: Anyone who already selected an email address will not be affected.

Despite comments about email “probably going away” once made by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, it’s clear that Facebook recognizes its continued importance. Hell, even Mark Zuckerberg’s dog uses it:

While Google considers Google+ its “social spine,” it has integrated it into Gmail, and will probably continue to do so in more ways. From a competitive standpoint, it makes sense for Facebook to merge social network connections with email as well. The two companies already compete in numerous areas, and will probably end up competing in even more (possibly even search).

In a previous article, I asked the question: Can Google+ rival Facebook? I’ve been hoping people would read the article before answering that. In summary, it’s about Google+ as CEO Larry Page described it during the company’s earnings call this week. He described it as consisting of two parts: the “social spine” and the “social destination”. Most people probably think about the social destination part when they think about Google+, and for that reason, would most likely respond with a quick “no” to my question. However, it’s the “social spine” part, which makes the question more intriguing in my opinion. Google already has Facebook-like user numbers. YouTube alone has 800 million monthly active users. When you consider Google+ as the “social spine” of Google itself, the whole thing becomes framed as Google vs. Facebook rather than Google+ vs. Facebook, and that sounds like a much more interesting match-up.

Back in Google’s pre-IPO days, Google was known as a search engine. These days it’s known as a tech giant with its hands in just about everything tech/Internet related. Facebook is only getting ready for its own IPO. It makes you wonder what Facebook will be like ten years from now. These days, Google has its own mobile operating system (actually two), futuristic glasses and cars that drive themselves, just to name a few things. What might we see from Facebook down the road?

The point is, these two companies (certainly with others in the mix as well) are already competing in an increasing number of areas, and you have to wonder if that number of areas will continue to grow.

At the heart of many of these areas will be users’ social connections. That’s where Facebook began, and that’s where that “social spine” comes in for Google. Email, however, is a major, and still more popular element of social connection. Facebook may have started in social, but Google’s been doing email for much longer. In fact, many of you probably use your Gmail address to log into Facebook on a daily basis.

We’ve really only seen the beginning of what Google is going to do with Google+. Larry Page made that clear during the earnings call too. There are already 120 integrations, but Google is focused on making more. Google+ may be the “social spine” of Google, but email is still part of the Internet’s backbone.

Google will continue to look for innovations with Gmail too. I’d be very surprised if we don’t see Facebook looking at what it can do with email even more too, especially now, with the direct timeline link. Of course, others will continue to look for ways to innovate as well. In fact, someformer Googlers are doing this right now with Fluent, which brings a social media-like format to email.

Email led to social media in the first place. It’s quite interesting that it still plays such a large role, and may even be a significant part of where social media is headed.

 is one of the most popular tools in SEO and makes the work of webmasters much easier. This tool allows a webmaster to keep track of a Web site’s traffic, analyze its robot.txt files, add site maps, and so on. This free tool provided by Google has become an indispensable part of SEO and is the easiest way to track Web site details for users. Google Webmaster has different tools that serve different purposes. This article will discuss the features of these tools, their uses, and how to master these tools. The sections below discuss how to set up and master the different capabilities of webmaster tools.

Google Webmaster tools are free and you don’t need to pay anything to maintain these tools for your Web site. All you need is a Google account. If you don’t yet have a Google account that will work for your site, open a new Google account to access its webmaster tools. Here are the steps required to start using Google Webmaster tools.

Step 1: Sign in at Google Webmaster Tools with your Google account.

Step 2: Add your site to Google Webmaster tools.

Step 3: Validate the authority of your site.

Validating your site is necessary because Google will ask you to prove whether you really own the site. There are two methods of validating your site: a default method, in which you use an html Meta tag, or uploading a text file with the name Google provides.

Having completed these three steps, your site will be added to Google Webmaster tools and you can use any of its tools thereafter. However, it will take some time for Google Webmaster to collect all the data from your Web site. Therefore, you will not be able to see any data when you initially validate your site. After Google Webmaster has collected data about your site, you will be able to use all the tools according to your requirements.

As soon as you sign in at Google Webmaster tools, it will show your Web site or list of Web sites. You can enter the details of any of your sites by clicking over the respective site. By clicking on your site you will land up in the dashboard of your site, which will link you to all the other Google Webmaster tools. The dashboard will reflect the below-mentioned details at the center.

• Search queries:

  1. Query
  2. Impressions
  3. Clicks
• Crawl errors
• Links to your site
• Keywords
• Sitemaps

These are the main queries site owners search for and often use. You can directly click on them, or else you can pick the details by moving further with the options available on the left side of the dashboard. You can click on each option and check the details over there. You will also be able to export the files to Excel sheets for further use.

On the left of the dashboard are other available tools, and below is a list of these tools and their functions.

Site configuration

The site configuration option allows you to configure the settings of your Web site. This provides additional options that independently let you control the configuration for each section. Below are the listed additional options:

Sitemaps

You can use the sitemaps option to add new sitemaps, check the status of existing sitemaps, delete any of the sitemaps, and resubmit sitemaps. Submission of site maps can be done by clicking the option “submit a sitemap,” and by following further steps. For existing sitemaps, data relating to status, type, URLs submitted, and URLs in the Web index will be reflected. A download option is also available so you can also export the details provided for your existing sitemaps to an Excel sheet for further use. Any errors in the sitemaps will be highlighted over the sitemap area.

Crawler access

Google Webmaster tools provides a crawler access option that allows you to manage crawler access to your Web site; that is, it lets you manage the robot.txt file. With this option you can specify how the search engine’s crawler is going to crawl your site. If there is any content you don’t want the search engine to crawl, you can specify it. Three additional options are offered at the top section of Crawler access: Test robot.txt, Generate robot.txt, and Remove URL.

Test robot.txt allows you to test the robot.txt file. This option stays there as the default page. You can specify the URLs and user agents for testing. User agents are different spiders that crawl your pages. The test robot.txt offers you different agents including Googlebot-Mobile, Googlebot-Image, Mediapartners-Google, and AdsBot-Google.

Generate robot.txt allows you to gather your new robot.txt file, which you can also add to your server. Four options are available in this section:

1. Choose default crawler access: This option allows you two default methods to manage crawler access: one is to allow all the crawlers to access your site, which will make your site available to be crawled by all the crawlers of search engines. The other method allows you to block all crawlers. This hides your site from crawlers and it will not appear in the search results. However, apart from these two options, there are other options whereby you can customize the rules applying to crawler access.
2. Specify additional rules: This option gives you the liberty to choose the action i.e., to allow or block, and to choose the user agents as well. You can also independently specify rules for directories and files through this option.
3. Download your robot.txt file: This option lets you download your robot.txt file by clicking on the download button.
4. Save your robot.txt file and upload to your site’s top-level directory: You can save your robot.txt file with this option. It also allows you to upload your site’s top-level directories.

The “Remove URL” option allows you to request the removal of any URL. It also defines the status of URLs requested for removal earlier. It also mentions the removal type, along with the status and the URL. Thus, whenever any private, useless, or outdated content appears in the Google search results, you can use the Remove URL tool to remove that particular URL so that it will not appear in the search results again.

Site links

Google sitelinks is a feature that enhances a site’s list links with additional relevant links. Sitelinks, which appear under the search results for your site, are the links that go to other sites from your site. Google generates these sitelinks automatically, and not every site has these links. A site has to earn such links, which are very beneficial for a site as they appear as the top results in SERP. However, only quality, user-friendly content invites such sitelinks from Google. If your Web site is very new, don’t expect to get your sitelinks immediately.

Every site strives to obtain Google’s sitelinks because they give you top rankings and wide Web space. Furthermore, they push your competitors further down in the SERP. Thus, they help achieve your SEO goals. According to Google, sitelinks are auto generated.

After you succeed in gaining Google’s sitelinks, you can manage the list of sitelinks. If you don’t want any page to appear as a sitelink, you can demote that page. Google will grant your request while generating the sitelinks, but there is no guarantee the particular page will be demoted. You can demote 100 URLs, and demotions are effective for 90 days. It’s a privilege and very beneficial for any Web site to get Google sitelinks. You can manage your sitelinks listing by using the sitelinks option Webmaster Tools provides.

Change of address

Use this option whenever you want to change your site address. This tool makes it easier for you to move your site to another domain, which helps the process of indexing pages and facilitates a smooth transition for your users. Many times, for different reasons, you might be required to move your site to a different domain. This tool makes the process easier and simpler. You get step-by- step instructions using Google Webmaster tools to change the address. Here are the steps:

• Step 1: Set up the new site and manage all its content and internal links. Make sure all your internal links point to your new domain.
• Step 2: Redirect all traffic coming to your site to the new domain so you don’t lose any traffic and hamper your business. You can do so by a permanent redirect of 301. Make sure all your traffic is redirected to your new domain.
• Step 3: Submit and validate your new site in Webmaster Tools.
• Step 4: Use the change of address option and submit the new domain of your site.

After this process your site will be moved to its redirected domain. You need to check the updates in Webmaster Tools to see the indexing and crawling for the new domain.

Settings

The settings option allows you to customize your requirements according to the geographical target, domain, and crawl rate. This option lets you set your preferred domain and also your desired crawl rate. The settings tool provides three options:

1. Geographical target: Use this option to target a specific audience for your Web site. By default, the geographical target is kept off. First check the checkbox and enable your target, then choose the preferred geographical location and save it. You can later change your target.
2. Preferred domain: With this option you can tell Google your preferred domain. This can help if you are worried about link canonization.
3. Crawl rate: This option allows you to decide the crawl rate for your site. The search engine has its own time of crawling and there is no fixed time for crawling pages. Therefore, you can fix your own crawl rate for convenience. You can either allow Google to determine its crawl rate or check the “set custom crawl rate” option to set your own crawl rate. With this option you can tell Google at which intervals it can come and crawl your pages.

URL Parameters

This option allows you to specify parameters for particular URLs to Googlebot. Using URL parameters helps Googlebot crawl your site more efficiently. It also saves you bandwidth and boosts the number of unique pages.

Your site on the Web

This section gives you details of your site’s Web presence. It states the search queries, links for your site, keyword status, and internal links, which help you get to know how your site is rated on the Web. Each option is discussed below.

Search queries

By clicking this option you can see the search queries for your site. You get the keywords for which your site is being searched and ranked. It also lets you know your place in Google’s search results. You can see the top queries for the top pages in this section, as well as the impression change, clicks change, CTR change, and change in average position. You can put filters on according to geographical location and can set the time to see the changes within that time. You get the impression change in percentage terms and the position of the keywords numerically. This section helps you see whether your site is increasing or decreasing in popularity. It gives you details on keywords and therefore helps you decide your calls based on keywords.

Links to your site

This section is very important because you can see the internal and external links of your site’s URLs. You can see who is linking to your internal pages, and by entering your internal pages you can get details of any back links earned by any of your pages. You can also view the anchor text against each back link. This section thus helps you get all the details of your site based on linking. Earning back links is like getting votes in favor of your site. Therefore, you can see the sites that are linking to you and their quality. You can also take your call in removing back links from bad sites, which might harm your site.

Keywords

The search queries section also provides details of a list of keywords. You can see the position of a keyword against your Web site. You will get a list of keywords for which your site is being searched and what keywords are working for your site. Generally, you will get a list of important keywords for your site. You might be surprised by the improvement some keywords give you and you can work on those for better results. If you don’t see your targeted keywords, you can check through the crawl errors and take the necessary steps to find them. If you see irreverent keywords, there might be a possibility of your site being hacked. In such cases you can again decide your call. Thus, this section helps you build a better and more useful site.

Internal links

This section is similar to links to your site option. You get the details of your internal link building within your site. You can search which internal link is pointing to which one [site?]. The uniqueness of this section is that it lets you know the amount of juice that has been passed. The passage of link juice has a very important value in SEO, and therefore this section of internal links is very helpful.

Subscriber stats

This section describes your existing feeds and gives you subscriber stats for these feeds. It also provides you with Google subscribers. You can click on Google subscribers and get the respective data. You can also add your feed as a sitemap. The option “submit feed as sitemap” lets you submit your feed as a sitemap. There is also a downloading option which lets you download the data for all the sites to an Excel spreadsheet.

+1 metrics

This option gives you additional information on search impact, activity, and audience. It tells you the annotated details for impressions, clicks, and CTR. You get the data for +1 annotated impression, +1 annotated clicks, and the search impact. You have the option of sorting pages by +1 annotated impression, +1 annotated click, all impressions, and all clicks. You can also compare the clicks, impressions, and CTR with this option.

Diagnostics

As the term suggests, this section details all the errors or issues of your site. The Diagnostics section consists of the following parts:

Malware

If your site is infected by some hacker or has any malware issues, this section gives you the details, which helps you make the required corrections. All sorts of malicious and infected software which might harm your Web site can be detected in this section.

Crawl errors

The Crawl errors section states the crawling errors for your pages. This section gives you the URLs, their details, and the detected crawl errors of the URLs. This helps you check through the errors and make the required changes. There are three main tabs in this section: Web, mobile CHTML, and mobile WML/XHTML. You can encounter the issues Google faced while crawling your pages and correct them.

Crawl stats

This section gives the statistical data over the crawling period on your site. Three sub- sections are offered in the crawl stats section: pages covered per day, kilobytes downloaded per day, and time spent downloading a page. Each section gives detailed graphs on their respective areas. Along with the graphs, each section also gives you information on highs, averages, and lows. There is also a page rank section at the bottom part, which provides the page ranks of your pages in detail and their status.

Fetch as Googlebot

With this option you can see how a page will appear to Google. You need to put your URL in the space provided and click on the fetch button. If a URL is successfully fetched, you can submit it for Google indexing.

HTML suggestions

This section highlights the issues Googlebot confronted while crawling your pages. It will show you the issues in terms of Meta descriptions, title tags, and non-indexable content. Each sub-section will detail issues such as duplicate, long, or missing Meta descriptions, which will help you in correcting them.

Labs

This is Google Webmaster’s final tool. It gives you options of custom searching, instant previews, and site performance. Custom search lets you customize your search either to your site only or to other sites as well. You can thus see the results in your customized way. Instant preview gives you snapshots of pages as they appear in the search results. Finally, site performance shows you the performance statistics of your site. You can use the information to improve speed and the users’ experience with your site.

These tools provided by Google Webmaster tools make the webmaster’s task easier and simpler. By using these tools, you can improve users’ experience with your site. You can also make all the corrections required in terms of SEO. By understanding how to use the webmaster’s tools will help you improve your Web site in every way.


Source  Nahid Saleem  

Let's face it: Not everyone is happy with the battery life on their iPhone. New York’s Douglas Tam thinks he may be able to help not just keep your iPhone alive, but to keep it green: The Monster Watts Hybrid Solar Battery Case not only keeps your iPhone safe in a durable case, but it also charges its battery (which is used to charge your phone) using solar power.

Using the power of the sun (hence the word “solar”, which you probably didn’t need me to explain), this case with an extraordinarily long name claims to nearly double battery life. It also boasts a thinner profile than a lot of other cases, including those with batteries inside, and even a little style with a bumper you can exchange for other colors as you like.

 

Here’s a bit of what it has to offer:

• A 2400 mAh lithium polymer battery-back up or charge iPhone
• Efficient solar charger-automatically charges the battery pack
• Built-in micro USB port (charge and sync)
• Access to all buttons and ports
• Replaceable color bumper-protects and fits your mood
• Available in black or white-match your iPhone

Don’t go looking for the Monster Watts Hybrid Solar Battery Case just yet; it’s a Kickstarter project that’s looking for $15,000 by January 19 and, to date, has only $162 in pledges. Those who support this project through Kickstarter will get a discount on the final product (as well as extra bumpers), so this might be a good initiative to back with a few extra bucks.

 

Research In Motion has rebranded its next generation mobile platform as BlackBerry 10, after its use of the BBX brand ran into a trademark dispute in the U.S.



RIM said in a statement on Wednesday that it had announced at its DevCon Asia conference in Singapore a new brand name for its next generation mobile platform for smartphones and tablets, which will bring the best of the BlackBerry and QNX platforms to customers and partners.

"The BlackBerry 10 name reflects the significance of the new platform and will leverage the global strength of the BlackBerry brand while also aligning perfectly with RIM's device branding," RIM said.

On Tuesday, RIM was barred by a court in the U.S. from using the BBX name at the Singapore conference, after a software company, Basis International filed for a temporary restraining order.

Basis of Albuquerque, New Mexico, which claims the BBX trademark, threatened legal action in October, less than a week after RIM announced plans for its new platform called BBX for smartphones, tablets and embedded systems. RIM said at the time that although it has not yet seen the legal complaint, it did not believe the marks are confusing because the two companies are in different lines of business.

The United States District Court for the District of New Mexico on Tuesday however observed that Basis and RIM offer their products to the same class of consumers and in the same channels of trade. The BBX mark is identical to the mark which RIM is allegedly using to present its BBX product, it added.

RIM said on Wednesday that it does not typically comment on pending litigation.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

Mobile device users worried their personal data may not be safe in light of recent reports of security flaws can download apps, monitor tell-tale signs and adjust settings to protect themselves.

Here's a rundown of the latest concerns and tips to keep the hackers and thieves at bay.

Carrier IQ

First security researcher Trevor Eckhart claimed that a piece of diagnostic software made by Carrier IQ and installed on 140 million handsets worldwide was secretly recording user data such as keystrokes and Web browsing history. Since then, privacy advocates, consumers and Congress have been in an uproar.

While Verizon Wireless has said it doesn't add to its phones any software from Carrier IQ, Apple, AT&T, Sprint, HTC, Samsung and T-Mobile have said some of their phones use the software. Research In Motion and Nokia have said they don't load the software onto their phones.

Some skeptics believe, however, that the scandal may be overblown, especially since no one has attempted anything like a "peer review" of Eckhart's conclusions.

TIP: If you're concerned, a free app to detect Carrier IQ showed up at the Android Market on Dec. 2.

Pre-loaded Apps

Researchers from North Carolina State University have discovered that some pre-loaded apps on Android handsets contain serious security vulnerabilities that could be used to wipe the handset, steal data, or listen to calls.

The threats were found on eight different smartphones from Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung.

And if you think that's bad, speaking in London this week, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said more than 150 private sector organizations in 25 countries have the ability to not only track mobile devices, but also intercept messages and listen to calls, as well as access Internet browsing histories and email accounts, reported ZDNet. That information can then be sold as wholesale information to governments or other private industry partners.

TIP: One thing you can do to protect yourself is delete your browsing history from your cell phone through the settings feature on your handset. If you are really concerned, don't use your mobile device to make bank or other sensitive transactions. Instead, use your laptop or desktop and make sure you have anti-virus software installed.

Skype Alert

Skype's 171 million registered users might be in trouble too.

Researchers at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University made video calls to 10,000 random Skype users and found that even when recipients didn't accept the incoming call, their Internet Protocol, or IP, address could still be stolen and used to find out who they chat with, what they download, and even their location.

TIP: If this one concerns you, keep Skype turned off unless you are expecting a call, and don’t use your real name for your user name.

Privacy At Risk

As time marches on, one thing is certain: this tug-of-war between tech users who want privacy and commercial entities who keep dreaming up new ways to breach it, unintentionally or not, isn't going away, especially since researchers are continually bent on stirring the pot.

TIP: One new app that can help keep Apple devices safe from snooping is Hotspot Shield, which compresses and encrypts your mobile data. The app runs in the background and will compress and encrypt all incoming and outgoing exchanges on the fly. For Android users, PCWorld recently walked readers through setting up Android's built-in security tools and suggested a few third-party extras that add valuable safeguards for your personal information.


by Christina DesMarais

Fledgling social network Google+ has had a recent traffic boost, recording its third-largest week of visits since the site launched in June, according to online traffic monitor Experian Hitwise.

 

The social network had more than 6.8 million U.S. visits in the week ending Nov. 12. That's a 5% increase compared to the week before and a 25% increase compared to a month ago, according to Hitwise.

"This tells us that Google+ is starting to catch on," said Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst with ZK Research. "I think Facebook has gotten so big and some people are so annoyed with their securityissues that people are starting to seek an alternative."

Now that Google + has more than 40 million users, people are finding more friends and colleagues on the social networking site than they were when it launched last summer.

"Well, 40 million users are still a ways off of Facebook's 800 million, but it's still a big number," Kerravala said. "It's big enough that when you join Google+, there are people there to find."

Hitwise reported that the number of returning visitors has been rising this month. The average number of returning users in the first two weeks of November compared with the first two weeks in October jumped 18%. For the week ending Nov. 12, 74% of Google+ traffic was from returning visitors.

Hitwise also noted that Google+ users are spending more time on the site. The average visit time rose 15% in October compared with the month before.

That shows a growing "stickiness" that Google+ will need to be successful, Kerravala said.

On Wednesday, Google unveiled its Google Music service and immediately integrated it with Google+ so users can share music for free with the friends in their Circles. That kind of integration also makes people quicker to return and to spend more time on the network.

"The more people who join Google+, the stickier it gets," said Kerravala. "It's this whole community of friends thing. The bigger the community, the stickier the site gets."

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her e-mail address is sgaudin@computerworld.com .