I published this blog post over on Direct2Dell.com, Dell’s corporate blog:

Today, we’re pumped to be a part of Twitter’s new “Enhanced Profile Pages” (EPP), a new feature Twitter is launching today with a select handful of partners, including Dell.

Key features of Twitter’s *new* Enhanced Profile Pages:

• “Pinned Tweet”: Ability to choose what Tweet appears at the top of your timeline. (think sticky tweet – great way to feature content!)
• Expandable Media: If the pinned Tweet contains a photo or video, it will auto-expand [as shown below]… rich, in-line media really adds punch to your twitter profile, and
• More branding: via banner @ top of page.

Exclusive partners like Dell will have early access to upcoming product enhancements, features, custom Twitter-produced events and marketing programs. Additionally, Twitter will provide custom 2012 analytics roadmap including online behavior impact studies, sentiment analysis and value of a follower.

Wow, that’s a ton of new, great features! For businesses, these improvements are fantastic. Now we can highlight featured content with rich media clearly displayed at the top of the stream.

For Dell, you’ll see these improvements across the following Dell twitter accounts, starting today:

• @Dell
• @DellOutlet
• @DellEnterprise
• @DellSmbUS
• @DellHomeUS

Here’s a sample mock-up of how our @Dell page could look with these new twitter features (once the page is live, I’ll update this post with a screenshot of it):

Notice how the pinned tweet at top includes an embedded YouTube video, which is playable right on your business profile (great way to keep traffic on your page and drive up engagement).

Be sure to check out Twitter’s blog post announcement today . Twitter will slowly roll out enhanced profile pages to a wide audience of brands in the coming months. Check out http://fly.twitter.com/

I think these enhanced profile page features really up the game when it comes to publishing social business content. No longer do we just see a stream of tweets, now we see vibrant content that is much more engaging!

What do you think of these new features? How do you anticipate businesses will put these new features to work?

More importantly, what do you want to see from Dell for the pinned tweet (featured content)? Do you want to see videos? photos? slideshare decks? whitepapers?

Let us know, we’re listening!! As always, your comments and feedback are welcome here.

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Good news… Google+ now allows you to share your circles!

Check out the Google+ video here for more details on how to share circles with your friends:

Here’s how a “shared circle” will appear in your Google+ stream:

Click to see on Google+

Unfortunately, I cannot yet “Share” my circles… waiting for the feature to roll out across the 50+ million or so users across this blue planet.

I am thinking of sharing these circles: Dell, Social Media Smarties (like my twitter list!), Entrepreneurs, Photographers and Austin, TX. I have many more lists I could share… pondering options. If you think I have a list I should be sharing, let me know!

What circles will you share first? Leave comments / links to those in the comments below so we can see your shared circles. Thanks!

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Tune in on Thursday, 9/22,  for Live coverage of the Facebook  f8 event.

Starting at 9:30am PST / 11:30am CST / 12:30pm EST

Here’s an excerpt directly from Facebook regarding f8:

For those who can’t make it to f8 in person, we’re streaming the entire day including keynotes, sessions and interviews with partners, developers and Facebook product teams. We’ll have a full day of engaging content live from the Concourse on Thursday. Tune in to the Livestream on the f8 Page or at f8.facebook.com. This will be your main hub for connecting to the event and interacting with the Facebook team and other developers from around the world.

Be sure to like the f8 Page and follow regularly, including Thursday during the event. Join the f8 conversation by status tagging the f8 Page in posts on Facebook, commenting in f8 Live, and using the #f8 hashtag on Twitter. We’ll be checking all of these channels throughout the day for your input.

We are counting down the hours and look forward to seeing you on Thursday!

Watch on your Mobile Device: www.livestream.com/f8live
 

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I just got the new facebook “News Ticker” and “Top Stories” features rolled out to my profile this evening. I just took a screenshot and annotated it a bit so you could easily spot the changes.

Do you  have the new features? What do you think of it so far?  This new design will replace the prior “Recent News”  drop down menu style.

Facebook rolls out new home page features - click to enlarge

Here’s facebook’s page to “learn more” about the news update feature.

Check out this helpful video from the folks at Facebook which explains it very nicely. Let me know what you think of it.

Also, did you notice all the buzz with the new “Subscriptions” feature? I turned it FULLY ON so everyone can subscribe and chime in on my profile. Are you finding the subscription feature useful? Who did you follow right away? Oh, and did they automatically add Zuck to our subscribe lists – like everybody is now subscribed to him? pretty funny, if you ask me. Tell me what you think…

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Here’s the evolution of SEO – Search Engine Optimization – a nice visual of the SEO historical timeline.

I remember lots of these early search websites and web directories. I even remember SEO developments like metatags, keywords and link-back strategies. What do you remember? Any SEO tips you care to share?

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Girl Scout cookie pie chart

With Girl Scout cookie season around the corner, Wired pies it up with cookies showing percentage of sales. It’s all about the Caramel deLites. [Thanks, Elise] via Girl Scout cookie pie chart.

- via Flowing Data.

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Source:Adecco USA – Labor Day Survey

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Infographic by the PPC Blog.com

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Click to Enlarge

Today, I stumbled upon a really cool social network graphing tool from the creative folks over at LinkedIn (part of the LinkedIn labs projects).

Basically, once you connect your account with this LinkedIn web application, you’ll see a visual rendering of your LinkedIn network, neatly organized by colorful groups of your network connections you’ve created over time.

So, for example, my connections relating to my 10 years in New York and my Social Media Club group in Rochester, NY are grouped together. Not only are physical connections like these obvious, but also virtual connections, such as “social media” connections. My largest network is comprised of my Technology industry connections; no surprise there as technology permeates my entire career.

Click to Enlarge

To get started go here: http://inmaps.linkedinlabs.com/network and allow LinkedIn labs to connect with your profile.

When complete, you can view the social graph rendered and then “label”your networks.

TIP: Use the magnifier tool in to zoom in and read the names in each color area. Then begin labeling accordingly.

I find this sort of visual rendering to be very appealing, not only because I am a visual learner, but because it allows one to see how their career connections are related. You can also easily spot key influencials and people who are very connected to the same circles of friends and industry connections you have. Some of those folks are the same ones who helped me make connections… very interesting data!!

What do you think of this? Do you find this useful and intriguing like I do? Does this kind of tool make it easier or harder to group your network of friends and professional connections?

Here’s a visual step-by-step of the screens you’ll see as  you generate your very own LinkedIn network social graph:

[slideshow]

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Google+ is the new hotness on the web. Unless you’ve been living under a rock,  you’ve probably heard about this new bright, shiny new toy social media platform from the team over at Google.

It’s the best social platform I’ve seen from Google so far; in fact, it’s better than nearly every social platform out on the web today. Clearly, Google absorbed the painful lessons learned from prior experiments like Google Wave, Buzz and even Orkut, and applied that wisdom to building Google + into a very robust, solid experience. I’m very impressed and thoroughly enjoying this new application.

Accordingly, I am being flooded with requests for invites to help others join Google+ (Plus) http://Google.com/+. I’ve invited well over 200 people so far. Now, I want to share how to send Google+ invites with you.

Follow these steps below to begin sending Google+ invitations to your friends too:

Step 1. First, you must already have access to Google +. I know that might seem kinda obvious, but a few folks have tried and asked for my help who didn’t already have access?! Be sure you’re already logged in to Google+ on your desktop computer or laptop. (The invite process is similar using the Google+ android app.)

Step 2. Using the web Google + desktop application, select the “Share” button in the upper right.

Step 3. Write a note to your friend, e.g. Google+ invite for you! (this becomes the subject line of your invite email).

Step 4. Important! Remove the circles that appear by default, i.e. Public, Your circles, Extended circles. Select each one and click the little “x” that appears on the right. Now that you’ve removed all three, progress to the next step.

Step 5. Select “+ Add more people” to type in your friend(s) email address(es). Each time you enter an email address, it will appear in a small gray box (select that to confirm). Then it will appear as a blue button (similar to how “Your circles” appears below as a blue button. Once you’ve entered all the email addresses you want to send invites to, then click the “Share” button to send. You’ll get a confirmation for successful send. That’s it!

Be aware that Google + is gradually adding people. So your friends, may not gain immediate access. Be persistent and keep trying! It works eventually.

Now that you’ve sent your friends Google+ invites, you’ll see them adding you to their circles (see notification area) after they login. Add them to your circles to “follow” them back. Next send them this blog post so they know how to send invites too!  Oh, and connect with me on Google+ too.

Let me know if you have any problems following these steps above. I want to update it if there’s anything that needs clarification.  Be sure to leave a comment if you tried this and have any feedback.

Update 1 – based on reader feedback (thanks): You need to only send the invite 1 time. Recipients of your invites my get an email message back from Google indicating that they are limiting access, which means they won’t be able to login just yet. KEEP TRYING anyway, it works eventually!  :)

Update 2. It looks like Google might be holding  invite emails back?
Just got feedback from a Google+ user Nilay Shah — “I tried a test post just now. No email received. But i guess the invite still gets listed with google. Some of my family members and friends didnt received an email but were able to login after sometime using their gmail ids.”

Here’s what a Google+ email invite looks like (mine).

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So, I heard all the buzz -pun fully intended- about Google’s new social platform site Google + https://plus.google.com. First of all, where’s my invite?! Second, why on earth am I getting a 404 error when I attempt to follow the project by clicking on the “Keep me posted” button?!  Seriously, if Google can’t serve up the “Keep me posted” page, why on earth do I think they’ll invest in this new toy, erm, social site?

We all saw what happened with Google Buzz (yawn) and now this odd attempt at launching a new site. I am also surprised at the lack of news and information about the site. It fails to connect with me at this point. Curious what the experience will be, that is if I can ever secure a login.

So, instead of experiencing the new Google + site, I only see this (#FAIL):

Keep me posted ?!

I am seriously a skeptic when it comes to Google and social. It’s just not in their DNA. Afterall, remember, this is a company that spends countless hours on shaving off milliseconds from server load times. Think about that for a second… that’s engineering, NOT social social user interaction or design folks.

Don’t even get me started on the concept of Google and “community.”  That just doesn’t exist. And therein lies the core of the problem. Google can’t engineer its way out of this social conundrum.

This is yet another lame attempt by the search engine to grab a space in the social realm, because it knows the web is shrinking. They could hope to expand their reach, but it’s too late for that. In 3 years, Google will be a tumbleweed of a brand, unless they can place their bots inside the social realm, which is quickly carving up the web as we know it. And that… is a whole other blog post!! More to come…

Disclaimer: I have not yet had the opportunity to evaluate Google + https://plus.google.com. I will try out the Google + tour link. Not sure my opinion would change much, but I could be swayed if I saw something innovative from Google; not getting my hopes up though.

Love to know your thoughts, reactions, debates and arguments on this topic. If you were Google, what would you do? Jarvis, anyone?

UPDATE: Remarkably, I now have access to the “Keep me posted” form (screenshot below). So, I’ve now completed that step and am waiting for the official invite to arrive.

After completing the form, you’ll be presented with the option to learn more and take the tour I referenced above.

UPDATE 2:

Around 12 midnight, I downloaded the Android Google+ app to give it a shot. And lucky me, my login worked and I now have access to Google + which is really different. Google + looks terrific on my Dell Streak 5″ tablet running Android 2.2.

I am still poking around and learning all the features (it’s not a simple 1-2 layer deep app). There are numerous features and deep integration with Google products, which is a welcome change.

So, now I must confess, I was too hasty with my initial opinion and this blog post. Kudos to Scott Monty who first got me thinking I was being unfair, and he was right.

I just posted this on Google + here

“Just added a Google +1 button to my WordPress blog to show my support!

I have to admit, I was too hasty with my initial blog post (apologies for that). I will be sharing my updated views which are very supportive and positive… nice job Google!!

So many features, so little time!”

I will do a follow up post with more information. In the meanwhile, be sure to read Louis Gray’s blog post which covers many of the features

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