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How to Add Google+ to Your Freelance Marketing Strategy

2013-06-26T11:47:00.002-07:00

Are you missing out on the business benefits of using Google+ for your marketing strategy?

Despite the fact that Google+ has been public for two years now, there are still some freelancers who don’t use it yet.

I get it. We’re all busy. It takes time to be involved in a social media network. And you don’t think you have that time.

But if you’re leaving Google+ out of your freelance marketing strategy, you’re missing out. That’s true for all freelancers, but it’s especially true if you’re a freelance writer or blogger.

In this post, I’ll explain why Google+ is more important than ever for freelancers. I’ll also explain how you can get started with your Google+ freelance marketing strategy. If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Hot Google+ Tips for Freelancers.

Why Google+ Is More Important Than Ever

Google+ is more important than ever. It’s not fading away. And it’s definitely worth it for freelancers to start using this social media tool.

Here are some of the reasons why Google+ should be an important part of your marketing strategy:

Second largest social network. Recent studies, such as this one from GlobalWebIndex, show that only Facebook has more users than Google+, which makes Google+ the second largest social network (second only to Facebook). The sheer number of users is enough to make it significant.
Google Authorship. For writers and bloggers, Google Authorship is another reason to use Google+. Google Authorship connects your content with your Google+ profile and allows your image and byline to appear in the search engine results next to any content you produce. It’s a nice perk for writers, and you won’t be able to set it up if you don’t have a Google+ profile.
SEO benefits. There have been a lot of questions about exactly how a Google+ profile affects search engine results. Authorship is one way, of course. Having a company page on Google+ also gives you more of an online presence, especially when combined with Google Places. The newer search engine algorithms are taking more and more notice of social media participation.
Google Drive. Google Drive allows you to share spreadsheets, documents, slides, and other files through Google. Currently, you can store up to 15 GB on your Google Drive without any cost to you. If you work on a team with others or if you must turn in your work for approval, Google Drive is a great option. Your files are secure too because you control who sees them.
Business Pages. You can also use Google+ to establish a business page for your freelancing business. Be sure to fill out your Google+ Local Business Profile. If you choose “local business,” Google will include your business reviews in the search results. It will also include your business on Google Maps and in local search results. And Google+ tools like communities make it easy to find relevant contacts.

So, if you’ve been ignoring Google+ in your social media marketing strategy, it may be time to give it a second look.

How to Get Started on Google+

It’s easier to get started on Google+ than most freelancers realize. There’s really no reason for putting it off.

Here’s how you can get started.

Build a strong profile. Give some serious thought to the Story section. You want a tagline and introduction that describes you,

yet is interesting. Be as complete as you can in your profile.

Select your Google+ Cover photo. Google+ is very image-oriented, so get creative. You will need both a profile photo and a larger cover

image. The right image can say a lot about you and your freelancing business.

Build a Business Page. You may wonder if you need both a

Business Page and a personal profile, but I recommend having both. Your personal profile page represents you and your business page represents your business.

Establish and populate your circles. Give your circles names that fit and add the people who make sense to each circle. The circles determine who sees your updates.

Share often. Sharing is the heart of any social media tool, and Google+ is no exception. The more you share high quality content, the better for your freelancing business.

Don’t forget about tools like Google+ Hangouts and Communities. Google+ Communities allows you to connect with others who have similar interests. Use Hangouts for a real-time discussion or training class.

Tip: Google+ transfers photos between Android and iPad

2013-06-25T07:38:00.001-07:00

Question: I have an Android phone and an iPad. How do I get the pictures I take on the phone to show up on the tablet?

Answer: Assuming you'd rather not transfer the photos through whatever computer you might sync both devices with (and why would you, considering the hassle involved and the need to add extra software to sync photos with Android), you should go with Google+.

Install that social network's Android app on the phone and put its iOS release on the iPad, and its automatic online backup should ensure that every photo you take from the phone will show up in the G+ app on the tablet moments later. That doesn't mean everybody else on G+ can see your shots — this automatic backup is done in private, leaving it to you to decide later which photos to share.

Make sure you set Google+ to back up full-size copies of each photo: In the app, tap the menu button, choose "Settings," tap "Camera & Photos" and then tap "Auto Backup." On that screen, you can also choose when you want this automatic backup to occur. Choose only via Wi-Fi if your phone can't go any faster than 3G or if you have a particularly restrictive data cap — unless you take photos all the time, they're unlikely to max out most limited plans — or if both conditions apply.

To download a photo to the iPad's own storage for offline viewing in Apple's Photos app, tap the gear icon in the top-right corner above the picture and choose "Download" from that menu. (If only this app offered some way to download your entire album at once.)

This approach also allows your photos to benefit from the "Auto Enhance" automated photo-finishing feature that Google introduced last month, which tries to fix flaws like unbalanced exposure, faded color and graininess. (It even attempts to smooth out wrinkles and pores on people's faces, which I think is going a bit far.) But although Auto Enhance can do a fair amount to upgrade low-light shots, I haven't seen it work magic on my phone's pictures.

RELATED: Artist 3D prints 2D photos

Flickr can also work for this, but I will wager that more Android users have a G+ account than use Yahoo's photo-sharing site — thanks to the increasing difficulty of doing anything with a Google account that doesn't have G+ enabled. Plus, there's (still!) no iPad app for Flickr.

This advice also applies to the smaller contingent of people who have an Android phone and an Android tablet, and to what I suspect is the even more exclusive demographic of users who alternate between an iPhone and an Android tablet.

If both your phone and your tablet run iOS, however, Apple's Photo Stream is the obvious and automatic choice. That can also get your pictures into your Mac's copy of iPhoto or your PC's Pictures library.

Tip: Near-infinite storage means you may never have to delete photos again. Delete them anyway.

Google provides 15 gigabytes of free online storage for your Google+ uploads along with your Gmail and Google Docs files, and that enormous quota seems like nothing next to the full terabyte that Yahoo provides for free, courtesy of the overhaul of the site it introduced last month. And thanks to Google's new automatic Highlights curation, you can even let Google figure out which photos are worth showing off.

That doesn't mean you should retire the delete key from your photo-management toolkit. One of the best ways to take better ones is to be cruel to the ones you've already taken: Inspect the five or so shots you took of the same subject and find reasons to trash three of them.

Maybe there's a shadow across somebody's face, maybe the subject is too close to the edge of the frame, maybe the background is too bright — if you spend a few minutes studying your work, you'll see what made some pictures better than others and, hopefully, will remember those factors the next time.

Suddenly, Google Plus Is Outpacing Twitter To Become The World's Second Largest Social Network

2013-06-24T10:50:00.000-07:00

Suddenly, Google Plus Is Outpacing Twitter To Become The World's Second Largest Social Network

When Google launched its social networking service, Google Plus, during the summer of 2011, tens of millions of people clamoured to sign up for an account.

But within months, critics had panned the new service, pointing to user pages bereft of meaningful content and exchanges. They said the new social site just wasn't, well, social. It seemed as though Facebook had cornered the market -- Google was too late to the party.

Perhaps not. According to data released this week by Internet analytics firm GlobalWebIndex, Google Plus is racking up large numbers of new users and continues to outpace Twitter as the world's number two social network, behind perennial titan Facebook.

The reasons behind Google Plus's growth -- it now can boast 359 million active users, up 33 percent from 269 million users at the end of June 2012, according to GlobalWebIndex -- are complex and tied to Google's effort to build a connecting layer across all its services, including search, YouTube, maps and other products. Log into one, and you've logged into the lot.

Google itself is tight-lipped about its numbers. Its last released figures were in December, when the search giant said 500 million people had created Google Plus accounts.

But of this number, only 135 million were actively posting to Google Plus pages. Millions more were using some of the service's features, such as clicking the "+1" button to show they liked certain web pages.

It remains far behind Facebook, which boasts 701 million active users, according to the report, Mark Zuckerberg last year claimed more than a billion active accounts.

though Facebook founder

Still, the volume of Google Plus accounts suggests naysayers were too hasty in calling its demise. Like many social networking services, Google Plus has won over a devoted core of users.

One such convert is New Zealand photographer Trey Ratcliff, whose picture-centric Google Plus page has nearly five million followers.

"It's nice to pop into Google Plus to discover new things. Facebook is pretty good, but it's harder to discover new people or have more in-depth discussions around passions," he said in an email exchange.

Indeed, this may be how Google Plus will find its niche in the crowded social media world: Whereas Facebook is the go-to service for connecting friends, Google Plus is more often used to meet strangers who share common interests.

Google Plus acknowledged as much last year by adding its "Communities" section, which hosts a diverse mass of groups and lets users join a "hangout" -- the popular group video service.

"We're extremely happy with our progress so far, and one of our main goals is to transform the overall Google experience and make all of the services people already love faster, more relevant, and more reliable," Google said.

But some observers remain sceptical that account holders are doing much on Google Plus, and see it as little more than a tricked-out sign-in service for Google's products.

Claire Stokoe, who works as social media manager at Mediaworks, a marketing agency in the English city of Newcastle, said she is doubtful Google Plus will ever catch up to Facebook, but she warns clients not to ignore it.

"An authoritative Google Plus account is one of the factors that will help you rank high on Google (search results)," she said, noting that a popular Google Plus account was an important criterion in the search algorithm that ranks pages.

But she doesn't see the service expanding far beyond the business and marketing world -- at least for now.

"Whoever I ask, everyone has a Facebook account. I don't know anyone who has a Google Plus account unless they are in the industry, and that's because they have to," Stokoe said.

GlobalWebIndex's latest figures show that while Google Plus is the second-most popular social networking service after Facebook, Twitter is actually growing at a slightly faster clip, increasing from 206 million users at the end of June last year to about 297 million today, a rate of about 44 percent.

The study also found that usage was growing fastest among older people, especially with Twitter, confounding stereotypes that social networking is for the young.

GlobalWebIndex is a London-based firm that tracks Internet users through a series of surveys in 31 countries, with an annual sample size of about 120,000 people. It asks respondents which social platform they have directly contributed to in the last month and said Google itself uses its numbers internally.

The study found that Facebook also continued to grow rapidly, at about the same rate as Google Plus.

But the leading social network is also said to be battling "Facebook fatigue" in some countries, with some users growing bored of the service or else bemoaning its myriad changes to privacy settings and other tweaks, including the growing prevalence of sponsored content.

A study by the Pew Research Center in February found that more than half of US Facebook members had taken breaks from the leading social network. While the top reason was they were just too busy, people also cited fatigue with the service.

Judith Catterall, a retired choreographer from Portland, Oregon, said she tried to close her account after getting fed up with changes and a news feed becoming increasingly cluttered with sponsored content.

"It's one of those things where you think 'OK, I have no control,' and that may have been the final straw," she said.

But within 10 days of deactivating her account, Catterall was back on Facebook. She missed her friends.

Google Plus account to increase your search engine optimization

2013-06-24T10:33:00.002-07:00

Google Plus account to increase your search engine optimization

With the new acer chromebook you have access to the greatest new Google features like Google Plus. Google Plus is a new type of social media. It was launched at the end of June and has opened up invitations steadily since then. It does most of the same things that Facebook and Twitter does, but not to the same extent. With Google Plus you are able to follow individuals or small businesses, upload your photos and videos, post any status updates, or get the newest information on current events.

You can use your Google Plus account to increase your search engine optimization while also increasing your shared content. Just like Facebook, Google Plus allows small businesses to share text, video, or photos with a network or contact group. You can respond to posts made by other contacts and they can reciprocate. With Google Plus the rate of communication is improved while the ability to add, block, or connect services is increased.

When you use the photos section on your Google Plus account, you are unable to move and/or copy a picture from one gallery to another. Instead, you will need to individually upload the photos again to new galleries. If you are using the mobile versions of Google Plus then you are unable to view the stream which is assigned to a single circle. Instead, you are only able to see the stream for the circles all at once in the same area.

There are some great breakthroughs which will soon be available through Google Plus in the future. The first of these is a shared music stream. This means that when you create your hangouts you are able to share a YouTube music stream. This means that you can create a playlist for your Google Plus account.

It goes a bit further than that, you can also have friends within your hangouts who can edit and improve your playlist. This means that you can work while also enjoying a new Google Plus music stream.

You will soon be able to use Google Plus for your company with Quora-style questioning. This means that the author is able to post a question and then curate the most appropriate answers which can then be embedded into the articles or the blogs in other areas which might be relevant to the originally posted question.

Another new feature of Google Plus for the small businesses is the ability to implement a style of sharing much like re-blogging. This means that the same post will not show up repeatedly but you will be able to show a post a single time and then give attribution to the author of the post as well as the people within your network.

How to filter google plus stream using Circles

2011-08-21T09:28:00.000-07:00

Creating Circles is one of the features I like the most in Google+, apart from Hangouts. You can create as many circles as you want like Family, Friends, Co-Workers etc. You can also add a person in two different circles. The best thing about it is no one else can see which circle they are in, except you.

When you sign in to Google+, the stream you see by default is the mix up of all the people you have in your circles called "Stream". Although, you can check out the stream of each circle manually by clicking on the circle name in the left sidebar.

If you want to view posts in your Google+ stream from only selected circles, all you have to install is Plus Minus extension for Google Chrome browser. This extension lets you filter which circles show up in your Google + stream. Once you’ve installed this extension, it will add checkboxes next to the name of every circle in the left sidebar.

You can uncheck those circles whose posts you don’t wish to see in your main Google+ stream. Circle names on the left sidebar is still clickable and you can still check out the stream of each circle. Plus Minus adds many more features to Google+. It adds 3 links – Expand, Shrink and Wide at the top of your Google+ stream. Clicking on the ‘Expand’ and ‘Shrink’ links will expand or collapse all the posts.

For Wide-screen view, click the ‘Wide’ link in the top-right section of your stream. You can switch to normal-view by clicking on the ‘Normal’ link. If you aren’t getting checkboxes in the left sidebar, refresh the page or open Google+ in new tab or if you have any other extension installed for Google+, try disabling it to check Plus Minus extension. You can download Plus Minus extension here.

How to filter your google plus stream and how to detect if someone is filtering you're stream.

2011-07-23T15:50:00.000-07:00

Google Plus users may not be seeing what IC or what I am now considering to be the new spam that is being projected as posts.
You may be asking yourself at this point what spam? But it's there and it's right in front of your face what I am referring to is shared posts.
Look in your Google+ Stream, you may have seen them without giving it another thought.

Just recently I've been noticing posts from Internet showboats like Robert Scoble and Chris Pirillo and an even Tom Anderson spamming mine and is invading your Google Plus Stream. I have found myself, commenting on their post just as hundreds have been doing since the Google Plus launched. But it's not so much mine or us the commenter's fault. It's the offending posters that are to blame not to mention the fact everyone commenting to those posts are responding to spam. So here's what's happening and guide you can fix it so you will never received another spam from these intruders because who wants to see this type of thing happening on Google+ anyway.

To get rid of spammers go to their Google Plus page and you will see a link to the bottom left corner, see the block User Name.

This is the message you will see if someone has
Blocked you from commenting on their Google+ posts.

Click the block this user. The dialog reads "What happens if you block User Name, you will no longer receive this persons content in your stream".

This person won't be able to comment on your content.

This person will be removed from your circles.

This person will still be able to see your posts.

Username won't receive an e-mail about these changes you can always unblocked this person later.

This will stop the offending Google Plus intruder from spamming you in the future. Note: I'm not saying block everyone just block the worst offenders.

Knowing who is blocking you should be a no brainer. When you have become a usual commenter on one of those spammers posts and let's say they didn't much enjoy the fact you commented something about them; usually a block will come some sort of negative feedback. Try commenting on one of their posts and use the plus user name +User Name to grab their attention, if google plus gives you an error message "there was a problem updating your comment please try again". You will know who is blocking you but still want you as their are audience or drone.

Keeping your google about you and what interests you should be your main priority and not some jack Ross way of manipulating you into becoming another one of those drones. Stay in touch with people in your Circles and create an actual following by creating your own interesting topics, this should be your number #1 goal when using YOUR Google Plus.
And remember to keep things flowing in your stream by sharing interests and helpful information let's keep your Google Plus on the right track.

http://gplus.to/vote

Google+ Approaches 18 Million Users [REPORT]

2011-07-19T21:52:00.000-07:00

Google+ continues to set records as the fastest-growing social network in history, but Google’s social juggernaut is beginning to show signs that it’s losing steam.

Ancestry.com co-founder Paul Allen (not to be confused with the Microsoft co-founder of the same name) posted his most recent analysis of Google+’s growth on his Google+ account Tuesday. According to his analysis, the search giant’s Facebook competitor will likely reach 18 million users by the end of Tuesday, but its growth rate has dropped by 50% from its peak.

“Last week we saw two days where more than 2 million signed up in a single day,” Allen said in his post. “If that rate had continued, Google+ would have reached 20 million users by last Sunday night. But the last four days have averaged only 948,000 new users, and yesterday the site added only 763,000. Yesterday’s growth of 4.47% was the slowest viral growth since Google op

ened up invites back on July 6.”

SEE ALSO: GOOGLE+: THE COMPLETE GUIDE | VIDEOS | REVIEW

Why is Google+’s growth slowing down? Google Trends indicates that the buzz around Google+ has died down some, which is natural for any major news item. Allen makes the important point that Google+ hasn’t been promoted by any of its other properties and that the social network is still invite-only. Once Google+ is promoted on YouTube or on Google.com, its growth may simply skyrocket.

Allen estimated that Google+ hit the 10 million user mark sometime on June 12 or 13. Google CEO Larry Page confirmed that Google+ had more than 10 million users during an investor earnings call on July 14. Its most followed user, Mark Zuckerberg, now has more than 250,000 followers, despite not posting a single public item on his Google+ account.

Google Plus Mentions Beat Buzz? But Not Facebook Or Twitter?

2011-07-14T19:12:00.000-07:00

If you think the buzz around Google+ is bigger than it was for Google Buzz, then you’re right. But if you think Google+ is monopolizing social media conversation, you’re way off.

That’s the gist of new research from Sysomos, a social media analytics firm. At Mashable‘s request, Sysomos compared the social media chatter for Google Buzz when it launched in February 2010 to Google+’s introduction this summer.
There’s little comparison between the two launches, according to Sysomos. Google Buzz’s social media mentions peaked at 150,00 while Google+ surpassed 250,000 mentions.

Since its launch a couple of weeks ago, Google+ has garnered more than 106,000 mentions in blogs, close to 30,000 news stories, and 1.9 million tweets. Some 85% of those combined mentions were positive. Those findings were published on Sysomos’s blog on Thursday.
Now for the bad news. Google+’s mentions are nowhere near as prevalent as Facebook’s and Twitter’s. Each of those services gets more than twice as many mentions per day as Google+.
Sheldon Levine, community manager for Sysomos, says he was surprised at the findings. “From my perspective, it seemed like everyone was talking about Google+ a lot,” says Levine. “But it could just seem that way inside the social media world.”

Connect with S.Rippetoe through Google +, If you are on the new Google+ platform then you can follow S.Rippetoe aka:Votekick

Already using Google+? Follow Votekick

2011-07-14T05:07:00.000-07:00

Google+

Google+ has dominated the digital headlines. Interest in Google+ has been incredibly high and Google’s social network is reportedly nearing 10 million users after just two weeks.

Already using Google+? Follow Votekick or ask for your Invite+

Still, Google’s answer to Facebook is still young. There is still no Google+ iPhone app and Google is still figuring out how to optimize Google+ for businesses.

Google’s project is still in its infancy, so it’s no surprise that we’ve heard a lot of Google+ feature requests from our readers. The most common one is Google+ for Google Apps accounts, but everything from privacy to collapsible comments has been brought up as missing features in Google’s social network. Google is even working on some feature requests, including the ability to set your gender as private.

For today’s open thread, we’d like to open this question to our readers: what features do you think Google should add to Google+ next? Let us know in the comments. We’ll make sure to let Google know about your requests.

2011-07-11T14:26:00.000-07:00

Make a Starbucks Frappuccino for $0.32

Frugal living blog Squawkfox's make-it-yourself Starbucks Frappuccino includes cost breakdowns, lots of photos, and a secret ingredient that can deliver your caffeine guilty pleasure for a fraction of the price.
A lot of people love Starbucks Frappuccinos, a blended concoction of coffee, milk, and sugar, but at $3.86 for a classic tall they're a spendy as a daily habit.
According to Squawkfox, all you need to make your own is a blender, ice, Starbucks coffee, milk, sugar, and the secret ingredient, xanthan gum, a popular food thickener (key to replicating the texture of the drink).

Squawkfox was able to mimic the famous budget-busting drink for $0.32 per 12oz serving which saves you 92% versus the one with the siren on the cup.

See the full post for details.
Full Recipe at:
Make a Starbucks Frappuccino for $0.32 |
Squawkfox

Twitter Ads Will Get Harder To Ignore: “Promoted Tweets” Coming To Your Timeline This Summer

2011-07-09T22:33:00.000-07:00

As Twitter raises even more money, it’s getting more serious about making money. The service is set to start showing ads in users’ “timelines” within the next month, following through on plans it has talked about for more than a year.
Twitter is pushing a new ad product called “Promoted Tweets To Followers”, set to launch by early August.
They will give marketers a chance to place their message directly front of users that follow particular brands, via ads that will show up in when a user first logs on to Twitter.com.
Twitter has been selling “Promoted Tweet” ads, which look and act like regular Tweets, for more than a year. But it’s entirely possible for most users to spend all day on Twitter.com and never see one, since they usually only show up when a user searches for a particular term.
That’s created an inventory problem for the CEO Dick Costolo and his sales team, since Twitter users don’t use search in the same way that Google users do.
“Promoted Tweets To Followers” are supposed to help solve that problem in two ways. They allow brands to send messages directly to people who have already said they care about them — that is, Starbucks can target people who are already following Starbucks on Twitter. And they can ensure that Starbucks’ followers actually see the ad, by inserting them at the top of their timelines.
Twitter is moving cautiously with the new ads. It’s telling marketers that it will limit the number of Promoted Tweets users see, and tweaking that number as it gauges consumer reaction.
And it’s not pinning the ads at the top of users’ timelines, like it had briefly tried to do with its ill-fated Twitter “quickbar” on its iPhone app this year. The ads will move down the timeline like any other Tweet.
Twitter has already tested Promoted Tweets in timelines via the Hootsuite Twitter client, but this will be the first time it has run the ads on Twitter.com. At the start, the ads won’t run on any other clients, like Tweetdeck or Twitter’s mobile apps.
The company has been pushing the ads to marketers over the past few weeks. Twitter wouldn’t comment on its plans directly, but offered this statement via e-mail: “We are taking a deliberate and thoughtful approach with our advertising platform. As that platform evolves, we will continue to focus on delivering value for both marketers and users.”
Plans for ads in timelines have been in the works since Twitter first unveiled Promoted Tweets back in April 2010. And Twitter has occasionally told advertisers that they’d be coming soon: Last February, for instance, it said ads in timelines would be here by end of Q1.
I think it’s striking that it’s taken Twitter so long to make its ads more visible, even as its valuation keeps skyrocketing. And even this is a modest step — if you don’t follow any advertisers on Twitter, you still won’t see their ads.
Eventually, that will change. Twitter executives say that one day, they’ll have a targeting system that allows marketers to find receptive audiences for their ads even if they don’t search for certain terms or follow their brands. But that’s not happening anytime soon.

Facebook Google+ Slapfest "The Epic Gif that keeps on giving."

2011-07-09T14:36:00.000-07:00

Oh, I could just watch this all day. We’ve been writing about the growing rivalry between Facebook and Google, with its new Google+ social network. But here you have it in gif form, with the Facebook and Google+ favicons superimposed on the dwarf from Game of Thrones (Google+) slapping the child-king (Facebook) over and over again. I am not sure why Google+ is a dwarf, but it doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of watching.

It kind if sums up visually the whole fight between the two companies. Don’t you think?
And where did I find this? On Google+ of course. It was created by graphic designer Ala’a Assamawy . Well played, sir. A meme is born.

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Facebook

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Google+

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Google’s +1 Button Already More Widespread Than Twitter’s Tweet Button [STATS] + Get Your Invite Invite

2011-07-08T22:07:00.000-07:00

Google’s +1 buttons have only been out for about a month, but they’re already more common than the tweet button on major web destinations.

Add me or Get Your Invite

BrightEdge, an enterprise SEO platform provider, analyzed the 10,000 largest sites on the web and found a 33% surge in placement for Google’s +1 button during the past few weeks. The company found that +1 buttons are now on 4.4% of those sites, up from 3.6% in June. Meanwhile, Twitter’s plug-ins are displayed on 3.4% of the sites.
Both Google and Twitter trail far behind Facebook, whose plug-ins, most notably its “Like” button, are on about 20% of the sites’ front pages. Note: Although the chart below lists Twitter’s plug-in as a “Twitter Share,” BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu says it refers to the Twitter tweet button.

To put +1′s growth in perspective, Facebook’s “Like” button showed up on 50,000 websites a week after the company announced a web-wide “Like” button last April. It was on more than 100,000 sites within a month. Twitter, meanwhile, made its tweet button available to publishers last August.
A Google rep declined comment on the report.
The study also notes adoption for links to Facebook Pages or Twitter feeds on front pages. Such links are much more popular than buttons, but still, more than half — 51% of the sites — have no Facebook or Twitter link on their front pages.

App Helps Make Plans You Never Thought About

2011-07-08T21:46:00.000-07:00

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Name: Picksie
Quick Pitch: Picksie is a location-based discovery platform for iPhone and iPad that shows you what’s going on around you now.
Genius Idea: Introducing places and activities before you search for them.

For a simple question, “What do you want to do?” quite often stumps a lot of people.
One reason, says Ajay Mohan, the CEO of Picksie parent company Ishi Systems, is that sites such as Yelp with their catalogs of entertainment establishments and event calendars have a gaping flaw when it comes to browsing.
“Basically you have to know what you want, which limits you,” he says.
Picksie, which launched in New York on June 15, aims to instead introduce you to relevant businesses near you before you search for them. It filters choices by preferences that you indicated at sign up, the time of day at which you are searching, and the weather.
It will not, for instance, suggest that you go to dinner at a restaurant that’s only open for breakfast and lunch. Nor will it, theoretically, send you to the botanical garden when thunderstorms are in the forecast.
To create reliable recommendations, Picksie incorporates databases such as Zagat’s and Fandango’s. It also includes concerts and festivals from online calendars. Users can “train” the app by giving its recommendations the thumbs up or thumbs down, and lets them leave short, Foursquare-tip-style reviews for other users.

Apps such as Zagat and Yelp already help map nearby venues, Fandango tells you what movies are playing near you and the Songkick and Eventful apps will tell you where to find concerts near you. Picksie’s main advantage is that it puts these location-based data points in one place. Eventually its makers hope to use this advantage to develop a hyperlocal-marketing platform.
At this point, however, the recommendations are dominated by restaurants, bars and movie theaters. These categories are already on most people’s go-to activity lists. The app would be a better discovery tool if it pinned down a wider variety of one-time events, like a specific drink deal at a bar or live music at a restaurant.
Improve that, and it could be an extremely handy tool on anyone’s phone.