WordPress’ adoption numbers are quite high with over 145 million downloads and powering 16.7% of the entire Web! As a cornerstone of the blogging and CMS world, it is natural that it must eventually meet head on with another online platform that has met meteoric success, Facebook.

The social media giant’s ubiquity is not particularly obscure, but when defined in hard numbers it accounts for 1 in 5 page views, is the most frequent individual search term, and has actually bridged generational divides with near parity in terms of use across groups. A robust number of plugins have emerged to enable WordPress developers and the users that visit their websites to leverage the interconnections and social data that are available through the network.

Official FaceBook Plugin

As of June 2012 FaceBook started offering a plugin for WordPress (compatible with version 3.3 and higher) developed by internal staff and open-source developers. It offers the following key features:

• Social Publishing and Mentions

A post can be distributed automatically to user’s FaceBook timelines and can even be done so by including the user in a “mention” contained in the post (much the same way FaceBook automatically links to connected users with a drop-down and autocomplete when they are mentioned in comments).

• Social Plugins and Widgets

These include “like,” “send,” and “follow” buttons, a recommendations bar to help the user discover related content, comment moderation, and recent activity.

• Publishing to Author’s Timeline

Through the use of Open Graph the author can create an automatic association with their FaceBook timeline.

Third-Party Plugins

A host of other plugins exist for FaceBook and WordPress. Some are coupled with features to access other social media sites such as Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest. Some are commercial and others are free. The range of plugins is extensive and many offer features identical to those provided by the official plugin. However, due to the possibilities that access to an interconnected network with all of a user’s acquaintances and tastes can bring, they cover a wide range of capabilities. Here is a sampling.

• Exit through FaceBook Like

This plugin raises a popup box when a user clicks an outgoing link on the site, which gives an invitation to like the FaceBook page. This plugin costs $6 for a license.

• WordPress WassUp

This plugin leverages FaceBook to provide real-time tracking of visitors, including location, search results, and page views. The aim is to offer an idea of what users are doing while engaged with the site.

• WP4FB

This plugin allows the user to create and publish highly optimized and professional FaceBook fan pages from WordPress. There are a few pricing options with the least expensive at $67 for a single Facebook page.

• Social Image Hover

This plugin is used to instantly share images on FaceBook and other social networks instantly through a hover-over interface. The cost for this plugin is $14.

This is a small sampling of plugins that integrate WordPress with FaceBook, though it is apparent that there are many possibilities when the largest social network meets with one of the leading CMS technologies.

WordPress and Tumblr can both work well for a business site. By looking at the advantages and drawbacks of each platform, you can decide which one is better for your particular business.

In a comparison of WordPress vs. Tumblr, the key differences are in the areas of power and ease of use. Tumblr is a very simple and easy to use blogging platform, but WordPress has a wide selection of plugins and can be customized to achieve a variety of functions.

Ease of Use
Getting started on Tumblr is immediate and easy. There’s no need to install anything extra or apply additional settings. As a result, users who sign up for Tumblr can get started right away and have their blog up and running in no time.

Using WordPress isn’t necessarily difficult, but it’s not quite as simple as Tumblr and will take a little more time to get up and running. However, because it is so widely utilized, there are plenty of tutorials and information available to help anyone set up a WordPress site.

Customization
If you want to be able to customize your business site with plugins and gadgets, and if you need it to do more than just act as a blogging platform, WordPress is the better option. There are a wide variety of themes available to make your site exactly the way you want it, and WordPress works easily with concepts like adaptive website design and HTML5.

SEO
WordPress code is favored by search engines, making it the best choice for SEO purposes. In most cases it is easier to get high page ranking for a WordPress site than any other blogging platform.

Content Type
Tumblr works best for more visual industries such as photography, fashion, and design, and makes it easy to include photos, videos and other visual media. WordPress is the platform of choice for the serious blogger who wants to focus on written content and compose more lengthy posts; however it has a lot of very elegant photography options.

Social Networking
Tumblr has an active community of users who search the site based on their interests. So through tagging posts, it’s often possible to build up a strong readership fairly quickly. It is also easier for the casual reader to subscribe to a Tumblr blog than for someone to sign up for a WordPress site’s RSS feed. In addition, Tumblr offers direct integration with Twitter and Facebook. Although it’s not difficult to use a WordPress plugin to do the same thing, social media integration is just slightly faster and easier with Tumblr.

Hosting
With a WordPress blog it’s important to use your own domain, but with Tumblr it is considered fine to use a subdomain. However, without the ability to self-host, Tumblr users are dependent on its servers. In general, Tumblr hosting works fine, but if it’s important to you to provide your own hosting, WordPress enables you to do that.

The Bottom Line
To select the right blog platform for your business, consider your goals and objectives for the site, your target audience, and the type of content you’ll be posting. It’s also helpful to keep in mind your own personal preferences, and choose the platform that feels right to you.

Originally launched by Pyra Labs in 1999, Blogger was one of the first free blogging solutions offered to the general public. Since then, their assets have changed hands many times, and the company has seen its share of the market dwindle to competitors. Since Google acquired the service, however, Blogger has added many features in an attempt to compete with content management giant WordPress.

1. Improved Search Engine Visibility

For commercial bloggers, one of the platform’s main shortcomings has been the way it handles search engine placement. Blogger recently introduced an improved search function designed to alleviate these issues. Posts are now more effectively catalogued on the site allowing for increased crawl traffic. This should lead to improved exposure.

2. Social Media Widgets

In the past, users have complained that Blogger did not offer enough ways to share published content via social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Pintrest. Blogger developers have listened, and there are now a number of ways to share your content on these sites, as well as integrate it into your existing Facebook pages.

3. Improved Interface

In 2012, all Blogger users were automatically upgraded to the newest interface, featuring faster load times, an improved look and feel and easier access to features. The new layout is almost certainly a direct response to user comparisons of the old layout to that of WordPress. While Blogger still has several kinks to work out, they appear headed in the right direction.

4. Improved Post Management

Blogger added several basic but key features their text editor was lacking in recent months, including the “h1″ heading size and a number of sub-headings as well. It is now much easier to edit and manage your old posts as well. While this change may seem trivial to some, these heading and sub-heading distinctions are a vital part of SEO and were a key feature request in the past.

5. Statistics

While WordPress and other platforms have long been displaying statistics regarding traffic for their blogs, Blogger has been behind the times in this regard. However, they have added an extensive statistics panel as part of their new dashboard, meaning users can now get detailed information about their website’s traffic, where it’s coming from, how long they are staying and more. These statistics give users valuable information in regards to ways they can improve their content.

Self-hosted blogs may be the preferred method for many users, but Blogger’s new changes make their platform worth a second look, particularly for those who do not wish to manage their own hosting service.

It is highly recommended that you ensure your WordPress login password is a secure password comprising of at least 8 characters and includes special characters (@#$%^&*), a variation of upper and lower case letters, and numbers.

Common Password Example:

secretword123

Secure Password Example:

Z4Tn@V^oes

Beginning on Tuesday, a large scale and very organized distributed attack on WordPress websites initiated worldwide affecting almost all web hosts and anyone who hosts a WordPress installation.

These attacks are brute force in nature and specifically target the wp-login.php file, which is the script handling WordPress logins. The attackers have been, are, and will be focusing on common passwords to gain entry and compromise your WordPress website.

You should be safe if you are currently using a secure password as outlined above; however, the attack itself is very resource intensive and, depending on the severity of the attack at any given time, may cause your website to become sluggish or non-responsive for short periods of time. In some cases it has become necessary to completely block access to wp-login.php to prevent the servers from being overwhelmed.

This is the most widely distributed and far-reaching global distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that has been seen in quite some time. Due to the extremely distributed nature and the scale of the attacks, we have implemented checks and measures to mitigate these attacks and minimize their effects.

Typically attacks of this nature do not last more than a few days. However we will continue to work to improve performance throughout the attack and provide you the best service possible.

Please share this post with your network to ensure the words gets out and everyone is kept safe.

DropBox and Google Drive are two cloud-based services that enable users to store their files online. Documents, images, audio and video files can all be stored in this way. Users can customize the permissions associated with a file, allowing sharing and collaboration.

Sellbox provides an extra layer of functionality to DropBox and Drive, enabling users to monetize their files. Providing the uploader owns the rights to a particular piece of content, they can market their work via Sellbox. The service offers several useful features that support online commerce.

1. User-Friendly Interface

Sellbox’s GUI is simple to operate. Users select which of their stored files they want to sell, setting a price and making them available via the Sellbox ecommerce platform. Buyers can buy files with one or two mouse clicks.

2. PayPal Integration

PayPal is one of the best-known and most widely used third party payment providers. Sellbox features PayPal integration, facilitating ecommerce transactions. Buyers can pay for content and sellers receive payment easily, benefiting from PayPal’s various services (such as help with dispute resolution in the event that there is some problem with either the product or the payment).

3. DropBox and Google Drive Integration

DropBox is a very widely-used service. It’s free to sign up, although users who want extra capacity and premium features will need to pay a subscription. Drive is provided as part of the Google suite of cloud-based services; anyone with an existing Google account can quickly set up their own Drive account.

Sellbox facilitates entry into ecommerce by integrating with DropBox and Drive. Free, relatively simple, and in common use, they provide an accessible platform for those wishing to sell their content online.

4. Percentage-Based Fees

Sellbox does not charge users anything to sign up; nor do they have to pay a subscription in order to use the service. Instead, users pay a small percentage of their earnings to Sellbox, meaning that they only pay when they make a sale. Originally this was nine percent; Sellbox has now reduced their fee to five percent.

5. Social Network Sharing

For independent sellers of self-created content, promotion is everything. Sellbox helps to facilitate this by providing easy sharing via Facebook and Twitter. Users can share a link to any one of their files with a single click. Sellbox also provides shortened URLs to make it easier to share via other platforms.

While there are drawbacks to buying and selling content directly – sellers face challenges in terms of promotion and buyers don’t get the quality assurance provided by an established agency or studio – services such as Sellbox are increasingly attractive for creative professionals looking to boost their income and find new customers.

By using a one-click model as opposed to a conventional storefront, buying and selling is simplified. If successful, it seems likely that Sellbox will expand and integrate other cloud platforms.

If you are using social media tools to help blog or website visitors share your content and/or have WordPress integrated for Facebook, you have taken one important step in driving traffic to your site.

But if you are limiting your efforts to Facebook, you are ignoring an increasingly important social media platform – Google+.

Although Google+ has not diminished Facebook’s power, it is steadily climbing in users. In fact, Mashable called Google+ “one social network you don’t want to ignore.”

For your website, Google+ offers features for promotion that Facebook just cannot deliver.

Using Google+ can actually boost your search rankings through its system of Google Circles and +1s given to your content.

Note that the privacy page of your Google+ profile states “Your name and any other fields you make public in your profile are searchable on the web and may appear in Google Search results.” And of course, that’s exactly what you want them to do.

Google uses the data that all Google+ users provide along with what they +1 to tailor search results for them. Building your circles and connections through Google+ will bump your content up every time it gets a +1 or a share.

Every share or +1 given to your content boosts your site’s social signal with Google, while you as author gain in rankings and prestige for every +1 on a post or comment.

If you have neglected Google+ up to now, go ahead and make a Google+ profile then make a Google Page for your website. Use Google+ to announce new content and promote your site.

Finally, make sure you have added a +1 button on your website so that visitors can +1 your content. If you’re using WordPress hosting, you can find a plugin here that will create a +1 button and make it easier to cross post your content to Google+.

Facebook is still a top platform for promoting your site, but adding Google+ to your social media sharing repertoire is the icing on the cake.

Choosing what to watch on TV has become a confusing ordeal thanks to an ever-increasing amount of content available in various platforms. To salvage the situation TweetTV has recently launched new “super responsive” HTML5 mobile apps that provide users with better information on what’s on.

TweetTV is a twitter based social media TV guide and discovery tool that ranks and displays TV programs based on real time social media popularity. Bradley Markham, former Google employee, launched the web-based firm in 2010 to provide TV program tweets that offer far beyond generic keywords and hash tags.

Some of the salient features offered by the HTML5 mobile apps include.

• Multiple Platforms Functionality

These new non-native apps can function across multiple platforms. Users can follow tweets on its platform and subscribe to use the service via their mobile browser without the requirement to install any app or software.

• Different User Interfaces

According to the company, the new mobile solution will provide different user interfaces on smartphones and tablets. This will enable future tweets to be much faster and more native.

• Instant Rewards Program

To facilitate more user engagement and interaction, TweetTV has also launched an instant rewards program through a partnership with PaeDae. Users can accumulate points every time they send tweets and participate on the TweetTV mobile web app page and website. The points can be redeemed as gift cards, discounts and vouchers for free food. According to the CEO, Markham, “the goal of the rewards program is to encourage social media engagement among TV viewers.”

• Live Tags Feature

Taunted to be a first in the industry, live tags show trending usernames, hash-tags, and phrases within sets of tweets related to each program. Clicking on a tag enhances deeper engagement by displaying trends-within-trends. These are relevant trends and tweets related to the tag itself.

• Real-Time Localized TV Guide

These HTML5 mobile apps enable viewers to monitor tweets, contribute to discussions, and have multiuser engagements with anyone else involved in the discussion. This leads to real-time localized program guides that are derived from social media engagement.

Apple provides the platform and tools needed to develop, test and submit an app to their app store. Getting an app approved to the Apple App Store is the Holy Grail for developers as it is highly lucrative.

However, developers have been grappling about Apple’s App Store approval process being controversial and inconsistent since its inception in 2008. Take for instance some apps are accepted then rejected for flimsy reasons, while others are directly rejected without any acceptable reason.

To shed light into this issue, below is some of the challenges developers’ face before getting approval to design and develop an app for App Store.

Despite paying an annual subscription fee to join Apple’s developers program, developers are required to fill lengthy online forms and wait for weeks – that can extend to months – to get the feedback.

As pointed out, the app approval board rejects some apps without providing any logical reason. Most developers complain that there is no transparency in the approval process and that the process is mired with inconsistency and subjectivity.

Most apps are rejected because of minor technical glitches that can be easily corrected by the developer if the approval process had a transparent redress avenue. Minor problems discovered by the approval board should not be allowed to hold up the approval process.

The Apple app store has set well defined but very stringent rules that sometimes muzzle creativity. Apps can be rejected for having spelling errors in the technical jargon or using unpublished APIs. As a general rule no app with a “violent” or “abusive” name will get approved. It’s recommended to have a friendly name for the app to increase chances of passing the stringent approval process.

Several developers have expressed concern regarding the constantly changing online forms and guidelines, which are effected without prior warning. This has resulted in rejection of apps that has been approved earlier. These types of rejections are common for apps that wander into political territory.

For several years the leading trends and hottest debates in the IT world have revolved around cloud computing and big data. However, recently the concept of Internet of Things has taken the crown. The concept of Internet of things, also referred to as machine-to-machine (M2M), entails equipping formerly mundane objects with sensors that automatically send data to IT systems for analysis. The objects can be anything from watches with health care monitors, thermostats in trains to smart meters in parking lots. The overall result may feature intercommunication and autonomous machine-to-machine data transfer, with huge potential to businesses and lifestyles.

Some of the main features about the concept of Internet of things include:

Data Driven Processes

The excitement around the concept of Internet of things is mainly attributed to the amount of data generated. The telematics data generated is highly detailed and geo-specific providing valuable information about the object’s status and location.

Architecture

The system is likely to adopt an event driven architecture, built bottom-up, based on real time data and processes. A multi-agent system protocol will be most suitable as it allows functional approaches to seamlessly co-exist with unclassified actors that can be self-referenced.

Space Considerations

In a machine-to-machine world the precise geographic location of an object will be very critical. Since most of the objects will be tracked using sensors, sensor location in time and space is a very important component for data processing.

Personification of Objects

Mundane objects are given identity as they can intercommunicate and transfer data. They can also sense their surroundings, including their immediate environment, location and detect other devices.

Autonomous Independent Objects

Take for instance one popular debate pictures the zenith of internet of things to feature smart refrigerators that can scan the cartons of milk and detect when the supply will be depleted, based on household consumption history, and place orders for replacement before all the milk is consumed- entirely on its own. Other autonomous devices taunted to be on the pipeline include drug dispensers that can monitor conditions of the human body and issue medication.

Application markets are one of the first stops users make when outfitting a new smartphone. The markets play an important role in the success of the devices on which they run, and it is a factor in why the iOS and Android development platforms continue to dominate the market.

The amount of available product serves as an important metric for comparing software vendors, and Apple has been in the lead for the majority of the existence of the smartphone app market. In October of 2012 however, Android caught up to Apple at 700,000 apps available, and if the trend continues the company will achieve a very real victory over Apple.

Verdict: Android

A market is all about making money, and Apple firmly dominates this sector of the competition with around four times the monthly revenue of Google Play. This might not be the case for long, though. The Q4 2012 numbers show Google Play’s revenue climbing almost 20% a month, while the Apple store is maintaining or dropping.For Android, the gap is not small and the lower return on investment, a ratio of 1 to 8 compared to Apple’s, for Android developers puts Apple firmly ahead in the financial department.

Verdict: Apple

The full list of measurements and facts you can use to compare the two markets could span volumes. Total market share of the respective platforms shows Android firmly in the lead, but the extreme difference and even competition points to it being a less powerful metric. The approval process the companies use for their apps has created more faith in the Apple store. The same approval process and various rules on app content has pushed developers to Google Play, which is likely a factor in the growing number of apps on the device.

Verdict: Tie

The Score
The numbers and general feel of the market is that Google Play is progressing while Apple is trending downward however the rate is quite slow and could easily change. The shift is not by any means fast, but a steady progression is more likely to be an enduring one. It also bodes for a long period of conflict between the two companies, which can only mean good things for smartphone consumers.

In the end, Apple’s much higher revenue and a hardly (relatively) smaller number of apps indicates that they win… Who really cares if Google has one gagillion poorly developed apps!?

Winner: Apple

Do you agree/disagree? Share in the comments!