Facebook allows you to convert your profile into a page? This is great for people who started on Facebook as a profile but also allowed people they do not know to follow them. Since the early days Facebook added pages as a way for businesses to promote their goods and service. This however has left many people with a very public personal profile page, some would like all of their current followers moved across to the their business page, but this can be a slow proces as you have to plead with people to like your page, and really this never works.

Facebook actually has a solution to this. When you convert your profile (timeline) to a Facebook Page, they transfer your profile pictures and add all of your friends and subscribers as people who like your page – very simply. Here is a link on how to do this, but remember to follow the backup plan!

This does leave you with the problem of having to update the remaining profile page, however this will not be much of an issue. Here is some information from Facebook, be sure to follow their instructions to a fault!

To avoid losing important content, we recommend taking these steps before you convert your profile (timeline):
Download your profile (timeline) information. You can download a file that contains all of your sent and received messages and all of the photos and videos you’ve uploaded to Facebook.
Appoint a new group admin or a new Facebook Page admin to any groups or pages that you manage. The account you’re converting will lose these admin rights during the conversion process.

As is their ways WordPress has released the latest version of the WordPress CMS and named it after a legendary musician saxophonist Sonny Stitt.

WordPress.org claims that “in this third major iteration we’ve added significant polish around the new user experience, navigation, uploading, and imports”

Below is a list of new features and updates lifted from the WordPress.org Website

For Users

Experienced users will appreciate the new drag-and-drop uploader, hover menus for the navigation, the new toolbar, improved co-editing support, and the new Tumblr importer. We’ve also been thinking a ton about what the WordPress experience is like for people completely new to the software. Version 3.3 has significant improvements there with pointer tips for new features included in each update, a friendly welcome message for first-time users, and revamped help tabs throughout the interface. Finally we’ve improved the dashboard experience on the iPad and other tablets with better touch support.

For Developers

There is a ton of candy for developers as well. I’d recommend starting your exploration with the new editor API, new jQuery version, better ways to hook into the help screens, more performance post-slug-only permalinks, and of course the entire list of improvements on the Codex and in Trac.

Since the death of one Steve Jobs and release of the Steve Jobs book by Walter Isaacson rumors have been spreading like wildfire about a new television to be released by Apple sometime in 2012.

In this book, Isaacson quotes Steve Jobs: ‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ he told Isaacson. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.’

So what will this be?
Personally I think you only have to look at the iPad or iPhone to understand where this may go and I think I might have some ideas on this. If you look at televisions today they are the slave to the incumbent lazy broadcasters and cable providers, basically every TV has a receiver that scans for channels and if you have cable it works a little the same albeit with a set top box. Nothing has changed for decades and TV manufacturers are stuck in loop of releasing the same tired systems and upgrading them with silly things like hacked on 3D (does anyone seriously think the whole family wearing 3D glasses would catch on?)

I think when Apple releases the new television it will revolutionize the industry and force TV networks, cable suppliers and television manufacturers to change the way we receive our channels, much like music producers were forced kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

Channels as Apps
I think it will work like this, you buy the Apple television and it comes with all the free to air TV apps (think channels as Apps), you download an app (channel) and that is included in your lineup, each app (ABC as an example) has a list of shows that are regularly updated that you can subscribe to and add to your list of shows to watch when you want to watch them. You simply ignore the ones you do not want and they do not appear in your lineup. Newly released (upcoming) shows are showcased on your TV Dashboard.

Accounts
A family may have multiple accounts for different family members (restrictions included) and each login displays a different lineup on the TV Dashboard. This will allow owners to filter access for different users within their family.

Subscription Style Apps
Just like you pay for subscriptions to your favorite magazine and now some apps, you pay for subscriptions for TV/cable style channels, as an example Fox Sports may cost $4.95 per month and you will receive notifications of any Pay per View events from that channel.

iTunes
I think everything will be in iTunes and you will be able to sync watch this across multiple devices such as your iPad, iPhone, iMac, Laptop etc.

The Cloud
Everything will be stored in the cloud, so you take your TV with you on the road or in your hotel, by having everything stored in the cloud access is just a few clicks away.

Location Based Advertising
I have written about this multiple times in the past, but location based advertising is the only thing that will save free to air TV networks and will be a worldwide trillion dollar industry. This will mean if you live in Queens/New York you will not only see national chains advertising on your channels, but also local pizza stores, cafeterias, nightlife and local tourism operators, finally giving the networks access to small business again (watch TV now and advertising is almost entirely from the big boys).

Advertisers
Advertisers will be able to login and see what space is available to advertise their products and services in there own area or areas, they will be able to create ads using web based systems and ad templates and book spots, pay for commercials by credit card and Apple takes a chunk and distributes the rest back to the networks. It would almost make an ad agency/ buying group cry.

Open
I also think this will create a wave of new Tv shows, basically anyone can create a channel and obviously the success of these will depend on subscribers and social word of mouth, but how exciting would this be? Local realtors could create a channel on their local market, local tourism operators could create channels on local areas and attract their own advertisers, you create a channel that becomes popular and advertisers will follow.

Summary
I know this is fairly well departed from anything I have seen written on the web, but I truly think that this model would work if it had the power of Apple, then perhaps Google as a competitor behind it. Current free to air TV networks would get a lifeline – even though I think they are the last ones to deserve this and it would open up a world of opportunities for the little guys.

Then the only thing left for Apple to conquer would be the car stereo and you would easily see how they could change this tomorrow.

Your thoughts?

If you have a Google Apps Account and you understand how to administer this account you can now enable Google Plus for Google Apps for each of the users in your organisation and they in turn can now finally have a Google Plus Profile.

Note: If you are logged into your Google Apps GMail click on Manage Account (should be top right)

A Note on Facebook Pages
Facebook Pages are terrible, admittedly they are getting better. As a company we have invested a considerable sum in building applications for pages with some success, but it is a hard road and the rules governing these developments can be quite limited, with changes looming, it may get better for developers, but for business without integrated apps it can still be a very manual – time consuming affair.

Google Plus for Business

Yes, you will need to be on this site and yes Google Plus for Business (pages, brands) will be rolled out in the coming weeks. Here are some things you will need to know.

Google Apps Users will get Special Treatment
If you are a power user or you want to be a power user you should already be using Google Places, Google Reader (you site must have rss feeds), Google Webmaster, Google Analytics, Google Calendar and possibly even Feedburner. If you have a Google Account you can sign into that account to get access to all of these services (after sign-in)

The above have little to do with what you can accomplish with Google Plus but they definitely will make life easier once Google Business Pages rolls out.

Google Plus Company Pages

Looking through the Google Plus source we can definitely see what is on the horizon and most of this is pretty cool indeed and will have Facebook rolling out updates (finally) for Facebook pages.

Google Meeting
Like Hangouts, but for business, Google Meeting will allow you to organise, record and store, phone, text and video meetings with groups of up to 10 people. Attendees will be able to be invited via Google Calendar, GMail and Google Chat. The possibilities with this will be pretty cool for people to collaborate and share information on projects and the like.

Google Screencasts
You will be able to record screens and share them with people within this meeting, you will possibly be able to create notes whilst you record your screen on the screen and archive all of these within a screencast.

Google WhiteBoard
Google Whiteboard is a document style process where users can collaborate on documents, share them amongst users and then post them via email.

Google Location
This one is a wild guess, but looking at the code, it seems that you can also track people within an organisation (users must opt in) to see where they are currently located on a map.

My feeling is business pages will take over Google Sites, which is very underwhelming, this would mean users can create multiple business pages and create circles for those pages.

All in all Google Plus is building into a substantial success for Google and my belief with Google Company Pages being released shortly it is going to cause some headaches for Facebook. Better yet, we will all benefit from the competition as more and more features are rolled out. Competition – don’t you just love it.

How to get Shortcut (Vanity URL)

www.Gplus.to allows this. This nifty little app lets you create a short URL for your Google+ page, making it easier to share with your friends. As an example, is Gplus.to/peterricci , is much easier to remember instead of digits e.g http://plus.google.com/117489371829741156604

I have just created my Google Apps Plus Account. You can add me here

Ever since Google introduced Google+ to us a few months back we have seen a rapid acceleration in features both on Facebook and Google+, particularly on the personal front, whilst business pages and groups are being left behind.

Google’s Shame

The one thing that truly baffles me is how Google are treating it’s business customers. If you have a Google Apps for Business Account you would have noticed your Google profile and other services being migrated across to get ready for the slew of new features. After this migration you find you cannot have a Google Profile and you cannot access Google+ (and some other services with your username and password). Google inform the millions of paying Google customers that these features will be available soon.

I can see their reasoning (but only from their point of view) in getting Google+ to tens of millions of free users for beta testing, but to relegate your business customers who, incidentally, are the only ones who pay for Gmail, Docs, Calendars, Contacts etc, is well, nothing short of pathetic! You would be hard pressed to find another large company in the world who would offer new services in this manner! Business customers are angry and they will need to do something special to win back their hearts.

Facebook Accelerates

Facebook is going down the media path with music services, they have also updated their Chat feature to include videos and group chats, rebuilt their photo tools, viewers, added HD photos and rumored to announce movies – where you can watch together online. In fact over the next few months Facebook will add more new features than they have added in the past 3 years.

Business currently goes Missing

One group that has been left behind so far are Facebook Pages, the features are pretty ordinary compared to what you get on your personal profile! As an example – you cannot feed directly to your Facebook business page directly from your website, like you can do on your personal profile, it would not take a lot of coding to get this feature up, but it seems that Facebook is obsessed with Google+ on the personal level at the moment and with a looming IPO they do not want to head to a huge payday on the downward slide.

As for Google+, well the less said about this in its current form the better. Christian Oestlien, Google’s Group Product Manager, recently spoke on Google+ for businesses and said it was an oversight, yeah right Christian. I can assure you there would have been multiple meetings about this very subject and the heat you would receive on this, so we are left with open assurances and very little information.

Google CEO Larry Page has been taking the axe to many of the services Google offers that do not have widespread popularity and instead focussing on what he thinks will define Google over the next decade – Google will neglect business users at their own peril as they now number in the 10′s of millions. Luckily for Google is the reality that their Google Business accounts and services are pretty darn good and more importantly ingrained in the day to do minutia of what how we go about our business!

I personally think Google+ will be much better than Facebook for businesses when it becomes available? Why? Because Google already provides and we rely on so many of their services for our websites and day to day businesses, integrating all of this no doubt takes time, but once this is integrated, I feel that Google+ will dominate the business market. Not only that, I am sure Google+ for business will also be integrated into search results and other business services such as Google Places, Google Voice, Google Checkout, Adwords, Adsense, Google Analytics, Google Calendar etc. Many of these Facebook can ever remotely compete with, especially with many coupled with Google Search results.

Competition

We again learn the lesson of competition in the marketplace being good for consumers, the more robust competition, the better the features offered, the more ongoing innovation and of course the less money bled from our collective wallets.

For all of us in the business world, well, we just need Google to enter the business fray with Google Plus (later this year) and finally we will then see a host of new services on Facebook for businesses and the real fight will begin!

A few years ago I gave a talk to a real estate franchise group in Adelaide and told the audience that I shared Twitter and Linkedin with pretty much anyone, but wanted to keep my Facebook just for family and close friends – I even had a 100 rule, that is I would never go over a hundred family and friends, this made it a culling process as I quickly reached 100, and it also earned me some ire on occasions. Over the past few years has become impossible, I mean, how do you tell a client you like and that spends their hard earned money with you that you have just denied them friendship on Facebook, how do you tell a childhood sweetheart that that ‘pash’ we had behind the gym meant nothing to me (when every single one of them is still indelibly imprinted in my mind) and that after meeting a new friend in a new city that you have strict rules of engagement on your Facebook profile, yes, you see where I am going – put me immediately in the strange “Circle”!

I know Facebook allows you to do some major tweaking to make it limited for certain types of users, but it is very primitive and way too time consuming and definitely a programming afterthought.

Facebook also has some of the most ridiculous algorithms for filling up your profile wall and news feed with junk from books, movies etc and people you like who have a strange tendency to click on anything slightly pornographic!

Don’t get me wrong, Facebook is great, you can share and connect with friends, but to me, something just seems missing from the experience and it is definitely not friends sharing the minutia of their daily life with me or celebrating some dunce unelected peer marrying another dunce. It just seems so 2009!

Google Plus

Enter Google+, Google Plus is Google’s challenge to Facebook and really is the evolution of Facebook for people who want to selectively share/connect their personal information all in very unlike Google beautiful way.

The interface is gorgeous and very intuitive and getting up and running is a breeze, I have added a link here to the demo here so you can have a play for yourself and see what I am talking about.

Here is Google’s Take on the main features, you will see I have added a brief comment in italics below each of Google’s comments and a video guide for each of the major features.

Circles

You share different things with different people. So sharing the right stuff with the right people shouldn’t be a hassle. Circles makes it easy to put your friends from Saturday night in one circle, your parents in another, and your boss in a circle by himself – just like real life.

The Circles tools is easily the most powerful tool and is seriously cool. Just watch Facebook try to emulate this as their groups settings is a major programming and user embarrassment.

Hangouts

With Hangouts, the unplanned meet-up comes to the web for the first time. Let specific buddies (or entire circles) know you’re hanging out and then see who drops by for a face-to-face-to-face chat. Until teleportation arrives, it’s the next best thing.

This is another great feature, adding people is easy and the video chat is of great quality. I can see meetings, catching up with the family on special occasions and sharing old times with friends

Instant Uploads

Taking photos is fun. Sharing photos is fun. Getting photos off your phone is pretty much the opposite of fun. With Instant Upload, your photos and videos upload themselves automatically, to a private album on Google+. All you have to do is decide who to share them with.

This was also a breeze for me, although I have read some threads where some users did not have the same experience.

Sparks

Tell Sparks what you’re into and it will send you stuff it thinks you’ll like, so when you’re free, there’s always something cool to watch, read, or share.

Sparks needs some work, it can be a little overwhelming and you will need to be sure you enter terms carefully or you maybe presented with too much information

Huddle

Texting is great, but not when you’re trying to get six different people to decide on a movie. Huddle turns all those different conversations into one simple group chat, so everyone gets on the same page all at once. Your thumbs will thank you.

I loved this feature, although I currently have limited people to share it with, but I can see this being another great addition to the suite.

Future Support for Business

Google has made is clear it will add support for it’s business clients later in the year, this is a bit of a pain, as I want it now and will have to delete my profile when the business version is added, or have two profiles, not good!

What’s wrong with it so far?

No Google Apps Integration, this seems silly and possibly a sign the product was a little rushed, but this needs to be done ASAP – these are your premium customers Google!

Product Manager Christian Oestlien says that the Google+ is working on creating a unique experience for business customers that includes many of the features business use such as analytics and adwords. “How users communicate with each other is different from how they communicate with brands,” Oestlien argues.

There are still some bugs around and updating sometimes throttled and was slow. This is a limited first release, so I am not going to be too harsh on this at the moment.

Summary

Overall Google Plus is a killer product and one that users with varied interests, privacy concerns will embrace en-masse.I can also see this as being a great education tool for schools and projects.

It is by far the best personal/business social networking tool on offer and you can kiss Linkedin.com goodbye, which wouldn’t be hard to do as it is by far the worst large social site out there (too many chest thumpers).

I am seriously so enthralled by this technology and really, it has come from nowhere. I cannot tell you how cool this is, you will have to experience it for yourself.

Will it top Facebook? Well, firstly I am not sure it needs to, but this will be my destination, primarily because I already use so many of Google’s Apps and so many of their tools already. There is also a small user base compared to Facebook and only when it kicks to the 10′s of millions of users will we see if it explodes in growth from there.

I just wished it came from someone other than Google, I am seriously disappointed with the innovation of Australia’s Largest Media companies who seem to be just stuck in this mentality of “well if someone builds something cool we will just buy it”. The problem is that everything that is super cool surpasses even their budgets and they are left buying companies that are very easy to beat in the long run or they beat them to death until they are a shadow of their former selves.

Google Getting its Groove

Google is learning from Apple here as well, interfaces that are beautiful do work, if they are done in a simplistic stylish manner and this looks like an Apple Product and it works! Google has always been about user interfaces and mainly text based, but this shows you can mix it up a little with nice icons and beautiful font usage.

The default theme Twenty Ten has been replaced by Twenty Eleven, an HTML5 powered versioned theme with some nice little goodies attached.

As a developer of WordPress Solutions since the software arrived on the scene in the mid 2000′s I have seen many developments go through our Sydney, Melbourne Boston and Miami studios and the one thing that is always a constant is the need for the business owner to take responsibility for the continued success of the website. To me the design should be in the simplest form possible to allow users to get to the information as quickly as possible.

The moment you begin thinking about wanting things on your site for purely an aesthetic purpose is the moment you start to lose the core principal of interface design. Concentrate on what your users want to see and hear on your website. Here is a breakdown of some important tips and advice to make sure your development is a success.

Choosing a Domain Name

Your domain name should be as close to your business name as possible. If you are starting a new venture, then you should either go for a .com or a country specific name such as a .com.au (for Australia) and .co.nz (for New Zealand). Remember this one important note – I call it “out the door” policy. If someone is leaving your home or office and they are walking out the door and ask that simple question – “what’s your domain name?” and you have to explain it’s spelling or something special about the name, then it is the wrong name!

Branding & Design

So you have a logo? Great, next thing you must do is to create a style document, one that instantly gives your brand understanding and recognition. A style document also explains font usage and other elements that guide the web design, printing, signage etc. Here is a little list of minimum requirements that should accompany any logo.

This way anyone who works with your brand understands exactly the requirements that must be met.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) + Unique Content

We all want our websites to appear higher in search rankings and you can be assured you will get a truckload of enquiries from SEO firms telling you how you can appear higher in search results. Truth is they are for the most part useless and a waste of money.

Only one thing rules in SEO and that is a proper framework (WordPress is perfect) and the second thing is unique content. Unique content means articles, posts, pages links all written by you that directly targets the audience you want. Let’s use this article as an exmaple.

We have a headline “WordPress Design & Development for success on any budget!” we have the bosy content (everything you are reading here) and we also have tags. Tags in WordPress are unique identifiers within a post. These should only be keywords such as people, places and items of importance. In this instance I am using these tags, WordPress, Web Design, Domain Names, SEO, Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Optimization, Branding, Logos and Logo. These are all common terms and I do not expect to get great results from them. However if I continually write about these terms then the more and more pages I will have in Google and other search engines under these terms.

Yakadanda ranks highly in search terms such as WordPress Web Design Sydney because we take the effort to continually write about WordPress, Web Design and we have an office in Sydney. We have only opened up our WordPress Studios in Boston and now Miami and over time we will continue to rise for those terms as well.

Remember, you put the effort in and you get the results. If not – then do not expect empathy from your developer. The problem with this route is it takes time, but once you get there all the rewards will come. So make the effort now and get the rewards later. You can of course choose to combine this with Search Engine Marketing (paying for search positions) but the moment you stop paying is the moment you lose position.

We all want to be successful online and there is no shortage of companies offering you a quick way to get to the top of Google results. However the majority of these companies are useless and even if you have short term success with them you will need to continually pay them to keep those results.

Another problem with these businesses is that they are flouting Google’s rules and as many have recently discovered, Google is on the lookout for them! Google adds over 500 new rules to their search algorithm each year (so stay away from anyone who pretends to have worked it out) and the recent update dumped so many of these companies down the order. So my advice is to ignore them entirely and save your money.

So how do you become a success online with Google?

Simple, write effective unique content regularly targeting your audience and the location with which they operate – the more specific the better! If you are a local business write locally, mention places and local business names, invite others to write for you as well – ones that can compliment your offering. WordPress allows for multiple authors with multiple levels of permissions!

Being Effective

How do you do this effectively? You set aside time each week to write articles and post them regularly. Set aside a few hours on a specific day each week and take no calls or appointments during this time without any reasonable exceptions.

Regular Complaints and Excuses

If a client complains to me about their search results, I immediately look at their website and see how often they write articles. I can bet you my last dollar that they would have neglected this and to them I feel no pity and only offer them the advice I am offering you here.

Another regular excuse is not having the time. WordPress allows you to write from anywhere on any device including your mobile phone, so there is always a time where you can write an article an post it live. As an example I am sitting here on my laptop in a park waiting for a friend (who is usually late) so I just thought about writing this little article.

WordPressCMS

WordPress is the perfect tool for a successful online business, be it in services or to a lesser extent (not for long) with products. WordPress allow you to easily write news articles just like this one from any location where you have a connected device, WordPress is available through your browser on your Desktop, Laptop and has apps for your iPad or Mobile iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

You can write today and schedule articles to go up at different times, you can add audio, files, video, images and links quickly and easily.

So there is no excuse with a good clean supported WordPress website. There are plenty of resources online to learn and also a number of WordPress books on Amazon – although with WordPress these books quickly become out of date as the software is updated regularly.

If you are a small business and you are looking to succeed online then a great starting point is WordPress. WordPress has gone from being a blogging plastform to being a premier content management system. Over the years I have had the pleasure of speaking at WordPress and business events in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Denver and Miami and the one thing everyone wants to do is succeed online and WordPress is far ands way the best publishing tool money can buy.

Costs

Although WordPress is a free platform (open source) you need a great partner to develop and support you through the process of designing or customizing a theme and arming you with the tools and knowledge necessary for success. Generally speaking you can get a good basic WordPress website for around $1,500 installed, configured and ready to roll, but when you want things special to you, you can then start adding up the time and costs.

Getting going

Once your site is ready, write unique content specific to your target audience daily (if possible) and keep it location based. If your business is in Sydney then talk about Sydney and your business and you will soon find yourself climbing up in Google search results!