YouTube and Google Maps Work on Home, an Environment-Based Film

As we witness growing concerns for our planet due to the cruel onslaught of human on the environment, global search engine leader Google has decided to take the initiative and spread awareness about its dangerous consequences. The search company is all set to share a new environmental film project between YouTube and Google Maps, two of the most renowned products of Google. The aim is to make people understand the state of our planet by airing a full-length film ‘Home’ on its video-sharing site YouTube.

The exclusive 90 minute film ‘Home’ by Luc Besson and Yann-Arthus Betrand will be available in four different languages – English, French, German and Spanish beginning June 5, the World Environment Day.

Celebrities and Social Networking

Since the last couple of years, the popularity of social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and more recently Twitter has attracted not only common users, but also celebrities from across the world. Not surprisingly, as soon as a celeb becomes a member of any particular social networking site, the popularity of that site shoots up by being in news throughout the Web. One such example is that of Oprah Winfrey, who recently became a member of Twitter, a fast-growing micro-blogging and social networking site.

Looking at the rapid growth of user-base on social networking sites, it is interesting to see personalities from the entertainment as well as sports industry joining them and becoming a part of the site. Celebrities who used to prefer staying away from the media and paparazzi are now exposed to the entire world, at their very own choice. Probably, this is a smart choice because of the following three reasons:

3 Marketing Lessons You Can Learn From Micro-blogging

The micro-blogging fever has caught millions of people around the world today. Sites such as Twitter, Jaiku, Tumblr, Frazr, etc. have become prominent over Web not just for common Internet users but also from the business perspective. These micro-blogging sites are an excellent example of how to keep users engaged and encourage them to spend more time on the site.

With social media on a rise, the role for marketers has become more decisive to create their marketing messages. Due to social media, not only companies are tracking their consumer’s behaviour, but also the other way around. Communication has become more visible as social media is accessible to all freely. This has made the task even more challenging for the marketers.

However, the good thing that social media has done is that it has enlightened companies to learn how to connect with their customers better by creating powerful communication strategies. Especially micro-blogging sites provide useful marketing lessons that can help marketers perform better as far as their marketing messages are concerned.

MySpace and Fox News Join Hands to Support Citizen Journalism

With citizen journalism becoming a popular activity over Web (thanks to social media), MySpace invited its users to be a part of the activity by becoming volunteer ‘uReporters’. All that the users would need to do is supply news, images or videos that can be used at MySpace and Fox News Channel, a subsidiary of News Corp.

MySpace, which is also owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., launched this feature in collaboration with Fox News to showcase journalism generated and contributed by common people. Citizen journalism works on the principle of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information by average citizens.

Facebook: 200 Million and Growing…

Finally, it has happened! Facebook achieved yet another milestone – this time one of its biggest – by having over 200 million registered users on its site. The wait hasn’t been too long for the social networking leader, considering that it is far ahead of its competitors and has seen an extremely rapid growth since the past year or so.

Online users keep looking for a place on the Web that provides them connectivity, entertainment and knowledge resources, and there is no doubt that Facebook is the one that satisfies their need. The site has not only been able to cross all the borders in the world, but has also managed to double its user-base in a span of only eight months.

Popularizing Your Blog Without Marketing

Making your blog known to the global Internet users is a challenging task, especially because of the large number of blogs existing today. Choose any topic, and you will find that there are several blogs already available on the same or similar subject. This makes it even trickier to carve out a name for your blog on the Web.

While we know the importance of social media in marketing your blog or rather any website, it is also important to remember that social media marketing is not the only solution. There are several things that go into the making of a blog, such as the topic of the blog, basic knowledge about the subject, ability to communicate and content creation.

How to Beat the Social Networking Addiction!

Today, one of the most difficult things for majority of us is to spend a day without logging in to a social networking site. Everyday, most (if not all) of us access atleast one social network to know what our friends are upto, or to let people know about what’s happening in our life. Slowly and steadily, this process becomes repetitive, eventually turning out to be an addiction, isn’t it?

I have come across many people who spend a lot of time using various applications that sometimes provide absolutely “nonsense” results. Secondly, when you actually see your friends’ activity on the site, you realize that most of the updates take place in regular intervals within a day. This shows that people log in multiple times on a social network in a single day to pass their time, doing nothing productive.

With the rise in time spent on social networking sites, we can clearly see two major transformations taking place:

Google Interested to Acquire Twitter

Until few years back, getting into the social networking business might have been easy. But today, with the likes of Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Friendster, etc. it is extremely difficult to start one right from scratch. Probably, this is one of the reasons why search leader Google is eyeing Twitter, a rapidly growing micro-blogging and social networking site.

According to reports, acquiring Twitter will strengthen Google’s ability to expand its advertising and social networking platform. The buyout deal, which will include millions of dollars, will help Google add another business vertical that will cater to the social networking needs of its users, and assist advertisers to better their reach.

Reportedly, Twitter turned down Facebook’s offer worth half a billion dollar, which was made up of Facebook’s stock in November last year. On the other hand, as per a recent valuation, Google’s offer pegged at $250-million-plus that included cash/public stock according to rumors.

Facebook Launches Classic and Premium Versions

It seems Facebook is getting deep into making its site layout friendlier for its users. It has been hardly any time that Facebook set up its latest design update, and the social networking giant is at it again –this time by launching a couple of beta services in form of Facebook Classic and Facebook Premium. The two are distinctly different from each other and offer bundle of services for the users.

Facebook Classic allows users to choose a Facebook design of their choice. From the pre-news feed layout to the single-page layout (which was popular during the last year) beta users will get the license to select the interface as per their preference.

Tips to Get Started With a Business Blog

The concept of social media has spread like fire across the world, and is gaining momentum day after day due to its powerful and influential nature. Besides social networks, blogs have become a must-visit destination for users to gain information on various subjects pertaining to their interest. Word-of-mouth has been faster than ever before, and several companies throughout the world are realizing the importance to get started with a blog that provides details about their brands.

However, there are still millions of companies who are skeptical about having a business blog due to fear of negative comments and/or lack of trust in blogs. Blogging is all about patience, and it needs great amount of effort to get your blog reach a commendable position in the online world.