"#Google+, +1, Facebook, Twitter, Scoop, Foursquare, Empire Avenue, Klout and more"

How Social Media Is Ruining Our Minds  Just how rewired have YOU become?

This piece was written by Dave Copeland for Readwriteweb. There have been many articles about Pinterest but if you do nothing else, read the white paper by Engauge and report they're referring to. It is absolutely the best one I've seen to date. (more details below)

The most important thing in this piece is the report, here's what you'll see:

A new Engauge white paper breaks down:

**the make-up of the average Pinterest user 

**shows that the end result of less reading is more of a focus on content curation than creation.

**The timing of that trend, combined with a stunning design when Internet users are focusing more on visual than text, has allowed Pinterest to explode in popularity.

This is what caught my attention - a quote from a user:

"When I'm looking for new trends on specific topics like fashion or birthday party themes, I now search Pinterest first -- not Google." - Karah Street

Curated by Jan Gordon covering "Content Curation, Social Business and Beyond"

If you're in making Pinterest work for you, you might want to visit my other topic: Pinterest Watch. 

Read full article here: [http://rww.to/yQtDNQ]

Mobile sharing increase six-fold over 2010, Google+ plateaus and Twitter & FB continue world domination. Great infographic from AddThis on social sharing in 2011 . . .

Post by Jeff Bullas very interesting observations

"The Google+ Project has drawn the innovators and early adopters into its web and it is producing activities that have surprised myself and others."

Intro:

In 1962 Everett Rogers published the book “Diffusion of Innovations” where he synthesized research from over 508 diffusion studies and produced a theory that proposed 4 main elements that influence the spread of an idea.

1. The Innovation

An idea, practice or object that is perceived as new

2. Communication Channels

The means by which messages get from one individual to another

3. Time

The relative speed with which an innovation is adopted by members of the social system

4. The Social System

The people that are engaged in joint problem solving to achieve a common goal

He also outlined the following adopter categories that reveal the percentages of the types of participants that are involved in the innovation cycle.

Google+ users have in the last few days increased by almost 30% with 2 major events providing the catalyst to its growth. Facebook making significant changes that has angered users and Google+ opening its platform to the public.

Excerpt:

According to a survey being run on Mashable, 78% of users hate the new changes.

Users to Facebook who don’t like the changes are venting their anger by using the hashtag #newfacebook on Twitter when making their feelings felt in 140 character bursts. If you want to watch the comments fly by in the Twitter stream, then check it out… it makes interesting reading.

The timing is apparently working well for Google+ with Paul Allen estimating that the Google social networking has grown by 30% in just two days. Paul’s estimates of Google+ growth are based upon solid sampling methodologies that have proven to be very accurate in the past.

Facebook announced some major changes last week including significant modifications to its profile pages at the annual F8 Developers Conference.

Just a few days before that announcement Google+ decided to open its doors to the general public. I don’t think that is a coincidence!

The conference and some of the changes were already publicly known and Google was well aware of the conference timing.

The timing is apparently working well for Google+ with Paul Allen estimating that the Google social networking has grown by 30% in just two days.

Facebook and Google Plus battle for world domination, here is the list of the latest updates before the F8 Developer Conference starts...

This article ends with a rather breathtaking timeline of the battle for supremacy, listing all innovations by the two titans in the order in which they were annoinced.

You just know this is barely the beginning, so stay tuned, folks!

5 Social Media Platforms to Build Smarter Relationships by Mario Corona

Free Download Buzz brings 64 Pinterest Marketing Tips and Tactics for Business [Infographic] to market business with help of Pinterest interactive visuals...

This article on fastcodesign.com features what can be best described as Infographic Art, produced by Eric Fischer.

There is a World map in which there are no borders and the predominant language of Tweets are depicted in colors. 

There are 4 other maps, the third of which is of New York City its famed cultural melting pot.

The depictions are beautiful. See them all here: [http://bit.ly/rZTnd7]

Enjoy!

This post is from Jeff Bullas and as always he has some very important information  about a StumbleUpon that you should know about.

Intro:

"I recently stumbled across some data from Stat Counter that revealed that StumbleUpon drives more referral traffic than Facebook and Twitter or any other social media site!"

**The Statistics on StumbleUpon Worth Noting

**StumbleUpon itself has just released a infographic that highlights some interesting facts and figures about its service that is worth keeping in mind

Read the full article:  http://bit.ly/rAMOWw

Are we surprised by this? What are the benefits and the downside for us as participants?

Good piece by Matthew Ingram Sr. Writer for Gigaom..........

Intro:

By now it’s become fairly obvious that Google’s new social network, Google+, is here to stay (unlike some of the company’s past efforts at being social): depending on which estimates you believe,

**Google+ may have as many as 50 million registered users, which is not bad for a three-month old product.

And the company has made it clear that it wants to use Google+ as a kind of identity platform for other things — hence the importance of its controversial “real name” policy.

**But it wasn’t obvious just how much was riding on the new network until recently, thanks in part to some comments made by vice-president of product Brad Horowitz, who said that in the future, Google+ and Google will effectively become inseparable.

Here's what caught my attention:

"Tying all that to my real name and my Google+ posts is another step down the road towards a potential personal privacy debacle.

**That’s the problem with the kind of ubiquity that Google wants for its Google+ network, and the downside of trying to copy (and improve on) a giant social network like Facebook: along with all of the benefits comes the risks and the inevitable backlash as well

**— and for a company that is already under investigation by the FTC for how far its reach extends, that may be a bit more than even Google can handle.

What do you think?

http://gigaom.com/2011/09/30/its-official-google-will-be-connected-to-everything/

I'm sure you've notice all the changes on Facebook. Dave Peck has written this post, he explains the new lists (Smart List and Special Friend List) in layman terms and how you can best leverage these to good effect.

Intro:

There are friends and then there are some special friends. Until now, Facebook has weighed them all on the same scale. In fact, Google Plus exploited this very weakness to great effect with its circles feature. However, that’s all set to change with Facebook’s new Smart List and Special Friend List.

The underlying principle is simple – the one size fits all rule just doesn’t work when it comes to friendship so there got to be a way to treat friends differently.

In this post, I explain the new lists (Smart List and Special Friend List) in layman terms and how you can best leverage these to good effect.

Smart List

For those who are on Google+, Smart Lists are essentially the circles for Facebook. In fact, it’s one step ahead of G+ circles. Smart Lists automatically group your Facebook friends in these different categories: family, city, high school, college and work.

All the people in your feed who listed that they went to your same school or college will automatically be added to those feeds, and all the people who list where they work will be added to your work friends group.

So, users are saved the hassle of being forced to add people in lists manually. The best part – you can turn it off and customize it as per your needs.

In this post, I express my opinion on how Facebook doubled its revenues and what your business can learn from it.

http://davepeck.visibli.com/share/aaRX95

Jeff Bullas never disappoints, this article is packed with vital information you need to know no matter if you're curating content to build your personal brand or marketing services.

Here's what caught my attention:

"The survival of the social species is a digital battle that will create opportunities and disrupt traditional business models for decades to come."

The Battle for Social

This small change to Google’s search features reveals an evolution of the web that is an early indicator of the growing battle for social that will over time produce winners and losers but will also create a web that will surprise you with its speed and capabilities. The announcement and launching of Google+ saw Zuckerberg respond with a a Skype feature offering free video calls and promising more to come.

Social is about Sharing

All marketers know that if you can make something so shareable that it goes viral then you will produce results for brands that will sell products, make people famous and maybe even position your agency as part of marketing folklore.

http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/07/18/is-it-better-to-share-on-google-facebook-or-twitter/