How to Customize Google+

1. Google Plus Header Hider (Mozilla) hides the black bar at the top of the screen. Hover over it to bring it back.

2. Google+ Enhancer (Mozilla) adds the number of unread items in Gmail, Reader, and Calendar to the black bar.

3. Google+ Manager (Firefox) and Goo Plus Manager (Chrome) gives you keyboard shortcuts and a table that outlines them all, as well as adding a translation button next to every post.

4. Google Plus Tweaks (Mozilla; also available for Chrome) hides Google+ functions or features that you don't use, expands the page to the full screen width, and lets you toggle comments, preview images on roll-over, and more.

5. Adhik (Safari, Chrome) is somewhat similar to Google Plus Tweaks, streamlining the look and general experience of Google+ with design modifications that focus on the content being shared by people in your Circles. Notice in the image the "linen" background and how posts are more prominently boxed off.

6. Google+ Commander (Mozilla) lets you add keyboard shortcuts for sharing, plus-one-ing, commenting, displaying notifications, and jumping between your homepage, profile, photos, and Circles.

7. Fixed Google+ Notification Bar (Mozilla) freezes the Google+ notification bar for quicker access to notifications and other features on Google Plus and Google Search. Two variations are included: only that freezes the right part of the bar, and one that freezes the entire bar.

8. G+ Friends First (Mozilla) shows your friend stream by default when Google+ first loads.

9. Google Plus Auto Pager (Mozilla) auto-selects the "More" button at the bottom of posts on a profile page, letting you scroll through more updates faster.

10. Nicknames For Google Plus (Mozilla) lets you add nicknames and icons to your contacts in Google Plus, using a Google Doc spreadsheet. (Note that the original spreadsheet adds nicknames for existing users whom you may not know or want to follow. The second link provides details on creating your own spreadsheet.) 

11. Show full size links to Google Plus album photos (Mozilla) gathers links to full-sized photos being previewed on a Google+ album page via a button in the menu bar.

12. Google+Facebook (for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome)—currently in dispute with Facebook and not supported at present--adds a Facebook icon to your Google+ page to the left of the home icon that displays your Facebook feed. This plug-in worked at first until Facebook pulled the plug on it. We can't guarantee that service will resume.

13. Surplus (Chrome)

The toolbar offers plenty of useful functionality, but unlike Mary's little lamb it simply doesn't follow us everywhere we go. Pop the Surplus extension into Google Chrome, and you'll have access to your notifications no matter where you are. Surplus also lets you utilize the Google+ sharing functions even when the bar is MIA.

14. Google+ -> Contrast, Denser, More Features (Chrome) lets you customize scrolling, background, navigation, image size, and placement of other elements on the page.

15. Google+ Ultimate for Google Plus (Chrome) rejiggers a lot of the look and feel of Google+'s UI, such as the making the status bar at the top of the page and the left sidebar float so that they stay in place when you scroll, slimming down the scrollbars, and adjusting the whitespace on the page.

16. Move Your Photos (Chrome) transfers your Facebook photos to Google+ Photos (i.e., Google Picasa).

Source :  http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388909,00.asp

Google+ About To Hit 10 Million Users

Google’s social network, Google+, might be one of the fastest-growing networks ever, having already reached 10 million users according to one estimate.

Paul Allen, of Ancestry.com — not to be confused with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen — has developed an interesting methodology to calculate the number of Google+ members.

He sampled a number of surnames from the U.S. Census Bureau data and compared it to surnames of Google+ users. By comparing surname popularity in the U.S. with the number of users on Google+ with each surname, he can guesstimate the percentage of the U.S. population that signed up for Google+. Finally, he calculated a ratio of U.S. to non-U.S. users to generate an estimate for the number of Google+ users worldwide.

The result? Google+ has approximately 9.5 million users worldwide, with 2.2 million joining in the past 32 to 34 hours, according to Allen’s estimates.

This is amazing growth even for a giant such as Google: We cannot remember any social network reaching so many members so quickly after its release.

Coming from a third party, the data is obviously unofficial (we asked Google for comment on these numbers, but haven’t heard from them) and should be taken with a grain of salt. If they’re true, though, they indicate that — after so many stumbles — Google might finally be conquering the social networking arena.

Resource: http://mashable.com

Google+ challenges Facebook in social network battle

Online search giant Google has launched a new social networking website in its latest attempt to take on Facebook, which now claims more than 500m users. Google+ allows individuals to share photos, messages and comments but also integrates the company's maps and images into the service. It also aims to help users easily organise contacts within groups. But some analysts say Google has simply reproduced features of Facebook while adding a video chat function. Google, which handles roughly two out of every three internet searches in the US, has taken several stabs at Facebook in recent years. But its previous efforts ended in failure, with both Google Wave and Google Buzz proving unpopular with users.

New functions

The company is now boasting that four features in Google+ could help make the company a permanent player in social networking:

Circles - a functionality that allows individuals to place friends into groups, allowing users to share different forms of content with targeted clusters of friends

Hangouts - live multi-user video conferencing that permits friends to drop in and out of live group conversations

Huddle - group instant messaging

Sparks - a feature that connects individuals on the network to others with common interests.

The current version of Google+ has only been released to a small number of users, but the company has said it soon hopes to make the social network available to the millions of individuals that use its services each day.

Source : BBC

Internet Marketing: What & How?

Internet penetration is growing in India every day as shown by Fig 1. There are over 71 million internet users in India of which 52 are active. Active users are users who use internet at least once a month. 

 Fig 1 Growth on Internet Users in India (Source IAMAI) 

Till 2004, over 44% of internet users were based in top 8 metros. This trend is also changing as shown from Fig 2.

 

Fig 2: Distribution of Internet Users in India (Source IAMAI)               Fig 3: Average time spent weekly (Source IAMAA)

Average time spent every week by users on internet is at historic high (Fig 3). All these numbers point to strong growth of internet in India in coming years. 

Speed of innovation in localization and personalization will fuel significant part of this growth.

Early adopters of internet for business purposes will reap rich benefits as they will grow with this medium. Internet can be used effectively to deliver marketing messages. In order to do so, there are certain tools and techniques that one needs to be aware of. Remainder of this article will discuss those tools and techniques and try to unravel the mystery with some key phrases that are thrown while selling Internet marketing.

Internet Marketing in its simplistic form is a way to deliver marketing messages about your product and services when the surfer is looking for related products and services. Simplest example is to show a simple message of a batching plant manufacturer on the screen when you are reading an email about concrete batching plant.

In this article at a high level, cover basics of internet marketing. Future articles will get into detail of each tool and how to use them effectively. 

Internet Marketing Tools

 Domain Name Over 70% of internet traffic originates from search engines. Your domain name can play a key role in bringing part of that traffic to your web site. Most people tend to forget that the company name and domain names can be different. Best strategy to adopt while selecting domain names is to know the keywords related to your products and services people are searching for and embed them in the domain name. One should reserve company name domain as well to ensure that people who remember your company by its name can visit your site.

 Website Your website is your best yet absolutely non performing asset in creating branding on the net. It is one of the most significant tools that is in your control that you have managed to ignore most. Most of the websites have not evolved to being effective marketing collaterals. They still take too much time, show irrelevant information, are not created with surfer in mind and the list goes on and on.

 Today, an average surfer gives you about 15 seconds. If you are able to show him/her what he/she is looking for, there is a good chance that the surfer will stay at the site for another 3 to 3 ½ minutes. So my question to you is.. Can your website giving that crisp message to the surfer to keep him at the site for another 3 minutes and are you able to provide him all the information he/she seeks in the next 3 minutes he/she is going to grant you.

In my next article, we will discuss at length how web sites should be built to goad surfer to take action. We will also discuss how websites can allow you to know more about your prospective customers and will help you track effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) How many of you have purchased a service provided by many service providers called SEO and are dissatisfied with the result? 

 For people who are not familiar with this phrase, SEO is a commonly used technique to ensure that your website gets listed in the first 2 pages of any search engine result (SER). It has been shown by various research that first 2 pages of search engine result get majority of the traffic. In other words, surfers tend to ignore search engine result pages after 2^nd page. No service provider in the world can guarantee listing in first 2 pages so PLEASE do not ask for a promise that no one, except the search engine companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, can make. Only high traffic and well structured websites ensure higher listing in the long run.

 The reason you have not been satisfied with SEO so far has been because of the following:

-       Skewed expectations: Did you know the number of visitors you can get to the website based on the keywords you selected? Did you know that you can find out the number of people who are searching the keywords that are in your keyword list?

-       Unstructured approach: Did you think what the surfer will do on the page once he/she arrives and is the page set up to deliver information the surfer seeks?

-       Lack of persistence: Attracting search engine traffic is a long and tedious process. Most companies believe that their job is done once they write the cheque to the service provider for SEO.

Selection of right keywords is the most important decision you are going to take in SEO. You must select keywords that are used by surfers and NOT the keywords that you would use to find your own site.  As simple as it sounds, this is a common mistake  made by many. They believe that everyone in the world thinks and imagines the things as they do. Let data guide your decision and there is lot of data available. 

Business Directories Did you know that there are about 50 free to register business directories in India? Are you registered with all of them? Business directories, due to proliferation of websites, have become a vital tool in categorizing various websites. DMOZ is the biggest website directory project backed by major players in the search engine industry like Google & AOL. It is not easy to get listed in DMOZ but if you do get listed, it can attract good traffic to the site. You can get more information about DMOZ from their website at DMOZ.org.

It is important to ensure that you are registered with the right business directories that are used by your prospects. There are some paid business directories as well. Before paying for such services, it is advisable that you get the numbers about the searches they have had for keywords related to your products/services. Most of them have the information but are not willing to part. Upon insistence, they do. 

Social Media Marketing Jury is still out on the effect of Social Media Marketing (SMM) on businesses. If your business backs a social cause and would like people to be aware of it, then Social Media Marketing works as it provides large number of like-minded people to spread the message. In its current form, I would not invest time and money in pursuing Social Media Marketing.

Professional Networking There are many professional networking tools available on the web now a days that give good visibility to the businesses especially in consulting and advisory services. Many such sites have dedicated groups created for specific purposes. Being enrolled in such forums gives visibility to the organization as well as can keep company updated on emerging trends in the market place. TooStep.com, linkedin.com are examples of Professional Networking sites.

In the next article, we will discuss ways to select domain names and how to structure web sites to increase traffic. Please send your queries on my email address at ajoshi@erpconsultantsindia.com  related to Internet Marketing and I will answer your questions in the next article.

About the author: Ajay Joshi is the president & CEO of ERP Consultants India. ERP Consultants India provides IT advisory and Internet Marketing services to companies globally.