The ability to pan and zoom large photos within Google Plus was announced yesterday by Googler Dave Cohen via a post on his Google Plus account.

Dave Cohen’s Official Announcement

This change offers a distinct advantage to artists and photographers who want to share hi-res images in a social network. Facebook, the primary competitor (though that term is debatable) offers image sharing in a compressed format, preventing detailed images from being enjoyed in their full glory.

The zoom feature is used on the desktop version of the site by using the mouse wheel or trackpad to zoom in and out. A traditional click-and-drag method is used to pan photos.

Google is not the only social site to make changes to its photo sharing and viewing policies lately. You may remember the Instagram v. Twitter sharing kerfluffle or the Facebook Camera launch in 2012. It is clear in a visual world the optimization of images for social sharing is becoming vital. So, will this new feature incentivize you to share on Google Plus? Only time will tell.

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How would the social media department ever take over for HR, well I was thinking about this the other day and the answer is relatively simple.  LinkedIn and Skype can turn any company small or big, into a player on the global market.  Companies can go after the exact employee they want and then do an online face to face interview within a couple of hours or days depending on everyone’s schedule.  LinkedIn has over 160 million members, and professionals are joining the network at a rate of 2 per second.  That’s 170,000 professionals every 24 hours joining a professional network.

These people joining are from every industry and many times are the best in their industry.  Other times they are new college graduates looking for a fresh start in their respective industry.   Still today 50% of people say they were hired from a personal connection and through networking.  We need to look at LinkedIn as a personal connection at a distance.  One cool feature of LinkedIn is it will tell you how many degrees of separation you are from that person.  You can almost always find someone who knows that person, and get a personal reference right away.

As of January of 2012 Skype had 31 Million users, but of course I simply used Skype as an example.  The interview could be conducted on several different platforms, such as Google+, or even face time on an iPhone or iPad.  This gives the social media department the ability to overstep the HR department, creating a one-to-one personal connection with virtually anyone.  Again this will give basically any business the ability to operate nationally or globally.

Maybe I am wrong and we will always need an HR department and I was just having a moment thinking how cool it would be for social media to take over another part of the world.  But, I do think there is something to be said for the power of LinkedIn when it comes to finding new talent and even new business.  It is personal connections and networking 2.0, but added together with a platform like Skype, I do believe some really great things could happen.

The post Could LinkedIn plus Skype Mean no More HR Department? appeared first on Clix.

So your site was hit and you have no idea why, it could be that you paid for text links matching an exact anchor text, maybe you engaged in comment spam, or did some guest blog posts on questionable sites.  Did you do some work on article marketing sites, or even link back to your site from “dangerous” sites?  In reality these are all things that Google has always said is a big no-no, but Mr. Penguin is more likely to catch up to these tactics.  If you did partake in these tactics, then shame on you and it’s probably best that the penguin caught you.

My question is pretty simple: Why did some sites get hit while others are perfectly fine?  I am hearing from person after person that they had almost the exact marketing plan for different websites, yet some are doing better than ever and others are wiped off the map.  Is this just an indication that the new update is taking a while to catch up with certain sites, or is it an indication that this new update is not as good as we are lead to believe.   Could it even be the topic that the website is about, maybe Google looks at certain sites with more leniency depending on the subject matter?  Of course this is just speculation, but if that is the case, is that fair?

It seems like everyone is confused and caught in the vicious circle that is the ever-changing Google algorithm.  So what are you supposed to do to get your rankings back if you were affected by the penguin update?  The short answer is who knows.  It’s obviously time to go in and clean up your website, go out there and clean up your links, make sure you don’t have any spammy links pointing back to you, start creating fresh content, make sure you don’t have too many ads, and without a doubt make sure your business is on Google+.  Again these are guesses on my part and I have no idea if they will help you regain your rankings.

I believe it’s time to devise a strategy that doesn’t rely so heavily on Google, this way your not going to take a major hit or have to worry about a hit every time Google changes their algorithm.  Which seems to be very often these days, did you know there was a Panda update just 7 days before the Penguin came splashing through the web world?

How do you devise a plan that doesn’t rely on Google?  You can start with a solid e-mail marketing campaign; try to partner with other companies that will send e-mails on your behalf.  Look towards Google’s competitors such as Bing and new search engines such as Blekko or DuckDuckGo.  And please diversify your tactics; don’t just focus on one blog network or backlink building tool.  Use videos, social networks, e-mails, and guest blogging, all with good unique content.  The last thing I would say is to be patient, let Google work things out with their algorithm and your rankings might just come back naturally.

I know this blog seems a little schizophrenic, however that’s how I feel about Google right now.  I guess the good thing is that all of us so called SEO experts are on this rollercoaster ride together.  All we can do is hold on tight and wait for the big drop that hopefully never comes!

The post Life after the Google Penguin. appeared first on Clix.

Social media is changing the way that we receive news as a society, and it amplifies reactions to cases that would not have received such attention in its absence.

The Old Media:

Let’s be honest, my parents aren’t exactly social media savvy. Actually, they have no clue what social media really does. My mom can’t even open a word document on her own, much less log in to a website (I still love you, Mom). For people in this situation, news comes in traditional formats. We’re talking newspapers, magazines, and the local news programs. In that kind of communication, there is a single sender (the media) and the receiver (the audience). The message flow is omni-directional and the audience takes a passive role.
When watching the news or reading the paper, the audience gets the “unbiased” opinion of a given station and is not invited to offer their own comment. Ok, you could call the station or write a letter to the editor, but honestly, it’s not a very productive system. There isn’t a lot of audience feedback here, and public opinion remains muted.

The New Media:

It’s not a secret that I’m a fan of social media. I think it’s a great sharing tool and awesome for promotional purposes. When you get your news solely through social media such as Facebook or Twitter it is important, however, to consider the source. The advantage of algorithms and sharing information with friends is that you are automatically directed to searches that relate to your interests or concerns. This is a double edged sword, because you are directed to issues or events that relate to your passions and those issues are presented in a format loaded with the opinions of the people you consider to have valuable views. Users can comment on a post or story when they share it, and you, the viewer, are hit with the opinion before you have a chance to read the facts and form your own decision.

Example: If I’m scrolling through my news feed and I see a friend has posted a story with the comment “This is a crazy example of XYZ!” I’m predisposed to take that person’s opinion in mind when I read the article for myself, regardless of the actual implications of the facts. I consider myself to be an educated person, and I still value the opinions of my friends.

Public Opinion:

The catch with this new social media news distribution is that it projects the opinions of a few onto the masses and creates the court of public opinion. The projection of opinion occurs through the “liking” of statuses, re tweets, and reposting information with commentary. In sharing the information, you are unwittingly sharing the opinion of the previous poster. Not something you always want.

Social media has also created the court of public opinion and projected it on a global scale. Everything from political events, protests, and criminal trials are massively distributed.

Making a Change:

Social media is the future of news and information sharing, but it will be up to the public to develop the ability to evaluate the quality of content and opinions of their friends. When commenting and sharing news stories it is helpful to focus on the factual information.

The post The Social Media News appeared first on Clix.

This year the candidates are all on social media and they all have a lot of followers, so does that mean everyone is even?  Is social media not going to play a big part in this election, because everyone is doing it and there is nothing new or innovative this time around?  It looks like the Obama campaign might have another trick up their sleeve when it comes to engaging people with their campaign online.

The Obama campaign has recently released a 17-minute video on his own YouTube page.  The video is narrated by Tom Hanks and called “The Road We’ve Traveled”.  This video is going to appear on a new YouTube platform that enables the Obama campaign to turn the passive experience of watching a video into a great organizing and fund-raising tool.  This technology is going to allow viewers of this video to post campaign content to their Facebook pages, volunteer, and donate to the campaign.  They are going to be able to do this all from President Obama’s YouTube page.

This is a step above simply putting out a video, as the YouTube platform will give the Obama campaign the ability to get visitors to share the content, or pledge their support.  This is the one-click approach that campaigns see as an integral part of their online strategy.  This type of video being released shows the importance that political campaigns are starting to put on web-video.  The online video is now being seen as a valid tool for proactive electioneering.

The Obama campaign is thinking that video will be the primary way they communicate with undecided voters, because it offers them a way to spread their messages into online communities, where friends and family members will discuss and debate.  This helps the video look more like dialogue and a constructive discussion, rather than political propaganda.  This provides a level of interaction that a TV advertisement cannot provide.

The idea is to get these videos into the hands of trusted people in the different networks.  If people start to share the videos, it will add a degree of credibility because a friend or family member is endorsing it.  This is taken more serious than a traditional TV commercial.  The major change with the videos being released is that they give people something to act on.  The Obama campaign wants to bring their engagement tools to their supporters.

The Obama campaign already has a head start with that, since his Facebook page has over 25 million likes.  Do you think it’s possible for social media to change minds or convince an undecided voter one way or another?

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About 15 years ago I was in my parent’s living room on the family desktop computer, I think it might have been a Gateway or possibly a DELL.  It might have simply said IBM on it.  I honestly don’t remember.  But, what I do remember is getting a phone call from one of my friends saying I should go download this “thing” called ICQ.  Of course I was like what is this ICQ you speak of, he wasn’t much help, he just said it is cool! Because, as he put it “you can talk to girls and stuff”.

Little did I know that by downloading that little program I would develop friendships that probably would have never started, I was invited to parties that I might not have otherwise known about, I started talking to a girl, that eventually led to a 9 year relationship.   ICQ is how I learned about Napster, I started down the path of being a computer geek with a social life, this was the beginning of Social Media and it was so simple, I had no idea what was to come.

This is the official word on ICQ: “ICQ is an instant messaging computer program, which was first developed and popularized by the Israeli company Mirabilis, then bought by America Online, and since April 2010 owned by Mail.ru Group. The name ICQ is a homophone for the phrase “I seek you”. This is an adaptation of the Morse code callout “CQ”, which means, “calling any station”.

In my life, this was the beginning, it was way before MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, Twitter, and it was so simple.  I didn’t have to stalk people, there was one simple profile picture and a chat box, with a fun, yet sometimes annoying UH OH message alert.  I could have a conversation with one person or several people at the same time, suggest they go to Napster and download a song, or even share it over ICQ (of course it took forever).  My point is that with such a simple format, social media was alive and it didn’t need a timeline or very many bells and whistles.

One part of me thinks that today it seems archaic in a way, but maybe archaic is exactly what we need?  (This could just be the nostalgic part of me talking.)  If there is another program or app out there that is simple in it’s sharing and less intrusive I would have to say its Path, which go figure our friend that developed Napster has a hand in.  Oh and ICQ still exists, apparently it was purchased by a Russian company and is still very popular in Eastern Europe and Russia.

Maybe I will download it later and take it for another test drive.

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