What is Google+ and why you should get on it?

This goofish stick-figure cartoon hit the web in the early days of Google+.  And here's a cool video with a real good reason why you should get G+.


Plus one this... I mean... +1 this


Google+ me here - add me to your circles.

20 million people signed up for Google+ in 21 days! If you'd like an invite to jump in and try it, leave your gmail address in the comments (or send it to trivediamar@gmail.com with "Google+ Invite" as the subject).

And while I'm at it, check out these 10 Google+ tips & tricks for new users - Time to get on Google+ and use it like a pro. Happy Googling!

So you've got an awesome idea for a website!

This has got to be the Boss of all Flow-Charts. Look at it carefully and you'll see it is actually 5 InfoGraphics stitched into one.

An amusing read... an enjoyable story in there.

Esp. if you think you've got an awesome idea for a website!

Double-click to enlarge. Viewed best in full-screen.

Mr. Madness would like to thank Timothy Newman for the above find.

Social Media Glossary: 48 Terms You Should Know

This is the first foray in my attempt to compile a Social Media Dictionary. Huge thanks for @amysticgirl for pointing me to the blogpost below, and to @CathyRoselli for the inspiration. Listed below are 48 Terms You Should Know via 60 Second Marketer.

As the vocabulary of voguewords/ buzzwords is constantly growing on a regularly basis, I'll be posting them on here as they hit the cool circuit.

Okay, friends. Here are 48 social media terms making their way across the web as we speak. Our list started out as 45, but several members of the 60 Second Marketer community have already suggested additions, so we’re up to 48.

Please feel free to add your own suggestion in the comments section below. Be sure to include a definition. If you include the definition, I’ll update the post with a link back to your website.
Enjoy!

App – An application that performs a specific task on your smart phone or your computer. The term “app” was popularized by Steve Jobs and Apple.
Alerts – Daily email notifications (usually sent by Google Alerts) that let you know when a keyword or keyword phrase that you’ve selected is mentioned on the web. Perfect for people trying to stay abreast of certain topics or online brand mentions.
BKV Digital and Direct Response – A marketing communications firm that sponsors the 60 Second Marketer. BKV’s clients include AT&T, John Deere, The Home Depot, Daimler, Equifax and the American Red Cross.Blog – A tool used by content-providers around the globe to connect with readers. The most popular blogging platforms include WordPress, Typepad and Google’s Blogger.
Chat – One-to-one communication through a text-based chat application commonly referred to as instant messaging.
Compete – A web-based application that allows people to compare and contrast statistics for different websites over time. Totally worth checking out.
Delicious – A free online bookmarking service owned by Yahoo! When someone tags an article, video or blog post with a Delicious bookmark, it’s the equivalent of getting a “vote.”
Digg – This platform is similar to Delicious in that people vote for articles, videos and blog posts. If your content gets enough Diggs, it’s promoted to the front page for millions of visitors to see.
Disqus – A comment system and moderation tool for your website or blog. This service lets you add social web integration to any site on any platform.
Drupal – Interested in starting a blog? Then Drupal may be for you. More intuitive than WordPress and more robust than Blogger.
Facebook – A social network that connects people with friends, family and business associates. Facebook is the largest social network in the world with more than 500 million users.
Flickr – A social network that allows users to store photos online and then share them with others through profiles, groups, sets and other methods.
Foursquare — Foursquare is a mobile check-in service that allows regular customers to get points every time they visit their favorite restaurant, bar, coffee shop or whatever. The more points you get, the more likely you’ll be the recipient of special offers from that establishment.
Google Documents – Web-based office applications that include tools for word processing, presentations and spreadsheet analysis. All documents are stored and edited online and allow multiple people to collaborate on a document in real-time.
Gowalla- A social network where friends share their locations and connect with others in proximity to each other.
HootSuite – HootSuite allows you to manage multiple Twitter profiles, pre-schedule tweets and view metrics.
Joomla — An alternative to WordPress, Drupal or Blogger. This blogging platform is used by gazillions, although WordPress is used by gazillions upon gazillions.
Like – Instead of writing a comment for a message or a status update, a Facebook user can click the “Like” button as a quick way to show approval and share the message.
LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site that is mainly used for professional networking.
MySpace – MySpace became the most popular social networking site in the United States in June 2006 and was overtaken internationally by its main competitor, Facebook, in April 2008.
Opera – Opera is an open-source web browser. While not as popular as Firefox, Opera is used as the default browser on some gaming systems and mobile devices.
Pandora – Pandora is a social online radio station that allows users to create stations based on their favorite artists and types of music.
Posterous — This is a very easy tool to create blogs for your family, your business associates or just about any other constituents. Worth checking out.
Qik - Qik is an online video streaming service that gives users the ability to stream video live from their mobile phones to the web.
Quantcast – Quantcast provides website traffic and demographics for websites.
Reddit – Reddit is similar to Digg and Delicious. It is a social news site that is built upon a community of users who share and comment on stories.
Search Engine Optimization – The process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website from search engines via unpaid or organic search traffic.
SlideShare – An online social network for sharing presentations and documents. Users can favorite and embed presentations as well as share them on other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.
Skype – Skype is a free program that allows for text, audio and video chats between users.
Social Media – Media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly-accessible and scalable publishing techniques.
Social Media Monitoring – The process of monitoring and responding to mentions related to a business that occur in social media.
StumbleUpon – A platform that’s similar to Digg, Delicious and Reddit. When you rate a website that you like using StumbleUpon, you automatically share it with like-minded people around the globe.
Tag Cloud – A tag cloud is a visual depiction of user-generated tags, or simply the word content of a site, typically used to describe the content of web sites.
Technorati – A popular blog search engine that also provides categories and authority rankings for blogs.
TweetDeck – An application that connects users with contacts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and more.
Tweetup – A Tweetup is an organized or impromptu gathering of people who use Twitter.
Twitter – Twitter is a platform that allows users to share 140-character-long messages publicly. User can “follow” each other as a way of subscribing to each others’ messages. Additionally, users can use the @username command to direct a message towards another Twitter user.
Twitter Search – Twitter Search is a search engine operated by Twitter to search for Twitter messages and users in real-time.
TypePad – TypePad is a free and paid blogging platform similar to Blogger. It allows users to host and publish their own blogs.
Video Blog – A blog that produces regular video content often around the same theme on a daily or weekly basis.
Viddler – Viddler is a popular video sharing site similar to YouTube and Vimeo in which users can upload videos to be hosted online and shared and watched by others.
Vimeo – Vimeo is a popular video sharing service in which users can upload videos to be hosted online and shared and watched by others. Vimeo user videos are often more artistic and the service does not allow commercial video content.
Viral Marketing – Viral marketing refers to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives through self-replicating viral processes.Webinar – A webinar is used to conduct live meetings, training, or presentations via the Internet.
Widget – A widget is an element of a graphical user interface that displays an information arrangement changeable by the user, such as a window or text box.
Wiki – A wiki is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser, allowing for collaboration between users.
WordPress – WordPress is a content management system and contains blog publishing tools that allow users to host and publish blogs.
Yelp – A website that provides users with a platform to review, rate and discuss local businesses. Over 31 million people access Yelp’s website each month, putting it in the top 150 U.S. Internet websites.
YouTube – If you haven't heard of YouTube, welcome to Planet Earth ;-)

A. Social. Media. Revolution. Is. On. Right. Now!

Don't beat me up for mentioning the most beaten cliche going around but: "There's a social media revolution going on out there." And I mean it... It. Truly. Is. On. Right. Now!

It's changing more than just media, marketing, advertising, retail. It is changing the basics of communications. Of how we interact with one another. Changing how we do business. Changing what we do everyday. Changing how we consume information. It's changing how we live.

Day by day, IT IS CHANGING WHO WE ARE. A revolution leading to evolution. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. With initiatives such as The Social Good Summit 2011, there's every hope there's a greater plan for global good... making the Web a better place to log in!



With the pace of technological change so blisteringly fast right now, there's no saying where it'll take us in the next few years. Our entire time dynamic has changed... 12 months in today's tech times are an eternity!

Speaking of Revolution, on a different note...

Here's the hugely popular Social Media Revolution video series (created by Erik Qualman, Author & Founder of Socialnomics). Mind-boggling statistics set to a catchy song - kinda like an infographic on steroids! Easy to see why the videos went famously viral (and into countless presentations).

The videos capture the growth of the revolution and the updated versions 1, 2, 3 offer a good look at the evolution of Social Media over the years.