In turn ruining all current marketing materials owners of fan pages use that reference anything related to becoming a fan, or being “FANatic”, much like some t-shirts I had printed for a local fan page I manage.

Fan Pages are now simply known as “Pages” and instead of becoming a “Fan”, a person simply “Likes” a “Page”.

Here’s Facebook’s reason for the change:

“Why did “Become a Fan” change to “Like”?
To improve your experience and promote consistency across the site, we’ve changed the language for Pages from “Fan” to “Like.” We believe this change offers you a more light-weight and standard way to connect with people, things and topics in which you are interested.”

My Thoughts on Facebook’s Change

The change in terminology doesn’t affect the functionality of the process, but I believe it will cause those that normally wouldn’t have become a fan, to now connect with Pages they “Like”.

The change will increase the number of people connected to a Page, which benefits the business or person running the page, aside from having to redo all marketing materials.

But will it make Facebook users feel manipulated into connecting with a Page that will in turn occupy the users’ wall with unwanted updates?

I think Facebook’s reasons for the changes leave something to be desired.  It’s obvious the changes support “Page” owners (who will often spend money on advertising with Facebook), rather than the Facebook users (who typically might not spend a dime on Facebook).

What are your thoughts on Facebook’s changes to their Pages?

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Fr

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While I’m not extremely impressed with it yet, I can foresee some big uses for Google Wave coming about.

1. Forum Integration

With Google Wave’s ability to imbed Waves into existing websites and allow for comments within each embedded wave, this could be a very awesome change for forums.

Currently, in order to reply to a thread in a forum, you have to register for that forum, type your reply then wait for the page to refresh in order to see it posted.  And if others are posting comments at the same time, you could miss conversation posted while posting your own.

Google Wave allows you to reply to each individual sentence and see all comments and threads as they are typed, in real time.  It will also allow you to read the forum and make comments via your Google Wave account, so you can participate in many different forums from one location.

Forum participation has declined since the creation of blogs, but I think forums will make a huge comeback with the implementation of Google Wave.

2. Blog Integration

Much like forum integration, using Google Wave to imbed your posts onto your blog will allow other Wave users to add to the content (much like a wiki), and hold a conversation dynamically with other blog readers.

This integration could help increase your blog community by allowing you to interact with your readers as they visit your new posts.

The only downside I see to using Google Wave for your blog posts is those who try to add to your content that don’t know anything about the topic. And it could cause less visitors to your actual blog, meaning those advertisements you have will not be seen.

Sponsored Conversation, much like that created through Izea’s new Sponzai, will be the future of making money through your blog when Google Wave starts being implemented.

3. Education Integration

Google Wave will make a huge impact on education.

The ability to collaborate as a team will help promote a better learning environment and a place for students to work together to solve problems whether at school or at home.

Students will also have the chance to continue asking the teacher questions and receive help after school hours, through shared waves.

I think education will have the biggest opportunity for change using Google Wave!

4. Conference & Team Integration

Because Google Wave allows for real time communication between individuals, it will make amazing headway for company teams working together on a single project as well as conferencing.

Virtual businesses will be able to communicate with each other on projects much easier and give them a better chance of surviving against brick and mortar businesses.

This will also allow companies to save money by converting their employees to a telecommute position and decreasing electric, water, and so many other costs involved in operating a physcial business.

5. Email Marketing

Email marketing has been around for a long time, but with the popularity of social media websites and blogging, it has become something few do anymore.

In the past couple of years it has started making a comeback.  But it’s difficult for those new to email marketing to really get involved because they aren’t sure of how to create amazing content for those email lists that are being created.

With Google Wave, email marketers will be able to send out truly dynamic emails and respond to questions and comments as they are asked. This will also allow everyone in the email list to see and questions and answers based on the material and could possibly persuade them into performing a desired action based on an issue they may have had but was cleared up by someone else.

If the product is good enough, it could also help to build trust between the email marketer and the client by allowing them to see real-time testimonies and compliments.

There are probably many other ways Google Wave will make an impact, but I see these as the biggest uses for Google Wave.

What uses to you envision for Google Wave?

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I guess I could always write 2 weeks worth of articles and schedule them, but I’d rather spend the time with my family before I leave.

Then I found it… a way to keep my blog updated while I’m gone, using my cell phone.

About WordPress Blackberry App

Here’s a little video that shows some information about the application:

This application is still in beta phase, but I’ve already downloaded it and have found no problems at all.  The best part about it is that it’s very quick even without a 3g connection speed.

And here’s what you need to know if you want to take the app for a spin:

• The app is for WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress version 2.5.1 or newer
• This app should work with any of the new BlackBerry devices such as the 8700, Pearl, Curve, Bold, and Storm
• BlackBerry OS requirements are OS 4.2.1 or newer
• For self-hosted WordPress sites, please make sure you have XML-RPC enabled. To confirm, it’s a simple check box in your dashboard under Settings -> Writing

You can download a copy of the WordPress for Blackberry application by visiting the following url on your blackberry device:

http://blackberry.wordpress.org/install

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While most of the popular plugins are very worth having on your blog, there are some plugins that aren’t talked about as often, but they help give character to your blog and put focus on the all of the small details.

Here is a list of the 7 WordPress plugins you didn’t know you needed:

1. Exclude Pages From Navigation

This plugin allows you to choose whether each page you create is included in your navigation with the simple click of a checkbox.

Some blog designs allow for only a limited number of page links and if you create more pages than there is a spot for links, you can cause the layout to mess up and look very amateur.

Click here for the Exclude Pages From Navigation plugin.

2. Feed Footer

When we think of monetizing our blogs, we often overlook a big part of the blog.  The RSS Feed.  Focus up until now has always been on how to monetize your blog for those visiting it, but little has ever been done about monetizing your RSS feed, so those that don’t visit your blog can still see your ads.

Feed Footer does just this.  It allows you to include any type of ads you want below each of your posts in your feed.  And it even offers the option to rotate ads, so you aren’t showing the same ones every time.

Click here to get the Feed Footer plugin.

3. iConnect Social Media Bar

The iConnect bar is very important for those of you wanting to offer your readers a way to connect with you on your social media profiles, or any other website or blog you choose.

The iConnect bar is viewable by your readers no matter where they are on your blog.  It is attached at the top of the page and scrolls as the page is scrolled, so it’s alway in view.

Since using this plugin, I’ve had a very large increase in my readers connecting with me on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Click here to get the iConnect Social Media Bar plugin.

4. No Self Pings

By default, WordPress pings any post you link back to from another post in your blog.  This posts a trackback in the comments section from yourself, and can look very unprofessional, as well as get in the way of legitimate comments and trackbacks from your community.

The No Self Pings plugin stops your deeplinking from causing trackbacks to appear on each of your posts comments sections.

Click here to get the No Self Pings plugin.

5. Parallel Load

When your blog loads javascripts, it loads them one at a time.  That is why your blog loads slower the more javascripts your are running.

To keep your blog from running slower, you can load the javascripts at the same time by using the Parallel Load plugin.

It decreases the load time on your blog, and also includes the option to load javascripts last, which means your visitors can read your post while your javascripts are still loading.

Click here to get the Parallel Load plugin.

6. SEO Super Comments

For each user comment this plugin will create a new dynamic page on the blog, holding the actual comment information. This page will not actually exist in WordPress database, but will be created dynamically using the SEO Super Comments plugin.

What you instantly get in this way is a big jump in your blog’s index visibility to search engines. This is possible because blog comments are crawl-able, index-able and most importantly rank-able content. Also meaning you will start to get search engine traffic for the context of the comment.

The old author link in the comments will now lead to the newly generated page. The author’s URL will still be displayed (and you can do-follow it now as it will be only one external link on the page).

The concept relies around optimizing the target page using title and H1 tag using the context of the comment. So basically it will take the excerpt of the comment and use it to create the page title and H1 tag and in the body it will hold the content of the comment as well as the commentators previous comments on your blog, causing internal deep-linking as well.

Since now all comments normally drain page rank even when nofollowed (bad for your site) the whole idea of using them to generate links back to your site instead and get free indexable content along the way, looks just much more appealing.

Click here to get the SEO Super Comments plugin.

7. WP-Optimize

For every blog post you write, you are really creating multiple posts saved into your blog’s database tables. And when your post is loaded into your reader’s browser, your blog has to sort through and pull out the correct version of your blog post.

Everytime your blog post is auto-saved, or you go back and edit the post, you are creating a new revision and placing it into your database tables.

In order to get WordPress to work faster and the page to load faster for your readers, you need to clear all post revision saved in your database and only keep the most current one.

You can do this manually if you know anything about MySQL, but if you don’t, WP-Optimize is a plugin that can make doing it easy on you.

This plugin shows you how many unnessesary post revisions you have in your database as well as those database tables that need to be optimized, and with the click of a couple of checkboxes and one button, will clear it all out for you.

Click here to get the WP-Optimize plugin.

What other plugins do you use that are unique and offer an attention to the small details of a blog?

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With the XShot Camera Extender, you can be in the picture too.  Instead of reminiscing about vacation days long gone, looking at all of the photos where you seem to be missing, you can now have proof that you were actually the guy your wife was hanging around with on the beach that day.

The XShot doesn’t just work with digital cameras either, you can also put a small video camera on it, like the Flip or Canon FS200, to take those awesome videos of the conference you finally scraped up enough money to attend.

This thing is awesome and surprisingly I use it way more than I thought I would.  It does attract a lot of attention and helps start conversations as well.  So for all of you that are shy, it is a great way to talk to others at a conference or networking event.  And with a price-tag of only $30, it’s a steal.

With the XShot, you become the life of the party!

Click here to get your XShot now!

Here’s some specifics about the XShot straight from the website:

This is a sponsored post.  I recieved the product to test and review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. For more information regarding my disclosure policy as well as other terms of service, please click here.

If you’re interested in sponsoring next weeks “Gadget of the Week”, please contact me here.

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Here’s my entry into the contest:

What Is AT&T Small Business InSite?

AT&T’s Small Business Insite is a fresh, new Web destination designed by and for small business owners.

AT&T realizes that as more and more small business owners begin their own businesses, not having the money or know-how for the technology needed to run them can be a major setback.  So they’ve started a place where business owners can come to get information on running their business successfully and collaborate with each other on the best ways to run things.

The AT&T Small Business InSite portal provides small business owners practical “how to” articles, podcasts and video resources to help them use technology in their business. Additional site features include the ability to personalize their experience by choosing key areas of interest. AT&T will also sponsor free online seminars through AT&T Small Business InSite which will feature the ability to submit questions to experts, discuss topics in real-time with other small business owners and receive one-on-one advice.

Contest Prize Package

The lucky business winner will in a prize package consisting of:

• An AT&T products & services package: 2- Samsung Epix smartphones, 1-year subscription to AT&T Tech Support 360^SM Advanced Service Package; 1-year subscription to AT&T UNIX or Windows Enhanced Web Hosting services; AT&T Web Design service; 1-year subscription to AT&T Unified Messaging; Digital Express Direct Mail Extreme Membership along with the first 500 postcards; AT&T Connect five (5) Integrated Edition Named Hosts Web conferencing.
• A one-on-one consultation with a small business expert: Winner will receive a complete business assessment and customized roadmap for success.
• Windows^® Small Business Server 2008 Standard from Microsoft.

All you need to do to participate is complete an online form and send in a short video explaining why you should win the small business technology makeover. Contest details can be found by visiting AT&T’s Small Business InSite.

What do you think about the new AT&T Small Business InSite?

This is a post sponsored by AT&T.  All opinions are my own and are in no way influenced by AT&T. You can view my own disclosure policy here.

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The “Gadgets” session covered most of your basic gadgets you would use for blogging, whether at home or on the go, but it also briefly touched on some more advanced things, like specific products that may be better if you wanted a more professional touch.

Just like the Canon FS200.

Out With The Old

I’ve been using the Flip Video for the last couple of years (although not for this blog) and I’ve only been just satisfied with it.

I can’t say there has ever been any real excitement about picture quality, audio quality or even the fact that the zoom is almost non-existent.

That’s not to say that I don’t like my Flip.  It’s an awesome TOY.

In With The New

Since the “Gadget” session at Blogher I’ve been thinking a lot about adding video to my blog, but I don’t want to just throw something up that looks extremely amatuer.  So when the Canon FS200 was introduced to me, I knew I had to have it.

It’s not as frilly as some of the more expensive video cameras, but it does have some nice little frills for a camera that I bought for only $299.

Flash Memory

Rather than a tape, or mini-disc, the Canon FS200 records everything on a flash SD card.  This is awesome, because when I want to transfer my videos to my computer, all I have to do is remove the SD card and put it in my computer. The file format is MOD though, but a free copy of SDCopy takes care of that and quickly converts the files to MPG so I can easily edit them.

External Microphone Input

The absolute best part about the Canon FS200, and the reason why I had to have it, is the microphone input jack located on the side of the video camera.

Having the ability to use a real microphone makes a huge difference in the audio quality, and significantly helps to reduce the background noise from overshadowing the speaker.

This video camera rocks my socks off, and puts me in a position to start creating some slightly more professional videos for this blog.

Expect to see one in the very near future.

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They’ve changed their homepage with the main focus on search.

I think Twitter has big advantages over Google:

• The time it takes to index something of importance is just as fast as someone can type it.
• Google uses algorithms to index content.  Twitter uses real people that don’t care anything about the junk and spam that show up in Google everytime you search for something.
• Twitter gives the people a quick and very easy way to mark something as spam once it enters the Twitter stream
• Twitter beats even the news in how fast breaking stories get listed.  Google just can’t compete.

How Twitter Will Monetize Itself

I think the biggest thing to look at in terms of Twitters move in the search world is how we finally see it making money.  Those “trending topics” you see on the right side of the search results… those will eventually transform into paid links.

Search is where the money is, and Twitter knows it.  I personally believe they’ve been planning this move since day one.  Especially if you look at how Biz Stone’s relationship with Google has been.

So what do you think!  Is Twitter the new Google?  Will it become #1 for search.  If they ever figure out the issue with twitter streams not showing up after 30 days in search, I think they’ve got it nailed!

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The layout and functions of wordpress itself was created by bloggers just like you.

But as powerful as WordPress is as a blogging platform, what makes it even more powerful is its versatility.

The Versatility of WordPress

With it’s powerful plugin feature and it’s easiness to be modified via the actual open source code, wordpress can be used as more than a blogging platform.

It can be used as a CMS (Content Management System) for a static company website.

By simply modifying the themes style sheet and some of the open source code, you can have a fully functional website developed in a day with the only thing left being the adding of the actually page content (of which the client can do).

The Benefits of Using WordPress When Building Websites

• Websites that used to take weeks to build can now be built in a matter of 2-3 days.
• Clients can edit the content of each page by themselves very easily rather than having the developer make every word change.
• The plugins offered allow for faster development of key website components such as web forms, newsletter subscriptions, search engine optimzation, and so much more.
• It makes the client feel like they are more in control of their website.
• It causes the client to feel better about the development since they actually get to have a hand in the process.
• And so much more…

Real World Example

I actually used WordPress to build a website for the first time this past week for a client, and what would normally have taken 2-3 weeks ended up only taking 2-3 days.

The client had previously been with a web development company that fought with them on changes and development for over a year and no CMS.  So imagine their surprise when I have a fully functioning website for them in 3 days, content added and all.

If you develop websites, I highly recommend you start using wordpress.  You will impress your clients with how quickly you finish the work.

Here’s a screenshot of the website which was built on the default wordpress theme with very minimal stylesheet and code changes:

How do you feel about using WordPress to build websites?  If you have any other benefits I’d love to hear them.

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But creating content has always been a long and sometimes tedious task that we could really only rely on ourselves to create.  So what if there was a way your readers (or commentators) could create that additional content for you?  And I’m not talking about guest posting!

Let Commentators Create Your Content

A very new and intriguing plugin just emerged in the WordPress plugins codex and unlike most of the plugins that are added, it is extremely useful.

The plugin is called SEO Super Comments, and all it does is create separate, index-able pages from the comments readers leave on your blog.  These comment “pages” contain keyword rich H1 titles based on the content of the comment as well as links to other comments left by that specific commentator.  Thus creating links back to old posts on your blog, and also increasing blog stickiness.

For a good example, click on the author’s name of any of the comments left on this blog.

Supersize My Content Please

If you are like most bloggers, you probably have 4-5 times as many comments as you do posts.  So by dynamically creating a page for every comment on your blog which all contain links to other posts on your blog, you are literally increasing your indexable content by 4-5 times as much.

The power of this plugin is phenominal, and if you aren’t using it, I suggest you start.  It’s free so why not!?!

You can download the SEO Super Comments plugin here and you can learn more about the concept behind the plugin here.

What are your thoughts on this plugin?  Are you using it?  If so, I’d love to hear how it has affected your blog!

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