What is Google Social Search and how does it work?

Firstly, let's answer the question, what is Google Social Search?

While using Google some of the answers displayed after you enter a search query are "Results from people in your social circle". Let's break this down a little further. These results are from people you are in contact with either on Twitter, Gmail, Google Buzz etc. The purpose behind this is that you might want to read and find out info from people you are in contact with and therefore trust, rather than information provided by strangers. The reasoning behind this rungs quiet deep. Search has been constantly changing and people now want to know what is the best camera to buy from their Twitter and Facebook friends. Search has been evolving and so has Google. So when your type a search query and a social friend of yours already has a blog post of a Twitter update that is relevant, it shows up in your Google search results. So in addition to the usual Google results, you also see relevant results from people in your social circle.

What kind of content is in Social Search?

Here are some of the types of content you might see:

• Websites, blogs, public profiles, and other content linked from your friends' Google profiles


• Web content, such as status updates, tweets, and reviews, from links that appear in the Google profiles of your friends and contacts.


• Images posted publicly from members of your social circle on Picasa Web and from websites that appear on their Google profiles


• 
  Relevant articles from your Google Reader subscriptions
  

Who is in my social circle?

• People in your Gmail (or Google Talk) chat list


• 
  People in your Friends, Family, and Coworkers groups in your Google contacts
  


• 
  People you're publicly connected to through social sites, such as Twitter and FriendFeed, that appear on your Google profile or in your public Google Buzz stream.
  


• People you’re following in Google Reader and Google Buzz


• People who are connections of those in your immediate, public social circle. This means that if you have a friend on Twitter, and he follows five people, those additional five people may also be included in your social circle.

Google Social Search is going to become more and more important as more and more people are connecting to each other and the basic thing being that you trust someone your in touch with and also if you have any queries about information or anything else provided, you can always get in touch with them easily and get your question answered. 

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Sociolatte

Google Voice: How does it work

What is Google Voice and how does it work?

Google voice is a soft phone integrated into your Gmail inbox, currently available only in the US and Canada. With Google Voice you can now make and receive phone calls right from your Gmail account. Google voice gives you one number for all your phones voicemail as easy as email, free US long distance, low rates on international calls.

So let's say you have three numbers your friends can contact you on, a mobile number, a home number and an office number. To contact you your friends might sometimes need to call all three numbers. In an event you are unable to pick the call it goes into voice mail. If a voice mail is left it will last on any of your three phones for two weeks and is automatically deleted. So, you would need to dial all three phones before you can hear your voice mail. All this is set to change with Google Voice. Google Voice gives you one number which can be used on any phone and does not depend on the carrier you use. So if someone calls your Google voice number you can have it ring all your phones or none of your phones. If you want to ignore the called based on the person or the time of day. If you let the call go to voice mail you can listen in before answering. You can also wait to receive a transcript of the message. You can then send a text message for free. 

If you have an unwanted caller you can easily block them. This means you can bring down your call annoyances and up the awesomeness. All of this for free. To learn more visit www.google.com/voice. 

it is also learnt that Google is now going to go all out to promote this new feature. Red telephone booths are going to be appearing in airports all across the US and Canada. This fantastic looking phones make real calls using internet connections and not land lines. Calls from these booths are free, even international calls. 

An original post by

Sociolatte

What is tumblr and how does it work

What is Tumblr and howto use it.


Tumblr is a great way to share and find content. Once you signup you get a blog and these are the things you can do with it. You can create an original post and share it with other Tumblrs. Upload a photo and share it with other users, post a quote that you read somewhere, add a link to a cool website you like, post a chat (funny conversation you might have had with your friends), upload songs and you can also upload videos especially the last funny video that's stuck in your head.


Tumblr therefore is for people to find and share things. You can create your original blog post or just share things you find on the internet in a random manner. There is also no fixed character length like the 140 character limit of Twitter. Tumblr is an organized way to find and share information. 


Tumblr also has a reblog link that helps users spread information really fast across the site. There is just one drawback especially for people looking to use the site for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) it does not work too well, since a lot of Tumblr blogs are reposts or reblogs and does not really help.


The upside is that Tumblr is fast becoming main steam and can potentially drive a lot of traffic to your website or help you get a lot of attention and eye balls to original posts by you. signing up is fast and easy just a three step process. It is quiet a fun site and you can share whatever suits your fancy and find loads of interesting stuff shared by other users. 

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Sociolatte

Posterous: How does it work

What is Posterous and how does it work?


Posterous is a blogging platform that asks you to simply email post@posterous.com and it automatically apperas on your own domain. Yes thats right simply send them an email to the address you see above and you got your first post on the site with your own blog. All you need to do is to keep sending an email to Posterous to updated your blog. No, this is not a micro-blogging platform you can send large file sizes. You can send photos and the more the better, you can post videos and more. So you can post audio links, videos, documents, and photos.


Posterous also has a smart way of posting. So if you send them a YouTube link in your post it will automatically embed the link in your post and the video will appear. Group photos sent are automatically arranged in a gallery, you can also send photos from your phone. When you send music, it is automatically dropped into a web MP3 player for your users to listen to easily.


You Can also autopost to all the other Social Services you use like Facebook and Twitter. Posterous currently supports:

 Facebook
  Twitter
  Flickr
  Tumblr
  Blogger
  Wordpress
  Typepad
  Movable Type
  Livejournal
  Xanga Autopost to everywhere

You also have the options to make your site private or even run a group site. Your RSS feed of the site also doubles as an iTunes ready Podcast. You get 1 GB of free storage. You can also use your own custom URL for your blog. You can use the tag#end at the end of your post and that way cut out your email signature and everything else that comes after end.

If you already run a blog and would like to shift to Posterous that it pretty easy to do on the site.

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Sociolatte

Amplify: How does it work

What is Amplify and how does it work?


Amplify is a service that allows you to autopost to Facebook, Google Buzz, Posterous ,Tumblr, Wordpress, Blogger,Ping.fm, Plurk, Friendfeed, Diigo, Delicious, Bit.ly URL Shortening. 


The idea behind the service is to allow old fashioned conversation by clippings things off the net and sharing it. You can amplify it by adding your thoughts and start conversations around topics of interest to you and your friends. You can share news, videos and just about anything.


The service has a Twitter style box just bigger with HTML options that allow you to autoshare with your other social network connections on sites like Twitter and Facebook. There is also a Facebook styled Newsfeed to keep up with what's going on. 


There have been new features that have been added today to the service.

1. Live Feeds: The Amplify Newsfeed now updates in real-time so that new posts stream in without you ever having to refresh the page.

2. Mentions: One of the most important ways to keep up with a conversation is to know when you are being spoken to or about. With this in mind, every user now has a “Mentions” feed that displays the latest mentions of their twitter @username on Amplify. So, if you’d like to make sure someone sees one of your comments or posts on Amplify, just be sure to include their Twitter @username.

3. Conversations feed: This is the place to see all the latest comments on Amps you’ve posted, previously commented on or are “eavesdropping on” (described below).

4. Eavesdropping: An “Eavesdrop” link has been added to the bottom of every Amp that lets you add it to your Conversations feed. This way, you can keep up with the latest conversation on Amps you haven’t yet commented on just as easily as one’s you have.

5. Action Feed: When you want to quickly check the latest comments and recommends of your Amps, the new Action feed is the place to go.

6. Managing emails: To help you become less dependent on email notifications, in addition to a global setting that lets you turn off all email notifications for new comments, you will now see a check box on the Amplify save page and below every comment form that lets you opt out of email notifications on a per post basis.

7. Permalinks: The changes described above apply to conversations that take place from within one of the various main feeds on amplify.com. But sometimes, you might open a specific post in a new tab and want to keep up with new comments on it right from there. Now, all permalinks will automatically let you know when new comments have come in, so you don’t have to keep refreshing the page to find out.

8. Microblogging and Direct Messaging: The limit on microblog posts and direct messages has been increased from 500 to 1,000 characters, giving you more room to say what you need to say in those instances.

[Hat Tip: The Next Web]

An original post by

Sociolatte