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Thursday, June 21, 2012
Earning
for a talent is itself a blessing and when it comes to singing, we come
across of thousand names but there are only few for whom their passion
turned into a resource; a resource too big to make them one of the top
richest singers. Just like in other domains, women have contributed
somehow equally in music, earning in Millions
and ruling the hearts of their fans. Being a music freak myself too,
the idea of sharing that who are the richest female singers in the world
of 2012 sounded interesting. With the increasing fan following of rappers,
the following female singers are giving a tough time to all the male
candidates with the combination of their talent, beauty, voice and high
level performances.Thursday, June 21, 2012 3
Why would you want to quit Facebook?
As I said, recently, quite a few people have been either deleting or deactivating their Facebook accounts. Perhaps Google+ is to blame. But on a broader spectrum, Facebook itself is responsible for most of it. First, of course, is the enormous waste of time. Facebook is a void where no matter how much time you put, nothing productive is gonna come out, nor will that wasted time come back. Users might end up on Facebook for hours, looking through statuses, playing games, sharing funny images, and so on.Then, of course, is the privacy issue. People get hacked every day, or get phished for sensitive information they do not want to divulge. Contact information is being leaked and people are being spammed. Photos are edited and spread, and scandals are being made. There's really no limit to what these hackers can do. We recently wrote a post on how to protect your privacy on Facebook. You can take steps to ensure your privacy, but there's never a 100% guarantee. Hackers always seem to be one step ahead of security engineers. So for some people who don't use Facebook very much, it might be a good idea to step off altogether.
There's also the competitive attitude associated with Facebook use. Users are competing with others, and comparing each other, and hence developing complexes. Rude posts and images are not only being liked, but also being spread, which is something one wouldn't do in real life. All of this could be contributing towards psychological instability. As Bertrand Russel says, if you can't provide an outlet to your emotions, they'll make you all the more weaker. And you definitely can't express your emotions in front of a computer screen.
The bottom line is, Facebook has lost a certain of its charm. And since I've been using Facebook for around 7 years now, I can safely say that. Anyhow, you get the point. Here are some things you could do to preserve your information before logging off for good.
1. Back up your Profile
Backing up Facebook profile is one of the best ways to preserve your information. You can download a copy of your Facebook profile, with all the photos and your statuses and wall posts, along with your contacts. To back up, simply go to your Account Settings, and you'll see an option for Downloading a copy of your Facebook Data. Click on that and you'll be guided through the steps. Facebook will send you an email once it has done creating a back up for you. You can download that back up. For more information, read the article below- How To Backup Your Complete Facebook Profile
2. Sync your contacts
Android and iOS smartphones have apps that let you sync your Facebook contacts with your smartphone. iOS has SmartSync, while Android has AddressBook. These will fetch contact information from your Facebook friends, and add them to your phone book. Contact information include email addresses, phones numbers, home addresses (if available) etc. You get to choose which friends you want to Sync, and what information you want to sync. This is a really handy way of staying in touch with your friends.3. Export Birthdays
You can also preserve birth day information for your friends. If you go over to your Facebook Events page, you will see a magnifying glass icon. Click on Birthdays, and it will appear again. Clicking on that will give you an option to export birthdays in a variety of formats compatible with major scheduling programs.4. Organizing events
For organizing events, you don't necessarily need to use Facebook. There are other plenty of services that will create events for you. Once such is Doodle, while another is Evite. You can simply fill out the details for an event, and these services will send out emails to your friends, to which they can RSVP easily. This way, you can keep your events private. And sending out emails make them feel more personal and connected to you.5. Back up your photos
Facebook does not allow you to transfer your photos to another site directly. But there are other indirect ways. First of all, when you back up your profile as we mentioned above, your photos will be backed up as well. But if you want to move your photos to another site, you will have to do that manually. You can, however, transfer them easily to Google's photo sharing site, Picassa. For this, you'll need a Google Chrome extension, Move Your Photos. This allows you to see all your Facebook photos as thumbnails, which you can sort or move over to Picassa.
According to Google, 97% of the customers look for local businesses
online. Another fact has it that 73% of online activity is related to
local content. Since Google is the only search giant that boasts of a
66% share in the market, we can only assume the facts are true. But true
or not, they must be based on some sound basis, which is good enough
for me. Now this throws new light on how important online promotion can
be for small local business.
Google helps such local businesses by providing them a way to reach out to their customers through Google Places. Previously, we talked about how Google Pages help promote businesses.
Today, it's all about Google Places. Formerly known as Google Local
Business, Google Places aims at drawing local business towards Google to
promote their services, since Google is the search giant and most
people search on Google. Hence, this is a great opportunity for business
owners to promote their services n Google and attract more customers.
What are Google Places?
People are always looking for
great places they can go to for having dinner, buying jewellery, dry
cleaning, and so on. Most of these people search on Google. So what
better place to promote your local business? According to Google, Places
are "a
web page for every place in the world, organizing all the relevant
information about it." So in essence, Google Pages represent a business
online, with its information and location on Google Maps, other people's
opinion about the services, reviews, and more. Previously, Google used
to pull the reviews from other third-party websites. But now, reviews
are present exclusively from Google. See how Google is trying to
integrate all of its products together?
How is a Google Place different from a Google+ Page?
A
Google+ Page is like a Fan Page. You can follow them to get latest
updates. But Places are slightly different, although they are integrated
into Google+. For a Place, there must be a location. On a Place, you
can write a review there or look for directions. Here is a sample Place
for a KFC outlet
near where I live. It helps me see where the outlet is located, what
route to it would be best, what do other people who have been there say,
and so on. If I don't like it, I can write about my bad experience in a
review.
Here are some of the businesses that benefited from Google Places.
See how different Places are from Google+ Pages?
How to get started?
If
you are a local business owner looking to sign up, it is very simple.
You just need a Google Account. If you already have one, then go to Google Places and
log in. You will be asked a series of questions, such as your country,
phone number, business name, etc. Submit all your information from basic
info to photos etc. Also, verify your listing by phone or post card.
Once verified, Google will show your listing after some time.
Once
your Place is set up, you should fill out all the relevant information.
Information such as your service areas, your operating time, categories
i.e. what sort of business do you have, payments etc. The more complete
the information is, the better it is for your business. Not only will
customers find your business easily, you will be ranked higher in your
respective category. Remember; a complete profile is always favored over
an incomplete one.
Based
on the information you provide Google, such as email address, your
phone number, business name etc, Google will crawl the web and find
relevant information regarding your business. For example, if you
already have a brand page for that business, then that page will be
associated with your Place. Additionally, Google will fetch any reviews
provided by other people, and all of this will be linked to your Place,
visible for all to see.
Why Google Places?
There
are various features and advantages you'll get if you create an online
presence for your business. I hope you already know how important Google+ is for businesses,
online or otherwise. This is much the same. As I mentioned at the very
beginning, 97% of the customers look online for information on local
businesses. And since 66% of the total searches in the world are made
through Google, that means around 64% of the world's customers look up
local businesses on Google. So one thing is for certain. Local business
owners can extend their exposure far beyond the pedestrians walking by their shop.
Google Places allows you to define service areas
for your business. So service and home based businesses are the
beneficiaries here. Let's say you have a pizza shop that delivers pizzas
within Manhattan.
So when people living in Manhattan look online for a good pizza place
to go, or to order pizzas from, they'll come across your business. They
can then call you and place an order. Thus, you get an immediate
advantage over your competitors who don't have a presence on Google
Places.
Google
is also offering free business photo shoots in some select cities. You
can upload your own pictures of your business, but you can also request a
free photo shoot. Google photographers will come and take their own
photos of your business' interior as well exterior using panoramic and
fish-eye lenses, something business owners might not be able to do
themselves. This way, your Place will gain more credibility.
With
Google Places, you can also take advantage of the QR Code technology.
Google will generate QR Codes for you, which you can print on your
business cards or other marketing materials. Additionally, you can print
out decals that can be hung up on your windows. Customers can scan
these codes using QR readers for some smart phones,
which will then take them to your Google Place page where they can get
additional information about you. To demonstrate how this works, you can
see a QR code on the right. If you have a smart phone that can read QR
code (usually through a third-party app), then scan this code and see
what happens :)
Google
also gives you the option to get your listing stand out by paying $25
per month. This could greatly increase your chances of success.
Google
provides a lot more features business owners might be interested. Many
businesses spend a lot of money in their advertising campaigns. But very
few realize that they can achieve far greater success through this free
service. Google is really trying hard to influence individuals as well
as large businesses, all to create a seamless experience for the average
Google user. And I must say, it's doing a really good job. After all,
it isn't the leading search engine and the largest Internet company for
no reason.
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