Google+, Looks Like You’ve Had Some Work Done?

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Unless you live in a cave somewhere completed isolated, chances are you’ve seen the new update to the Google+ layout if you’re on your desktop. It seems to have a mobile touch to the design (at least with my experience with the droid) with the side menu drop downs and easy page transitions.

Google+ Profile

Browsing individuals profiles is a different experience now. When you land on a profile, the cover photo has already been folded down (no longer landing on the full obnoxious image) to show the bar with your basic info (name, educational background, location and how many people are in your circle) along with share button options. I love it!

With the new 3 column design on the profiles, I’m able to digest more information at a glance and posts that carry videos or pictures really stand out and seem to take more dominance in my opinion.

Google did quite the revamp with a plethora of other features and apps yesterday so It’s going to take a bit for me to swallow it all but I’m pretty excited to do some poking around and experimenting.

What sections of the new Google+ design do you love? What do you hate? 

Did you find anything in the new design to stick out in particular or useful features that I may have not found quite yet?


Google Honors Designer Saul Bass In Animated Doodle

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Video courtesy of Google

 

The animation found on Google’s homepage this morning is a nice salute to graphic designer, Saul Bass whom is known for animated credit sequence films from Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese. Saul Bass would have been 93 today.

I’ve been a personal fan of Saul Bass. Though he may not be too prominent in the general public, he’s been a staple in my industry and a graphic designer I look up to, and respected the works of. Saul Bass was someone I looked to for inspiration, and ideas when going to college for Graphic Design myself.

 

 


MyPermissions | Helping You Clean Up Apps You’ve Granted Access To

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MyPermissions

Chances are you’ve granted access to some 3rd party apps to connect with your beloved Facebook, Twitter, or other social service sites and my guess is that you’ve forgotten what half of those apps do or better yet, you don’t even use them any longer. Do you know how many apps access your personal information?

Once you enter MyPermissions, you will be able to click on a social platform and the tool will produce a list of apps you have granted access to (specific to the chosen platform) and allow you to edit and revoke those rights quickly. Apps are available for iOS and Android and I found I was able to add the Chrome plug in as well.

App Access Rights


Instagram Allows Photo Tagging via ‘Photos Of You’

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Instagram announced their new ‘Photos of You‘ photo tagging feature today on their Tumblr blog post, and guess what? It’s available on both iOS and Android! The new feature allows users to tag photos of their friends, and businesses in their feeds, which links to the new section, “Photos of You”, that will be view-able if you have a public profile. The new Instagram feature is similar to that of it’s parent company Facebook.

photos of you via Instagram


Facebook Launches ‘Trusted Contacts’ | Give Your Friends Keys To Your Account

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Facebook launched a new security improvement, Trusted Contacts, a way to retrieve access to your account through friends that you trust in the event that you are locked out of your account. The feature allows you to pick between three to five friends to add to the Trusted Contacts list. If you account is compromised or you forget your password (because we all tend to do that from time to time), these Trusted Contacts can help by supplying security codes. It’s an alternative to answering security questions.

Facebook Launches Trusted Contacts

 

Facebook defines a Trusted Contact as a close friend who users would feel comfortable reaching out to when they’re having difficulties with their account. It could be a parent, sibling, significant other, relative, best friend, or, as Facebook describes it, the person that would be entrusted with a spare key to your house or in this case a digital key to your Facebook account.

You can get your  Trusted Contacts set-up by heading over to the security section of Facebook’s account settings.


6 Social Media Stats For Brands And Businesses [infographic]

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Did you know that 91% of local searches say they use Facebook to find local businesses online? Move over Yelp or even your regular Google search, looks like Facebook dominates when it comes to brand and business research.

Here are 6 awesome social media stats provided in an infographic by Balihoo below.

6 Social Media Facts


Twitter #Music Is Coming

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twittermusic

 

A little birdy tweeted that Twitter is launching a #music app with Apple today – and you can say I’ve been a bit antsy to check this wild card out.  Twitter’s Music app still has a non functioning sign-in button on their music.twitter.com webpage but we’re staying hopeful that they will be launching later today if not this weekend.

Last month, the service We are Hunted, (which was bought by Twitter last year) revealed that it publishes expanded tweets about what you’re listening to; providing  album art, embedded audio file containing the songa nd ability to share across a plethora of networks.

Below is a live example:

So for now it’s the waiting game but looks like MySpace and Facebook aren’t the only two networks to jump on the growing #music bandwagon. I’ll be excited to see what comes from Twitter with this new development. Stay tuned!


2013 Brings In Some Of The Best April Fools Day Jokes

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Happy April Fools Day ladies and gents! I don’t want to be the spoiler alert to all the April Fools shenanigans today but I couldn’t help but pull together some of my favorites to share with all of you.  Maybe you will find an opportunity to play some tom-foolery on a few of your unsuspecting friends!

YouTube is shutting down after 8 Years !

GMAIL Blue – 6 years to develop the technology

Sony Introduces Animalia Line of Tech Products for Pets

Google Treasure Maps

Google Levity Algorithm

Runkeeper for iPad

Bing pokes fun of searching for Google on their platform

 Google search on Bing

Aside from the hilarious April Fools video jokes above, Stumbleupon has also collected some great references to some pranks you can pull on some of your family, and friends.

stumbleupon april fools

Enjoy! And Happy Fooling!


OMGIF! Google Adds GIF Filter To Image Search

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grumpycat

Google+ announced rolling out the new GIF search tool today. Need help finding the perfect “Grumpy Cat” GIF? When you search Google Images, select Search Tools after placing your keyword search, a drop-down drawer will appear. Click on Any Type and from the menu select Animated. Voila! You now have the ability of finding some sweet GIFs without being bothered with still images in the mix of search results.

I’ve personally been pretty entertained this morning with the search convenience. You could say I kinda feel like this…

excited

(I couldn’t help myself.)