DISQUS

Hey Alexander,

Thanks for the great review. The Twitter app does so much more than my first day's video here.

It follows the best of Twitter for you, then if they do not follow you back it unfriends them in three days.

Using this app I have pulled over 4,000 new followers in just a little more than 7 days.

Hey, as a case study I will send you the full version that is part of my package, the $120, 90 day full version that I am using myself right now and let's see how it works for you. Just don't kick my butt with it. LOL

Digg is now worthless to Kevin Rose. The last round of investment took any profit Rose can make out of his hands and it will now all go to the investors. $27M came in last month and that is the end of Digg being sold. For now.

I agree, I would not want to do that either. That is why I have not added the GFC comment WP plugin, I want to let my visitors have a choice. For now I suggest using the GFC members gadget and the social bar but leave commenting open to both. My visitors even on my Googling Social blog still use the WP comments and my visitors are my members site paying subscribers and know what is really going on.

So, at that point I definitely agree with you, I would not totally go with GFC comments, but I do and suggest offering both. Just like Scoble offers Facebook Connect and FriendFeed, Twitter and Discus. Real smart guy, that Scoble is...

Robert is totally right, they are rolling out a new app a week, and they all can be added to your site, not behind the closed doors of Facebook. Also they now have the Google translation engine running behind the scenes in the social bar below. That way anyone can comment in any language, we can read it and they can read ours.

Sure it is, take a look at the events gadget, Google Friend Connect is real good at creating things we can use for business and it is the social engine behind the new friend system on YouTube. Take a look at any channel, you can add friends, mutuals are added to your address book there. I can out rank TechCrunch and Mashable with a optimized YouTube video.

You can't tell me that a video for a highly searched term in Google, that any business can get a YouTube video under in the top ten results, not effective for plumbers, teachers and shop owners. BTW, my best friends are a plumber and a commercial electrician. They have used what I know to double their business and traffic to their sites.

Use Discus, they have a Facebook tie in.

Jeff, It depends, do you have a Google profile? If you do the sites you join show up there, others can see your GFC profile thru the gadget and see the links to your sites. If you just used Gmail to sign in and never created a profile then you will get little from this.

I don't want to spam the crap out of Scoble's blog with my links so let me see if I can find a link to his.

http://www.google.com/profiles/scobleizer

Here you go, you can click the Avatar once you are logged into any GFC gadget and it will show their profile as a link so you can open it directly. It just started doing that in the last few days. Cool huh?

To create your own Google profile, just log into your Google account, if you are logged in, it will show as "my profile" in Scoble's profile.

Google is real cool so far about sharing the wealth, they have added Twitter links to YouTube, in the GFC gadget, and 30 social bookmarking sites to. Try it out by clicking the members section on the lower right while you are signed in, the click the "invite friends" link, there are three sharing options.

Gmail, (Plaxo and Orkut, if you use it) and share on the right that links to Facebook, and most of all 30 sites like Digg and the rest. Imagine that, Google sharing with Facebook, too bad Facebook don't play nice like Google. GFC would have been REALLY powerful if Facebook had not been swayed to the dark side by Ballmer and Microsoft for a measily $260 mil.

That is not going to work either, as a developer one of the big hurdles with getting started with a new client is getting the username and password from them for FTP on their shared hosting. Even if Google was willing to FTP for you they still would not know what that means or what their credentials are. Not to mention a huge server load on Google even with their thousands of datacenters.

The solution is a Wordpress plugin from Google, they have one but it only adds Google commenting in place of the Wordpress engine. I do not want to make my visitors log into Google to comment and even I can't get the damn Google plugin to work on my shared host.

Also there is a Wordpress GFC plugin that replaces the WP commenting engine, embeds it right in the page. As a programmer at heart I cannot for the life of me get it to work. LOL It is under plugins in the google.com/friendconnect site.

Look at the bottom of the window, it may have not been here when you commented, that is the Google Social Bar. Four parts to it, the login on the left, site acitvity on the center, comments on the right, just click the comments link there and it will pop up.

In the first days of GFC many commented on my blogs that the big hitch is that most would not be able to use it because they had to FTP. I said they were wrong, but I was. I am to close to the flame I suppose.

Just took a look at the link to Google's list of gadgets. Real cool huh?

The recommendation gadget has lots of potential and the events gadget brings all kinds of uses to mind that can make a business owner money. Think events, Realtor's open houses, Meetups, Webinars, BlogTalkRadio, I could go on but I am sure you will all get how powerful this is. And it is on your site, not locked behind the walls of Facebook.

What so many on Facebook have never understood is that Facebook is a lead funnel, you pull from FB and bring them to your blog and into your marketing and products. Do not go to Facebook and then email your commercial list and bring them to Facebook like Reese did. Like handing out money there...

I was getting so many emails from many with the same problem I finally did a YouTube video to solve this issue. Even the Google Friend Connect user group could not take the time to help newbies out so I did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNWxKniZ-oQ

Next, the questions that will flow in Robert, will be how to do this on Blogger. This the second most popular question I get and you will too.

Just add the Followers gadget, it is GFC and always has been. We caught this in September 2008 when Google was testing Google Friend Connect there, running GFC in the Followers widget. It now comes by default when you create a new Blogger blog.

I hope this helps everyone out and gets GFC up and running fast. WSIWYG apps and software have destroyed the basic skills we all used to need and use way back when.

Also in that video is a Firefox plugin that I love for FTP, FireFTP, real slick.

Lastly, the reason I have taken so much time to get to the bottom of what Google is really doing with GFC is because Scoble said in 2006 that Google Reader would make a great social bookmarking engine, so I took his advice and started using it.

In case you don't know who Chris Lang is, just ask Jack Humphrey, he will tell you I know more about Google Friend Connect than anyone outside of Google.

Robert, if you have any questions just let me know.

Here is the difference between Facebook and Twitter.

Twitter is a mobile solution. You can Tweet all day long from your phone.

You do not need a computer or especially email.

Watch what your kids do, they are the future of how we will use the Internet.

They don't read email. They send text. They could not live without their phone.

Twitter is an extension of their phone. I saw a table of 10 twenty somethings, 5 couples out to dinner the other night. They did not say one word to each other while waiting for their dinners. All ten of them had their phones out sending texts and did not interact at all with their dinner companions. NOT AT ALL for like 20 minutes on a Friday night.

Facebook is browser based, you have to be at a computer, it is not a phone in your pocket that is an extension of yourself.

Twitter is light, portable and above all TEXT based.

We don't get this because we are marketers, we want to send URLs in Twitter to get traffic to our sites. These kids just want to chat and above all flirt with the opposite sex.

Facebook is last years technology, kids don't even answer their phones, they don't leave voicemails. They TEXT. That is how they communicate, fast and quietly.

That is why Google Friend Connect is going to be such a success, everything you can do on your machine is mobile and has a phone based solution.

Even if you use a mobile Facebook app you still need email to admin it and get alerts. Guess what these kids are using? Gmail!

It is not us old people that will make Google Friend Connect a success, it is adoption by your kids that will make Facebook the MySpace of the next few years.

If Google does not buy Twitter soon, I am going to be wrong majorly for the second time. It was me, Chris Lang that was one of the biggest "Google will buy Digg" poster boys there was.

They came close, I would say Twitter is next. Or maybe not, I have been wrong once before. But just once. LOL

Scoble,

I am not much of a Facebooker, I use it as a lead funnel, not so much as a marketing medium.

But is there or do you see soon a way of advertising decently? I really hate Facebook's ad system. You can be chugging along fine and Facebook will come back and kill your ad for some TOS full of BS like "Your grammar was incorrect" and you are reminded of AdWords of days past.

Worse yet advertise a product they hate like my site about Google Friend Connect. I gave up on that one.

But even when you do get an ad to run long term, I do not see conversions that are worth a darn. My ads are the same ones that do well in AdWords now. I am not a copywriter, but I can get it right.

Anybody got any suggestions?

Nice catch Arnold, hard to beat me to one of these, you did and thanks, this is awesome. Trying it out now. Google Reader to the resucue or I would have missed this.

At least my site, also quite innocent I might add is in quite good company. Who ever is at the abuse desk at Digg is undoubtedly dressed in a smartly pressed brown shirt and constantly patting themselves on the back. All the while constantly admiring the Keven Rose poster above their desk.

As far as Digg sucking, the face of Digg will change immensly when they hook up with Facebook. Anti marketing are you Digg? Then why try to integrate a social networking / marketing site?

Kevin, could it be that your last round of investment capitol has now made Digg worthless to you? Even if you sell it you won't get a penny.

Nice job letting the Digg mafia run your business right into the ground Kevin.

Since your words are stored in so many different ways all around the world on 1000s of different machines and even digital media, I would say that you have a better chance of your words surviving longer than 100 years.

Mostly due to the proliferation of social media and cloud storage databases.

I have the backup CDs to my complete files from 99, my first computer.

How enduring this format may be and the actual digital media it is recorded on is another story.

As far as library fires go, the greatest loss was the burning of the Egyptian Royal library at Alexandria. Probably the greatest loss of what the ancients really knew and the history of ancient Egypt. Like how the pyramids were built. Not to mention Greek history stored there when they dominated the region.

I wonder if any of our current knowledge will be looked back upon as having been worthy enough to mourn the loss?

I have one better for you all. I chose to be banned from Digg by submitting 400 pages about the world's largest crap, (world's largest hole, world's largest bagel, world's largest pancake).

Basically I told Kevin and crew to Digg this! Here is the URL if you care to include it in the post. http://www.keywebdata.com/?p=80

They did not just delete the account, they banned me by IP address, so I can never come back and that is fine with me. My inbox is no longer overflowing with Digg spam, I do not care how many Diggs I have or worry about being banned.

I don't have to constantly answer and Digg shouts just so I can get mine Dugg in the never ending Digg race to the elusive front page.

Tell Digg Digg to Digg this and move on. It is only a matter of time before Google devalues this game and your Digg SEO manipulation gets you banned from Google too.

What is way more interesting than FriendConnect is what Google has done with Google Reader and you predicted it in 2006, Robert.

You can now add friends to your friends list, share feed items, bookmark single blog posts from blogs that you read on the web and here's the kicker, there is now a blog recommendation engine that recommends blogs you do not read by what your friends list is subscribed to in their Google Readers.

Then, everything you share and bookmark in Google Reader of course comes up on your Google shared items page linked to by your Google profile.

What really blew me away was the recommendation engine. If you add as many of your email list subscribers as you can to your Google Reader you can get a real good idea of what other blogs your subscribers are reading.

The links in your shared items are all HTML and fully followed so every time one of your RSS subscribers shares a blog post it is creating incoming links to your site.

Better yet, it uses the exact blog post title you wrote so now your links use your keyword phrases and bookmarkers can't change your title tag.

After talking to my SEO top dog contacts, they were all floored and assured me this is the new SEO tactic that no one knows about.

http://www.keywebdata.com/?p=136

It is kind of hard to add friends, the easiest way is to send a chat invite from Gmail and then email your contact you want to friend and have them email you back. It seems Google wants a two way conversation before they will allow you to become mutual friends.

If you would like to friend me, add chrislang at gmail.com to your Google Gmail chat and send me an email letting me know so I can return an email to you, thereby creating a two way connection in Google.

Google is quietly rolling this out behind the scenes but it is a full blown social bookmarking application and the blog recommendation engine is the new blog marketing strategy.

One thing I have not quite figured out is if using FeedBurner now hurts you since the links point at the FeedBurner redirect rather than your site like a WordPress feed does.

Well, you were right! Google Reader is the new social bookmarking engine and it is Google Reader that is the gas.

Google Reader adds a friends list, many social features like bookmarking, RSS feed item sharing, comments on blog posts and a blog recommendation engine based on your friends feeds and what you have in Google Reader

http://www.keywebdata.com/?p=136

This is the first time I have ever beat everybody to breaking news, even TechCrunch.

My blog is banned by Digg, but if you write the article we will take it front page for you on Digg. Just email me so I can link to your article, you had the vision in 2006.

Cheers = Chris Lang

Actually, this is what they are going to try to do. Computing from the cloud.

With the .net framework installed in you machine, you can add .net controls to a web page and if viewed thru Internet Explorer the controls will run. They basically give you the look and feel of the OS but in a web page and you don't have to compile all that AJAX in the browser to get that interactivity.

So far less code is embedded in the OS and more of it can be delivered thru the browser and yet you will have the options for you to add them to your online application but deliver them thru the browser.

And yes, these types of .net apps can interact with the local OS on your machine just like embedded software programs do.

So, instead of having a version of Windows installed on your machine, you have the basic needs to get the machine booted and then the rest is delivered thru the browser.

Microsoft has been pushing this to developers for years, but you have to run IE for the controls to be recognized.

This would make Windows more secure because MS would control their GUI from their servers and updates would no longer be so invasive of constantly necessary.

If you want to learn more about this, Google "microsoft thin client"

I, even though I sell an email delivery infoproduct, tell all my subscribers that you should be using AWeber.

I have seen the reports, 97% of all outgoing AWeber email is delivered.

Even if you buy my $69 eBook, follow every strategy, implement everything and move to a dedicated server, you are NOT going to deliver %97 of your email. And you are not no matter who's product you buy.

Also a dedicated IP address is going to be blocked for the first 6 months it is in operation because it is a new IP. Hotmail blocks you for 6 and AOL for 3.

Why would anyone else then worry about sending email any other way?

Wordpress for one thing. It sends emails, if you allow it, following comment threads.

If a visitor adds a misspelled email address that is real, then you send email to a hot address and you are labeled a spammer by the recipient. This is one of the problems with using Comment Relish.

If your reader misspells their email address you send spam.

Refer a friend scripts, IPN notifications and your own email address if you connect to your SMTP out email server on your domain all use your server to send mail.

As far as user whitelisting goes just use an instruction guide on the landing page whenever a user signs up to anything.

In fact I give the best one there is away free.

This will create user whitelist instructions for all the ISPs, mobile devices and most of the popular client side spam filters. This also includes things like Blackberries, SpamCop (used heavily by Microsoft) and more ISPs than previously included.

http://www.emaildeliveryjedi.com/email-whitelis...

Use whitelisting still only goes so far today. Your overall Email Reputation is what matters. What affects it the most? Users clicking the spam button on you, so keep it inbounds.

Google alerets going to the spam folder are based on content filtering and the URLs in the alert. It is not Gmail's delivery issue, it's the content that they sent.

It's easy to whitelist AWeber, you whitelist the domain.

Gmail only allows you to whitelist the from email address. I does not allow you to whitelist entire domains. If they did then you could whitelist the entire domain and all AWeber emails would get delivered. That is how Gmail can fix this, add domain whitlisting.

Also there are a few Yahoo secrets that will get you out of the spam folder and back in the Inbox no matter who is sending your email. This works even if you are a spammer. That is one reason I have not made this strategy public, I don't want spammers to know it.

There is only one way to get your email delivered.

Get whitelisted at the ISPs.

Get on FLBs so that you get you own copy of any spam complaints.

Use email authentication.

Build a good long term email reputation.

Send your email from a dedicated IP address or range of IP addresses.

Anything else is just going to get you labeled as a spammer by ISPs.

User whitelisting uses to get you straight to the inbox at all the ISPs, now if you are blocked in any way, have a high bounce rate or get the spam button clicked on you user whiteiisting has little effect.

Chris Lang