You Won’t Feel Guilty When You Spend Too Much Time On Twitter

ExactTarget (which  is a leading global provider of on-demand email marketing and interactive marketing solutions including social media) recently published a new study which surveyed 1,500 consumers to identify the top motivations for following brands on Twitter and provide new insight into consumers’ expectations for interacting with brands online.

Morgan Stewart, the principal of ExactTarget’s research and education group said the study revealed that “Consumers active on Twitter are clearly the most influential online,” and went on to say “that even though the number of active Twitter users is less than Facebook or email, the concentration of highly engaged and influential content creators is unrivaled.”

So why are Twitter power users so influential online.

1. 72 percent publish blog posts at least monthly
2. 70 percent comment on blogs
3. 61 percent write at least one product review monthly
4. 61 percent comment on news sites
5. Daily Twitter users are 6 times more likely to publish articles
6. Five times more likely to post blogs
7. Seven times more likely to post to Wikis
8. Three times more likely to post product reviews at least monthly compared to non-Twitter users

If you take the time to review the 8 key findings what stands out is that a Twitter user is 500% more likely to post blogs which is the core essence of publishing online. So Twitter has become the gathering place for content creators whose influence spills over into every other corner of the internet.

How to Be a Quiet Person

If you feel you are too loud and would rather be more withdrawn and quietly confident in public, follow these steps.


1.  Try taking a "vow of silence" for a short period of time. Maybe you can be completely silent for an hour. Then try three hours. If you can make it to a whole day, you might find yourself observing more around you that you never noticed before because you were too busy chatting and drawing attention to yourself.


2.  Practice being a good listener. A good listener gives the other person room to talk and vent. If you're a loud person, you're probably the one always doing the talking, and you might need some work on your listening skills.


3. Think Before Speaking. One helpful tip is that whenever you're about to say something, wait three seconds before saying it. Sometimes you'll realize it doesn't need to be said at all! This will also give you a little bit of time to reconsider what you're saying.


4. Communicate With Body Language. Speaking and making noise isn't the only way to get your message across. The way you sit, eye contact, and posture will tell people how you feel, whether they realize it consciously or not.


5. Get in touch with your inner self. If you talk a lot, you're probably an extrovert--someone who gets a lot of energy from interacting with the outside world. But you can be an introvert, too. Pay attention to what goes on inside you more, and learn to enjoy it. Indulge in your thoughts, creativity, fantasies, and anything that's just you (make sure it is you though and not someone else).


Source: Wikihow

T-Mobile's Mystery Smartphone Revealed

Nearly two years after the launch of the first Android smartphone in the world, the G1, comes its successor from T-Mobile.

Late last month, T-Mobile launched a mystery teaser site that many speculated was a reboot of the Sidekick franchise because a peak at the source code suggested that it was. Turns out that it isn't. 

The G2 will be T-Mobile's first HSPA+ smartphone and promises to “deliver tight integration with Google services and break new ground”. Details are slim but here's T-Mobile's official statement on the G2 with Google.

T-Mobile is proud to have launched the world's first Android-powered phone, the T-Mobile G1, which captured the imagination of developers and consumers alike nearly two years ago. Now, we are readying its successor - the T-Mobile G2 with Google. Delivering tight integration with Google services, the G2 will break new ground as the first smartphone specifically designed for our advanced HSPA+ network, which delivers today's available 4G speeds. In the coming weeks we'll share more details about the G2, including information on how current T-Mobile customers can get exclusive first access. Visit http://g2.t-mobile.com to register for updates.

Source: techland.com

Bing starts powering Yahoo! searches in US

Bing will start powering Internet searches at Yahoo! web pages in North America this week as the technology firms combine forces to take on Google.

"Later this week, we will begin transitioning the back-end technology for Yahoo! Search in the US and Canada (English) over to the Microsoft platform," Yahoo! search product operations vice president Shashi Seth said in a blog post.

"Keep an eye out for the 'Powered by Bing' indicator at the bottom of our search results page, which will indicate that you are viewing listings from Microsoft."

Yahoo! will control how results are presented and has vowed to give users relevant data customized to their tastes or interests.

Yahoo! and Microsoft unveiled a 10-year Web search and advertising partnership a year ago that set the stage for a joint offensive against Google.

Under the agreement, Yahoo! will use Microsoft's search engine on its own sites while providing the exclusive global sales force for premium advertisers.

Data released on Tuesday by industry tracker comScore showed that US search engine rankings changed slightly in July, with Google's dominant share slipping less than half a percent to 65.8 from 66.2 percent in June.

The comScore rankings were based on "explicit" searches in which people entered specific queries to scour the Internet for information.

Google's loss was apparently a gain for Yahoo!, which had a 17.1 percent share of the search market as compared to 16.7 percent the previous month, according to comScore.

Microsoft remained in third place with its search market share unchanged at 11 percent, according to comScore figures.

US Internet users conducted a total of 15.6 billion "explicit" searches in July, with Google handling 10.3 billion while Yahoo! tended to 2.7 billion and Microsoft fielded 1.7 billion.

Source: Agence France-Presse

iPhone preorders jam S.Korea website

South Korea's KT Corp said tens of thousands of people jammed its website on Wednesday as it began to take preorders for Apple's iPhone 4.

KT Corp, the country's sole distributor for the gadget, said in just nine hours more than 110,000 people put their names down for the popular smartphone after its online shop opened.

"Our online shop server was jammed instantly as too many clients placed orders simultaneously," KT spokesman Jin Byung-Kwon told AFP.

"So far, the number of orders for the iPhone 4 exceeds well beyond that of the iPhone 3GS," he said.

KT said its online shop would receive orders for a week, while shops will take orders until the new model's official launch next month.

Apple has sold more than 850,000 iPhones in South Korea since it hit the local market nine months ago.

"We didn't expect so many people to preorder the iPhone 4 in such a short time," Jin said.

Local competitors such as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have been striving to compete by introducing new smartphones including the Galaxy S and Optimus series.

South Korea's mobile phone market is one of the world's most vibrant, with 45 million users in a population of 49 million. But smartphones have a relatively small share, suggesting huge growth potential.

Source: Agence France-Presse

What is Twifficiency?

Are you using Twitter? And want to know how active you on Twitter? Here is a nice twitter apps to know your twitter activity. Twifficiency is a free twitter apps that helps you to how you are active on twitter. It is easy to use and free service. Twifficiency calculates your twitter efficiency based on your twitter activity. This includes how many people you follow, how many people follow you, how often you tweet and how many tweets you read.

1. To calculate your twitter efficiency/activity just visit Twifficiency website.
2. You will see Calculate my Twifficiency button, click on that button

1. After clicking that button it will take you to your twitter profile, Click Allow button to Allow it
2. After allowing, it will once again redirect to Twifficiency website and displays your twitter efficiency based on your twitter activity

My Twitter @andy0626 efficiency score is 20%  If you interested then you can also calculate your Twitter Activity score or Twitter efficiency with Twifficiency.

The Internet in 2020

What the Experts Predict?

Most experts agree that Google won't make us stupid. Indeed, 76% of technology stakeholders and critics interviewed by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University believe that the Internet and search engines will enhance human intelligence by 2020.

For this new report, the Pew Research Center conducted in-depth interviews with over 800 experts about what they think the Internet will look like in 2020.

Here are some of the key quotes from the report:

Will Google Make us Stupid?

"It's a mistake to treat intelligence as an undifferentiated whole. No doubt we will become worse at doing some things ('more stupid') requiring rote memory of information that is now available though Google. But with this capacity freed, we may (and probably will) be capable of more advanced integration and evaluation of information ('more intelligent')." - Stephen Downes,National Research Council, Canada.

"People are already using Google as an adjunct to their own memory. For example, I have a hunch about something, need facts to support, and Google comes through for me. Sometimes, I see I'm wrong, and I appreciate finding that out before I open my mouth." - Craig Newmark,founder Craig's List.

You can find the full report with almost 50 pages of quotes about a number of additional topics on the Pew Center's website.


Source: readwriteweb.com

Chocolate Protects The Heart

Chocolate Bread Pudding

Murray Middleman of Harvard Medical School and his colleagues studied 31,823 middle-aged and elderly Swedish women, examining how much chocolate the women ate compared with their risk for heart failure over a nine-year period.

Women who consumed one or two servings each week of what is considered high-quality chocolate because it contains a higher density of cocoa had a 32 percent lower risk of developing heart failure, the researchers reported in the journal Circulation: Heart Failure, which is published by the American Heart Association. Those who had one to three servings per month had a 26 percent lower risk.

But women who treated themselves to at least one serving each day did not appear to benefit, the researchers found. The researchers speculate that the reason for that may be that the additional calories of eating that much chocolate instead of more nutritious foods outweighs the benefits.

Previous research has indicated that compounds in chocolate known as flavanoids lower blood pressure. The new study is the first to show over the long term that chocolate appears to protect against heart failure.

The researchers noted that in Sweden even milk chocolate has a higher cocoa concentration than dark chocolate sold in the United States. Although 90 percent of all chocolate eaten in Sweden during the study period from 1998 to 2006 was milk chocolate, it contained about 30 percent cocoa. U.S. standards require only 15 percent cocoa to qualify as dark chocolate. So American chocolate may have fewer heart benefits and more calories and fat for equivalent servings. In addition, the average serving size for Swedish women in the study ranged from 19 grams to 30 grams. In contrast, the standard American portion size is 20 grams.

So the message is that eating a little dark chocolate in moderate amounts can be healthful, as long as you don't eat so much that you gain weight.

Source: washingtonpost

How to hide Facebook friends list

With more than 500 million people now on Facebook, it’s inevitable that you’ll be friended by someone you know, but with whom you don’t want to share your online life. Once you’ve accepted them as a friend, how do you avoid them without the awkwardness of unfriending them?

Facebook has made it easy to hide other members’ status updates.

1. Click on Profile on the blue bar a the top of the screen:



2. Scroll down to the beginning of your Friends list and click on the pencil to the right of the word Friends:



3. Uncheck the box that says "Show Friend list to everyone":

Spain becomes latest country to take on Google

The Associated Press reports:

Spain is investigating Google over its “Street View” mapping feature, becoming the latest country to tangle with the Internet search giant over concerns it violated people’s privacy while taking shots of city streets.

Madrid Judge Raquel Fernandino has issued a subpoena for an Oct. 4 appearance by a Google representative, Google Spain spokeswoman Marisa Toro said Tuesday, adding that the company will cooperate with Spanish authorities.

Read more on OneNewsNow.

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