Actually the title of the article in GQ is technically, “Eighteen People You’re Scared Of on Facebook”.  But to me the list is more about people I can’t stand on Facebook…and Twitter.  Unfortunately there isn’t a digital version of this article so I thought I’d pull out some of my favorite ones (had me laughing anyway).  You know you’ve been thinking this…

Relentless, Disingenuously Humble Self-Promoter
Wish me luck at the interview – I hope the headhunter doesn’t realize I’m not qualified to hold such a crazy impressive title!

Friend Who Can’t Let You Forget How Great His Lifestyle Is
Taxi line at Charles de Gaulle!

The Person Who Never Met a Facebook Quiz He Didn’t Like
‘nuf said here

Girl with Crappy Job Who Really, Really Can’t Wait for Friday, to the Point That It Verges on Rain Main-like Obsession
Almost Friday!

Inspirational-Quote Guy Who Probably Successories Has a  Poster in Every Room of His House
“The secret of all great undertakings is hard work and self-reliance.” – Gustavus F. Swift

Dude Who Links to Every Article by Thomas Friedman
Great Tom Friedman column today! (LINK)

Last week, Google unveiled several new technologies as they continue to seek new ways to enhance their search engine dominance. One of these, Google Goggles, an application available solely on the new Google Android smartphone, has garnered a lot of interest as it has taken visual search to a whole new level. Now Android users can search for products, upload business cards, look up information, find nearby businesses and much more – just by taking a picture with their phone.

Watch below as Joe Koufman, VP of Business Development & Marketing at Engauge Digital, demonstrates the Google Goggles on his Android.

Ever taken notes at a meeting where you just couldn’t keep up with the speaker? Missed important information because your mind was somewhere else? Or looked at your notes afterward and wondered what in the world you were trying to say in that mess of scribble? Taking notes is a tedious skill few people ever manage to really master. So what are the rest of us suppose to do?

Pulse Smartpen: Thanks to an innovative new company called Livescribe you shouldn’t ever have to miss another word. Livescribe created the Pulse Smartpen – a ballpoint pen with an embedded computer and digital-audio recorder – that works in concert with the special Livescribe dot paper to record audio in-sync with your handwritten notes. Later if the pen is tapped on certain notes the pen will play the audio it recorded when the notes were written.

Why We’re Intrigued: With the recent launch of the Livescribe App Store, we decided to check it out for ourselves here at Engauge, and found lots of cool apps to distract ourselves from paying attention and taking notes. The apps range from free to $99, and let you do all sorts of things like play card games, a credit card calculator, translate several languages and even play the guitar all inside the special notebook.

Why We Care: Livescribe promises to introduce an indefinite number of new software applications in the future to make their Smartpen even more useful and fun, and we’re eager to see if this speeds up the pulse of the digital world…

Check out my first “unboxing” and let me know what you think?

About a month ago, Facebook changed their homepage design and it looks like they will be rolling out yet another homepage redesign. And this one looks like it will include some major changes. I’m sure it will be not well received by the masses and it looks like Facebook is trying to prepare for that with an open letter from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg that was posted to Facebook late yesterday on some upcoming privacy changes. Check out Mashable’s review of the redesign below and let me know what you think of the changes. Like them, hate them? Personally, I’m really excited to see the improvements to the search functionality.

5 Big Changes to Watch in Facebook’s Upcoming Redesign

1. All of the notifications have been moved to the top left. Notifications, requests, and inbox are prominently displayed next to the Facebook logo. Chat remains on the bottom, however.
2. Search is far more important in this redesign. As my fellow usability experts can attest, placing the search box in the middle of the page instead of the right hand side increases the number of searches users make. Facebook wants to focus on its real-time search engine as it prepares to compete with Twitter.

3. Your profile picture and status appears on the homepage. If you look on the current homepage design, you’ll find the updates of all of your friends, but yours isn’t constantly there, reminding you to update your old, outdated status.

This is a problem Facebook has needed to fix for a while. Now it’s addressed with a new section at the top left of the homepage with your face and your most recent status update, along with a prompt to update your status.

4. There’s a new border around the main content. It separates your left-hand navigation and notifications from your Facebook news feed.

5. The ability to see your inbox from the homepage. We want to stress how important this change is to the new Facebook design. It gives you direct access to your most recent messages without leaving the homepage, which should increase engagement.

via 5 Big Changes to Watch in Facebook’s Upcoming Redesign [Screenshots].

Twitter as well as other Social platforms is beginning to suffer from the “campaign” marketing approach that often exists in brand marketing.  A recent story from AdAge rightly calls out that so many brands fail to realize the potential of Twitter.  This often holds true with Facebook, My Space and the like as well.  In general, brands plan out their year, it includes a series of campaign pushes, and the agencies that support them are forced to define how “social” should fit into the campaign.  In general, having social as a part of campaign planning that sits within a brand team or an interactive/media team presents an inherent flaw.  Social is all about ONGOING DIALOGUE.  It should be considered a part of the CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP (CRM) PLATFORM rather than just a communication channel.  As such, when planning for social and twitter, the first step is to consider what role it plays in a brand’s wholistic view of CRM and how the communication channels of email, fan pages, apps, Twitter, etc. all combine to deliver ongoing points of dialogue with the consumer.  THEN, the campaign pushes are simply experiences and offers that can help provide relevant outbound message content.  That said, campaigns often only refresh quarterly at most.  As such, a CRM strategy that includes social needs to have far more frequent dialogue.  This dialogue should be guided by what consumers are sharing and saying…not merely by what the brand wants to tell them.

So … to achieve all of this, it becomes a challenge when the budgets sit within a team that can only make campaign decisions or at most annual decisions.  So, where should the budget and subsequently management of an ongoing social interaction sit?  In the instance of the dialogue being marketing and experience driven, rather than PR driven, perhaps the budget sits with the CRM team.  Or, perhaps we revisit how budgets are set entirely and map out a multi-year budget commitment to social platforms that can ensure the funds are available throughout the year and across years to ensure that the commitment to not “going dark in social” can be achieved.

The article that I’m referencing can be found on AdAge at :

Brands on Twitter: 76% of Accounts Are Infrequent Users – Advertising Age – DigitalNext.